Read Online Navigator by Stephen Baxter - Free Book Online

the bank wall beside Hisham. There was barely any room between the wall and the turning wheel. But there was Ghalib, floating in the water, apparently unconscious. The water all around him was stained red. And soon he would be drawn into the wheel’s machinery again.
    Moraima grabbed Robert’s arm. ‘You must help him.’
    Cursing, he kicked off his boots for the second time that day. Then he jumped, feet first, his arms tucked in at his sides, and plummeted down into the water.

XIV
    Weary from the heat and light, Orm and Sihtric sat in the shade of an awning and sipped water laced with lemon juice. They looked out over the scaffolding that encased the arbalest.
    Sihtric said, ‘The principles are simple, but the devil is in the detail, Orm. Our ambition constantly outruns our capabilities. On the arbalest, for instance, I’ve lost count of the number of spring shafts we’ve stripped, the bow arms we’ve fractured. We learn, step by step.’ He riffled through the much-thumbed sketches of Aethelmaer’s designs, with elaborations and annotations added by Moorish scholars. ‘It is as if the wretched Aethelred was given a glimpse of the future. And we poor fools labour to build the machines of another century with the tools and materials of this.
    ‘But there remains the central mystery of the Incendium Dei, which will give the punch to these weapons. Look, here is the scrap of cipher Aethelmaer left.’ He pointed to a line of spidery lettering, headed simply Incendium Dei:
     
BMQVK XESEF EBZKM BMHSM BGNSD DYEED OSMEM HPTVZ
HESZS ZHVH
     
‘I saw this before, at Westminster,’ Orm said. ‘It meant nothing to me then, nor does it now.’
    ‘Nor me, and that’s the problem. Well, nobody said it would be easy.’
    ‘And you’ve devoted your life to this stuff ever since Hastings?’
    Sihtric shrugged. ‘After Harold fell, after my Menologium lost its value, I had no purpose. I needed a new goal.’
    ‘You could,’ Orm pointed out, ‘have found some parish to serve. There has been plenty of suffering among the English these last twenty years.’
    Sihtric smiled, almost sadly. ‘Me, a humble parish priest? After I was nearly a king-maker? I don’t think so. I wanted power - that’s the truth and I don’t deny it. I had no other purpose in mind. And I saw Aethelmaer’s designs as a way to achieving that power.’
    ‘So you found a way to live here.’
    ‘It took time. You may remember I had a contact in Ibn Sharaf of Toledo, the noted astronomer, who corresponded with me in London. He gave me a start. After that I found a place in a monastery. I quickly learned Arabic, which is the language of government here. I made some money translating the Bible into Arabic, for other Mozarabs. There are Christians here who have grown up reading only Arabic. Imagine that!’
    ‘And you too are a Mozarab,’ Orm said. ‘A “nearly Arab”. You are defined by what you are not. Tolerated or not, I don’t think I would like to live with such a label.’
    ‘Few do,’ conceded Sihtric. ‘And there are boundaries to that tolerance. The Moors are clannish, Orm. You can’t just find the local lord and offer him your services, as in England. With the Moors it’s all family and patronage and who you know - devilish hard to break into. And under Islamic law there are limits to the tax you can impose on a Muslim, but you can tax Christians as much as you like. And then, Mozarabs are excluded from the higher levels of government, from power. It’s actually a good career move to do as Ibn Hafsun’s family once did, and convert. But then I am a priest; that course is excluded to me.’ The bitterness in his voice was obvious. ‘We survive, we Mozarabs. But we are a cowed people.’
    ‘And yet you prospered.’
    ‘Well, I formed a relationship with the vizier, Ibn Tufayl. I told him my goals; I showed him Aethelmaer’s designs. He sponsored my work. This is an age of war. I think he regards my work as a worthwhile