In the meanwhile, the governor of Kirdkuh had arrived in the camp, and Hulaku, who now permitted Shehinshah, Rokneddin’s brother, to return, dismissed him with these words: “Tell thy brother to demolish the castle of Maimundis, and come to me: if he comes not, the Eternal God knows the consequences.” During these negociations, the Tawadgi or recruiters of the Mongols, had collected so considerable a number of troops, that hill and dale swarmed with them. On the seventh of the month Shewal, Hulaku appeared in person before Maimundis, to undertake the siege of that fortress, and a battle took place on the 25th.
Rokneddin, ill advised, and still worse betrayed by Nassireddin, sent, at length, his other brother, Iranshah, together with his son, Kiashah, and the vizier, Nassireddin, into the camp, to offer his homage and submission, and to request a free retreat. They were accompanied by the most distinguished members of the order, who bore rich presents. Nassireddin, instead of speaking for his prince, and placing the strength of the fortress in the balance of the negotiation, told Hulaku, that the security of the castles of the Ismailites need not trouble him, that the stars foretold clearly the downfall of their power, and the sun would accelerate their ruin. The surrender of the place was then agreed upon, on condition of an unmolested retreat, and on the 1st of the month Silkide, Rokneddin, and his ministers and confidents, evacuated the castle of Maimundis, and went into Hulaku’s camp. The gold and the presents, which he brought with him, were divided among the troops. Hulaku had compassion on Rokneddin’s youth and inexperience; he having scarcely been seated more than a year, on the throne of his fathers. He gave him good words and flattering promises, retained him as his guest, but the traitor, Nassireddin, as his vizier. The latter, who had put the fortress and the grand-master into the hands of the khan, and had laid the axe at the root of the Assassin power, had effrontery enough to compose a chronograph on this occurrence, which immortalizes his treachery and revenge, containing the date of this affair, in two verses.[254]
In Hulaku’s camp, Rokneddin was given into the custody of a guard of Tartars; and officers of the khan accompanied the grand-master’s deputies into the district Rudbar, in order to demolish the castles belonging to the Assassins, there situated: others were despatched to the two grand-priorates of Syria and Kuhistan, to summon the commandants of the places belonging to the order, to surrender them to Hulaku, in the name of the last grand-master. The number of these strongholds amounted to more than a hundred; and these, by which the mountainous parts of Kuhistan, Irak, and Syria, were crowned, formed the girdle of the Assassins’ power, reaching from the shores of the Caspian to those of the Mediterranean sea; in all these, the dagger was the insignia of dominion. In Rudbar, alone, more than forty were levelled with the ground, all well fortified and full of treasure. The three strongest refused obedience to Hulaku’s summons, and Rokneddin’s commands; the commanders of Alamut, the grand-master’s capital, of Lamsir and Kirdkuh, replied, that they were waiting for the khan’s arrival to surrender them to him. Hulaku struck his camp, and appeared, in a few days, before Alamut; he sent the captive grand-master to the foot of the ramparts to persuade the inhabitants by promises and threats, to surrender; Rokneddin obeyed, but the governors of the fortress refused to yield. Hulaku left a blockading force before Alamut, and marched to Lamsir, whose inhabitants came out to meet him, and offer their allegiance; the constancy of the Alamuters being shaken by this, they sent an envoy to Rokneddin, to beg him to intercede with the enraged prince in their favour.
By the mediation of Rokneddin, Hulaku allowed the commander a safe conduct to the camp. The inhabitants requested three days to remove their money and goods, this was permitted; and, on the third, the castle was given up to pillage. Alamut, or the Eagle’s Nest, so called from its inaccessible height, lay on a rock, which presented the shape of a lion kneeling, with his neck stretched on the ground: the walls rose from the lion’s rock, which they equalled in solidity, as it did them in its perpendicular rise; they were vaulted for the defence of the garrison; the rock was excavated into corn magazines and cellars for honey and wine; these had been, for the most part, filled in the time of Hassan Sabah; and so excellent was the choice of the spot, and the care bestowed upon it, that neither had the wheat become mouldy, nor the wine sour; which was considered by the Ismailites as a miracle of their founder. The Mongols, who, without knowledge of the locality, sought in the subterraneous chambers and cellars, for treasure, fell into the wine and honey.
The armies of the Assassins being scattered, and their poniards broken in the destruction of their fortresses, Hulaku returned in the month Selhidje, of the same year, to Hamadan, where he had left his children. Rokneddin, who accompanied him, was treated with kindness, either from pity or contempt. Entirely degenerated from the blood of his fathers, he had not even the virtues of a common Assassin,—courage, and contempt of death; still less those of a grand-master,—strength of rule and state-craft. Already morally a slave, even before he fell into the hands of Hulaku, he still showed himself in the same character by the meanness of his pursuits. A Mongol girl, of the lowest grade, was the object of his affections, and Hulaku, who neglected no opportunity of exposing him to the shafts of public scorn, commanded a solemn marriage, on being asked for the slave by the prince of the Assassins. After the completion of the ceremony, Rokneddin begged the favour of being sent to the great khan Mangu: Hulaku was, at first, astonished at this senseless request, by which Rokneddin sought his own destruction; as, however, he did not feel himself called upon to prevent it, he gave him permission, and a troop of Mongols, as an escort. Rokneddin had promised on his way to persuade the garrison of Kirdkuh, the last castle of the Assassins which still held out against the Mongols, to surrender. He left Hulaku’s camp at Hamadan, on the first of Rebi-ul-ewel, in the 655th year of the Hegira;[255] as he passed Kirdkuh he sent the inhabitants a public message, requiring them to surrender; he, however, secretly instructed them to hold out, and to deliver the fortress up to no one.
By this foolish, contradictory policy, by which he had already entailed the ruin of the order, he now accelerated his own. On arriving at Karakurum, the khan’s capital, the latter, without admitting him to an audience, sent him the following message: “If thou pretendest to be submissive, wherefore hast thou not surrendered the castle of Kirdkuh? return, and demolish the yet unyielded castles; then mayest thou share the honour of appearing in our imperial presence.” When Rokneddin and his escort, had reached the Oxus, on his return, the latter, under pretence of taking refreshment, made him dismount, and pierced him with their swords.
Mangu had already, some time before, issued the command to Hulaku, to exterminate all the Ismailites, and not to spare even the infant at his mother’s breast: and immediately upon Rokneddin’s departure, the sanguinary task was commenced, which had only been delayed till Kirdkuh and the remainder of the castles of the Assassins in Kuhistan and Syria should have fallen. He sent one of his viziers to Kaswin, to put to death, indiscriminately, Rokneddin’s wives, children, brothers, sisters, and slaves; only two relations (females apparently) of Rokneddin, were selected from this devoted band, not for mercy, but to be the victims of the princess, Bulghan Khatun’s, private revenge; her father, Jagatai, having bled by the Assassin’s daggers. A command, similar to that given to the governor of Kaswin, was issued to the viceroy of Khorassan. He assembled the captive Ismailites, and twelve thousand of these wretched creatures were slaughtered, without distinction of age. Warriors went through the provinces, and executed the fatal sentence, without mercy or appeal. Wherever they found a disciple of the doctrine of the Ismailites, they compelled him to kneel down, and then cut off his head. The whole race of Kia Busurgomid, in whose descendants the grand-mastership had been hereditary, were exterminated. The “devoted to murder” were not now the victims of the order’s vengeance, but that of outraged humanity. The sword was against the dagger, and the executioner destroyed the murderer. The seed, sowed for two centuries, was now ripe for the harvest, and the field ploughed by the Assassin’s dagger, was reaped by the sword of the Mongol. The crime had been terrible, but no less terrible was the punishment.
The castles of the Assassins in Rudbar and Kuhistan, Kain, Tun, Lamsir, and even Alamut, the capital, were now in the hands of the victor. Kirdkuh alone, whose garrison had been encouraged not to yield, by Rokneddin, when on his way to Mangu, resisted the besieging forces of the Mongols for three years. It is situated in the district of Damaghan, near Manssurabad, on a very lofty mountain, and is, probably, the same as the castle Tigado, mentioned by the Armenian historian, Haithon, who has converted the three years’ siege into one of thirty years’ duration.[256] Circumstantial details of this siege, are found in Sahireddin,[257] the historian of Masenderan, and Ruyan, whose princes, having done homage to the overwhelming power of Hulaku Khan, received his commands to besiege Kirdkuh, while he was engaged in his expedition against Bagdad. At that period, the throne of Mazanderan was filled by Shems-ol-Moluk Erdeshir, of the family of Bawend; and at Ruyan reigned the Astandar, or mountain prince, Shehrakim, of the family Kawpare. They were united in the bonds of friendship, relationship, and contiguity of situation. The prince of Ruyan had given his daughter in marriage, to the shah of Masenderan, and Hulaku Khan promised himself a large result from the wisdom of his measures, in imposing upon them both the conduct of the siege of Kirdkuh.
It was in the beginning of spring, that the poet, Kutbi Ruyani, who was in the camp of the allied princes, sung a solemn poem, in honour of spring, in the language of Thaberistan, beginning—
The sun has now once more passed from the Fish to the Ram,