He looked back, the prongs of his beard quivering with suppressed emotion. Then, he relaxed and smiled.
‘You speak of treason, O Great and Magnificent Alaric,’ he said. ‘You have been condemned already as a traitor in the Empire. You are an outlaw there. Its agents have tried to murder you twice in the past few days. Can you still think yourself bound by any duty towards the Empire?’
‘Possibly,’ I said, ‘possibly not. I am mindful, however, that, with or without me, the Empire is the only power in the world able to look you people in the face. Destroy the Empire, and there will be no stopping you from going west, and taking your religion with you.’
‘I never thought religion mattered so much to you,’ Meekal replied with icy control. He got up and went to the window. He looked out for a long time, then turned back to face me. ‘If I could persuade you that an age would come when no one even believed in God, you’d jump out of that bed and dance about the room.’ He returned to my bedside and stretched out his hands. ‘Now, stop playing the old fool with me,’ he said. ‘Get out of bed and come over here.’ I took his hands and pulled myself up. He draped a sheet about me and helped me as, with much grunting and creaking, I walked slowly over to the window, and stood in a shaft of the warm afternoon sunshine. He helped fix my dotted visor in place and waved at the skyline of Damascus.
It was like seeing through a mesh grating, and the uneven glass of the window made things more confusing. Everything was broken up into blocks. Some of these were repeated. Most didn’t fit together into a continuous whole. But this was the first time I’d really tried my invention; the brief inspections at dusk the previous day hardly counted. In time, I had no doubt, the ordinary eye could adjust. Even now, though, the invention worked. For the first time, I could see Damascus as other than a vague blur. I stared over the low huddle of mostly flat roofs – with a few splashes of dark red tiles – to the main buildings of the centre. And, through the thin clouds of dust and of wood smoke, I could see the line of the outer wall, and over that to the brown bleakness of the mountains beyond. All could be seen with astonishing, if discontinuous sharpness. But Meekal now had me by the shoulders, and was directing me to the sights in and about the centre.
‘Do you see that squat building over there with the roof of green copper?’ he asked. ‘That is the Spice Market. It was built by Muawiya for the reception and sale of goods brought from the outermost limits of China. Can you see the building just to the left – the one with the blue dome? That is where silk from the Empire is worked into cloth of gold and exported to the Faithful in Scythia. I can show you banks and factories. I can show you mosques and churches and synagogues. I can show you crowded markets and camel trains a mile long. Our empire is one of trade and toleration. No one asks what another man believes. The only question anyone thinks it worth asking is whether a man is solvent. Everything you preached for seventy years in Constantinople about low taxes and toleration is a reality in the domains of the Caliph.’
It was a good speech. Its effect might have been improved had there not been columns of smoke rising above two of the biggest churches in the city. But there was no point in mentioning these. Already, he was clutching at me again and jabbering hard.
‘Alaric – Alaric, turn about and compare yourself with me.’ He stood back and spread his arms. ‘I came here as a renegade Greek. I might have been a baseless criminal on the run. I might have been a spy. Yet, by the repetition of one sentence and the loss of a foreskin, I became the free and equal companion even of those whose fathers had known the Prophet. How long were you in the Empire? What repeated services did you render it? How often did you save it from its own drivelling senility? Was there ever a moment when the very trash in the streets didn’t sneer at your barbarian origins?
‘Yes, I want the secret of that Greek fire so we can try once more to take Constantinople. But we don’t want Constantinople as another Alexandria or Ctesiphon, as yet another provincial city. We want it as the capital of a renewed world empire – an empire combining the discipline and regularity of the Greek mind with the enthusiasm and nobility of our Desert Faith. All is ready for us to step into the shoes of Caesar. And, yes, we do bring a new religion. But hasn’t the Empire changed religion once already? The turn to Christianity was much more of a break than we offer. That was the destruction of polytheism by an Eastern mystery cult. What we offer is a purified worship of the One God, in which Christ continues to be honoured, but not as some quasi-divinity that requires all the resources of Greek philosophy to explain.
‘Join us, Alaric. Renew the Empire. Free the world. You have been pulled out of retirement for one final achievement. Let that achievement be the creation of a free and prosperous world ruled by the caliphs of Constantinople. Surely, you can see how God has sent you here to be our Sword of Damascus?’
I watched Meekal work himself into another frenzy of eloquence. As his voice rose, and he switched between Greek and Latin and Saracen, I shuffled carefully round to where I could flop back on to the sofa beside that discarded chronicle. I looked at Meekal and pulled off my dotted visor. It showed me too many copies, in too great clarity, of the roots of his dyed beard and the increasingly wild look in his eyes.
‘Oh, please, Meekal, please!’ I cried, holding up my hands for silence. ‘You’ve made your speech. Don’t spoil the effect with repetition. You tell me that, if only I join you in shitting on the Empire, we’ll have a better world out of it. If that’s your meaning, I think I’ve heard enough. You might care now to say what I can expect from a refusal to join you in this venture. Does it involve an escort back to my lodgings in Beirut?’
That brought him back to his senses. ‘Refuse my offer,’ he said, his face pushed close to mine, ‘and I’ll kill you with my own hands. I’ll kill you as an apostate.’ He spoke slowly and with controlled fury. ‘And, before you start whining that life is nothing much to lose for a man of your age, just reflect that I know you better than any man alive. And let’s not also forget my pretty young uncle. I might – given proper reason – choose to regard him as my kinsman, and share with him under your will. Or I might spurn him as your last barbarian catamite. I could then find him a place among the Caliph’s dancing boys. Or I could have his looks prolonged with a little nip of the gelding knife, and set him to combing hair in my own harem. I might even have him taught to sing most fetchingly to my wives.
‘So, what is it to be, my darling grandfather? Will you join with the Faithful in spreading light over the world? Or will you die cursing the day my agents found your refuge in the West?’
‘My time is upon me,’ I said. ‘In other words, I need a shit. Will you have the kindness to call some slaves up to attend to me?’ I grinned and rubbed my belly. ‘Or must Meekal the Merciless soil his hands with other than blood?’
Chapter 46
‘You’ll need to push your finger in to get me properly clean,’ I said, still leaning forward. ‘Mind you, be very careful. I didn’t like the look of those fingernails.’
Grunting and now farting himself from the strain, Meekal reached down to open the valve that sent a stream of water to carry my little offering into the downpipe from the Tower of Heavenly Peace. The shitty stain in the channel beneath the ebony seat he’d leave for someone else to clean.
‘Ooh!’ I cried in a voice that echoed about the room, ‘you’ve a way with that oily sponge. What a bath slave the world lost when I rescued your father from outside that church in Constantinople.’ I twisted round to look up into the stony face, and wondered if he was reflecting on the deficiencies of my argument. It was hard to tell if he was thinking anything at all.
Meekal helped me into one of the smaller sitting rooms. This looked over one of the less grand prospects of Damascus. But there was a table set with food. He took off the napkin that covered a dish of bread pulled from the inner part of a loaf, and waved at a dish of pitted olives and soft cheese. He went back along to my bedchamber and returned with the wine and the Sara
cen chronicle. I pulled my dotted visor down again over my eyes and looked through it. With plenty of sunlight falling on it from above, the chronicle was so clear before me that I could see small strands of papyrus where the copyist’s pen had snagged the sheet. I scrolled idly backwards, looking out for the passage where Meekal had first stood before the Caliph and called out in a great voice his profession of faith. Perhaps, after all, the writer had the makings of an historian. I looked up and smiled into the sweaty, now desperate face.
‘Look at this again,’ I said, holding out the visor. ‘Take it and look at it closely. When you snatched it from the hands of the man who was still finishing its ornamentation, you saw almost at once what its purpose was. And if you couldn’t by yourself reproduce the elegant workmanship that lets it balance so lightly on the face, you could easily make a functioning copy for yourself.
‘With the weapon I invented, it’s an entirely different matter. The combustible mixture itself is made of specific ingredients that must be combined in exactly the right proportions. It must then be matured like wine – use it too early or too late, and it will not ignite. There is then what may be called the delivery system. The bronze kettles that hold the two mixtures – yes, there are two mixtures – must be of a certain hardness. The fire that heats the kettles must do so to a precise temperature: too low, and the mixture will not boil, too high, and it will explode. The spouts through which the mixtures are forced must, for the same reason, be neither too wide nor too narrow; and the steel must be hard enough to survive the repeated variations of temperature. The fire at the end of these spouts has rules for its heat and placement.
‘What I’m saying, dear boy, is that the manufacture and use of Greek fire do not suggest themselves to the casual observer – though you know that already. Moreover, the business of reproducing the secret would need a cluster of skills that are beyond the abilities of any one man. If you want to make people see again, you could turn these things out by the thousand in no time – and do so without my further assistance. Or you could lock me in here and have me turn them out for you. If you want Greek fire, you need skills that I do not myself possess. And it seems that you need skills that are not possessed in Syria. You are asking me to oversee a project that would involve not so much reproduction as reinvention.’
I turned my attention to the food, and made sure to slobber as much down my naked front as I could. All the time, Meekal stood before me breathing hard.
‘So you will do as the Caliph begs?’ he asked during a lull in my noisy, unmannered eating.
‘I thought it was you who was asking, dear boy,’ I said. ‘If it’s the Commander of the Faithful himself who begs my assistance, perhaps I should await his return from whatever war he is fighting.’
Meekal crashed a hairy fist on to the table. There was a splash of cheesy water all over his black outer tunic.
‘Will you do as I ask?’ he now roared. ‘Or must I bring that fucking child in and castrate him under your eyes?’
‘Do that,’ I said, ‘and you can fuck yourself for the secret.’ I took a sip of wine. I raised my arms and looked at Meekal. He looked back awhile, then reached for a fresh napkin and began wiping me clean. How much had this project cost so far? How much had getting me here cost? If you’re a little person looking in, a government has unlimited resources for getting its way. But I’d been an insider too long to know other than the truth. It didn’t matter how much of his subjects’ gold the Caliph could steal from them: it always had more than one possible use. How much of this had Meekal lavished on the project? And how much of his prestige rested on the project’s complete success?
‘Now,’ I said, getting up and walking out of the room. I left my sheet where it had fallen off me. He picked it up and followed me into my office. I pointed him into a chair and leaned on my desk in much the same position as I’d taken with the assassin. He waved the sheet in my direction. I wrinkled my nose at the spoiled silk and looked at him. He’d seen me naked having my shit. He could carry on seeing me naked. ‘My darling Michael – or Meekal, or whatever else I’m supposed to call you nowadays – I have been made an offer I might not be able to refuse. You can bet your life I’ll not accept it, though, until I have some proper guarantees of the boy’s safety. Oh, and when I say “proper guarantees”, I don’t have your personal word in mind. The whole world knows how little that is worth.’ I stopped and pushed my visor back down to see if I could read the titles of the books shelved against the far wall.
‘I could adopt the boy,’ Meekal suggested with a faint smile.
I couldn’t read the titles. But I could see my old walking stick. Still bloody, it was propped between two blocks of the shelves. I walked forward and recovered it. A shame it was ruined. I’d been so pleased when I took delivery of it in Beirut.
‘Michael,’ I cried in a soft, menacing tone as I moved towards him. I leaned over him, lifted my visor and stared into his eyes. ‘Do you remember that time when you were a boy, and I caught you torturing a puppy? Do you also remember how I set about you with a slave whip? You may give yourself airs and graces among the darkies and anyone else who’s scared of your dungeons. So far as I’m concerned, you’re still the little shitbag I was sorry almost at once I hadn’t beaten to death.
‘No, shut up and listen.’ I moved my face closer to his. ‘I have read the tiresome utterances of your new Prophet. I have had their deeper obscurities explained to me by a learned Saracen. Adoption, I have no doubt you are aware, is not allowed among the Faithful. And under the Greek law that applies to me and mine within the Caliph’s dominions, Edward is already your uncle. You can no more adopt him than you can sodomise yourself.’
Meekal had been recoiling further and further into his chair – perhaps to get away from my less than wholesome breath. I now suddenly stepped back and hit him hard on the chest with my stick. He fell backwards, and only that fancy turban he was wearing prevented his head from cracking open on the tiles. I stood over his fallen body, holding my stick like a teacher’s cane. What would the world not have given to see Meekal the Merciless reduced to tears by a silly old man? What would he have not given for it not to have happened?
‘Now, get out of my sight,’ I snarled. ‘Come back when you have something better to offer than a puff of oral smegma.’ I walked past him out of the room. As I was opening a window in the room next door to look properly over Damascus, I heard the main door to my suite crash shut.
‘It might have been the opium,’ Edward agreed.
I nodded sympathetically. While I was asleep, the slaves had come back in. It was useful that I was woken in more clothes than I’d been wearing when I dropped off. The light was going down fast over Damascus, and, through the still open window, I could smell the palace kitchens hard at work. We sat, a concerned Karim beside Edward, in the small sitting room where I’d earlier dined. Edward tried to look brave again, but went pale instead.
‘You might wish to bear in mind,’ I said, ‘that to see a man flayed, after he’s been made to watch all his children roasted alive, can sometimes be too much even for the hardened spectator at these events.’ Karim raised an eyebrow, as if this were the first time he’d ever heard the point made. Edward went back to looking ashamed. Executions are a morning attraction in most cities, but I didn’t feel inclined to ask where they’d been for the rest of the day. I only hoped Karim had given Edward a better tour of Damascus than he’d so far managed for me.
‘So what are you both doing this evening?’ I asked. ‘You seem to have had a jolly enough day together. I imagine you’ll want to round it off with a visit to a brothel or some other place of public recourse. If so, I regret to say that Meekal has probably given orders for Edward not to be allowed again through the palace gates.’ Both faces dropped. Then Karim looked angry. I raised a hand to silence whatever outburst was coming. ‘No,’ I said, ‘you should know that you cannot possibly hope to cross a man like Meekal directly. But I am sure the palace itself affords endle
ss opportunities for entertainment.
‘However, in young Edward’s case, I do suggest a break from enjoyment. The Saracen tutor I employed the other day made his first visit this morning, but was sent away. I believe he will return with the dusk. For obvious reasons, Greek will be the language of instruction.’ I saw Edward’s face cloud over. ‘Come now, my little son,’ I mocked. ‘Unlike our own English, Saracen does not allow clusters of more than two consonants. This helps give it – in the right mouth, that is – a most beautiful sound. You should learn it for its own sake, and because it is the language of your new friend Karim – and because I have never come across a language that did not turn out sooner or later to be of use. Go, then, and prepare yourself to receive your tutor. Karim, I am sure, will be happy to sit in on the lesson.’
I sat back and looked out of the window. The day was almost over, and, if I’d seen off that turd of a grandson, I could record no other worthwhile activity. So much still to do. So little time left in which to do it. I glanced at Edward and Karim. Their combined ages probably didn’t go far beyond thirty-five. I sighed and looked again out of the window.
‘You look sad, My Lord,’ Edward said. ‘Shall we not sit with you awhile?’
‘Thank you, but no,’ I said firmly. ‘You go and get ready for that lesson. Don’t bother looking in on me afterwards. I think I will spend the evening alone with some opium. The strain of the past few nights is heavy upon me. And I have yet to recover myself from the journey to Damascus.’ I reached for my stick – no replacement had yet been supplied, so I’d washed most of the blood off the old one in the latrine – and began my weary progression back to bed.
The Sword of Damascus Page 30