Alamut Read Online Free Page B

to learn things.”
    “You should know that we enforce strict discipline when it comes to lessons. You will be no exception. And let me warn you about one other thing. Don’t ask questions about things that aren’t directly related to your studies.”
    Miriam struck Halima as much more serious and strict than the day before. Still, she sensed that the older girl liked her. “I promise I’ll obey you in everything and I’ll do everything just the way you tell me,” she said.
    She could sense that Miriam held some favored rank among all the others, and she grew curious about this, but she didn’t dare to ask questions.
    For breakfast they had milk and sweet pastries made with dried fruit and honey. Then each of them was given an orange.
    Lessons began after breakfast. They went into the glass-ceilinged hall with the pool that Halima had admired the day before. They sat around on pillows, each of them with a black tablet resting on her crossed legs. They got their slate pencils ready and waited. Miriam pointed to a place for Halima to sit and handed her her writing implements.
    “Hold it like you see the others doing, even though you don’t know how to write yet. I’ll teach you later, but for now you can at least get used to the tablet and pencil.”
    Then she went to the doorway and with a mallet struck a gong that hung on the wall.
    A giant Moor holding a thick book entered the room. He was dressed in short striped trousers and a cloak that reached to his feet but was left open in front. He was shod in plain sandals and had a thin red turban wrapped around his head. He let himself down onto a pillow prepared for him and sat facing the girls, his weight resting on his knees.
    “Today, my sweet little doves, we continue with passages from the Koran,” he said, piously touching his forehead to the book, “in which the Prophet speaks of the joys of the afterlife and the delights of paradise. I see a new young student among you, clear-eyed and avid for learning, hungry for knowledge and pleasing to the spirit. So that no drop of wisdom and holy learning escapes her, let’s have Fatima, clear-witted and sharp, repeat and interpret what your careful gardener Adi has so far managed to plant and cultivate in your little hearts.”
    This was the same Adi who had brought her to these gardens yesterday. Halima recognized his voice immediately. The whole time he spoke she valiantly resisted an urge to laugh.
    Fatima lifted her lovely, rounded chin to face the teacher and began reciting in a sweet, almost singing voice, “In the fifteenth sura, in verses forty-five to forty-eight we read, ‘Behold, the god-fearing shall come to these gardens and to the springs: enter in peace, for indeed we shall take the ire fromtheir hearts and they shall sit down on pillows with each other. They will feel no fatigue and we shall never cause them to leave …’ ”
    Adi praised her. Then she recited several other passages by heart. When she finished, he said to Halima, “So, my silver doe, fleet-footed and avid for learning, did you hear in the pearls of your companion and older sister what my skill, my depth of spirit has sown in the bosoms of our gentle-eyed houris and nurtured into fulsome buds? You must also blow all childishness out of your heart and listen intently to what my holy learning reveals to you, so that you can be happy both here and in the afterlife.”
    Then he began to dictate slowly, word by word, a new chapter from the Koran. The chalk squeaked across the tablets. Moving slightly, the girls’ lips silently repeated what their hands were writing.
    The lesson came to an end and Halima caught her breath. Everything had struck her as so silly and so strange, as though none of it had been real.
    The Moor stood up, touched his forehead to the book reverently three times, and said, “Lovely young maidens, my diligent pupils, skillful and quick, enough learning and scattering of my wisdom for now. What you’ve heard and