into Greek. ‘And do have this, my darling Alaric.’ Someone reached forward with a small golden box. ‘You’ve already had your teeth back. I trust this, your recovered cock piercing, will be of equal use.’
We hurried through the formal kiss, and I was carried off to my dining couch. This, sadly, was placed right beside Meekal’s. With the changes necessary for the difference of religion, this was a banquet that reproduced all the heavy formality of the Imperial court. Age would get me out of staying to the grisly end. But I reclined in the raised area of the hall, a couple of hundred other couches spread out beyond like the blocks on a polished wooden floor. My every gesture could and would be observed.
I maintained a diplomatic immobility during the reading from the Prophet’s sayings, smiled benignly through the endless speeches and shouts of greeting to the Old One al-Arik, and finally took in one hand the loaf that Meekal held out to me. We broke it together and shared a drink from a goblet that was more impressive than its contents. The banquet had begun. It was the standard civilised food – fresh salads, pickled cucumbers, hummus eaten with unleavened bread. Some of this I could eat, some not. Beyond some goat that had been boiled down to a sort of jelly, Meekal didn’t press the meat dishes on me. My teeth placed discreetly in their ebony box, I ate with a nice balance of the cautious and the grateful. I even managed not to drool too much on to my new banqueting robe.
One of the differences between Greek and Saracen dining is that the latter tend to eat in silence. It’s one of the customs they brought with them from a desert where food is so rare that it isn’t to be spoiled by the chatter of conversation. That saved me from the ordeal of having to be pleasant to Meekal. But, regardless of custom, he was hard at work with his secretaries. It was, so far as I could tell, the usual work of the powerful – petitions, diplomatic letters, internal administration. He drank steadily from a cup of what may have been ginger broth, and chewed morsels of food between dictating brief answers and instructions. Every so often, he’d dart a look of wolfish triumph in my direction. I countered these by ignoring him.
Once, after a long and very gloaty inspection, I called for the potty men. While one held the silver pot for my – genuine – call of nature, the other held the screens about me. It was, in every sense, a moment of bliss. As the screen was taken down, though, I saw Meekal was on his feet. Breathing hard, his beard thrust out straight in front of him, he was looking exultantly about the hall. Several hundred hands had stopped their steady scooping up of food, and everyone was looking nervously in his direction. Then, he pointed at one of the serving boys. I looked hard at the lad. He seemed well-made, and perhaps a few years older than Edward. I couldn’t say more, as all that playing with lenses and dotty parchment had left my unaided vision worse than it had been. But I heard the quiet mutter of approval that ran about the room.
I shrugged as my own attendant rearranged my banqueting wig. This sort of thing would never have done in the Imperial court – not even under Constans. But this wasn’t Michael the Greek. Meekal the Saracen could probably have taken the boy straight outside for a spot of bum fun. For my own reason, I rather wished he had. But the first courses were now being cleared away, and we had a most welcome break. I put my teeth back in for a desultory conversation with someone who came up and asked about the mosque I’d caused to be endowed in Constantinople. At last, he drifted off to bore someone else, and a small man with a boy walked into the one clear space within the hall. Now, the buzz of chatter fell silent. With a bow to Meekal and to me as guest of honour, he looked round. His mouth opened, his teeth a brilliant white against the brown of his face. He began.
‘Once upon a time there dwelt in Egypt a confectioner who had a wife famed for beauty and loveliness; and a parrot which, as occasion required, did the office of watchman and guard, bell and spy, and flapped her wings did she but hear a fly buzzing about the sugar. This parrot caused abundant trouble to the wife, always telling her husband what took place in his absence. Now one evening, before going out to visit certain friends, the confectioner gave the bird strict injunctions to watch all night and bade his wife make all fast, as he should not return until morning. Hardly had he left the door than the woman went for her old lover, who returned with her and they passed the night together in mirth and merriment, while the parrot observed all…’
It wasn’t a long story, but the repeated cheers and calls for the wittier passages to be recited over, dragged it out to what seemed a great length. It was made still longer by the flute accompaniments. I listened carefully, trying to keep the detachment of a philosopher and of a spy. The easiest part of spying is to find out how many soldiers the enemy has, and what use is to be made of them. You can’t fault this for the purely military aspects of victory. Far harder is getting inside the enemy’s head – to learn the causes that shape his manners and beliefs. So far as I was any kind of spy tonight, I was depressed in exact proportion to the entertainment. These people might be regarded in Constantinople as a race of barbarians just like my own ancestors. But this was a false assumption, based on recollections of how the Western Provinces had been lost. These people hadn’t come out of their desert with little of their own. It wasn’t a matter of waiting until they had adopted the superior ways of their subjects, and could then be evangelised and absorbed into our own civilisation. There would be no shadowy imperium extended here through the Church, aided by the occasional reconquest. If they copied from us, it was only to incorporate into a civilisation that could, in its own way, become equal to our own. Their literature stood on its own and needed nothing from us. Behind this rose their own Desert Faith – silly enough in its details, but without the terrible mess of Persons and Substances the Greeks had immovably fastened on the Christian Faith. We could, with our superiority in the sciences and with grim determination, hold their Empire from rolling forward into the Greek Provinces of our own. But these were not the Goths and Angles and Saxons. They were not even the Persians, as corrupt as they were alien. In time, they might appreciate Aristotle and Apollonius. They’d neither feel nor have any need for Homer and Herodotus. Least of all would they need Christ.
None of this was a new revelation. I’d been putting it forward for years in the councils of an arrogant, if increasingly down-at-heel, Empire. But, sitting here, watching those bearded faces shine with joy at a recitation that had nothing Greek in its substance or content, was a chill reminder that the victories in the East of Alexander and the Caesars were already one with those of the Assyrians and the Persians.
The story finished with a great burst of cheering, and the boy ran about the room, collecting the silver shaken out from some very large purses. There was an encore of flute playing from the boy while he danced about, followed by more silver. At last, he and his master went to the back of the room, where food would be set out for them, and we all settled back for the next round of courses.
‘Is it true that al-Inkus was buried alive after communicating his secret to the Emperor?’ someone asked behind me.
I perked and twisted round to see who was speaking. It was the Admiral Abbas. For the first time, I noticed that his left arm hung lifeless at his side. Another victim in the catastrophic defeat I’d seen from the walls of Constantinople? Perhaps.
‘Callinicus was a man of great abilities,’ I said, trying not to sound guarded. ‘I believe he was an architect from Heliopolis – whether in Egypt or in Syria, the accounts differ. There is also some dispute over the manner of his achievement. Did he learn from an ancient manuscript, as some declare? Or did he make an original discovery? Since the man disappeared immediately after delivering his secret into the hands of the Emperor, no one can say. The manner of his death – if, indeed, he is dead – must ever stay a mystery.’
Abbas might have asked more. Just then, however, Meekal sat upright on his couch and looked straight at the pair of us.
‘Can you smell fire?’ he asked. I dropped my own proposed question whether the fried river fish now being brought round had the bones left in, and sniffed the air.
‘Surely, my dear, it’s the lamps,’ I said, looking vaguely upwards. My sense of smell hadn’t been that good in years. Now he mentioned it, though, there was a faint smell of burning. More to the point, others in the hall had noticed. Several men were off their couches and running over to the door to give instructions to the attendants. Then, far over to the left, there was a panicky shout of ‘Fire!’. There was a mass scraping of couches and a clatter of dishes. Someone came up and whispered in Meekal’s ear. With a roar of anger, he was on his feet.
‘Get up!’ he shouted at me. ‘Keep hold of me while we get out. The fucking Empire’s set fire to us.’
Chapter 41
Panic abolishes most distinctions of rank, and Meekal had to use his right fist to get us across that shouting mob to the door. As we got there, we were nearly knocked over by a sudden reverse in the tide of escaping humanity. With Meekal to hold me upright, I stood a moment in the doorway and looked out into the darkness of the
