The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories (64 page)

“I do not,” Jalal ad-Din replied. “You paraphrase the third
sura
of the
Qu’ran
.”

“There, you see?” Paul said to Telerikh. “Even the Arab himself admits the ferocity of his faith. Think also on the nature of the paradise Muhammad in his ignorance promises his followers-”

“Why do you not speak?” Da’ud ibn Zubayr demanded. “You let this man slander and distort everything in which we believe.”

“Hush,” Jalal ad-Din said again.

“-rivers of water and milk, honey and wine, and men reclining on silken couches and being served-served in all ways, including pandering to their fleshly lusts (as if souls could have such concerns!)-by females created especially for the purpose.” Paul paused, needing a moment to draw in another indignant breath. “Such carnal indulgences-nay, excesses-have no place in heaven, excellent khan.”

“No? What does, then?” Telerikh asked.

Awe transfigured the monk’s thin, ascetic face as he looked within himself at the afterlife he envisioned. “Heaven, excellent khan, does not consist of banquets and wenches: those are for gluttons and sinners in this life, and lead to hell in the next. No: paradise is spiritual in nature, with the soul knowing the eternal joy of closeness and unity with God, peace of spirit and absence of all care. That is the true meaning of heaven.”

“Amen,” Theodore intoned piously. All three Christians made the sign of the cross over their breasts.

“That is the true meaning of heaven, you say?” Telerikh’s blunt-featured face was impassive as his gaze swung toward Jalal ad-Din. “Now you may speak as you will, man of the caliph. Has this Christian told accurately of the world to come in his faith and in yours?”

“He has, magnificent khan.” Jalal ad-Din spread his hands and smiled at the Bulgar lord. “I leave it to you, sir, to pick the paradise you would sooner inhabit.”

Telerikh looked thoughtful. The Christian clerics’ expressions went from confident to concerned to horrified as they gradually began to wonder, as Jalal ad-Din had already, just what sort of heaven a barbarian prince might enjoy.

Da’ud ibn Zubayr gently thumped Jalal ad-Din on the back. “I abase myself before you, sir,” he said, flowery in apology as Arabs so often were. “You saw further than I.” Jalal ad-Din bowed on his bench, warmed by the praise.

His voice urgent, the priest Niketas spoke up: “Excellent khan, you need to consider one thing more before you make your choice.”

“Eh? And what might that be?” Telerikh sounded distracted. Jalal ad-Din hoped he was; the delights of the Muslim paradise were worth being distracted about. Paul’s version, on the other hand, struck him as a boring way to spend eternity. But the khan, worse luck, was not altogether ready to abandon Christianity on account of that. Jalal ad-Din saw him focus his attention on Niketas. “Go on, priest.”

“Thank you, excellent khan.” Niketas bowed low. “Think on this, then: in Christendom the most holy Pope is the leader of all things spiritual, true, but there are many secular rulers, each to his own state: the Lombard dukes, the king of the Franks, the Saxon and Angle kings in Britain, the various Irish princes, every one a free man. But Islam knows only once prince, the caliph, who reigns over all Muslims. If you decide to worship Muhammad, where is there room for you as ruler of your own Bulgaria?”

“No one worships Muhammad,” Jalal ad-Din said tartly. “He is a prophet, not a god. Worship Allah, who alone deserves it.”

His correction of the minor point did not distract Telerikh from the major one. “Is what the Christian says true?” the khan demanded. “Do you expect me to bend the knee to your khan as well as your god? Why should I freely give Abd ar-Rahman what he has never won in battle?”

Jalal ad-Din thought furiously, all the while damning Niketas. Priest, celibate the man might be, but he still thought like a Greek, like a Roman Emperor of Constantinople, sowing distrust among his foes so they defeated themselves when his own strength did not suffice to beat them.

“Well, Arab, what have you to say?” Telerikh asked again.

Jalal ad-Din felt sweat trickle into his beard. He knew he had let silence stretch too long. At last, picking his words carefully, he answered, “Magnificent khan, what Niketas says is not true. Aye, the caliph Abd ar-Rahman, peace be unto him, rules all the land of Islam. But he does so by right of conquest and right of descent, just as you rule the Bulgars. Were you, were your people, to become Muslim without warfare, he would have no more claim on you than any brother in Islam has on another.”

He hoped he was right, and that the jurists would not make a liar of him once he got back to Damascus. All the ground here was uncharted: no nation had ever accepted Islam without first coming under the control of the caliphate. Well, he thought, if Telerikh and the Bulgars did convert, that success in itself would ratify anything he did to accomplish it.

If . . . Telerikh showed no signs of having made up his mind. “I will meet with all of you in four days,” the khan said. He rose, signifying the end of the audience. The rival embassies rose too, and bowed deeply as he stumped between them out of the hall of audience.

“If only it were easy.” Jalal ad-Din sighed.

* * *

THE LEATHER PURSE WAS SMALL but heavy. It hardly clinked as Jalal ad-Din pressed it into Dragomir’s hand. The steward made it disappear. “Tell me, if you would,” Jalal ad-Din said, as casually as if the purse had never existed at all, “how your master is inclined toward the two faiths about which he has been learning.”

“You are not the first person to ask me that question,” Dragomir remarked. He sounded the tiniest bit smug:
I’ve been bribed twice,
Jalal ad-Din translated mentally.

“Was the other person who inquired by any chance Niketas?” the Arab asked.

Telerikh’s steward dipped his head. “Why, yes, now that you mention it.” His ice-blue eyes gave Jalal ad-Din a careful once-over: men who could see past their noses deserved watching.

Smiling, Jalal ad-Din said, “And did you give him the same answer you will give me?”

“Why, certainly, noble sir.” Dragomir sounded as though the idea of doing anything else had never entered his mind. Perhaps it had not: “I told him, as I tell you now, that the mighty khan keeps his own counsel well, and has not revealed to me which faith-if either-he will choose.”

“You are an honest man.” Jalal ad-Din sighed. “Not as helpful as I would have hoped, but honest nonetheless.”

Dragomir bowed. “And you, noble sir, are most generous. Be assured that if I knew more, I would pass it on to you.” Jalal ad-Din nodded, thinking it would be a sorry spectacle indeed if one who served the caliph, the richest, mightiest lord in the world, could not afford a more lavish bribe than a miserable Christian priest.

However lavish the payment, though, it had not bought him what he wanted. He bowed his way out of Telerikh’s palace, spent the morning wandering through Pliska in search of trinkets for his fair-skinned bedmate. Here too he was spending Abd ar-Rahman’s money, so only the finest goldwork interested him.

He went from shop to shop, sometimes pausing to dicker, sometimes not. The rings and necklaces the Bulgar craftsmen displayed were less intricate, less ornate than those that would have fetched highest prices in Damascus, but had a rough vigor of their own. Jalal ad-Din finally chose a thick chain studded with fat garnets and pieces of polished jet.

He tucked the necklace into his robe, sat down to rest outside the jeweler’s shop. The sun blazed down. It was not as high in the sky, not as hot, really, as it would have been in Damascus at the same season, but this was muggy heat, not dry, and seemed worse. Jalal ad-Din felt like a boiled fish. He started to doze.

“
Assalamu aleykum
-peace to you,” someone said. Jalal ad-Din jerked awake, looked up. Niketas stood in front of him. Well, he’d long since gathered that the priest spoke Arabic, though they’d only used Greek between themselves till now.

“
Aleykum assalamu
-and to you, peace,” he replied. He yawned and stretched and started to get to his feet. Niketas took him by the elbow, helped him rise. “Ah, thank you. You are generous to an old man, and one who is no friend of yours.”

“Christ teaches us to love our enemies,” Niketas shrugged. “I try to obey His teachings, as best I can.”

Jalal ad-Din thought that teaching a stupid one-the thing to do with an enemy was to get rid of him. The Christians did not really believe what they said, either; he remembered how they’d fought at Constantinople, even after the walls were breached. But the priest had just been kind-no point in churlishly arguing with him.

Instead, the Arab said, “Allah be praised, day after tomorrow the khan will make his choice known.” He cocked an eyebrow at Niketas. “Dragomir tells me you tried to learn his answer in advance.”

“Which can only mean you did the same.” Niketas laughed drily. “I suspect you learned no more than I did.”

“Only that Dragomir is fond of gold,” Jalal ad-Din admitted.

Niketas laughed again, then grew serious. “How strange, is it not, that the souls of a nation ride on the whim of a man both ignorant and barbarous. God grant that he choose wisely.”

“From God comes all things,” Jalal ad-Din said. The Christian nodded; that much they believed in common. Jalal ad-Din went on, “That shows, I believe, why Telerikh will decide for Islam.”

“No, you are wrong there,” Niketas answered. “He must choose Christ. Surely God will not allow those who worship Him correctly to be penned up in one far corner of the world, and bar them forever from access to whatever folk may lie north and east of Bulgaria.”

Jalal ad-Din started to answer, then stopped and gave his rival a respectful look. As he had already noticed, Niketas’ thought had formidable depth to it. However clever he was, though, the priest who might have been Emperor had to deal with his weakness in the real world. Jalal ad-Din drove that weakness home: “If God loves you so well, why has he permitted us Muslims dominion over so many of you, and why has he let us drive you back and back, even giving over Constantinople, your imperial city, into our hands?”

“Not for your own sake, I’m certain,” Niketas snapped.

“No? Why then?” Jalal ad-Din refused to be nettled by the priest’s tone.

“Because of the multitude of our own sins, I’m sure. Not only was-
is
-Christendom sadly riddled with heresies and false beliefs, even those who believe what is true all too often lead sinful lives. Thus your eruption from the desert, to serve as God’s flail and as punishment for our errors.”

“You have answers to everything-everything but God’s true will. He will show that day after tomorrow, through Telerikh.”

“That He will.” With a stiff little bow, Niketas took his leave. Jalal ad-Din watched him go, wondering if hiring a knifeman would be worthwhile in spite of Telerikh’s warnings. Reluctantly, he decided against it; not here in Pliska, he thought. In Damascus he could have arranged it and never been traced, but he lacked those sorts of connections here. Too bad.

Only when he was almost back to the khan’s palace to give the pleasure girl the trinket did he stop to wonder whether Niketas was thinking about sticking a knife in
him
. Christian priests were supposed to be above such things, but Niketas himself had pointed out what sinners Christians were these days.

TELERIKH’S SERVANTS summoned Jalal ad-Din and the other Arabs to the audience chamber just before the time for mid-afternoon prayers. Jalal ad-Din did not like having to put off the ritual; it struck him as a bad omen. He tried to stay serene. Voicing the inauspicious thought aloud would only give it power.

The Christians were already in the chamber when the Arabs entered. Jalal ad-Din did not like that either. Catching his eye, Niketas sent him a chilly nod. Theodore only scowled, as he did whenever he had anything to do with Muslims. The monk Paul, though, smiled at Jalal ad-Din as if at a dear friend. That only made him worry more.

Telerikh waited until both delegations stood before him. “I have decided,” he said abruptly. Jalal ad-Din drew in a sudden, sharp breath. From the number of boyars who echoed him, he guessed that not even the khan’s nobles knew his will. Dragomir had not lied, then.