within a foot of it in any direction, would have been crushed like a grape in the press. If I hadn’t been so tired, I might have shared the general horror at this latest violation. As it was, I simply wanted somewhere to sleep for what remained of the night.
‘My Lord will be aware,’ came the nervous explanation, ‘that a loud crash was heard shortly before the midnight hour. I have not myself been on to the roof. But I do know that the instruments placed on it were of exceeding heaviness. It is perhaps a surprise the roof did not give way sooner.’
I ignored the creature’s increasingly shrill piping. I could guess easily enough what had happened. I was no engineer, but my arrangement of boards could have taken a dozen times its actual load. I’d also sited the astrolabe nowhere near above this room. The real questions were how anyone had got up there – and how whoever had got up there could have known that I generally wasn’t in bed between midnight and dawn. I was about to ask a few relevant questions of the slaves when Karim burst into the room. Gibbering in his nightgown, his face like death, he looked about us, then dropped into the one chair that wasn’t broken.
‘God be praised!’ he panted. ‘I came at once when I heard the news. It is surely a sign from God you weren’t both killed.’
I poked with my stick at a brass lever. Search me how much the thing had cost – not that it mattered: Meekal could add it to the overall bill. What did matter was that it had been so very pretty. I doubted there was another like it anywhere in the world. Still, now he was here, I’d have Karim look into the possibility of a replacement.
‘My dear Karim,’ I said wearily, ‘since Edward is not in the habit of sharing my bed, I don’t think he was in any danger.’ I frowned. ‘Any chance, by the way, of standing up for an old man?’ He jumped up, now looking guilty. ‘That’s a good lad.’ I flopped into the chair and looked up at the hole where half the ceiling had been. Against a background of utter blackness, hands clutching the broken edges of the roof, Edward stared down at us.
‘The boards you told me would spread the weight are all taken up,’ he said in English. ‘Also, there are some cutting tools left here.’
I turned a disapproving stare on Karim. ‘I don’t like to question your competence, dear boy,’ I said. ‘But you are in charge of my security in the palace. And this is the second time intruders have got in here.’ That might have set Karim straight into a moral collapse. Just as he put his hands up to his face, though, Meekal walked in. That set everyone about me into a round of bowing and scraping. He looked awhile in silence at the smashed astrolabe.
‘I did hear that loading up that roof wasn’t a good idea,’ he said. He was keeping himself admirably in check. Meekal looked up at Edward, then again at the mass of detached and broken dials littering the floor. He kicked morosely at a brown stone about the size and shape of a turd. ‘What’s that?’ he asked. He went and leaned by the window, scowling at everyone in sight.
‘It’s something I learned from the northerners you hired to abduct me,’ I said with one of my ivory smiles. ‘You put it into a wooden bowl, and float this within a larger bowl of water. It always points north. It cost thirty times its weight in gold,’ I said with heavy emphasis. ‘Don’t worry, though – this can be rescued.’
Meekal ignored me. ‘I suppose this was an accident?’ he asked of Karim. That nearly sent the boy over the edge.
Luckily, Edward chose this moment to ignore the stairs leading to the central ramp of the tower, and to drop lightly down the twelve feet that separated him from the one clear patch of floor. He spoiled the effect with a wince of pain just before hitting the floor. He landed on his bottom with a suppressed squeal. He scrambled up and nodded a bow at Meekal, and came and stood beside me. I looked at Karim and shrugged. What point in swimming against the tide?
‘I think it best to assume an accident,’ I said. I gave Edward a pre-emptive kick to shut him up. ‘Fortunately, I was so entranced by the Caliph’s hospitality that I broke my normal schedule.’ I stood up. I felt my knees going, and sat down again. ‘Now, my dear friends, I want someone to arrange a bed for me now. I also want this mess all cleared up and made good by this time tomorrow. While you’re at it, you can get me a new astrolabe set up on the roof – and I don’t want any disruption of my living quarters.’ The eunuch began twittering away about the impossibility of my instructions. I clapped my hands in his face. His voice dropped to a whine about nothing relevant to my instructions. I sat back down and fanned myself with my wig. One of the slaves jumped forward and set about me with a proper fan. ‘And will somebody bring me a cup of wine?’ I snarled with recovering energy. ‘Just because the rest of you have forsworn its use doesn’t mean I have to suffer as well.’
‘Do you suspect Karim?’ Edward asked. I looked over at a sand dune that was held together with dead weeds and laughed. One of the carrying slaves turned and looked at me. I waited until he’d turned back about his business, and took another swig of beer.
‘Where these matters are concerned,’ I answered, ‘long experience tells me to rule out no possible explanation, however weak it may seem.’ I paused and smiled. I looked at a flight of birds overhead, and then at the dull expanse of sand ahead of us. ‘But I don’t suspect Karim of more than incompetence. He may be of my own blood. He may be your own dearest friend. But I do suggest that he is neither particularly bright, nor brave in the slightest.’ Edward shrugged. Of course, he’d seen all that from the first. I didn’t think it worth discussing. But I could see it was these qualities that had drawn Edward to him. When your entire life has been directed for you by men of ruthless and fearless determination, it can be a relief to find company in those who simply like you.
‘You can rule out Karim,’ I said firmly. Edward gave me a relieved look. The sun was now rising higher, and I could feel a prickly sweat under my wig. Damascus was far behind us, the monastery still far ahead. I thought again of the jagged hole we’d inspected together in the first light of dawn. ‘It may have taken several dozen men to get everything up there and placed exactly where I wanted it,’ I said. ‘To cut through those timbers and pull the astrolabe into place might have needed half a dozen men at the most. I’ll grant, however, the noise of the cutting would have sounded like a drum down below.’
‘Then it was an inside job?’ Edward asked.
I allowed myself another laugh, this one cynical. ‘It took my great-grandson three days after the first attempt on me to get round to strengthening the guard,’ I said. ‘The guards he did post are as idle and negligent as he is. His policy of cycling slaves between our suite and the main palace is a sure recipe for breaches of security. Now the palace is filled to bursting with comparative strangers, there can be no security. Yes – dear Karim! If his father and uncles had been of his own sort, the Empire would still be ripping itself apart over the Monophysite heresy in Egypt and Syria…’ I trailed off and waited for a couple of the mounted guards to ride slowly past our chairs.
‘My dear boy, I would normally leave the matter of gathering information to you. I’d have you question all the slaves. Most obviously, we’d need to know who gave the orders for them to lock the suite and withdraw to their own quarters. We’d also need to know who was in charge of the guards, and whether the guards heard or saw anything before they’d knocked themselves completely out on their hashish. I really don’t think you’d find anything worthwhile. But the effort would need to be made. If you did find anything, though, it would only lead you to dear Eusebius. The Imperial Ambassador may not have been here more than a few days. But trust me – he was conspiring before he could crawl.’
‘But if it was the Empire,’ Edward broke in, ‘why did Brother Joseph tip us off? I saw him only briefly in that ship off Cartenna. But I am convinced he was urging the fleet on to kill us all. He’s been around Damascus for months. Now, he gets himself into the presence of the Caliph to warn us against coming back here to bed. It doesn’t make sense.’ I could have told Edward much else about our friend Joseph. But I hadn’t done so yet, and I saw no point in doing so now. ‘And,’ he added, ‘what was he doing in Jarrow?’ The boy sat back in his chair and looked up at the deep blue of the sky. ‘I still don’t know where he fits into all this.’
I thought he’d ask more about Joseph. But we were now approaching one of the larger dunes, and I could see Karim waiting there as agreed. I wriggled into a more comfortable upright position and stared at Edward.
‘These are all worthless questions,’ I said. ‘There will be no investigation of the murder attempt. There will be no further discussions of Joseph or of Jarrow.’ I shut down the confused objection with a wave of my hand. ‘I want you to know that your usefulness to Meekal will soon be at an end. Don’t try reminding me of the oath he took in front of Karim and all those religious scholars. If he broke his public oath to an emperor, you can forget about any promises he might have made in private. Besides, Karim is also on his list. Meekal spoke to me last month of the statue I commissioned of myself back in my twenties. I had it done in the ancient style – all nudey and tarted-up realistic. He asked if Karim didn’t remind me of the thing. Of course, I passed it all off with a joke. Even so, I’ve seen him staring thoughtfully at Karim. The moment I’ve given him the last secret of that weapon – and it can’t be held back beyond tomorrow – he’ll have me killed. He’ll then kill you. He’ll also kill Karim. He suspects the blood
