I looked up. I’d come across a Saracen word I didn’t recognise. And, even with my two lenses to sharpen that elaborate, flowing script, the wavering lamplight wasn’t enough for my old eyes to continue drinking in the narrative. But I’d read enough. Back in Beirut, I’d been assured that this was the standard history of the late war. It had little analysis, and the collapsing of two vast, opposed enterprises into a series of personal exchanges was a sure sign of barbarism. Even so, the writer had got his facts more or less as I’d myself let them seep out into the world. I thought back to that night meeting of the Imperial Council, where I alone had faced down those useless generals. The walls of Constantinople – ‘incapable of holding’? I’d never heard such nonsense! They’d looked down once too often over that double sea of campfires, and their hearts had died within them. Constantine himself had attended the meeting got up by his eunuchs as a common fisherman, bag of gold tied to his waist.
The Saracen chronicler was right enough that it had all been down to me. But for me, Constantinople would now be the seat of the caliphs. Scrubbed and whitewashed, the Great Church would echo to the mournful wail of the muezzin. The Danube and Rhine would already have been crossed, and, one by one, the Germanic kingdoms would be going down before that terrible cry of God is Great. Instead of all that, we controlled the seas. Instead of that, the Greek provinces of the Empire had been made impregnable. Instead of that, the Saracens had been forced into the second best alternative of expansion towards the rivers of India.
I smiled and rubbed my eyes. I’d rather have been famous as the man who’d cut taxes and controls, and humanised justice, and given land to the ordinary people and let them keep and bear arms. Perhaps I might be that after another hundred years, when my reforms had fully renewed the Empire. For the moment, there was worse than being called ‘the Old One al-Arik’.
‘You can take me to bed in a moment,’ I said in Syriac. I’d caught the faint scraping again of sandals on the tiled floor, and felt ashamed of how angry I’d been earlier. It was very late. The last time I’d got up for a piss, I’d looked out of the window. There hadn’t been a single light burning in Damascus. The moon might have shone above a deserted city. So far as I could tell, the palace itself was in complete silence. Edward must have finished with his whores and drunk himself blotto. Only I was still awake, rejoicing in the partial restoration of sight – I and some poor slave who might have been on his feet since the previous dawn. He’d only been doing his duty with those regular coughs and coded offers of boiled fruit juice. I slid a bone marker over the sheet where I’d finished, and rolled the papyrus book shut. I took up a pen and made a note for myself about my lens makers. The glass discs immediately available had all been five inches across. But the results were unmanageably large. We’d see how it went with three or even two inches. I wondered if that would make them harder to work. Unless I’d been given inferior workmen, Syrian glass didn’t seem anywhere near so good as Greek. Perhaps I should order a dig in one of the ruined palaces I’d been hurried past by Karim. If cloudy with age, old glass might not have so many bubbles in it.
‘You can let me sleep until I wake by myself,’ I said as the sandals came closer still and stopped just behind me. ‘I’ve made a list of books on this papyrus sheet. Have the goodness to give it to one of the clerks when they come in. I want-’
I did see the dark cord as it was slipped over my head. But I barely had time to register the fact when I felt the knot against my throat and it being pulled tight. There was a sudden flash of coloured lights in my head as I felt myself pulled up and backwards. I heard the scrape and crash of my chair as it went over. I heard the sharp, excited breathing of the man behind me.
Unless the cord is so thin that it cuts your head off, strangulation is – compared with most other forms of murder – a pretty slow death. But, supposing the noose is properly arranged, you black out almost at once, and there’s not much to be done in the way of self-defence. That doesn’t make you completely helpless, however. I still had the pen in my hand. Almost without thinking, I swung my right arm upwards and behind me. I hit something hard, and the pen glanced off. I struck out again and again, until I got lucky. I felt the sharp reed sink into something soft. With a cry of pain, the man moved left out of my reach, stooping down until I felt his head just behind mine. The knot loosened just long enough for me to take in a ragged lungful of air. Then it was tight again. I threw my whole upper body forward, and swung back. The hardest part of my head smashed like a club into his face. There was a shocked scream, and I dropped loose on to the floor.
You really have just moments in this sort of fighting. I knew that I had to be up on my feet and reaching for any weapon at hand. But I rolled, gasping and shaking, on the floor. I couldn’t see past the white flashes still bursting in front of my eyes. Except for the wild thudding of my own heart, I was effectively deaf. I fought desperately to pull myself together. I got hold of the noose that was still about my neck and tore it free. I threw it behind me. As I heaved myself slowly on to hands and knees, I felt my walking stick where it had fallen. I grabbed it, and, wheezing and shuddering, pulled myself to my feet.
I leaned on my desk for support and looked round. At first, I thought I’d chased the attacker off. But, no – he was on the far side of the room. He wasn’t a big man, but was young and wiry. Leaning with one hand against the wall, he was doubled over. I’d got him hard on the nose, and he was too busy with blood and tears to come after me. I looked round for a weapon. The penknife was useless. Still holding on to the desk with my left hand, I raised the stick in my right. Watching it tremble and shake as I held it before me would have been comical if I hadn’t been in so much danger. I opened my mouth and tried to call for support. But, if my windpipe hadn’t been crushed by that first tug of the noose, nothing came out but a rattled croak.
The killer was now upright again. He had no knife in his hands, and didn’t seem to have come out with any other weapon beside his noose. He too was looking about for a weapon. Like me, he didn’t find much ready to hand.
‘Christ is my Saviour,’ he called in a low, triumphant Syriac. ‘My Saviour is Christ.’ There was no chance of seeing his eyes. Even so, I had the impression that he was high on the usual hashish. He smiled and went into a wrestler’s pose. He moved slowly towards me. I swung round with my stick and began rapping it hard on the desk. I hit out at my cup, and, with a loud noise, it shattered on the floor. I clutched harder at the desk and held the stick out as if it had been a sword.