King and Emperor

civilization: the carts coming in each dawn with produce, so many of them that those coming in had one side of the main streets, those going out the other, while there were men of the town Cadi who did nothing all day but ensure that such rules were maintained! The ever-turning water-wheels, or norias, which scooped water out of the river and transferred it to stone runnels, from which even the poor could fetch their water. The rigid regulations about sewage, which even the richest must obey. The houses for treatment of the sick; the public disputations where wise men spoke simultaneously of the Koran, the learning of the Jews, the wisdom of the Greeks; the surgeons, the mosques, the courts where the strict, even-handed justice of the shari'a was dispensed. Something there for everyone to stare at. In a while even the timidest lost their fear of the alien, even the fiercest and greediest ceased thinking of this world as merely another city to sack. If anything the feeling that had been created was one of awe: the word the Vikings used to mean, not fear, but a sense of being hopelessly outmatched. Could these people do everything?

Only a few rose above this to observe weaknesses, inadequacies. Shef, at least, strove to do so, conscious that it might be mere jealousy which drove him. And then the Caliph sent word that it was time to meet the impossible, the flying man.

This is going to be another disaster like the one with the hens'-feather man, Shef told himself as he neared the tower from which the launch had been promised, his companions shoving along behind him in the way they had grown used to in the continuous unbelievable swarm of the city. Probably another disaster. But it has to be said. There are two good things this time that were not so when King Alfred's man tried to fly from my tower. First, though there is this talk about the wind, as there was last time, no-one has mentioned birds or feathers.

And second: we have met men, truthful-seeming men if I and Skaldfinn can judge their words, who insist that they saw this man fly fifteen years ago. Not heard about it, not been nearby. Saw it themselves. And their stories, if they do not tally on what they saw, agree on when and where.

The tower door was before him now, guarded against the pushing spectators by men in the yellow and green of the Caliph's guard. The spears pulled aside as the guards recognized the eye-patch and emblem of the ferengi king, and the holy-man white of those behind him. Shef found himself blinking in the cool and dark at the base of the tower.

As his eyes adjusted from the glare outside, he became aware that the owner of the tower was in front of him, bowing slightly and holding clasped hands to his heart. He began to respond, bowing in his turn, jerking out a greeting in simple Arabic. But as he did so he realized with a shock that the man in front of him was a cripple. He could stand upright for a few moments, but then his hands went back to the wooden frame in front of him. When he moved, he pushed the frame forward and then dragged himself after it.

“Your legs,” Shef managed to say. “How were they hurt? With flying?”

The Arab smiled, apparently unoffended. “With flying,” he agreed. “The flight went well, the coming to earth less so. You see, I had forgotten something. I had forgotten that all flying creatures have tails.”

As bin-Firnas, the cripple, began to shuffle his slow way to the stairs leading up the tower, Shef looked round at Thorvin, Hund, and his priest-companions, an expression of doubt and disappointment on his face.

“Another bird-man, after all,” he muttered. “Wait till he shows us the cape of feathers.”

But at the top of the tower, on the square airy platform overlooking the steep sides of the Guadalquivir, there was no sign of feathers, no preparation for a leap. Back in the bright daylight, Shef could see that bin-Firnas was flanked by aides and servants, among them the young man Mu'atiyah who had come on the embassy to the North and the ever-present factotum Suleiman. Some stood by what seemed to be a light winch or windlass, others held lengths of pole and canvas. Behind Shef mustered the priests of the Way, the only ones for whom he had been able to secure admission. Walking to the tower's lip, Shef looked down and saw most of his men in the crowd, staring up, the giant figure of Brand conspicuous even in the throng. The still-veiled Svandis was close by him, he noted, though neither turned to the other. Brand had accepted the charge of looking after her from his friend and curer Hund, but had refused to have more than absolutely necessary to do with her: the Ivar-face chilled him, he confided, right in his old belly-wound.

“The first thing we do is this,” Shef realized bin-Firnas was saying. “If the king of the ferengis will condescend to notice? See—” He gave an order, the winchmen began to pay out cord. A kite lifted into the air, caught the wind, began to recede into the sky as the windlass handles span. Shef stared at it. It seemed a light box, four walls made of cloth between poles, open at both ends, with slats or vents cut here and there in the cloth.

“This of course is no more than a child's game,” bin-Firnas continued. “The kite lifts no more than itself. See though that the cord keeps its open mouth pointing towards the wind. Control is much easier into the wind. Away from the wind, it seems easier to sail like a ship, but alas! then the wind is master, not the man. So I found. I would do it differently if I tried again.”

Shef could hear the cries of the crowd from below as they saw the kite. They lined the riverbank, some of them almost on a level with the tower as the slope rose away towards the city's thousand minarets.

“You understand the kite, then?”

Shef nodded, waited for the word to haul in. Instead bin-Firnas hobbled two paces to the winch, produced a knife, laid edge to cord. The kite, released, leapt up, swooped, sailed away downwind in erratic spirals and flutterings. Two of the waiting servants jumped to their feet, raced down the stairs to pursue and recover it.

“Now we try a harder thing.”

On a gesture four servants carried forward a different contrivance. Its shape was similar, the open-ended box of cloth between poles, but it was twice as large and clearly heavier in construction. Inside it, furthermore, was a sort of sling of rope and cloth. Short vanes projected from either side. Shef stared at it, puzzled.

A young boy wriggled between the other servants and stood serious-faced in front of the new kite. Bin-Firnas laid a hand on his head, spoke to him with a babble of Arabic too fast for Shef to follow. The boy replied, nodding. Quickly two of the big dark-colored servants lifted him up, dropped him into the mouth of the kite. Walking nearer, Shef saw that the sling was a harness into which the boy fitted. His head remained outside the box, his hands rested on handles. As he twisted them, the cloth vanes to either side of the box rotated.

Carefully, four servants lifted the box, held it up to the wind, walked to the edge of the tower. The winchmen heaved a trifle, took up a yard or two of slack. Shef heard a rising buzz of excitement from outside, which slowly stilled.

“Is this dangerous?” he said quietly to Suleiman, not trusting his own Arabic at this stage. “I do not want the boy killed on my account.”

Suleiman spoke aside to bin-Firnas, while the serious-faced child remained poised on the edge of the tower, the wind tugging at him. He turned back. “Bin-Firnas says, of course, that all is at the will of Allah. But he says also that as long as the cord is retained, all may be safe enough. The danger would come if they released it, let the boy try to fly free.”

Shef stepped back, nodding. Bin-Firnas saw the gesture, turned to feel the wind, and then in his turn made a gesture to his servants. With a grunt they heaved the box up to arm's length above their heads, felt the wind catch it, let go all together.

For an instant the kite sagged below the wall of the tower, then some updraft or eddy caught it and it rose again. The winchmen span their handles, let the cord out five fathoms, ten. Slowly the kite rose in the sky, the little face still framed in its open end. Shef saw the vanes twist and turn slightly, the box rotate upwards, turn, level off. It dipped and bucked in the wind, but the boy seemed able to control it, to keep the box facing the way he wanted. If it had swooped and plunged like the earlier one once they had cut it free, he might have been thrown out of his harness, Shef guessed. But no, it seemed to ride stably. No worse than a boat on a choppy sea.

Silently bin-Firnas passed to Shef a device like the one Mu'atiyah had demonstrated, a far-seer. Without words he showed that it was different from the last one: in two halves, one sliding over the other in a case of greased leather. It meant you could alter the length of the tube. Bin-Firnas made a squinting face, as he moved the bottom half in and out. Shef took the device from him, trained it on the kite and its flyer's face, gently moved the tube up and down till the image came into focus.

There it was. The boy's tongue stuck out between his teeth, he was concentrating grimly on managing his vanes, trying to hold the kite steadily into the wind. There was no doubt, anyway, that the kite could carry his weight.

“How far can you send him?” he asked.

“As far as the rope will run,” reported Suleiman.