The Sword of Damascus

by Richard Blake

  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.

  And now I was back. I felt good, not least because of the kava smell. What memories that brought back! I raised my walking stick and knocked it twice very hard on the granite slabs of the dock. Time was when half a dozen porters would have come running. Time was, though, when I didn’t turn up on the docks dressed as some closed-purse Jew. The one porter who did eventually slope over gave me a nasty grin and pointed over at the main gate leading from the docks. Keeping what dignity I could, I frowned back at him and turned to where Edward sat on the dockside with our things.

  ‘I’ll be just a moment,’ I said. From what little I could see of him, he seemed too cowed by the full bustle of civilisation to have noticed my own embarrassment.

  Over by the gate, there was an execution in progress. This had attracted a moderate crowd, including, for some reason, just about all the dock porters. I glanced at the young man who’d been nailed to the cross. Since he looked as if he’d been racked and scourged first, it was hard to say how long he’d been up there. From the voiceless movement of his lips, though, and from the impression I’d been able to form of the weather, he might have been there a day. Despite the colour his skin was turned, it was unlikely he’d been up there much longer – he still had enough strength in his arms to keep himself from hanging forward off the cross. I looked harder and pursed my lips. The bastard executioners had put a platform just under his feet.

  I don’t imagine you’ve ever seen a crucifixion, my dear Reader – they were abolished wherever the Christian Faith was established by the Great Constantine. They have been brought back, though, wherever the Saracens have conquered. Since its first use by the Carthaginians, the punishment has been much the same. You fix two lengths of wood in the shape of a T – the cross shape is a refinement made by the artists of the early Church. You nail the victim’s wrists to each end of the top length, and his ankles to the down length. If it’s done fairly, he shouldn’t last much beyond evening, though cool weather can stretch out the agony. And the agony is extreme. You see, if he wants to breathe properly, the victim has to pull himself upright. With nails through his ankles, he can’t do that for long. So he sags forward. That makes breathing hard, and he must try again to get upright. The continual movement on the cross, and the sun, soon wears the victim out. Look at Jesus Christ. He lasted barely any time at all; this being said, his legs had been broken to hurry things along. But this poor bugger had been given a support for his feet. That and the weather might keep him going for days. Everyone in the crowd knew that. So did he. If he was no longer sc
reaming, or twisting about, he was still conscious, his lips moving in some voiceless prayer. Even without Joseph’s arrow, poor Tatfrid had been luckier than this. Nothing barbarians can do will match the refinements of a civilised punishment.

  There was a steady muttering in Syriac from the crowd about the unfairness of the execution. Several men comforted a sobbing woman. The Saracen guards stood about the cross, edgily fingering their swords. Just before them, some scrubby brown creature stood looking over at the public sundial. As I was about to ask again for a porter, he cleared his throat with ceremonial relish and struck a pose.

  ‘By orders of His Highness Meekal, Governor of Syria,’ he cried in Syriac, ‘you behold one who has dared wage war on God.’ He repeated himself in Saracen and then in a kind of Greek. As he finished, someone with an even browner face, though a clean turban, stood forward with a sheet of papyrus.

  ‘But the recompense of those who fight against God and His apostles,’ he read in the strained squawk the Saracens use for recitals of what their Prophet is claimed to have said, ‘and study to act corruptly in the earth, shall be that they shall be slain, or crucified, or have their hands and their feet cut off on the opposite sides, or be banished the land. This shall be their disgrace in this world, and in the next world they shall suffer a grievous punishment.’ He didn’t bother with the Syriac translation – the two languages are pretty close anyway – but went straight into an astonishingly corrupt Greek.

  ‘It is the will of God!’ someone breathed into my bad ear. Someone behind me whispered that it was murder, and that Meekal the Damned would be repaid seven times seven in the world to come.

  I resisted the urge to ask what crime had been committed. This was none of my business. Instead, I knocked my stick again on the paving stones. Everyone, including the unfortunate on the cross, looked in my direction. One of the foreman-porters came forward. He looked at my robe and gave a half bow.

  ‘Those three moderately large boxes over there are mine,’ I said in Syriac. I pointed back to where Edward was still keeping a nervous watch over our things. ‘Do you know the Golden Spear Inn?’ The man nodded. ‘That’s where I want everything carried. You can also arrange a carrying chair for me.’ I thought, then added, ‘No – make that two chairs.’ I tossed him a silver coin and waited for his much lower and more respectful bow. I turned and went back over to Edward. He was staring at the execution. I ignored him and had a final look at the ship that had brought us here. The customs officials had now finished their searches, and were pointing out faults in the documentation of the few idiots who hadn’t known the appropriate tariff of bribes. It would have been nice to see the whole ship impounded. But the Captain was no fool. The Exarch of Africa had sealed his documents. That was as good for these officials as it had been for the Imperial blockade.

  Our chairs carried at shoulder height, we moved slowly into the crowded, wealthy streets of Beirut. As in Caesarea, I’d warned Edward not to look about with his mouth open. But it was difficult not to be overwhelmed by the place. After so many years in the West, even I had forgotten how glorious a city still in full order could be. Of course, there had been changes. The long row of emperors had been taken down from their plinths that lined the main street. The bronze letters had been carefully prised from all the past victory and commemoration monuments. In place of all this, huge green banners fluttered from almost every public building. Every one of these carried pompous inscriptions in Saracen about the present and the coming Triumph of the Faith.

  We stopped awhile by what had been the Church of Christ the Redeemer. The swarms of other chairs and of wheeled traffic had stopped easy access through the central square. I squinted in the powerful light and looked at what had been built as a smaller version of the Great Church in Constantinople. The golden cross had been taken down, and the mosaics above the entrance were painted over. No one would be allowed to know in future that it had been the gift of the Great Justinian after an earthquake had levelled the much older church there. Men with huge, dark beards stood outside, washing their hands and feet before going in. One of them looked up at me with grim hostility. Except his face was much darker, he might have been a big, ferocious Jew. I looked away and, fanning myself, peered instead at what had once been the main library. It was a couple of hundred yards across the square, and was largely a blur. I wondered if there were any books still in there worth reading.

  But what of it if there weren’t? The cloud cover had now broken up into great puffs of whiteness, and the sun shone down on us. I was back in the civilised world. Once more, I sniffed in the welcome smells of Beirut.

  ‘My Lord,’ Edward cried softly in English. I waited until the carriers had brought our chairs closer together. ‘Why are all those men wearing blue crosses?’ He nodded over towards one of the smaller churches.

  This hadn’t had its use converted, and I could see the black robe and beard of the priest, who was glowering across at the mosque. I looked hard at the crowd of men, all dressed in white, who were talking and waving on the steps of the church.

  ‘Those are Greeks,’ I said. ‘No – it’s better to call them the Orthodox. The locals call them Greek, but most actually speak Syriac.’ That wasn’t much of an answer, and the boy was looking at me to continue. ‘Virtually all the Syrians are Christian,’ I added, ‘but most are heretics of one kind or another. Like the Jews, they all have to pay tribute to the Saracens as members of a tolerated but despised faith. However, only the Orthodox minority are required to distinguish themselves in the streets by wearing a special badge.’ I was now making an effort to see about me. I pointed over to my left. ‘Look at that one over there,’ I said. ‘See how he’s got out of his chair to bow to the Saracen riding past on the black horse? That sort of thing pisses the Orthodox off no end. Then again, they do get full toleration – which is more than they ever granted to anyone in their own day.’

  I heard the spattering of stones against masonry. I wasn’t up to seeing where this was or who had thrown them. But I recognised well enough the sudden and intent stillness of the “Greeks” and Saracens as they looked across the square at each other, and the quickening of the chairs and other traffic as the crowds of pedestrians began to thin out. We were almost out of the main square when an armed Saracen on horseback got in our way and stopped there. The head carrier looked nervously back at me. I ignored him, and gave the Saracen a long, haughty stare. I thought for a moment I’d have to lose face in front of Edward. But I had no badge of disgrace on my clothing. There was no telling who I might be. After a short look at me, the man scowled and got out of our way.

  ‘My Lord! My Lord!’ the innkeeper cried in Greek as our chairs came to a stop beside the entrance to the Golden Spear. So our stuff and my scribbled note had got there in good time. ‘But we had no letter,’ he cried. ‘After so many years, we assumed that you—’ He broke off diplomatically and creased his face into a smile. Unless he was being very diplomatic indeed, there was a chance he’d not heard the news of my fall. ‘We had no letter, and your normal rooms are occupied by another. But’ – he smiled again and bowed – ‘but for you, My Lord, all things can be arranged.’ He turned to one of his people and rapped out a stream of rapid Syriac. I acknowledged their renewed bowing with a lordly wave.

  Edward now walking behind me, I was carried through the gate into the entrance hall. As I was helped down into a padded chair, someone presented me with a cup. I sniffed at the heated contents and sipped. It was an infusion of ginger and garlic with honey sweetening. It tasted reasonable. But I gave a puzzled look at the innkeeper. My eyes had now grown used to the gloom, though, and I could see round the little hall. Where was the icon of the Virgin? Where the silver cross in the place where, centuries before, the household gods would have sat?

  ‘Zacharias?’ I began.

  He cut in. ‘I am known now, My Lord, as Zakariya,’ the innkeeper said with a pious leer. ‘I rejoice in my conversion to the True Faith of God.’ He looked heavenward,
and haltingly uttered the Saracen words: ‘There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is His Prophet.’

  Oh dear, I thought, there’ll be no wine in this house! But I smiled and nodded. Why not convert? It saved him from the Infidel Tax. And it would surely mean no more of the enthusiastic if ill-informed sermons he’d used to preach to all his guests against the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon. I was less happy about the delicate enquiry regarding my own ‘conversion’ at the hands of the Caliph Omar himself. I stood up swiftly and gripped at Edward to avoid falling over.

  ‘That was half a century ago,’ I said hurriedly. ‘And it wasn’t so much a conversion as a diplomatic understanding.’ I turned the conversation to family matters. It seemed that Zakariya’s old wife had walked out on him when he converted. He’d replaced her with four others, each a quarter his own age, and these had now given him a whole litter of sons. I cut short his opening remarks on the unity of God with a toothless smile and congratulations on his good fortune.

  But whoever had been occupying my rooms was now kicked out. It was simply a matter of making them ready for me with all proper haste. While this was done, two black slaves took hold of my chair and carried me towards a door at the back of the hall for a tour of the enclosed garden.