The Sword of Damascus (23 page)

‘Well, we ain’t taking no chances,’ he added with a laugh. He tipped his head back and hawked. The flob landed about an inch from my left sandal. I resisted the urge to look down, and focused on the passport Ezra had bribed out of the Prefecture. ‘If you are what you say you are, you won’t mind hitching up that fancy robe for me.’

Bastard shitbag! I thought. If ever I were in a position to do him ill, I’d have him chained to one of the slave oars of this ship. And I’d not have him moved to the other side every month. He could grow as lop-sided from continuous exercise as he’d let the other slaves I’d seen as I came on board. Then, the free oarsmen could come up and piss all over him. But I smiled greasily and did as I was told. I steeled myself not to set about him with my stick as he barked out another laugh and invited the other passengers to get a look at my circumcision. It was enough that the grim, unsmiling guard beside him bent down for a long inspection, then went back to his continuous scanning of everyone else boarding the ship.

‘The boy’s not a Jew, though,’ the Captain added with a statement of the bleeding obvious.

Still not speaking, I pointed shakily at one of the lower sections of the passport. It confirmed my permission to own a Christian slave.

‘And I suppose you’ll be trading him with the enemy, won’t you?’ came the reply. He took up the sheet of papyrus and waved it around. ‘Boys like him fetch their weight in silver among the debauched Saracens.’ He raised his voice and repeated the witticism. Someone behind me laughed. Well he might laugh. If we hadn’t all been granted permits to trade with the enemy, why else was the ship filling up with merchants in the first place? Just because there’s a war on doesn’t mean trade has to stop.

‘Oh, fuck off, then,’ he snarled, waving me on board. ‘But I don’t want none of your Jewboy caterwauling on deck. I run a Christian ship, and I’m proud of it.’ He waited until Edward had gathered all our documents back into his satchel and we were moving off in search of our cabin. ‘It’s salt pork for dinner,’ he bawled after us. ‘It’ll be served just after prayers.’

After what seemed an endless wait, the ship pitched horribly to one side, and we were moving slowly away from the docks. Still gripping hard on the side, I stood beside Edward and looked back at Caesarea. The whole family had turned out to wave goodbye. There was old Ezra, capering about like a schoolboy as he waved his stick at me. There was Jacob, sitting dazed on an abandoned crate and looking intently at something in his hand that I couldn’t see, but could easily imagine. And there was a whole tribe of sobbing women. I strained to see more clearly. Was that Ezra’s wife blowing kisses at us? I looked at Edward. His face was as impassive as it had been on that day, so long before, in Jarrow. Not bad for only thirteen, I’m sure you’ll agree.

‘How long to Beirut, My Lord?’ he asked.

I looked up at the clear, blue sky, and at the large birds that screeched and careered against the backdrop of the sky. Storms and pirates allowing, I told him, we’d be there in fourteen days – sooner if the wind held up.

‘And it is ruled by the Saracens?’ he asked, in English. He went back to his inspection of the receding docks.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s been in their hands over fifty years now. When I was your age, it was a thoroughly Greek city. Any Syrian with ambitions who settled there had no choice but to learn Greek and fit in. Why, it once even had the third largest law school in the Empire. It’s still the main port for that part of Syria. But it’s well outside the Empire nowadays. And that, my dear, is why it’s to be Beirut for us. It has all the civilised amenities – without any Brother Joseph to cut short my decline.’ I tried to scan the docks. They’d receded too far now to be other than a blur. ‘Anyone else back there you might recognise?’ I asked, switching too into English.

Edward gave the docks another long and general inspection. He shook his head. ‘Whom else were you expecting me to see?’ he asked.

Since he knew perfectly well whom I had in mind, I ignored the question. I looked closely at the boy – and, seen in profile, he still was rather boyish. I looked over the side. We were now perhaps a mile out from Caesarea. Unless he’d secreted himself on board – not impossible, bearing in mind how big this ship was – Joseph was far behind us. It was just the passengers on this ship, plus the attendant slaves. I changed the subject.

‘Tell me, Edward,’ I asked, ‘have you any idea what poor Wilfred was trying to confess before he died? He mentioned Cuthbert several times. Is there any light you can shed on his final words?’ Though just a little, the face tightened. I could see him thinking and then choose his words.

‘Though I don’t believe he understood the full meaning of what was put to him,’ came the measured reply, ‘he was promised safety by Cuthbert from the first group of raiders.’ He paused. ‘You do know that Cuthbert was involved with them?’

I nodded. ‘Do you know who was employing him?’ I asked. I mentioned the cash under his bed. The other objects Edward might already have seen.

He shook his head. ‘I didn’t guess he was involved until the night before Hrothgar walked into the monastery,’ he said. He paused and chose his words again. ‘Wilfred came to me that night. I’d been – I’d been kind to him ever since I realised he was your second favourite after Bede. I knew we’d need a hostage, and I wanted to make sure that Wilfred would be close by me when the gate opened.’ He stopped and gave me a defiant look.

What was I supposed to do? Set about him again with my stick? I raised my eyebrows and shrugged. Wouldn’t I have done the same in his position?

‘Wilfred came to me that night,’ he repeated. ‘He told me that Cuthbert had propositioned him, offering safety as the reward. It was then that I guessed the first group was sent just to kill you – you and everyone else in the monastery. Cuthbert would let them in when he was able, and would himself be spared.’

I smiled and leaned harder on the rail. Hrothgar had been hard enough put to keep order among his own men of that breed. Any deal Cuthbert might have had with the Big Man would have come unstuck the moment he’d got the gate open. Everything he’d gloatingly predicted for the others would then have been his too. Almost a shame Hrothgar had turned up in time.

What I was now learning was interesting. But, since Edward couldn’t give me the answer I needed, it wasn’t that important.

‘It was Cuthbert who knocked Wilfred about?’ I asked. Edward nodded. ‘He told you about the rejected proposition and the beating?’ Another nod. ‘You guessed what was happening, and attached yourself to Cuthbert to see what you could learn.’

‘I got nothing,’ the boy said stiffly.

Did he know I’d overheard their ‘courtship’? Best not to go on.

‘Is that all Wilfred told you of his dealings with Cuthbert?’ I asked. ‘Since the proposal was almost certainly not accepted, Wilfred doesn’t sound much of a sinner.’ I looked closely at the boy’s face. Once more, he was thinking what to say.

‘He told me nothing more,’ came the final answer. We looked awhile in silence at the birds, which were now swooping out of the sky to pick among the refuse thrown behind us. ‘What will we do in Beirut?’ he suddenly asked. ‘I know Ezra has given you some money – his wife told me that much. But what shall we do once that has run out?’ For the first time in days, the look on his face was genuine. My slippery young Edward was on his way back to frightened boy.

‘Oh, think nothing of that,’ I said, taking my turn at the enigmatic. ‘If you manage to live as long as I have, you too will realise that something always turns up. It’s just a matter of recognising it.’

I turned and looked up again at the sky. Even wearing a hat with a wide brim, I found the sun rather much. We’d go and see what foul-smelling cupboard we’d been assigned for our quarters. I had thought it was time to fill Edward in on a few of the details that made Beirut so attractive, now Spain was off the menu. But that, I now decided, could wait until we were there. For the moment, it would be best to keep him busy with his Greek. Yes, I’d work him on that till he wished he could take one of the oars on this ship. Just because Beirut was no longer an Imperial city, didn’t make the Empire’s language any less important – not, at any rate, so long as it remained the official language of Syria. For now, though, I let him stand, looking silently back at the vanishing docks of Caesarea and all the happy memories that would keep him warm at night until such time as he might renew them in Beirut.

The main part of the voyage was without any incident worth recording. The wind still blew briskly from the west, and, while that was behind us, we hardly needed the oars. By day, we made excellent time. At night, we put into shore for safety. This wasn’t a northern ship, after all, that was built for crossing the open sea. It was an elegant little galley. More important, it was filled with persons of reasonable quality who’d not have taken kindly to more risk than was unavoidable. We stopped at Cyrene for supplies, and then for a couple of days in Alexandria, to offload some of the black slaves who’d been moaning away in the hold, and to take on additional passengers. I did think to get off and walk about the city I’d helped, so long ago, to rule. But it would only have upset me. I might have felt some obligation – if only to Omar’s memory – to see what really had become of the library. Further thought told me to stay on board. It was enough to squint at the sights as we sailed into one of the harbours. They all seemed in order – the Lighthouse, of course, the gigantic Palace from which representatives of the Caliph, and not of Caesar, now collected the grain tribute, the high pillar erected by Diocletian: these were all still in place, whatever changes might be seen around them. About me in the harbour, there was the same jumbled shouting as seventy years before of Greek and Egyptian. But after that one inspection, I went back to my cabin, where Edward read haltingly from the collection of Plutarch biographies that Jacob had given me as a parting gift.

Our only excitement came on the second day of our long, direct jump from Alexandria to the Syrian shore.

‘Oh, Master!’ Edward cried as he rushed into the cabin. He tripped over a chair and landed with a heavy bump about a foot from my little cot. I opened my eyes and looked blearily at him. I’d put half a drop of Jacob’s amazing opium juice under my tongue for breakfast, and had ever since been enjoying myself in a sequence of dreams that seemed never to end. I saw that it was Edward and focused on the dreams, trying to keep them from vanishing like a morning frost. But all I managed to snatch before it was too late was something erotic that involved a crocodile.

‘Master, there’s a ship coming alongside,’ he said, stretching out his arms to help me from the cot. ‘I heard someone say it was an Imperial battle cruiser.’

‘Edward, you forget yourself,’ I said automatically. ‘I am to be addressed now as “My Lord”, not as “Master”. You last saw Brother Aelric on the Tipasa beach.’ He ignored the correction and went into an agitated dance. I groaned, and, since he’d now withdrawn his arms, heaved myself up and made for the open door.

Imperial battle cruiser indeed! You didn’t need perfect vision to see that it was hardly bigger than a scouting ship. Our own deck was a good six feet higher, and the Captain had passed down a ladder for the Greek official who was already on board.

‘You’ll see that our permit is sealed by His Highness the Exarch of Africa,’ the Captain said in the most reasonable tone I’d yet heard from him.

The official glanced at the document and nodded. There was no point questioning its terms. It carried the seal of an exarch. That meant the ship was virtually under orders from the Emperor. The official turned instead to a set of standard questions about contraband. Were we carrying silk thread? Had we taken on spices in Alexandria for Beirut? If yes, had they been listed in the appropriate ledger for payment of the external carriage tax?

So the litany went on. I’d caught some of Edward’s alarm and had come on deck quietly going over my cover story. But I could see there would be no inspection of passports. A thousand miles to the west, half the Imperial Navy might be combing the seas for the returned Alaric. Here, it was simply a matter of advertising which of the two warring powers controlled the seas. It seemed we had outrun the Empire.

‘Now you’ve got me awake,’ I snapped, ‘we can go back to your favourite game. This time, though, I’ll not bother with Plutarch or any of the Gospels. We’ll take one whole sentence at a time from Virgil, and you can put that into Greek.’ Edward’s mouth turned down. I looked at him. The tan he’d got from two voyages in a strengthening sun suited him no end. All very well. But a pretty face without education can be picked up on any slave block. I’d have that boy fluent in Greek if it killed me.

Chapter 28

We put into Beirut on the sixteenth day after leaving Caesarea. I ignored the last and now almost demented burst of abuse from the Captain and allowed Edward to help me from the plank that connected our ship to the pleasingly solid docks.

‘I did tell you to put more clothes on,’ I said. Though the rain had finished, the sky was still overcast, and there was a chilly wind coming down from the mountains. ‘It will be hot enough soon. But this isn’t Africa.’ I let go of the shivering boy, and, leaning on my walking staff, took a few paces forward. I took a deep breath, savouring the smell of grilled meat and of freshly brewed kava berries, and looked around. A jolly little port with no pretensions nowadays to a wider importance, Beirut lies at the point of a triangular projection from the Syrian coast. I’d been here first in my thirties to take the unconditional surrender of all the Persian invasion forces. I’d been here again several years later, once the Saracens had snatched Syria, to settle the lines of truce. I’d been back on any number of occasions since. You see, the place is easily reached by sea from Constantinople, and has a good road connecting it with Damascus. It’s the ideal place for informal discussions between the two great and usually warring powers of the modern world.