the words hang.
“I am Dragomir, steward to the mighty Khan Telerikh. Dismount; be welcome here.” Dragomir bowed again. He was, Jalal ad-Din guessed, in his late thirties, stocky and well made, with fair skin, a full brown beard framing a rather wide face, and gray eyes that revealed nothing whatever-a useful attribute in a steward.
Jalal ad-Din and his companions slid gratefully from their horses. As if by magic, boys appeared to hitch the Arabs’ beasts to the rails in front of the palace and carry then saddlebags into it. Jalal ad-Din nodded at the other full-sized horses and the mule. “To whom do those belong, pray?” he asked Dragomir.
The steward’s pale but hooded eyes swung toward the hitching rail and returned to Jalal ad-Din. “Those,” he explained, “are the animals of the delegation of priests from the Pope of Rome at the bidding of my khan to expound to him the glories of Christianity. They arrived earlier today.”
Late that night, Da’ud slammed a fist against a wall of the chamber the four Arabs shared. “Better they should stay pagan than turn Christian!” he shouted. Not only was he angry that Telerikh had also invited Christians to Pliska as if intending to auction his land to the faith that bid highest, he was also short-tempered from hunger. The evening’s banquet had featured pork. Furthermore, Telerikh had not attended; some heathen Bulgar law required the khan always to eat alone.
“That is not so,” Jalal ad-Din said mildly.
“And why not?” Da’ud glared at the older man.
“As Christians they would be dhimmis-people of the book- and thus granted a hope of heaven. Should they cling to their pagan practices, their souls will surely belong to Satan till the end of time.”
“Satan is welcome to their souls, whether pagan or Christian,” Da’ud said. “But a Christian Bulgaria, allied to Rome, maybe even allied to the Franks, would block the true faith’s progress northward and could be the spearpoint of a thrust back toward Constantinople.”
Jalal ad-Din sighed. “What you say is true. Still, the true faith is also true, and the truth surely will prevail against Christian falsehoods.”
“May it be so,” Da’ud said heavily. “But was this land not once a Christian country, back in the days before the Bulgars seized it from Constantinople? All the lands the Greeks held followed their usages. Some folk hereabouts must be Christian still, I’d wager, which might incline Telerikh toward their beliefs.”
A knock on the door interrupted the argument. Da’ud kept one hand on his knife as he opened the door with the other. But no enemies stood outside, only four girls. Two were colored like Dragomir-to Jalal ad-Din’s eyes, exotically fair. The other two were dark, darker than Arabs, in fact; one had eyes that seemed set at a slant. All four were pretty. They smiled and swayed their way in.
“Telerikh is no Christian,” Jalal ad-Din said as he smiled back at one of the light-skinned girls. “Christians are not allowed concubines.”
“The more fools they,” Da’ud said. “Shall I blow out the lamps, or leave them burning?”
“Leave them,” Jalal ad-Din answered. “I want to see what I am doing…”
Jalal ad-Din bowed low to Khan Telerikh. A pace behind him, Da’ud did the same. Another pace back, Malik ibn Anas and Salman al-Tabari went to one knee, as suited their lower rank.
“Rise, all of you,” Telerikh said in passable Arabic. The khan of the Bulgars was about fifty, swarthy, broad- faced, wide-nosed, with a thin beard going from black to gray. His eyes were narrow, hard, and shrewd. He looked like a man well able to rule a nation whose strength came entirely from the ferocity of its soldiers.
“Most magnificent khan, we bring the greetings of our master the caliph Abd ar-Rahman ibn Marwan, his prayers for your health and prosperity, and gifts to show that you stand high in his esteem,” Jalal ad-Din said.
He waved Salman and Malik forward to present the gifts: silver plates from Persia, Damascus-work swords, fine enamelware from Constantinople, a robe of glistening Chinese silk, and, last but not least, a Qu’ran bound in leather and gold, its calligraphy the finest the scribes of Alexandria could provide.
Telerikh, though, seemed most interested in the robe. He rose from his wooden throne, undid the broad bronze belt he wore, and shrugged out of his knee-length fur caftan. Under it he had on a linen tunic and trousers and low boots. Dragomir came up to help him put on the robe. He smiled with pleasure as he ran a hand over the watery-smooth fabric.
“Very pretty,” he crooned. For a moment Jalal ad-Din hoped he was so taken by the presents as to be easily swayed. But Telerikh, as the Arab had guessed from his appearance, was not so simple. He went on, “The caliph gives lovely gifts. With his riches, he can afford to. Now please take your places while the envoys of the Pope of Rome present themselves.”
Dragomir waved the Arab delegation off to the right of the throne, close by the turbaned boyars-the great nobles-who made up Telerikh’s court. Most were of the same stock as then khan; a few looked more like Dragomir and the fair girl Jalal ad-Din had so enjoyed the night before. Fair or dark, they smelled of hard-run horses and ancient sweat.
As he had with the caliph’s embassy, Dragomir announced the papal legates in the throaty Bulgarian tongue. There were three of them, as Jalal ad-Din had seen at the banquet. Two were gorgeous in robes that reminded him of the ones the Constantinopolitan grandees had worn so long ago as they vainly tried to rally their troops against the Arabs. The third wore a simple brown woolen habit. Amid the Bulgar chatter, meaningless to him, Jalal ad-Din picked out three names: Niketas, Theodore, and Paul.
The Christians scowled at the Arabs as they walked past them to approach Telerikh. They bowed as Jalal ad- Din had. “Stand,” Telerikh said in Greek. Jalal ad-Din was not surprised he knew that language; the Bulgars had dealt with Constantinople before the Arabs took it, and many refugees had fled to Pliska. Others had escaped to Italy, which no doubt explained why two of the papal legates bore Greek names.
“Excellent khan,” one of the envoys said, also in Greek, ”we are saddened to see you decked in raiment given you by our foes as you greet us. Does this mean you hold us in contempt and will give us no fair hearing? Surely you did not invite us to travel so far merely for that?”
Telerikh blinked, glanced down at the silk robe he had just put on. “No,” he said. “It only means I like this present. What presents have you for me?”
Da’ud leaned forward and whispered into Jalal ad-Din’s ear: “More avarice in that one than fear of hell.” Jalal ad-Din nodded. That made his task harder, not easier. He would have to play politics along with expounding the truth of Islam. He sighed. Ever since he learned Telerikh had also bid the men from Rome hither, he’d expected no less.
The Christians were presenting their gifts, and making a great show of it to try to disguise their not being so fine as the ones their rivals had given-Jalal ad-Din’s offerings still lay in a glittering heap beside Telerikh’s throne. “Here,” Theodore intoned, “is a copy of the Holy Scriptures, with a personal prayer for you inscribed therein by his holiness the Pope Constantine.”
Jalal ad-Din let out a quiet but scornful snort. “The words of Allah are the ones that count,” he whispered to Da’ud ibn Zubayr, “not those of any man.” It was Da’ud’s turn to nod.
As he had with the Qu’ran, Telerikh idly paged through the Bible. Perhaps halfway through, he paused and glanced up at the Christians. “You have pictures in your book.” It sounded almost like an accusation; had Jalal ad- Din said it, it would have been.
But the Christian in the plain brown robe, the one called Paul, answered calmly. “Yes, excellent khan, we do, the better to instruct the many who cannot read the words beside them.” He was no longer young-he might have been close to Jalal ad-Din’s age-but his voice was light and clear and strong, the voice of a man sure in the path he had chosen.
“Beware of that one,” Da’ud murmured. “He has more holiness in him than the other two put together.” Jalal ad-Din had already reached the same conclusion, and did not like it. Enemies, he thought, ought by rights to be rogues.
He got only a moment to mull on that, for Telerikh suddenly shifted to Arabic and called to him, “Why are there no pictures in your book to show me what you believe?”
“Because Allah the one God is infinite, far too mighty for our tiny senses to comprehend, and so cannot be depicted,” he said, “and man must not be depicted, for Allah created him in his image from a clot of blood. The Christians’ own scriptures say as much, but they ignore any law which does not suit them.”
“Liar! Misbeliever!” Theodore shouted. Torchlight gleamed off his tonsured pate as he whirled to confront Jalal ad-Din.
“No liar I,” Jalal ad-Din said; not for nothing had he studied with men once Christian before they saw the truth
