The Sword of Damascus (34 page)

‘You are angry with me,’ he said with an anxious look.

I thought of the wine jug still in its hiding place. Edward was in no state to fish about behind the big book. I’d get up in a moment.

‘Not angry with you,’ I said. I twisted painfully round and looked again at the notes. ‘I am angry, I’ll confess, but not with you – nor over anything you might think important.’ He twisted carefully in his place and crossed his legs. I sighed. ‘Look, Edward, I’ve been fixed for years on a project of sight improvement that I’ve now come close to making effective. I made further interesting discoveries while you were asleep. Now, by yet another happy accident, I’ve discovered this.’ I reached round once more and took up a piece of parchment two inches by six. I’d dyed it black with ink, and had got one of my workmen to glue some one-inch leather studs on to it. At each end of the strip was a hole with a six-inch length of ribbon. I reached behind and tied it round my head, arranging it at the proper distance. ‘You may not see the pattern of holes where this covers my eyes. But, so long as the light continues good, I can see you almost perfectly. So long as there is any sunlight, I can read better than with those lenses.’ I pulled the thing off my head and dropped it on the floor.

‘But surely, this is good news?’ the boy asked. He looked confused. He’d plainly fixed it into his mind that I was angry with him. ‘If you can see better with this than having to carry those heavy glass discs about, why are you not happy?’

Good question. I collected my thoughts to explain myself clearly in Latin.

‘Because, Edward, I don’t understand how letting the light into my eyes through a series of dots achieves the same effect as those lenses. I can imagine the deflection of atoms through a curved medium. These pinpricks are a mystery that destroys every theory of vision I’ve ever encountered. And because, Edward, I should have noticed something so simple as this before your grandparents were born. And because, Edward, I needlessly spent years in Jarrow – and, before then, years in Constantinople – barely able to read words chalked large on a board, let alone in a book. And because, Edward, right at the end of my life, I feel like a traveller who climbs over a ridge on what he thinks is an island and sees spread out before him a vast and limitless continent. Try to imagine the horror – or, at least, the sheer annoyance – of what I have discovered.’

‘But if you can see to read,’ he said, looking still more confused, ‘does it matter if you don’t know the reason? So long as you can read now, does it matter if you couldn’t read yesterday?’

I sighed. Fair questions. And there was, even if the boy didn’t realise, a good philosophical theory behind them. But drinks with Meekal, and then this, had soured me no end. I got up and, with much grunting, managed to lay hands on the wine jug. I poured two full cups and handed one to Edward.

‘This should dull some of the pain,’ I said. I didn’t bother specifying whose. ‘If you don’t feel up to the banquet, His Highness the Governor will excuse you with all wishes for a better tomorrow. I, unfortunately, am judged fit to put in some kind of an appearance.’ I sat down again with a heavy thump that reminded me of my own bruised bones. ‘Do you know why I brought you here with me?’ I asked. He sat up and leaned carefully forward. ‘I brought you because I thought you might be of some use to me, and because I couldn’t think what else to do with you. On reflection, I think it would have been better to pack you off to Spain.’

‘They want something big of you?’ he asked. ‘Is it secrets of how to take Constantinople?’

‘Sort of,’ I answered. ‘My grandson Meekal’ – I ignored the further question in his eyes – ‘was too polite to come straight out with it this afternoon. But he wants me to help complete the destruction of the Empire. I have no doubt you will be some of the pressure he loads on me to go along with him. I won’t tell you when I guessed this much. But I do most humbly apologise for what I’ve semi-knowingly brought you into.’ I finished my cup and reached ineffectually forward for the jug. The light was now fading, and someone would come in soon to light the lamps.

Edward got up and refilled my cup. He stood over me and looked down into my face. ‘Then do what they want,’ he said. ‘What’s one empire against another? No – these people have welcomed you with honour. All the Greeks want is to kill you. I can accept you’re upset about the cure for your eyes. I can’t see what the bother is about who rules in Constantinople.’

I smiled bleakly and took a fold of the boy’s tunic between my forefinger and thumb. It was made of the thick-woven silk that costs its weight in gold. It suited him well. I tried to remember him as he’d been back in Jarrow, with that silly hairstyle and those dirty rags he used to wear. Even with every reason to treat me well, Meekal would have trouble not to rape him on the spot. There was a gentle knock at the door. One slave came in with a lighted taper for the lamps, another to remind me of my bath and the fine clothes that had been sent up to adorn me. Pulling on Edward’s arm, I got up.

‘I’ve given instructions,’ I said, ‘for you to be put to bed with one drop of opium in warm honey juice. Please make sure not to ask for more than that.’

Edward stopped at the door. ‘Do you think we’ll get out of this alive?’ he asked.

I grinned. ‘I’ll work on that,’ I said.

Chapter 40

‘As my esteemed grandfather,’ Meekal whispered as he passed by, ‘you are, of course, exempt from the obligation to present me with a gift.’

I smiled and kept my place at the head of the queue. ‘My dearest kinsman,’ I said back to him, ‘you represent the Caliph, in whose most generous hospitality I bask. I should be mortified to be treated differently from any other guest.’

He turned his mouth down and continued on his slow, ceremonial path to the high point of the banqueting hall. Dressed from head to toe in his usual black silk, he took his place before a vast tapestry that, in its chaotic representation of birds and flowers, was obviously Egyptian, and stood, with Karim on his left and, on his right, a much older man whom I recognised as the great Abbas – Deputy Commander of the Faithful and Admiral of the fleet that I’d watched burn to the waterline from my place on the walls of Constantinople. He looked grimly back at me, then, with a resigned gesture, nodded his greeting.

The hall was a square about two hundred feet on each side. Its roof, supported on four great internal columns, was a dome of glass bricks that glowed with the last rays of the setting sun. In preparation for the long evening ahead, great rings of lamps had already been suspended from iron hooks sunk into the glass bricks. Attached like acrobats by ropes to other hooks, slaves waited on ledges far overhead to swing silently out as required to attend to the lamps.

The floor was of polished black granite. Like the waters of a Kentish pond, it gleamed in the dying light of the day and the growing relative brightness of the lamps. Where the tapestries broke off, the walls were covered with mosaics from an older time of hunting and feasting scenes.

‘It is an honour that I shall describe to my sons,’ someone behind me said softly, ‘to stand so close to the Magnificent al-Arik, Shield of the Greeks. One of my wives is niece to a man whom you caused to be instructed in the learning of the ancients. Her family, though now of the Faithful, still rejoices to have known your generosity of heart.’

‘I shall be honoured to know his name,’ I said gravely. The converted name of Hamid meant nothing to me. But I spoke well of his willingness to remember favours from the days when he still ranked among the Cross Worshippers.

But now the herald had taken his place just before Meekal. With two blasts on a silver trumpet, the gathering was called to order. He stood forward and raised his arms for attention.

‘His Highness Meekal, Governor of Syria, trusted companion of His Majestic Holiness,’ he cried in a loud voice that echoed from the back of the hall, ‘Meekal, whose piety is known from a thousand battlefields and in innumerable works of charity, bids greeting to you, beloved guests and friends. Peace be upon you all. May you recall the words of the Prophet, upon whom be there peace.’ There was a general mutter throughout the hall of ‘Peace be upon Him.’ The herald smiled, and took in another lungful of air. ‘When asked what was the greatest good in the Faith, know that the Prophet replied, “Feeding others and giving the greeting of peace to those whom you know and those whom you do not know.” ’

So the man went on and on, while the guests shouted out the appropriate responses. I didn’t think it would end, and that I’d have to pull the rank that age and achievements had earned me, and be taken off to my couch. But it did end, and we shuffled forward. With a flick of my tongue, I had my teeth in place. I opened my mouth and took a deep breath.

‘Mighty Meekal,’ I cried in a voice that was somewhere between a quaver and a shout, ‘trusted and beloved friend of the Caliph’ – I thought it best not to dwell on the family connection, even if it was a matter of common knowledge – ‘accept this humble gift of a book that, nevertheless, contains the wisdom of the ancients.’ I nudged the attendant who stood beside me. He stepped forward and presented the scientific work of Aristotle I’d picked up in Beirut. I’d made sure to have the pages taken out and cleaned and then rebound in white vellum with gold and silver inlays. Young Michael had been a crap student: his own taste in the ancients had never run beyond military history. Meekal the Merciless would never notice the gross corruption in two of the middle chapters – assuming it wasn’t Edward’s own reading that wasn’t at fault. But it was a pretty book.

He glanced at it and smiled graciously. ‘It shall, O Magnificent One, be placed among my most valuable treasures,’ he called out in a great voice, ‘and shown to my most honoured guests.’ He dropped his voice and fell into Greek. ‘And do have this, my darling Alaric.’ Someone reached forward with a small golden box. ‘You’ve already had your teeth back. I trust this, your recovered cock piercing, will be of equal use.’

We hurried through the formal kiss, and I was carried off to my dining couch. This, sadly, was placed right beside Meekal’s. With the changes necessary for the difference of religion, this was a banquet that reproduced all the heavy formality of the Imperial court. Age would get me out of staying to the grisly end. But I reclined in the raised area of the hall, a couple of hundred other couches spread out beyond like the blocks on a polished wooden floor. My every gesture could and would be observed.

I maintained a diplomatic immobility during the reading from the Prophet’s sayings, smiled benignly through the endless speeches and shouts of greeting to the Old One al-Arik, and finally took in one hand the loaf that Meekal held out to me. We broke it together and shared a drink from a goblet that was more impressive than its contents. The banquet had begun. It was the standard civilised food – fresh salads, pickled cucumbers, hummus eaten with unleavened bread. Some of this I could eat, some not. Beyond some goat that had been boiled down to a sort of jelly, Meekal didn’t press the meat dishes on me. My teeth placed discreetly in their ebony box, I ate with a nice balance of the cautious and the grateful. I even managed not to drool too much on to my new banqueting robe.

One of the differences between Greek and Saracen dining is that the latter tend to eat in silence. It’s one of the customs they brought with them from a desert where food is so rare that it isn’t to be spoiled by the chatter of conversation. That saved me from the ordeal of having to be pleasant to Meekal. But, regardless of custom, he was hard at work with his secretaries. It was, so far as I could tell, the usual work of the powerful – petitions, diplomatic letters, internal administration. He drank steadily from a cup of what may have been ginger broth, and chewed morsels of food between dictating brief answers and instructions. Every so often, he’d dart a look of wolfish triumph in my direction. I countered these by ignoring him.

Once, after a long and very gloaty inspection, I called for the potty men. While one held the silver pot for my – genuine – call of nature, the other held the screens about me. It was, in every sense, a moment of bliss. As the screen was taken down, though, I saw Meekal was on his feet. Breathing hard, his beard thrust out straight in front of him, he was looking exultantly about the hall. Several hundred hands had stopped their steady scooping up of food, and everyone was looking nervously in his direction. Then, he pointed at one of the serving boys. I looked hard at the lad. He seemed well-made, and perhaps a few years older than Edward. I couldn’t say more, as all that playing with lenses and dotty parchment had left my unaided vision worse than it had been. But I heard the quiet mutter of approval that ran about the room.

I shrugged as my own attendant rearranged my banqueting wig. This sort of thing would never have done in the Imperial court – not even under Constans. But this wasn’t Michael the Greek. Meekal the Saracen could probably have taken the boy straight outside for a spot of bum fun. For my own reason, I rather wished he had. But the first courses were now being cleared away, and we had a most welcome break. I put my teeth back in for a desultory conversation with someone who came up and asked about the mosque I’d caused to be endowed in Constantinople. At last, he drifted off to bore someone else, and a small man with a boy walked into the one clear space within the hall. Now, the buzz of chatter fell silent. With a bow to Meekal and to me as guest of honour, he looked round. His mouth opened, his teeth a brilliant white against the brown of his face. He began.

‘Once upon a time there dwelt in Egypt a confectioner who had a wife famed for beauty and loveliness; and a parrot which, as occasion required, did the office of watchman and guard, bell and spy, and flapped her wings did she but hear a fly buzzing about the sugar. This parrot caused abundant trouble to the wife, always telling her husband what took place in his absence. Now one evening, before going out to visit certain friends, the confectioner gave the bird strict injunctions to watch all night and bade his wife make all fast, as he should not return until morning. Hardly had he left the door than the woman went for her old lover, who returned with her and they passed the night together in mirth and merriment, while the parrot observed all . . .’