‘Sigwulf, you have no idea of the in-fighting that goes on beneath the glittering surface of the caliph’s court. Each young man has his own supporters and they compete for power and influence, hoping their own candidate will one day ascend the throne.’
‘You’re sounding like the Nomenculator in Rome when he warned me about the hidden conflict for the selection of the next pope.’
‘This is far more vicious than Rome,’ said Abram grimly. ‘The previous caliph, Mahdi, died before his time. Some say he was poisoned, others that he was smothered with cushions. He was Haroun’s brother.’
‘And Haroun arranged his death?’
The dragoman dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘No, their mother did. She feared she was losing influence over her eldest son and preferred to see Haroun on the throne.’
Chapter Fifteen
‘I STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND that mistake between black and white at the caliph’s court,’ Osric remarked to me the next morning. We had emerged from the menagerie building where we had gone to check on Walo. Despite not speaking Arabic, he had struck up a working friendship with the keepers and was comfortably installed in their dormitory. Madi and Modi were being given their proper food and the hollow walls of their pen were regularly replenished with ice. Walo was confident that they would soon be back to full health.
‘I’ve been thinking back to my meeting with Alcuin and then the interview with Carolus,’ I told my friend. ‘Both believed that white was the royal colour in Baghdad.’
It was mid-morning and the glare of the sun was blinding. We were keeping to the shady side of the narrow street as we walked behind our escort, the same man who had accompanied us to the meeting with Jaffar. He was leading us to the palace library to meet the scribes who would record the details of our journey from Aachen.
‘Did Alcuin or Carolus mention where they had got their information from?’ asked Osric.
‘No, and there was no reason for me to ask.’
‘Yet it’s unlike Alcuin to be so poorly informed.’
‘I don’t remember his exact words, but I think he only said that anyone who enters the inner city must be dressed in white. And that’s correct.’
Osric stopped for a moment to dislodge a pebble that had got trapped in his sandal. ‘What about Abram? He should have known.’
‘I didn’t meet Abram until we got back from Kaupang. By then everything was settled, and we had the white animals. Besides, our dragoman tells me that he had never been admitted into the presence of the caliph. Only seen him from a distance.’
We were heading in the direction of the huge green dome I had noticed from the barge during our arrival in Baghdad. The dome loomed over the surrounding buildings and was evidently part of the main palace complex at the heart of the Round City. As we came closer, another defensive wall topped with guard towers became visible. The caliph’s palace was a fortress within a fortress.
Before we reached the foot of the wall, our guide turned aside through an archway where two elderly porters sat half-asleep on a stone bench. We followed him into a large open courtyard. In the centre a fountain played, a feature that I was beginning to recognize as commonplace throughout the Round City. The courtyard itself had been designed as a perfect square, and contrasting lines of the grey and mottled-white paving slabs had been laid out in geometric patterns of triangles, circles and squares. Solid-looking buildings two storeys high surrounded all four sides of the court, each fronted by a portico with evenly spaced marble columns whose muted colours matched the courtyard paving. The overall effect was an atmosphere of austere calm, orderly and contemplative. It reminded me of a monastic cloister.
In the shade of the porticos groups of men were seated on the marble flooring. They were talking quietly among themselves or bent forward over low desks and busy writing. Many were greybeards, others barely out of their teens. I noticed that the usual pattern was for the scribes to work in pairs, an older man reading aloud from a book while a younger man sat at the desk and took down his dictation.
Our guide led us to the far side of the courtyard where a tall, painfully thin man stood waiting, his shoulders hunched and his hands tucked into his sleeves. Our escort introduced him as the caliph’s librarian, Fadl ibn Naubakt.
‘Nadim Jaffar sent word that you have recently arrived from Frankia. He instructs that we make a record of the details of your route,’ the librarian said in a thin, scratchy voice. He blinked rapidly as he spoke and I wondered if it was due to the sun’s glare or if he had spent so long over his books that his eyesight was damaged.