‘I’ve been waiting for you a very long time,’ he said from behind me. I turned and frowned at him. ‘Everyone else I knew, and so many I never knew, have gone before you. I have given up wondering when I shall really see you again.’
I wanted to ask what he was talking about. But there was a jumble of thoughts glowing feebly away at the back of my mind. As I was still trying to choose the right words, Martin turned away from me and walked steadily across the deck to the stairs that led down to our living quarters.
I was alone on the deck – not a sailor in sight. Even Priscus, with his vomiting and his bag of drugs, would have been preferable to the deep silence that lay about me in all directions. There were no seabirds crying out, no fluttering of sails in any breeze. I heard not so much as the lapping of water against the keel of the ship. I gripped the rail and looked hard in the direction of where Athens surely lay.
The sun was now lifting itself above the line of clouds that fringed the eastern horizon. I squinted as I looked into its growing brightness, and raised my arms to take in its first warmth.
So it had always been. So it would always be.
Chapter 63
The day of testing had arrived. Locking the gates behind them, all the workmen and all the guards had come out from the monastery. They took their places on the sand before the high wooden platform that had only just been completed. Mounted and fully armed, my own little army of guards kept a quiet but intent watch over the sands that led to the distant hills.
‘You’ve chosen a nice day for the demonstration,’ I said with an irrelevant look at the sky. Meekal said nothing. He’d varied his normal black with a green and purple turban to show his own exalted office. ‘So, when does the Caliph put in his appearance?’ I asked. ‘Any news yet that he’s left Damascus?’
‘What’s in that box?’ Meekal asked.
I looked down at the lead canister I’d been holding to my chest. I’d now put it down on the sand, and someone had put a jug of fruit squash on top of it. I sat down on my stool and waited for the slave to arrange the sunshade over my head.
‘Oh, that’s a token of my thanks to His Majestic Holiness,’ I said easily. ‘I’ve so enjoyed his hospitality these past few months. I hope to enjoy rather more of it in the coming months. I’m told Damascus can be delightful in the autumn.’
He grunted and took a slip of papyrus from an attendant who’d just come over beside him. He stared at it and frowned.
‘You’ll be interested to know,’ he sneered in Latin, ‘that Karim was spotted this morning in Damascus. He was buying bread.’ I raised an eyebrow and gave him an artless smile. ‘I said I wouldn’t chase either of them. But if they now throw themselves into my hands, who am I to refuse any gift that God may send? You can watch the boy die in one of my dungeons. Karim I’ll have punished as befits an enemy of God. Unless you appear set to outlive me, however, I’ll allow you to live out your natural term. I think you’ll find it interesting.’
‘You really are too good to me, Michael,’ I replied. With a scrape of boots on sand, he turned and was away. He took his place among a group of bowing secretaries and put his mind to dealing with official duties. I thought I could make out the word ‘burning’ a few times. To be sure, I heard one mention of beheading. There’s nothing like clearing your accounts when out of sorts with the world. I leaned back and rested against the firm chest of a slave who knelt behind me.
It had been a busy morning, and the one stimulant draught Meekal had allowed me was wearing off. I looked up at the network of polished bone that kept the fabric of the shade in place. Where bone and fabric were joined with fine threads, little beads of sunshine gleamed like the lamps at a palace banquet. I listened idly to the droning voices of the secretaries a few yards away. I listened to the grating but quiet responses with which Meekal punctuated the droning. I didn’t recognise any of the names I managed to catch. But it was obvious he’d been busy all night with foiling the Khadija conspiracy. Now, unless I’d lost track of the time, he was pronouncing an unusual number of death sentences. Did even persons of quality not get a trial nowadays in Syria? I hadn’t bothered attending it, of course. But I’d at least been given one in Constantinople.
The best thing to do with tiredness in this heat is give way to it. The Caliph wasn’t due for ages yet. Why Meekal had got everyone out so absurdly early, to swelter away in this sun, and without adequate shade, was anyone’s guess. I pulled my visor properly down – less to see clearly than to block out some of that dazzling light – and leaned harder against the slave. I felt the blackness sweep over me now in earnest. Soon, I was deep into another dream. I had now arrived in the Athens of my youth. I was walking briskly past the roofless shell of Hadrian’s Library, while Martin prattled on about nothing in particular. I think I’d made some money down in Piraeus or at dice, and I was looking for some way to get rid of Martin, so I could go about my proper business of celebrating in a brothel.
I woke with a sore neck and spent some while trying to work out where I was, and why I was beginning to feel my innards twitch with nervous strain.
‘Who are those children?’ I managed to ask eventually.
‘They are from the Saracen school in Damascus, My Lord,’ came the answer from just behind me. ‘They are here to sing for His Majestic Holiness.’
‘Well, I hope they won’t be dragged in as well for the demonstration,’ I muttered. The slave took hold of my head, which would otherwise have flopped completely to the side, and I let him sit me forward. Someone else poured me a cup of warmed fruit squash. As I drank it, I came properly back into this world. A larger crowd had assembled while I slept, and workmen were fitting a curved wooden screen together about twenty yards from the raised platform where the Caliph would be taking his seat. They ran about, calling softly to each other and arguing over how each part should be tied together. Arranged in a semicircle on each side of the platform, the lesser quality of Damascus were taking their places as if for some theatrical performance.
I got my stick and stood up. I moved my neck about to get out some of the stiffness and looked properly round. There must have been five thousand people here. The platform was still empty except for some slaves, who darted about with pans and brushes, or to pull on the cords that held the awning taut. Beyond the crowd, more soldiers had been placed. These were more of the big fighting men who’d come back from the war. To make any kind of successful attack on this event, it would need a regular army. You could forget the usual drugged-up suicide mission.
There was a cry from over on my left. I reached down to where my ear trumpet dangled at my chest and put it in to hear what was being said. It was a carrying chair that had fallen over. One of the slaves had tripped on a rope that was stretched tight at knee level, and the whole chair had gone down. Slaves bawled at each other as they fished within the disorganised heap of curtains for whatever grand personage would eventually emerge shaking and spluttering.
I now saw the long train of other chairs that were ferrying in from across the desert what looked to be the heads of the Religious Council and the Caliph’s older ministers. They were arriving fast, and were being led to what I took to be temporary seating in the shade of the main platform.
I could smell food cooking somewhere. My mouth filled with saliva, and I remembered that I hadn’t felt up to breakfast. I was certainly up for lunch! I wondered when this would be served. Perhaps I might get someone to bring me a dish of something a little in advance. After all, I was surely part of the coming entertainment. It wouldn’t do to have me fainting from hunger.
I was thinking to turn and make a polite request of the slave who’d supported me while I slept, when I heard another cry.