There was no harm, I decided, in checking over the men again. It would press upon them the importance of the meeting.

Jaffar's reception room was a grand, colonnaded s.p.a.ce, long and tiled, with narrow raised pools to left and right of the carpeted walkway leading to the dais. Fish swam in that sparkling clear water, and light from the high-set windows flashed along their scales. The room itself was built so that those who waited at one end could not hear the conversation before the dais, which kept courtiers and supplicants wondering as to events that were not their own affair.

The master entered to recline along a settee upon the dais, somewhat in the manner of the caliph, though he did not wait behind a curtain. Mahmoud and another of my lieutenants stood grim and silent behind him. I stood at Jaffar's left, Dabir on the right. This day both Jaffar and Dabir were in their finery, complete with gold thread wrapped through their turbans.

The chamberlain, well-fed old Abdul-Rafi, presented the master's t.i.tles to the Greeks, then preceded them to Jaffar's roost, bowed, and formally announced their names before the dais. Old he might be, but few could match the booming power of Abdul-Rafi's voice. "The Archduke Theocritus, his son Nicephorous, and their translator, Diomedes." Also there were servants carrying boxes.

Diomedes was all smiles as he bowed. His gaze fastened briefly upon me, then flicked to Dabir and back to Jaffar. The Greek's dark, protuberant eyes were striking in a sharp, dangerous way: I had the sense that he weighed all he saw for import.

Theocritus, thickset with distinguished sprinkles of white hair along his temples, spoke. Diomedes c.o.c.ked his head, listening.

"The archduke thanks you for seeing us at such short notice," Diomedes said, his voice almost a purr, "and wishes to bestow upon you a number of marvelous gifts."

Jaffar brushed his curled and perfumed beard. "Tell the archduke that I am pleased to make his acquaintance. I hope that he finds Baghdad and my home to his liking. I thank him also for his gifts." Diomedes translated this, and both the archduke and his son, a thinner, younger cut of cloth with a sharper nose, bowed their heads. The archduke then chattered at the servants, who brought forward the boxes. Two of my men walked with them.

Diomedes introduced the gifts as they were presented, and Jaffar either pretended interest well, or was sincerely curious. For my part, I found the carpets and gold baubles and sundry fabrics only an irritating delay. Were the Greeks truly after the pull? Surely for the cost of these gifts they could fashion more gold in its shape.

After a tedious quarter hour the baskets and boxes had all been opened and the servants dismissed, escorted out by two of my soldiers.

"The archduke is quite generous," Jaffar said to Diomedes. "Convey my thanks to him."

The large man chattered some more. "The archduke says that your reputation is well known even in Constantinople, and that you are judged a fair and honorable man."

"I thank him."

"The archduke and his son had traveled to Baghdad to consult scholars within the household of the caliph."

"How interesting," the master said. "The caliph mentioned nothing of it to me."

Diomedes bowed his head and relayed this. "It may be," he answered, "that the caliph himself did not know of the matter, or that he simply thought it beneath your interest."

"Oh, I doubt that." Jaffar smiled now. He was enjoying himself. "I would have been very interested to learn of a Greek deputation arriving in Baghdad. You are in an official capacity?"

"Somewhat," Diomedes said, after consultation with his master. "You see, the archduke hopes to present the Empress Irene with a gift soon, a rare item from antiquity. Certain sources reveal that the gift's twin might lie within the treasure vaults of the caliph."

"What manner of item is it?" Jaffar's voice was awash with innocence.

"A door pull, Excellency, all of gold, with several jewels. The archduke brought it with him to Baghdad in the hope that he might compare it to that rumored to be held by the caliph. If indeed they matched, the archduke hoped to purchase the pull from the caliph's estate."

"Very interesting," Jaffar said, rubbing his beard.

Diomedes conveyed this to the archduke, who studied Jaffar for a time before speaking again.

"Lamentably," Diomedes said, then paused, listening further to his master, "the pull was stolen from some of the archduke's servants, who were murdered by the thief."

"That is unfortunate," Jaffar replied.

"We set men on his trail, but the pull itself was taken by other men."

"Wicked behavior yields wickedness," Jaffar said.

"I suppose so, Excellency." Diomedes bowed.

The archduke said something to Diomedes, who shook his head no, but said nothing.

"I have to ask," Jaffar said, "why you have come to me about this matter."

Diomedes bowed once more. "Our men were closing on the thief when they were confronted by three men near the souk. We think ... the archduke has reason to believe that they were men from your household."

The master said nothing.

"If you know anything of the matter," Diomedes continued, "the archduke would be grateful for any information about the door pull; if you find that your servants did, indeed, recover it, he hopes that you would facilitate its return. He means to well compensate the pull's discoverers," Diomedes continued quickly. "Obviously they had no part in its theft."

Jaffar nodded, and held up a hand. "I will look into this matter immediately."

While the Greeks bowed and expressed their thanks, Dabir bent to whisper to the master's ear, so quietly that I could not hear.

"A fine question," Jaffar said, nodding, then returned his attention to the Greeks. "Why did the archduke not have an identical door pull constructed based upon the pattern of the first?"

Diomedes consulted softly with his master before facing us once more. "It is said that the pulls are not completely identical; there is an ancient pattern upon them both, slightly different."

Dabir leaned toward Jaffar and spoke into his ear. As he straightened, my master asked: "From whence did these door pulls originate?"

Diomedes held a brief, whispered conversation with the archduke, then bowed. "The archduke's explanation may inspire incredulity, Excellency. He does not know for certain."

"What has he been told?"

"He believes they may be from a ruined city of the ancient Greeks, Excellency."

"Indeed? Most interesting! Which city?"

"Mycenae," Diomedes answered sharply, without consulting Theocritus.

Jaffar exchanged a glance with Dabir, then opened his arms to the Greeks. "Please stay in my palace. Be my guests, while I seek the truth."

The Greeks thanked Jaffar with many bows, and then the master exited with Dabir and me.

"You," he said to Dabir as we walked the dark hall together, "are to go to the caliph's palace. I shall write a note. Bring forth this pull, if it exists, and study it. See what it reveals."

"Master," Dabir said, "is it wise to remove the pull without the caliph's knowledge?"

Jaffar dismissed this worry with a casual hand wave. "The caliph would ask me to look into the matter, were he here." It was true that Jaffar was the caliph's closest friend, but I, too, wondered as to the wisdom of the action.

"The Greeks are keeping something from us, Excellency," Dabir said. "Did you note something odd in their manner? The translator was too freely elaborating what the archduke said ... adding details, and the Greeks seemed almost deferential to him as he did so."

Jaffar stroked his beard thoughtfully, and I wondered if he had failed to see this and did not wish to admit it.

"I presume," Dabir continued, "that there is some important message hidden in the text on the pulls-which is a.s.suredly not any kind of ancient Greek."

"What did the first pull say?" I asked.

"It introduced the device as the 'opener of ways to the Keeper of Secrets.' Also there were magic symbols."

"What do they mean?"

"I have not yet finished the translation."

"Go with him, Asim," Jaffar instructed. "See that this second pull is recovered. We will keep the Greeks occupied while Dabir studies it."

As Dabir and I walked for the stables I ventured that the master seemed kindly disposed toward him, and he agreed that it seemed so and the conversation died as surely as if I had stabbed it. Before long we were mounted and riding our mares out through the streets.

I have journeyed through many cities in my years, and Baghdad was the loveliest of them all. Admittedly a few portions were filthy and rank smells sometimes a.s.saulted the senses, as will happen whenever you crowd humanity behind walls, but there were fountains and blooming gardens and vast stretches of waterways and ca.n.a.ls, spanned by bridges.

In this, early spring, there was not yet the suffocating heat, and the streets and marketplaces thronged with folk on their way hither and yon, sometimes with children in tow, or leading mules laden with baskets and bags. It was a cacophony of sound but a joyous one.

To reach the gilded palace that was Baghdad's heart, we left the quarter of the city where Jaffar lived and crossed the Tigris on one of its three great bridges. The outer wall of the Round City, as Baghdad's center was known, watched over the river from a height of eight spear lengths. This grand wall was interspersed with even taller watchtowers, the mightiest of which was the highest point in the city. The Iron Tower, however, was never visited, for Harun al-Rashid's brother and short-lived predecessor was said to haunt its balcony. Hadi the Brute had planned to replace the standard towers with a series of more fortified structures, each fashioned from thick-walled stone and rising more than a hundred feet, but had perished with the plan barely under way. Allah be praised, he also died before any of his many attempts to poison his brother were successful.

Between the height of the Iron Tower-so called for its locked and rusting door-and the triple walls, was the mosque of Al-Mansur. The glittering golden spires of this, the city's most glorious structure, dazzled all who stared at them from the length and breadth of the city, for it was decreed they be polished always to a high sheen.

Once behind the palace walls, Dabir and I were in a sea of black, for all the government functionaries dressed in dark cloth; not to do so was tantamount to resignation. The road pa.s.sed through the outer gardens, which were decorated with flowers blooming in verses from the Koran. Barefoot slaves tended yew and cypress belted with jewel-studded metal. Soldiers and couriers pa.s.sed us along the road, some bound perhaps for palaces across the city, others to the ends of the earth.

It happened that the master, his father, and his brothers all maintained apartments within the palace, and thus I was not unknown there to the staff. We were admitted and then introduced to the chamberlain, who asked first after Jaffar's health and then read his letter, brushing his gray beard all the while.

"This is a peculiar request," he said finally. "It may take some time to lay hands upon such a thing, if it does, indeed, exist."

"Do you know of anyone who has made inquiries into it before now?" Dabir asked.

"I have never heard it mentioned."

"Do you know of any Greeks who sought it?" I asked.

The chamberlain shook his head no.

"It may be that they asked about it by letter," Dabir suggested.

Again the old fellow shook his head. "But I am not familiar with every dispatch that reaches these walls."

Dabir frowned. "If one were to come from an archduke, do you think-"

"Ah, well, then I would surely have been apprised. Any request by a foreign official would be examined carefully."

"The Greeks lied?" I prompted.

"So it would appear," Dabir said.

The chamberlain was intrigued enough by the story to send his top a.s.sistant with us to look into the matter.

Poets might say that the treasures of the caliph are beyond counting, but that would be a falsehood, for all the treasures have been counted and cataloged, and it is the duty of a harried triptych of thin, black-garbed clerks to track their outflow and inflow. The caliph or his brother Ibrahim and other a.s.sorted relatives were at constant pains to diminish the treasury whereas the vizier was at constant pains to bring currency into the state coffers, so these three were ever busy. It is not just money that flows in and out, but gifts as well, bequeathed by this amba.s.sador or governor or foreign potentate to the caliph, or gifted by the caliph or some member of his household to a distant king or a song girl whose voice was especially pleasing. Thus there is a vast warren of underground cubbyholes and shelves and halls, sealed behind lock, key, and swordsmen of ma.s.sive girth and fearsome manner. That the tracking lies mostly upon the shoulders-or, in truth, necks-of but three men is a testament to their skill.

Once the chamberlain's a.s.sistant described our need to them, one looked up from the paper where he was scribbling figures, called for a boy, and bade him take us to a certain hall and a certain room and look along the left.

Within a half hour of our arrival we had pa.s.sed treasures and splendors to set a miser fainting in envy and a thief perspiring with greed. The boy filled my mind with wonder, chattering as he went about this or that rumored treasure. Beyond a heavy door were niches where the boy claimed the very staff of Moses could be found, along with the crown of Cyrus, the sword of Iskander, and a book written by the angel Gabriel. We saw none of these, but left in possession of a door pull identical to the first. At least I thought so. Dabir indicated to me that the characters were different, but when the characters are nothing but scratches and geometric symbols I cannot know how a man is supposed to judge the difference. Dabir was eager to return with it so that he might compare it in more detail to the first, and begin work upon the translation, and thus we begged off the invitation of my cousin Rashad-a lieutenant in the caliph's guard staff-to join him for a meal before prayer at the Golden Mosque, and hurried back to Jaffar's halls. I thought surely to be done with the matter, but before long Boulos conveyed that the master wished me, personally, to guard the pull while it was in Dabir's hands.

Thus I spent a dull afternoon as the scholar sat staring alternately at the two pulls and all manner of scrolls and books. We were joined in the late afternoon by the old women, resuming their game, and their charge, Sabirah. Then pupil and teacher both sat hunched over the old pulls, making notes.

Sweets were to be had, and I ate them, but that did nothing to allay the boredom. For a while I looked over Dabir's shoulders and saw for myself that the little markings differed between the pulls, but nothing else. For a time I looked back and forth between the girl and the man, seeking for sign of a touch, or a long look, or other such cues. But their love seemed to be one for symbols and Dabir noticed my scrutiny and condemned it with a hard stare from lowered brows, whereupon I retreated to the room's far side. None of the other hangings were as fine as that one of Rostam, so by and by I looked out through an open window at the garden.

My older brother, Tariq, may G.o.d bless him, once showed a strange trick to me. A dog lay on the ground outside our window, and he said he would gain its attention neither by calling its name nor making any other noise, nay, nor movement. The dog had his back to us, so the latter would have been impossible in any case. I was but ten, and very curious, so I watched as my brother stared at the beast. Within a minute, the creature turned and stared at him. I raised an outcry, asking my brother if he had learned magic, and he laughed. "No," he said, "the soul shines through the eyes, and when you stare at a man-or a beast with sufficient wit-he will sense your gaze. Try it yourself."

I never forgot the lesson, which showed that there are senses beyond the ones we catalog. I mention it now because, after I sat there in the shadows by the window for a time, I felt that strange p.r.i.c.kling sensation that I myself was under examination. I saw no man, though, or even a dog, but a small black bird upon the rim of the upper pool of the garden's fountain. It might have been a statue, so still did it sit, and I wondered if it were an omen of some kind, and made the sign against the evil eye. At that, it stirred, and looked past me. Its eyes were particularly brilliant, shining less like eyes and more like gemstones. I had never seen its like. I watched the bird for a long moment, but it did not move again.

I tried dismissing the notion that there was anything threatening about a bird that I might slay with a flick of my hand, but as it perched there, quiet as death, I found nothing common in its appearance or rea.s.suring in its behavior. Would not a normal bird have been hopping, or picking at its wing, or flapping to another roost? It just sat there, looking through the window.

I crept from my own perch, quietly and slowly, so as not to startle it, and backed into the room. I found Dabir just where I had left him, tediously poring over the books.

"Dabir," I said softly, "there is a strange bird outside."

You might think he would have rolled his eyes or cursed me for my foolishness, but he answered without looking up. "Is it a small black bird with shining eyes?"

"Bismallah!" I could not hold off a cry of surprise. "It is! How did you know?"

"It was there during our battle yesterday. And it flew overhead when we rode to the palace."

"You joke," I said weakly.

"I do not."

The course was clear to me. "We must slay it."

"Nay; we will not let its masters know we know they watch us. They might send some other guardian we would not see."

"Can I see the bird?" Sabirah asked. "How could it tell anyone what we're doing?"

"That is an excellent question," Dabir admitted. "Some birds may speak, but they rarely say anything of use."

"Who sent the thing?" Sabirah stared toward the window.

"Do not pay it too much attention," Dabir said, motioning her back. His eyes dropped again to his papers. "I think perhaps it comes from the Greeks, but I cannot say. There is much here that is shielded from me."

Sabirah chewed her lip thoughtfully then returned to unroll one of the scrolls.

"What have you learned?" I asked Dabir. I stood over him and the pulls, placed side by side on a brown rug, their gemstones twinkling.

"These are very old, for one thing."

"How old?"

"Older than Noah, may peace be upon him. This is cuneiform script, similar to that we saw in Kalhu, but of an older make."