Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [160]
The candle went out. Beyond Marthe, there was a movement. Smoothly, she began to walk forward. Under his hand, her arm was quite cool and relaxed. He moved forward with her. A candle flickered.
The law is my words. The way is my actions. Knowledge is my chief of all things. Truth or reality is my spiritual state.…
I am he who has the keys of the unknown. No one after Mohammed knows them except me. And I know all things. I am the first and second blasts of the trumpet at the resurrection.
I have put five things into five things. Having all, I have put knowledge and wisdom in hunger; do not search for them in satiety. I have put riches in contentment with little: do not search for them in avarice. I have put happiness in knowledge. Do not search for it in ignorance.
Before the last text, a great candle had been lit, as tall as Marthe, gilding the calligrapher’s beautiful whorls.
On my head is the Crown of High Estate. In my eyebrow is the Pen of Power; in my eye is the light of saintship; in my ear is the call to prayer of Mohammed; in my nose is the fragrance of Paradise; in my mouth is the confession of faith; in my breast is the Qur’ân of wisdom; in my hand is the hand of the Ever-Living God;-around my waist is the girdle of the right guidance; on my tongue is the confession; in my feet is service; at my back is the appointed time of death; before me is my lot in life.
In the radiance of the candle Jerott turned. They were, he saw, in what seemed to be an antechamber to the main hall of the tekke: before them hung another curtain, not this time of leather, but of dark blue and green velvet, with gold and coloured Kufic inscriptions wrought in silks at the foot. Beside him stood Marthe, her hair veiled, her long Western gown covered by a loose white linen robe. Before him, turbaned and immaculate in white, stood a Bektashi dervish, proffering a similar robe, folded, over his arms. ‘May thy light be exalted light, Efendi,’ said the dervish. ‘Though thou dost not serve Him whom I serve, nor do I serve that which you serve, yet doth the Baba bid thee enter the meydan, for the sake of the believer who comes with thee. Robe thyself. Robe thyself, and thank not me, but Him who is the Opener of Doors.’
Jerott stared at the dark, smiling face. He knew it. He had seen this man before. Where? When?
And then he had it. A beggar sitting crosslegged in the sand, his hair hung matted and black round his shoulders; his naked body covered with ash. It was the Bektashi dervish who had directed them to Mehedia.
Jerott glanced once at Marthe’s composed, unreadable face; and then followed her, tight-lipped, into the meydan.
The hall was large and oblong in shape, its outer confines hidden in darkness; and the ceremony, some kind of ritual of worship and initiation, had already begun. Taking his place as directed to sit crosslegged against the wall beside Marthe Jerott saw that the place appeared to be lined with robed and turbaned men and not a few women, watching like himself the centre of the meydan where, spaced out on sheepskins over the carpeted floor, the Baba and dervishes sat. At the far end of the room, lit by symbolic candles of odd moulds, stood an empty throne on a high, four-stepped dais, with ritual objects of brass and silver placed on each stair, and behind it, written in gold: There is no God but Allah; Mohammed is the Prophet of God; Ali is the Saint of God. There was a smell of rose-geranium and jasmine, mixed with the metal odour of freshly spilled blood.
A sacrifice? Perhaps. Jerott’s hand, under his robe, moved to the place where his sword should have been, and then reassured itself that the knife he had hidden was there still, strapped inside his sleeve. Franks were not permitted to wear weapons abroad in towns under