The Assassin's Song Read Online Free

wearing a dhoti and a coloured shawl round his shoulders, would at first get ahead of the slower sufi, then pause and wait impatiently; but over time he learned to restrain himself. He was a restless but deeply intelligent man who seemed ever waiting for an omen or a happening in these uncertain times. The sufi walked slowly, as we have said, and he would stare down at the ground before him, until the king's tipped question or excited remark provoked him to look up with a smile and a thoughtful response.
    The two of them gazed at the night sky, observed the positions of the planets, and discussed what they portended. How long would he rule, the raja wanted desperately to know; would his dynasty last another hundred years? He was in need, above all, of spiritual solace; but, said he, “I am like a nav in the ocean, buffeted by the forces of different philosophies. The Jain priests debate the Brahmin pandits, each wishing me to choose theirpath and drive the others away; among the Jains some favour walking about in the nude and some do not; it is sinful, some say, to kill a louse that's made a home in your chest hair and a meal of your blood; and in the villages, oblivious to the learned men, the people go about their own ways with their customs and worship of the gods and goddesses.”
    The sufi did not reply and the two walked together in silence, past the lake, which was peaceful at this hour, the children and maidens long gone, and the dancing god looked on in dark silence; a few points of yellow light flickered like fallen stars upon the surface of the water, these being candles placed there as supplications by the devoted. A crescent moon shone clear in the sky, sharp as a blade, as the warm air breathed queen-of-the-night and jasmine, though the fastidious and foreign holy man had to remind himself that the whiff of cow dung was but a sign of the closeness of nature, the unity of all life. Somewhere a lamb bleated as if to echo the idea. As they walked there would follow behind them the king's bodyguards and the holder of the royal canopy; the chief minister would follow at a greater distance, not to look conspicuous but not to lose sight of his patron either. With him walked a selection of pandits. This was not the first time their restless monarch had attached himself to a wandering ascetic; stories were still told of how, a hundred years before, the great Hemachandra and his monarch Kumarapala had both fallen under the spell of a Muslim magician not unlike this one.
    “And the God of the Muslims,” went on the king one night, perhaps provoked by the sight of the moon, “is the weirdest and most vain of all. He is unknowable and yet commands you to kneel; with a sword he demands obeisance.”
    “My Lord,” said the mystic, “the Turk general in Delhi or Ghor mouths ‘God is great’ and holds a sword in his hand. But that is not a man of the Musalman God. He is merely a fighter and a usurper. Of him even the simple Muslim faithful is terrified.”
    The king smiled. “And what is your way to knowledge, Sufi? What path would you suggest for me?”
    “All roads lead to the same destination,” advised the sufi, “only some may be longer than others. Stay close hugging the shore, Raja, follow the path you learned on the lap of your mother and at the feet of your teachers.”
    Nur Fazal, the sufi, like all those who seek that inner truth of existence, had a spiritual guide, his beloved Master, whom he had left behind in his homeland. Every day before sunrise, he would go to the worship room of the house, and there, seated on the floor, meditate on the name of his teacher. Thereafter he would return to this room during the day and, facing west, kneel and prostrate in that humble gesture of prayer to God that bound him to his people. Sometimes, in the courtyard of the house on the other side of his wall, would come a handful of young women to play on the swings that hung from the trees. Singing, laughing,