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‘The Commander of the Faithful comes!’ I heard someone call. The cry was repeated from somewhere out of my sight, and then again, until all distinctness of words was lost in the loud babble of many voices. I looked vaguely about. My slave took me by the shoulders and turned me to face into the sun. I pushed my visor close to my face and squinted. There was a cloud of dust several miles into the distance. I looked and looked, until I thought I could make out dark shapes within the cloud. They came on with the speed and regularity of a cavalry charge. There was a faint sound of galloping hooves, and now the cry of men who had seen where they were heading and were racing to see who would get there first. Behind me, I could hear men shouting their encouragement. I even heard someone lay odds on who would arrive first. There was a disapproving murmur, and he shut up. At least ten thousand eyes focused now in silence on the final charge towards us across the sand.

It was a massive white horse that got to us first – though only by the length of a horse. The rider pushed on with unbroken speed right into the open space before the platform, then came to a sudden halt. As grooms ran forward to take the horse, the rider swung off with an easy motion and stood, looking straight ahead.

The whole assembly got up and bowed. The men of the Religious Council shuffled forward, waving their sticks and calling out a coordinated greeting. A drum started up, and the schoolboys, all dressed now in long robes of white with green bands, began some elaborate, swirling dance.

While the Caliph stood, watching the dance, his companions came forward from where they’d dismounted and joined him. The meaning of the dance was lost on me. But it went on and on until I could feel my legs shaking and I thought I’d need yet again to claim the prerogatives of age. But it finished, and the boys lined up before the Caliph. He walked up and down the line, stopping now and again to smile at one of the boys, or to pinch a cheek. Now the schoolmaster was leading the boys away, and the old men were flocking round. I saw the Caliph stretch his arms and look up. I think I heard the cracking of tired joints. He finished his conversation and made for the steps up to the platform. He was followed by several dozen other men: the Religious Council, of course, and the ministers, and their attendants. Right at the end, and with much respectful bowing from everyone already up there – and even a helping hand from the Caliph – was Eusebius.

‘So nothing has kept the Imperial Ambassador away,’ I said to no one in particular.

‘So it would seem,’ came a displeased and slightly embittered voice from behind me. I turned. Meekal had now changed into the full regalia of the Governor of Syria. Dressed from head to toe in shimmering green satin, he looked like a piece of ship’s timber in a presentation box. I caught a look at his face, and the giggle died on my lips. ‘I did insist he be taken on a tour of the dye factories,’ Meekal spat. ‘He isn’t supposed to be here.’

‘You know Eusebius,’ I said. ‘Where there’s food to be had, or bribes to be taken, or information to be gathered for the Empire – there he will be. But isn’t that what he’s paid for?’

Meekal wiped sweaty hands on a napkin he’d taken from a slave. Without looking down, he dropped it on to the ground and stepped closer to me.

‘You know the drill,’ he said in Greek. ‘You keep close by me while I speak. At the appropriate moment, you get into the chair that will come over and lead the way to the gate. All the inner gates have been left open. You’ll be carried straight into the fourth zone. I’ll order the furnace to be lit. While the kettles heat up, you’ll stand behind me to correct any defect in my explanation. Have chairs been set out for the Caliph and the others?’ I nodded. It had been my last act before coming out with everyone else. ‘Good! unless the Caliph asks, you don’t need to say a word until we are inside the fourth zone. Until then, you sit or stand beside me as required, looking frail and submissive. Is that clear?’

I nodded. He grunted back at me, then took my right arm. He led me over in front of the curved wooden screen and waited while I was seated on a low canvas chair a couple of feet away on his left. The sun was overhead on my right. It wasn’t yet noon, but was already blistering. I drank from the cup that had been placed in my hands, and looked back at the Caliph and the assembled thousands.

Chapter 64

‘O Mighty Commander of the Faithful, Learned Elders of the Faith,’ Meekal cried in a great voice. I’d wondered how the wooden screen behind us would perform in the open expanse of the desert. I couldn’t tell for sure without being in the crowd of listeners. But I could guess from the firm resonance of his voice that the thing was working more or less as planned. Looking straight at us, the Caliph moved a hand slightly. Meekal took a deep breath and continued.

‘Whereas the perfidious Greeks of the Empire – alone of all the peoples of the universe – have resisted the arms of the Faithful, yet have they not done so on the fair field of battle, where the Faithful have been ever victorious, but with treacherous wiles. Recall ye not, O Majestic Holiness, how, arrayed in shining arms before the very walls of Constantinople, the Flower of the Faithful waited for the order of final assault? Recall ye not how, quaking behind their walls, the Greeks and their Emperor could barely have resisted one unarmed woman of the Faithful, had there not been those massy stones to shelter their useless bodies?’

There was a great laugh at this joke. Meekal took the applause like some aspiring actor in the Circus in Constantinople. When it showed no sign of dying away of its own, he held up his arms for silence, then went on with his laboured oration. Trying with reasonable, if not quite full success, to smother his foreign accent, he repeated the story as you already have it – the five ships, the tubes that spat fire that burned upon the waters and was quenched not by the pouring on of water, the panic and growing chaos among the attackers, and so forth. Over a chorus of lamentations and horrified cries, he described the retreat of the Faithful across the frozen ground of winter, and the repeated counter-attacks I’d sent out to keep them moving to the place of their final catastrophe. I thought he went over this in more detail than was entirely tasteful. However, this wasn’t an oration in Greek, where the rules of Demosthenes – or even the Asianics – were to be strictly followed. It was a tale for a race that was still mostly barbarous. And, safe outside their own capital, the Saracens were thoroughly relishing the tale of horror and disgrace.

I looked up at the sun. If still not close to its noonday angle, it was moving in that direction. I was glad of the shade that was again over my head. Got up in that huge turban and what may have been an entire bolt of satin, Meekal must have been cooking alive. But if he was leaking sweat like a squeezed sponge, he was enjoying himself far too much even to pause for a drink.

‘There are those,’ he cried sarcastically, ‘who say that the Greeks, alone of all the races of men, have been reserved for some other fate than defeat by the arms of the Faithful. They tell us to be content with the great and expanding realms of the Caliph to the east, where the sun and the soft greenness that is their shade of the sun have made men luxurious and weak. There are those who fear the sharp swords of the Greeks, or who just covet the gold dropped by the Greeks into their hands. These are the ones who speak of delay and consolidation, and of another attempt on the Greeks at some unspecified time in the future.’ There was a hint of impersonation in this last sentence. It was greeted with a shout of denial from the main audience. On the platform, the denial was less enthusiastic. I thought I could see a few faces turn slightly to each other. Certainly, there were gaps in the huddle of ministers about the Caliph. So far as I could tell, not one of the persons Karim had named to me was present up there. Meekal waited again for the noise to go down, then was back at a speech that he must have been rehearsing for ever.