The Khalifah's Mirror Read online

“Over there.”

  The boy started in the direction he had indicated, followed by Abu Wahb. Sa’id tried to move, but found that his legs were suddenly heavy. Al-Hasan took his hand and dragged him along.

  The fleeing figure turned to look at them. It was an old man, grey-bearded and fat. He increased his pace when he saw his pursuers, but tripped on his robe and fell. Al-Hasan gave orders to Abu Wahb as though he were a slave.

  “Get him.”

  The former Shaikh of the Banu Jahm bounded forward like an eager dog. He fell upon the old man and grappled him to the ground. Al-Hasan loped up behind him and bound the captive’s hands with a length of rope. Sa’id, his weariness now overwhelming, struggled towards them. As he approached al-Hasan grabbed the old man’s beard, forcing his face upwards.

  “Behold, the face of the traitor Amr ibn Shaddad, accomplice of the rebel known as Muhammad of the Pure Soul.”

  Abu Wahb looked from one to the other with a dazed expression, like a man waking from a long slumber. Sa’id, his head pounding, could stand no longer and dropped to his knees. Al-Hasan addressed him as he pulled a cloth bag over his prisoner’s head.

  “Ibn Shaddad has been a fugitive for ten years, hiding in the Empty Quarter under the shelter of the Banu Dahhak. Now he will be brought to justice, thanks to you and your clan. Perhaps God will be grateful to you, and welcome you into Paradise.”

  Sa’id’s sight was dimming, and he remembered the bitter water al-Hasan had given him earlier.

  “And perhaps you will survive; you did not take much of the poison. I would like to think that you will live. You have a beautiful soul, and had we met under other circumstances, I could have shown you such delights… But I am sure you understand that neither my desires, nor your family, are of any importance compared to the will of al-Mansur the Victorious, Commander of the Faithful.”

  Al-Hasan walked away, dragging the hooded rebel after him. And Sa’id ibn Bishr al-Jahm fell to the earth, and entered the blackness.

  III

  The Khalifah blinked, as though surprised to find himself in the audience chamber of his palace, and not in the deserts of the Empty Quarter. He shifted on his cushion, aware of his piles for the first time since the commencement of the story.

  “An intriguing tale, but I fail to see the relevance. So this miscreant captured a Shi’ite rebel when he was still a young man, during my grandfather’s reign. That hardly excuses his recent outrages. What was he doing there, anyway? Who had sent him?”

  Ismail the storyteller placed his hand on his chest, in a gesture of respect.

  “The Commander of the Faithful asks the most astute questions. The story goes on to explain all these things, but it needs a new teller. At this point, the Father of Locks himself must take up the tale.”

  Abu Nuwas seemed surprised.

  “Me, Ismail? Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “It is a debt long owed to me, Father of Locks, and it is not within my power to tell in any case. I have spent many years collecting tales of your adventures, but the truth of how you came to join the Barid remains a secret.”

  “Well, somebody needs to tell me a story, otherwise we might as well just get on with the execution.”

  “The Commander of the Faithful is correct, as ever, to remind me that I have no time for vacillation. If a man promises something, it is just possible that one day, despite his best efforts, he might have to keep his promise. Once, long ago, we sat together in the wilderness, Ismail and I; and I told him that this was a story for another day. Well, today certainly is another day.

  “I shall recount the events which led to my encounter with the Banu Jahm, and those which came after. It is a tale I shall call…”

  The Education of a Postman

  Once, in the city of Basrah, there was a poet. In fact there were many poets; the busy seaport on the Shatt al-Arab was lousy with poets, as it was with sailors, shysters, spivs and conjurers, hawkers and quacks and itinerants. But there was one poet who was cleverer and more talented and more beautiful than all the rest. And he is the one of whom I speak.

  The poet’s heart had been broken. He was eighteen years old at the time, and so his heart had been broken more terribly and violently than any heart had been broken before. It had been smashed and beaten and ground into pebbles, then into sand, then into fine, fine dust.

  He had many friends who were willing to drink with him, to help him numb his pain; and many more who were willing to soothe him in other ways. Despair had its own fascination, and there were those who had once refused him, before he had decided to fall in love, but were now willing to lie with him, simply to feel close to his grief.

  At times it seemed to the poet that his friends were enjoying the whole thing a little too much. If he was honest with himself, in a way he was enjoying it too. But though he took perverse pleasure in his pain, it did not lessen the pain, only mingled with it, sharpening the sensation.

  The pain was drawn from the loss of his love, but not from that alone. The rejection had fathered a greater sense of loss, an understanding that, young as he was, each day died with possibilities and choices that would never come again. He hurt himself in his pain, with drink and fighting and violent sex, damaged his body to ape the pain in his soul. After all the physical pain could be controlled; most of the time.

  Perhaps, too, he still believed that if he made the pain inside visible, that someone would come and save him, take him in strong arms and make everything well. His lover had rejected him, however, and his friends were slick and not to be trusted. His father had died before his birth, and he had long surpassed his mother in confidence and capability. And when he looked for God, he found only words and stories.

  Then, one day, he was drinking at a seedy bath house, when he felt eyes upon him. The poet would swear later that he truly felt the eyes before he saw them, that they settled around him desirously and jealously. He craned around to seek out the source of the stare, but instead of the old lecher he expected, it was a boy, of around his own age. The boy was Persian, elegant, almost as handsome as the poet himself. He had a black beard, lush and defined, where the poet was still sparse around the chin. Beside him sat an older man, fierce and foreign.

  The Persian boy acknowledged his attention with arched eyebrows, then looked away. The poet turned back to his conversation, but he was distracted now, waiting for the Persian to interrupt him, to call on him, to want him. However nobody came, and when he looked around, the Persian boy had gone.

  The poet got to his feet, and pushed past his friend Abu’l Ishaq, who had taken too much wine, and was talking too loudly, as usual.

  “So I farted and said to him, ‘That’s what I owe you, and a tip as well!’ — hey, Abu Ali, watch where you’re going! Where are you going? Did you hear what I said? I said to him, ‘That’s what I owe you, and a tip as well’. Did you hear that?”

  Although Abu’l Ishaq was much older than the poet, having attained the venerable age of twenty-five, he still sought the younger man’s approval, with a slightly desperate ingratiation which went beyond dignity. The poet sighed.

  “A remark so witty, I might almost have made it myself. Last night. At the house of ibn al-Ahnaf. Ah, my crazy friend, we just never know what madness you will come out with next. Instead of Abu’l Ishaq, we should call you Abu’l-Atahiyya, the Father of Madness.”

  Everyone laughed, and began teasing him, calling him Father of Madness. Abu’l Ishaq blushed, but looked secretly pleased. It was far better than his other nickname. Coming from a poor background, and not earning enough from his verse to live on, he had to make money working on a market stall, and was known as al-Jarrar, the Jug Seller.

  The poet left his laughing friends, and wandered away. The drink and the heat had risen to his head, and he struggled to think clearly. Wine was not the only illicit pleasure available at the bath house. From dark corners the sound of grunts and rhythmic slaps echoed in the stone chambers. The poet avoided these corners. H
e knew, or perhaps just hoped, that the Persian boy was not so easily satisfied.

  He found him in the robing room. The Persian was deep in conversation with a stocky young man, while the fierce foreigner helped him into a magnificent coat of blue and gold. When the poet approached, the foreigner leapt at him, hurling him against a wall and knocking the breath from his chest. The Persian, though, called him off.

  “No, Ilig, he may come. Thank you, Yaqub, that will be all.”

  The stocky man Yaqub bowed and left, while Ilig the foreigner glowered at the poet. The Persian made a gracious gesture of welcome.

  “Peace be upon you, friend.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  The Persian smiled at this gruff greeting.

  “Friend, I believe it is you who has been looking for me.”

  The poet said nothing, but waited. Finally the Persian spoke again.

  “You are Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn Hani al-Hakami, hafiz and poet.”

  “Then if you know who I am, you know that you can have me. There is no need for games. One as beautiful as you, I would allow to do anything you wished to me. However depraved and dangerous.”

  The Persian nodded gravely.

  “Not here. Come with me.”

  He walked out of the hammam and onto the cold street. Abu Ali asked no questions, but followed calmly. Without knowing why, he believed he was about to die, and felt more peaceful than he had for months. He also believed that before death, he would experience an ecstasy such as few would ever know.

  They soon arrived at a postern set in a high wall. Ilig knocked, and the gate swung open to admit them. The Persian led the way through a maze of corridors, which twisted so that Abu Ali could not be sure that he could have found his way out again. Finally they arrived at a dark doorway.

  “In here.”

  Abu Ali stepped obediently through, and the door slammed behind him, leaving him in chilly blackness. He moved to take a step forward, then something in the movement of the air caused him to pause. Lowering his foot slowly, he found that there was no solid ground beneath it. Abu Ali withdrew his step, and stood still, listening to his quickened breath.

  A sliver of light appeared, some fifty cubits in front of him. It widened into the shape of an opening door, then two figures emerged, one carrying a torch. They did not approach him directly, but by a curving path, pausing from time to time to create more light, so that slowly the shape of their surroundings became apparent.

  It was a circular chamber, with a wide hole at its centre. The two figures walked round its perimeter, lighting torches that hung on the walls. Abu Ali could see now that they were the Persian boy and his bodyguard Ilig. He leaned over the hole and peered down. The drop was a little more than his height, not so much that he would have been seriously injured had he rashly walked into it. The round floor at its base, though, was a mystery.

  The floor had been painted with a peculiar arrangement of lines and circles in differing colours. To his right was a design like a round blue bottle with a short neck, itself dotted with small discs and bordered with variegated squares. The left hand side was dominated by a long line, which bifurcated towards the edge before meeting again at the end. This too was marked irregularly with blocks and dots.

  As visibility improved with each torch that was lit, Abu Ali saw that there was writing on the floor, that each shape was neatly labelled. He focused on the circle at the very centre of the room, which had the largest lettering, and was able to make out the words: al-Madinat al-Salaam, the City of Peace. Baghdad.

  “Is it not wonderful? The whole world, before us!”

  The Persian boy had joined him, while Ilig continued his round of the torches. He swept a hand across the scene.

  “To the west, the White Middle Sea, with all its islands, ports and peoples. To the east, the Silk Road, both the northern and southern routes, stretching all the way to China. And at the centre of it all the holy cities, the Black Lands between the rivers, and the Khalifah’s new capital, the City of Peace. Is it not wonderful?”

  “It is a map.”

  The boy laughed at Abu Ali’s disappointment.

  “What did you expect, poet?”

  Abu Ali tried not to think about what he had expected, and instead struggled to understand what the elegant boy wanted from him.

  “But — such charts are for sailors, and merchants. What interest has it for us?”

  “Because, my friend, such charts have another use. One must be able to see the whole world, in a single glance — if one wishes to be its master.”

  The room was bright now. The Persian put his hands on the poet’s shoulders and turned him so they stood face to face.

  “My name is Ja’far ibn Yahya ibn Khalid al-Barmaki. My grandfather serves at the court of the Khalifah, as does my father. And so too, some day, shall I.

  “We live, my friend, in the most powerful empire in the history of mankind, an empire which dwarfs those of Darius, of Xerxes, of al-Iskander the Great; a realm mightier even than that of the Romans at their zenith. If you need proof that the Land of Islam is blessed, its rulers favoured by God, you need only look at the map in front of you, and see how he has put strength in the swords of his people. One can be a humble servant of this empire, and still enjoy greater power and wealth than all those rulers of old in their pomp.

  “Across this vast land, along every road and between every city, my father is building waystations, stocked with horses and provender, so that a messenger can ride all day and always have a fresh steed under him. This may seem like humble work, the drudgery of the petty official; but only to those who lack vision. For those messengers can be more than mere bearers, no wiser than the horses that carry them. They can listen, and watch. They can ask questions, and seek answers. And if the situation demands it, they can act.

  “Thus might a man sit at the centre of the earth, like a spider in her web, and feel every vibration, be aware of every movement. He can trap, and kill, without leaving his palace. In this way a man might truly be master of the world.

  “And think what possibilities this offers to a young man of courage and learning, such as you! In the past, if you wanted to see the marvels of distant lands, you would have to travel for many years, and know that, more likely than not, you would never return to tell the tale of your adventures. Now, as a postman, an agent of the Barid, you can cross the entire Land of Islam in a matter of weeks.

  “That, my friend, is what I want from you. To travel on my behalf, and carry out the will of the Commander of the Faithful. And this, below us, is what I am offering you: the thrones of Aksum, the wild steppes of the Khazars, the ruins of Old Rome, the mysterious island of Serendib. I am offering you the whole world.”

  “No.”

  Ja’far al-Barmaki seemed at first not to understand, as though he had never heard the word before. His grand gesture still hung across the map, and the smile was fixed on his face, but his eyes were puzzled.

  “What?”

  “I said no. I do not want the world, nor to be master of it. I am a poet. A cup of wine; a beautiful body to give and take pleasure with; and the time to write, and think, and talk with my friends. That is all I desire.”

  A black cloud of fury crossed Ja’far’s handsome face, then he controlled himself.

  “Very well. I will not ask you again. However, I tell you now, Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn Hani al-Hakami, that the day will come when you will beg to serve me. And when that happens, if I choose to take you, you will be mine until I decide to release you. Now go.”

  The poet turned and fled, leaving behind the round chamber with the whole world in it. Terror and exhilaration guided him through the labyrinth and out onto the street.

  Abu Ali’s peculiar encounter with Ja’far al-Barmaki broke the fever of despair that had wracked his soul. He returned to his former ways with renewed appetite, enjoying the clashes and encounters, the ruthlessness and sycophancy. He waited until sundown before drinking wine, and wrote
every day.

  The Persian boy was far from his thoughts when, a month later, Abu Ali teetered home from a night at a monastery. His body sang for another boy, a tawny-eyed youth in silk robes as soft as his skin. The boy had sought out the poet, sat at his feet and listened to his words. Then, later, he had followed Abu Ali into a discreet garden, where he had lain down for the poet to taste each exquisite part of him.

  Abu Ali still thrilled with the ecstasy of the evening as he walked, and scarcely noticed the thud of boots behind him. It was only when the steps quickened their pace that he turned, to see two thugs of the Wali’s guard breaking into a run. The poet tried to outpace them, but the wine in his blood betrayed him. The ground seemed to tilt under his feet, and he crashed to the ground. The guards’ heavy clubs fell onto his body, battering him into oblivion.

  His next conscious sensation was a pitiless weight of rock pressing into his bruised back. As the room settled he understood that he was lying on a stone slab, and it was only the weight of his body that held him down. He struggled to open his eyes, but the light was too harsh.

  “Take your time. You’ll live long enough that you can spare a few moments now.”

  The voice was female, brisk, but not unsympathetic. Abu Ali rasped an incoherent response.

  “Oh dear. I might have known you would be impatient. Very well then, here —”

  A strong arm hauled him upright, and he felt a thick liquid dripping into his mouth. Then a stinging salve was applied to his eyes. He was laid back down, but began to feel his senses return. He blinked until he could make out a low ceiling, a plain room lit by low lamps. Beside him knelt a woman. Her hands were peasant shovels and her skin was loose with age, but her eyes were sharp.

  “Who are you?”

  “If I were in your condition, I wouldn’t waste my breath asking silly questions like that. You can call me Rabi’a, if it makes you feel better.”

  “Who do you work for?”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Me? I work for God. Who do you work for?”