11
It was not a game I wanted to play, but I no longer had any choice — if, indeed, I ever had. We lived almost entirely in the three rooms we had been allocated, and wanted for nothing except freedom. After three days we were all like caged beasts alternately sulking in corners and snarling at each other; after a fortnight we had learned to contain our passions enough to feign peace. Occasionally Nikephoros would have me write a dispatch to the emperor, emphasising the Fatimids’ hospitality and his sincere hopes for an honest alliance with them; for the rest of the time, I sat by the window, trying not to think about Anna and Sigurd, and observed the comings and goings of the palace. At first it was merely something to watch, a small corner of movement in an otherwise still existence, but gradually I began to notice patterns: the different attires and the deference each man drew, who bowed and made way for whom, which hours were busy and which quiet. Most of all, I noticed the guards. There were a great many of them: Africans like Bilal, Turkish archers, Armenian cavalrymen, and brownskinned desert-dwellers who carried short, stabbing spears. As with the Franks, or even the emperor’s armies, there seemed to be a great rivalry between the different races — and it seemed to be the Africans who suffered worst. Each time a detachment of Turks or Armenians marched through the courtyard, the Africans were forced out of the way, and if they were not quick enough they often suffered kicks and blows. I mentioned it once to Nikephoros, and drew a predictably condescending response.
‘Of course they beat the Africans — they are the least of races, savages worse than Franks. Why do you think they appointed them to guard us, if not to demean us? Is that all you’ve noticed?’
I hesitated, unwilling to risk drawing his scorn again.
‘Which race do you see least?’
‘The Armenians?’
‘Exactly. The vizier, al-Afdal, is an Armenian, and he rests his authority on a private army of his countrymen. What does that tell you?’
‘That perhaps al-Afdal is not here?’
Nikephoros nodded. ‘And that is more disconcerting than any amount of tedium. Al-Afdal would not remove himself from his capital this long without good reason. But what that is. . I do not know.’
After that, I watched the numbers of Armenian guards more closely, for it seemed that until the vizier al- Afdal returned we would be condemned to our unchanging, stifling confinement. I never saw any change, but one day we were treated to a rare release — not only from our rooms, but from the whole city itself.
‘The caliph fears you may soon leave us without ever having seen the grandeur of Egypt,’ Bilal announced, with what might have been an apologetic smile threatening to overcome his serious expression.
Evidently the caliph did not count his own capital among the grandeurs of Egypt, for we were taken to the docks on the same curtained litters that had carried us to the palace and loaded onto a gilded barge, which quickly pulled away from the wharf. The other river traffic, I noticed, steered a safe distance away from it. Looking back, I could see the southern edge of the city receding, and the arid fields beyond the walls. A little distance beyond, to the south, I saw a second city, utterly in ruins. Flocks of birds wheeled over the remains, and a few thin trails of smoke told tales of thieves or fugitives squatting inside, but otherwise it was silent, and the fleets of boats that scudded along the river ignored its broken wharves.
I saw Bilal standing alone near our prow. ‘What happened here?’ I asked quietly.
‘This was Fustat. One of our great cities.’
‘Who destroyed it?’
Bilal’s face creased with anger. ‘We did.’ He must have seen my bafflement, for he continued: ‘A civil war.’
‘Recently?’
‘Before you were born.’
I considered this. ‘Then why. .?’
‘Why is it still deserted?’ Bilal gave a grim, sad laugh. ‘Before the war we had enough men to fill two cities. Afterwards, we only had enough for one.’
We beached our barge a few miles upriver. A squadron of Turkish cavalry was waiting for us, with half a dozen camels and twice as many slaves. Though I had seen camels often enough from a distance, I had never ridden one, and I must have entertained the guards no end in my undignified attempts to haul myself onto its rolling back. Hardly was I in the saddle than the beast unfolded its spindly legs and lumbered to its feet, tipping me about like a ship in a storm. A small boy, black as Bilal but half his size, held the reins. Beside me, I could see Nikephoros suffering similar indignities; Bilal, evidently more practised, was sitting as calm as a monk in his saddle. Our Turkish escort, all mounted on Arabian horses, watched with grim amusement.
As my seat steadied, I was able to cast my gaze slightly further afield — and gasp in wonder. Now I saw why the caliph had sent us here. A few hundred yards to the west the flat ground of the flood plain ended suddenly in a steep, stony escarpment. Atop it, looming over the river valley, I could see the peaks of fantastic mountains unlike any I had ever seen. They had no foothills, no ridges or ravines, but rose in an unbroken line from the earth. Their long slopes were so vast and perfect that surely only a god could have carved them. They seemed unspeakably ancient.
Bilal saw my astonishment and nodded. ‘There is nothing else like them on earth. Come.’
With the awning slung low over the barge I had not seen the mountains from the river; now I could look at nothing else. Their immensity was hypnotic, and only grew as we approached across the parched flats of the river basin. There were three peaks in total, the third a good deal shorter than the other two. For a brief moment I was reminded of the three peaks of Antioch — though they could hardly have been more different.
I gestured to Bilal, riding between me and Nikephoros, and he guided his camel closer.
‘What are these? Churches?’
‘Tombs.’ Bilal raised his eyebrows. ‘You have not heard of the pyramids?’
‘Of course. They were once reckoned among the wonders of the world.’ Nikephoros swatted his cane at the boy who led his camel, and was obediently led nearer to us. ‘“
‘Did the caliphs build them?’
Nikephoros laughed. ‘It was the ancient kings of Egypt. Long before the caliphs, the Caesars or even Alexander. Scholars say that they were built by the Jews before Moses led them out of their bondage.’
We carried on, climbed a narrow path up the escarpment and emerged on the plateau high above the river. Once again, I was dumbfounded. Though parched by the drought, the valley’s inherent fertility was obvious; here, only a few hundred yards distant, we were in a desert, a sea of sand and dust that stretched as far as the horizon and lapped around the base of the pyramids. And rising out of it like a sea monster, straight ahead of us, towered an enormous carved head surrounded by a stone hood. I started, frightening my camel, and the boy with the bridle had to run back and calm it before I was pitched over the cliff.
‘That is Abu al-Hol,’ said Bilal. ‘The Father of Terror.’
I crossed myself, and gave the creature a wide berth as we picked our way across the sands. The head seemed to be attached to a body which, if anything, was even larger — but an animal’s body, not a man’s, stretching out behind the head like a crouched cat or lion. I could just see the ridge of its back bursting out through the enveloping sand. It almost made me forget the grandeur of the pyramids, which seemed even more vast now that I could see how close we were. Until then, I had thought that no man could build anything larger than the cathedral of Ayia Sophia, but these must have been more than twice its height.
And yet, as we came around the side of the middle pyramid I saw that it was neither so perfect nor so permanent as it had been made to look. Scaffolding had been erected up one side of it, and the heirs of pharaohs’ slaves still toiled in the heat with chisels and hammers. But instead of building this monument to eternity, they seemed to be dismantling it. Huge blocks of dressed limestone had been carved away from the pyramid’s side, exposing ragged tiers of crumbling rocks and mortar beneath. As I watched, they slowly lowered one of the blocks down a long wooden slide, straining on the ropes.
‘What are they doing?’ I asked in astonishment.
