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'And the greatest library in all the world, it is said, flourished here in Cordoba, under the caliphs. It all started when the East Roman emperor sent the caliph a copy of a pharmacology text by Dioscorides – have you heard of him? It was like dropping a bit of hot iron into a pan of water. Scholarship boiled in al-Andalus…'

The caliphs, rich and at peace, embraced learning as an emblem of power and sophistication. And they were much better placed to do so than western Christendom, for they had access to the surviving works of antiquity. Employing legions of copyists and translators, the Moorish scholars merged Greek and Roman learning with what their cousins in Damascus and Baghdad had acquired from the Persians, and they built on what they learned. The result was a flowering in astronomy and physics, medicine and philosophy.

Sihtric said, 'The library itself grew to four hundred thousand books. The catalogue alone ran to forty-four volumes! This was at a time when the kings of England were entirely illiterate. But when the caliphate fell the library was broken up. How I wish I had been born a generation earlier. But there are still books milling around the city, as if released into the wild. It is my skill at tracking the books down as much as my learning that makes me so useful to Ibn Tufayl, I think…'

Sihtric was a man of contradictions. For all his admiration of Cordoba's Moorish achievements, he was keen to play up its deeper Roman origins.

'All of western Europe is the same. All of us dwelling in the vast ruins of the empire, four centuries after some German brute pushed aside the last boy-emperor from his throne. Did you know that the philosopher Seneca came from this very town? And the Emperor Hadrian himself, who made his mark on Britain as you know very well, Orm, came from the Spanish city the Roman called Italica, which is now the capital of our local taifa, Ishbiliya, or Seville…'

As he droned on, Moraima, without warning, grabbed Robert's hand, held her finger to her lips and hauled him out of the room. 'Come on. By the time they notice we've gone we'll be far away.'

Robert was thrilled to be off on an illicit adventure with Moraima – to be alone with her at last, with no fathers or lusty camel-drivers in the way. But a lingering sense of duty prompted him to say, 'We have to see this vizier-'

'I'll get you to the palace in time. I thought you were a warrior – you' re very timid. Come on.'

So they set off, holding hands, giggling and half-running like children.

She led him to a market, crowded and noisy, where stalls were piled high with tiles and bowls, with fine velvets and felts and silks. Moraima said that Cordoban shoes and carpets and paper were famous throughout the Muslim world. There were exotic imports to be found too: the fur of walrus and polar bears from Scandinavia, carved ivory and gold trinkets from Africa, silk, spices and jewellery from the east, even fine wool from England. One stall had a pile of fruit that Moraima had to name for him, save for the oranges: lemons, limes, bananas, pomegranates, watermelons, artichokes. Not even the Norman kings, Robert imagined, ate such exotic stuff as this.

Moraima said, 'They say Cordoba is more like Africa than Europe. That Paris is not like this, or London.'

'Africa starts at the Pyrenees,' Robert said, echoing his father.

'I've never travelled beyond the Pyrenees. I'd love to see London. Or York.'

'I've seen those places, and more.'

'You're lucky.'

He shrugged. 'My mother died when I was small. I go where my father goes. He's a soldier. Somebody's always rebelling, and he goes to sort it out.'

'And London-'

'Big. Dirty. Crowded. A cathedral like a big black pile. The Normans are building an immense fort in the corner of the old Roman walls. And York is a midden. It never recovered from the Normans' harrying twenty years ago.'

"'Harrying"? What does that mean?'

'Ask my father. He was there.'

But that wounded country seemed far from this light-filled city, very far and somehow unreal. 'You know, you aren't much like your father,' he said.

'How so?'

'You seem full of…' He sought the right word. 'Joy. Your father doesn't seem joyful at all.'

Moraima shrugged. 'He admires the city, the Moors' accomplishments. He relishes the learning. But he despises it at the same time. I think he has to despise it, for it is not Christian.'

'And yet he stays here,' said Robert. 'Why? For you?'

'Yes, for me.' But she said this without emotion. 'And he has his projects. Something to do with the library, the books. History.'

'All for the vizier?'

'Paid for by the vizier, yes, but not all for him.'

'What projects, then?'

'He doesn't tell me.' That seemed to embarrass her, and she said, 'What about your father? Why is he here?'

Robert sighed. 'Something to do with your father, and what he's up to. Though how a bit of book-reading in faraway Spain can affect him I don't know.' He looked at her. 'Moraima – we keep talking about them.'

She said coyly, 'So what do you want to talk about?'

He dared to say, 'We could start with the way your eyes match the blue of the sky.'

She gasped, and he saw he'd pleased her. 'You'd like our poetry,' she said, recovering quickly. 'It's full of lines like that. Eyes like stars and breasts like billowing clouds-'

'Maybe I should read you some,' he said.

But she wasn't to be snared so easily. 'Well, how about the colour of the vizier's eyes when we turn up at his palace late? Come on!' And she turned and ran through the market crowds.

Utterly lost in the heart of the city, he had no choice but to follow.

VII

Robert and Moraima found their fathers at the gate in the city walls. Ibn Hafsun the muwallad stood by with horses.

Sihtric was impatient, fretting. 'Where have you been? You do not keep the vizier of an emir waiting.'

'Ibn Tufayl will understand,' Moraima said, unconcerned.

Sihtric fumed, but his anxiety to be away got the better of him. They mounted their horses and rode out into the dust of the country.

They headed west, following a road that climbed away from the city by its river. Buildings trailed along this road, some grand residences; evidently it was a road often travelled by the wealthy. But many of the houses looked abandoned, their pretty patios overgrown.

They came to what Robert thought was another town, smaller than Cordoba but still extensive. They paused on a ridge, looking out over this place. Surrounded by a complicated double-wall system, it was largely ruined, buildings burned out, ponds and canals choked with weeds, the wild greenery taking back the gardens.

'This was no town,' Sihtric said. 'It was a palace. Its name is Madinat az-Zahra. Built a hundred and fifty years ago by the caliph, so that he could rule the most prosperous and best-governed land in the west in a manner befitting its grandeur. The whole civil service was moved out here. There were mosques, baths, workshops, stables, gardens, houses.'

'And,' Ibn Hafsun said, faintly mocking as always, 'there was a menagerie stocked with exotic animals from Africa and Asia, and an aviary, and fishponds like lakes.'

Orm said, 'So if it was all so magnificent, what happened?'

Ibn Hafsun said, 'The Berbers smashed the palace up. Those black-eyed savages of the desert.'

'I blame al-Mansur, who brought the Berbers here from Africa in the first place,' said Sihtric.

'He who stole the bell of Saint James,' Robert said.

'Yes. A vizier who, under a negligent caliph, built a private army, gorged on wealth, and attacked the Christians. And in doing so he fatally undermined the caliphate itself. Al-Mansur! What greed! What arrogance! What folly! What suffering he caused!'

'The people loved him, of course,' Ibn Hafsun said drily.

Moraima said to Robert, 'It is said that the fish in the ponds needed twelve thousand loaves of bread every day to feed them. Maybe they should have employed your Jesus as a baker, just as when He fed the five thousand!' She laughed gaily.