narrow; and the steel must be hard enough to survive the repeated variations of temperature. The fire at the end of these spouts has rules for its heat and placement.
‘What I’m saying, dear boy, is that the manufacture and use of Greek fire do not suggest themselves to the casual observer – though you know that already. Moreover, the business of reproducing the secret would need a cluster of skills that are beyond the abilities of any one man. If you want to make people see again, you could turn these things out by the thousand in no time – and do so without my further assistance. Or you could lock me in here and have me turn them out for you. If you want Greek fire, you need skills that I do not myself possess. And it seems that you need skills that are not possessed in Syria. You are asking me to oversee a project that would involve not so much reproduction as reinvention.’
I turned my attention to the food, and made sure to slobber as much down my naked front as I could. All the time, Meekal stood before me breathing hard.
‘So you will do as the Caliph begs?’ he asked during a lull in my noisy, unmannered eating.
‘I thought it was you who was asking, dear boy,’ I said. ‘If it’s the Commander of the Faithful himself who begs my assistance, perhaps I should await his return from whatever war he is fighting.’
Meekal crashed a hairy fist on to the table. There was a splash of cheesy water all over his black outer tunic.
‘Will you do as I ask?’ he now roared. ‘Or must I bring that fucking child in and castrate him under your eyes?’
‘Do that,’ I said, ‘and you can fuck yourself for the secret.’ I took a sip of wine. I raised my arms and looked at Meekal. He looked back awhile, then reached for a fresh napkin and began wiping me clean. How much had this project cost so far? How much had getting me here cost? If you’re a little person looking in, a government has unlimited resources for getting its way. But I’d been an insider too long to know other than the truth. It didn’t matter how much of his subjects’ gold the Caliph could steal from them: it always had more than one possible use. How much of this had Meekal lavished on the project? And how much of his prestige rested on the project’s complete success?
‘Now,’ I said, getting up and walking out of the room. I left my sheet where it had fallen off me. He picked it up and followed me into my office. I pointed him into a chair and leaned on my desk in much the same position as I’d taken with the assassin. He waved the sheet in my direction. I wrinkled my nose at the spoiled silk and looked at him. He’d seen me naked having my shit. He could carry on seeing me naked. ‘My darling Michael – or Meekal, or whatever else I’m supposed to call you nowadays – I have been made an offer I might not be able to refuse. You can bet your life I’ll not accept it, though, until I have some proper guarantees of the boy’s safety. Oh, and when I say “proper guarantees”, I don’t have your personal word in mind. The whole world knows how little that is worth.’ I stopped and pushed my visor back down to see if I could read the titles of the books shelved against the far wall.
‘I could adopt the boy,’ Meekal suggested with a faint smile.
I couldn’t read the titles. But I could see my old walking stick. Still bloody, it was propped between two blocks of the shelves. I walked forward and recovered it. A shame it was ruined. I’d been so pleased when I took delivery of it in Beirut.
‘Michael,’ I cried in a soft, menacing tone as I moved towards him. I leaned over him, lifted my visor and stared into his eyes. ‘Do you remember that time when you were a boy, and I caught you torturing a puppy? Do you also remember how I set about you with a slave whip? You may give yourself airs and graces among the darkies and anyone else who’s scared of your dungeons. So far as I’m concerned, you’re still the little shitbag I was sorry almost at once I hadn’t beaten to death.
‘No, shut up and listen.’ I moved my face closer to his. ‘I have read the tiresome utterances of your new Prophet. I have had their deeper obscurities explained to me by a learned Saracen. Adoption, I have no doubt you are aware, is not allowed among the Faithful. And under the Greek law that applies to me and mine within the Caliph’s dominions, Edward is already your uncle. You can no more adopt him than you can sodomise yourself.’
Meekal had been recoiling further and further into his chair – perhaps to get away from my less than wholesome breath. I now suddenly stepped back and hit him hard on the chest with my stick. He fell backwards, and only that fancy turban he was wearing prevented his head from cracking open on the tiles. I stood over his fallen body, holding my stick like a teacher’s cane. What would the world not have given to see Meekal the Merciless reduced to tears by a silly old man? What would he have not given for it not to have happened?
‘Now, get out of my sight,’ I snarled. ‘Come back when you have something better to offer than a puff of oral smegma.’ I walked past him out of the room. As I was opening a window in the room next door to look properly over Damascus, I heard the main door to my suite crash shut.
‘It might have been the opium,’ Edward agreed.
I nodded sympathetically. While I was asleep, the slaves had come back in. It was useful that I was woken in more clothes than I’d been wearing when I dropped off. The light was going down fast over Damascus, and, through the still open window, I could smell the palace kitchens hard at work. We sat, a concerned Karim beside Edward, in the small sitting room where I’d earlier dined. Edward tried to look brave again, but went pale instead.
‘You might wish to bear in mind,’ I said, ‘that to see a man flayed, after he’s been made to watch all his children roasted alive, can sometimes be too much even for the hardened spectator at these events.’ Karim raised an eyebrow, as if this were the first time he’d ever heard the point made. Edward went back to looking ashamed. Executions are a morning attraction in most cities, but I didn’t feel inclined to ask where they’d been for the rest of the day. I only hoped Karim had given Edward a better tour of Damascus than he’d so far managed for me.
‘So what are you both doing this evening?’ I asked. ‘You seem to have had a jolly enough day together. I imagine you’ll want to round it off with a visit to a brothel or some other place of public recourse. If so, I regret to say that Meekal has probably given orders for Edward not to be allowed again through the palace gates.’ Both faces dropped. Then Karim looked angry. I raised a hand to silence whatever outburst was coming. ‘No,’ I said, ‘you should know that you cannot possibly hope to cross a man like Meekal directly. But I am sure the palace itself affords endless opportunities for entertainment.
‘However, in young Edward’s case, I do suggest a break from enjoyment. The Saracen tutor I employed the other day made his first visit this morning, but was sent away. I believe he will return with the dusk. For obvious reasons, Greek will be the language of instruction.’ I saw Edward’s face cloud over. ‘Come now, my little son,’ I mocked. ‘Unlike our own English, Saracen does not allow clusters of more than two consonants. This helps give it – in the right mouth, that is – a most beautiful sound. You should learn it for its own sake, and because it is the language of your new friend Karim – and because I have never come across a language that did not turn out sooner or later to be of use. Go, then, and prepare yourself to receive your tutor. Karim, I am sure, will be happy to sit in on the lesson.’
I sat back and looked out of the window. The day was almost over, and, if I’d seen off that turd of a grandson, I could record no other worthwhile activity. So much still to do. So little time left in which to do it. I glanced at Edward and Karim. Their combined ages probably didn’t go far beyond thirty-five. I sighed and looked again out of the window.
‘You look sad, My Lord,’ Edward said. ‘Shall we not sit with you awhile?’
‘Thank you, but no,’ I said firmly. ‘You go and get ready for that lesson. Don’t bother looking in on me afterwards. I think I will spend the evening alone with some opium. The strain of the past few nights is heavy upon me. And I have yet to recover myself from the journey to Damascus.’ I reached for my stick – no replacement had yet been supplied, so I’d washed most of the blood off the old one in the latrine – and began my weary progression back to bed.
Karim stood up. ‘My Lord,’ he said, now in Saracen. I stopped. There was something both urgent and scared in his voice. ‘My Lord, if I could beg one more evening of you, it would be most gratefully received in certain quarters.’
As I wondered what he could possibly mean, I heard a movement in the corridor outside. Karim coughed loudly. Without any knock, the door opened, and an elaborately dressed eunuch entered.
‘I come, My Lord,’ he trilled in Syriac, ‘from a person of the highest quality.’ He was followed into the room by one of the household slaves, who set up an immediate babble about my not being disturbed. Karim stood forward with a small purse. He pressed it into the slave’s hand and pushed the man from the room. The eunuch, his lead-
