In Xanadu by William Dalrymple Read Free Book Online

crusader king, Conrad of Jerusalem. Their enemies were forced to take elaborate precautions to protect themselves. When Polo's predecessor in the East, Friar William of Rubruck, arrived at the Mongol capital of Karakoram in 1254, he was amazed at the security arrangements. 'We were separately brought in and they asked us where we came from, and why, and what we wanted. And they proceeded to question us minutely,' he wrote. It was only later that he discovered that the interrogation was a response to the intelligence that no less than forty Assassins were abroad in the town, and that in various disguises they had all been sent to murder the Khan.
    Such behaviour left the Assassins with few friends. Little was known about them and wild rumours abounded. Muslims said they ate pig meat and prayed with their backs to Mecca. There were rumours of sorcery. Stories even reached Christian Europe. They are accursed,' wrote the priest Brocardus. They sell themselves, are thirsty for human blood, kill the innocent for a price and care nothing for life or salvation. Like the devil they can transfigure themselves into angels of light.' Others echoed his words. They make use of all women without distinction,' wrote one anxious cleric, 'including their mothers and sisters.'
    Against this sort of sensationalism. Polo's description of the sect is sobriety itself. Yet it is one of the most beautiful passages in The Travels:
Now the Old Man of The Mountain caused a certain valley between two mountains to be enclosed, and had it turned into a garden, the largest and most beautiful that ever was seen, filled with every variety of fruit. In it were erected pavilions and palaces, the most elegant that can be imagined, all covered with gilding and exquisite painting. And there were runnels too, flowing freely with wine and milk and honey; and numbers of ladies and all the most beautiful damsels in the world, who would play on all manner of instruments, and sung most sweetly, and danced in a manner that was charming to behold. For the Old Man desired his people to think that this was actually paradise....
Now no man was allowed to enter the garden save those who were intended to be his Assassins. And there was a fortress at the entrance to the garden, strong enough to resist all the world. The Old Man kept at his court a number of youths of the country and to these he used to tell tales about paradise. Then he would introduce them into his garden, some four or six or ten at a time, having first made them drink a certain potion which cast them into a deep sleep, and then causing them to be lifted and carried in. So they awoke and found themselves in the garden, and deemed it was paradise in very truth; and the ladies and damsels dallied with them to their hearts' content, so that they had what young men will have, and with their own good will they would never have quitted this place.
Now when he wanted one of his Assassins to send on any mission, he would cause that potion whereof I spoke to be given to one of the youths in the garden, and then had him carried into his palace. So that when the young man awoke he found himself in the castle and no longer in paradise; whereat he was not over well pleased. And the Old Man would say to such a youth: 'Go and slay So and So; and when thou returnest my angels shall bear thee to paradise.'
So he caused them to believe; and thus there was no order of his that they would not affront any peril to execute, for the great desire that they had to get back to that paradise of his. And in this manner the Old One got his people to murder anyone whom he desired to be lid of... .'
    Polo's story of the Garden of the Old One is based on the Assassins' Persian stronghold, Mulehet, the Eagle's Nest. But in 1271 this no longer existed, having been overun and destroyed by the Mongols a few years before, leaving Masyaf as the headquarters of the order. To a certain extent the early ideals had degenerated by the end of the