Umar said, ‘What?’ He was breathing quickly.
‘Those bastards!’ Vito said. ‘They wanted to take Messer Niccolò off! You left me no weapons, you know you left me nothing to defend him with? And then the governor’s men came in and stopped them. I thought they’d killed you all at the least.’
‘No,’ said Umar. ‘But Ser Niccolò? Is he worse?’
‘He is not better,’ said the physician, entering decorously. ‘But he suffered less, perhaps, in his delusions than you did in reality. It would be as well, however, if he were not moved again. Tonight may be crucial.’
‘Tonight,’ Umar said, ‘you shall have weapons, and I shall watch with the rest at the gate. Although now we should be safe.’
Godscalc said, ‘It was our fault, for demanding to go. It might have helped had you told us the dangers.’
‘I did not know Akil was back,’ Umar said. ‘He would have heard, and tried to come for you anyway. It would not have happened if your audience had taken place. Will you sit with Nicholas? There should be someone there through the night.’
‘Of course,’ Godscalc said.
‘And here’s Gelis,’ said Bel. ‘She’ll spell you.’
Godscalc drew breath to object, and then paused. After a long time he said, ‘Yes. Let her sit with him. Unless she is frightened.’
‘Not of that,’ Gelis said.
It was doubtful whether, in fact, Nicholas in his delusions had suffered less. He had very little recollection of being dragged out of bed, or of the clash of factions which resulted in his being restored to it, after a vertiginous period during which people kept trying to rouse him with questions. Since he could neither understand them nor parry them, it was as well, in a way, that his answers were confined to quite different enigmas which vexed him.
What transpired was a rambling dissertation of little interest to Tuaregs or Berbers, especially since it was conducted in French. His everyday language might be Flemish, but in time of distress it was the tongue of his mother he spoke. He spoke it all through the night when first Godscalc, and then Gelis, sat at his side. Towards morning, the fever broke once again into drenching sweats, and Gelis called the physician, and gave him her place at the bedside.
When he invited her to return, she found the sheets and mattress renewed, and Nicholas, sponged and freshened and folded into a dry cotton bedgown, laid back flat as a doll on his pillows. The doctor said, ‘It is the end, you understand, the end of the fever? There will be much sleep, and to drink, and eat sparingly. Now it is safe: you can leave him.’ He patted her shoulder. ‘You are tired.’
He looked tired himself. The lamp flickered, competing with the light of dawn around the edge of the window. She said, ‘Soon,’ and smiled, and, thanking him, ushered him out. Then, crossing the room, she stood by the shutters and opened them.
A cock crew, the sort of sound you heard anywhere, and a child cried. A camel swayed down the lane, a boy on its back flicking his stick, first on one side, then on the other. On the roof of the house opposite, a vulture was sitting. Nicholas said in a doubtful voice, ‘I am sorry. Who is it?’
She turned, and came back to the lamplight. Against the light, with her hair unbound, she must have seemed strange. She sat on the bed-edge and looked at him. Through the night, as never before, she had had leisure to study him. Wringing out the cloths for his neck and his brow, freeing the hair from his eyes, supporting his head to offer him water, she had measured his shape, his size and his weight; formed an opinion of the capable hands; considered the traits which had produced the broad, straight lines on his brow, the sunny lines by the eyes and the others, dimples at present, which one day would deepen and alter his face.
It was altered already, by the deprivation of the last weeks, as well as by illness. He was not old enough to reflect strain as Godscalc did, whose large frame appeared hollow, and whose joints became knobs. Nicholas emerged from adversity concentrated in essence, like a nestling firmed into maturity. It was misleading. Listening to him, as she had listened all night, she did not think he had ever been immature, or a nestling. She did not want to talk to him now.
He had recognised her. He said, ‘Have you been here all night?’
‘And Father Godscalc. It was Bel’s idea,’ she said.
‘Was it interesting?’ he said.
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. ‘Yes,’ she said.
He said nothing, but kept his eyes open. ‘Go to sleep,’ she said shortly.
He said, ‘I thought you wanted to tell me what secrets I gave away.’
‘Nothing I didn’t guess,’ Gelis said. She blew out the lamp and rose from his bedside.
‘Nothing? My good God,’ he said. His eyes were still open.
‘Or very little. I knew you had a child by Katelina,’ she said. ‘The son that Simon thinks is his. Godscalc knows.’
‘Godscalc and Tobie,’ he said. ‘Tobie, my doctor. My other doctor. One of my other doctors. If you tell Simon it’s mine, he will kill it.’
‘It? I thought it was a son. You don’t want Katelina’s son?’ she said.
His eyes were pale grey, with hairline pleats of darker grey round the iris. He said, but not immediately, ‘I prefer a quiet life.’
Elsewhere in the house, people were rousing. She heard voices, and footsteps. The night was over, and there had been no attack. She observed, ‘You nearly had a very unquiet life yesterday morning. The governor and the garrison commander were fighting over you.’
He said, ‘I remember being sick over someone. Who won?’
‘Umar,’ she said.
‘Umar,’ he repeated. She saw that, for the moment, he was too deadened by weakness to think. He said, ‘I don’t even know where I am.’
‘Timbuktu,’ she said.
‘And who is Umar?’ he asked. His voice was fractured; he had been hoarse for some hours, but hardly seemed to be aware of it. She hesitated.
The door had opened so quietly that she hadn’t heard it. Lopez was standing just inside. Lopez. Umar. He remained standing until Nicholas noticed him. Neither spoke. Gelis held her breath.
Unable this time to dissemble, the invalid on the mattress lay still, except for his altering face. His instinctive emotion, Gelis thought, had been fear.
The silence stretched. Then Nicholas dragged himself up on one elbow. ‘Now I remember,’ he said. His pale skin was livid.
‘Leave, please,’ said Umar, without looking round.
She had no need to stay. She knew what Nicholas felt about Lopez. She knew what Nicholas felt about a great many people, but especially about Katelina.
She hadn’t needed the ravings of Nicholas to tell her that Katelina’s body and hers were alike. Alike, of course, except that hers was intact, while Katelina’s had enjoyed lover, husband, maternity. Except that she was alive, and Katelina was dead. She didn’t want to hear what happened between Nicholas and a man who only made believe to be dead.
As she opened the door, she saw Umar walk forward in his spotless robe and white cap, and abruptly drop to his knees like a servant. She heard Nicholas speak. Nicholas said, ‘How dare you. How dare you do what you have done.’
The violence of it stayed in her mind as she left. She could not imagine feeling such rage, had Katelina come back.
Chapter 27
THE EFFECT OF THE collision between Nicholas and Lopez was unexpected. Instead of being thrown back into fever Nicholas stayed, entrenched and determined, on the high ground to which temper had propelled him, and the vitality he had lost came flooding back.
The same might have been said of Lopez. The explosion over, the familiar figure, broad and black and reserved, emerged as if from limbo to speak and act once again as he had always done. As if, with Nicholas there, he need have no fear of misrepresentation, even if he had neither approval nor support. Even Diniz, with his vaunted insight, could not fully understand what had happened, and Gelis, when unobserved, wore an expression of doubt. Bel said, ‘What is i
t sin-eaters do?’
‘Never mind,’ Godscalc answered. Recently, they had spent some time together, but neither had spoken of, or to, Gelis.
On the afternoon of that same day, Nicholas had asked them all to come to his room and delivered a statement in a low, restored voice. Propped up by pillows, he had denounced Loppe as the murderer in spirit, if not in fact, of Doria and his men, and Jorge da Silves and his. As Godscalc had not done, he also recounted Loppe’s reasons.
‘To me, the grounds for killing these men were insufficient,’ he ended. ‘By his lights, they were not. In any case, you might say, it happened; it is over; and, now the motive has been removed, it will not happen again. The deaths that occurred on the ship and on the journey would have taken place anyway. We might have fared a great deal worse had we not been given Saloum, who is absent because … Umar … wished us to understand that Saloum deserved none of the blame. Umar did not see fit to advise us of the character of Timbuktu, or of his standing here, because he was committed to deceiving us about Wangara. The secret of Wangara being safe, he is willing to rejoin us now, and to guide us through the trade we have come to effect, and to help us on the next stage of our journey, if we want him. I don’t know whether I do. You are here to make your voice known. Have I been fair?’ He looked, unsmiling, at Umar, who had been Loppe.
‘No,’ said Umar. ‘But it is your language, and your standards, and your company.’
‘Then make your own case,’ Nicholas said. ‘You are, I hear, a jurist.’
‘I should not presume,’ Umar said. He, too, looked sombre.
Diniz said, ‘We’ve come a long way. We need help. We couldn’t even go back.’ He thought. ‘He provided this house, and looked after Nicholas, and protected us from that bastard Akil. But will he let us buy gold?’
‘Yes,’ said Umar. ‘This is a legitimate market. It is the silent trade and the mines you are debarred from. As has been said, I have no reason to deceive or hinder you now.’
His gaze, as he spoke, was on Godscalc. He had made no plea; said nothing of all he had done for them in the past in Cyprus, in Trebizond – even, so Godscalc had been told, on the homecoming entry to Venice. Godscalc knew, from personal experience or hearsay, more than anyone present but Nicholas about Umar ibn Muhammad al-Kaburi, linguist, colleague, protector, singer of Gregorian chants.
The thought led to another. Godscalc said slowly, ‘The next stage of our journey?’ Umar looked away.
Nicholas said, ‘I promised I’d take you to Prester John. Perhaps you don’t want to go.’
Gelis said, ‘Father?’
Godscalc looked at her. She said, ‘God himself would not ask it. Surely it is enough to have reached as far as we have.’
‘Child,’ said Bel. ‘They’re talking of the way to the East. That’s always been what the game was about and, being men, they’re not for rushing to change it until it’s changed for them. So we need help. So we need help whether we go on or go back. So yes, I agree to accept Umar’s offer. So does Diniz, you’ve heard. So, once she gets her senses in order, will Gelis. I don’t know what way the padre will vote, but that’s a majority. Umar, what will it cost you?’
He said, ‘No more than I am willing to pay. Nicholas has not voted yet.’
‘I don’t need to,’ said Nicholas, reopening his eyes. ‘You have a majority. Welcome, Umar, Timbuktu agent of the Casa Niccolò, Venice. Father, will you stay behind, please?’
They all rose. Godscalc said, ‘I could come back in an hour.’
‘Don’t you want to get it over with?’ Nicholas said. The others left. Godscalc reseated himself and set his hands on his knees.
Nicholas said, ‘Who else have you shown them to?’
Godscalc said nothing, in a cloud of belligerence. Had he been a lesser man he would have cursed.
Nicholas said, ‘You knew I would write down my orders. I did it before. Who else have you shown them to? Gelis?’
‘No,’ Godscalc said. ‘If you see a change in Gelis, it is not due to that. You know she sat with you last night?’
‘At Bel’s suggestion,’ Nicholas said. ‘What did I say?’
‘The truth,’ Godscalc said. ‘It is not a bad thing to have out in the open. I cannot tell you whether Gelis is less your enemy than she was: you took her by surprise, I should guess, and she has much to consider. I showed your notes to Bel, not to Gelis. She won’t talk of your plans.’
‘Except, no doubt, to me. I could have wished you had waited,’ said Nicholas.
‘For your nurses to find them? Or Lopez? You addressed the packet to me,’ Godscalc said. ‘And I haven’t shown it to Diniz. That, I take it, is what you really want to find out.’
‘You don’t approve,’ Nicholas said.
Godscalc thought. He said, ‘Surprisingly, I think that I do. It would be easier if we knew what was happening at home.’
Remote though he seemed, Nicholas laughed. He said, ‘Bring in your brushes and write these words in gold on that wall. Or read the minds of Simon and David de Salmeton for me.’
A day later, he left his bed and moved restlessly through the house, and Gelis avoided him. Two days later, he rose at sunrise and, dressed in a robe Umar had brought him, walked into the courtyard where the others awaited him with the horses. He walked steadily, because they were watching him. It was too soon, perhaps, but he was no longer prepared to tolerate the perpetual confinement, the perpetual guard.
Approached, the governor had agreed to receive Niccolò vander Poele of Venice and his party of traders in formal audience at the Ma’ Dughu, the palace of the Timbuktu-Koy on the western edge of the city that morning. It was time, and more than time.
They rode there enclosed by their retinue: Diniz in figured silk and draped hat, Godscalc in fine priestly wool and the women veiled in thin tissues. They had ceased, now, to be surprised that such things could be procured. They knew, because Nicholas had demanded to know, the essential facts about Timbuktu, which for centuries had been no more than an oasis above the flood-plain of the Joliba, where merchandise from the north might be transferred from camel to boat, and bartered for the produce of rainforest and river. The trade in salt and gold had come later, and forced the Tuaregs who engaged in it to seek a secure place for their stores, and for the caravanserais where merchants and dealers could stay. So the city was founded, and for 350 years had grown and flourished.
In isolation. A man from Bruges or Venice or Lisbon, each with its flourishing hinterland, could only wonder that such a thing could be possible: that a crossroads occupied by a dozen races on the edge of the desert could become a centre of wealth; and although never a city-state, could contrive to rule its own destiny.
Nominally, Timbuktu had had several overlords, and once had belonged to the kingdom of Mali. Few princes troubled to visit it often. When Mali weakened, the Tuaregs had seized control once again, but for thirty years had been content to rove the Sahel and the Sahara, leaving the day-to-day labour of ruling to the present excellent Timbuktu-Koy, who paid himself a third of the tax levied from rich traders. The other two-thirds were the privilege of the garrison lord and his army.
They had met this man, the Tuareg Lord Akil. The Timbuktu-Koy, said Umar, was an old man, Muhammed ben Idir, who had been clever enough over many years to keep control of the city, and prevent Akil from interfering on his sudden descents. The Koy’s son and natural successor was a young man with a young man’s impatience who, it could only be hoped, would prove as cunning. They would be offered food and drink after the audience, and might partake, even the ladies. In Timbuktu, Umar said, the segregation of women (except for business) was not insisted on.
The Ma’ Dughu was the palace seen once by Nicholas in his fever. Now, mounting the steps between the palms and the acacias, he knew it was not a dream of his, but of the great King of Mali who, proceeding to Mecca with a fortune of gold sufficient to destabilise the entire Egyptian market, had brought back with him from Cairo the architect Al-Tuwaihnin
who had caused a new mosque and a new Alhambra to rise in the desert, its materials brought stone by stone on camelback from the north.
Over the hundred years that had passed, the sun and the climate had distorted the dream. The marble steps of the Ma’ Dughu were broken and warm to the foot, and while the snowy air from the Sierra Nevada was blowing cool through the halls of Granada, the dust of the harmattan blasted the fine onyx pillars in Timbuktu, and scoured the carvings and stucco-work in its corridors, so that the bands of Koranic writing were half-erased by dust and by light. Light pounced like a lion through the vaults and arcades of the Ma’ Dughu and hung shimmering over courtyards sprawling with flowers where the pools were half full of sand, and creepers drooped from the tiles.
Only the hall of ceremony was cool, for trees shaded its walls, and deeply carved doors admitted the emissaries of Venice and Portugal from the leafy dusk of a garden.
Inside was another dusk, made of gold. Gelis drew in her breath, and even Nicholas stopped for a moment, so that Umar, leading them, checked and looked back. Then they moved between silent men into the chamber, sixty feet long, that the architect Al-Tuwaihnin had built a hundred years before for the King of Mali, and which his master’s successors had been pleased to adorn with the wealth of their city.
The carved ceiling might once have been painted, but it was the soiled gold of its leaf-work that glimmered down on them now, matched by the darkened gold of the plates on the wall, within which candles burned, revealing the hung skins and cracked tiles behind them. Gold touched the running bands of calligraphy – austere Cufic, and sensuous cursive – which, blemished and stuttering, proclaimed Allah alone is Conqueror along every wall.
But the massy blaze which drew the eye to the end of the room came from the dais, draped in silks, upon which stood a gold chair occupied by a bearded man, half Negro, half Berber, wearing a great golden headdress and jewelled robe and surrounded by gold-accoutred soldiers, and by younger, unarmed men who might have been his sons. Behind the chair stood two children, black and naked, each stirring the air with a great, long-stemmed plume of white ostrich feathers, and beside it lay three beautiful hounds, wearing bells and collars of gold.