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Every
     evening Khayyam would dash back to the pavilion to await his beloved. How many nights had fate granted them? Everything depended
     on the sovereign. When he decamped Jahan would follow. He never announced anything in advance. One morning this nomad’s son
     would jump up onto his charger and set out for Bukhara, Kish or Panjikent and the court would be thrown into panic trying
     to catch up with him. Omar and Jahan dreaded this moment and their every kiss carried with it a taste of farewell, their every
     embrace a breathless flight.
    On one of the most oppressive summer nights, Khayyam had gone out to wait on the terrace of the belvedere, when he heard the
qadi’s
guards laughing from what seemed very close by and he became uneasy, but for no reason, since Jahan arrived and reassured
     him that no one had noticed her. They exchanged a first furtivekiss, followed by another more intense. That was how they rounded off a day during which they belonged to others and started
     off on a night which belonged to them.
    ‘In this city how many lovers do you think there are who at this very moment are being united like us?’ Jahan whispered impishly.
     Omar adjusted his nightcap learnedly and puffed out his cheeks and spoke wistfully:
    ‘Let us consider this carefully: if we exclude bored spouses, obedient slaves, street girls selling or hiring themselves out
     and sighing virgins, how many woman are there left, how many women are there being united with the man they have chosen? In
     the same fashion, how many men will sleep next to a woman they love, a woman who gives herself to them for some reason other
     than that they have no choice? Who knows, tonight in Samarkand there is perhaps only one such man and one such woman. Why
     you and why me, you will say? Because God has made us fall in love just as he has made certain flowers poisonous.’
    He laughed and she let her tears flow.
    ‘Let us go in and shut the door. They will be able to hear our happiness.’
    Many caresses later, Jahan sat up, half covered herself and gently extricated herself from her lover’s embrace.
    ‘I must pass on to you a secret which I have from the Khan’s senior wife. Do you know why he is in Samarkand?’
    Omar stopped her, thinking it would be some harem tittle-tattle.
    ‘The secrets of princes do not interest me. They burn the ears of those who listen to them.’
    ‘Just hear me out. This secret affects us too, since it can disrupt our lives. Nasr Khan has come to inspect the fortifications.
     At the end of the summer, when the intense heat has subsided, he is expecting an attack by the Seljuk army.’
    The Seljuks, Khayyam knew them. They peopled his first memories of childhood. Well before they became the masters of Muslim
     Asia, they had laid into the city of his birth and left behind, for generations, the memory of the Great Fear.
    That had taken place ten years before he was born. The people of Nishapur had woken up one morning to find their city completely
     encircled by the Turkish warriors, headed by two brothers, Tughrul Beg the Falcon and his brother Tchagri Beg the Hawk, sons
     of Mikhael son of Seljuk, at the time obscure nomadic chieftains who had only recently been converted to Islam. A message
     came to the city’s notables: ‘It is told that your men are proud and that you have sweet water running in underground canals.
     If you attempt to resist us, your canals will soon be open to the heavens and your men will be in the ground.’
    This was the type of bragging which was frequent at the time of a siege. The notables of Nishapur nevertheless made speed
     to capitulate in return for a promise that the inhabitants’ lives would be spared and that their goods, houses and canals
     would be safe. But of what value are the promises of a conqueror? When the horde entered the city, Tchagri wanted to loose
     his men in the streets and the bazaar. Tughrul was of a different opinion, wanting the month of Ramadan to be