mountains ahead toward which they jolted, when Miriam had come up behind him and spoken into his ear in a voice so low it was almost inaudible.
'Tonight,' she repeated. 'You're well now. We've waited long enough. Tonight I bed you — or you bed me, if your manly pride insists it be that way.'
That night, two things:
One, he was healed completely.
Good as new.
And, two, she was very, very good…
'Time to go.' It was Faisal's voice, rousing Casca out of sleep. When he looked up, his arms still around the nude body of the sleeping Miriam snuggled against his own naked flesh, he saw amused approval in Faisal's eyes.
'Time to go,' Faisal repeated. 'Before the dawn comes.'
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dawn found Casca miles from the caravan, riding an old French warhorse and wearing a secondhand suit of armor but with a brand-new identity. He was now a knight, and he had a rolled-up parchment scroll in a brass case to prove it. 'Not that it will do all that much good,' Faisal had said. 'I've never known a knight yet who could read and write, and the monks are so poor at it — about all they can do is stumble through a little of their Bible — that almost any piece of paper with writing on it will impress them.'
So Casca was now Sir Cayce Noire of Ruthmir in Ireland.
'Why Ireland?'
'I don't know. An old man's private whim I suppose. When I was younger — much younger than you — I was a soldier, a mercenary. I soldiered with a lot of men, but one I recall said he came from Ireland.'
''Where's that?' I asked.'
'He said, 'in the Western sea, ' and, frankly, I don't know where that is — or whether such a place actually exists. But he was a damn good soldier. You are, too, so it fits. Besides, it's a good idea to have you from some very unfamiliar place. An Irish mercenary in Norman armor. The 'Noire' is for that black boss on your shield. The 'Ruthmir' I made up from Ruth and Miriam. There again none of the knights you might meet is going to show his ignorance by admitting he never heard of such a place. That's the beauty of dealing with ignorant people, my Roman friend. The one thing they least want known is the depth of their own ignorance.'
So Casca had set out in the darkness for a castle in the hills ahead that Faisal knew about. It was on the route the Frankish pilgrims took to Jerusalem and was patrolled by a group of monks antagonistic to the order in Jerusalem. (The order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem to which Friar Dilorenzi had belonged.) Casca did not tell Faisal that it was he who had assassinated the friar. These monks were competing for the 'honor' — there must be money in it somewhere, Casca interpreted — of aiding the pilgrims, and they were putting together a military arm.
'A perfect opening for you,' Faisal had said. 'You can 'consider' joining them, go with the next band of pilgrims heading west, and then when you get to the sea you're on your own.' Faisal smiled. He was holding the lamp while Casca mounted the horse, and the amusement of the brown eyes in the bearded face was matched by the amusement in his voice: 'It's not exactly healthy for you in Persia right now, and won't be for a hundred years. But, of course, you won't be around then.'
Want to bet? Casca thought, but he didn't say it. He had looked down then into Miriam's eyes… Well, life for him had always been, would always be, one farewell after another…
Now that was all behind him. The dawn had just begun to redden the bottom part of the eastern sky. Everything else was dark, and it had been a moonless night. He could not even see the mass of the mountains ahead. Guess I'm going in the right direction… Faisal had shown him which group of stars to follow toward the mountains, and he supposed he had done it right. Until the clouds had obscured his view. It had been an odd night, though, up until the clouds appeared. There had been an awful lot of shooting stars. Casca remembered what Omar Khayyam had said about 'swarms' of shooting stars. This must be one of the 'swarms.'
Well, he would never see Khayyam again. Too bad. He had liked the old man.
Someone else that he would never see again was Bu Ali. He had asked Faisal about the big Mameluke and discovered that the night of the palace fire had been almost as disastrous for Bu Ali as for him. The Jasmine Lady had turned her fury on Bu Ali — by some logic known only to Turkish women of her turn of mind — and blamed him. Warned by his own spies, Bu Ali had gotten out just in time. As best Faisal knew he was now back at Castle Alamut with Hassan al Sabah, but that might or might not be true. Anyway, Casca decided, it probably didn't matter. It would be nice to go back and settle the score with Bu Ali — but it wouldn't be too damn smart.
As the clouds cleared another shooting star blazed in the sky, this one very bright indeed. In the darkness, Casca smiled to himself as he remembered the feeling that something unusual and important might happen to him — the feeling that night, years past now, in Mamud's camp. Hell, nothing unusual or important had happened to him — just more of the same old shit. But that was all over now. There sure wouldn't be anything exciting going on with the monks and the knights. If he ever got to the castle. Hope I'm not lost.
He did not doubt Faisal's belief that he would be taken for what he said he was. After all, he looked the part. And while his equipment did not make him look prosperous, it was at least serviceable. Body armor was basically the byrnie or chain mail. He wore hose of mail and steel knee caps. His lorica or cuirass was of pretty tough leather. He was not particularly fond of his gambeson, the quilted garment worn under his mail, since it smelled strongly of perfume — one of Faisal's ladies had accidentally broken a vial of rosewater over it. But he knew that monks and knights were usually so dirty that one more smell would make very little difference.
His weapons left a little something to be desired. He had a short, two-edged sword, not as good as a gladius, but better than a spatha; a battle-axe that had seen better days; and a lance with a larger-than-usual head and an extra-heavy shaft. It was a little too heavy for throwing, but excellent for the style coming into vogue of using the weight of the charging horse to add to the thrust. Personally Casca felt that this was a passing fancy, but one never knew in warfare. Old ways passed out of favor, were forgotten, then rediscovered, and the cycle would be repeated.
He had a decent shield. Stout wood. Leather-covered. All in all he was in pretty good shape for whatever he was likely to face.
That is, if he was going to face anything, which he doubted.
Two more shooting stars burned in the sky and they seemed even brighter than the last one, so bright that he could see briefly that he was going up a slight rise ahead, and, beyond whatever lay in the dip below — if there was a dip — there was the castle.
Wrong. Now he knew he was lost. Damn. Persia's been one pain in the ass after another. It's better if I just get my ass out of here now.
Deciding definitely on that course of action, he was relieved and took off in a direction he felt would take him out of Persia the quickest possible way.
The armor had gotten hot as the sun climbed in the sky, and he took off the helmet so he could at least breathe. The henna Miriam had originally put on his hair had pretty well worn off by now, and his eyebrows had grown out, but he didn't really expect to see any of the Sultan's men in this particular area. As best he could remember from his days with Shapur, this was poorly-inhabited country with just a few hill tribes. In other words, it wasn't worth bothering with.
Except for Hassan al Sabah. The head of the Assassins had gotten into a dispute (a religious dispute) with an Imam somewhere around here while Casca was still a Novice. But, of course, that had been a few years ago.
No, the biggest problem was the very perfection of the disguise Faisal had prepared for him. Any caravan he might meet would be a Muslim caravan, and they would not take kindly to the presence of a lone Frankish knight in
