Veering off to one side, he took us to a side entrance half hidden by a screen of delicately carved stonework. Here he left us with a chamberlain waiting with two assistants, and they accompanied us down a long deserted corridor, past a line of closed doors. Tiled walls threw back the clack of our footsteps on the marble floor and, with our escort in such close attendance, we might as well have been prisoners on the way to their cells. The difference was the all-pervading scent of rosewater that perfumed the air. We were hurried up two flights of steps and then along a gallery that looked down on a large antechamber where small groups of black-clad men were standing and waiting, possibly for an audience with the caliph. There was no way of telling whether they were courtiers or officials. They did not look up, and it was clear, too, that our escort did not want us to be seen.
At the far end of the gallery, we were ushered into a room and the chamberlain and his assistants silently withdrew, closing the door behind us and leaving us alone.
Osric and I exchanged glances. We had stepped into a jewellery box. Panes of coloured glass in the ceiling illuminated gorgeous silk hangings covering the walls. Underfoot the thick carpets were richly detailed with intricate patterns of blossoms and fruit. Gold leaf had been applied to every exposed surface. Here the scent of rosewater was almost overpowering. Directly in front of us hung a curtain that divided the room in half. The fabric was gauze so fine that the slightest draught set it swaying. Daylight filtered through it, yet by a clever trick of the weave it was impossible to see what lay the other side.
I guessed we had been brought into one of the upper rooms of the palace with a window overlooking the Tigris. I strained my ears, trying to catch the sounds of the river when – bewilderingly – through the curtain came a succession of whistles and liquid trills. I recognized the song of a nightingale.
Osric and I stood facing the curtain, waiting politely for whatever might happen next. Several minutes passed. I wondered if someone was observing us secretly and I dared not turn my head and search too obviously for a spyhole. The birdsong stopped, then started again, then stopped. There was no other sound, no movement. Presently, the curtain in front of us swayed minutely, the barest tremor. I heard a faint rustling sound. Another pause followed. Finally, an unseen hand or some hidden mechanism drew back the curtain in a single, smooth movement.
The other half of the room was even more opulent. Matching mirrors extended from floor to ceiling on the side walls. They were positioned to angle the daylight pouring in through the window arch on the further wall and direct it onto hundreds of precious stones sewn into the fabric of the wall hangings. The gems caught the light and glowed in all their brilliance – amethyst, ruby and emerald. The cloth itself shimmered with gold and silver thread. Suspended from the ceiling by a silk cord in one corner was a golden birdcage. The drab brown of its occupant, the nightingale, made the surrounding colours appear all the more sumptuous.
Directly in front of us the floor level was raised to create a platform and oblige us to look upwards. There, reclining on two bolsters were two boys. I recognized one of them immediately. He was Abdallah, Caliph Haroun’s son whom I had seen in Jaffar’s garden. Something told me that the other boy was his half-brother, Mohammed the Crown Prince. Both were much the same age and identically dressed in long black surcoats and tightly fitting trousers, and both wore black turbans. While Mohammed’s turban had a diamond brooch in the shape of a starburst, Abdallah’s turban bore no decoration.
For a long moment we stared at one another without a word being said. Then, making me jump, one of the mirrors swung to one side and became a door. Through it stepped a tall, handsome and well set-up man about thirty years old, whose light complexion contrasted with a neatly barbered black beard some four or five inches long. He wore no jewellery but his long black silk gown was open at the front to show an under-robe of grey silk with discreet bands of embroidery at the collar and wrists. On his head he wore the same style of tall black felt hat as Osric and me, though his hat had a black turban wrapped around it, the free end hanging down his back. The two youngsters promptly sat up straighter on their cushions. Even without that hint I would have known that the man who had entered the room was their father, Haroun al Rashid, Prince of the Faithful, Caliph of Baghdad and Allah’s Shadow on Earth.
Beside me, Osric immediately sank to his knees and pressed his forehead to the ground. A heartbeat later I followed his example, almost letting slip the bestiary I was clutching. We stayed kneeling until a quiet voice told us to rise. Getting to my feet, I found that the caliph had sat down between his two sons, only a few paces from me, and was scrutinizing us closely.