Meekal leaned over me. ‘You will, of course, reproduce the Greek fire for us,’ he said. ‘You will help ensure that our next attack on the Empire will be victorious – that we can counter their fire with our fire, and that our great numerical advantage will count in full.’
I put the cup down and looked about for my teeth. One of the springs was coming loose, and now was as good a time as any for fiddling with it.
‘I’d have thought, my dear boy,’ I replied without looking up, ‘that, with all the resources of the Caliph at your disposal, preparing a very simple compound would all be in a morning’s work.’ I waited until I knew there’d be no response. ‘Well, well,’ I gently mocked, ‘the new masters of the world – and still they can’t think for themselves. Even with Syrians and Egyptians in the harem, the Saracens still can’t match the science of the West.’
‘We have been trying ever since it was first used against us to reproduce your compound,’ Meekal said. ‘Every attempt has been a failure. Our most hopeful effort, some while ago, resulted in the death of five hundred irreplaceable craftsmen. It’s only because of God’s most infinite mercy that we didn’t lose the whole programme.’ He put a hand on the bedclothes over my knees. ‘Grandfather,’ he asked earnestly, ‘Great and Mighty Alaric, we need your help. Will you help us?’
‘And what reason can you give me,’ I asked, ‘for doing as you ask?’ I moved my knees from under his hand.
‘I could remind you that you are an honoured guest of the Caliph,’ came the reply.
‘And I could remind you that I was abducted by agents of the Caliph,’ I said.
‘That doesn’t count,’ said Meekal. ‘You escaped and then came here of your own free will.’
‘The only reason I’m not snug in my English monastery,’ I snapped, ‘is because you abducted me in the first place. Besides, I went to Beirut, and was living there quite happily on my own means. I’m in Damascus simply because you sent Karim with an invitation it would have been unwise to reject. Don’t deny that I’m your prisoner. And don’t wave your supposed hospitality in my face when you want me to commit treason.’ I took hold of the bed sheet with both hands and pulled it up to my neck. I looked at Meekal and sucked my lips over the toothless areas of my gums.
He looked back, the prongs of his beard quivering with suppressed emotion. Then, he relaxed and smiled.
‘You speak of treason, O Great and Magnificent Alaric,’ he said. ‘You have been condemned already as a traitor in the Empire. You are an outlaw there. Its agents have tried to murder you twice in the past few days. Can you still think yourself bound by any duty towards the Empire?’
‘Possibly,’ I said, ‘possibly not. I am mindful, however, that, with or without me, the Empire is the only power in the world able to look you people in the face. Destroy the Empire, and there will be no stopping you from going west, and taking your religion with you.’
‘I never thought religion mattered so much to you,’ Meekal replied with icy control. He got up and went to the window. He looked out for a long time, then turned back to face me. ‘If I could persuade you that an age would come when no one even believed in God, you’d jump out of that bed and dance about the room.’ He returned to my bedside and stretched out his hands. ‘Now, stop playing the old fool with me,’ he said. ‘Get out of bed and come over here.’ I took his hands and pulled myself up. He draped a sheet about me and helped me as, with much grunting and creaking, I walked slowly over to the window, and stood in a shaft of the warm afternoon sunshine. He helped fix my dotted visor in place and waved at the skyline of Damascus.
It was like seeing through a mesh grating, and the uneven glass of the window made things more confusing. Everything was broken up into blocks. Some of these were repeated. Most didn’t fit together into a continuous whole. But this was the first time I’d really tried my invention; the brief inspections at dusk the previous day hardly counted. In time, I had no doubt, the ordinary eye could adjust. Even now, though, the invention worked. For the first time, I could see Damascus as other than a vague blur. I stared over the low huddle of mostly flat roofs – with a few splashes of dark red tiles – to the main buildings of the centre. And, through the thin clouds of dust and of wood smoke, I could see the line of the outer wall, and over that to the brown bleakness of the mountains beyond. All could be seen with astonishing, if discontinuous sharpness. But Meekal now had me by the shoulders, and was directing me to the sights in and about the centre.
‘Do you see that squat building over there with the roof of green copper?’ he asked. ‘That is the Spice Market. It was built by Muawiya for the reception and sale of goods brought from the outermost limits of China. Can you see the building just to the left – the one with the blue dome? That is where silk from the Empire is worked into cloth of gold and exported to the Faithful in Scythia. I can show you banks and factories. I can show you mosques and churches and synagogues. I can show you crowded markets and camel trains a mile long. Our empire is one of trade and toleration. No one asks what another man believes. The only question anyone thinks it worth asking is whether a man is solvent. Everything you preached for seventy years in Constantinople about low taxes and toleration is a reality in the domains of the Caliph.’
It was a good speech. Its effect might have been improved had there not been columns of smoke rising above two of the biggest churches in the city. But there was no point in mentioning these. Already, he was clutching at me again and jabbering hard.
‘Alaric – Alaric, turn about and compare yourself with me.’ He stood back and spread his arms. ‘I came here as a renegade Greek. I might have been a baseless criminal on the run. I might have been a spy. Yet, by the repetition of one sentence and the loss of a foreskin, I became the free and equal companion even of those whose fathers had known the Prophet. How long were you in the Empire? What repeated services did you render it? How often did you save it from its own drivelling senility? Was there ever a moment when the very trash in the streets didn’t sneer at your barbarian origins?
‘Yes, I want the secret of that Greek fire so we can try once more to take Constantinople. But we don’t want Constantinople as another Alexandria or Ctesiphon, as yet another provincial city. We want it as the capital of a renewed world empire – an empire combining the discipline and regularity of the Greek mind with the enthusiasm and nobility of our Desert Faith. All is ready for us to step into the shoes of Caesar. And, yes, we do bring a new religion. But hasn’t the Empire changed religion once already? The turn to Christianity was much more of a break than we offer. That was the destruction of polytheism by an Eastern mystery cult. What we offer is a purified worship of the One God, in which Christ continues to be honoured, but not as some quasi-divinity that requires all the resources of Greek philosophy to explain.
‘Join us, Alaric. Renew the Empire. Free the world. You have been pulled out of retirement for one final achievement. Let that achievement be the creation of a free and prosperous world ruled by the caliphs of Constantinople. Surely, you can see how God has sent you here to be our Sword of Damascus?’