Richard Blake - The Sword of Damascus

‘You have my word, my dear Karim, that they will both be spared,’ came the immediate and smooth assurance. ‘You need to accept that, whatever the case, Alaric is old and cannot live that much longer. But he will be left to live out the remainder of his years in honourable retirement. As for the blond boy, we will force Meekal to an oath that even he cannot break. And we will ourselves be fully bound by that oath. After all, so long as we get the weapon of the Greeks, what reason could we have for harming a boy who can do no harm to us?’

They turned to the details of how to tie Meekal to his word until such time as he could be removed from all positions of authority. This done, they moved to another rhapsody about the coming Victory of the Faithful – or of the Faithful born and bred in the Faith. I paid little attention to this. Far more relevant was which account, of the three I’d had this evening from Khadija, was likely to reflect her true wishes. Did she want the Greek fire so she and her friends could settle with Meekal and the Greek Party before – eventually – turning on the Empire? Did she want it so they could make a coexistence deal with the Empire? Did she want it for an attack on the Empire almost as immediate as the one Meekal had in mind? Whether she was telling the truth to anyone about keeping me and Edward alive was a worthless speculation. She didn’t sound the sort who killed for enjoyment. She’d kill or spare strictly on the basis of how well either suited her interests.

You don’t like a woman like Khadija. But you do have to admire her. In her youth, she’d led the Faithful into battle. Now, a gentle prisoner in the Caliph’s palace, she’d do battle for the same cause with bribery and fraud. The only criticism I might have of the woman was her crap security. But wasn’t that really how Muawiya had done over her husband and his boss Ali in the civil wars? Wasn’t that how the Empire was doing the Saracens over in general? My reforms of the Intelligence Bureau had been one of the best uses I’d made of the Imperial taxpayers’ money. No wonder we were always a step ahead of these people. It was a matter of learning their language and its various nuances – and then of waiting for them to sit back and spill the contents of their minds as if they’d been so many drunks with overfilled cups. For all we’d destroyed them utterly, the Persians had never been this careless.

I had no idea what time it was. I hadn’t seen a water clock all evening. I hadn’t seen the sky in ages. Those stimulants had taken away all internal sense of time. It must have been approaching the midnight hour. It might easily have been some while later. The single lamp in the room had long since gone out, and there was no light but a dim reflection of the moon from somewhere beyond the shuttered window. I was too pleased with myself, and still too drugged to feel tired. Still, how long could I be away from my bed before someone raised the alarm?

But Khadija and Karim were prosing on endlessly about matters of no concern to me. It was all a matter of names and of household expenses that were irrelevant. I kept my good ear against the curtain just in case. But there was nothing more for me. I waited patiently for the conversation to run out of force, and for those long internals of silence that you find between close friends or relatives to grow longer still. At last, they slid into the conventional phrases that indicated a farewell. I stretched my arms and legs in the darkness, reasonably sure that the clicking of aged cartilage wouldn’t carry through the curtain. I heard Khadija get up and go – I hoped for the last time – through the door into her private quarters. Shortly after, there was the sound of Karim’s getting up. I heard the gentle click of the door into the antechamber. Another moment, and I could try another getaway of my own. All was silence about me. I stretched my arms and legs again and prepared for the effort of climbing to my feet.

Then the door opened, and a pool of lamplight splashed into the room. Framed in the doorway was Karim – one arm clutching the still sleepy slave girl, his outer robe hitched up in his other hand. For what seemed a very long time, we looked at each other. With a whispered command, he dropped the girl behind him, and came fully into the room.

‘What are you doing here?’ he whispered, his voice shaking with the shock of discovery. I smiled back at him, and held out my arms for him to lift me.

‘You should know the answer to that one, my dear,’ I whispered with much firmer voice. ‘You caused me to be brought here. Are you surprised if I chose to stick around to seek what else I might learn?’ I closed and opened my outstretched hands. As if automatically, he bent forward and helped me to my feet.

‘If she finds out you’ve been spying on her, she’ll kill you,’ he moaned. He looked back at the slave girl. So far as I could tell, she was still sprawled on the floor where he’d dropped her.

‘Well, my dearest and only posterity,’ I said with a smile, ‘it’s up to you to make sure she doesn’t find out. Can you help me back to my chair? It should still be waiting outside.’

‘What did you overhear?’ he asked.

‘Oh, everything – yes, everything!’ I said, now with a gentle laugh. ‘And what I didn’t hear I was able to guess. Now, are you going to raise the alarm – and this would not be in anyone’s interest? Or are you going to get me out of here? And are you going to keep your mouth as tightly shut about this as I’ve kept mine about your less than glorious performance of last night?’

The slave girl had vanished from the antechamber, and the main hall was now empty. Finally, the guards had had the sense to shut and bolt the gate. But that was no problem with Karim beside me. He kicked some life into the guards, and I followed him with apparent meekness out into the chilly night air. My carriers were verging on moral collapse when we found them. Ignoring me, they threw themselves down before Karim in the sort of prostration an emperor would have thought flattering, and listened to his instruction to take me straight back to the Tower of Heavenly Peace.

‘I don’t think she got round to telling you,’ I whispered slowly in Greek. ‘But Khadija will now let you firm up my security.’ He nodded with plain relief, and with some embarrassment. ‘And you can be assured that, so long as young Edward is guaranteed safe, Khadija will get everything she wants. Your own children will learn many things, I have no doubt – but Greek will not be on their syllabus.’

By now, I’d been packed into the chair, and the carriers were in position front and back. With a nervous order from Karim, they had me aloft.

‘I don’t know how you’ve managed to stay alive this long with your behaviour,’ he muttered with a faint return to his diplomatic manner. ‘But I pray to Allah that He will continue to watch over you.’

‘I have not the slightest doubt, my darling great-grandson,’ I mumbled as I tried to get my teeth back into position, ‘that Allah will continue the same watch on me as He has always kept.’

Without bothering to reply, Karim slapped the shoulder of the head carrier and watched as I was carried rapidly out of sight.

That really should have been the evening’s work. Even a younger man, by now, should have been wilting. But good opportunities hardly ever present themselves singly. It was as we were passing again over the long wooden bridge that I saw Meekal. It was too dark for playing with my visor. But I’d pulled the curtain aside to cool my sweating face, and I’d have known that long stride anywhere. I watched with idle attention as he approached from the right. At our current speeds, I guessed, he’d pass the far end of the bridge shortly before I arrived there. Interesting that, for all his exalted position, the Governor of Syria and effective deputy of the Caliph himself still went about the palace on his own two feet. Khadija’s stimulants were still at full blast in my head, and I felt little inclination to go back off to bed. The idea may have been in my mind the moment I saw Meekal. Certainly, it wasn’t long after that when the idea was fully formed.