walked towards it. I bent forward to pick it up. But Edward had got there first. He pressed it into my hands. I turned to him and smiled.
‘I did that,’ I said in English, pointing with my stick towards the still huge cloud of dust. Edward nodded. He made no other reply. I smiled more brightly and raised my voice. ‘Yes, I did that,’ I repeated. ‘I’ll bet no one else has ever managed the like. “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair,” ’ I quoted in Greek from an ancient poet.
I turned again and found myself looking straight at the Caliph. Half his beard was gone, and there was a bloody gash on his face. I laughed as he tried to control the shaking of his body and get any words out at all. He sat down suddenly on the sand. He pointed weakly at the still growing cloud above what had been Meekal’s project, and slumped forward.
‘ “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair,” ’ I cried again. I held out a hand to help the poor man to his feet.
Well indeed might the mighty despair.
Chapter 66
If you’ve seen one of them already, there isn’t much to be said about any other prison. Every palace needs one, and the Caliph’s palace was no exception. You got to it by going down the steps that lay the other side of a small door at the back of one of the main administrative buildings used by the Governor of Syria. Unlike in the Imperial Palace in Constantinople, these stairs hadn’t yet had enough use to be worn. But it was the same melancholy descent from bright sunshine into perpetual darkness, and the same smell of unwashed humanity and of bottomless despair.
I rapped smartly with my stick on the desk of the little Syrian who was supposed to be keeping watch at the foot of the long staircase. He woke with a start and peered at me in the dimness of the lamp that shone from an iron bracket on the wall behind him. I fought to control my breathing and dropped a slip of papyrus on to the cluttered desk.
‘This doesn’t cancel the order that no one is to be admitted,’ the man said in Greek.
I’d been expecting that. I unhooked a purse from my belt and took out five solidi. He looked at the golden discs and nodded. He reached behind him and pulled out the stopper from a water clock. He pointed at the first marker.
‘You can have twelve minutes with him – no more,’ he said. He opened his mouth to call for one of the guards.
I stopped him. ‘The permit says I can see him alone,’ I said, waving at the slip.
The Syrian shook his head. ‘No private meetings,’ he said firmly.
I opened my purse again and poured its entire contents on to the desk. Their sound made a dull echo within the room. When the man had finished his choking fit, he stood up and took a bunch of keys. He looked for a moment at an open ledger. He looked back at the gold and sighed. He gathered up the coins and put them back into the purse that I’d now dropped in front of him. Tucking the purse into a deep fold in his clothing, he led the way across the room to a door at the far end that was bound with iron.
Knowing exactly what to expect, I held my breath as the door swung open and we stepped into the deeper gloom of a long corridor. If you’ve ever had a cat, you’ll know the beast’s genius for finding your most expensive rug or silk hanging, and then shitting all over it. Imagine this, left to dry out and go stale, and then shoved under your nose. Imagine this, plus the cat’s dead and putrefying body, and throw in a stinking fish – and you have some idea of how a prison smells. I clapped a scented cloth to my face and tried not to think about anything at all as I shuffled along that corridor. To the best of my ability, I blotted out the sound of sobs and whispered pleading from behind each of the wooden doors that we passed. Every time I’ve been in one of these places, I’ve told myself that this would be the last. It never had been yet. Perhaps even this wouldn’t be the last.
‘So, Grandfather, have you come to gloat?’ Meekal asked as his eyes got used to the lamp. His own cell was larger than I’d expected. But the main floor was reached down a flight of steps, and was covered in a two-inch carpet of liquid filth. I looked at this briefly as I reached the bottom step. I nerved myself and continued splashingly forward to where Meekal was sitting. He tried to get up as I approached. But the chain attached to his iron collar was too short to let him move more than a few feet from the wooden bench where he’d been sitting.
I turned to the Syrian gaoler. He hadn’t followed me down the steps. He stood in the doorway, still holding his lamp.
‘Get out of here,’ I said coldly. ‘You can leave the lamp on the steps. I’ll summon you back when I’m ready.’ I heard the door swing gently shut. By then, though, I was already standing over Meekal. He looked up at me and tried to smile.
‘I’ve spent the past few days trying to clarify when you started working for the Empire,’ he said. ‘Was it when you were still in your British monastery? Was even your confiscation and exile part of the plan?’ He shuffled to the end of his little bench and made room for me. I sat down beside him, and tried to ignore the wet filth that soaked straight through two layers of silk.
‘Your question is irrelevant,’ I answered. ‘In a sense, I never stopped working for the Empire. A better question is when I realised what I was supposed to do. Answering that would take longer than I fear we shall have.’ I reached into the satchel I’d brought in on my back and pulled out a loaf of bread and some wine. I watched as Meekal ate his first meal since he’d been pulled, more dead than alive, from the wreckage of the Caliph’s platform.
‘You were a fool to disbelieve what I said,’ Meekal began again. ‘I really meant those words about joining the two empires. It would have been a fresh start for the world.’
I looked down at my feet and splashed them in the filth. ‘The problem,’ I said, ‘is that I did believe you. And, in spite of all that happened to me there, it would pain me more than I can imagine to see the Empire fall. More than that, though – far more than that – would be the thought that the Saracens could then rampage without any real opposition through Europe. I would do all this again, and more, if it meant the call to prayer would never sound from the monastery in Jarrow. You are, of course, right that the Christian Faith means nothing to me. Your own new Faith has many advantages that we don’t need to discuss. But, for all its original idiocy, and for all that has been added to it, the Church carries within itself the seeds of something that, sooner or later, will germinate into what may never quite have been, but what might yet be.’
‘The Empire must fall,’ Meekal insisted.
‘I’m sure it will,’ I conceded. ‘But it won’t fall until there is some other line of defence against your people. I bought time the other day. I did no more than that. But I bought time that I have no doubt will be used.’
‘What do you suppose they will do to me?’ he asked.
I looked at him and smiled. ‘You may not have heard that Karim is now Governor of Syria,’ I said. I waited for Meekal to finish his ironic laugh. ‘Yes,’ I went on, ‘though it won’t be his intention, the Empire will find him a most useful member of the Caliph’s Council. The Caliph has declared you an Enemy of God – a traitor, a spendthrift, a sorcerer, and an unwise meddler with the old families of which he is, after all, a member. I spoke with Karim last night. He refused even to consider softening your punishment. Tomorrow morning, you will be taken from this cell to be racked and, after that, tortured all over with red-hot pincers. You will then be taken to the usual place of punishment. Your extremities will be cut off. You will be blinded in one eye, and have one ear cut off. Then you will be crucified. There are other incidentals. However, since you have passed that sentence many times on others, I don’t need distress you with any further description.’
‘It is the will of God,’ he said, fighting to keep his voice steady.
I opened the satchel again and took out a battered scroll.
‘I haven’t just brought you physical comfort,’ I said. ‘I found this in Beirut, and was thinking to send it to a friend I made in Africa. It is the third book of Lucretius – his long meditation on death as the end of all things. You may remember that I tried to make you read it when you were a boy in Constantinople. It led to one of the few disagreements I ever had with my darling Maximin. I bring it to you now. It was copied by a Greek scribe, and he lapses into the Greek alphabet here and there. But I’ve corrected the few actual errors. I hope you find the time to read it this evening. I’ll make sure you have enough light for the effort. I promise it will give you comfort – especially
