The Black Rood (41 page)

Sahak laughed, and went away shaking his head. That is how I learned of my error, and determined not to make the same mistake again. Alas, the damage was done. The next day the guards came for me and I was once again brought before al-Mutarshid. This time he was delivering his shrewd and perceptive judgments before the assembled counselors, advisors, and liegemen of his retinue; he wanted his minions to marvel at his renowned sagacity and was in no mood to be amused.

“I have considered all that you have told me,” he announced as I took my place before him, “and I have concluded that you are a spy of the most dangerous variety: he who is without loyalty, and subject to no lord but himself. Therefore, I have decided that you will remain a prisoner.”

“It was a mistake,” I asserted. “I should never have been brought here.”

“Yet, here you are,” the caliph said. “
Qismah
! All is as Allah wills it so to be. There is no such thing as a mistake. If you are a captive, it is because that is what Allah intended. Who is wise enough to instruct God?” He gazed around, gathering the admiring glances of his retinue, then said, “You will remain a prisoner.”

This pronouncement delighted Sahak, my faithless interpreter; it was all he could do to suppress his glee. But the next declaration jolted even Sahak. Regarding me coldly, the caliph said, “What is more, if no one comes forward to arrange your ransom in three days' time, you will be executed. In the name of Allah, this is my decree.”

I was in no way prepared for this decision. My thoughts instantly scattered far and wide. I thought of you, Cait, and all I had left back home, of Padraig arriving too late and finding my lifeless body hanging from the city walls, of Sydoni weeping over my grave…so many strange thoughts raced through my head that it took me a moment to recollect myself.

“My Lord Khalifa,” I said, trying to remain calm in the face of such an illogical and unjust pronouncement. “I do not know why my friends have not come for me. I can assure you the ransom will be paid; however, three days is not enough time. It is a long way from Anazarbus to Damascus.”

“They could have come for you any time since your capture, but they have not,” the caliph pointed out. “I suspect they are not coming, that these friends of yours are merely a ruse to prolong your duplicitous existence, and that it is pointless keeping you alive. Three days,” he declared, “no more.”

The assembled onlookers murmured their approval at the caliph's display of judicial firmness. Steadying my voice to present a brave face, I replied, “Then, as a nobleman, I beg the Wise Khalifa's indulgence to honor a last request.”

The idea sparked al-Mutarshid's interest. I think he had not expected me to think of that. “Within reason, of course,” he said. “What is your last request?”

“I would like to leave a message for my family at home in Scotland, so that they will know what happened to me.”

It was a simple thing, but possessed of a certain nobility, and I could see al-Mutarshid found the idea appealing. “Very well,” he agreed, “you shall write your message.” He looked at me with thoughtful curiosity. “How, in the name of the Prophet, peace be unto him, do you expect this letter of yours to reach your family?”

“Exalted Lord,” I replied, “it is not beyond your power to command such a thing to be done. Many pilgrims return to the West after their pilgrimage is completed. No doubt one of them would consent to take the message.”

“It will be done,” the caliph said, and the audience was concluded.

Amazed that he should have agreed so easily, I thanked him for his compassion and generosity, and was taken back to my cell. Knowing the Arab mind a little better now, I see I had obligated him with my request and he could not possibly refuse—without appearing a weak and arbitrary ruler in front of his advisors and liegemen. As he had so carefully cultivated himself as a fount of wisdom and learning among his people, he could not allow himself to appear less noble than the insignificant wretch he had just condemned.

Thus, I won the boon I asked. Had I known it would be that easy, Cait, I might have asked for something of greater consequence. Still, I was content.

The guards marched me back to my cell, where I spent the rest of the day and night praying that I might live long enough to fulfill my pilgrimage vow and recover the Black Rood. The next morning, Sahak appeared with a small square of parchment, a pot of ink, and a supply of quills—a gift of the caliph, he said, for my letter.

I was happy to have these things, and I told Sahak to thank the caliph for supplying them. “He will kill you as he said,” the katib told me unhappily. “It was no idle threat.”

I told him that no, I did not imagine that the great caliph was in the habit of making idle threats to impress the prisoners with his power. “I shall be sorry to see you die,” Sahak said.

“Why? You have never liked me. There have been many times when you might have spoken up for me, yet you have not done so—and I, the man who helped save your people from Bohemond's attack.” I let him have the full brunt of my anger and exasperation. “You might have done it out of charity for a fellow Christian, if nothing else.”

The miserable scribe hung his head. “It is true,” he simpered. “But there is more you do not know.”

“Yes?”

He hesitated, drawing his sleeve across damp eyes. “The brooch…”

I stared at him, a sick feeling beginning to spread through me. “What about it?”

Unable to look me in the eye, he lowered his head still farther. “I did not send it back to Anazarbus,” he muttered. Then, overcome by the enormity of his guilt, he turned and hurried away before I could call down heavenly wrath upon his worthless hide.

I sat down and thought long and hard about what he had told me. After the first storm of fury subsided, I began to survey my position more dispassionately. In the end, I decided that it did not matter whether Sahak returned the brooch as he had promised, or whether, as I suspect, he kept it for himself. Knowing that the Black Rood was among Ghazi's plunder, I wanted to stay close by no matter what. As the amir's captive, I remained close without arousing even the least shade of suspicion.

The Caliph of Baghdad's decree of execution was another matter, but one which was beyond my influence entirely. As I could do nothing to improve my position for the moment, I was content to leave it to the Swift Sure Hand.

Two days passed, but no one came for me, neither did Sahak appear at my door. I wrote my letter, taking time to ponder each and every word before putting it down so I would not have to blot it out. If, in God's eternal plan, I was meant to fall to the headsman's sword, I wanted my last message to be perfect.

The rest of the time, I paced the small confines of my cell, sometimes praying that Padraig would miraculously appear and come striding down the long prison corridor bearing a bag full of silver dinars to buy my release. “I hope you have not been worrying,” I could hear him say. “I was delayed a little. Still, all in God's good time. I will have you out of there before you know it.”

Needless to say, Padraig did not arrive.

On the morning of the third day since my last audience with Caliph al-Mutarshid, I awoke to rumbling in the guardroom above the prison cells—the pounding of feet and the clatter of weapons. At first, I thought an attack must be taking place, a raid on the city in reprisal for the destruction of Bohemond's army, perhaps. But then all went very quiet and
I, along with the rest of the prisoners, sat waiting throughout the day for some word or sign of what was taking place beyond the prison walls.

Toward evening the guards returned to the guardhouse and our jailer brought our day's ration of food and water. He did not understand us, nor we him, so it was not until Sahak came the next morning that I learned of the arrival of an envoy from the Caliph of Cairo.

At the time, I did not consider this to be an event of much significance. But that is the way of things in the East. Alliances shift like sand on the wind. Loyalties ebb and flow with the tide. The restless wind sifts through the ancient realms and old orders are swept away in the twinkling of an eye. An emissary arrived from Egypt, and the future of the Holy Land changed.

My own predicament altered, too; although at the time I did not perceive, much less understand, the nature of the change, it was no less remarkable in its own way. Indeed, it would be many weeks before I would fully appreciate just how exceptional my circumstances had become—
and
how slender the thread by which my life now swung.

I
EXPECTED THEM TO
come for me in the morning, and they did. I did not expect them to send Sahak, yet it was his face I saw when, at the sound of the bolt being drawn and the iron bar raised, I stood and the door opened. “Fall on your knees and praise God, my friend,” he proclaimed, and I could see it gave him great pleasure to do so. He had never called me his friend before, and I wondered what lay behind his cheerful greeting. “It is a very miracle. You have been reprieved.”

Before I could ask how this had come about, he said, “Hurry. You are to come at once. They want to see you.”

“Why?” I asked, already moving through the open door. Two guards were with him, but neither appeared interested in the proceedings.

“Much has happened in the last two days. There is to be a great celebration.”

We started down the corridor, and I was halfway up the steps to the guardroom when I remembered—“My letter!”

“Leave it,” Sahak told me. “There is no time. They are waiting.”

“Let them wait.”

“Yu'allah!” Sahak sighed.

I ran back to the cell and snatched up the folded parchment, stuffing it in my siarc as I rejoined the scribe waiting at the foot of the steps. “Now tell me, Sahak, who is waiting for me? Is it my friends? Has Padraig come to pay the ransom?”

“Alas, no,” Sahak admitted; he had not thought of that. “It is that the Caliph of Cairo has sent his personal emissary to Damascus,” he explained meaningfully. “The man has arrived; he is here in the palace at this very moment.”

“This emissary—he is the one who wants to see me?”

“In a manner of speaking. You are going to Cairo, my friend. Is that not wonderful news? Everything has been arranged. Praise God.”

Any jubilation I might have felt at a stay of execution was swallowed by a new sense of hopelessness. “If I go to Cairo,” I suggested, “my friends will never find me.”

“If they look for you in Damascus, they will find you in a traitor's grave,” he countered. “Is that what you want?”

In truth, rescue was not uppermost in my mind; I was more concerned about becoming separated from the Holy Rood. Even so, there was not much I could do about that; my execution would have effectively separated me from the prize as surely as a sojourn in Cairo, and far more conclusively. Rather than berating Sahak, I decided to be grateful.

We followed the guards up the stone steps and through the empty guardroom, out the open door and across the inner palace yard. Perhaps it was Sahak's excitement making me imagine things, but I did sense a ferment in the air—as that which marks a change in season. Yet, the sun rising above the bulging white domes of the palace was the same, the air hot and dry as ever.

“I thought of this myself,” the scribe declared proudly. “It troubled me that you should die for helping my people, and I prayed that God would send a way to save you. And then the emissary arrived.” He smiled as if the rest was perfectly obvious.

I thanked him for his skillful intervention on my behalf, and said, “But I still do not understand why the Caliph of Cairo's emissary should be interested in helping me.”

“Strictly speaking, he does not know he is helping you. He thinks he is merely receiving a gift for his master. But God works in mysterious ways, no?”

“Yes, and so do you, Sahak.”

By the time we reached the Pavillion of Roses where
Atabeg Buri was entertaining his two important guests at an early-morning meal following their prayers, I had extracted from Sahak the gist of what had happened, and knew why I had been summoned. The rest took longer to obtain, yet, by dint of perseverance, I gradually unraveled the tangled tale of the stormy relations between the two most powerful caliphates in all the East.

I should pause here and relate the details of my audience with the atabeg and his illustrious visitors; it was, however, of little account at all. They merely wanted to see that I was still alive and hale enough to make the journey to Cairo—along with the rest of the booty to be delivered as gifts to the caliph. You see, Cait, Arabs of all stripes are forever giving gifts to one another. They do it all the time, for any number of reasons: the wealthy do it to belittle their rivals, strengthen ties between noble houses, or win the fealty of those beneath them; the poor do it to curry favor with those above, to secure preferment in business, to demonstrate honor and obedience.

As part of the spoils of war which Ghazi had given to win patronage from Buri, I was brought forward to bow and scrape before the enthroned Muslim lords, delivered into the hands of a servant of the envoy, and then led away again. I never saw Sahak, al-Mutarshid, Buri, Ghazi, or any of my fellow prisoners again, nor did I ever learn the name of my new master, the envoy. I became once more a commodity of exchange, a vessel of value to be bartered for favor—in this case, the favor of the Caliph of Cairo.

As I say, over the next days, as my depth of understanding grew, so too did the realization of the awful significance of the events Bohemond had set in motion when he decided to attack the Armenians. I watched my new masters closely and observed them in their dealings, and so gained invaluable insight into the complicated affairs of the Arab race—insight which would serve me well in the days to come. I kept my eyes and ears open, and pieced together any scraps of information that came my way, meditating long over them. This is what I learned:

Ghazi's defeat of Bohemond's army greatly relieved and
encouraged the Muhammedans; in a single battle the amir had reduced the Christian might in the region and restored Muslim hopes that the hated Franj might yet be pushed out. Antioch was now vulnerable to siege and capture. The Templars could not protect the city by themselves alone; without a swift and abundant supply of fresh troops, the end was a forgone conclusion. For the first time in many, many years the Turks could entertain notions of recapturing that great city. Once Antioch was under Seljuq rule, Jerusalem could not fail to follow.

Shrewd amir that he was, Ghazi was not slow to recognize the rich potential of his victory. That day when he halted the executions on the battlefield, he was already calculating the cost of his next venture: the siege of Antioch.

Aware that he must strike quickly and decisively, Ghazi rushed to Damascus where he knew the Caliph of Baghdad had lately arrived. On the way, he gathered the support for his scheme from those who would help supply the army he hoped to raise. A siege is a lengthy and expensive business, and Ghazi required the aid of more powerful men to mount and supply a force large enough to capture that great city. He also needed the consent of his betters—not only their approval of his military plan, but their sanction of his larger aims as well. Again, the wily amir showed his acuity, for knowing he did not possess the necessary authority, he sought a bargain that would allow him to rule the city once it had been captured.

To this end, he lavished gifts upon his liege lords and vassals alike, demonstrating that he had the discernment and largesse of spirit to rule wisely and well. As I was learning, gift giving among the Arabs is a meticulous arrangement of balances as perilous as it is precise, for each and every gift carries with it an obligation which binds the recipient to the giver in many and various ways. Ghazi gave gifts to his overlords so they would grant him the authority to proceed with his plans of conquest. Caliph al-Mutarshid, commanding the highest power, was given the greatest gifts.

The fortuitous appearance of the Egyptian envoy added another element to the intricate symmetry of powers and ob
ligations which Eastern potentates glory in manipulating. As it happened, the celebration Sahak mentioned was to mark the proposal of a peace treaty between Baghdad and Cairo. It was not until much later that I learned how the two powerful caliphates had been at each other's throats for many years—owing to differences over religious observance, mostly. The fall of Jerusalem had awakened them to the danger of a house divided; the Caliph of Cairo, a more far-thinking ruler than most, had, I would eventually discover, offered his extensive fleet for the use of a combined Arab army united against the common enemy. Together Cairo and Baghdad might drive out the invading foreigners.

This offer had been spurned by the arrogant and pride-bound Baghdad caliphate, which considered itself superior to Cairo in every way. Still, as the years passed and the crusaders established themselves as a continual threat and ever-present thorn in the side of the Arabs, Baghdad began to soften to the idea of uniting against the crusaders. With the fall of Antioch imminent, and the prospect of recapturing Jerusalem a genuine possibility for the first time in many years, the young Caliph al-Mutarshid decided it was time to make peace with Cairo. Toward that end, the Egyptian emissary, who was merely making a routine visit to Damascus, had been summoned and lavished with gifts by way of a peace offering.

The Arabs have long enjoyed a fantastically elaborate game played between two people on a wooden board with dozens of small carved pieces. I once observed this game, and though I failed to grasp any but the most rudimentary principles, it did seem to capture the essence of the intricate convolutions of the Eastern mind. For although the board is marked with fixed squares of alternating color, red and white, each piece moves entirely at will—but only within certain tightly circumscribed limitations peculiar to its rank. And for each move there is a countermove, each power balanced by an equal and opposite power. A game of infinite possibility, it is nevertheless played out according to rules as immutable as the mountains and invariable as a sunrise.

I had become like one of the lesser pieces in this strange
game, and when the emissary departed Damascus two days later, I went with him—and all the rest of the plunder amassed by Ghazi as well, to be given to the Egyptian caliph as tokens of reconciliation between the powerful rulers of Baghdad and Cairo. So, following a five-day march overland from Damascus to the port of Sidon on the coast, I was put aboard one of the sturdy ships of the Egyptian caliph's substantial fleet, and we sailed for Cairo, arriving five days later at Damietta on the wide, spreading, many-fingered delta of the river Nile.

We left the ship at the harbor of Damietta, a foul stinkhole of a town, and proceeded by sailing barge up the wide, muddy river to Cairo. I stood at the low rail and watched the graceful riverboats with their single, fin-shaped sails and long steering oars, gliding slowly on the brown water. We passed tiny settlements built on the banks of the river with long fields of green cultivated grain stretching in wide, generous bands behind. One after another, we passed them, so many that they seemed after awhile to merge into a single, endless strip of villages all the way to Cairo.

I stood on the deck of the barge and watched life along the river unfold like a vast, seamless tapestry unrolled before me to reveal the age-old images of the river realm: three boys riding a donkey piled high with palm branches; a girl with a willow switch in her hand, herding gray geese along the path; two women washing clothes at the riverside; men casting fishing nets from small, bobbing boats; a youth carrying a row of dried fish on a pole over his shoulder; a laughing bevy of girls with water jars on their heads, their mantles knotted around their slender hips; a farmer gathering rushes with a curved scythe, and another leading an ox-drawn cart mounded with yellow melons; naked brown children wading in the cool shallows.

From the moment we entered the river channel, all that had gone before seemed to fade away into the warm, heavy air of the valley lowland. The looming tribulations of the last days dwindled away to piddling insignificance in the face of an immense and all-pervading tranquillity. No mere human event could disturb the prodigious peace of that land; the
great tempests of war and ruin that wreak such havoc among men are but fleeting squalls that arise and disappear, swallowed in a serenity as old as the earth. I stood on the deck of the barge, and felt myself being drawn down and down into the limitless depths of the most profound calm I had ever known—as if the timeless sky with its bright spray of stars wheeling through its eternal round proclaimed:
this, too, shall pass
.

From the beginning, I was treated well by those charged with my captivity. Perhaps they were not told the circumstances of my imprisonment. Then again, as my little jailer, Wazim Kadi, told me when I was brought to the caliph's palace, “The Seljuqs are barbarians. Everyone knows this. They are coarse ruffians from out of Rhum where they live like wandering beasts.”

Of all the many contending races in the turbulent East, the Saracens consider themselves the most civil and refined, with a duty to impart their singular virtues and qualities to those less enlightened than themselves. It may be that when they learned I had been a captive of the Seljuqs, the courtly and cultured Saracens took it upon themselves to demonstrate their courtesy.

Nevertheless, it was with no little trepidation that I disembarked on the wooden quay which serves the impossible sprawl that is
al-Qahirah
, as the Arabs call it—the Victorious, for it overwhelms all would-be conquerors, and vanquishes all with its inexhaustible wealth of seductions.

I looked out from the quay at the dizzying tumult, masses of bodies which seemed to ebb and flow like a mottled flood, shimmering with sweat in the midday swelter, and I quailed before the sight. My
reprieve
, as Sahak called it, merely exchanged one captivity for another. I did not know what manner of reception awaited me with the Saracens; I did not know whether I should be set free, or executed before the day was finished.

The Black Rood, still bound in the rug in which I had wrapped it, went with me. In this only was I content; the holy relic was my strength and my consolation as we made our way up from the river with a train of bearers and han
dlers hired from the quayside to carry the caliph's treasure. Passing through one squalid settlement after another, we made our slow way toward the massive iron gates that guard the inner city. The poor and wretched of the East have heard that the streets of Cairo are paved with bricks of gold, and the city cannot hold them all; so, they build their hovels between the banks of the Nile and the high city walls, and every spring the floods come and wash these pitiful dwellings away. Many are drowned and their corpses are eaten by crocodiles—ravenous dragonlike river monsters that bedevil the lower marshes of the river.