“And what do they believe?” The king’s one eye was trained on her with fierce interest.
“They believe… They believe that the Koran is not eternal, even if it is the word of Allah. They say that it is the word of Allah as heard by Mohammed, but that there may be other words. They say that it is not enough merely to collect hadith, that is to say tradition, but that one must also apply to it one’s reason, which is the gift of Allah.”
Moishe would not like to hear that, Solomon thought again. He thinks it is the first duty of a scholar to preserve the Torah, and the last to collect commentary on it. To reason from it, not reason about it.
Shef was nodding slowly. “They do not want to destroy books. That is good. But they are ready to think about them. That is better. If I could see a Mu’tazilite Caliph in Cordova, and a Pope in Rome without an army, then, I think, Ragnarök would be averted, and Loki put at rest. But at the root of it all is to have books in many hands. I do not suppose all the booksellers in Cordova, nor all the scribes in Septimania, could make as many books as we need. What was it you said, Solomon, that we need a machine to make many copies, faster than a man can write? I know no way to hitch up a millwheel to a scribe’s arm, alas, though it may do the work of a smith.”
“The Caliph often had more documents to sign than his arm could manage,” ventured Alfled.
“What did he do?”
“He had a block made, of gold, with a handle of ivory. But on the base of the block was a copper plate, with his name on it standing out the depth of a finger-paring. The rest had been eaten away by cunning acids, I do not know how. He would put the plate on to cork with ink in it, and then stamp the block down on documents as fast as Ishaq could present them. Some said Ishaq would put documents in there that the Caliph never read, for a price. It was like putting a brand on cattle.”
“Like a brand,” Shef repeated. “Like a brand. But no-one can brand paper, or parchment.”
“And the end of it all is a false paper,” said Svandis, face twisted with disgust. “One that no-one read and no-one signed.”
“That is one way books might be made,” agreed Solomon.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The news of the disaster for Islam ran south faster, seemingly, than any horse could carry it. Than any single horse or horseman, certainly. As the first reports arrived in any town, carried by the cavalrymen who had fled first from the battle, each man was helped from his horse, carried to drink sherbet in the cool, pressed for further information. Meanwhile such information as could be gleaned was carried on by trusted messengers to those whom the local governor of a province or cadi of a city regarded as most in need of it. By the time the survivors rode on, their stories growing more elaborate and self-justifying each time they were repeated, the news was often ahead of them.
As the news was received, those in power under the Caliph-who-had-been thought carefully about their positions. Who was to succeed the Caliph? It was known that he had many children, but none designated, and none old and strong enough to survive the civil war that threatened. He had had many brothers, or half-brothers. Most dead, gone to the leather carpet or the bowstring. Many unacceptable, children of the mustaribs. Or were they, now, so unacceptable? Those who had been considered so, governors of the north for the most part, began to reflect on their own strength and on their alliances. Horsemen rode, troops were gathered, governors wondered how many of the levies they had sent north would return. As they trickled in, surprisingly many of them for a battle that according to the first runaways had been fought with great valor, governors reckoned their strength again. Almost all of them came to the same conclusion. Too soon to strike, or to give up hope. Do what is obviously right and you cannot come to harm. Protest loyalty to the Faith. Surround one’s own person with every armed man that can be raised. And meanwhile, since the men are there and must be paid, there are private squabbles that may as well be taken care of. Old enmities between Alcala and Alicante, the coast and the mountains, disputes over water and land, flared into conflict.