I smiled at a young man who was gawping at me, and held my cup out expectantly. The beer did bring back memories. Caught between two groups of ruthless, fanatical God-botherers, the quiet calm that had mostly been in order at Jarrow suddenly didn’t seem so very unattractive. But I’d not be left for ever to my own speculations. The Elders were now filing out of their chapel, and I was to know my fate.
‘God is with us,’ said the man with the biggest and greyest beard. I gave him a display of my ivory teeth and waved my cup in his direction. That was it for the moment. The Elders were getting into position about the altar. I thought of the relative darkness within the chapel, even if there was a lamp burning, and made a mental note to investigate how colours and light intensities appeared to vary according to the eye’s own expectation. But now the Chief Elder had his arms up for attention.
‘With God on our side,’ he opened with grim reluctance, ‘we shall never be defeated. Instead, we shall destroy the followers of the Desert Impostor – sweep them straight into Hell. Then we shall have our reckoning with those who passed by on the other side when confronted with ungodliness. There is a time, soon coming, when Syria shall again be free and Orthodox.’
‘Amen to that!’ I cried softly, trying not to look as sceptical as I felt about the means to achieve this impossible and probably undesirable deliverance. But the words had been spoken, and I wasn’t to be killed. There was suddenly a whole crowd of jabbering Syrians about me, all boasting of their past and future service to an empire that had long since given up on them as other than a useful irritant. I’d never have guessed it from the Elder’s brief statement. But I’d swung them round. One of the other Elders pushed his way through the crowd and took my hands in his, holding them for a long and almost respectful kiss.
‘You are leaving at once,’ he said. ‘There will be a chair to carry you to the Fountain of Omar. From there, you can make your own way back to the palace.’ As he spoke, two men came round from behind to stand before me. They bowed low and then reached forward. I handed my cup to Karim and spread my arms so I could be lifted out of the chair.
‘You go alone,’ the man corrected me. He looked evilly down at Karim. ‘The darkie goes nowhere but Hell.’
I put my arms down again and ignored the men who were hoping to lift me. ‘We came here together,’ I said with a smile. ‘We leave together.’ There was an embarrassed silence. The Elder who stood before me shifted his position and looked nervously round. I forced myself to lean forward and place my hands over Karim. ‘If you want to kill him,’ I said, ‘you’ll have to kill me first.’
‘My Lord,’ the man said with slow desperation, ‘if we allow him to live, he will surely bring men back here. His life is forfeit. He knows the deal.’
Karim certainly understood that. He whimpered and clamped his arms around my knees.
‘The deal is,’ I said with my coldest command, ‘that the boy comes with me. I’ll vouch for his silence.’ I sat back and took no further part in the shouted discussions. I really needed a piss.
The Fountain of Omar gleamed new and black in the moonlight. It filled the centre of the square that contained what had once been the Church of Saint John the Baptist. As in Beirut, this had now been converted to the use of another religion, and shone an undifferentiated white. From my earlier visit of so long before, I recalled a forest of statues in the square, some of these going back to the early successors of Alexander. All that now remained were the empty plinths, their inscriptions covered by a thick wash of rendering. I might have seen a pile of broken statuary heaped up in one of the side streets. Or I might have seen nothing of the sort. But I was in no mood for looking at the sights of the new Damascus. I’d been set down on a wooden bench to look straight over at the mosque, and left there with no one for company but Karim.
‘The Night Watch will be coming past at midnight,’ he said, not looking at me. Though he wasn’t to be killed, the Angels of the Lord had still given him a difficult time. He’d not been kicked about too hard. Even so, he’d been spat on and roundly abused. His response had been less than might have been expected from a son of the fearless Malik al-Ashtar.
‘I must say, dear boy, that we’ve had a most lucky escape,’ I said. I reached up and carefully scratched the back of my scalp. Karim was looking hard at the mosque. ‘Did you see if there was anyone watching us from that little side room in the church?’ I asked. In a moment, Karim would surely start playing along. For now, he continued looking stiffly ahead.
‘His Highness the Governor told me to guard your life with my own,’ he said at last. ‘Would it be a lot to ask if you were to say nothing of what has happened this evening? I mean – is it possible to replace all that happened after we left the banqueting hall with something different?’ He stammered and squirmed at the unspoken recollection of how, once I’d saved his life, he’d been made to kiss an icon and abjure his Prophet.
I smiled at him with an audible click of ivory, and placed a hand on his shoulder. I really ought to have been on the edge of collapse from exhaustion and strain. In fact, I felt like a young man of barely seventy.
‘Of course,’ I said comfortingly. ‘I can think of many reasons for managing perceptions of our little adventure. I might suggest, however, that Meekal is no fool, and it would be best if the slight deviation from the truth that you mention didn’t include a role too creditable to yourself.’ He nodded vigorously and let out a breath of relief. ‘Excellent!’ I said, now brisk. ‘Then I suggest we incorporate your undeniable ignorance of Damascene geography and be rather vague about our movements. These will include a long shelter in one of the many derelict churches I have noticed, and a long and uncertain progress to where we shall, no doubt, soon be discovered. Of course, since every wall in a palace has ears, I do also suggest that we never refer to any of this even when we think we are alone.’ He nodded again. We lapsed into silence, and I strained to see if the clump of broken whiteness I’d seen earlier really was broken statuary, or something entirely different.
‘I hate them!’ Karim suddenly hissed. ‘I hate them all!’ He doubled up and clutched at himself. I began some desultory comment about ‘People of the Book’, and how our captors had been a minority within a minority. But he ignored me, and carried on speaking more to himself than to me. ‘Why must we use Imperial money?’ he spat. ‘Haven’t we gold enough of our own? Why must we use the Empire’s language? Isn’t our own good enough? My people conquered Syria. Why are we now expected to fit ourselves in to Greek ways? I hate them all. I’d see them all put to the sword!’
‘My dear Karim,’ I observed mildly, ‘you surely forget that I am a Greek myself.’ He looked at me, a strange confusion in his eyes. I thought quickly, then laughed. I patted him gently on the shoulder and searched for a change of subject. I remembered the jug of beer that had been left with me. I had to threaten my poor joints with actual dislocation to reach down and get it. But it was still half full. I took a long swig and then looked again at Karim.