Ignoring any damage I may have suffered, I pulled myself into a sitting position and gasped for breath as I looked again at the orange ball a half-mile away across the desert. It had swelled still larger, but now appeared to be losing its definite shape and solidity. I watched it gradually fade into an immense cloud of dust and smoke that I thought would linger for ever above the now vanished walls of the monastery.
‘Master, Master – are you all right?’ I heard Edward cry as if from a great distance. I jumped as I felt his arms about my chest and he pulled me to my feet. Had I gone deaf in the noise? I clutched hold of him and looked feebly about for my stick. It was now that stones and other debris began raining down upon us. I heard the thud of objects in the sand around me, and more distant crunching and screams. I felt myself thrown back on to the sand, and now Edward’s body covering mine. Even as the hail continued of lighter stones that had been thrown higher in the blast, I struggled free and stood up. I looked around. I now saw the damage the explosion had caused, even this far away. The canopy had gone from the Caliph’s platform. The platform itself had turned over. Every carrying chair had been blown apart. All the horses had bolted. Large stones and other debris littered the ground as far as the eye could see. No one else was standing. Everyone I could see was huddled on the ground. No one moved. I couldn’t even tell if anyone else was still alive.
I saw my walking stick over by the shattered remains of the sound reflecting screen. I let go of Edward and walked towards it. I bent forward to pick it up. But Edward had got there first. He pressed it into my hands. I turned to him and smiled.
‘I did that,’ I said in English, pointing with my stick towards the still huge cloud of dust. Edward nodded. He made no other reply. I smiled more brightly and raised my voice. ‘Yes, I did that,’ I repeated. ‘I’ll bet no one else has ever managed the like. “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair,” ’ I quoted in Greek from an ancient poet.
I turned again and found myself looking straight at the Caliph. Half his beard was gone, and there was a bloody gash on his face. I laughed as he tried to control the shaking of his body and get any words out at all. He sat down suddenly on the sand. He pointed weakly at the still growing cloud above what had been Meekal’s project, and slumped forward.
‘ “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair,” ’ I cried again. I held out a hand to help the poor man to his feet.
Well indeed might the mighty despair.
Chapter 66
If you’ve seen one of them already, there isn’t much to be said about any other prison. Every palace needs one, and the Caliph’s palace was no exception. You got to it by going down the steps that lay the other side of a small door at the back of one of the main administrative buildings used by the Governor of Syria. Unlike in the Imperial Palace in Constantinople, these stairs hadn’t yet had enough use to be worn. But it was the same melancholy descent from bright sunshine into perpetual darkness, and the same smell of unwashed humanity and of bottomless despair.
I rapped smartly with my stick on the desk of the little Syrian who was supposed to be keeping watch at the foot of the long staircase. He woke with a start and peered at me in the dimness of the lamp that shone from an iron bracket on the wall behind him. I fought to control my breathing and dropped a slip of papyrus on to the cluttered desk.
‘This doesn’t cancel the order that no one is to be admitted,’ the man said in Greek.
I’d been expecting that. I unhooked a purse from my belt and took out five solidi. He looked at the golden discs and nodded. He reached behind him and pulled out the stopper from a water clock. He pointed at the first marker.
‘You can have twelve minutes with him – no more,’ he said. He opened his mouth to call for one of the guards.
I stopped him. ‘The permit says I can see him alone,’ I said, waving at the slip.
The Syrian shook his head. ‘No private meetings,’ he said firmly.
I opened my purse again and poured its entire contents on to the desk. Their sound made a dull echo within the room. When the man had finished his choking fit, he stood up and took a bunch of keys. He looked for a moment at an open ledger. He looked back at the gold and sighed. He gathered up the coins and put them back into the purse that I’d now dropped in front of him. Tucking the purse into a deep fold in his clothing, he led the way across the room to a door at the far end that was bound with iron.
Knowing exactly what to expect, I held my breath as the door swung open and we stepped into the deeper gloom of a long corridor. If you’ve ever had a cat, you’ll know the beast’s genius for finding your most expensive rug or silk hanging, and then shitting all over it. Imagine this, left to dry out and go stale, and then shoved under your nose. Imagine this, plus the cat’s dead and putrefying body, and throw in a stinking fish – and you have some idea of how a prison smells. I clapped a scented cloth to my face and tried not to think about anything at all as I shuffled along that corridor. To the best of my ability, I blotted out the sound of sobs and whispered pleading from behind each of the wooden doors that we passed. Every time I’ve been in one of these places, I’ve told myself that this would be the last. It never had been yet. Perhaps even this wouldn’t be the last.
‘So, Grandfather, have you come to gloat?’ Meekal asked as his eyes got used to the lamp. His own cell was larger than I’d expected. But the main floor was reached down a flight of steps, and was covered in a two-inch carpet of liquid filth. I looked at this briefly as I reached the bottom step. I nerved myself and continued splashingly forward to where Meekal was sitting. He tried to get up as I approached. But the chain attached to his iron collar was too short to let him move more than a few feet from the wooden bench where he’d been sitting.
I turned to the Syrian gaoler. He hadn’t followed me down the steps. He stood in the doorway, still holding his lamp.
‘Get out of here,’ I said coldly. ‘You can leave the lamp on the steps. I’ll summon you back when I’m ready.’ I heard the door swing gently shut. By then, though, I was already standing over Meekal. He looked up at me and tried to smile.
‘I’ve spent the past few days trying to clarify when you started working for the Empire,’ he said. ‘Was it when you were still in your British monastery? Was even your confiscation and exile part of the plan?’ He shuffled to the end of his little bench and made room for me. I sat down beside him, and tried to ignore the wet filth that soaked straight through two layers of silk.
‘Your question is irrelevant,’ I answered. ‘In a sense, I never stopped working for the Empire. A better question is when I realised what I was supposed to do. Answering that would take longer than I fear we shall have.’ I reached into the satchel I’d brought in on my back and pulled out a loaf of bread and some wine. I watched as Meekal ate his first meal since he’d been pulled, more dead than alive, from the wreckage of the Caliph’s platform.
‘You were a fool to disbelieve what I said,’ Meekal began again. ‘I really meant those words about joining the two empires. It would have been a fresh start for the world.’
I looked down at my feet and splashed them in the filth. ‘The problem,’ I said, ‘is that I did believe you. And, in spite of all that happened to me there, it would pain me more than I can imagine to see the Empire fall. More than that, though – far more than that – would be the thought that the Saracens could then rampage without any real opposition through Europe. I would do all this again, and more, if it meant the call to prayer would never sound from the monastery in Jarrow. You are, of course, right that the Christian Faith means nothing to me. Your own new Faith has many advantages that we don’t need to discuss. But, for all its original idiocy, and for all that has been added to it, the Church carries within itself the seeds of something that, sooner or later, will germinate into what may never quite have been, but what might yet be.’
‘The Empire must fall,’ Meekal insisted.
‘I’m sure it will,’ I conceded. ‘But it won’t fall unt
il there is some other line of defence against your people. I bought time the other day. I did no more than that. But I bought time that I have no doubt will be used.’
‘What do you suppose they will do to me?’ he asked.
I looked at him and smiled. ‘You may not have heard that Karim is now Governor of Syria,’ I said. I waited for Meekal to finish his ironic laugh. ‘Yes,’ I went on, ‘though it won’t be his intention, the Empire will find him a most useful member of the Caliph’s Council. The Caliph has declared you an Enemy of God – a traitor, a spendthrift, a sorcerer, and an unwise meddler with the old families of which he is, after all, a member. I spoke with Karim last night. He refused even to consider softening your punishment. Tomorrow morning, you will be taken from this cell to be racked and, after that, tortured all over with red-hot pincers. You will then be taken to the usual place of punishment. Your extremities will be cut off. You will be blinded in one eye, and have one ear cut off. Then you will be crucified. There are other incidentals. However, since you have passed that sentence many times on others, I don’t need distress you with any further description.’
‘It is the will of God,’ he said, fighting to keep his voice steady.
I opened the satchel again and took out a battered scroll.
‘I haven’t just brought you physical comfort,’ I said. ‘I found this in Beirut, and was thinking to send it to a friend I made in Africa. It is the third book of Lucretius – his long meditation on death as the end of all things. You may remember that I tried to make you read it when you were a boy in Constantinople. It led to one of the few disagreements I ever had with my darling Maximin. I bring it to you now. It was copied by a Greek scribe, and he lapses into the Greek alphabet here and there. But I’ve corrected the few actual errors. I hope you find the time to read it this evening. I’ll make sure you have enough light for the effort. I promise it will give you comfort – especially if you read it all the way to the end.’
I was done. I stood up and moved towards the steps that would carry me back to reasonably dry stone. At the top of the steps, I turned and rapped my stick on the door.
‘But, Grandfather,’ came the now laughing cry from behind me, ‘you haven’t asked what I was really doing when I fucked the dead boy.’
It was a question I had thought of asking. But since the boy’s head had vanished in the blast, I saw no point in asking what exact use had been made of the body.
‘Michael,’ I said, looking back down at the hunched figure, ‘I never imagined our parting would be of this nature. I did hope for so much that was better.’ I stopped and controlled my voice. ‘This is our parting. I shall not see you again.’
I might have said more. I might even have gone back down to put a hand on his shoulder. But the Syrian gaoler was now pushing the door open, ready to take me back to where my carriers awaited me above in the sunshine.
I sat a long time in my bath. I sobbed uncontrollably and rocked back and forth as the slaves sponged water over the tightly shrivelled skin of my back. For all he’d been a total bastard – for all he deserved everything that had happened, and more – he was still the son of the only child I’d ever truly loved. When Martin had brought the little baby from outside that church door in Constantinople, I’d adopted him on the spot. I’d taken him in my arms and called him my own. He’d been, throughout his life, the one consistent joy in my life. I’d wept for days in Carthage when I’d received that insolent notice from Michael of his death. Whatever lay in store for Michael – or Meekal: you say what you’d have me call him – it was richly deserved. It still didn’t wipe out that he was the child of Maximin.
I took the refilled cup from a slave and drained it all in one go. I handed it back for more. There are some pains, however, that not wine – nor even opium – can wholly blot out.
Chapter 67
‘I don’t see why I should answer – not, at least, within the Caliph’s dominions – to an agent of the Emperor.’ I looked stonily at Joseph until he shifted his gaze. I put my hands on the table and shuffled my feet on the floor.
‘My Lord Alaric,’ he tried again, still in his flawless Saracen, ‘this is not in any sense a formal interrogation. I merely asked if this object was yours.’ He nodded at the sharp little knife on the table. Still covered in blood where Meekal had opened his veins, it had done unexpected service ever since I’d borrowed it in Jarrow to sharpen my pens. I smiled and looked again into Joseph’s eyes.
‘I rather think it might be yours,’ I said.
‘I could have you killed for this,’ Khadija snapped at me. Twitching away beneath her veil, she sat beside Joseph. I stretched my legs under the table until I kicked against one of the four legs opposite me, and laughed.
‘Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘Karim would never allow such a thing, and you know it.’ We fell silent. It was the morning appointed for the execution of the traitor Meekal. Sadly for all concerned but himself, Meekal had taken matters into his own hands. Now, the three of us sat together in my grandest audience room. Dressed as an officer in the Caliph’s guard, Joseph had, so far as I could tell, made his way through the palace without challenge. I’d dismissed all the slaves to their own floor in the Tower of Heavenly Peace. I imagined Khadija had ensured that her own spies should have the day off from their work on the floor below that.
‘My Lord Alaric,’ Joseph said, his voice now conciliatory, ‘this is altogether a most irregular situation, and I must ask both of you to show continuing restraint. The Lady Khadija acknowledges your part in removing Meekal from what might otherwise have been a commanding position within the councils of His Majestic Holiness. She does not hold against you the unfortunate death under torture of several of her closest associates, nor her own brief confinement in a dungeon. She accepts that the betrayal of her conspiracy was a necessary part of your ruse to keep Meekal from visiting the former Monastery of Saint Theodore on the morning of the demonstration, where he would surely have discovered your intention. You have single-handedly achieved a revolution within the Saracen Empire that has reversed the policy of His Late Majestic Holiness Muawiya, and returned power to those born and bred within the Desert Faith. You may be sure that the Emperor is also grateful – though for reasons that it would be indelicate to discuss too closely in the presence of the Lady Khadija.’
‘Tell me, Joseph,’ I broke into his emollient flow, ‘how did you know that I’d do the Empire’s work? You were sent out to Jarrow to keep me safe from Cuthbert and Hrothgar. When that failed, you were sent after me to make sure I never got here. The orders then changed to making sure that I did get here, and that the more intrepid attempts on me by the Angels of the Lord came to nothing. But you never bothered telling me what I was supposed to do.’
‘As you said yesterday to Meekal,’ Joseph said very smoothly, ‘you never stopped working for the Empire.’ He looked back into my scowl and allowed himself a cold, bureaucratic laugh. He ignored the feeble attempt that Khadija was making to be heard. Doubtless, she was less interested in how he’d got a spy into the prison than in his own presence in Jarrow.
‘But, very well,’ he continued, ‘you deserve some kind of explanation. When Meekal first suggested your abduction from Jarrow, we heard both from the Lady Khadija and from our other spies. We quietly assisted the Lady Khadija’s own conspiracy to have you murdered before Meekal could lay hands on you. However, we made sure that her plan was never likely to succeed. I did not choose Brother Cuthbert myself. But I am impressed at the ability of our French agents to find so heroically useless a man, and at such short notice. Even so, I went out myself to Jarrow to make sure that Cuthbert’s plan failed and that Meekal’s succeeded. I than put myself through the motions of a pursuit across the Mediterranean, and of various murder attempts in Beirut and in Damascus. We needed Meekal to believe you were not working for us. And we needed the Lady Khadija to confirm this belief should we ever decide to betray her to Meekal.’ He allowed himself another chuckle as Khadija went int
o some kind of fit deep within her clothing. I poured myself a cup of wine. Joseph could stay with the water. He paid no visible attention to the slight, and continued with quiet enjoyment.
‘As you know, the plan did not at first work out exactly as was hoped. As Cuthbert was trying to open the gate of the monastery – not realising that Meekal’s people were now in charge outside – he was killed by the boy Wilfred—’
‘Now, do tell me about that,’ I broke in. ‘It’s something I guessed long ago. But I’d like to hear the details. What could have possessed poor little Wilfred to do anything so energetic?’
‘I have no idea,’ Joseph said with some faint recollection of the annoyance. ‘But it was Wilfred. I have no idea what could have spurred him to that. I never thought him capable of lifting more than one of the lighter books in the monastery library. But Wilfred it was. This was an inconvenient act, as I now wanted the gate open. As the boy lay sobbing and calling on God to strike him dead for his sins, I did intend to open the gate myself. It was now that someone – almost certainly the boy Edward, whom I had never suspected of involvement – hit me hard from behind on the head. By the time I was able to get free of the monastery, you had all vanished.
The Sword of Damascus Page 44