‘Alaric, because he is a renegade,’ she resumed, ‘there are those who doubt Meekal’s loyalty to the True Faith. I do not share this vulgar prejudice. I believe his conversion was genuine. I believe that his zeal is no cover for a second treason. His conduct in holding Syria together, after Muawiya had slid into his long senility, is proof enough of that – as has been his military conduct in the East. I also trust his judgement, that the Empire must be destroyed now or perhaps never. Steadily, with every year, the balance of advantage swings against us.’
She paused and took a long sip from her cup. She sat back and looked steadily at me through narrowed eyes. I made sure to clear my face of all expression. She continued looking at me. I broke the tension as, with a polite murmur, I finally removed my teeth and began sucking at one of the biscuits. It had a taste of nutmeg, though perhaps more of hashish.
‘Do you agree that Greek fire is the key to Constantinople?’ she asked suddenly. ‘Do you agree that possession of the secret will allow us to destroy the Empire?’
I finished my biscuit. I rinsed a mouthful of kava over my gums. I replaced my teeth and smiled.
‘If the reforms I put to Constans had been carried fully into effect,’ I said, ‘the question would now be whether the Empire could be restrained from an offensive of its own. However, even the partial implementation of my reforms has repaired the worst damage. Give the Empire another generation, and we shall see what tribute payments are then demanded of you and enforced. For the moment, the Empire reposes in the relative calm that your civil war has imposed on you. Another attack, with all your forces, might get you once again to the gates of Constantinople. Without a Greek monopoly of the weapon you mention, you might not be so easily driven away. That being said, I still fail to see how you can get through the gates. You’ve said yourself that the Empire’s weapons are better in general than your own.’
She smiled and leaned forward. She put a gentle touch on my right hand. ‘That is all very well,’ she said. ‘However, let me also ask how close do you think Meekal is to reproducing the Greek fire here in Damascus? He has been working on it now for eight years. The cost of the work has at times been crushing. It might have been still more if, after his last failure, steps had not been taken to limit his access to people and materials.’
I sucked on my upper plate and thought. I’d been right that Meekal was being pressed on the financial side. And that was one of the reasons I’d been lifted from Jarrow. Whatever the cost, it had been easier than breaking through that wall of resistance from the old families who stood about the Caliph. I sucked harder on my upper plate. I got my tongue under it and licked out a crumb that wouldn’t dissolve.
‘How close is Meekal to success?’ she asked again.
I shrugged and pretended not to be looking closely into her face. ‘Since I still haven’t agreed to help him,’ I said, ‘I can’t say anything at all about his progress. Surely, you’d have access to his reports.’
Khadija smiled again and shook her head. ‘There are no written reports,’ she said. ‘As for direct inspection, Meekal has concentrated work out in the desert, twenty miles from Damascus. There, he conceals everything behind a cordon of impenetrable security. None of us knows what he is doing out there. We know about the big explosion there – indeed, we heard it here in the palace. We know the broad costs. We really know nothing else. I was rather hoping that you would be able to enlighten me.’
‘My dear Khadija,’ I said with a little smile, ‘until – rather unless – I agree to help him, I shall be in no position to enlighten anyone.’ A most interesting turn things were taking; all this talk of ‘we’ and ‘us’ was hardly accidental.
‘You will not be aware, My Lord,’ she said with another change of tone, ‘of the earthquake of three years ago that levelled part of the sea wall of Constantinople. I only heard of it myself from a Syrian monk who was there for this year’s Easter festival. This was a breach easily repaired. However, in the course of repair, it was discovered that much of the land wall was also on the point of collapse. Two entire miles of the wall must be taken down in sections and rebuilt. Though every monk in the City was pressed into the work, the Empire has neither money nor labour to complete the rebuilding to the quality needed until next year. This surely puts your confidence about the Empire’s security in a different light.’
It certainly did. If Meekal got his way, nothing would keep him from riding into Constantinople. I took my teeth out again and looked at the chip in the ivory. It was beginning to annoy my tongue. I’d have it repaired sooner than planned.
‘Madam,’ I said, ‘I think you are now asking me to set to work on a project that is more assured of success than I had thought. What makes you think I will assist in the destruction of the Empire that I served for so long?’
‘Because it is the will of God that you help us,’ she said, with another interesting emphasis on the ‘us’. ‘It is our destiny to replace all other kingdoms and empires with our own, and to replace all other faiths with our own. And you must realise how God has brought you here to help in the work. When Meekal suggested his plan to the Caliph, there were those who laughed even to his face. Yet here you are. The Imperial Navy could not stop you. The Angels of the Lord tried twice to kill you, and failed. In all the adventures of your journey, God has preserved your life. God has preserved you in health and strength. You surely must see the reason.’
‘Perhaps I do see the reason,’ I said with an attempt at a weariness I wasn’t for the moment feeling. ‘The problem is that I am but an old man. My best work is all behind me.’ I would have said more. But Khadija was smiling again. She waited while I finished playing with my teeth.
‘If it is the blond boy,’ she said, now very gently, ‘we can arrange guarantees that Meekal himself would not dare break.’
I took off my wig and scratched the crown of my head. It gave me time, and diverted attention from my face, while I thought about that one. It needn’t have been a surprise that she too didn’t believe the story about Callinicus. How she knew about the threat to Edward raised a number of possibilities – all of them interesting and perhaps useful.
‘And I do appreciate the regard you pay to family matters.’ She paused and gave me another slow look. ‘I am told you have no posterity now within the Empire,’ she said.
I couldn’t keep my eyebrows from arching just a fraction of an inch. All that chatter of families, and she’d known my situation pretty well. Doubtless, I’d fathered bastards throughout the known world. But, aside from my son the Bishop – who was too pious to break his vows – all I had left that was certainly of my own blood was Karim. But I wrinkled my nose and smiled.
‘Karim is a fine boy,’ she said. ‘And he thinks himself all the better for being yours. I have said that this family matter has been kept within the family. To be sure, it is not something anyone has brought to Meekal’s notice. Even today, he prides himself on the adoptive connection.’ She paused again.
Fucking old bitch! I thought. She hadn’t entirely got there yet, but she was well on the way. And she was starting – in her ever so delicate Eastern way – with a threat: help reproduce the Greek fire, and see Edward and Karim outlive me; refuse, and see my blood spilled from two bodies, and kiss goodbye to Edward. I resisted the temptation to say bluntly what I felt – after all, there was more coming yet from her – and smiled again.
‘But Khadija, my dearest kinswoman,’ I purred, ‘I appreciate your sense of religious destiny. I will certainly not argue with it. However, what you are asking surely increases the standing that Meekal has with the Caliph and in his councils. And let us be plain – for all you desire a final victory over the Empire, do you really want it today? And do you want it in the manner in which it is most likely to happen?’ Her face went a darker shade as I spoke. That was the implication of all she’d been saying. Even so, I was breaking the rules of our conversation, and she had to work hard on that composure. ‘Oh, come now,’ I went on, ‘l
et us agree that Meekal’s idea of co-opting the Greeks and ruling the combined Empire from Constantinople is a sound one. But where would it leave the old families? Most of you still have your hearts in Medina. You live in Damascus only because that’s where Muawiya decided to have his capital. You feel lost among the arts and luxury of the Syrians – and they, let me tell you, have always been regarded by the Greeks as a decidedly inferior race. Move the capital to Constantinople, and you certainly will spread your faith over parts of the world currently beyond your reach. But will it any more be your faith?’
I had just trampled like a battlefield elephant over all the diplomatic courtesies, and Khadija sat awhile in silence, her face politely frozen. Then, unexpectedly, she laughed. She pushed her chair back and reached up to scratch her head.
‘Dearest Alaric,’ she said at last, ‘we do understand each other so very well.’ I smiled and took another of her drugged biscuits. ‘I will come directly to the point. We want the Greek fire, and I will promise and do whatever is needed to get you to work on supplying it. At the same time, I shall be grateful if you could ensure no breakthrough in Meekal’s project until such time as the Caliph and all his Council are back in Damascus from the civil war. Above all, it would not be in the interests of the True Faith for Meekal to have the secret entirely to himself. It is our intention to conquer the remaining territories of the Empire – but not within the time that Meekal has in mind, and certainly not for the purpose that he has in mind. We cannot wait too long. But we can wait a little longer. Given our destiny, we have no need to strike while the walls of Constantinople are being repaired.’
I took my teeth out again and made proper work of the biscuit. I followed this with another of the figs. For the first time that day, I’d found myself with a reasonable incentive to call Meekal back into my presence and grant his request for my help. And I could look forward to the sight of his face when, on final completion of his project, it was handed straight over to Admiral Abbas or someone else who hated his guts.
There was another knock on the door. The green eunuch came in with a second slip of parchment. Khadija’s face hardened again. Her mouth opened as if for some impatient comment. Instead, she nodded. The eunuch went back out. She turned to me, her face arranged into a smile that was almost charming. No one dismisses Alaric: he takes his leave. I pushed my teeth back in and gripped the table so that it shook. I stood up.
‘My dear friend,’ I said with as much ivory as I could show, ‘this has been a most interesting conversation. But the hour is late, and I am, I must repeat, an old man. You will forgive me if I take my leave of your delightful company.’ I looked again at the wall behind her. It wasn’t a trick of the light. The tapestry that hung from ceiling to floor was swaying in some very gentle breeze. There might be a window open behind this. More likely, we were in a curtained-off area of a larger room. Behind that heavy silk, who could tell what secretaries were taking careful notes of all we’d discussed?
Beginning her own spray of gracious comments, Khadija took my arm as I walked back to the door, and made sure to give me into the hands of her green eunuch.
‘Remember, Alaric,’ she said, still inside the room, ‘God has appointed all of us to work to a certain fate. Yours is to ensure that, even in Rome, the Faithful shall be called to prayer. We shall be victorious all over the world, and remodel it according to the will of God. It is your destiny to sweep aside the last barrier to our victory. The life of no one individual can be suffered to stand in its way.’ Her eyes shone with holiness – or perhaps with whatever drug we’d been taking. ‘God wills it,’ she added. ‘God wills it.’
‘Though God may not will it for those who presently think it their right,’ I said drily.
She suppressed a smile as, with little squeaks and much fluttering of hands, the eunuch led me back towards my chair.
Chapter 49
For a man of my age, and in my situation, you will surely agree, my most sensible course of action involved bed until noon the following day, or such time as Meekal presented himself again. But, with those stimulants roaring away in my head, I wasn’t feeling that sensible. And there had been something curious about the shadowy creature who was doing so much to stay out of my sight as I emerged back into the palace grounds. It had been a brief motion of greater darkness within the shadows on my left – that, plus some furtive looking about by the eunuch. But that would have been enough for Alaric in his prime. And it was enough for Alaric now.
I waited until we’d gone round the wall of a neighbouring building. I reached forward with my stick and tapped the shoulder of the head carrier.
‘Stop here,’ I said. I let another of the carriers help me down from the chair and walked up and down on the grass. Though sweating in the cool breeze of the night, I felt decidedly jaunty. I pointed at the tallest of the carriers. ‘Take off your outer garments,’ I said. I laughed softly at his look of confusion. I reached into the front compartment of the chair and took out my purse. I opened it and produced enough gold to buy all their freedom twice over. ‘Help me into your clothes,’ I commanded, ‘and keep yourselves out of sight under those trees.’ I went over to the chair and dumped my blond wig on the seat. Off came my visor, and then the eyebrows shaped from the lightest mouse hide. Out came my teeth. Now came off the artful mingling of white and red paint from my face, and finally the shaped leather jerkin that gave the appearance of muscle to my upper body. When put on me, the general slave livery of the palace hung from a thin, shrivelled body none but those who knew him well would ever have associated with the Magnificent Alaric. I thought about my stick. But, even damaged, it wouldn’t have given the impression I needed. I could probably do without the thing for a while.
‘Keep an eye on that gate over there,’ I said firmly. ‘Be ready to snatch me for a quick getaway.’ The head carrier nodded nervously. I could probably trust them. In any event, I was committed to trusting them.
I walked with moderate briskness into the main hall of Khadija’s apartments. I had a sheet of papyrus in my hands, and what I hoped was a credible story. But I was now a bald, drooling old creature. No one pays attention to that sort of slave when he looks to be about his business. The two guards sitting just inside the hall gave me the inspection you give to a falling leaf and went back to their conversation. I walked towards the latticed door. As I’d expected, there was one of the slave girls sitting in the antechamber. Evidently bored and half asleep, she looked up at me. I waved my papyrus at her and nodded at the other of the two far doors. She slumped back in her chair and paid no further attention.
I’d expected a larger room. In fact, it was little more than a cupboard. But I was right in my general surmise. This was divided from Khadija’s sitting room by a curtain, and there was a table and chair next to the curtain, for notes to be taken of her conversations. Since the room was empty, I had no need of the story I’d been turning over in my head. There was a lamp in a bracket attached to the wall. Either this was turned right down, or it was running out of oil. Whatever the case, its flame waved feebly in the breeze from the shuttered windows. There was a stack of clean papyrus on the table. One of these was covered in writing that I was in no position to try reading. I took up the pens one after the other. They were all dry. The conversation I’d just had with Khadija was obviously one that she preferred to keep in her own mind. No sound of conversation came through the curtain. I thought to risk pulling the curtain a few inches where it brushed the far wall of the room. As I reached out, though, to take the silk hem between forefinger and thumb, I heard the door open from Khadija’s main quarters.
‘Your impatience for a meeting does not suit my convenience,’ she said coldly.
I dropped my hand. I was glad I’d crept into this room, and that the door had one of those locks that doesn’t make any sound. I looked at the chair. But moving it would probably make a noise. I held my breath and sat myself slowly down on the carpeted floor. I pushed my good ear as close as I dared ag
ainst the curtain and concentrated hard. If anyone came into this room, I was already in what might pass for a sleeping position. It was a risk I’d need to take.
‘I watched as his chair was carried off into the night,’ I heard Joseph say. I smiled complacently at the sound of his voice, and it was only luck that I didn’t brush against the curtain with my instinctive self-hug. He might have followed me to Jarrow and then to Africa and now to Damascus. He might – surely, must – nowadays be the brightest and best of the Intelligence Bureau. But no one gets much past old Alaric. One look in his direction, and I’d seen him skulking in those shadows. He was now speaking Saracen fluently and without any noticeable accent. They spoke briefly about matters that were of no relevance to me. Then Joseph asked abruptly, ‘So, what did you think of him?’
‘He’s an old man,’ she said. ‘He’s completely broken down by age, and the veins on his nose indicate much indulgence in the wine of the infidels. I’d never have supposed from looking at him how hard it’s been to kill him.’
Joseph’s response was somewhere between a laugh and an unpleasant growl.
‘I can’t say your people have been trying to much effect,’ he jeered softly. ‘They tracked him down well enough to his place of confinement. I understand they got their agent in place around the same time as Meekal got his. Your agent, though, seems to have done his job with singular incompetence. Alaric thought he was safe in Britain – safe beyond all civilised reach. It should have been easiness itself to kill him while he slept. Engaging the same race of northerners as Meekal had, and expecting them to be let into the monastery was unnecessarily complex. Whatever happened there, your agent failed miserably. Meekal’s plan was rather more successful, and so Alaric was brought back into our world.’
‘And, once you’d discovered he was back,’ Khadija broke in defensively, ‘I don’t see that the Empire’s own efforts were crowned with greater success. I’ve had a full report of what happened last night. Your people never so much as saw him once he was out of the banqueting hall.’
The Sword of Damascus Page 32