I thought back over the fifty-odd years since I’d been in Jerusalem. That had been for the Restoration of the True Cross. There was no point asking if I might have got someone with child there. I’d spent all of my five days in the city – that is, all the time I hadn’t spent telling Heraclius what to say and do – in a blur of drug-maddened sex. There was no point asking if I’d got anyone with child. The only question was which of the two or three dozen women I’d gone through had been Karim’s great-grandmother. Free? Slave? Prisoner? Wife or daughter of someone important? That was beyond me.
‘Of course,’ Khadija went on, ‘I was never sure how much credit to give the story. The girl was not entirely balanced, and she was given to pretending more of herself than was justified. Though Karim was told the story as a child, I also cautioned him against spreading it. I now see you in the flesh, however, and I can have no doubt but the girl was telling the truth.’
I thought of Karim. Could I see anything of myself in him? Now I thought about it, perhaps the ears. But there was no proper resemblance that I could see. Then again, we mostly spend very little time looking at ourselves, and never see ourselves as others do. If Khadija could see a resemblance, I wasn’t ashamed to admit the relationship. But she was speaking again.
‘When he was chosen by Meekal to collect you in Beirut, he was convinced the mission was a sign from Heaven. He has spoken nothing to me but your praise since his return to Damascus. I will not embarrass you with what he thinks of how you killed that assassin. But his father always spoke well of you. Among much else, he said you were the only one of the Greek negotiators whose word could be trusted. And, if he never doubted it was other than in the interests of the Empire, he was mindful of the support you rendered the followers of Ali in the civil wars. If only your warning had not been intercepted, my husband would never have made his last visit to Egypt.’
I smiled sadly. And it had been a sad loss. I’d backed Ali to the hilt. Without Malik by his side, he was no match for Muawiya, and had been swept aside in the consolidation of Saracen rule over the East. But there was no reflecting on what might have been. The question was, what did this woman want now? Anyone who believes that Saracen women are political eunuchs has never come across women of the higher classes. Come to think of it, he’s never paid much attention to eunuchs. The last thing Khadija had in mind was an evening of gossip over the kava with her stepson’s great-grandfather.
Chapter 48
I finished my kava. There was a time when I’d have sucked in the residue at the bottom of the cup. This I’d have crunched and sucked until there was no more of the nutty goodness to extract. I was now more concerned about abrasions to my already sore gums. I emptied the grounds into a silver bowl set before us for that purpose, and replaced the cup on the small, polished table. Khadija raised the pot and looked a question at me. I smiled and watched as she poured again.
What did the woman want? I’d have my answer, soon enough – though not before every other subject had been exhausted. This was a diplomatic meeting. There was nothing here of the perfunctory courtesies, followed by hard bargaining, I’d known with her husband. This observed all the usual courtesy of the East. We used up the whole pot of kava on long accounts of our mutual relatives by marriage. It seemed I was connected, through Karim, to all the leading families who’d stood around the Saracen Prophet, and who now were the background government of all that the caliphs had taken. I spoke at length of the son from my second marriage, who was now Bishop of Athens, and of my son-in-law, who’d scored such a notable success in fighting the wild tribes on the northern shores of the Black Sea. Thanks to him, I’d been able to make up fully for the loss of the Egyptian grain tribute with a more natural set of trading arrangements. I watched closely as she paid attention to this. I took a risk, and spoke more of the last news I’d had of the Empire’s gradual and silent victories in pacifying the northern frontiers.
‘Is it necessary for you to withdraw for a few moments?’ she asked delicately as I finished my last cup of the hot beverage. I smiled politely. I’d come out with an empty bladder, and I could go quite a while longer yet. She got up and went over to the door. She opened it and clapped her hands loudly. Even before she was back in her place, one of her black girls was already coming through the door with another tray of refreshments.
‘Do honour me by trying one of the figs,’ she urged. ‘They are grown in the most sheltered garden of the palace, and they are now at their most succulent.’
It wouldn’t do to take my teeth out in front of her, so I put one in my mouth and, trying not to let the seeds get under my plates, pulverised it with my tongue. I washed it down with another sip of hot kava. Unless my taste was now messed up, this new pot had left out the stimulant. I sipped again less cautiously. Nevertheless, my mind was beginning to work faster, and I could feel a cold sweat in my armpits.
‘We have long been aware of the Empire’s recovering strength,’ she said with a change of subject and tone. ‘When the generation before my own encountered the Greek and Persian Empires, the Soldiers of the Faith advanced as if into a desert. They swept aside armies without soldiers and took cities without people. Even before the disaster of our attack on Constantinople, however, we knew well that those days were past. At first, it seemed a question of brilliant holding actions by the Empire’s generals. We thought that, if only we could throw in army after army, those hard but shallow defences would collapse. But, every time we broke through the defences, we found that provinces, devastated only shortly before, were resettled and newly prosperous. And, always, we were pushed back out by the people themselves. We were facing an empire with better ships, better military discipline, and increasingly better internal conditions than our own. Our advantages of wealth and of numbers meant nothing.’
Khadija spoke on with coolness and general understanding that wouldn’t have been out of place in an Imperial Council at its best. What she said I mostly knew already: how the collapse of every empire and kingdom in the East was bringing problems of over-extension, with armies stretched thin and local rebellions and disloyal governors. Even without the civil war, there could be no serious renewed attack on the Empire. But it was interesting to hear it all confirmed.
‘Do you remember,’ she suddenly asked, ‘what you said to my husband at your last meeting?’
She’d got me again. We’d spent days aboard a Saracen galley – it was when we still balanced each other at sea – arguing about joint control of Cyprus.
But she was continuing. ‘You told him that, like all other barbarians, we’d have one generation of conquest, and another of greatness. By the third generation, corrupt and disorganised, we’d sink into feebleness. We are now heading towards that generation, and what you said to Malik is now something often discussed.’
I nodded and thought of trying another of the figs. Otherwise, the soft biscuits looked interesting. Sadly, even soft biscuits had hard crumbs. There was a knock on the door and the green eunuch entered. He bowed to me and presented Khadija with a slip of parchment, folded over and sealed with wax. She broke the seal with her thumbnail and glanced at the contents. Her face tightened and she looked more closely. She looked up and smiled an apology. She rose and took the slip over to the main ring of lamps. She held it over one of the flames until it was all but a cinder, then dropped what remained into a tray of sand.
‘If the messenger expects an answer,’ she said coldly, ‘tell him there is none.’ The eunuch bowed to her and again to me. As he pulled the door noiselessly shut, Khadija sat back down opposite me. She composed herself with a visible effort.
‘Alaric, because he is a renegade,’ she resumed, ‘there are those who doubt Meekal’s loyalty to the True Faith. I do not share this vulgar prejudice. I believe his conversion was genuine. I believe that his zeal is no cover for a second treason. His conduct in holding Syria together, after Muawiya had slid into his long senility, is proof enough of that – as has been his military conduct in the East. I also trust his judgement, that the Empire must be destroyed now or perhaps never. Steadily, with every year, the balance of advantage swings against us.’