steward made it disappear. “Tell me, if you would,” Jalal ad-Din said, as casually as if the purse had never existed at all, “how your master is inclined toward the two faiths about which he has been learning.”
“You are not the first person to ask me that question,” Dragomir remarked. He sounded the tiniest bit smug: I’ve been bribed twice, Jalal ad-Din translated mentally.
“Was the other person who inquired by any chance Niketas?” the Arab asked.
Telerikh’s steward dipped his head. “Why, yes, now that you mention it.” His ice-blue eyes gave Jalal ad-Din a careful onceover. Men who could see past their noses deserved watching.
Smiling, Jalal ad-Din said, “And did you give him the same answer you will give me?”
“Why, certainly, noble sir.” Dragomir sounded as if the idea of doing anything else had never entered his mind. Perhaps it had not. “I told him, as I tell you now, that the mighty khan keeps his own counsel well, and has not revealed to me which faith-if either-he will choose.”
“You are an honest man.” Jalal ad-Din sighed. “Not as helpful as I would have hoped, but honest nonetheless.”
Dragomir bowed. “And you, noble sir, are most generous. Be assured that if I knew more, I would pass it on to you.” Jalal ad-Din nodded, thinking it would be a sorry spectacle indeed if one who served the caliph, the richest, mightiest lord in the world, could not afford a more lavish bribe than a miserable Christian priest.
However lavish the payment, though; it had not bought him what he wanted. He bowed his way out of Telerikh’s palace and spent the morning wandering through Pliska in search of trinkets for his fair-skinned bedmate. Here too he was spending Abd ar-Rahman’s money, so only the finest goldwork interested him.
He went from shop to shop, sometimes pausing to dicker, sometimes not. The rings and necklaces the Bulgar craftsmen displayed were less intricate, less ornate than those which would have fetched the highest prices in Damascus but had a rough vigor of their own. Jalal ad-Din finally chose a thick chain studded with fat garnets and pieces of polished jet.
He tucked the necklace into his robe and sat down to rest outside the jeweler’s shop. The sun blazed down. It was not as high in the sky, not as hot, really, as it would have been in Damascus at the same season, but this was muggy heat, not dry, and seemed worse. Jalal ad-Din felt like boiled fish. He started to doze.
“Assalamu aleykum-peace to you,” someone said. Jalal ad-Din jerked awake and looked up. Niketas stood in front of him. Well, he’d long since gathered that the priest spoke Arabic, though they’d only used Greek between themselves till now.
“Aleykum assalamu-and to you, peace,” he replied. He yawned and stretched and started to get to his feet. Niketas took him by the elbow and helped him rise. “Ah, thank you. You are generous to an old man, and one who is no friend of yours.”
“Christ teaches us to love our enemies.” Niketas shrugged. “I try to obey his teachings as best I can.”
Jalal ad-Din thought that teaching a stupid one- the thing to do with an enemy was to get rid of him. The Christians did not really believe what they said, either; he remembered how they’d fought at Constantinople, even after the walls breached. But the priest had just been kind-no point in churlishly arguing with him.
Instead, the Arab said, “Allah be praised, day after tomorrow the khan will make his choice known.” He cocked an eyebrow at Niketas. “Dragomir tells me you tried to learn his answer in advance.”
“Which can only mean you did the same.” Niketas laughed drily. “I suspect you learned no more than I did.”
“Only that Dragomir is fond of gold,” Jalal ad-Din admitted.
Niketas laughed again, then grew serious. “How strange, is it not, that the souls of a nation ride on the whim of a man both ignorant and barbarous. God grant that he choose wisely.”
“From God comes all things,” Jalal ad-Din said. The Christian nodded; that much they believed in common. Jalal ad-Din went on, “That shows, I believe, why Telerikh will decide for Islam.”
“No, you are wrong there,” Niketas answered. “He must choose Christ. Surely God will not allow those who worship Him correctly to be penned up in one far corner of the world, and bar them forever from access to whatever folk may lie north and east of Bulgaria.”
Jalal ad-Din started to answer, then stopped and gave his rival a respectful look. As he had already noticed, Niketas’ thought had formidable depth to it. However clever he was, though, the priest who might have been Emperor had to deal with his weakness in the real world. Jalal ad-Din drove that weakness home: “If God loves you so well, why has he permitted us Muslims dominion over so many of you, and why has he let us drive you back and back, even giving over Constantinople, your imperial city, into our hands?”
“Not for your own sake, I’m certain,” Niketas snapped.
“No? Why then?” Jalal ad-Din refused to be nettled by the priest’s tone.
“Because of the multitude of our own sins, I’m sure. Not only was-is-Christendom sadly riddled with heresies and false beliefs, even those who believe what is true all too often lead sinful lives. Thus your eruption from the desert, to serve as God’s flail and as punishment for our errors.”
“You have answers to everything-everything but God’s true will. He will show that day after tomorrow, through Telerikh.”
“That He will.” With a stiff little bow, Niketas took his leave. Jalal ad-Din watched him go, wondering if hiring a knifeman would be worthwhile in spite of Telerikh’s warnings. Reluctantly, he decided against it; not here in Pliska, he thought. In Damascus he could have arranged it and never been traced, but he lacked those sorts of connections here. Too bad.
Only when he was almost back to the khan’s palace to give the pleasure girl the trinket did he stop to wonder whether Niketas was thinking about sticking a knife in him. Christian priests were supposed to be above such things, but Niketas himself had pointed out what sinners Christians were these days.
Telerikh’s servants summoned Jalal ad-Din and the other Arabs to the audience chamber just before the time for midafternoon prayers. Jalal ad-Din did not like having to put off the ritual; it struck him as a bad omen. He tried to stay serene. Voicing the inauspicious thought aloud would only give it power.
The Christians were already in the chamber when the Arabs entered. Jalal ad-Din did not like that, either. Catching his eye, Niketas sent him a chilly nod. Theodore only scowled, as he did whenever he had anything to do with Muslims. The monk Paul, though, smiled at Jalal ad-Din as if at a dear friend. That only made him worry more.
Telerikh waited until both delegations stood before him. “I have decided,” he said abruptly. Jalal ad-Din drew in a sudden, sharp breath. From the number of boyars who echoed him, he guessed that not even the khan’s nobles knew his will. Dragomir had not lied, then.
The khan rose from his carved throne and stepped down between the rival embassies. The boyars muttered among themselves; this was not common procedure. Jalal ad-Din’s nails bit into his palms. His heart pounded in his chest till he wondered how long it could endure.
Telerikh turned to face southeast. For a moment Jalal ad-Din was too keyed up to notice or care. Then the khan sank to his knees, his face turned toward Mecca, toward the Holy City. Again Jalal ad-Din’s heart threatened to burst, this time with joy.
“La illaha illa’llah: Muhammadun rasulu’llah,” Telerikh said in a loud, firm voice. “There is no God but Allah; Muhammad is the prophet of Allah.” He repeated the shahada twice more, then rose to his feet and bowed to Jalal ad-Din.
“It is accomplished,” the Arab said, fighting back tears. “You are a Muslim now, a fellow in submission to the will of God.”
“Not I alone. We shall all worship the one God and his prophet.” Telerikh turned to his boyars and shouted in the Bulgar tongue. A couple of nobles shouted back. Telerikh jerked his arm toward the doorway, a peremptory gesture of dismissal. The stubborn boyars glumly tramped out. The rest turned toward Mecca and knelt. Telerikh led them in the shahada once, twice, three times. The khan faced Jalal ad-Din once more. “Now we are all Muslims here.”
“God is most great,” the Arab breathed. “Soon, magnificent khan, I vow, many teachers will come from Damascus to instruct you and your people fully in all details of the faith, though what you and your nobles have proclaimed will suffice for your souls until such time as the ulama-those learned in religion-may arrive.”
“It is very well,” Telerikh said. Then he seemed to remember that Theodore, Niketas, and Paul were still standing close by him, suddenly alone in a chamber full of the enemies of their faith. He turned to them. “Go back to your Pope in peace, Christian priests. I could not choose your religion, not with heaven as you say it is-and not
