understand that the Saracens are not a people to flaunt their wealth, but prefer

  instead to conceal it behind unadorned facades. Now and again I would have a

  peek through a momentarily opened gate into a briefly visible courtyard and got

  the sense of a palatial building hidden back there, or I would see some merchant

  and his wife, richly robed and laden with jewels and gold chains, climbing into

  a shrouded sedanchair, and I knew from such fitful glimpses that this must

  indeed be a wealthier city than it looked. Which explains, no doubt, why our

  Greek cousins have started to find it so appealing.

  These Saracens are a handsome people, lean and finely made, very dark of skin,

  dark hair and eyes as well, with sharp features and prominent brows. They wear

  airy white robes and the women go veiled, I suppose to protect their skins

  against the blowing sand. Thus far I have seen more than a few young men who

  might be of interest to me, and they gave me quick flashing looks, too, that

  indicated response, though it was far too soon to take any such risks here. The

  maidens also are lovely. But they are very well guarded.

  My own situation here is more pleasing, or at least less displeasing, than I had

  feared. I feel the pain of my isolation, of course. There are no other

  Westerners. Greek is widely understood by the better class of Saracens, but I

  yearn already for the sound of good honest Latin. Still, it has been arranged

  for me to have a walled villa, of modest size but decent enough, at the edge of

  town nearest the mountains. If only it had proper baths, it would be perfect;

  but in a land without water there is no understanding of baths. A great pity,

  that. The villa belongs to a merchant of Syrian origin who will be spending the

  next two or three years traveling abroad. I have inherited five of his servants

  as well. A wardrobe of clothing in the local style has been provided for me.

  It all might have been much worse, eh?

  But in truth they couldn't simply have left me to shift for myself in this

  strange land. I am still an official of the Imperial court, after all, even

  though I happen currently to be in disfavor and exile. I am here on Imperial

  business, you know. It was not just out of mere pique that Julian shipped me

  here, even though I had angered him mightily by getting to his cup-boy before

  him. I realize now that he must have been looking for an excuse to send someone

  to this place who could serve unofficially as an observer for him, and I

  inadvertently gave him the pretext he needed.

  Do you understand? He is worried about the Greeks, who evidently have set about

  the process of extending their authority into this part of the world, which has

  always been more or less independent of the Empire. My formal assignment, as I

  have said, is to investigate the possibilities of expanding Roman business

  interests in Arabia Deserta -- Western Roman, that is. But I have a covert

  assignment as well, one so covert that not even I have been informed of its

  nature, that has to do with the growing power of Romans of the other sort in

  that region.

  What I am saying, in ordinary language, is that I am actually a spy, sent here

  to keep watch over the Greeks.

  Yes, I know, it is all one empire that happens to have two emperors, and we of

  the West are supposed to look upon the Greeks as our cousins and

  co-administrators of the world, not as our rivals. Sometimes it actually does

  work that way, I will concede. As in the time of Maximilianus III, for example,

  when the Greeks helped us put an end to the disturbances that the Goths and

  Vandals and Huns and other barbarians were creating along our northern frontier.

  And then again a generation later, when Heraclius II sent Western legions to

  help the Eastern Emperor Justinian smash the forces of Persia that had been

  causing the Greeks such trouble to the east for so many years. Those were, of

  course, the two great military strokes that eliminated the Empire's enemies for

  good and laid the foundations for the era of eternal peace and safety in which

  we live now.

  But an excess of peace and safety, Horatius, can bring niggling little problems

  of its own. With no external enemies left to worry about, the Eastern and

  Western Empires are beginning to jockey with each other for advantage. Everybody

  understands that, though no one says it aloud. There was that time, let me

  remind you, when the ambassador of Maurice Tiberius came to court, bearing a

  casket of pearls as a gift for Caesar. I was there. "Et dona ferentes,", said

  Julian to me under his breath, as the casket was uncovered. The line every

  schoolboy knows: I fear Greeks even when bringing gifts.

  Is the Eastern Empire trying to put a drawstring around the midsection of

  Arabia, and by so doing to gain control over the trade in spices and other

  precious exotic merchandise that passes this way? It would not be a good thing

  for us to become altogether dependent on the Greeks for our cinnamon and our

  cardamom, our frankincense and our indigo. The very steel of our swords comes

  westward to us out of Persia by way of this Arabia, and the horses that draw our

  chariots are Arabian horses.

  And so the Emperor Julian, feigning great wrath and loudly calling me a serpent

  before all the court when the matter of the little cup-bearer became known, has

  thrust me into this parched land primarily to find out what the Greeks a.re

  really up to here, and perhaps also to establish certain political connections

  with powerful Saracens myself, connections that he can employ in blocking the

  Eastern Empire's apparent foray into these regions. Or so I do believe,

  Horatius. So I must believe, and I must make Caesar believe it himself. For it

  is only by doing some great service for the Emperor that I can redeem myself

  from this woeful place and win my way back to Roma, to Caesar's side and to

  yours, my sweet friend, to yours.

  THE NIGHT BEFORE last--I have been in Mecca eight days, now -- Nicomedes invited

  me once again for dinner. He was dressed, as I was, in white Saracen robes, and

  wore a lovely dagger in a jeweled sheath strapped to his waist. I glanced

  quickly at it, feeling some surprise at being greeted by a host who wore a

  weapon; but instantly he took the thing off and presented it to me. He had

  mistaken my concern for admiration, and it is a Saracen custom, I have learned,

  to bestow upon one's guests anything in one's household that the guest might

  choose to admire.

  We dined this time not in the tiled parlor where he had entertained me

  previously but in a cool courtyard beside a plashing fountain. The possession of

  such a fountain is a token of great luxury in this dry land. His servants

  brought us an array of fine wines and sweetmeats and cool sherbets. I could see

  that Nicomedes had modeled his manner of living after the style of the leading

  merchants of the city, and was reveling in that.

  I had not been there very long when I got right down to the central issue: that

  is, what exactly it was that the Greek Emperor hoped to accomplish by stationing

  a royal legate in Mecca. Sometimes, I think, the best way for a spy to learn

  what he needs to learn is to put aside all guile and play the role of a simple,

  straightforward, ingenuous man who merely speaks his heart.

  So as we sat over roast mutton and plump dates in warm milk I said, "Is it the

  Eastern Emperor's hope to incorporate Arabia into the Empire, then?"

  Nicomedes laughed. "Oh, we're not so foolish as to think we can do that. No

  one's ever been able to conquer this place, you know. The Egyptians tried it,

  and the Persians of Cyrus's time, and Alexander the Great. Augustus sent an

  expedition in here, ten thousand men, six months to fight their way in and sixty

  days of horrible retreat. I think Trajan made an attempt too. The thing is,

  Corbulo, these Saracens are free men, free within themselves, which is a kind of

  freedom that you and I are simply not equipped to comprehend. They can't be

  conquered because they can't be governed. Trying to conquer them is like trying

  to conquer lions or tigers. You can whip a lion or even kill it, yes, but you

  can't possibly impose your will on it even if you keep it in a cage for twenty

  years. These are a race of lions here. Government as we understand it is a

  concept that can never exist here."

  "They are organized into tribes, aren't they? That's a sort of government.

  He shrugged. "Built out of nothing more than family loyalty. You can't fashion

  any sort of national administration out of it. Kinsman looks after kinsman and

  everybody else is regarded as a potential enemy. There are no kings here, do you

  realize that? Never have been. Just tribal chieftains -- emirs, they call them.

  A land without kings is never going to submit to an emperor. We could fill this

  entire peninsula with soldiers, fifty legions, and the Saracens would simply

  melt away into the desert and pick us off one by one from a distance with

  javelins and arrows. An invisible enemy striking at us from a terrain that we

  can't survive in. They're unconquerable, Corbulo. Unconquerable."

  There was passion in his voice, and apparent sincerity. The Greeks are good at

  apparent sincerity.

  I said, "So the best you're looking for is some kind of trade agreement, is that

  it? Just an informal Byzantine presence, not any actual incorporation of the

  region into the Empire."

  He nodded. "That's about right. Is your Emperor bothered by that?"

  "It's drawn his attention, I would say. We wouldn't want to lose access to the

  goods we obtain from this part of the world. And also those from places like

  India to the east that normally ship their merchandise westward by way of

  Arabia."

  "But why would that happen, my dear Corbulo? This is a single empire, is it not?

  Julian II rules from Roma and Maurice Tiberius rules from Constantinopolis, but

  they rule jointly for the common good of all Roman citizens everywhere. As has

  been the case since the great Constantinus divided the realm in the first place

  three hundred years ago."

  Yes. Of course. That is the official line. But I know better and you know better

  and Nicomedes the Paphlagonian knew better too. I had pushed the issue as far as

  seemed appropriate just then, however. It was time to move on to more frivolous

  topics.

  I found, though, that dropping the matter was not all that easily done. Having

  voiced my suspicions, I thereby had invited counterargument, and Nicomedes was

  not finished providing it. I had no choice but to listen while he wove such a

  web of words about me that it completely captured me into his way of thinking.

  The Greeks are damnably clever with words, of course; and he had lulled me with

  sweet wines and surfeited me with an abundance of fine food so that I was

  altogether unable just then to refute and rebut, and before he was done with me

  my mind was utterly spun around on the subject of East versus West.

  He assured me in twenty different ways that an expansion of the Eastern Empire's

  influence into Arabia Deserta, if such a thing were to take place, would not in

  any way jeopardize existing Western Roman trade in Arabian or Indian

  merchandise. Arabia Petraea just to the north had long been under the Eastern

  Empire's administration, he pointed out, and that was true also of the provinces

  of Syria Palaestina and Aiguptos and Cappadocia and Mesopotamia and all those

  other sunny eastern lands that Constantinus, at the time of the original

  division of the realm, had placed under the jurisdiction of the Emperor who

  would sit at Constantinopolis. Did I believe that the prosperity of the Western

  Empire was in any way hampered by having those provinces under Byzantine

  administration? Had I not just traveled freely through many of those provinces

  on my way here? Was there not a multitude of Western Roman merchants resident in

  them, and were they not free to do business there as they wished?

  I could not contest any of that. I wanted to disagree, to summon up a hundred

  instances of subtle Eastern interference with Western trade, but just then I

  could not offer even one.

  Believe me, Horatius, at that moment I found myself quite unable to understand

  why I had ever conceived such a mistrust of Greek intentions. They are indeed

  our cousins, I told myself. They are Greek Romans and we are Roman Romans, yes,

  but the Empire itself is one entity, chosen by the gods to rule the world. A

  gold piece struck in Constantinopolis is identical in weight and design to one

  struck in Roma. One bears the name and face of the Eastern Emperor, one the name

  and face of the Emperor of the West, but all else is the same. The coins of one

  realm pass freely in the other. Their prosperity is our prosperity; our

  prosperity is theirs. And so on and so forth.

  But as I thought these things, Horatius, I also realized gloomily that by so

  doing I was undercutting in my own mind my one tenuous hope of freeing myself

  from this land of burning sands and stark treeless hills. As I noted in my most

  recent letter, what I need is some way of saying, "Look, Caesar, how well I have

  served you!" so that he would say in return, "Well done, thou good and faithful

  servant," and summon me back to the pleasures of the court. For that to occur,

  though, I must show Caesar that he has enemies here, and give him the way of

  dealing with those enemies. But what enemies? Who? Where?

  We were done with our meal now. Nicomedes clapped his hands and a servitor

  brought a flask of some rich golden brandy that came, he said, from a desert

  principality on the shores of the Persian Gulf. It dazzled my palate and further

  befogged my mind.

  He conducted me, then, through the rooms of his villa, pointing out the

  highlights of what even in my blurred condition I could see was an extraordinary

  collection of antiquities and curios: fine Greek bronze figurines, majestic

  sculptures from Egypt done in black stone, strange wooden masks of barbaric

  design that came, he said, from the unknown lands of torrid Africa, and much,

  much more.

  He spoke of each piece with the deepest knowledge. By now I had come to see that

  my host was not only a devious diplomat but also a person of some power and

  consequence in the Eastern realm, and a scholar of note besides. I was grateful

  to him for having reached out so generously to me in these early days of my

  lonely exile -- to the displaced and unhappy Roman nobleman, bereft of all that

  was familiar to him, a stranger in a strange land. But I knew also that I was

  meant to be grateful to him, that it was his purpose to ensnare me in the bonds

  of friendship and obligation, so that I would have nothing but good things to

  say about the Greek legate in Mecca should I ever return to my master the

  Emperor Julian II.

  Would I ever return, though? That was the question.

  That is the question, yes. Will I ever see Roma of the green hills and shining

  marble palaces again, Horatius, or am I doomed to bake in the heat of this oven

  of a desert forever?

  HAVING NO occupation here and having as yet found no friends other than

  Nicomedes, whose companionship I could not presume to demand too often, I whiled

  away the days that followed in close exploration of the town.

  The shock of finding myself resident in this squalid little place has begun to

  wear off. I have started to adapt, to some degree, to the change that has come

  over my existence. The pleasures of Roma are no longer mine to have; very well,

  I must search out such diversion as is to be found here, for there is no place

  in the world, humble though it be, that does not offer diversion of some sort to

  him who has eyes for finding it.

  So in these days since my last letter I have roamed from one end of Mecca to the

  other, up and down the broad though unpaved boulevards and into many of the

  narrow lanes and byways that intersect them. My presence does not appear to be

  greatly troublesome to anyone, although from time to time I do become cognizant

  that I am the object of someone's cold, gleaming stare.

  I am, as you know, the only Roman of the West in Mecca, but scarcely the only

  foreigner. In the various marketplaces I have seen Persians, Syrians,