by Tom Harper
‘You have to,’ I repeated stubbornly.
‘I can’t.’
‘I could bring him here.’
She stamped her foot in anger. ‘Is that a joke? If Sigurd is so weak, the plague would kill him the minute he looked at Antioch. He must manage without me.’
We stared at each other across the square. The moonlight filled the space between us like glass.
‘If I could, of course I would be with Sigurd this instant,’ she said softly. ‘But I do not have that choice. I chose to come to Antioch and I came freely, because of you. Because I loved you.’ She flicked her hand to shush my embarrassed protest. ‘Now that choice is made, we are each as helpless as the other. We are slaves to powers we cannot defy.’
More tears were tumbling down her cheeks and her eyes were dark with sadness. I longed to run across the courtyard, to hug her to me and crush away the distance between us. But the guard’s spear was steady, hovering like a wasp at the edge of my gaze.
‘The emperor’s new envoy has come,’ I said at last.
Anna brushed away a tear, rubbing her cheek with a loose lock of hair. ‘Then you’re free to go.’
‘He has ordered me to Egypt.’
With all the passion wrung from it, my soul had become dry and calloused. I related Nikephoros’ orders without emotion. Anna listened quietly until I was finished.
‘Will you go?’
I hesitated. I had come there that night with wild plans of escape burning in my heart: I would take Anna out of Antioch, she could heal Sigurd in a secret place until he was well, and then the three of us would make our way back to Constantinople. It was a pleasant dream — but impossible. It was as Anna had said: we had made our choices, or had them forced upon us, and now we would suffer the outcomes.
‘I will go to Egypt,’ I said. ‘Nikephoros has given me little alternative.’ And you have made sure of it, I did not say. To stay in Antioch, waiting to see whether Sigurd’s wounds killed him before the plague killed Anna — it would be like being milled between boulders. Against that, Egypt was almost an enticing prospect.
Anna nodded, as if she had known my decision before I said it.
‘Travel safely,’ she said simply. Her tears had dried up, and her face was calm again.
I could not bring myself to turn away, but stared at Anna as though — by the force and duration of my gaze alone — I could communicate all I felt. She matched my gaze, unyielding. Pity, kindness and desperate sorrow mingled in her face; I thought she might collapse into tears again, and I would have followed suit if she had, but she did not.
Without a word of farewell, she half-raised a hand in mock salute and turned away. The guard followed her as she disappeared between the pillars into the dark cloisters.
9
We sailed for Egypt the next day. I had never been on a ship before, except to cross the few hundred yards of the Bosphorus, but I had always assumed I would hate it. For some reason, I did not. Perhaps I felt so wretched that the turbulent deep beneath our keel lost its terror, or perhaps the suspension of all cares and duties, forced by the confines of the ship, calmed me. It was as if I had been plucked out of my life, cut free of the ties and obligations that held me there, and set adrift upon the blank canvas of the sea. For the first time in months, or even years, I had nothing to do. I sat in the shade of the turret that commanded the centre of the ship and watched the crew, as idle and superfluous as the cat who ate the galley scraps.
Apart from the crew, we were nineteen passengers: Nikephoros and his attendants; a priest; an honour guard of ten Patzinaks who spent most of their time being seasick; one Varangian and myself. The Varangian was Aelfric, the man who had led us out of the burning monastery. The rest of his company had remained with Nikephoros’ colleague, the eunuch, who had the unenviable task of trying to persuade the Frankish princes to resume their march once the plague subsided.
As for Nikephoros, he did not find the same solace I did in the ship. He had commandeered the captain’s quarters at the ship’s stern, and though it must have been a dark and humid room he rarely ventured out. When he did, he had his servants erect a white silk canopy on the foredeck; he would sit there in regal isolation and watch the waves, or sometimes compose long documents, many pages in length, on his ivory writing desk. Though I was nominally his secretary, he never asked me to write them out or confided their contents to me.
One afternoon, two days out of Saint Simeon, I gained some insight into his foul humour. I was sitting in the turret’s shadow, playing with a rope-end and fretting about Anna, when Aelfric came and sat beside me. That in itself was unusual, for he was a quiet man who mostly kept to himself, but I welcomed him. He was small for a Varangian, though large by any other standard. His lean face bespoke a watchful intelligence, and you could see him weighing each word thrice over before he spoke it.
‘I’ve found out why Nikephoros is so grumpy,’ he announced.
I looked up from the frayed fibres I had teased apart. ‘Why’s that?’
‘The emperor’s not pleased with him.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I heard it from one of his slaves. He made the wrong friends at court. He was an ally of the dead chamberlain, Krysaphios.’ Aelfric squinted at me. ‘You knew him.’
‘I did.’ I had witnessed his death — indeed, I had contributed to it. ‘I’m surprised the emperor would trust this mission to someone associated with that faction.’
‘Are you? Why not? If he’s honest, he’ll have to try twice as hard to prove it, and if he’s not honest he’ll be well out of the emperor’s way.’
Another more unpleasant aspect struck me. ‘And if the embassy goes wrong, or if our ship is lost at sea, Nikephoros will be conveniently removed from the court.’
‘No wonder he scowls so much.’
‘The Franks sent ambassadors to the Fatimids once,’ I remembered. ‘Five months ago. I was at the council where the princes discussed it.’
‘What became of them?’
I shrugged. ‘They never returned.’
We put in at Cyprus to take on supplies. The harbour was choked with commerce: it felt as if half the imperial grain fleet must be there, together with transports and galleys so thick you could almost have walked across the bay on their decks. Every deck, wharf, jetty and gangway was piled high with the material of war: barrels of fish, bales of hay, live pigs to feed armies and iron pigs to feed the blacksmiths’ forges. In one corner of the port, makeshift fences had been erected to pen in the vast herd of horses and mules who waited to be embarked for Antioch. The greater part of the goods, though, were inbound, destined to sit in stores and warehouses until the Army of God moved south. It was a vast operation, the fruits of the empire all gathered together to feed the campaign, and I began to realise how far afield the tremors of our war had reached.
From Cyprus we sailed south and then south-east, running before the wind. Now it was the sailors who worked while the rowers rested, and a new urgency gripped the ship. Even with a good breeze behind us, the air seemed to be thickening day by day. Whenever they were off duty the men would gather near the bow and stare out over the waves, waiting for the land to appear. Some of them reported seeing great fish many times larger than a man swimming beside us, though I never saw them.
Like a shadow travelling in advance of its owner, I knew the coast must be close when the sea began to fill with an ever greater number of small vessels. I watched them nervously, but they were merely fishermen and shallow coastal traders who gave us a wide berth. Soon afterwards the land itself appeared: a low and inviting strip of shore that turned out, as we drew closer, to be only the arms of a great inland lagoon. We passed through to a flat sea studded with fragments of islands; on one of these, still some way from the land, was the port of Tinnis.
I had believed that a man who had lived in Constantinople could never find any place exotic, that every race and colour of men, together with all their works and produce, were to be f
ound in that city. Tinnis, though, was different: the dhows and feluccas that swarmed around the island like bees in a hive; long poles with drying flax hanging off them like hair; the slender turrets of the Ishmaelite churches and the mysterious chants of their priests, which echoed across the still water five times each day. But even more strange than that, I suspected, was the knowledge in my heart that this was Egypt, a land that had been ancient even in the time of the ancients. Byzantine emperors had once ruled this land, and Romans before them — but they were mere footnotes in a history of infinite depth and magnificence.
Our unexpected arrival caused considerable stir. Two war-galleys rowed out to challenge us, and our sailors waited anxiously by the naphtha throwers while Nikephoros conducted a brisk exchange with the Fatimid captain through the stammering efforts of our priest. Eventually, we convinced them of our neutrality — though even when one boat returned to the harbour to deliver the news, the other hovered vigilant near by.
For three full days we hung there on our anchor, like a mote of dust caught in a sunbeam. The captain struck the sails and fashioned makeshift awnings to shade the deck, for the planks were beginning to warp apart in the glare. After the second day, I thought the sinews of my mind might be warping too. I watched the sun inch across the sky until my eyes burned, and found myself longing for each repetition of the plaintive Ishmaelite prayer-chant to mark the passing of the days.
By the fourth afternoon I was almost past caring. So I did not hear the measured splash of oars approaching, or the creak of the thole-pins, and only realised that the confines of our solitude had been broken when the sleeping crew about me suddenly leaped up and began to array themselves in formal display. Almost before I realised it, something thudded gently against our hull and dark hands reached over the side. Nikephoros strode out from his cabin, his jewel-crusted lorum draped hastily over his shoulders, as the Fatimid envoy hauled himself onto our ship.
Every man on deck fell silent. Most stared in astonishment, though a few dropped their eyes in shame or embarrassment. The colour drained from Nikephoros’ face so that he seemed even more pale beside the visitor.
The new arrival was an African. To many of our crew that alone would have been an incomparable novelty. I had seen a few of his race in Constantinople — expensive slaves in the noblest households, or porters on the docks — but never any like him. Everything about him marked him as a lord or prince: his proud bearing, his extraordinary height, the rich golden bands around his arms and the yellow robe that hung to his ankles. He was so different to any other man that it would be hard to call him handsome, but there was something in his face — beside his strangeness — that attracted the eye and held it. His scalp was shaved clean and glistened like wet tar in the heat, while his strong features wore authority easily. Strangely, he reminded me of Sigurd, though he could hardly have been more different from the hairy, sallow-skinned barbarian.
He smiled — a broad, white-toothed smile that you immediately wanted to share — then said: ‘Praise be to God, the Lord of the universe — and peace.’
Nikephoros remained obviously unmoved by the man’s smile — indeed, he seemed to be speaking through a mouthful of barely swallowed anger. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded.
‘I am Bilal al-Sud, captain of the Qaysariyya guard. My master, the caliph of the Fatimids, the Commander of the Faithful, has sent me to greet you. If you come in peace and honest friendship, you are welcome in his realm.’
No doubt he expected some piece of well-honed diplomatic courtesy in reply. In this he was disappointed.
‘You speak Greek.’ Nikephoros’ tone suggested it was more a curiosity, like a dog trained to answer questions, than an accomplishment.
Bilal flashed his brilliant smile again, though this time the white teeth seemed somehow sharper. ‘I learned it from Greek slaves. The caliph has many in his palace.’
The warning had its desired effect. Nikephoros mastered his sneer and assumed a more polished, tactful demeanour. ‘I have gifts and messages for the caliph from my master, the emperor Alexios of Byzantium.’
Bilal nodded. ‘The caliph is eager to see them. He has ordered me to escort you up the river to al-Qahira.’ He looked around. ‘Your ship is magnificent, but she will not manage the bends and shallows of the Nile. You will come in my barge.’
We left the comforting bulk of our ship behind and rowed across the lagoon. The shores drew closer and began to pinch together, though if you looked ahead they never seemed to join. At some point I suppose we must have entered the mouth of the river, though there was nothing obvious to define it: the land off our beams was still as distant as ever, far wider than the Bosphorus at Constantinople. I looked out across the brown waters, curious to see something of this fabled land, but all I saw was water and reeds.
We spent two days and two nights on the Egyptian barge. It was an eerie voyage, more like a dance: we often turned where no turn seemed necessary, so many times around that sometimes the current seemed to be pushing us upstream. I pitied the men on the oars. As the river banks drew closer I began to make out the features of the landscape: a dirty brown soil bristling with the stalks of harvested crops, and divided by low ridges like causeways through the desert. Sometimes, where they intersected, I saw villages, though many were in ruins and I spied few inhabitants.
‘What are they for?’ I asked Bilal, pointing at the ridges. They seemed too regular and evenly spaced to be natural.
‘When the river floods, they are the only way to travel the land. Every year, the Nile bursts its banks and waters the fields enough to sustain a whole year’s crops.’
‘And when does that happen?’
Bilal scowled. ‘August.’
I looked back at the fields. Even from that distance I could see that they were the pale brown colour of clay, not the rich black of wet soil. A skein of cracks had shattered the hard earth, and nothing grew save a few strands of wild grass. Above us, the sun burned down from the cloudless mid-September sky.
‘Sometimes the floodwaters come late,’ said Bilal, unconvincingly.
On the third day, the river widened again as several strands of its delta came together. Just beyond, on the eastern bank, a host of towers rose straight against the desert sky, so many that they clustered together and almost became a perfect whole. White triangles of sail flapped beside wharves that bustled with commerce, and columns of dust billowed up from the heavy-laden roads.
‘Is that. .?’
‘Al-Qahira,’ said Bilal, and the sounds took on a deep and savage mystery in his voice. ‘Or, as your Roman ancestors called it, Babylon.’
10
Until then, I had always imagined ambassadors to be like angels. They were higher beings, of less substance and greater power than mere mortals, flitting about the world impervious to threats of harm. There in Egypt, I realised the truth: ambassadors were little better than prisoners. The moment we set foot on the wharf we were hurried to a caravan of litters borne by bare-chested Nubian slaves, who carried us in curtained blindness to a secluded courtyard, and then up a stair to the quarters appointed to us. There were three interconnecting rooms, spacious and airy and lavishly furnished. But the ornate screens that curved and twined across the windows were iron, and when the caliph’s attendants left us alone I heard the door lock from the outside.
The next day, almost before dawn, a slave arrived to announce that the Fatimid king, the caliph himself, would give us an audience that very morning. I had been lying on my mattress, savouring the feeling of solid ground beneath me and watching the sun stream through the iron screens over the window; with reluctant speed, I rolled out of bed and rummaged through my belongings for my cleanest tunic. Only when I had pulled it on, splashed some water from a bronze basin over my face and ploughed a comb through my hair did I notice Nikephoros. He was sitting on a divan in a plain white under-tunic, while one slave held a mirror in front of him like a votive offering and another trimmed his hair and beard. He was perf
ectly still, his face a passive mask, yet even that somehow conveyed scorn for the bustle and haste around him.
Thinking perhaps he had not heard the slave’s message, I repeated it. The corner of his mouth turned upward in a sneer.
‘When you have spent more time in palaces, you will realise that courtiers treat hours as you would treat minutes. There is no hurry.’
He kept his head still as he spoke, careless of the sharp razor darting around near his ear. I guessed the slave knew what would befall him if he cut his master’s precious skin.
Without seeming to look at me, Nikephoros added, ‘But if you do intend to be ready, you might dress in something that befits the occasion. I do not want the caliph to think that the emperor Alexios has sent a delegation of slaves and mercenaries to dishonour him.’
His words were cruel and true — it was the truth that stung more. I bit back an instinctive retort and said humbly, ‘I have nothing better.’
‘My attendants will find you something.’ Nikephoros looked in the mirror. ‘I cannot have the caliph judging the emperor by your shortcomings.’
All that morning I experienced the strange urgent indolence that is the lot of ambassadors. Every fifteen minutes another Fatimid messenger would bustle into our rooms to announce, either in broken Greek or by elaborate hand gestures, that the great moment for our audience was nigh, but even after Nikephoros had been shaved, dressed, oiled and perfumed with deliberate care by his slaves, we remained waiting in our quarters. After the first two hours, we learned to ignore the announcements. I stood by the window to breathe what little air blew through it, trying to see something of the surrounding palace and city. The iron screen cut the view into a mosaic of a thousand disjointed fragments: I could see high domes and minarets, corners of courtyards shaded with plane trees, but without any sense of how the pieces joined together. The sun rose high, and the tenor of the messages became more apologetic: the caliph was exceedingly busy, he wanted nothing more than to greet his friends from Byzantium but there was urgent court business he had to attend to; he would certainly see us in the next half an hour, perhaps sooner.