Private Lawn

It was the scented garden of paradise where the young men awoke, their senses stupefied by the spoonful of hashish they had taken down in the silken-draped tent of the grand Iman – erected at the front line west of the district of Khalkhal. Washed back into slow consciousness by the clean, fragrant scents of orchids and wild jasmine, and safely seconded within the high walls of the mountain-fortress of Alamut, their ephemeral visit to nirvana was complete; they were reborn as Fedayeen – engines of divine destruction.

On this, the first day in their new eden, the Isma’ili Iman, who was named Rukn al-Din Khurshah, was to raze the illusion of heaven that his captives were so beguiled by. After protracted negotiations with the leader of the Mongols, Khurshah had agreed the systematic and symbolic dismantling of his grandest fortresses, and the invaders’ mangonels had been secreted to the base of the castle walls during the night. Now, at daybreak, both engines of timber and iron, and engines of flesh and bone were awakening at once, and the walled garden of Alamut was to be changed forever.

The youngest and most beautiful of the newly-born Fedayeen used to be called Jalal Al’Haman. Now he was a faceless weapon, spellbound by the green and humid confection. As the first boulders smashed against the inner cloister, Jalal was already rappelling down the outer walls, curved ceremonial knife fixed tightly within his jaws, sailing like an eagle through the cool morning air. Farther back from the line, the Mongol leader watched in horror as his men drowned in rivers of blood, realising only in this terrible moment what sort of offering the Iman had gifted him.