‘Would My Lord be offended if I dismissed the attendants?’ Karim asked with firm politeness. I looked at the age spots on my right hand and nodded permission for the attendants to withdraw. Karim followed them out and closed the door. He came back and sat again on the marble rim of the tub.
‘Be a dear,’ I said, ‘and pull that lever over there. I don’t want a flood of hot, but a slight trickle might do my heart no damage.’ My arms resting lightly on the rim, I sat back in the bath so that the water came up to my chin. I looked blearily through the steam at Karim.
‘I hear that Meekal wants the Caliph to see the project,’ he began.
I nodded and lifted my right foot above the water. Something I’d discovered with my visor was that it improved my vision even when I wasn’t using it. I explained this in terms of the focusing muscles. For some reason, I didn’t seem to get the same result with any of the lenses I’d now perfected. Light and vision were funny things. Would even I live long enough to arrive at any understanding of their working?
‘I think I see a line of dirt under my big toenail,’ I said. ‘Since there’s no one else to attend to it, would you do your dear great-grandfather the honours with that pointed scraper on a ledge over by the window?’ I gripped the sides of the bath and slid down another two inches to get an easier position for my foot. I spluttered a moment as I breathed in an accidental mouthful of bathwater.
‘Meekal is coming here later today,’ he added. ‘He had a wretched meeting with the Caliph. Khadija has raised most of the Council against him.’ I shrugged. ‘She tells me we need to discuss the demonstration. Do you suppose everything will be ready in time?’ I squirted a fountain of water between pursed lips and followed this with a toothless grin. Karim nodded. ‘It might be useful,’ he said, ‘if not everything worked perfectly on the day.’ I lifted my left foot above the water and let him inspect the nails for more dirt I might have picked up the previous day. ‘What I mean,’ he went on, a slight pleading tone in his voice, ‘is that we don’t want a complete failure – not the sort of thing that will get everything cancelled. What we have in mind is a partial success. We’d like it made plain that the weapon can be made to work, but only after more time, and more money – perhaps quite a lot of money.
‘Can you hold off giving Meekal the final details of how everything works?’ he asked, changing the subject. ‘There will be a full meeting of the Council once everyone is back in the palace. The Lord Treasurer will present a long report. Our friends will make their move in the discussions arising. Once Meekal has been sent off to inspect the garrisons against the Yellow Barbarians, Khadija will have an offer made of private funding to complete the project. We are thinking of another successful demonstration in the early autumn. Can you play along with this?’
‘When Edward becomes one of the Faithful,’ I asked with another of my toothless grins, ‘I suppose he will pass under your complete protection? And that will mean the full protection of Khadija and all her friends?’
Karim nodded, giving me something from his people’s Holy Book about the Brotherhood of the Faith.
‘Then it will all be as you ask,’ I said. ‘I am curious, though, why Khadija is so confident that she can finally get Meekal put out of the way. Are finances really as tight as you indicate? Does this mean the civil war is going worse than the palace heralds keep saying? Have there been more reverses in the war with the Empire?’
‘You’ll need to speak with Khadija about that,’ came the evasive reply. I lifted my arms in front of me and sank under the water. I felt Karim’s hands close on my shoulders and pull me back up. I rubbed water from my eyes and smiled into his scared face. ‘Don’t do that again – please,’ he begged. He looked at the wet sleeves now clinging to his forearms.
‘What you’re asking me,’ I said, ‘involves risks in which none of you people will share. If I don’t give Meekal the show he’s expecting, it may be enough to discredit him. On the other hand, he may tough out the Council meeting. If he does that, he’ll not be pleased with me or mine. Can you oblige me with the names of Khadija’s friends in the Council? I need to be sure this is a regular conspiracy and not some half-baked palace intrigue got up by women and eunuchs.’ I looked closely into the now plainly terrified face. ‘I want the full names and offices of the conspirators. And don’t trouble me with making up the details. Over the past three generations, I’ve developed a crap-detection sense that many judges might envy.’ I gripped the sides of the bath and kicked my feet up and down. I listened with lazy contentment as water gurgled down the lead overflow pipe.
‘And do open that cold lever a little. I’m beginning to feel as a lobster must.’
Chapter 59
‘You know,’ I said brightly, ‘it looks so much different, even from another fourteen feet higher.’ The foreman muttered something about the breeze and gently led me back from the edge of the roof. The sun was now fully up, and I could feel a trickle of sweat from under my wig. But if it was unlikely to carry me over the edge, the breeze was most welcome. ‘I hadn’t realised that the Spice Market had a double vault to its roof,’ I said. ‘I’ve been looking at it for months. But I suppose fourteen feet does make a difference.’
The foreman sighed and went back to his explanation of the roof – and he was in a position to lecture me on the thing, as he’d helped lay it the previous Ramadan. It was a marvel of two-inch-thick cedar boards, each cut into a gentle fan and laid with barely a gap from the centre of the tower to its outer edge. Over these was a layer of pitch, then of canvas, and then an outer covering of lead.
‘Admirable, most admirable,’ I said. ‘However, even if the boards are supported along their lengths, I do still urge two further layers of ten-foot boards, each at a right angle to the other. That should spread the load without any further worry.’ The foreman bowed and made some marks on his waxed tablet. It would all be as I desired. I looked again at the half ton of brass that sat before me, gleaming in the sun. The young man who’d so far stood silent before me, hands folded across his breast, would soon explain the use of those dials and levers.
I was thinking also of an awning to keep the sun off me. I’d be up here several days running, sometimes through the hottest hours. As I was deciding between silk and linen, the foreman and everyone else threw themselves down for a long grovel.
‘Ah, Meekal,’ I said without turning, ‘I was wondering when you’d put in an appearance.’ Even my defective hearing wasn’t enough to blot out the sound of his breathing: I might have had an angry bull behind me. I turned and made the feeblest pretence of a bow.
‘What is the meaning of this?’ he said with the sort of quiet menace that can swell very fast into hysterical screaming. He waved at the half-dozen large astronomical instruments.
‘I’m a newcomer myself to solar observations,’ I said with a bright smile. ‘Until that young man cowering at your feet enlightens me, it’s all a bit of a mystery. However, I do think that big machine over there with the electrum plates is used for finding the angle of separation between two stars. I’m sure I’ll find it useful for something.’
Meekal put his head down and walked a few paces along the roof.
‘Have you any idea,’ he said, turning back to me, ‘how much these devices cost?’
I held my arms wide out and pulled the appropriate face. ‘It isn’t my concern either,’ I added. ‘The deal is that I ask for whatever I need. The funding is your problem.’
Meekal pushed his face close to mine. ‘The deal is that you complete my project,’ he hissed, now in Latin. ‘From what little sense I’ve had from Karim, these are for your private researches.’