Navigator

'Progress is slow, Ibrahim. Well, you saw that, before you flounced out of the project. The sketches are partial, incomplete. Many of them are scribbles that would mean far more to the clerk who made them than to us, for whom they were never intended. We have to guess at so much – sizes, weights, materials, gearing. Very often we ask the impossible of our artisans: steel cogs of unimaginable fineness and accuracy, wooden wheels of a seamless perfection. Sometimes we simply don't have the correct materials at all. And, what's still more difficult, we have to make guesses as to the machines' purposes in the first place.'

Ibrahim looked at the designs again. 'It looks as if these stick men are totally enclosed in their fish-boat.'

'So they are. Can you see, they operate their oars and paddles through seals in the skin of the ship, which appears to be a fine metal shell. We are using beaten copper. Some of us speculate that the ship might be sealed so that it can travel not just on the surface of the water, but beneath it.'

'How is that possible?'

'Do you really want the details? Look, there are bladders here which, if filled with water, might cause the craft to sink, and if pumped out could make it float. It would certainly make sense of the fish shape, wouldn't it? And think of the advantage, Ibrahim. A boat that could float under your enemy's fleet, all unseen, and attack from below.'

Ibrahim tossed aside the bit of parchment. 'This is such a waste of time. It always was.'

'The emir may not think so when we demonstrate our weapons to him.'

'And when will that be?'

Peter shifted, uncomfortable. 'We have a number of designs, partially realised… We aren't ready yet.'

'Allah preserve us, but the Christian armies are close. Surely even a bookworm like you is aware of that.'

'Of course I am. We're all working as hard as we can, and as fast.'

'What of your conscience, Peter? Are you happy as a Christian to be arming Muslims?'

'I think of myself as a scholar before I'm a Christian. And this is a scholarly project, whatever else it is. I'm curious, Ibrahim. Anyway, perhaps our weapons, if they deter Fernando, will prevent war, rather than provoke it. Have you thought of that? In a way we're alike, aren't we, Ibrahim? Both striving to save people from harm, in our different ways.'

Ibrahim thought this was all artifice, and he said nothing. The thoughtful young man he had met five years ago was being eroded away by ambition and a certain flavour of greed – not greed for wealth, but for accomplishment and recognition. He had seen it in scholars before, in his time at the court. Such men would do anything to stand out from their peers.

Peter was watching him. 'You know, we do miss you, Ibrahim. When I first met you I took you for a bone-headed dolt. A slab of righteous muscle.'

'I wasn't twenty years old!'

'Now you're five years older, and your true qualities are emerging. You're no soldier, for all you wear that scimitar at your waist. You're far more than that. You have a set of skills your mother could put to good use – organisation, leadership. You should make your peace with Subh. She misses you.'

'My relationship with my mother is not a matter for you, but for my conscience. And I believe I put my skills to good use here. There is an emergency in the city. Again, even you must be aware of that…'

Seville's crisis had now lasted nearly a decade, since Cordoba's fall. The city was flooded with refugees from the lost cities to the north. There was a perennial shortage of food, because of the abandonment of the city's hinterland and the disruption to river trade. Every so often the poor sanitation would cause an outbreak of cholera or typhoid or some other hideous disease. Rumours that Fernando's armies had been glimpsed in the heat-haze of the horizon periodically swept the fearful city, causing panic and rioting.

When he had turned up at the vizier's office in the emir's palace, offering to help in any way he could, Ibrahim had found plenty to do. He found he was capable, unexpectedly good at finding solutions to novel problems, and implementing them. Perhaps he had inherited something of his formidable mother's qualities. He rose rapidly in authority, and in the scale of the problems he was given to solve.

Something about the work satisfied a deep spiritual need inside him. He still adhered to the teachings of the Almohads, named for Almuwahhidum, the Oneness of God. In his patient work he felt he was healing damaged lives; it was a work that served God's unity better than any amount of killing, he thought.

'But,' Peter said, 'how long can this continue, Ibrahim? This is a city under stress. King Fernando doesn't even need to attack; the steady pressure he is applying is slowly winning the battle for him. All you are doing here is managing the city's decline.'

'Not necessarily.'

'Of course necessarily; that's the truth. But if your mother's weapons designs were to pay off – if even one of them came to fruition – then the whole situation could be transformed.'

Ibrahim snorted. 'If a miracle happens? If Saladin came back to life and led us to victory?'

'We don't need a miracle. Your mother's engines are taking shape, Ibrahim, manifested in steel and leather and wood, only a short walk from this very room. Don't you think it's your duty to come and see what we have – your duty as an officer of the emirate, and a son?'

Ibrahim stared at him. In the far distance he heard angry shouts, the crash of smashing glass, harsh military orders: the sounds of a disintegrating civilisation. He felt his determination wavering.

XVIII

Thomas Busshe sought out Saladin in northern England, where he had gone to ground three years after he had arrived in Britain. Saladin soon learned that Thomas was coming to tell him that his mother needed him, and he must come back to London.

The monk stayed a single night in the manse itself. It was the home of Saladin's employer, a petty knight called Percival. The next morning, very early, Saladin found Thomas walking in the village. Thomas was showing his age, Saladin thought. His eyes were shadowed, and he looked stiff after his hours on the mead bench with Percival. But here he was, up and about. 'It's the relentless rhythm of a monk's life,' he said. 'You can't get it out of your blood.'

They walked around the village. It was a mean place, a street of long sod-built huts surrounded by a sprawl of plough land. The manse was a small robust house of decently cut stone, which Saladin told Thomas was made of stones robbed from Hadrian's Wall. Thomas seemed to think that was an enchanting idea, the labours of long-dead centurions transformed into the houses of the living.

They came across a group of men setting off for the day's work. They nodded to Saladin, not warmly, but civilly enough. They were skinny men with sallow faces. Hunched against the slight chill of the dewy air, some limping slightly, they were wood-cutters, and they bore adzes and axes and saws. They wore grimy, colourless clothes, breeches, hoses, shirts, kirtles – Saladin knew that these were the only clothes that most of them owned. As they plodded along they sang a song so filthy that Saladin hoped their strong Northumbrian accents, heavily laced with Danish words, would make it incomprehensible to Thomas.

'Many of them are blond,' Thomas said, surprised.

'That's the Viking blood in them. A lot of it about in this area.'

'Do you get on with them?'

Saladin grinned. 'They call me the Saracen, or the Moor, or Muhammad. Ironic, that. But they've never seen anybody like me before.' He grunted. 'In fact most of them have never seen anybody from beyond that hill over there.'