THE HOUSE IN HAMADHĀN
All this time there had been no news of the war. By prearrangement four caravans laden with supplies had gone out in search of the army, but they were never seen again and it was supposed they had found Alā and had been absorbed into the fighting. And then one afternoon just before Fourth Prayer a rider came, bearing the worst possible intelligence.
As had been surmised, by the time Masūd had paused in Ispahan his main force already had found the Persians and was engaging them. Masūd had sent two of his senior generals, Abū Sahl al-Hamdûnī and Tāsh Farrāsh, to lead his army along the expected route. They planned and executed the frontal attack perfectly. Splitting their force in two, they hid behind the village of al-Karaj and sent forth their scouts. When the Persians drew close enough, Abū Sahl al-Hamdūnī’s host streamed from around one side of al-Karaj and Tāsh Farrāsh’s Afghans came around the other side. They fell upon Alā Shah’s men on two flanks, which rapidly drew together until the Ghazna army was reunited across a giant semicircular line of combat, like a net.
After their initial surprise the Persians fought bravely but they were outnumbered and outmaneuvered, and they lost ground steadily for days. Finally they discovered that at their back was another Ghazna force led by Sultan Masūd. Then the fighting grew ever more desperate and savage, but the end was inevitable. In front of the Persians was the superior force of the two Ghazna generals. Behind them, the cavalry of the Sultan, small in number and vicious, waged a conflict similar to the historic battle between the Romans and the ancient Persians, but this time Persia’s enemy was the ephemeral harrying force. The Afghans struck again and again and always melted away to reappear in another rear sector.
Finally, when the bloodied Persians had been sufficiently weakened and confused, under cover of a sandstorm Masūd launched the full power of all three of his armies in all-out attack.
Next morning, the sun disclosed sand swirling over the bodies of men and beasts, the better part of the Persian army. Some had escaped and it was rumored Alā Shah was among them, the messenger said, but this wasn’t certain.
“What has befallen Ibn Sina?” al-Juzjani asked the man.
“Ibn Sina left the army well before it reached al-Karaj, Hakim. He had been afflicted by a terrible colic that rendered him helpless, and so with the Shah’s permission the youngest physician among the surgeons, one Bibi al-Ghurī, took him to the city of Hamadhān, where Ibn Sina still owns the house that had been his father’s.”
“I know the place,” al-Juzjani said.
Rob knew al-Juzjani would go there. “Let me come too,” he said.
For a moment jealous resentment flickered in the older physician’s eyes, but reason quickly won and he nodded.
“We shall leave at once,” he said.
It was a hard and gloomy trip. They pushed their horses hard, not knowing if they would find him alive when they arrived. Al-Juzjani was made dumb by despair and this wasn’t to be wondered at; Rob had loved Ibn Sina for relatively few years, while al-Juzjani had worshiped the Prince of Physicians all his life.
It was necessary for them to circle to the east to avoid the war, which for all they knew, was still being fought in the territory of Hamadhān. But when they reached the capital city that gave the territory its name, Hamadhān appeared sleepy and peaceable, with no hint of the great slaughter that had taken place only a few miles away.
When Rob saw the house it seemed to him that it suited Ibn Sina better than the grand estate in Ispahan. This mud-and-stone house was like the clothing Ibn Sina always wore, unprepossessing, shabby and comfortable.
But within was the stench of illness.
Al-Juzjani jealously asked Rob to wait outside the chamber in which Ibn Sina lay. Moments later Rob heard a low murmur of voices and then, to his surprise and alarm, the unmistakable sound of a blow.
The young physician named Bibi al-Ghurī emerged from the chamber. His face was white and he was weeping. He pushed past Rob without greeting and rushed from the house.
Al-Juzjani came out a short while later, followed by an elderly mullah.
“The young charlatan has doomed Ibn Sina. When they arrived here, al-Ghurī gave the Master celery seed to break the wind of the colic. But instead of two danaqs of seed he gave five dirhams, and ever since then Ibn Sina has passed great amounts of blood.”
There were six dānaqs to a dirham; that meant that fifteen times the recommended dosage of the brutal cathartic had been given.
Al-Juzjani looked at him. “I myself served on the examining board that passed al-Ghurī,” he said bitterly.
“You weren’t able to look into the future and see this mistake,” Rob said gently.
But al-Juzjani wasn’t to be consoled. “What a cruel irony,” he said, “that the great physician should be undone by an inept hakim!”
“Is the Master aware?”
The mullah nodded. “He has freed his slaves and given his wealth to the poor.”
“May I go in?”
Al-Juzjani waved his hand.
Inside the chamber, Rob was shocked. In the four months since he had last seen him, Ibn Sina’s flesh had melted. His closed eyes were sunken, his face looked caved in, and his skin was waxen.
Al-Ghurī had done him harm, but mistreatment had only served to hasten the inevitable result of the stomach cancer.
Rob took his hands and felt so little life that he found it hard to speak. Ibn Sina’s eyes opened. They bore into his; he felt they could see his thoughts, and there was no need for dissembling. “Why is it, Master,” he asked bitterly, “that despite all a physician is able to do, he is as a leaf before the wind, and the real power lies only with Allah?”
To his mystification, a brilliance illuminated the wasted features. And suddenly he knew why Ibn Sina was attempting to smile.
“That is the riddle?” he asked faintly.
“It is the riddle … my European. You must spend the rest of your life … seeking … to answer it.”
“Master?”
Ibn Sina had closed his eyes again and didn’t answer. For a time Rob sat next to him in silence.
“I could have gone elsewhere without dissembling,” he said in English. “To the Western Caliphate—Toledo, Cordova. But I’d heard of a man. Avicenna, whose Arab name seized me like a spell and shook me like an ague. Abu Ali at-Husain ibn Abdullah ibn Sina.”
He couldn’t have understood more than his name, yet he opened his eyes again and his hands put a slight pressure on Rob’s.
“To touch the hem of your garment. The greatest physician in the world,” Rob whispered.
He scarcely remembered the tired, world-whipped carpenter who had been his natural father. Barber had treated him well but had stopped short of affection. This was the only father his soul had known. He forgot about the things he had scorned and was conscious only of a need.
“I ask your blessing.”
The halting words Ibn Sina spoke were pure Arabic but it was unnecessary to understand them. He knew Ibn Sina had blessed him long before.
He kissed the old man goodbye. When he left, the mullah had settled by the bed again and was reading aloud from the Qu’ran.