Chapter 11
Sergeant Hamid of the Mamluk guard checked the knots that held fast his sultan’s proud red standard. This was his favourite time of day, up here on the Watchtower on his early morning round.
And this was a day among days. Ever since the storm of two nights before, a perfect clarity had filled the air of Granada. Down on the plain, villas and farmsteads seemed close enough to touch. Even the distant look-out towers on the mountains stood sharp, guarding the marches of the state with Allah’s unfailing aid. Could there be a finer land, a nobler sultan, a more beneficent deity?
Sergeant Hamid knew there could not. And he knew from experience. He wasn’t even middle-aged – not yet thirty, perhaps – but he had seen the world. Not just the bits that any soldier saw in border skirmish
