with a commanding face and a full beard and a host of passions -- someone rather

  like an Emperor, let us say, but on a larger scale -- and it is foolishness, as

  well as blasphemy, to make representations of him the way the ancient Greeks did

  of such gods of theirs as Zeus and Aphrodite and Poseidon, or we do of Jupiter

  or Venus or Mars. Allah is the creative force itself, the maker of the universe,

  too mighty and vast to be captured by any sort of representation.

  I asked Mahmud how, if it is blasphemous to imagine a face for his god, it can

  be acceptable to give him a name. For surely that is a kind of representation

  also. Mahmud seemed pleased at the sharpness of my question; and he explained

  that "Allah" is not actually a name, as "Mahmud" or "Leontius Corbulo" or

  "Jupiter" are names, but is a mere word, simply the term in the Saracen language

  that means the god.

  To Mahmud, the fact that there is only one god, whose nature is abstract and

  incomprehensible to mortals, is the great sublime law from which all other laws

  flow. This will probably make no more sense to you, Horatius, than it does to

  me, but it is not our business to be philosophers. What is of interest here is

  that the man has such a passionate belief in the things he believes. So

  passionate is it that as you listen to him you become caught up in the

  simplicity and the beauty of his ideas and the power of his way of speaking of

  them, and you are almost ready to cry out your belief in Allah yourself.

  It is a very simple creed indeed, but enormously powerful in its directness, the

  way things in this harsh and uncompromising desert land tend to be. He

  stringently rejects all idol-worship, all fable-making, all notions of how the

  movements of the stars and planets govern our lives. He places no trust in

  oracles or sorcery. The decrees of kings and princes mean very little to him

  either. He accepts only the authority of his remote and awesome and inflexible

  god, whose great stem decree it is that we live virtuous lives of hard work,

  piety, and respect for our fellow men. Those who live by Allah's law, says

  Mahmud, will be gathered into paradise at the end of their days; those who do

  not will descend into the most terrible of hells. And Mahmud does not intend to

  rest until all Arabia has been brought forth out of sloth and degeneracy and sin

  to accept the supremacy of the One God, and its scattered squabbling tribes

  forged at last into a single great nation under the rule of one invincible king

  who could enforce the laws of that god.

  He was awesome in his conviction. By the time he was done, I was close to

  feeling the presence and might of Allah myself. That was surprising and a little

  frightening, that Mahmud could stir such feelings in me, of all people. I was

  amazed. But then he had finished his expounding, and after a few moments the

  sensation ebbed and I was myself again.

  "What do you say?" he asked me. "Can this be anything other than the truth?"

  "I am not in a position to judge that," said I carefully, not wishing to give

  offense to this interesting new friend, especially in his own dining hall. "We

  Romans are accustomed to regarding all creeds with tolerance, and if you ever

  visit our capital you will find temples of a hundred faiths standing side by

  side. But I do see the beauty of your teachings."

  "Beauty? I asked about truth. When you say you accept all faiths as equally

  true, what you really say is that you see no truth in any of them, is that not

  so?"

  I disputed that, reaching into my school days for maxims out of Plato and Marcus

  Aurelius to argue that all gods are reflections of the true godhood. But it was

  no use. He saw instantly through my Roman indifference to religion. If you claim

  to believe, as we do, that this god is just as good as that one, what you are

  really saying is that gods in general don't matter much at all. Our

  live-and-let-live policy toward the worship of Mithra and Dagon and Baal and all

  the other deities whose temples thrive in Roma is a tacit admission of that

  view. And for Mahmud that is a contemptible position.

  Sensing the tension that was rising in him, and unwilling to have our pleasant

  conversation turn acrid, I offered a plea of fatigue, and promised to continue

  the discussion with him at another time.

  In the evening, having been invited yet again to dine with Nicomedes the

  Paphlagonian and with my head still spinning from the thrust of all that Mahmud

  had imparted to me, I asked him if he could tell me anything about this

  extraordinary person.

  "That man!" Nicomedes said, chuckling. "Consorting with madmen, are you, now,

  Corbulo?"

  "He seemed quite sane to me."

  "Oh, he is, he is, at least when he's selling you a pair of camels or a sack of

  saffron. But get him started on the subject of religion and you'll see a

  different man."

  "As a matter of fact, we had quite a lengthy philosophical discussion, he and I,

  this very afternoon," I said. "I found it fascinating. I've never heard anything

  quite like it."

  "I dare say you haven't. Poor chap, he should get himself away from this place

  while he's still got the chance. If he keeps on going the way I understand he's

  been doing lately, he'll turn up dead out in the dunes one of these days, and no

  one will be surprised."

  "I don't follow you."

  "Preaching against the idols the way he does, is what I mean. You know, Corbulo,

  they worship three hundred different gods in this city, and each one has his own

  shrine and his own priesthood and his own busy factory dedicated to making idols

  for sale to pilgrims, and so on and so forth. If I understand your Mahmud

  correctly, he'd like to shut all that down. Is that not so?"

  "I suppose. Certainly he expressed plenty of scorn for idols and idolaters."

  "Indeed he does. Up till now he's simply had a little private cult, though, half

  a dozen members of his own family. They get together in his house and pray to

  his particular god in the particular way that Mahmud prescribes. An innocent

  enough pastime, I'd say. But lately, I'm told, he's been spreading his ideas

  farther afield, going around to this person and that and testing out his

  seditious ideas about how to reform Saracen society on them. As he did with you

  this very day, it seems. Well, it does no harm for him to be talking religion

  with somebody like you or me, because we Romans are pretty casual about such

  matters. But the Saracens aren't. Before long, mark my words, he'll decide to

  set himself up as a prophet who preaches in public, and he'll stand in the main

  square threatening fire and damnation to anybody who keeps to the old ways, and

  then they'll have to kill him. The old ways are big business here, and what this

  town is about is business and nothing but business. Mahmud is full of subversive

  notions that these Meccans can't afford to indulge. He'd better watch his step."

  And then, with a grin: "But he is an amusing devil, isn't he, Corbulo? As you

  can tell, I've had a chat or two with him myself."

  If you ask me, Horatius, Nicomedes is half right and half wrong about Mahmud.

  Surely he's correct that Mahmud is almost ready to begin preaching his religion

  in public. The way he accosted me, a total stranger, at the slave-market

  testifies to that. And his talk of not resting until Arabia has been made to

  accept the supremacy of the One God: what else can that mean, other than that he

  is on the verge of speaking out against the idolaters?

  Mahmud told me in just so many words, during our lunch together, that the way

  Allah makes his commandments concerning good and evil known to mankind is

  through certain chosen prophets, one every thousand years or so. Abraham and

  Moses of the Hebrews were such prophets, Mahmud says. I do believe that Mahmud

  looks upon himself as their successor.

  I think the Greek is wrong, though, in saying that Mahmud will be killed by his

  angry neighbors for speaking out against their superstitions. No doubt they'll

  want to kill him, at first. If his teachings ever prevail, they'll throw the

  whole horde of priests and idol-carvers out of business and knock a great hole

  in the local economy, and nobody here is going to be very enthusiastic about

  that. But his personality is so powerful that I think he'll win them over. By

  Jupiter, he practically had me willing to accept the divine omnipotence of Allah

  before he was done! He'll find a way to put his ideas across to them. I can't

  imagine how he'll do it, but he's clever in a dozen different ways, a true

  desert merchant, and somehow he'll offer them something that will make it

  worthwhile for them to give up their old beliefs and accept his. Allah and no

  one else will be the god of this place, is what I expect, by the time Mahmud has

  finished his holy work.

  I need to ponder all this very carefully. You don't come upon a man with

  Mahmud's kind of innate personal magnetism very often. I am haunted by the

  strength of it, awed by the recollection of how, for the moment, he had managed

  to win my allegiance to that One God of his. Is there, I wonder, some way that I

  can turn Mahmud's great power to sway men's minds to the service of the Empire,

  by which I mean to the service of Julian II Augustus? So that, of course, I can

  regain Caesar's good graces and get myself redeemed out of Arabian exile.

  At the moment I don't quite see it. Perhaps I could urge him to turn his

  countrymen against the growing ascendancy of the Greeks in this part of the

  world, or some such thing. But this week I have plenty of time to think on it,

  for no company is available to me just now except my own. Mahmud, who travels

  frequently through the area on business, has gone off to one of the coastal

  villages to investigate some new mercantile venture. Nicomedes also is away,

  down into Arabia Felix, where he and his fellow Greeks no doubt are conniving

  covertly to raise the price of carnelians or aloe-wood or some other commodity

  currently in great demand at Roma.

  So I am alone here but for my servants, a dull lot with whom I can have no hope

  of companionship. I toyed with the idea of buying myself a lively slave-boy in

  the bazaar to keep me company of a more interesting kind, but Mahmud, who is so

  fiery in his piety, might suspect what I had in mind, and I would not at this

  time want to risk a breach with Mahmud. The idea of such a purchase is very

  tempting, though.

  I think longingly all the time of the court, the festivities at the royal

  palace, the theater and the games, all that I am missing. Fuscus Salinator: what

  is he up to? Voconius Rufus? Spurinna? Allifanus? And what of Emperor Julian

  himself, he who was my friend, almost my brother, until he turned on me and

  condemned me to languish like this amidst the sands of Arabia? What times we had

  together, he and I, until my fall from grace!

  And -- fear not -- I think constantly of you, of course, Horatius. I wonder who

  you spend your nights with now. Male or female, is it? Lupercus Hector? Little

  Pomponia Mamiliana, perhaps? Or even the cupboy from Britannia, whom surely the

  Emperor no longer would have wanted after I had sullied him. Well, you do not

  sleep alone, of that much I'm certain.

  What, I wonder, would my new friend Mahmud think of our court and its ways? He

  is so severe and astringent of nature. His hatred for self-indulgence of all

  sorts seems deep as the bone: a stark prince of the desert, this man, a true

  Spartan. But perhaps I give him too much credit, you say? Set him up in a villa

  on the slopes of the Palatine, provide him with a fine chariot and a house full

  of servants and a cellar of decent wine, let him splash a bit in the Emperor's

  perfumed pool with Julian and his giddy friends, and it may be he'll sing

  another tune, eh?

  No. No. I doubt that very greatly. Bring Mahmud to Roma and he will rise up like

  a modern Cato and sweep the place clean, purging the capital of all the sins of

  these soft Imperial years. And when he is done with us, Horatius, we shall all

  be faithful adherents to the creed of Allah.

  FIVE DAYS MORE of solitude went by, and by the end of it I was ready, I think,

  to open my veins. There has been a wind blowing here all week that bakes the

  brain to the verge of madness. The air seemed half composed of sand. People came

  and went in the streets like phantoms, all shrouded up to the eyes in white. I

  feared going outside.

  For the past two days, though, the air has been calm again. Mahmud yesterday

  returned from his venture at the coast. I saw him in the main street, speaking

  with three or four other men. Even though he was some distance away, it was

  plain that Mahmud was doing nearly all the talking, and the others, caught in

  his spell, were reduced to mere nods and gestures of the hand. There is wizardry

  in this man's manner of speech. He casts a powerful spell. You are held; you

  cannot choose but listen; you find yourself believing whatever he says.

  I did not feel it appropriate to approach him just then; but later in the day I

  sent one of my servants to his house bearing an invitation to dine with me at my

  villa, and we have spent some hours together this very day. It was a meeting

  that brought forth a host of startling revelations.

  Neither of us chose to plunge back into the theological discussion of our

  previous conversation, and for a while we made mere idle arm's-length talk in

  the somewhat uneasy manner of two gentlemen of very different nations who find

  themselves dining in intimate circumstances and are determined to get through

  the meal without giving offense. Mahmud's manner was genial in a way I had not

  seen it before. But as the dishes of the first course were being cleared away

  the old intensity came back into his eyes and he said somewhat abruptly, "And

  tell me, my friend, how did it happen, exactly, that you came to our country in

  the first place?"

  It would hardly have been useful to my burgeoning friendship with this man to

  admit that I had been banished here on account of my pederasty with Caesar's

  intended plaything. But -- you must trust me on this -- I had to tell him

  something. There is no easy way of being evasive when the burning eyes of Mahmud

  son of Abdallah are peering intently into your own. I could lie more readily to

  Caesar. Or to Jove himself.

  And so, on the principle that telling part of the truth is usually more

  convincing than telling an outright lie, I admitted to him that my Emperor had

  sent me to Arabia to spy on the Greeks.

  "Your Emperor who is not their Emperor, though it is all one empire."

  "Exactly." Mahmud, isolated as he had been all his life from the greater world

  beyond Arabia's frontiers, seemed to understand the concept of the dual

  principate. And understood also how little real harmony there is between the two

  halves of the divided realm.

  "And what harm is it that you think the Byzantine folk can cause your people,

  then?" he asked.

  There was a tautness in his voice; I sensed that this was something more than an

  idle conversational query for him.

  "Economic harm," I said. "Too much of what we import from the eastern nations

  passes through their hands as it is. Now they seem to be drifting down here into

  the middle of Arabia, where all the key trade routes converge. If they can

  establish a stranglehold on those routes, we'll be at their mercy."

  He was silent for a time, digesting that. But his eyes flashed strange fire. His

  brain must have been awhirl with thought.

  Then he leaned forward until we were almost nose to nose and said, in that low

  quiet voice of his that seizes your attention more emphatically than the loudest

  shout, "We share a common concern, then. They are our enemies too, these Greeks.

  I know their hearts. They mean to conquer us."

  "But that's impossible! Nicomedes himself has told me that no army has ever

  succeeded in seizing possession of Arabia. And he says that none ever will."

  "Indeed, no one can ever take us by force. But that is not what I mean. The

  Greeks will conquer us by slyness and cunning, if we allow it: playing their