Work Text:
Mummad spotted the horse first, its human companion second.
“It is indeed a very fine horse,” Imad agreed. He felt oddly unbalanced. It was only one man, he told himself, and a foreigner at that. If he had not expected to see another living soul other than faithful Mummad for another four hours at least, what of it?
Possibly the man was a deserter, or a raider, or a thief. Possibly just an unlucky soul who had helped himself to a horse left foolishly unattended.
Yusuf would be the first to tell him that a man who did not keep a close eye on what was his perhaps deserved to lose it.
To which Mummad would evidently add that a man who could not defend what he had claimed as his also perhaps deserved to lose it.
Imad wasn't as sure about that one, but then, where was the harm? No risk in letting Mummad take a fine horse off of someone who had most certainly not come by it honestly.
Depending on the tone and outcome of the encounter, Imad might offer the man a meal, after. Or another horse. Or a swift execution followed by burial in an unmarked grave.
All is as God wills it, he reminded himself, riding a little ahead of Mummad, who did not speak the foreigners' tongue as well as one might like.
'Dear Yusuf,' Imad imagined writing, although of course he would never write anything so familiar as that.
'Something highly amusing and deeply disastrous has befallen me. By the time you hear of it, I hope that you will laugh.'
Imad was not dead yet, which was good and most kind of God who evidently still had plans for him.
On the other hand, Imad's face was hardly unknown in Jerusalem. There might be awkwardness.
Or he might be killed before they even got there.
Or his captor might have another encounter with people who liked his horse and were more favored by god than poor Mummad had been.
Or Imad might be recognized well before they reached Jerusalem, at which point the captive might become the captor and vice versa.
'Dear Yusuf. God is infinite, and so are both my troubles and the possibilities for my future. I hope to see you again in this life.'
“Are you comfortable?” Ibelin asked.
Imad wished he had met the father, the better to understand the son. Although Mummad had not even known Ibelin had a son, so perhaps it would have made no difference. “Very comfortable. Thank you, my lord.”
Ibelin grimaced. Imad wondered whether he had loved his father. Whether Ibelin flinched from his new title because it reminded him of his loss.
He considered telling Ibelin, 'All is as God wills it,' but that would only be the truth, not any kind of comfort.
“And you? Are you comfortable, my lord?' he asked.
Ibelin sighed. “How many more days until we reach Jerusalem?”
“A few days yet,” Imad said. He had toyed with the idea of trickery, flirted with the notion of treachery.
It would be unkind, though. Ungenerous. Ibelin had spared his life. For the moment.
“Good,” Ibelin said and went to sleep as if he had no other cares in the world – or at least far fewer than Imad, which seemed somewhat probable, at least.
“And so here I am,” Imad said, making the kind of dramatic gesture story tellers were so fond of.
His lord and king, less so, but Imad could tell that Yusuf was amused. Entertained in spite of himself. And perhaps a little relieved.
“As far as excuses for tardiness go, you must be commended on your originality,” Yusuf said.
“Boredom is what we must seek during war time, is that not so?” Imad said. “While we have peace, we may look for people and events that are interesting.”
“Interesting.” Yusuf grimaced. Not the way Ibelin had, in a way that signaled distancing. Yusuf simply recognized his own wisdom when it was quoted back at him.
“You sent word to Jerusalem that Ibelin did not break the peace,” Imad said. He had worried about that. Or, well, he had worried about that, too. Clever people might worry about many things simultaneously, and Imad liked to think that he was clever – albeit not as clever as Yusuf, of course, who presumably had more worries than there were grains of sand in the desert.
“I knew Mummad would not have permitted you to be taken while he still lived,” Yusuf said.
Imad did not point out that Mummad might not have been given a choice. “The situation was not so dire as that. A simple case of mistaken identities.” Also: mistaken horse appropriation and mistaken assessments of ‘how good can this total stranger with a big sword really be if he’s all alone and doesn’t seem to have any possessions to his name other than a (probably stolen) horse?’.
“You were lucky,” Yusuf said, and Imad realized with startling clarity that for however short a time, Yusuf had thought him taken - not by some foreigner who did not even know how to find Jerusalem without a guide, but by someone who had come looking for Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani, confidant and close friend of Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub.
“We were all lucky,” he said. Except for Mummad, of course. Imad tried to feel at least a little sad about the loss: he did not think Ibelin had meant to kill, but Mummad had been pressing him, ignoring Imad’s commands to stop fighting, possibly to keep up the ruse that he and not Imad was the important one. Imad decided he liked that explanation better than the idea that Mummad had, in his final moments, become undisciplined and disobedient.
Still. Yusuf had been presented with one corpse, one missing advisor and no witnesses. A lesser man might have declared war at once, rather than wait for the facts to be ferreted out.
Imad felt that they had indeed been very lucky. Not that such things as luck actually existed, of course. “All is as God wills it,” he said. Ibelin would not have been comforted, yet Yusuf would know the statement for what it was.
“So it is,” Yusuf said. “And it pleases me to see that God wills you to be by my side yet.”
Imad bowed.
“Now,” Yusuf said. “I would see this horse.”