Catilina patientia nostra? quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia? ’ I broke off with a laugh and called out in Saracen; ‘Have you killed anyone yet, dearest Meekal?’ I laughed again. Now choking back the laughter, I continued this most wonderfully apposite recitation of Cicero: ‘ nihilne te nocturnum praesidium Palati nihil urbis uigiliae nihil timor populi nihil concursus bonorum omnium nihil hic munitissimus habendi senatus locus nihil horum ora uoltusque mouerunt? patere tua consilia non sentis constrictam iam horum omnium scientia teneri coniurationem tuam non uides? quid proxima, quid superiore nocte egeris, ubi fueris quos conuocaueris quid consili ceperis quem nostrum ignorare arbitraris? ’ I had my mouth open for the ‘ O tempora o mores! ’ when Meekal came back into the room.
‘So, those birds also were flown,’ I said, still in Latin, with a nod at the unbloodied sword he carried in his hand. He threw the sword down with a clatter and sat back in the armchair. I got slowly up and poured him another drink. Silly of the man, when you think about it. After all, he’d spent much of his childhood in the Imperial Palace, which is riddled with these channels for carrying sound from one place to another. He should have taken it for granted that nowhere in this palace would be any more secure. But he sat there, utterly crushed. I refilled my own cup and sat back on the sofa. I picked up a cushion and threw it at the hole in the panelling. By a stroke of luck that looked exactly like a skill retained into old age, I got the thing right into the hole. I lifted my cup in a toast to myself and looked at Meekal.
‘Who was listening?’ he asked simply.
‘That old bitch Khadija,’ I said. ‘Why must you trouble me with asking?’
‘Because it saves me the trouble of asking her myself,’ came the answer. ‘So she’s heard everything said within these walls. And that would explain the source of all the information the auditors had in their files earlier today.’ He sat upright and reached for his sword. ‘Since you’ve been good enough to tell me this much, I hope you will agree there is no point in holding back on the rest. Any chance of telling me what the fucking cow is up to now?’
‘Gladly,’ I said. ‘Can you imagine that she tried to have me killed in these very rooms just a few months ago? I think that abolishes any duty of confidentiality. I’ll tell you the lot – on one condition.’ Meekal sat forward. ‘I want the boys to go free,’ I said. ‘Call off your dogs.’
He laughed. ‘Karim is no loss to anyone,’ he said. ‘Alone in that desert, he’d dry up in the sun like a slug. Your boy will probably get him to safety. As for the boy, would you believe me if I said I never had any intention of breaking my oath?’ I smiled and shook my head. Perhaps he was telling the truth. The problem all villains face sooner or later, though, is that no one believes them when they do tell the truth. ‘Whatever the case,’ he said, ‘you get your assurance. I have no “dogs” out looking for them. Now, tell me everything.’
And so I did tell him everything. I told him as much as I’d heard and guessed. Oh, very well – I didn’t tell him everything. Except perhaps with you, dear Reader, I never do that. But I did tell him as much as I cared to let him know, which was quite a lot. ‘Just you threaten that head eunuch of hers with the rack,’ I ended, ‘and he’ll confirm the whole story. He’ll confirm her dealings with the Intelligence Bureau. I strongly suspect he’ll also confirm her dealings with the rebels in the civil war.
‘Now, do you need a list of the names I’ve given you? Personally, I’d rather keep it verbal.’
Meekal shook his head. He’d nearly burst with joy as I’d recited the names Karim had given me. Every one of them was his sworn enemy in the Council. Every one of them, he promised me, would be waiting his turn on the rack once he’d denounced them to the Caliph.
‘It is surely redundant to ask,’ he said with a nasty smile, ‘whether you have taken up Karim’s suggestion of a failure for tomorrow’s demonstration.’
I shook my head. ‘The demonstration, I promise, will be a complete success,’ I said. ‘It will be everything you could ever expect. I only ask you to remember your promise.
‘But you’d better go,’ I said wearily. ‘You can imagine the sort of day I’ve had out in the desert. And I need somehow to get through tomorrow. Yes, go – just go.’
For the first time in ages, I didn’t bother with opium that night. I let the slaves get me to bed. As ever, I said I’d have no one to sit beside me. While someone got up on a stool to put out the lamps, I looked up at the fresh plaster above my bed, and breathed in its damp smell. It reminded me of the house I’d once bought in Rome. I’d been only twenty then. I’d lived for months surrounded by that smell. It was something I’d ever since associated with hope and youth. I’d laughed at the suggestion of a move to some other room. I took a sip of water and wished a good night to the slaves. I then lay back and closed my eyes. It was like falling in darkness into a bath of exactly blood heat.
I was back on my diverted ship to Athens. The Captain had told me we were now just a day from Piraeus, and a shift in the autumn winds meant we’d be approaching through the Saronic Gulf from the west. That meant I’d be able to see the place where, over a thousand years before, the Athenians had surprised and sunk the Persian fleet.
‘What do you suppose would have happened had the Athenians lost?’ I asked of Martin. He leaned beside me on the side of the ship, looking over the flat waters of an early morning. They had a surprisingly dark, oily sheen about them. ‘I mean, suppose the Persians had brought all their superiority to bear, and the Athenian fleet had been routed. In the short term, the Persians would have finished conquering Greece. Xerxes would have gone home in triumph. And what would that have meant for the whole subsequent history of the world?’
I’d often had these ‘what if?’ conversations with Martin, and I expected him now to insist that the Athenian victory was the work of God. How otherwise would the Greeks have spread their language and ways over the world, and then had this fixed and preserved after their own conquest by Rome? Since the result was the stage on which was played out the drama of the Gospels, it had to happen. To suppose otherwise was inconceivable. However, he didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he let go of the rail, and, surprisingly stable for him, walked a few paces back along the deck.
‘I’ve been waiting for you a very long time,’ he said from behind me. I turned and frowned at him. ‘Everyone else I knew, and so many I never knew, have gone before you. I have given up wondering when I shall really see you again.’
I wanted to ask what he was talking about. But there was a jumble of thoughts glowing feebly away at the back of my mind. As I was still trying to choose the right words, Martin turned away from me and walked steadily across the deck to the stairs that led down to our living quarters.
I was alone on the deck – not a sailor in sight. Even Priscus, with his vomiting and his bag of drugs, would have been preferable to the deep silence that lay about me in all directions. There were no seabirds crying out, no fluttering of sails in any breeze. I heard not so much as the lapping of water against the keel of the ship. I gripped the rail and looked hard in the direction of where Athens surely lay.
The sun was now lifting itself above the line of clouds that fringed the eastern horizon. I squinted as I looked into its growing brightness, and raised my arms to take in its first warmth.
So it had always been. So it would always be.
Chapter 63
The day of testing had arrived. Locking the gates behind them, all the workmen and all the guards had come out from the monastery. They took their places on the sand before the high wooden platform that had only just been completed. Mounted and fully armed, my own little army of guards kept a quiet but intent watch over the sands that led to the distant hills.
‘You’ve chosen a nice day for the demonstration,’ I said with an irrelevant look at the sky. Meekal said nothing. He’d varied his normal black with a green and purple turban to show his own exalted office. ‘So, when does the Caliph put in his appearance?’ I asked. ‘Any news yet that he’s left Damascus?’
‘What’s in that box?’ Meekal asked.
I looked down at the lead canister I’d been holding to my chest. I’d now put it down on the sand, and someone had put a jug of fruit squash on top of it. I sat down on my stool and waited for the slave to arrange the sunshade over my head.
‘Oh, that’s a token of my thanks to His Majestic Holiness,’ I said easily. ‘I’ve so enjoyed his hospitality these
