Navigator

by Stephen Baxter

  Harry, listening patiently while sipping cold pomegranate juice, found it hard to believe that this elegant seafaring Muslim could be any sort of relation. And yet it was true.

  Geoffrey Cotesford had discovered this branch of Harry’s extended family, which for two centuries had been living in Granada. The first of them had been another Ibrahim. He had fled here from Seville when that city fell to the Christians. He had married a woman called Obona, adopting her child from a previous relationship. In Granada, Ibrahim and Obona lived to old age in peace, raising many children, and the family had prospered ever since. Abdul said the family still remembered Ibrahim. Abdul hoped his own patient service for his emir matched that offered by Ibrahim during the last days of Moorish Seville.

  For Ibrahim and Obona, it turned out to be a good time to have come to Granada. The last great wave of Reconquest broke with the fall of Seville. In the natural shelter of the mountains, with support from the Islamic nations of the Maghrib, the wily emirs of Granada had been able to play off one Christian leader against another, and the terrible calamity of the Great Mortality had sapped the Christians’ will to expand. Even the fall of the Baghdad caliphate to the Mongols had not harmed al-Andalus, which had gained a further measure of independence. It had been a period of uneasy truce - a peace that had lasted centuries.

  But the truth was the emirs of Granada had always been vassals of the Christian kings. In return for security they paid heavy tributes in African gold, a steady bleeding.

  And since the time of the Great Mortality, which the Moors called the Annihilation, Granada had slowly declined. It was all because of trade, Abdul told Harry. The strait to Africa had fallen into Christian hands, and Italian merchants monopolised the fruit trade, a vital component of Granada’s economy, and drove prices down. But the Christian tribute still had to be paid, the defences maintained. Abdul said, ‘I pay my taxes at three times the level of a Castilian. No wonder the emirs are unpopular!

  ‘Still, the long truce endured. But it has all changed under our latest emir. The Christians call him Muley Hacen; his name is Abu al-Hasan Ali. He grew up seeing his father bowing before Christians, and he loathed it. About twenty years ago he refused to pay the tribute to Castile, and hasn’t since. And three years ago Muley became aggressive, riding out to assault a fortified Christian town. It was a grave miscalculation. These new monarchs, Isabel and Fernando, are united and purposeful.

  ‘And we Moors are suddenly disunited. There have been rebellions. Last year Muley was overthrown in favour of his son, Muhammad Abu Abd Allah, whom the Christians call Boabdil. But Muley’s knights still support him. Others back Muley’s brother Abu Abd Allah Muhammad az-Zaghall - El Zagal, the “Valiant One”. And so it goes. There are rumours Boabdil is concluding secret deals with the Christians. Where once we played off one Christian nation against another, now the wily King Fernando plays us for fools.

  ‘Last winter the long war proper resumed, after a pause for breath that lasted more than two hundred years, when the Christians assaulted a place called Loja. And I came to work in the palace.’

  Harry shook his head. ‘I can’t understand such numbers. Two hundred years? How can a single purpose endure over such a huge time?’

  Abdul laughed and topped up his drink. ‘Men like you and I, Harry Wooler, traders and sailors, live in the moment, in the business of the world. But popes and caliphs, princes and emirs - those sort of folk like to believe they cast long shadows over history.’

  Harry tried to get a sense of this cousin. He seemed intelligent, competent, and with a taste for beautiful things, judging by his clothes, and the wistful glances he cast out of the windows. But he was alone, without a family. Was he a man who preferred men? Whatever his taste he had evidently nothing but failed relationships behind him. And yet he had a place in this city, this ancient civilisation he obviously cherished.

  He and Harry could hardly have been less alike, Harry thought. And yet here they were, related, considering working together.

  He turned the conversation to the matter of the Testament.

  Abdul said, ‘I’ll tell you the truth. In my family - or my branch of it - we have a sort of memory of prophecies. Of terrible weapons of war, of a man called the Dove, all of that. But if this was ever written down, it was long lost, and reduced to a memory of a memory. I don’t think Ibrahim cared much for that sort of stuff. So why have you sought me out? Why come here, to al-Andalus? And why now?’

  ‘It was Geoffrey’s suggestion ...’ Harry had told Abdul of his contact with the monk. Now he produced a parchment on which the first twelve lines of the Testament of Eadgyth were written out.

  Abdul lodged small spectacles on his thin nose and scanned it quickly. ‘“The tail of the peacock”,’ he read. He looked up. ‘There is an old Arab myth, of the Flood—’

  ‘I know,’ said Harry. ‘Or rather, Geoffrey knows. That’s what he found out. He believe that al-Andalus must be the peacock’s tail of the Testament.’

  ‘So that tells me why you’ve come here. But why now?’

  And Harry spoke of the ‘last days’ of the Testament’s first line, and how some Christians believed that the year 1500 in the Christian calendar would mark the end of time.

  Abdul looked amused at that. ‘Muslim scholars rather look down on the Christian calendar. Full of errors! Our calendars and clocks are somewhat superior - the demand for the accurate timing of the calls to prayer five times a day sees to that. But I see the relevance of the date to Christian thinking.’

  ‘When Geoffrey found out about you, he thought you may be able to help understand the prophecy, perhaps even track down the Dove.’

  ‘So I would be an ally in al-Andalus. And,’ Abdul said drily, ‘I would be committed to help, given that it is my home that will surely be the target of the marvellous weapons of which you speak.’

  ‘What do you think we should do?’

  ‘Think it through,’ said Abdul firmly. ‘Always the best policy.’ He scanned down the Testament. ‘Some of this seems quite explicit, doesn’t it? A fire consuming “our ocean” - that must be the Mare Nostrum, as the Romans called it, our ocean, the Mediterranean. “God’s Engines will ... flame across the lands of spices.” A massive war in the east, then, if the Dove turns that way - perhaps a war with the Islamic states which control trade with the spice islands? That much is logical. But why would this Dove, if he exists, wish to travel west? To the west is only the Ocean Sea.’

  ‘For trade,’ Harry said immediately. ‘Perhaps that’s a bias in my own thinking. But there is money to be made out there. That’s why I would go ...’

  For decades European navigators had been probing the Ocean Sea, seeking new trade routes. This drive was a legacy of the Mongols, whose hundred-year peace had briefly united Asia with Europe. Travellers like Marco Polo, following the new continent-spanning trade routes, brought back accounts of great eastern empires. Italian colonies on the Black Sea and the crusader cities in the Levant made a handsome profit as conduits for imports from the east, including sugar, spices and textiles, furs, pelts and hides, wax, honey, amber, metals.

  ‘But it wasn’t only wealth that came swarming into Europe along the Mongol trade routes,’ Abdul put in darkly. ‘The Annihilation dawned in the heart of Asia, and travelled with the traders and their ships out of the east. You can tell from the records ...’

  When the Mongol peace ended, the rise of Muslim empires like the Ottomans’ cut off the Christian west from the rich markets of the east. Now nobody even knew if the Khans were still on their throne. In the south too Christian traders found themselves boxed in by Muslims, who controlled the spice trade from India and the far east, and whose caravans, snaking across the Sahara, were the only access to the great gold fields of west Africa.

  So, in search of new trade routes, the Europeans were taking to the seas.

  ‘It’s an exciting time,’ Harry said. ‘You must have seen the new maps.

  The ships continue to get be
tter too. The Portuguese, for instance, are inching their way down the west coast of Africa, seeking a sea route to the African gold mines. Some say it might be possible to go all the way down the coast of Africa and find a channel east, through to the Indian Ocean and the spice islands that way. And others are already working their way out west into the Ocean Sea. They are coming to understand how the wind blows, where the great ocean currents flow.

  ‘And we know there are new lands to be found out there. Like Madeira, which the Portuguese control. And the Canaries, which the Spanish have conquered, and they call the Fortunate Isles.’

  Abdul said, ‘So there are solid reasons for this Dove to turn his energies west.’ He fixed Harry with a glare. ‘But you haven’t told me everything, have you, cousin? If the Dove goes east there will be war between Christians and Muslims - but there is always war between Christians and Muslims. What would be so terrible about this one?’

  Harry sipped his pomegranate juice. And he showed Abdul the rest of the prophecy, the lines his sister had discovered scratched in the wall of her cell in York.

  X

  Harry read,

  The Dragon stirs from his eastern throne,

  Walks west.

  The Feathered Serpent, plague-hardened,

  Flies over ocean sea,

  Flies east.

  Serpent and Dragon, the mortal duel

  And Serpent feasts on holy flesh ...

  ‘Geoffrey Cotesford believes he now understands these words, four centuries old. This is how he has interpreted them.

  ‘The Dove is a strong man. Strong, clever, determined. He is a force, elemental, loose in our world. He must be, or else why would the prophecy speak of him? West or east, where he goes others will follow. If he goes west, he will surely lead the conquest of lands teeming with wealth and strange peoples - lands unknown to the ancients, and to our geographers, perhaps. On the other hand, if the Dove turns east, with the same energy and single-minded purpose, he will lead a ferocious war against Islam. And he will use the Engines of God to do it. That’s what Geoffrey argues. It all fits together, Geoffrey says.’

  ‘Better weapons are always an advantage,’ Abdul said. ‘But Muslims aren’t fools. Advantages tend not to endure.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what Geoffrey says. In time the spies of Islam will acquire the secrets of the engines. And what’s more, Islam and Christianity have no means of achieving peace with each other: history shows that, says Geoffrey. So the war will be unending, the destruction on both sides will be multiplied - the use of the engines won’t lead to victory but to catastrophe. From London to Baghdad, Geoffrey predicts, not a stone will be left standing. The only victors will be the warlords - whether fighting in the name of Christ or Muhammad it won’t matter.

  ‘And like all warlords, like the Mongols, they will need to feed their armies on further expansion. When the destruction of their homelands is complete they will turn their attentions outside Europe, south to Africa - and east into Asia. There will be more carnage. But China, immense, populous and ancient, will survive, as it survived the Mongols.’

  ‘I can believe it,’ Abdul said. ‘How many warriors could England muster? A few thousand? It’s said that the Chinese emperors command an army of a million men.’ He read, ‘“The Dragon stirs from his eastern throne, / Walks west.” I think I understand.’

  Harry nodded. ‘Geoffrey says this means that the Chinese will pursue the broken European armies back across the continent, all the way to France, perhaps, and even England. The last remnants of Christianity and Islam alike will become vassals of the Dragon Throne.’

  ‘And when they have taken Europe the Chinese will face the Ocean Sea themselves.’ Abdul sat forward, fascinated. ‘I sailed with the Chinese, under their great eunuch admirals. Will they take their turn to explore the Ocean Sea?’

  ‘No,’ said Harry firmly. ‘Not according to the prophecy. Rather, the dangers of the Ocean Sea will come to haunt them ...’

  Even if the Dove did not sail west, other Europeans would surely try the journey, fragile ships from Portugal and Spain and England probing ever deeper beyond the curved horizon. Others, then, would fall on the shores of the western countries - not the empires of Asia, but lands unknown to Europe, said Geoffrey.

  These more tentative explorations would benefit the strange empires of the west more than the Europeans. The Dove would have conquered - or at least he would have set an example of conquest and colonisation, as opposed to reasonably peaceful contact and trade. These more timid explorers would be overwhelmed. The strange oceanic kings would indulge in trade, but in time they would acquire the newcomers’ weapons and ships, take them apart, learn to make their own. They would suffer from plagues brought from Europe, but not in great numbers, and the generations to come would acquire immunity.

  And a western empire, ruled by the ‘plague-hardened’ people of a ‘Feathered Serpent’, would learn of the rich lands across the Ocean Sea.

  ‘They will come,’ said Harry. ‘Pushing across the Ocean Sea, a conquering fleet heading east where the Europeans might have gone west. On the coasts of England, France and Portugal they will fall on an overstretched Chinese empire.’

  Abdul read,

  The Feathered Serpent, plague-hardened,

  Flies over ocean sea,

  Flies east.

  Serpent and Dragon, the mortal duel.

  ‘But the western conquerors will unleash a horror not known in our continent since before the Romans.’

  ‘“And Serpent feasts on holy flesh.”’

  ‘They eat the flesh of humans. They sacrifice human lives in great numbers. Their wars, Geoffrey predicts, will be terrible slave-raids, as captives from across a devastated Europe are hauled to their temples to die under the knives of the priests. Whole populations will be consumed ...

  ‘This, and no more,’ Harry said. ‘The prophecy lets us see no further.’

  Abdul sat as if stunned. Then he got up and paced around the room. He took a bowl of jasmine blossom and breathed deeply of its scent. ‘All this,’ he said at last, ‘if this Dove turns east and not west. But these final lines: “All this I have witnessed / I and my mothers.” What does that mean?’

  ‘Geoffrey says that Eadgyth was not a prophet, not a seer who could see the future, but - a puppet. The words were put into her mouth by a Witness, just as the line says, a saint of the far future - a woman, Eadgyth always believed - who will live at a time of the terrible calamity of the western invasion of the east, or at least fears its likelihood. And this person, wishing to avert the horror, will find a way - well, to speak to a woman of her own deepest past.’

  ‘How?’ Abdul demanded.

  Harry smiled. ‘If I knew that I’d sell it, and wouldn’t be here talking to you. In fact, Geoffrey believes we are dealing with two prophecies here - or two witnessings. He says the Dove was meant to go west. Somebody else found a way to deflect him from his true course - somebody else has already meddled in history, and is trying to send the Dove the wrong way, east, equipped with the Engines of God. And it is a second witness who is now trying to reverse things through the Testament.’

  Abdul thought that over, and laughed. ‘Geoffrey says, Geoffrey says. These scholars are troublesome to men of the world like us. I suppose these Witnesses are scholars too, competing to muck about with history. And now we’re meant to put it all right by packing the Dove off to the west?’

  ‘That’s the idea,’ Harry said unhappily. ‘I suppose the question is, what do we do now?’

  Abdul sat again. ‘I think we have a responsibility, even if the chance of the witnessing coming true is small, to try to avert this huge destructive disaster of the future of Serpent and Dragon. Anything would be better than that.’

  ‘Agreed. So we must do something about it.’

  ‘Yes. But you feel as uncomfortable about this sort of talk as I do, don’t you, Harry?’

  Harry shrugged. ‘I’m just a merchant. I sell wool. That’s all I k
now.’