The Sword of Damascus

by Richard Blake

  ‘I don’t think she got round to telling you,’ I whispered slowly in Greek. ‘But Khadija will now let you firm up my security.’ He nodded with plain relief, and with some embarrassment. ‘And you can be assured that, so long as young Edward is guaranteed safe, Khadija will get everything she wants. Your own children will learn many things, I have no doubt – but Greek will not be on their syllabus.’

  By now, I’d been packed into the chair, and the carriers were in position front and back. With a nervous order from Karim, they had me aloft.

  ‘I don’t know how you’ve managed to stay alive this long with your behaviour,’ he muttered with a faint return to his diplomatic manner. ‘But I pray to Allah that He will continue to watch over you.’

  ‘I have not the slightest doubt, my darling great-grandson,’ I mumbled as I tried to get my teeth back into position, ‘that Allah will continue the same watch on me as He has always kept.’

  Without bothering to reply, Karim slapped the shoulder of the head carrier and watched as I was carried rapidly out of sight.

  Chapter 51

  That really should have been the evening’s work. Even a younger man, by now, should have been wilting. But good opportunities hardly ever present themselves singly. It was as we were passing again over the long wooden bridge that I saw Meekal. It was too dark for playing with my visor. But I’d pulled the curtain aside to cool my sweating face, and I’d have known that long stride anywhere. I watched with idle attention as he approached from the right. At our current speeds, I guessed, he’d pass the far end of the bridge shortly before I arrived there. Interesting that, for all his exalted position, the Governor of Syria and effective deputy of the Caliph himself still went about the palace on his own two feet. Khadija’s stimulants were still at full blast in my head, and I felt little inclination to go back off to bed. The idea may have been in my mind the moment I saw Meekal. Certainly, it wasn’t long after that when the idea was fully formed.

  ‘Follow that man,’ I hissed. The head bearer twisted round with a muttered protest: hadn’t I made them risk enough already? I ignored the protest. ‘That man over there,’ I said, pointing. Our relative speeds had changed, and Meekal would pass the bridge some while before we were off it. ‘I’m sure you recognise the Lord Governor of Syria.’ In the moonlight, the face staring back at me seemed a mask of sudden fear. ‘You heard me,’ I hissed again. I paid no attention to the reply – half protest, half terrified plea. ‘I said follow that man. Do it, and there’s five solidi extra for each of you.’ That decided them. With a few soft words of command from their leader, the slaves were padding faster down the planks of the bridge. Meekal was now about twenty yards over on our left, and was ready to vanish round a corner. ‘Careful, careful!’ I called softly. ‘Follow at a distance. Try not to appear eager to keep the man in sight.’

  So, with cautious haste, I swayed along in the chair. Back in the main buildings of the palace, the evening may still have been in full swing. This far out, there was nothing but the occasional covered chair and the ubiquitous slaves, all carrying boxes of food and drink and the obvious implements of pleasure. If Meekal had looked round more than once, he’d have found reason to pause and come back for enquiries. But he turned round not at all. He did stop at one point, but that was only to look up awhile as the moon dodged in and out of the clouds. The carriers stopped behind a deserted pavilion and, shaking with fear, waited for the chase to begin again. And it did. We passed now within some streets of derelict buildings that had, before the palace walls extended so far, been houses for the middling people of Damascus. These would, sooner or later, be demolished, the ground on which they stood given over to some more exalted purpose. For now, they remained as evidence – if such was needed – that the world in which I was living had nothing about it of the immemorial. There were five of these streets, dark and quiet beneath the fitful moon. As scared now of their surroundings as of Meekal, the carriers prayed softly as they picked their way through the overgrown streets.

  At last, perhaps three hundred yards from the light outer rim of the walls, we came to a dense grove of trees. Every palace has one. In Constantinople, of course, the hunting ground covered an area at least three times larger. Being several hundred years older, the Emperor’s little forest was graced with much higher trees and a much more convincing appearance of natural growth. But, against the day when Damascus was besieged, or the palace itself was besieged by the people of Damascus, the caliphs had taken care that all the normal pleasures of life might continue, if on a smaller scale than usual. At a pinch, you’d go into there on horseback – though you’d have a better appearance on foot of boundless, overgrown solitude. Into this grove, Meekal now vanished.

  ‘We daren’t go in after him, My Lord,’ the head carrier gasped.

  I nodded. Even on a gravelled path, anyone would have to be stone deaf not to hear us. I peered over at the walls. The grove seemed to run right up to them, though probably stopped ten or so yards short for security. Was there an unfrequented gate in that stretch of wall? Was Meekal only going through the grove so he could get out, unobserved, into the city?

  ‘Wait over by that tree,’ I said, trying to sound surer than I now felt about matters. ‘I will give further instructions when I am ready.’ Obediently, the carriers trotted over to the shade of the low apple tree. ‘Put me down here,’ I said, ‘and sit as if you are all at rest.’ I sat for what seemed an age. I sat until I began to feel stupid. The moon was now fully out from behind the clouds, and its mysterious light bleached out all that wasn’t in shadow. A gentle breeze ruffled the chair curtains. Somewhere in the distance – perhaps outside the palace grounds – a dog barked without letting up. The sky told me it was rather earlier than I’d assumed. We were still approaching the midnight hour. Even so, this vigil was dragging on and on.

  Then, just as I was about to order the retreat, there was a sound deep within the grove. What it was I couldn’t tell with my hearing – but the carriers heard it. I saw them sit up and listen. At once, though, their own response was overwhelmed by the dry clatter of several hundred wings as what may have been every bird in the grove left its perch for the night. That, plus the cries of animals on the ground, brought the night suddenly to life. Just as suddenly, though, it faded again. The carriers looked at each other in the returning silence, and then to Heaven. I steadied them with a distribution of gold. So far as I could, I scanned the still blackness of the grove for any sign of movement.

  I can’t say how much longer we waited. I had one of the chair curtains pulled down so I could wrap it about my own chilled body. There were faint bursts of sound as, back towards the centre of the palace, the bands of revellers began to break up for the night. The birds were almost set off again by a procession of several dozen blacks that passed by close to where we sat out of sight. Accompanied by drums, though in mournful voice, they shouted out what may once have been their battle cry as, chained neck to neck, they were hurried past by a pair of eunuchs who didn’t seem to care what skin they broke with their discipline rods. As if on some night exercise, they were driven from deep within the palace grounds, only to be turned and driven back.

  And that was it. The drums and chanting faded into the night. The bursts of revelry became fainter and further apart. That dog barked endlessly, and the moon rose ever higher above the high wall of the palace and the trees that, young as they were, already topped the palace wall. Once again, I began to wonder if it was time to order the carriers out of their cautious doze and have myself taken off to bed.

  Then, suddenly, a small, dark figure darted out from the trees. It stopped in the moonlight and looked frantically about. I sat up and stared hard. Was it a deer or some other small animal? Was it just a trick of the light? I strained and focused. I stood up and rubbed my eyes, and looked again. How the bloody hell . . . ? I thought. I stepped forward and poked my stick into the back of one of the huddled carriers.

  ‘Catch that boy!’ I said urgently.
‘All of you – after him. Bring him back here. And try not to make any noise.’

  As the carriers caught up with him and noiselessly surrounded him, I saw Edward pull out a knife. He turned round and round, stabbing frantically, his knife glittering dark in the moonlight. Without giving him space to break free and run, the slaves darted back. Still perky from the stimulants, I hurried over the thirty yards or so that separated us.

  ‘Edward, Edward!’ I gasped softly in English. I doubled up with a coughing fit, but was up again in moments. ‘It’s me. Come over here before we all get seen.’ The boy looked in my direction, then went back to stabbing at the air. I hurried closer and called again. This time, he looked properly at me. I caught a blurred glimpse of his face in the moonlight, and wanted to step away. Then, he dropped down and covered his eyes. His body shook with a wild sobbing. ‘Get him up,’ I called to the carrying slaves. ‘Get him into the chair with me, and get us both back to the Tower of Heavenly Peace. Be quick about it. There’s double gold all round.’

  I looked at the dark, menacing stillness of the grove. Even I might have thought twice before stepping into that, come the dusk – certainly if I knew Meekal was lurking somewhere inside.

  Chapter 52

  ‘I think you’re a bloody fool,’ I said, still in English. ‘If any of the agents I used to employ had confessed to half your incompetence, I’d have sacked him on the spot – and cancelled his pension too.’ I looked at Edward over the top of my visor. I pulled off my wig and dropped it on the desk. Now we were out of the open, the night heat was turning sticky. I took a deep breath and looked hard at him. ‘But I want you to tell me again,’ I said gently, ‘and this time, try to give me a connected account, exactly what you saw and heard. I don’t care what you think you saw, or what you think any of it might indicate. I want the facts as you witnessed them, and nothing more.’

  The boy gulped down another mouthful of wine, and looked for reassurance at the bookshelves of my office. We’d got back here without trouble. The guards Karim had already taken care to double outside were all too busy sniffing their bowls of smoking hashish to pay that much attention. A distribution of what gold I’d not lavished on the carrying slaves had shut their mouths, and might keep them shut; besides, if they were already in her pay, I didn’t suppose anyone would be comparing the time I’d left Khadija with the time of my return. I’d helped get Edward out of his pissy, vomit-stained clothes, and he’d sat an age shuddering in the warm bath I’d drawn for him with my own hands. I noted how the weals were already healing on that marvellous skin. But, if the bruises and remaining cuts still hurt, he wasn’t calm enough to pay attention to the pain. Now, I stood over him, pouring wine into his cup, and hoping he wouldn’t pass out before I got enough of those tearful and discontinuous fragments to reconstruct the whole story.

  ‘Did you recognise any of the other men?’ I asked. That was in itself a useless question. But it served to draw the main attention away from Meekal. Karim hadn’t stayed around to share in the boy’s lesson, and, once I was dressed up and ready to go, Edward had got himself ready to tag along behind. As I might have expected, he’d stopped a little too long to feast his eyes on the snake woman. By the time he’d pulled himself away, my chair was nowhere in sight. Instead, he’d wandered lost for a while, hoping he’d see us all again by chance.

  ‘Very well,’ I sighed. I hurried him to the main events. ‘You are sure it was Brother Joseph?’ I asked. ‘It isn’t easy to disguise yourself as a eunuch – especially when you have a beard like his. What makes you so completely sure it was him?’ You might think it a silly question. But I wasn’t telling Edward anything of what I’d been up to that evening. And, supposing he hadn’t seen or guessed that Joseph had followed us to Caesarea, his last sight of the man had been far off in the western seas of the Mediterranean.

  ‘He spoke Latin,’ came the answer through chattering teeth.

  I thought of a dab of opium in the wine cup. But you can’t be sure of the effect that will have on the very young.

  ‘But you weren’t close enough to hear what was said,’ I prompted. The boy nodded. But he’d heard the other man addressed as Meekal, and guessed that he was the Governor of Syria. They’d spoken together a long time outside the hall where the geometry lesson was still in progress. Apparently, Joseph had spoken in cutting tones about the teacher’s ability. Then the pair had moved just outside Edward’s hearing. Meekal had laughed much and shaken his head at some repeated urging. Beyond that, Edward had got nothing from the conversation. Joseph had eventually melted into a crowd, and the choice had been come back here to bed or follow Meekal about. He’d done the latter – and much he’d got from it with his total lack of Saracen. Meekal had gone to a meeting of the palace guards, where he’d been greeted with much cheering. He’d then spent a long time in some low building without lights. He might have been in conversation with one or with many men. Edward had tried listening at a window, but the shutters had been pulled to, and it was impossible to make sense of the faint noises from within.

  At last, he’d followed Meekal into the grove. I groaned as he said again that he’d not once noticed my chair. Since he’d been flitting about in the shadows, and my own lack of night vision was to be expected, there was no disgrace in my not having seen him. But he’d never make a spy with that degree of attention to his surroundings. I didn’t mention that Joseph had seen him; that would only have sent him into another sobbing fit.

  ‘So you followed Meekal along some narrow, winding path to a clearing,’ I said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. ‘There were six men already waiting there. Beardless and with pale faces, they were all dressed in black, with high, pointed hats. They danced about him for a while, chanting. They then helped him out of all his clothes, and, naked in the moonlight, Meekal fucked a corpse. Is that what happened?’ Edward said nothing, but covered his eyes in recollection of the horror. I did manage to sound matter-of-fact. This was, however, a new departure for Meekal. If much had been alleged by the stupid monks he’d never gone out of his way to conciliate, not even the Emperor Constans in all his shocking glory had ever actually tried necrophilia. ‘The boy was dead,’ I asked in the same flat voice, ‘you were sure of that?’ He nodded. He said again how the stiff, naked body had been unrolled from the black shroud in which it had been lying on the ground when Meekal arrived. Edward had been close enough behind his bush to see the heavy cord still tied about the neck, and to see the ferocious delight with which the body had been enjoyed. And all the while, the moon had shone through the softly sighing branches, and owls had flapped and hooted overhead. I thought of the serving boy at the previous night’s feast. He’d been such a jolly young creature. But I was far too grown-up to join Edward in shocked tears. I also thought better than to remind him of his own tastes in love. I waited for the new shivering fit to pass.

  ‘Let us go back to the men in pointy hats,’ I prompted once more. ‘They had light, shaven faces. But you don’t think they were eunuchs?’ He nodded. I took that as a negative. ‘And there were six of them – you counted six of them for sure?’ He had. ‘The faces could have been painted white,’ I went on. ‘That would be fairly standard with the sort of proceedings you witnessed. Now, as Meekal fucked the corpse a second time, they danced about again, chanting in what you think was Saracen. It was after this, when they cut off the dead boy’s head, that all the birds woke up. You say that Meekal got up and joined them in shouting and waving their arms – though the noise was too great for you to hear anything.’ He nodded. ‘Very well. Once everything was quiet again, Meekal took up the severed head and danced with it held aloft. It was now that the others set up a regular chant – the same words over and over.’ I waited for the nod. ‘Can you repeat for me what sounds their words had?’ Edward opened his mouth. I leaned forward, hoping against hope. He squeezed his eyes shut and thought hard. Then he opened them and shook his head.

  I could have beaten the stupid boy. I’d just got for myse
lf a stick to wave over Khadija’s head if required. I could now have had a sharp little knife to shove into Meekal’s guts. As it was, though, I had enough. I patted Edward’s shoulder and reminded him of my words earlier that evening, about the usefulness of learning foreign languages.

  ‘It seems that you caught your nephew in some act of sorcery,’ I explained. ‘But you knew that already, I’m sure. I want you to tell yourself – and to keep telling yourself – that there is no magic. Leave aside whatever nonsense was clogging Meekal’s mind, all you witnessed was an act of physical grossness, following what I cannot regard as other than a brutal murder. However, the Saracens do believe in magic. If possible, they take an even dimmer view of it than the Christians do.

  ‘You’re bleeding lucky, young man, that no one saw you. By now, you’d be ripening somewhere for Meekal to shove a knife up your arse till it too could accommodate his massively engorged member.’ I cursed those stimulants Khadija had poured down my throat. They’d kept me going. But I thought for a moment Edward would puke up again. I got the wastepaper basket ready. But he controlled himself and drew himself up on the sofa to hug his knees.

  ‘What did it all mean?’ he asked. He squeezed his eyes tight shut.

  I laughed softly. ‘The corpse-fucking we can take as an act of superstitious blasphemy,’ I said. ‘It’s the sort of thing people did on the quiet, back in the days of the Old Faith, before committing an act of the most desperate treason. There are varying explanations of its meaning. But the most reasonable is that it’s an act of ritual defilement, followed by cleansing. You say Meekal wheeled round and round at the end of his dance, then tossed the head into some bushes. I think you’ll find that he threw it in exactly the direction of the rising sun. The idea is that the thing takes on all the sins and general worthlessness of the killer’s life to date. All this is then communicated to the first person who touches the head when the sun is risen. The body can be dismembered and buried wherever may be convenient. I don’t suppose any of the parts will be discovered. In any event, one more body in a place like this won’t raise many eyebrows.’ Oddly enough, Edward seemed to find some comfort in my conjectural explanation. But, if this wasn’t the first time I’d tried lecturing him out of belief in it, he’d grown up – rather as I had – in a world where magic and divination were taken for granted.