crescent moon had risen low and now gathered radiance in the night-dark sky. I felt the soft warmth fading in the air, and smelled the evening's sweet perfume. The strangeness of the place swirled around me like currents in a pool of hidden depths; I shivered to think of plunging myself in those exotic waters. Oh, but I was already immersed to the neck.
Their prayers finished, the people began creeping away. In a few moments, the streets were empty once more and silent. I gazed down into the now-quiet darkness with a feeling of curious astonishment. That all those people, unknown to me as I to them, should intercede for me-a mere slave in the amir's house-was more than I could credit.
Sure, I could not help thinking that it would not have happened in Constantinople, or anywhere else in the Christian world that I knew. Indeed, I had stood before the emperor, Christ's own Vice-Regent on Earth, the very Head of the Church Universal, and had received not so much as a cup of cold water, or a kindly word-and I a fellow Christian! But here, a stranger in a foreign land, I had received a continual outpouring of prayer from the moment I had arrived. All this time, they had prayed for me, a stranger unseen and unknown.
Such care and compassion, such blind faith, both astounded and shamed me. That night I lay long awake thinking about what I had seen, and fell asleep wondering what it could mean.
49
We walked to the rooftop garden again the next day, and lingered there a little longer before shuffling slowly back to my room. Exhaustion dogged my last few steps and Farouk helped me undress, whereupon I collapsed onto my bed with a groan, feeling as if I had worked the entire day heaving heavy boulders over a wall. I slumped back onto the cushions and Farouk drew the covering over me. I was asleep before he left the room.
He returned the next morning as I awoke. A tray of fruit, bread, and a steaming hot drink lay on a wooden tripod beside the bed. When he saw that I was awake, he sat down and took my hand in the peculiar wrist grip he had used before. He looked at me thoughtfully for a long moment, then replaced my hand, and said, 'You are making a good recovery, my friend. As it happens, Amir Sadiq would like to see you today. Shall I tell him you are feeling well enough to sit with him?'
'Yes, of course, Farouk. I would be happy to speak with him whenever he wishes.'
The physician smiled. 'Then I will suggest that you speak together this morning while you are feeling strong. You can rest again, and then we will walk a little. Yes?'
'Certainly,' I replied. 'Whatever you think best. I owe my life to you, I think. If not for you, I would have died.'
The white-robed physician held up his hands in protest, and shook his head. 'No, no, no. It is Allah, All Wise and Merciful, who alone heals. I merely made you comfortable so that this healing might take place.' He regarded me with his gentle, dark eyes for a moment. 'For myself, I am only glad you are feeling better.'
'Thank you, Farouk,' I said.
He rose to his feet and said, 'I will leave you now and return when I have spoken to the amir. It would be best if you would eat everything I have brought for you. We must begin rebuilding your strength.'
Upon receiving my promise, he left me to myself. After a time, Kazimain appeared as I was finishing a bunch of blue-black grapes-the only fruit on the tray which I recognized. She smiled when she saw me, and came to the bedside, knelt, and selected a spherical fruit with a red skin; it looked a little like an apple, but had a tufted knot at one end, and the skin was very tough. She showed me how to break it open, speaking a word as she did so, but I could not make out what it was. Farouk returned just then, bearing a bundle of clothes, and said, 'She is telling you that the name of this fruit is narra. The Greeks call it by another name, but the word escapes me.'
Kazimain pushed her thumbs into the leathery red skin, gave a twist of her wrists, and the fruit split in two, revealing an interior of hundreds of tightly packed seeds, glistening like rubies. She broke off a small section, loosened a few of the little jewels into her palm, and offered them to me.
I took a gemlike seed and put it in my mouth. The tiny juice-filled pip burst on my tongue with a tart sweetness.
'You must take the whole handful at once,' advised Farouk with a laugh. 'It will take you all day otherwise.'
By the handful, the narra was too astringent for my taste, so I went back to the grapes and ate them with a little of the bread. When I finished, Kazimain departed to allow Farouk to dress me in the clothes he had brought: a robe and cloak of green-and-blue striped silk, finer than those I had worn before, and a red silk belt. 'You must be suitably arrayed for your audience,' he explained, and showed me how to arrange the robe and tie the belt properly.
'Ah, you look a man of elegance and purpose,' he declared, acclaiming the result. 'Now, the amir is waiting. I will lead you to him. And if you will allow me, I will instruct you in how to conduct yourself in his company.'
'I would be grateful,' I replied, even though I already had a fair notion of what he expected, which I had learned through observations of the few meetings I had attended when the eparch met with the Arabs in Trebizond.
'It is easily told,' said Farouk, leading me from the room. 'I will explain as we go.'
We started down the long corridor, passing the stairs leading to the roof garden. Instead of going up, this time we turned and descended to the lower level, and into a great hall. 'This is the receiving room,' explained Farouk, 'but, as this is not a formal audience, the amir will see you in his private apartments. It is customary in these circumstances for you to bow upon greeting him. Simply do as you see me do,' he told me. 'You may invoke Allah's blessing upon him, or you may simply remind the amir that you are his servant awaiting his pleasure.'
We made our way across the long reception room, and Farouk explained several other things he thought I might like to know about the ordering of the household. A high, narrow door stood at the end of the room, and Farouk indicated that we were to go through; he pushed open the door and we entered a vestibule with but a single low door at the end of it; the door was rosewood and its surface studded with gold-topped nails arranged in flowing design. Before this door stood a guard with a curved axe on the end of a long pole. Farouk spoke a few words and the guard turned, pulled on a leather strap and the door swung open; the warrior stepped aside, touching his hand to his heart as Farouk passed.
Bending our heads, we passed under the low lintel. 'Remember,' whispered Farouk, 'your life is in his hands now.'
With that, we entered a chamber more akin to one of the amir's tents than a palace: tall slender pillars, like tent poles, held up a high roof, peaked in the centre; both ceiling and walls were covered with red cloth that billowed gently in the breeze from four vast windholes which made up a large curved alcove wherein Amir Sadiq and three women sat on cushions, a huge brass tray of food before them. The windholes were covered by enormous pierced wooden screens which allowed both air and light into the room. Through the intricately carved screens, I could see the shimmer of water in a small pond, and I could hear the splash of a waterfall.
At our appearance, the women rose and departed without a word. Farouk bowed from the waist and greeted the amir; I imitated the gesture, but stiffly.
'Enter! Enter!' cried Sadiq. 'In the name of Allah and his Holy Prophet, I welcome you, my friends. May peace and serenity attend you while you are my guests. Sit and break fast with me. I insist.'
I made to protest that I had eaten already, but Farouk gave me a warning glance and replied for both of us. 'To share bread with you, my Lord Sadiq, would be a pleasure most profound.'
The amir did not rise, but spread his arms wide in welcome. 'Please sit beside me, Aidan,' he said, indicating the cushion at his right hand. 'Farouk,' he said, nodding to his left, 'please allow me to come between you and your estimable charge.'
'Very soon he will be no longer in my care,' replied the physician genially. 'In no time at all I shall be on my way home to Baghdat.'
'There is no hurry, my friend,' said Sadiq. 'You are welcome to stay as long as you like.'
'Thank you, my lord,' answered Farouk, inclining his head slightly. 'My affairs are not so pressing that I must rush away all at once. With your permission I will stay until my services are no longer required.'
Turning to me, Sadiq said, 'It is good to see you standing on your own two feet. You are feeling better, I
