The Khalifah's Mirror by Andrew Killeen

Author:Andrew Killeen
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781909232358
Publisher: Dedalus
Published: 2012-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

XI

“Is all that true?”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“An emperor of Rome, ordering human sacrifice, the slaughter of children, on a massive scale? And his people tolerating it? Even Caligula never attempted such an atrocity. Frankly, I found the dragon more plausible.”

“It is a pity, young lady, that destiny drove you apart from my friend Ismail. You and he share a grimly prosaic obsession with literal truth. On what grounds do you challenge my veracity?”

“Well, for one thing, in your story Constantinus referred to the four Patriarchs. They are the bishops of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and…?”

“New Rome, of course.”

“Which he then announces his intention of going to found. How can the city have had a bishop, when it didn’t exist yet?”

Abu Nuwas frowned impatiently.

“A mere detail. What is important is not whether it really happened or not, but whether people believe it did. And consider the implications for your masters. When the Emperor failed to protect Rome from Lombard aggression, the Pope turned to the King of the Franks for help. Your Karlo conquered the invaders and made himself their king. Since then he has been the Pope’s most important ally.

“If the Bishop of Rome is the supreme authority in the western lands, then Karlo owes allegiance only to him, and not to the Emperor. The King of the Franks and the Lombards would no longer be a vassal of Irene, but her equal. Now, if we could produce an original document, sealed by Constantinus himself, proving that the Donation was a genuine imperial decree, what price might they put on such a thing?”

Hervor cocked her head to one side, and studied him. Then she nodded.

“So where is this precious document?”

“I don’t know. But I have a friend who does.”

An early dusk was settling as they approached the house of the scholar Vadomar. The poet’s friend, he explained as they strolled the arrow-straight streets of Old Rome, was an Allamanus from the icy Alpes mountains. Vadomar had come to the city in search of knowledge, and trained as a priest purely so that he could learn to read and write. Nominally he was still in holy orders, but the church had made it clear to him he could not look to them for employment, after the unfortunate incident with the son of the advocate.

Now Vadomar lived like a mole, burrowing amid libraries and manuscripts, sniffing out juicy worms of erudition. There were not many who had need of his services, and fewer still who could afford them. However there were always matters of inheritance, of precedence and precedent, that required evidence from historical sources. And there were some very rich men with very specific interests, who provided the remainder of his income.

Abu Nuwas had encountered him in Alexandria. The Great Library had long ago burned down, its contents scattered across the globe, but many of the scrolls had not travelled far. Rare codices still turned up, in marketplaces or in the hands of dealers and fences. He and Vadomar had competed for

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