The Sword of Damascus a-4

by Richard Blake

  I smiled bleakly and took a fold of the boy’s tunic between my forefinger and thumb. It was made of the thick-woven silk that costs its weight in gold. It suited him well. I tried to remember him as he’d been back in Jarrow, with that silly hairstyle and those dirty rags he used to wear. Even with every reason to treat me well, Meekal would have trouble not to rape him on the spot. There was a gentle knock at the door. One slave came in with a lighted taper for the lamps, another to remind me of my bath and the fine clothes that had been sent up to adorn me. Pulling on Edward’s arm, I got up.

  ‘I’ve given instructions,’ I said, ‘for you to be put to bed with one drop of opium in warm honey juice. Please make sure not to ask for more than that.’

  Edward stopped at the door. ‘Do you think we’ll get out of this alive?’ he asked.

  I grinned. ‘I’ll work on that,’ I said.

  Chapter 40

  ‘As my esteemed grandfather,’ Meekal whispered as he passed by, ‘you are, of course, exempt from the obligation to present me with a gift.’

  I smiled and kept my place at the head of the queue. ‘My dearest kinsman,’ I said back to him, ‘you represent the Caliph, in whose most generous hospitality I bask. I should be mortified to be treated differently from any other guest.’

  He turned his mouth down and continued on his slow, ceremonial path to the high point of the banqueting hall. Dressed from head to toe in his usual black silk, he took his place before a vast tapestry that, in its chaotic representation of birds and flowers, was obviously Egyptian, and stood, with Karim on his left and, on his right, a much older man whom I recognised as the great Abbas – Deputy Commander of the Faithful and Admiral of the fleet that I’d watched burn to the waterline from my place on the walls of Constantinople. He looked grimly back at me, then, with a resigned gesture, nodded his greeting.

  The hall was a square about two hundred feet on each side. Its roof, supported on four great internal columns, was a dome of glass bricks that glowed with the last rays of the setting sun. In preparation for the long evening ahead, great rings of lamps had already been suspended from iron hooks sunk into the glass bricks. Attached like acrobats by ropes to other hooks, slaves waited on ledges far overhead to swing silently out as required to attend to the lamps.

  The floor was of polished black granite. Like the waters of a Kentish pond, it gleamed in the dying light of the day and the growing relative brightness of the lamps. Where the tapestries broke off, the walls were covered with mosaics from an older time of hunting and feasting scenes.

  ‘It is an honour that I shall describe to my sons,’ someone behind me said softly, ‘to stand so close to the Magnificent al-Arik, Shield of the Greeks. One of my wives is niece to a man whom you caused to be instructed in the learning of the ancients. Her family, though now of the Faithful, still rejoices to have known your generosity of heart.’

  ‘I shall be honoured to know his name,’ I said gravely. The converted name of Hamid meant nothing to me. But I spoke well of his willingness to remember favours from the days when he still ranked among the Cross Worshippers.

  But now the herald had taken his place just before Meekal. With two blasts on a silver trumpet, the gathering was called to order. He stood forward and raised his arms for attention.

  ‘His Highness Meekal, Governor of Syria, trusted companion of His Majestic Holiness,’ he cried in a loud voice that echoed from the back of the hall, ‘Meekal, whose piety is known from a thousand battlefields and in innumerable works of charity, bids greeting to you, beloved guests and friends. Peace be upon you all. May you recall the words of the Prophet, upon whom be there peace.’ There was a general mutter throughout the hall of ‘Peace be upon Him.’ The herald smiled, and took in another lungful of air. ‘When asked what was the greatest good in the Faith, know that the Prophet replied, “Feeding others and giving the greeting of peace to those whom you know and those whom you do not know.” ’

  So the man went on and on, while the guests shouted out the appropriate responses. I didn’t think it would end, and that I’d have to pull the rank that age and achievements had earned me, and be taken off to my couch. But it did end, and we shuffled forward. With a flick of my tongue, I had my teeth in place. I opened my mouth and took a deep breath.

  ‘Mighty Meekal,’ I cried in a voice that was somewhere between a quaver and a shout, ‘trusted and beloved friend of the Caliph’ – I thought it best not to dwell on the family connection, even if it was a matter of common knowledge – ‘accept this humble gift of a book that, nevertheless, contains the wisdom of the ancients.’ I nudged the attendant who stood beside me. He stepped forward and presented the scientific work of Aristotle I’d picked up in Beirut. I’d made sure to have the pages taken out and cleaned and then rebound in white vellum with gold and silver inlays. Young Michael had been a crap student: his own taste in the ancients had never run beyond military history. Meekal the Merciless would never notice the gross corruption in two of the middle chapters – assuming it wasn’t Edward’s own reading that wasn’t at fault. But it was a pretty book.

  He glanced at it and smiled graciously. ‘It shall, O Magnificent One, be placed among my most valuable treasures,’ he called out in a great voice, ‘and shown to my most honoured guests.’ He dropped his voice and fell into Greek. ‘And do have this, my darling Alaric.’ Someone reached forward with a small golden box. ‘You’ve already had your teeth back. I trust this, your recovered cock piercing, will be of equal use.’

  We hurried through the formal kiss, and I was carried off to my dining couch. This, sadly, was placed right beside Meekal’s. With the changes necessary for the difference of religion, this was a banquet that reproduced all the heavy formality of the Imperial court. Age would get me out of staying to the grisly end. But I reclined in the raised area of the hall, a couple of hundred other couches spread out beyond like the blocks on a polished wooden floor. My every gesture could and would be observed.

  I maintained a diplomatic immobility during the reading from the Prophet’s sayings, smiled benignly through the endless speeches and shouts of greeting to the Old One al-Arik, and finally took in one hand the loaf that Meekal held out to me. We broke it together and shared a drink from a goblet that was more impressive than its contents. The banquet had begun. It was the standard civilised food – fresh salads, pickled cucumbers, hummus eaten with unleavened bread. Some of this I could eat, some not. Beyond some goat that had been boiled down to a sort of jelly, Meekal didn’t press the meat dishes on me. My teeth placed discreetly in their ebony box, I ate with a nice balance of the cautious and the grateful. I even managed not to drool too much on to my new banqueting robe.

  One of the differences between Greek and Saracen dining is that the latter tend to eat in silence. It’s one of the customs they brought with them from a desert where food is so rare that it isn’t to be spoiled by the chatter of conversation. That saved me from the ordeal of having to be pleasant to Meekal. But, regardless of custom, he was hard at work with his secretaries. It was, so far as I could tell, the usual work of the powerful – petitions, diplomatic letters, internal administration. He drank steadily from a cup of what may have been ginger broth, and chewed morsels of food between dictating brief answers and instructions. Every so often, he’d dart a look of wolfish triumph in my direction. I countered these by ignoring him.

  Once, after a long and very gloaty inspection, I called for the potty men. While one held the silver pot for my – genuine – call of nature, the other held the screens about me. It was, in every sense, a moment of bliss. As the screen was taken down, though, I saw Meekal was on his feet. Breathing hard, his beard thrust out straight in front of him, he was looking exultantly about the hall. Several hundred hands had stopped their steady scooping up of food, and everyone was looking nervously in his direction. Then, he pointed at one of the serving boys. I looked hard at the lad. He seemed well-made, and perhaps a few years older than Edward. I couldn’t say more, as all that
playing with lenses and dotty parchment had left my unaided vision worse than it had been. But I heard the quiet mutter of approval that ran about the room.

  I shrugged as my own attendant rearranged my banqueting wig. This sort of thing would never have done in the Imperial court – not even under Constans. But this wasn’t Michael the Greek. Meekal the Saracen could probably have taken the boy straight outside for a spot of bum fun. For my own reason, I rather wished he had. But the first courses were now being cleared away, and we had a most welcome break. I put my teeth back in for a desultory conversation with someone who came up and asked about the mosque I’d caused to be endowed in Constantinople. At last, he drifted off to bore someone else, and a small man with a boy walked into the one clear space within the hall. Now, the buzz of chatter fell silent. With a bow to Meekal and to me as guest of honour, he looked round. His mouth opened, his teeth a brilliant white against the brown of his face. He began.

  ‘Once upon a time there dwelt in Egypt a confectioner who had a wife famed for beauty and loveliness; and a parrot which, as occasion required, did the office of watchman and guard, bell and spy, and flapped her wings did she but hear a fly buzzing about the sugar. This parrot caused abundant trouble to the wife, always telling her husband what took place in his absence. Now one evening, before going out to visit certain friends, the confectioner gave the bird strict injunctions to watch all night and bade his wife make all fast, as he should not return until morning. Hardly had he left the door than the woman went for her old lover, who returned with her and they passed the night together in mirth and merriment, while the parrot observed all…’

  It wasn’t a long story, but the repeated cheers and calls for the wittier passages to be recited over, dragged it out to what seemed a great length. It was made still longer by the flute accompaniments. I listened carefully, trying to keep the detachment of a philosopher and of a spy. The easiest part of spying is to find out how many soldiers the enemy has, and what use is to be made of them. You can’t fault this for the purely military aspects of victory. Far harder is getting inside the enemy’s head – to learn the causes that shape his manners and beliefs. So far as I was any kind of spy tonight, I was depressed in exact proportion to the entertainment. These people might be regarded in Constantinople as a race of barbarians just like my own ancestors. But this was a false assumption, based on recollections of how the Western Provinces had been lost. These people hadn’t come out of their desert with little of their own. It wasn’t a matter of waiting until they had adopted the superior ways of their subjects, and could then be evangelised and absorbed into our own civilisation. There would be no shadowy imperium extended here through the Church, aided by the occasional reconquest. If they copied from us, it was only to incorporate into a civilisation that could, in its own way, become equal to our own. Their literature stood on its own and needed nothing from us. Behind this rose their own Desert Faith – silly enough in its details, but without the terrible mess of Persons and Substances the Greeks had immovably fastened on the Christian Faith. We could, with our superiority in the sciences and with grim determination, hold their Empire from rolling forward into the Greek Provinces of our own. But these were not the Goths and Angles and Saxons. They were not even the Persians, as corrupt as they were alien. In time, they might appreciate Aristotle and Apollonius. They’d neither feel nor have any need for Homer and Herodotus. Least of all would they need Christ.

  None of this was a new revelation. I’d been putting it forward for years in the councils of an arrogant, if increasingly down-at-heel, Empire. But, sitting here, watching those bearded faces shine with joy at a recitation that had nothing Greek in its substance or content, was a chill reminder that the victories in the East of Alexander and the Caesars were already one with those of the Assyrians and the Persians.

  The story finished with a great burst of cheering, and the boy ran about the room, collecting the silver shaken out from some very large purses. There was an encore of flute playing from the boy while he danced about, followed by more silver. At last, he and his master went to the back of the room, where food would be set out for them, and we all settled back for the next round of courses.

  ‘Is it true that al-Inkus was buried alive after communicating his secret to the Emperor?’ someone asked behind me.

  I perked and twisted round to see who was speaking. It was the Admiral Abbas. For the first time, I noticed that his left arm hung lifeless at his side. Another victim in the catastrophic defeat I’d seen from the walls of Constantinople? Perhaps.

  ‘Callinicus was a man of great abilities,’ I said, trying not to sound guarded. ‘I believe he was an architect from Heliopolis – whether in Egypt or in Syria, the accounts differ. There is also some dispute over the manner of his achievement. Did he learn from an ancient manuscript, as some declare? Or did he make an original discovery? Since the man disappeared immediately after delivering his secret into the hands of the Emperor, no one can say. The manner of his death – if, indeed, he is dead – must ever stay a mystery.’

  Abbas might have asked more. Just then, however, Meekal sat upright on his couch and looked straight at the pair of us.

  ‘Can you smell fire?’ he asked. I dropped my own proposed question whether the fried river fish now being brought round had the bones left in, and sniffed the air.

  ‘Surely, my dear, it’s the lamps,’ I said, looking vaguely upwards. My sense of smell hadn’t been that good in years. Now he mentioned it, though, there was a faint smell of burning. More to the point, others in the hall had noticed. Several men were off their couches and running over to the door to give instructions to the attendants. Then, far over to the left, there was a panicky shout of ‘Fire!’. There was a mass scraping of couches and a clatter of dishes. Someone came up and whispered in Meekal’s ear. With a roar of anger, he was on his feet.

  ‘Get up!’ he shouted at me. ‘Keep hold of me while we get out. The fucking Empire’s set fire to us.’

  Chapter 41

  Panic abolishes most distinctions of rank, and Meekal had to use his right fist to get us across that shouting mob to the door. As we got there, we were nearly knocked over by a sudden reverse in the tide of escaping humanity. With Meekal to hold me upright, I stood a moment in the doorway and looked out into the darkness of the great garden in the palace. It was only a moment. But that was enough to see a bright ball of fire coming at us through the air. The earthenware jar shattered about three yards from us, sending up splashes of burning liquid to cling to anything it touched. I felt something catch the shoulder of my robe. It spun me round, and I nearly went over. As Meekal caught me and covered me with his own body, I saw a man go down. He landed a foot or so away, writhing and choking, an arrow in his throat.

  Out of the darkness came a cheer of triumph and a shouted ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth!’

  Back inside the hall, Meekal pushed me into the arms of Karim and bawled an order that I was too busy looking about me to follow. It was a desperate, furious stream of instructions. I caught one look of his face. It had about it the cold ghastliness of the dead. Then he turned to put some kind of order into the dinner guests.

  ‘Get that gate shut!’ he shouted above the cries of confusion and of fear. ‘Line up, men, line up,’ he now bellowed. ‘Swords at the ready.’ There was a martial sound from the trumpet, and the familiar commands gradually brought order into the hall.

  ‘I must get you out of here, My Lord,’ Karim shouted into my bad ear. Fighting a sudden fit of the trembles, he clutched at me to stay upright. ‘I am charged on my own life to keep you safe.’ He shivered again, and nearly had me on the floor.

  I shook my head. We were in a building of solid stone. It couldn’t be burned down. If Abbas had been anywhere close in that chaotic hall, I’d have tried for a witticism about the use of fire in battle. But, if Meekal was bringing order out of chaos, it was hard to say that chaos didn’t still have the upper hand. Whatever the case, running away with a jit
tery Karim didn’t sound at all a wise choice. It would be safest to press against the wall to avoid being knocked over by the crush of men. But even as I thought how to explain this, there was a smash of glass, and more of those burning pots came flying through one of the high windows. These weren’t hand-held projectiles. Somehow or other, the Angels of the Lord had not only got within the palace grounds – they’d also brought in some kind of artillery. There was a regular hail of fire into the hall. Men screamed and ran about as the burning oil stuck to clothes and flesh. Already, I could see that a couple of the men who’d taken direct hits would soon be dead if no one thought to put out the fires all over them. One of the tapestries was already on fire. It or the fuel that had carried the fire was giving off clouds of smoke that would finish someone like me off in no time at all.

  But Karim was recovered from his fit. He had me up on his back and was carrying me through the increasingly orderly crowds towards the little door at the back of the hall used by the serving men. He rattled the door, then shouted a command at the trembling slave to get it open. We passed through into the sudden chill and silence of the darkness, and I heard the bolts drawn hard shut behind me. I felt the crunch of gravel under Karim’s feet as he ran away from the building, and then the softer pad of his feet on grass as he dodged to avoid the men I could hear shouting and rejoicing somewhere close by. He put me down against a wall, and stood gasping smoke out of his lungs. I looked uselessly around. I knew the Tower of Heavenly Peace was on the far side of the palace. But there must be buildings nearby that would be guarded. If only there was a single light burning in the upper windows to let us see where these were. If only I could see anything other than a dark blur. Even the moon was out of sight.

  ‘There’s two over here,’ someone shouted in Syriac. The voice wasn’t above six yards away. Karim clutched at me again, and began the effort of pulling me back to my feet.