We walked on-my own gait a laboured, hobbling shuffle. My legs felt as if I were dragging blocks of marble from my ankles. Eventually, we reached the end of the corridor and I saw a wide stairway leading down to rooms below, and another stairway leading up. A gentle breeze, fragrant with the scent of roses, was drifting down into the corridor from above. "What is up there?" I asked.
"It is the roof garden of the amir's wives," answered Farouk.
"I would like to see it. May we go there?"
"Most certainly," he said. "It is allowed."
Taking the steps one at a time, very slowly, we ascended to a softly warm summer evening. The sun had just set and the sky was tinted an exquisite golden hue with fiery purples and dusky pinks over hills of slate blue. The sky itself was immense, and stars were already glinting overhead. There were other large dwellings nearby, but the amir's was the largest, and overlooked them all.
The palace roof was a flat expanse onto which hundreds upon hundreds of plants had been arranged in clay pots of all shapes and sizes, and placed around a raised central pavilion made of slender wooden slats woven in open latticework, and overdraped with red-and-blue striped cloth. There were small palm trees, and fronded shrubs large and small, and flowers, many of which had closed their petals for the night. It was the roses, however, that caught my attention, for the air was heavy with their fragrance, and everywhere I looked, I saw whole thickets of tiny, sweet-scented white roses, which seemed to breathe their luxurious perfume upon the evening air in silent sighs.
While we were yet standing at the top of the stairs, there came a strange, chanting wail from across the city. It seemed to emanate from one of the slender towers I had seen from my bed. This sound waxed and waned eerily, and was quickly fortified by other chants and wails.
Upon listening for a moment, it occurred to me that I had heard this very sound before, though I could not remember where or when. "What is that?" I asked, turning to Farouk.
"Ah!" he said, reading the expression on my face. "It is the muezzin," he explained, "calling the faithful man to his prayers. Come." He turned and led me towards the pavilion where he sat me down upon a cushion. When I was thus settled, he said, "If you will please excuse me, I will return momentarily."
Farouk took himself a few paces away, turned his face to the east, bowed low three times, then knelt, placing hands flat before him and touching his nose to the ground. I watched him perform this curious ritual, rising now and then to bob his head up and down once or twice, before lowering his face again.
Though I did not doubt my physician's sincerity, his actions put me in mind of the gyrations some of the monks at the abbey would perform, with their genuflecting and kneeling and prostrating themselves, up and down, down and up, repeating the same words over and over again in a high reedy voice until they formed a meaningless gabble.
Farouk continued for a short while, then he rose, bowed to the east, and returned to where I was sitting. "The night is growing cool," he announced, "and I do not think it wise for you to become chilled. I shall return you to your room now."
He helped me to rise from the cushion, and we began shuffling back to the stairs, and had just reached them when the chanting began again. This time, however, the cry did not come from the finger-thin towers, but from the streets below, and it was not one person only, but many voices. I looked to Farouk for an explanation. He simply smiled, and lifted a hand to the raised edge of the roof.
I turned and we made our way to look down into the street where a huge crowd, a veritable multitude, thronged the narrow streets, and they were all chanting and crying out in attitudes of imprecation, as if beseeching the amir for recognition or a favour. I watched them, but could form no opinion of their actions. "What do they want Farouk?"
"They want your health, my friend," he answered.
He chuckled at the expression of incredulity that appeared on my face. "Who are they?" I wondered. "What can they know of my health?"
"It has become known in the city that the amir's new slave is ill," Farouk said, spreading his hands wide. "The people have come to pray for your recovery."
"Why tonight?"
"This night is no different from any other since you came," he told me.
"They come every night to pray?" I wondered. "For me?"
The physician nodded and cupped a hand to his ear. After a moment he said, "They ask God to raise up the amir's servant. They entreat Allah, All Wise and Compassionate, to restore your health, and bring you once more to happiness and prosperity. They ask the Holy Angels to stand over you and protect you so that the Evil One may no longer ravage your body and spirit. They ask God's peace and blessing on you this night."
