She paused and took a long sip from her cup. She sat back and looked steadily at me through narrowed eyes. I made sure to clear my face of all expression. She continued looking at me. I broke the tension as, with a polite murmur, I finally removed my teeth and began sucking at one of the biscuits. It had a taste of nutmeg, though perhaps more of hashish.
‘Do you agree that Greek fire is the key to Constantinople?’ she asked suddenly. ‘Do you agree that possession of the secret will allow us to destroy the Empire?’
I finished my biscuit. I rinsed a mouthful of kava over my gums. I replaced my teeth and smiled.
‘If the reforms I put to Constans had been carried fully into effect,’ I said, ‘the question would now be whether the Empire could be restrained from an offensive of its own. However, even the partial implementation of my reforms has repaired the worst damage. Give the Empire another generation, and we shall see what tribute payments are then demanded of you and enforced. For the moment, the Empire reposes in the relative calm that your civil war has imposed on you. Another attack, with all your forces, might get you once again to the gates of Constantinople. Without a Greek monopoly of the weapon you mention, you might not be so easily driven away. That being said, I still fail to see how you can get through the gates. You’ve said yourself that the Empire’s weapons are better in general than your own.’
She smiled and leaned forward. She put a gentle touch on my right hand. ‘That is all very well,’ she said. ‘However, let me also ask how close do you think Meekal is to reproducing the Greek fire here in Damascus? He has been working on it now for eight years. The cost of the work has at times been crushing. It might have been still more if, after his last failure, steps had not been taken to limit his access to people and materials.’
I sucked on my upper plate and thought. I’d been right that Meekal was being pressed on the financial side. And that was one of the reasons I’d been lifted from Jarrow. Whatever the cost, it had been easier than breaking through that wall of resistance from the old families who stood about the Caliph. I sucked harder on my upper plate. I got my tongue under it and licked out a crumb that wouldn’t dissolve.
‘How close is Meekal to success?’ she asked again.
I shrugged and pretended not to be looking closely into her face. ‘Since I still haven’t agreed to help him,’ I said, ‘I can’t say anything at all about his progress. Surely, you’d have access to his reports.’
Khadija smiled again and shook her head. ‘There are no written reports,’ she said. ‘As for direct inspection, Meekal has concentrated work out in the desert, twenty miles from Damascus. There, he conceals everything behind a cordon of impenetrable security. None of us knows what he is doing out there. We know about the big explosion there – indeed, we heard it here in the palace. We know the broad costs. We really know nothing else. I was rather hoping that you would be able to enlighten me.’
‘My dear Khadija,’ I said with a little smile, ‘until – rather unless – I agree to help him, I shall be in no position to enlighten anyone.’ A most interesting turn things were taking; all this talk of ‘we’ and ‘us’ was hardly accidental.
‘You will not be aware, My Lord,’ she said with another change of tone, ‘of the earthquake of three years ago that levelled part of the sea wall of Constantinople. I only heard of it myself from a Syrian monk who was there for this year’s Easter festival. This was a breach easily repaired. However, in the course of repair, it was discovered that much of the land wall was also on the point of collapse. Two entire miles of the wall must be taken down in sections and rebuilt. Though every monk in the City was pressed into the work, the Empire has neither money nor labour to complete the rebuilding to the quality needed until next year. This surely puts your confidence about the Empire’s security in a different light.’
It certainly did. If Meekal got his way, nothing would keep him from riding into Constantinople. I took my teeth out again and looked at the chip in the ivory. It was beginning to annoy my tongue. I’d have it repaired sooner than planned.
‘Madam,’ I said, ‘I think you are now asking me to set to work on a project that is more assured of success than I had thought. What makes you think I will assist in the destruction of the Empire that I served for so long?’
‘Because it is the will of God that you help us,’ she said, with another interesting emphasis on the ‘us’. ‘It is our destiny to replace all other kingdoms and empires with our own, and to replace all other faiths with our own. And you must realise how God has brought you here to help in the work. When Meekal suggested his plan to the Caliph, there were those who laughed even to his face. Yet here you are. The Imperial Navy could not stop you. The Angels of the Lord tried twice to kill you, and failed. In all the adventures of your journey, God has preserved your life. God has preserved you in health and strength. You surely must see the reason.’
‘Perhaps I do see the reason,’ I said with an attempt at a weariness I wasn’t for the moment feeling. ‘The problem is that I am but an old man. My best work is all behind me.’ I would have said more. But Khadija was smiling again. She waited while I finished playing with my teeth.
‘If it is the blond boy,’ she said, now very gently, ‘we can arrange guarantees that Meekal himself would not dare break.’
I took off my wig and scratched the crown of my head. It gave me time, and diverted attention from my face, while I thought about that one. It needn’t have been a surprise that she too didn’t believe the story about Callinicus. How she knew about the threat to Edward raised a number of possibilities – all of them interesting and perhaps useful.
‘And I do appreciate the regard you pay to family matters.’ She paused and gave me another slow look. ‘I am told you have no posterity now within the Empire,’ she said.
I couldn’t keep my eyebrows from arching just a fraction of an inch. All that chatter of families, and she’d known my situation pretty well. Doubtless, I’d fathered bastards throughout the known world. But, aside from my son the Bishop – who was too pious to break his vows – all I had left that was certainly of my own blood was Karim. But I wrinkled my nose and smiled.
‘Karim is a fine boy,’ she said. ‘And he thinks himself all the better for being yours. I have said that this family matter has been kept within the family. To be sure, it is not something anyone has brought to Meekal’s notice. Even today, he prides himself on the adoptive connection.’ She paused again.
Fucking old bitch! I thought. She hadn’t entirely got there yet, but she was well on the way. And she was starting – in her ever so delicate Eastern way – with a threat: help reproduce the Greek fire, and see Edward and Karim outlive me; refuse, and see my blood spilled from two bodies, and kiss goodbye to Edward. I resisted the temptation to say bluntly what I felt – after all, there was more coming yet from her – and smiled again.
‘But Khadija, my dearest kinswoman,’ I purred, ‘I appreciate your sense of religious destiny. I will certainly not argue with it. However, what you are asking surely increases the standing that Meekal has with the Caliph and in his councils. And let us be plain – for all you desire a final victory over the Empire, do you really want it today? And do you want it in the manner in which it is most likely to happen?’ Her face went a darker shade as I spoke. That was the implication of all she’d been saying. Even so, I was breaking the rules of our conversation, and she had to work hard on that composure. ‘Oh, come now,’ I went on, ‘let us agree that Meekal’s idea of co-opting the Greeks and ruling the combined Empire from Constantinople is a sound one. But where would it leave the old families? Most of you still have your hearts in Medina. You live in Damascus only because that’s where Muawiya decided to have his capital. You feel lost among the arts and luxury of the Syrians – and they, let me tell you, have always been regarded by the Greeks as a decidedly inferior race. Move the capital to Constantinople, and you certainly will spread your faith over parts of the world currently beyond your reach. But will it any more be your faith?’