Baghdad, 1178
Caliph An-Nasir sat cross-legged on a cushion in the shade of a palm in the courtyard of his palace meditating and watching a line of ants.
The ant-line stretched several meters from a crack in the flagstones, across the paved courtyard, halfway up the wall of the scullery, and into a crack in a wooden windowframe.
Some ants were beginning to return from the window bearing crumbs of bread almost as large as themselves, passing their fellows on their way back to the hill.
He imagined the successful raiders shouting encouragements to their brothers as they passed.
To the Caliph's side, on the ground and fluttering in the slight breeze, sat the scroll he had finished reading some moments ago.
It had informed him that (Praise be to Allah!) the initial stages of his grand plan were now complete, and the Caliphate now stretched from Edessa in the west to Shiraz in the East.
It was hard, however, for him to take this news with the satisfaction it no doubt deserved, for earlier that morning his old friend the Vizier had shared with him the dark tidings that his unruly neighbours the Great Seljuks had declared war on the Khwarezm Shah.
Coupled with the ongoing disaster in Anatolia, which showed no signs of relenting, this created quite a headache for the Caliph.
These were dark days indeed. He recalled his dream: the markets teeming with exotic wares, the coffers overflowing, his people prosperous and contented. This promised bright future seemed further away with each passing day. And each night that passed seemed to drag inexorably closer the nightmare that had accompanied it.
He shuddered as he recalled the snarling faces of the djinns as they bore him aloft towards the darkly clouded horizon and the fearsome cyclones.
The Caliph reflected on his newly acquired title 'the Peacemaker', bestowed on him by the Imans of the Caliphate. Fond as he was of it, he felt it had not yet been truly earned. The Seljuks and Georgians, the Ghorids and Rajputs, all had seemed eager to negotiate and cease fighting.
These arrogant Romans and irascible Turks were a different matter altogether, and to truly live up to his new name he would have to drag them to the negotiating table one way or another.
He sighed deeply and went back to studying the larceny of the ants.
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