The Sword of Damascus (55 page)

The best thing to do with tiredness in this heat is give way to it. The Caliph wasn’t due for ages yet. Why Meekal had got everyone out so absurdly early, to swelter away in this sun, and without adequate shade, was anyone’s guess. I pulled my visor properly down – less to see clearly than to block out some of that dazzling light – and leaned harder against the slave. I felt the blackness sweep over me now in earnest. Soon, I was deep into another dream. I had now arrived in the Athens of my youth. I was walking briskly past the roofless shell of Hadrian’s Library, while Martin prattled on about nothing in particular. I think I’d made some money down in Piraeus or at dice, and I was looking for some way to get rid of Martin, so I could go about my proper business of celebrating in a brothel.

I woke with a sore neck and spent some while trying to work out where I was, and why I was beginning to feel my innards twitch with nervous strain.

‘Who are those children?’ I managed to ask eventually.

‘They are from the Saracen school in Damascus, My Lord,’ came the answer from just behind me. ‘They are here to sing for His Majestic Holiness.’

‘Well, I hope they won’t be dragged in as well for the demonstration,’ I muttered. The slave took hold of my head, which would otherwise have flopped completely to the side, and I let him sit me forward. Someone else poured me a cup of warmed fruit squash. As I drank it, I came properly back into this world. A larger crowd had assembled while I slept, and workmen were fitting a curved wooden screen together about twenty yards from the raised platform where the Caliph would be taking his seat. They ran about, calling softly to each other and arguing over how each part should be tied together. Arranged in a semicircle on each side of the platform, the lesser quality of Damascus were taking their places as if for some theatrical performance.

I got my stick and stood up. I moved my neck about to get out some of the stiffness and looked properly round. There must have been five thousand people here. The platform was still empty except for some slaves, who darted about with pans and brushes, or to pull on the cords that held the awning taut. Beyond the crowd, more soldiers had been placed. These were more of the big fighting men who’d come back from the war. To make any kind of successful attack on this event, it would need a regular army. You could forget the usual drugged-up suicide mission.

There was a cry from over on my left. I reached down to where my ear trumpet dangled at my chest and put it in to hear what was being said. It was a carrying chair that had fallen over. One of the slaves had tripped on a rope that was stretched tight at knee level, and the whole chair had gone down. Slaves bawled at each other as they fished within the disorganised heap of curtains for whatever grand personage would eventually emerge shaking and spluttering.

I now saw the long train of other chairs that were ferrying in from across the desert what looked to be the heads of the Religious Council and the Caliph’s older ministers. They were arriving fast, and were being led to what I took to be temporary seating in the shade of the main platform.

I could smell food cooking somewhere. My mouth filled with saliva, and I remembered that I hadn’t felt up to breakfast. I was certainly up for lunch! I wondered when this would be served. Perhaps I might get someone to bring me a dish of something a little in advance. After all, I was surely part of the coming entertainment. It wouldn’t do to have me fainting from hunger.

I was thinking to turn and make a polite request of the slave who’d supported me while I slept, when I heard another cry.

‘The Commander of the Faithful comes!’ I heard someone call. The cry was repeated from somewhere out of my sight, and then again, until all distinctness of words was lost in the loud babble of many voices. I looked vaguely about. My slave took me by the shoulders and turned me to face into the sun. I pushed my visor close to my face and squinted. There was a cloud of dust several miles into the distance. I looked and looked, until I thought I could make out dark shapes within the cloud. They came on with the speed and regularity of a cavalry charge. There was a faint sound of galloping hooves, and now the cry of men who had seen where they were heading and were racing to see who would get there first. Behind me, I could hear men shouting their encouragement. I even heard someone lay odds on who would arrive first. There was a disapproving murmur, and he shut up. At least ten thousand eyes focused now in silence on the final charge towards us across the sand.

It was a massive white horse that got to us first – though only by the length of a horse. The rider pushed on with unbroken speed right into the open space before the platform, then came to a sudden halt. As grooms ran forward to take the horse, the rider swung off with an easy motion and stood, looking straight ahead.

The whole assembly got up and bowed. The men of the Religious Council shuffled forward, waving their sticks and calling out a coordinated greeting. A drum started up, and the schoolboys, all dressed now in long robes of white with green bands, began some elaborate, swirling dance.

While the Caliph stood, watching the dance, his companions came forward from where they’d dismounted and joined him. The meaning of the dance was lost on me. But it went on and on until I could feel my legs shaking and I thought I’d need yet again to claim the prerogatives of age. But it finished, and the boys lined up before the Caliph. He walked up and down the line, stopping now and again to smile at one of the boys, or to pinch a cheek. Now the schoolmaster was leading the boys away, and the old men were flocking round. I saw the Caliph stretch his arms and look up. I think I heard the cracking of tired joints. He finished his conversation and made for the steps up to the platform. He was followed by several dozen other men: the Religious Council, of course, and the ministers, and their attendants. Right at the end, and with much respectful bowing from everyone already up there – and even a helping hand from the Caliph – was Eusebius.

‘So nothing has kept the Imperial Ambassador away,’ I said to no one in particular.

‘So it would seem,’ came a displeased and slightly embittered voice from behind me. I turned. Meekal had now changed into the full regalia of the Governor of Syria. Dressed from head to toe in shimmering green satin, he looked like a piece of ship’s timber in a presentation box. I caught a look at his face, and the giggle died on my lips. ‘I did insist he be taken on a tour of the dye factories,’ Meekal spat. ‘He isn’t supposed to be here.’

‘You know Eusebius,’ I said. ‘Where there’s food to be had, or bribes to be taken, or information to be gathered for the Empire – there he will be. But isn’t that what he’s paid for?’

Meekal wiped sweaty hands on a napkin he’d taken from a slave. Without looking down, he dropped it on to the ground and stepped closer to me.

‘You know the drill,’ he said in Greek. ‘You keep close by me while I speak. At the appropriate moment, you get into the chair that will come over and lead the way to the gate. All the inner gates have been left open. You’ll be carried straight into the fourth zone. I’ll order the furnace to be lit. While the kettles heat up, you’ll stand behind me to correct any defect in my explanation. Have chairs been set out for the Caliph and the others?’ I nodded. It had been my last act before coming out with everyone else. ‘Good! unless the Caliph asks, you don’t need to say a word until we are inside the fourth zone. Until then, you sit or stand beside me as required, looking frail and submissive. Is that clear?’

I nodded. He grunted back at me, then took my right arm. He led me over in front of the curved wooden screen and waited while I was seated on a low canvas chair a couple of feet away on his left. The sun was overhead on my right. It wasn’t yet noon, but was already blistering. I drank from the cup that had been placed in my hands, and looked back at the Caliph and the assembled thousands.

Chapter 64

‘O Mighty Commander of the Faithful, Learned Elders of the Faith,’ Meekal cried in a great voice. I’d wondered how the wooden screen behind us would perform in the open expanse of the desert. I couldn’t tell for sure without being in the crowd of listeners. But I could guess from the firm resonance of his voice that the thing was working more or less as planned. Looking straight at us, the Caliph moved a hand slightly. Meekal took a deep breath and continued.

‘Whereas the perfidious Greeks of the Empire – alone of all the peoples of the universe – have resisted the arms of the Faithful, yet have they not done so on the fair field of battle, where the Faithful have been ever victorious, but with treacherous wiles. Recall ye not, O Majestic Holiness, how, arrayed in shining arms before the very walls of Constantinople, the Flower of the Faithful waited for the order of final assault? Recall ye not how, quaking behind their walls, the Greeks and their Emperor could barely have resisted one unarmed woman of the Faithful, had there not been those massy stones to shelter their useless bodies?’

There was a great laugh at this joke. Meekal took the applause like some aspiring actor in the Circus in Constantinople. When it showed no sign of dying away of its own, he held up his arms for silence, then went on with his laboured oration. Trying with reasonable, if not quite full success, to smother his foreign accent, he repeated the story as you already have it – the five ships, the tubes that spat fire that burned upon the waters and was quenched not by the pouring on of water, the panic and growing chaos among the attackers, and so forth. Over a chorus of lamentations and horrified cries, he described the retreat of the Faithful across the frozen ground of winter, and the repeated counter-attacks I’d sent out to keep them moving to the place of their final catastrophe. I thought he went over this in more detail than was entirely tasteful. However, this wasn’t an oration in Greek, where the rules of Demosthenes – or even the Asianics – were to be strictly followed. It was a tale for a race that was still mostly barbarous. And, safe outside their own capital, the Saracens were thoroughly relishing the tale of horror and disgrace.

I looked up at the sun. If still not close to its noonday angle, it was moving in that direction. I was glad of the shade that was again over my head. Got up in that huge turban and what may have been an entire bolt of satin, Meekal must have been cooking alive. But if he was leaking sweat like a squeezed sponge, he was enjoying himself far too much even to pause for a drink.

‘There are those,’ he cried sarcastically, ‘who say that the Greeks, alone of all the races of men, have been reserved for some other fate than defeat by the arms of the Faithful. They tell us to be content with the great and expanding realms of the Caliph to the east, where the sun and the soft greenness that is their shade of the sun have made men luxurious and weak. There are those who fear the sharp swords of the Greeks, or who just covet the gold dropped by the Greeks into their hands. These are the ones who speak of delay and consolidation, and of another attempt on the Greeks at some unspecified time in the future.’ There was a hint of impersonation in this last sentence. It was greeted with a shout of denial from the main audience. On the platform, the denial was less enthusiastic. I thought I could see a few faces turn slightly to each other. Certainly, there were gaps in the huddle of ministers about the Caliph. So far as I could tell, not one of the persons Karim had named to me was present up there. Meekal waited again for the noise to go down, then was back at a speech that he must have been rehearsing for ever.

‘But the attempt is not to be put off to “some unspecified time in the future”. No! I say unto you, O Majestic Holiness, O Anointed Successor of the Prophet himself – I say unto you: hear not Meekal, humble servant of the Caliph, but hear the words of Abdullah, son of Amir, last survivor of those who heard the Prophet speak.’ Meekal stopped and held up his arms for con­­tinued silence. He turned left and nodded. I tried to see past him, but he was in the way, and I was unable to see the cause of the shuffling and scraping towards us across the sand.

‘Behold the venerable and heroic Abdullah,’ Meekal bellowed triumphantly. As he spoke, the chair came in sight. Carried by just four slaves, here was Abdullah himself. I’d never seen the man before. Then again, perhaps I had seen him – but he hadn’t then been the drooling, paralytic wreck who sat gibbering and twitching in the sunshine. I leaned forward for a good look at the man. Rather as young women look at each other to see who might be fairest, so the very old look at each other to see who is more broken down and ready for the grave. No contest here, I can tell you! I counted back. The Prophet had been dead for fifty-five years. Assume this sad creature had been in his twenties back then: it made him much younger than me. He’d need to have been in his middle forties to match my age. Of course, at that age, he’d qualify now as a Companion of the Prophet, whether or not they’d ever exchanged a word. And he hadn’t been called that. I tried not to give myself a complacent hug and sat back in my chair, waiting to hear whatever words of wisdom he might recall – or that might since have been spooned into his addled brain.

‘While I was at meat with the Prophet,’ he slurred after several false starts. He stopped for the hushed roar of the ‘Peace be upon Him’ from every quarter, and for a long coughing fit that couldn’t have left him with much of his lungs by the time he stopped. I saw Meekal stiffen slightly. Was there another whispered prayer? But old Abdullah was now looking forward with a little more appearance of having recalled who and where he was. ‘When I sat with the Prophet,’ he said in a firmer but still weak voice, ‘it was asked of him which of the two great cities would be opened first by the Faithful. Would it be Rome or Constantinople? Be it known that the Prophet answered: “The City of Heraclius shall be opened first.” ’