Free Navigator by Stephen Baxter Page B

vizier needs to know whom he can trust. No, more than that: he can trust only those whose souls he owns entirely.’
    ‘And so,’ Orm said, ‘he set out to own you.’
    ‘Yes.’ Sihtric sighed again. ‘For he sees my weaknesses more clearly than I see them myself - you can ask my confessor, it’s true. I was alone, Orm. Nobody even cares about England here. To the Moors the civilised world stretches from Damascus to Cordoba, and Europe is a cold, dark place full of squabbling little statelets, far away and of no importance save as a source of slaves. And I am a man,’ he whispered, as if this were the worst confession of all. ‘A man alone, in an atmosphere of remarkable sensuality ...’
    The rulers of Seville, like some of the caliphs that went before them, were extravagant, indulgent, given to gesture and spectacle and pleasure. Their hedonism was spoken of throughout al-Andalus - indeed throughout the Muslim world. ‘Let me give you one example. There was a prince whose wife, a Christian from the north, wept because she missed the snows of winter, which she would never see again. So he ordered a legion of gardeners to transplant a whole forest of almond trees, in blossom, and move them to the square beneath her bedroom window. They did this at night, and in silence. And when she woke up, her husband was able to say, “There, my beloved, I have brought you your snow!” I can’t imagine William the Bastard making such a gesture, can you?’
    Orm didn’t smile. ‘And so, in this atmosphere of indulgence, your soul softened.’
    ‘I was seduced,’ Sihtric said. ‘The first to come to me was a boy, slim, dark, with eyes like a deer’s. He was a student. As we worked he sat close to me, he brought me presents - flowers in glass bowls, that sort of thing. I didn’t really notice, to tell the truth; the work was everything. Then one night he slid into my bed. I was half asleep - I thought it was a woman, or a succubus perhaps, sent by the devil to tempt me. Well, I had a devil of a shock when I slid my hand down that oil-smooth belly and found six inches of stiff cock. I nearly yelled the place down.’
    Robert laughed.
    But Orm said grimly, ‘So the vizier, having determined that your inclination was not towards boys, sent you a woman.’
    ‘She was a copyist at the library. She was called Muzna. But she said that was a corruption of Maria. Once her family had been Christians, become muwallad long ago. The combination of that dark beauty, and the chink of Christian light that might still lodge in her soul, compelled me. When she stayed when the others had gone, when she laughed at my foolish jokes and brought me gifts—’
    ‘When she came to your bed,’ Orm said. ‘You never could get to the point, could you, priest?’
    ‘She was an addiction, a drug. The smoothness of her skin, the scent of her hair - I had known nothing like it. I would have given my immortal soul for her; indeed, perhaps I have done just that. I was happy, Orm. I was as happy as I have ever been - happy with her, happy to be alive and breathing, and my head not addled as usual with dreams of power and gain. You of all people know me well enough to understand that. But then three calamities happened, in quick succession.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘First I was called into the vizier’s presence. He had Muzna at his side. She was crying. She stood with him.’
    Robert saw it. ‘She was his daughter - the vizier’s.’
    ‘Yes. He had manipulated her; he had had her seduce me; he used his own daughter to unlock my weakness. I protested that love between a Christian and a Muslim was not unknown. Indeed there was some such love in Muzna’s mother’s ancestry. But times are changing. As the Christian armies roll down the peninsula like a great smothering carpet, in some taifas the seduction of a Muslim woman by a Christian can be punishable by death - an execution by stoning.’ He shuddered. ‘And besides, as the vizier pointed out, I am