The word was a tough one for him but he came up with him. “Ordained.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You’re a minister?”

He shook his head. “Priest.”

“Bullshit. What about going to hell for torture and murder?”

Krystos raised his bound wrists and nodded toward his left arm. “Sleeve,” he said.

I pushed his sleeve up and there was tattoo of a cross with Latin words written in an arch above and below it. Above was

AD EXTIRPANDA

Below the cross

EXURGE D ET JUDICA CAUSAM TUAM

“What’s that?”

“Permission,” he said.

When I did not respond, he said something that I pretty much never expected to hear anywhere outside of a Dan Brown novel or an old episode of Monty Python.

“The Holy Inquisition.”

Interlude Six

Interlude Six

Fortress of Alamut

Alborz Mountains, Northern Iran.

June 1192 C.E.

Hassan ibn Sabbah sat on a couch that was draped in rich fabrics. Pillows littered the stairs of the dais on which the couch sat. Two warriors stood at the foot of the dais, naked swords laid across their naked arms, their faces as hard and unmoving as stone. The scent of hashish wafted through the chamber and out onto the breeze where it was whipped away high above the mountains.

A carpet lolled out like a great tongue, rippling down the stairs and stretching across the long reception chamber. Sewn into the fabric with delicate skill were fantastical battles. Eagles attacked dragons and tore them to pieces; desert djinn ripped the hearts from crusaders. It had been a gift from Ibn Sabbah’s much missed old friend, the mathematician and poet Omar Khayyám. How Ibn Sabbah wished that his friend had lived to see this day. To see what Ibn Sabbah had accomplished.

He accepted a cup of juice from a servant who then bowed himself away from the dais, and as he sipped Ibn Sabbah studied the fifty men who stood in silent rows on either side of the runner carpet.

His fida’i.

His assassins.

His sacred killers. Guardians of the secret shared with him by his cousin, Ibrahim al-Asiri. Guardians, too, of the faith. Men who would be used to spill the blood of the infidel in the cleverest plan Sabbah had ever heard. Preserving the word of God through the spilling of blood.

A door at the far end of the chamber opened and Ibn Sabbah’s chief advisor entered, followed by six bare-chested guards. Between each guard staggered a man in shackles. The prisoners were freshly washed and wore simple but clean clothes. Ibn Sabbah did not allow prisoners to be mistreated, and he absolutely forbade any unwashed person to enter this room or draw near to that precious carpet. The rows of assassins watched dispassionately as the prisoners were brought to the cleared space to the right of the dais and well away from the carpet. Ibn Sabbah nodded to his advisor who produced a key and unlocked the shackles.