Bloodstone

Chapter 3-2

The Grand Vizier had silenced himself by his own vehemence.

‘When I was Malikite judge of Delhi,’ Abu Abdallah chipped into the silence, ‘I found the best policy was to rise above it all.’

Lisan al-Din did not respond, but continued his own train of thought. ‘That said, even if he does supplement his salary with the odd bit of peculation – and God is the one who knows – Zayd the Clerk of Works is a highly reliable and efficient man. You’ll meet him later. But first . . . come.’ He led them through a small door into a small high-walled courtyard. The long sides were blank; in contrast, the far end was a barely controlled riot of carved and painted inscriptions and geometry and vegetation that framed two further doors. They approached the doors, then stopped. ‘We may go no further,’ the Grand Vizier said. ‘His Presence is within.’

Sinan could feel that presence. He felt it suddenly, in his guts, just as long ago, far away, he had felt the presence of . . . the boliw – the word rose from the deepest chambers of memory, from a tongue he had almost forgotten – the boliw that dwelt beyond the door of a painted house of mud where his father had once taken him. Long ago, far off, in a life beyond reach. What were the boliw? He no longer knew. The meanings and memories of that life had receded like ghosts at dawn; the dawn of another existence. Except for the one sharp terrifying memory that never went away.

‘Wa la ghaliba illa ’llah,’ Abu Abdallah said, reading an endlessly reduplicating inscription in the plasterwork. No one wins but Allah.

‘The motto of our glorious Nasrid dynasty,’ Lisan al-Din said. ‘But now, follow me. I want to show you my . . . new baby.’ For a moment, another of his rare smiles lit the Grand Vizier’s gloomy features.

The three men retraced their steps and left by that first, discreet doorway. There were many more people outside now. The same officials and Mamluks – there again was the Mamluk sergeant with the crooked nose – but also others who looked like ordinary citizens going about their ordinary business. Sinan realized that here, outside the palace proper but within the great defensive walls of the Alhambra, was a whole city within a city – or rather above a city, poised above Granada proper on the edge of its plain below. Lisan al-Din led them east, away from the citadel with its Watchtower. They passed a woman – a qaynah, or high-class singing slave-woman, to judge by her coquettish gait and the cloud of scent and servants she trailed behind her. Abu Abdallah’s head swivelled round to follow her; Sinan noticed an answering turn of the woman’s head, and an almost imperceptible narrowing of the eyes above the veil.

Lisan al-Din noticed too. ‘It’s good to see you looking so young at heart, my old friend,’ he said. The Grand Vizier sighed inwardly. He knew only too well that he himself was not young at heart, or at anything else. Certainly not in body. Abu Abdallah was in his mid-sixties, ten years older than him. But he acted like a man in his twenties. Then again, what was the point of desire when you couldn’t . . . follow through? Perhaps he should pick Abu Abdallah’s brains, which he knew to be well stocked with exotic aphrodisiacs, recipes picked up on his travels.

Still, Lisan al-Din thought as they arrived before another doorway, at least he had this to keep him going. Inside the door they passed through semi-darkness, following the scent, damp and dusty, of fresh plaster, then … For a few moments they were blinded: light bouncing off marble and cascading through columns, light so intense that it eclipsed the sky above them. Then Sinan began to make the details out. They were on the edge of a rectangular courtyard, perhaps thirty yards long, which seemed at once both vast and intimate. It was lined by slender marble pillars, a hundred of them or more, that met in groups then moved apart in an elaborate and rhythmic dance of light and dark, shafts and shadows. The blinding white marble paving – where did all this light come from? the sky was growing visibly more overcast – was cut by shallow dry channels. Sinan saw one channel leading from the mid-point of each of the four sides of the court to . . . a tent, planted in the exact centre of the court. It could not have been more incongruous.

Then Sinan realized why the tent was there. The porticos behind the colonnades were filled with wooden scaffolding, and with movement, subdued but purposeful. Men worked in almost total silence, plastering, inscribing, carving, colouring – each quadrant displaying a different stage of the process of encrustation. It was like watching bees at work on a honeycomb. That central tent must conceal more workers, Sinan thought. Were they preparing a chamber for the king bee – for the sultan?

‘This is my baby,’ the Grand Vizier said, surveying the view before them. The doleful face beamed with pride. ‘You are seeing it in the foetal stage, so to speak,’ Lisan al-Din went on. ‘But I hope you will be able to stay and see it fully formed.’

‘When will that be?’ Abu Abdallah asked.

Sinan saw the usual gloom return to the Grand Vizier’s face. ‘That is the question . . . But it must be finished by the birthday of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, in less than three weeks. Time, as Ibn Zamrak just reminded us, is running out.’

‘But why the hurry?’ Abu Abdallah said. ‘After all, Cairo wasn’t built in a day.’

‘Because with the Prophet’s birthday coincides another event of even greater importance – God forgive me – I mean, of great importance for the future of this sultanate.’

He clearly was not going to say what the impending event was. They stood for a while, unasked questions hanging in the air with the plaster dust. Then Lisan al-Din beckoned and led them into a side chamber.

The chamber was filled by a forest of timber scaffolding. Sinan’s gaze followed it upwards, into a dome; beneath this was a platform, on which a number of men lay or squatted. They were busy with brushes, painting. Sinan was surprised to see that the painters’ features and complexions resembled those of the soldiers of the Mamluk guard. Were these men also Christian slaves? He followed Abu Abdallah and Lisan al-Din to the far side of the hall. Above this was a smaller dome, where the painters had already finished. On the dome’s inner surface he could see men, and animals – a representation of a hunt. Sinan had never seen anything remotely like it. Not in his present life.

‘We’ve borrowed the painters from our neighbour Don Pedro, king of Castile,’ Lisan al-Din explained. ‘That old misery Ibn Zamrak, whom you have just had the dubious pleasure of meeting, objected to the scenes they are depicting, “on theological grounds”.’ Abu Abdallah grinned. It was a fair imitation of the Sultanic Secretary’s sibilant voice.

Sinan knew why Ibn Zamrak had objected. The depiction of living beings was seen by some as an encroachment on God’s prerogative for creation. But the beings on the dome fell far short of divine perfection. ‘With your permission, sir,’ he said to the Grand Vizier, ‘that horse is much too small for its rider.’

Lisan al-Din turned to the slave. God, he had a nerve! But he admired the Black’s intelligence, and his cheek.

‘And in fact, sir,’ Sinan went on, ‘all the animals are the wrong size . . . Although it might be that the painters were trying to create an illusion of relative distance and nearness.’

Lisan al-Din shook his head in disbelief. ‘He’s a gem, this Sinan of yours!’ he said to Abu Abdallah, without taking his eyes off the slave. ‘May I make you an offer for him?’ Sinan felt his stomach leap – even though he knew what his master’s response would be.

‘He’s not for sale,’ Abu Abdallah replied. Sinan relaxed. ‘Not at any price. He looks as if he was brought up on crocodile bollocks and human flesh, I know. But I couldn’t do without him. Apart from anything else, he can rustle up a lamb tagine fit for paradise. And he can even read and write. Three different scripts, and a finer hand than the Mufti of Fez!’

Sinan smiled to himself. His master was always boasting about his abilities as a scribe. But Abu Abdallah had been a good teacher. Sinan thought back to his first lessons in reading – when? Fourteen years before, perhaps. And he remembered how those lessons had taken him back to even earlier ones, now so dimly recalled – out hunting, tracking, with his father. Reading was tracking, hunting a quarry of meaning.

‘Well,’ Lisan al-Din said, ‘if you ever change your mind . . . ’ He led them out, back into that glittering court.

As he did so, a man in his thirties wearing the robes of a middle-ranking official appeared from a slit in the central tent. Sinan studied his features – broad, fair-complexioned face; hazel eyes; auburn beard – and knew at once that he had Berber blood. He had seen approximations of that face all over Morocco. ‘Ah, Zayd the Clerk of Works, with your usual perfect timing,’ Lisan al-Din said, not trying to hide a note of condescension. He introduced the younger man to Abu Abdallah. ‘And how is our Sultanic surprise progressing?’ the Grand Vizier asked the clerk.

‘I think we’ll have it ready in time, sir, by the grace of God.’

‘Don’t think, man,’ Lisan al-Din said. ‘Do.’ He had hardly raised his voice, but Sinan suddenly knew why his master’s friend was the one in charge.

Zayd the Clerk shrank visibly. ‘As your eminence commands,’ he said in a thin voice, before taking his leave.

‘A good man, as I said,’ the Grand Vizier confided when Zayd had gone. ‘He’s a descendant of the Zirids, the Berber dynasty who founded Granada, and he tries his best to live up to his grand antecedents. I’m a little hard on him, I know, but I like to keep him on his toes.’

‘I dare say,’ Abu Abdallah murmured. ‘But come on, Lisan, don’t keep me dangling. What’s inside this tent? What’s this “Sultanic surprise” of yours? It sounds like some new kind of pudding. Perhaps it is . . . ’ He turned and made for the slit in the fabric.

The Grand Vizier clamped a weighty hand on the small man’s shoulder. ‘Don’t even think of it, my friend. Until it is unveiled on the Prophet’s birthday, it is absolutely top secret.’

‘Oh, go on, Lisan,’ Abu Abdallah said, released from the grip. ‘You know you can trust me. Besides, you must be so proud, with all this work you’ve been putting into it. Solomon himself, peace be upon him, could hardly have done better . . . ’

‘Well,’ Lisan al-Din said, softening, ‘I admit that the actual choice of subject for the sultan’s surprise was that of Zayd the Clerk. However, the all-important original concept was mine alone. Again, that ghoulish old woman Ibn Zamrak objected to it on the grounds of religious propriety, but . . . ’ The afternoon call to prayer sounded, first faint from the mosque outside the new court, then louder, relayed around the palace by reedy, penetrating voices. Where did time go these days? the Grand Vizier asked himself. Time is a sword: if you don’t cut it, it’ll cut you . . . unless you’re Abu Abdallah, he thought, staring at his friend. The man who seemed to have come to terms with Time. His own terms.

‘I’m all ears, Lisan,’ Abu Abdallah said, smiling encouragement. ‘And you know me. I won’t tell a soul.’

The Grand Vizier ignored his friend. The extraordinary question would keep no longer. ‘Abu Abdallah, there is no way you will prise this secret from me. Your flattery may work on barbarians like the Sultan of Hind and Sind. I am immune. Instead, pray permit me to delve into your secret.’ The Grand Vizier looked his friend straight in the eye. ‘Are you not supposed to be dead?’