among the Saracens. I should have guessed this from what Khadija had already told me. Perhaps, had I gone straight back to bed, it would have come to me. But it was useful to have the information directly, and with no reasonable doubt of its truth. I wondered if Cuthbert had known whom he was serving. If he had, he’d have been shitting on the Faith for a pittance. It really would have been interesting to get that document pouch open. It went to show that you should never pass up the opportunity to read another’s correspondence. But I filed all this away for some future use. It had none at present. More useful was to know it had been Khadija and her friends behind the murder attempt of the night before last. That explained the assassin’s knowledge of all relevant details. It also explained why the real Angels of the Lord had omitted the attempt from their own list of failures.
‘But, unless you managed to poison him earlier this evening,’ Joseph started again, ‘I see you’ve given up on your plan of murder. Does that mean you think you’ve made a deal with him?’ I think Khadija nodded in the resulting silence. Joseph laughed again. ‘You really do think you’ve made a deal with him,’ he said in a tone of mild contempt. ‘I suppose the deal is that he helps Meekal turn that money pit of his into a knock-out weapon against us. He then helps you stitch up Meekal so the weapon belongs to you and your friends. You can then escape this gentle prison among those you despise, and your friends can take back control of this Empire from those who want to provide it with stability and permanency.’ Joseph was no fool. I hadn’t trained him. But I could take pride that I’d probably recruited his trainers.
‘Come, My dear Lady,’ he prompted, ‘isn’t that what you think you’ve done?’
‘And what would be so wrong about that?’ Khadija asked sharply. ‘Would that not also be in Caesar’s interests?’
‘It might,’ said Joseph. ‘But I would remind you of our earlier agreement – so much more welcome to the Emperor – that we should, at the earliest opportunity, help Alaric into the next world. None of us wishes Meekal to have in his own possession the most devastating weapon ever developed. But we do not wish any of the Saracens to have this. We may have little belief in the ability of anyone but Meekal to use it to proper effect. But a weapon of that nature is not to be trusted in any hands but our own. Let me ask, though, what reason you have to suppose Alaric will turn on Meekal.’
‘Because,’ Khadija replied, ‘he has an adopted son whom only we can protect.’
That set Joseph off into another of his sneering laughs. And I had trouble not joining in with laughter of my own. This was glorious stuff. I hadn’t spied with so much enjoyment since – court intrigues, of course, don’t count – since I’d overheard a Lombard king versifying his next siege of Rome. Here was every apparently ill-fitting piece of the puzzle pushed into place. And here were two people subtly lying to each other in the hearing of someone who could recognise every lie and every suppression of the truth. It was better than a play.
‘I do assure you, My Lady,’ Joseph said when he’d given up on laughter, ‘that the boy is of no value. According to my reports, he is a vicious, unintelligent creature. I have seen him myself, masturbating at some public spectacle of the obscene. If you think he can be used as a hostage to force anything out of a man like Alaric, you will be disappointed.’
‘My own reports tell me otherwise,’ Khadija said quietly. ‘Let me assure you that we shall, within the next five years, reorganise your Bureau in Constantinople. Would you like to be its Director?’
More laughter – this time polite. ‘And if he does give you the weapon on which you pin all your hopes of conquest, do you suppose it will be sufficient? Even without Alaric, our own programme has moved on. Greek fire, as he gave it to us, was always a variety of different weapons. We have now developed some of these in directions that would surprise him. What he developed could burn on water. What we have now can be ignited by water. You will not have heard, I am sure, of the victory we gained early last year over a race of yellow men on horseback. They raided deep into Thrace and refused all bribes to withdraw. And so we led them across a field strewn with cloth bags of our latest weapon, and waited for the rain to fall. When it was safe for us to approach, we counted twenty-five thousand charred corpses. Do not imagine that, in the development of weapons, you can ever match the advantage we have gained to compensate for our weakness in numbers.’
Oh, this was glorious stuff indeed! The only meaning of that news was that Leontius had talked his way off Constantine’s rack. I’d been thinking about him on and off ever since setting out for the West. But who else could have picked up on my idea of using quicklime as a primer? I crouched behind that curtain, sweating and trembling, my mind soaring like some enthusiast who thinks he’s heard the voice of God.
‘I must tell you then,’ Khadija said, ‘that our arrangement is at an end. It is now in our interest to keep Alaric alive. There will be no more palace gates left open for your people. If you persist in your own assassination efforts, we will, for the moment, join forces with Meekal to resist you.’
‘It is as you wish, My Lady,’ Joseph replied in a tone of gentle mockery. ‘Even so, that need not mean an end to cooperation with the Emperor in other respects. Your allowance will continue to find its way into your Medina accounts. Though imprisoned here, you need not worry that your voice will fall silent in the nativist councils of His Majestic Holiness.’
I could have sat listening to this all night. But the meeting was now at an end. I heard the scrape of Joseph’s chair, and the beginning of their elaborate partings. Time to get myself out of here. Who could say that Khadija wouldn’t walk straight through the curtain to make her own record of the meeting? That meant I had to get myself out into the antechamber before they did. I heaved myself up as noiselessly as I was able. I opened the door and pulled it to behind me. The slave girl was now sleeping. I hurried past her into the main hall.
Chapter 50
Out in the hall, I bumped straight into the green eunuch. He’d been hovering just beyond the door with a tray in his hands. I cringed before him and made sure to look down at the ground.
‘Why is it that I’m always the last one to bed?’ he snarled. This wasn’t the obsequious creature who’d fawned before the Magnificent Alaric. I was lucky he had a tray in his hand, and not a stick. I bowed lower and mumbled something respectful. ‘If you think I’m here to fetch and carry at all hours of the night, you’re mistaken. Here’ – he thrust the tray towards me – ‘take the Mistress her sleeping draught. If she wants me, you can find me in the kitchens, fixing myself a late supper.’
As he flounced off towards another door, I looked at the tray. It had on it a lead bottle and a tiny glass cup. Was it worth getting the slave girl awake? Should I just put the tray down and shuffle away? As I stood there dithering, the latticed door opened again, and Khadija and Joseph came out into the hall.
‘ Oh fuck! ’ I thought. Trying not to shake, I held the tray up and bowed low before Khadija. She ignored me and walked right past with Joseph. They spoke softly for a moment beside the gate. Then Joseph was off into the night, and Khadija was coming back towards me. I stepped back into a shadow and bowed as low before her as my aged back allowed.
‘When I’m ready,’ she snapped, ‘you can have that brought to me in my bedchamber.’ With that, she was through the door again and disappearing into her private quarters. So long as the face under it isn’t particularly attractive, there’s so much to be said for the full Saracen veil. It restricts the vision most wonderfully. I don’t suppose, however, it was needed on this occasion. As I’ve said, no one notices a slave – not unless he’s a good deal younger and better looking than I was.
I counted to twenty and went through the door after Khadija. I left the tray beside the now snoring slave girl. Khadija had vanished deep into those parts of this building where even aged male slaves would not be allowed to follow. I’d done a brilliant job for one night. Time to get back to bed.
As I reached for the door handle, I heard Karim’s voice raised in annoyance.
‘Then get her up,’ he snapped in reply to some objection I wasn’t able to hear through the door. ‘I’m hardly an unwelcome guest in this place!’
His voice was getting louder as he approached the other side of the door. The slave girl behind me was stirring at the sudden noise. In a moment, she’d be awake and brushing the creases from her dress. I looked at the door in front of me – no going through that, not with Karim on the other side. I looked at the door to Khadija’s sitting room – no going through that either. I hurried across the floor and back into the spying room. If no one had been here to take a record of what I or Joseph had said, I was safe enough for any meeting with Karim. I flopped down again beside the curtain and controlled my wheezing as I prepared to listen. I’d rather not have been here at all. Since I had no choice, I might as well make the best of things.
