“There are still plenty of thanes and thanes’ sons in England,” said Svandis, “and I dare say you could capture one of them easily enough. You are your own dowry, and after a wedding-night with one of your experience, I expect you could ask whatever morning-gift you wished.”
Ouled the Circassian, sitting listening to a conversation in a language she could not follow, shifted and looked up at the unmistakable sound of two women beginning to scorn each other. In one of the private signs of the harem, she spread her fingers, looked at the nails. Don’t fight, it said. Sheathe your claws. Alfled choked down a scornful answer, tried to look amused.
“I think you could do the One King a service,” said Svandis. “The One King, who has said he will make me his queen.”
Men say all sorts of things to get what they want, reflected Alfled, but did not say the words, only lifting her eyebrows in polite enquiry.
“He needs information about the state of things in Cordova now the Caliph is dead. He may need an emissary, too, one who speaks better Arabic than we do. One thing you can be sure of, he is a generous payer, a true ring-giver to those who serve him. And you are right, he has a soft spot in his heart for those who have been slaves, like you.”
I will see if he has not a hard spot for me somewhere else, reflected Alfled grimly. Copper hair, blue eyes, complexion like a Moorish laborer’s. In the harem you would have been called once, out of curiosity, and never again. “I am at your mercy,” she replied, eyes prudently downcast. “What is the king’s particular interest?”
“At the moment,” Svandis replied, “he is interested in the making of holy books, and how they come to be.”
Whips, poetry, little boys, scented oils, now holy books, thought Alfled. God, or Allah, or Jesus, send me a man one day with simple interests.
In a room deep within the Prince’s private palace, Shef confronted a quadruple row of benches. In front of each bench ran a long table, on each bench sat six scribes. Their quills were in hand, pots of ink stood by each one, each one had a fresh sheet of the strange Oriental paper in front of him. The scratching of pen-knives had died away, the two dozen faces looked expectantly at the barbarian king who had driven off the Emperor of the Nazarenes.
Solomon addressed the scribes. “The king here,” he said, “has discovered a document. It is one which casts great doubt on the faith of the Christians, would tell them—if they knew of it—that their Messiah is as we well know already, a false one, a foreshadower of one who is yet to come. He wishes to have many copies made, to spread the knowledge widely in the Christian world. So we have called you together. He will dictate a version of what he has read to me, I will translate it into the trade-talk of Spain, the Arabic that we all know, and you will write it down. Later we will make more copies, and more, both in this language and in the Roman tongue of the south. Maybe also in Latin. But this is the beginning of it.”
A hand raised, a skeptical voice spoke. “How long will this account be, Solomon?”
“The king says, it must cover no more than a single page.”
“How long was the first document?”
“As long as the Book of Judith.”
“It will take skill, then, to reduce it to one folium.”
“The king knows his mind,” said Solomon firmly.
Shef listened without understanding to the interchange in Hebrew, waited for the rustling and gentle mirth to die down. Solomon nodded, to show that the scribes were ready. Shef stepped forward, the heretics’ book, in its Anglo-Norse translation, open in his hand—not for him to read, for his grip on the runes was still shaky, but as a prompt.
As he looked at the rows of faces, at the blank sheets in front of them, his mind seemed to dowse itself, like a fire which has had a wet blanket dropped over it. There was nothing there. A few moments before he had been ready to speak, to tell the story of the rescue and escape of Jesus from the Cross in words that any man or woman might understand. Now there was nothing there. Stray phrases wandered through his mind: “They call me Jesus… What you have been told is not true… Have you ever thought about death?” None of them seemed to lead anywhere. He realized his mouth was hanging open, in what must seem an idiot’s gape, became aware of the slight sneers, the dawnings of contempt on the faces that looked up at him.