‘You’ll see that our permit is sealed by His Highness the Exarch of Africa,’ the Captain said in the most reasonable tone I’d yet heard from him.
The official glanced at the document and nodded. There was no point questioning its terms. It carried the seal of an exarch. That meant the ship was virtually under orders from the Emperor. The official turned instead to a set of standard questions about contraband. Were we carrying silk thread? Had we taken on spices in Alexandria for Beirut? If yes, had they been listed in the appropriate ledger for payment of the external carriage tax?
So the litany went on. I’d caught some of Edward’s alarm and had come on deck quietly going over my cover story. But I could see there would be no inspection of passports. A thousand miles to the west, half the Imperial Navy might be combing the seas for the returned Alaric. Here, it was simply a matter of advertising which of the two warring powers controlled the seas. It seemed we had outrun the Empire.
‘Now you’ve got me awake,’ I snapped, ‘we can go back to your favourite game. This time, though, I’ll not bother with Plutarch or any of the Gospels. We’ll take one whole sentence at a time from Virgil, and you can put that into Greek.’ Edward’s mouth turned down. I looked at him. The tan he’d got from two voyages in a strengthening sun suited him no end. All very well. But a pretty face without education can be picked up on any slave block. I’d have that boy fluent in Greek if it killed me.
Chapter 28
We put into Beirut on the sixteenth day after leaving Caesarea. I ignored the last and now almost demented burst of abuse from the Captain and allowed Edward to help me from the plank that connected our ship to the pleasingly solid docks.
‘I did tell you to put more clothes on,’ I said. Though the rain had finished, the sky was still overcast, and there was a chilly wind coming down from the mountains. ‘It will be hot enough soon. But this isn’t Africa.’ I let go of the shivering boy, and, leaning on my walking staff, took a few paces forward. I took a deep breath, savouring the smell of grilled meat and of freshly brewed kava berries, and looked around. A jolly little port with no pretensions nowadays to a wider importance, Beirut lies at the point of a triangular projection from the Syrian coast. I’d been here first in my thirties to take the unconditional surrender of all the Persian invasion forces. I’d been here again several years later, once the Saracens had snatched Syria, to settle the lines of truce. I’d been back on any number of occasions since. You see, the place is easily reached by sea from Constantinople, and has a good road connecting it with Damascus. It’s the ideal place for informal discussions between the two great and usually warring powers of the modern world.
And now I was back. I felt good, not least because of the kava smell. What memories that brought back! I raised my walking stick and knocked it twice very hard on the granite slabs of the dock. Time was when half a dozen porters would have come running. Time was, though, when I didn’t turn up on the docks dressed as some closed-purse Jew. The one porter who did eventually slope over gave me a nasty grin and pointed over at the main gate leading from the docks. Keeping what dignity I could, I frowned back at him and turned to where Edward sat on the dockside with our things.
‘I’ll be just a moment,’ I said. From what little I could see of him, he seemed too cowed by the full bustle of civilisation to have noticed my own embarrassment.
Over by the gate, there was an execution in progress. This had attracted a moderate crowd, including, for some reason, just about all the dock porters. I glanced at the young man who’d been nailed to the cross. Since he looked as if he’d been racked and scourged first, it was hard to say how long he’d been up there. From the voiceless movement of his lips, though, and from the impression I’d been able to form of the weather, he might have been there a day. Despite the colour his skin was turned, it was unlikely he’d been up there much longer – he still had enough strength in his arms to keep himself from hanging forward off the cross. I looked harder and pursed my lips. The bastard executioners had put a platform just under his feet.
I don’t imagine you’ve ever seen a crucifixion, my dear Reader – they were abolished wherever the Christian Faith was established by the Great Constantine. They have been brought back, though, wherever the Saracens have conquered. Since its first use by the Carthaginians, the punishment has been much the same. You fix two lengths of wood in the shape of a T – the cross shape is a refinement made by the artists of the early Church. You nail the victim’s wrists to each end of the top length, and his ankles to the down length. If it’s done fairly, he shouldn’t last much beyond evening, though cool weather can stretch out the agony. And the agony is extreme. You see, if he wants to breathe properly, the victim has to pull himself upright. With nails through his ankles, he can’t do that for long. So he sags forward. That makes breathing hard, and he must try again to get upright. The continual movement on the cross, and the sun, soon wears the victim out. Look at Jesus Christ. He lasted barely any time at all; this being said, his legs had been broken to hurry things along. But this poor bugger had been given a support for his feet. That and the weather might keep him going for days. Everyone in the crowd knew that. So did he. If he was no longer screaming, or twisting about, he was still conscious, his lips moving in some voiceless prayer. Even without Joseph’s arrow, poor Tatfrid had been luckier than this. Nothing barbarians can do will match the refinements of a civilised punishment.
There was a steady muttering in Syriac from the crowd about the unfairness of the execution. Several men comforted a sobbing woman. The Saracen guards stood about the cross, edgily fingering their swords. Just before them, some scrubby brown creature stood looking over at the public sundial. As I was about to ask again for a porter, he cleared his throat with ceremonial relish and struck a pose.
‘By orders of His Highness Meekal, Governor of Syria,’ he cried in Syriac, ‘you behold one who has dared wage war on God.’ He repeated himself in Saracen and then in a kind of Greek. As he finished, someone with an even browner face, though a clean turban, stood forward with a sheet of papyrus.
‘But the recompense of those who fight against God and His apostles,’ he read in the strained squawk the Saracens use for recitals of what their Prophet is claimed to have said, ‘and study to act corruptly in the earth, shall be that they shall be slain, or crucified, or have their hands and their feet cut off on the opposite sides, or be banished the land. This shall be their disgrace in this world, and in the next world they shall suffer a grievous punishment.’ He didn’t bother with the Syriac translation – the two languages are pretty close anyway – but went straight into an astonishingly corrupt Greek.
‘It is the will of God!’ someone breathed into my bad ear. Someone behind me whispered that it was murder, and that Meekal the Damned would be repaid seven times seven in the world to come.
I resisted the urge to ask what crime had been committed. This was none of my business. Instead, I knocked my stick again on the paving stones. Everyone, including the unfortunate on the cross, looked in my direction. One of the foreman-porters came forward. He looked at my robe and gave a half bow.
‘Those three moderately large boxes over there are mine,’ I said in Syriac. I pointed back to where Edward was still keeping a nervous watch over our things. ‘Do you know the Golden Spear Inn?’ The man nodded. ‘That’s where I want everything carried. You can also arrange a carrying chair for me.’ I thought, then added, ‘No – make that two chairs.’ I tossed him a silver coin and waited for his much lower and more respectful bow. I turned and went back over to Edward. He was staring at the execution. I ignored him and had a final look at the ship that had brought us here. The customs officials had now finished their searches, and were pointing out faults in the documentation of the few idiots who hadn’t known the appropriate tariff of bribes. It would have been nice to see the whole ship impounded. But the Captain was no fool. The Exarch of Africa had sealed his documents. That was as good for these officials as it had been for the Imperial blockade.