‘Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven,’ I said in Greek, quoting Euripides.
‘Not Hell,’ he answered with a laugh, now back in Greek. ‘It’s anything but Hell. As for reigning – well, we shall see.’ He got up and held out his hands. ‘Now, do come inside. You look quite fagged out after a day in the sun.’ I took his hands and let him help me up.
‘Come in, dear boy,’ I said without looking up. Edward came quietly into the office and sat down on the sofa. I continued reading back the notes I’d just dictated. I finished them and put them down behind me on the desk. I put my lenses on top to keep them in order. ‘You can go,’ I said to the secretary. He got up with a bow and left the room. I stared at Edward. He looked recovered from his opium. Sadly, the weals had come up over every part of his exposed body, and he winced at every move. His lower thighs were covered in a patchwork of bruises. It would be days before he felt better. He got up and came over to kiss me on the forehead. I nodded vaguely and motioned him back into his place.
‘You are angry with me,’ he said with an anxious look.
I thought of the wine jug still in its hiding place. Edward was in no state to fish about behind the big book. I’d get up in a moment.
‘Not angry with you,’ I said. I twisted painfully round and looked again at the notes. ‘I am angry, I’ll confess, but not with you – nor over anything you might think important.’ He twisted carefully in his place and crossed his legs. I sighed. ‘Look, Edward, I’ve been fixed for years on a project of sight improvement that I’ve now come close to making effective. I made further interesting discoveries while you were asleep. Now, by yet another happy accident, I’ve discovered this.’ I reached round once more and took up a piece of parchment two inches by six. I’d dyed it black with ink, and had got one of my workmen to glue some one-inch leather studs on to it. At each end of the strip was a hole with a six-inch length of ribbon. I reached behind and tied it round my head, arranging it at the proper distance. ‘You may not see the pattern of holes where this covers my eyes. But, so long as the light continues good, I can see you almost perfectly. So long as there is any sunlight, I can read better than with those lenses.’ I pulled the thing off my head and dropped it on the floor.
‘But surely, this is good news?’ the boy asked. He looked confused. He’d plainly fixed it into his mind that I was angry with him. ‘If you can see better with this than having to carry those heavy glass discs about, why are you not happy?’
Good question. I collected my thoughts to explain myself clearly in Latin.
‘Because, Edward, I don’t understand how letting the light into my eyes through a series of dots achieves the same effect as those lenses. I can imagine the deflection of atoms through a curved medium. These pinpricks are a mystery that destroys every theory of vision I’ve ever encountered. And because, Edward, I should have noticed something so simple as this before your grandparents were born. And because, Edward, I needlessly spent years in Jarrow – and, before then, years in Constantinople – barely able to read words chalked large on a board, let alone in a book. And because, Edward, right at the end of my life, I feel like a traveller who climbs over a ridge on what he thinks is an island and sees spread out before him a vast and limitless continent. Try to imagine the horror – or, at least, the sheer annoyance – of what I have discovered.’
‘But if you can see to read,’ he said, looking still more confused, ‘does it matter if you don’t know the reason? So long as you can read now, does it matter if you couldn’t read yesterday?’
I sighed. Fair questions. And there was, even if the boy didn’t realise, a good philosophical theory behind them. But drinks with Meekal, and then this, had soured me no end. I got up and, with much grunting, managed to lay hands on the wine jug. I poured two full cups and handed one to Edward.
‘This should dull some of the pain,’ I said. I didn’t bother specifying whose. ‘If you don’t feel up to the banquet, His Highness the Governor will excuse you with all wishes for a better tomorrow. I, unfortunately, am judged fit to put in some kind of an appearance.’ I sat down again with a heavy thump that reminded me of my own bruised bones. ‘Do you know why I brought you here with me?’ I asked. He sat up and leaned carefully forward. ‘I brought you because I thought you might be of some use to me, and because I couldn’t think what else to do with you. On reflection, I think it would have been better to pack you off to Spain.’
‘They want something big of you?’ he asked. ‘Is it secrets of how to take Constantinople?’
‘Sort of,’ I answered. ‘My grandson Meekal’ – I ignored the further question in his eyes – ‘was too polite to come straight out with it this afternoon. But he wants me to help complete the destruction of the Empire. I have no doubt you will be some of the pressure he loads on me to go along with him. I won’t tell you when I guessed this much. But I do most humbly apologise for what I’ve semi-knowingly brought you into.’ I finished my cup and reached ineffectually forward for the jug. The light was now fading, and someone would come in soon to light the lamps.
Edward got up and refilled my cup. He stood over me and looked down into my face. ‘Then do what they want,’ he said. ‘What’s one empire against another? No – these people have welcomed you with honour. All the Greeks want is to kill you. I can accept you’re upset about the cure for your eyes. I can’t see what the bother is about who rules in Constantinople.’
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.