Scales of Gold (61 page)

Chapter 30

T
WO
DAYS AFTER
Gelis made her wager, the Wangara gold reached Timbuktu.

Unlike Diniz, Nicholas failed to rush to meet the camels as they lurched in from the wharf at Kabara, although he guessed what was happening. Since first light, he had been in the first-floor storerooms of the Qadi And-Agh-Muhammed, which were empty of gold but contained many books, some of which he wanted to study merely for the quality of their illustrations and the pigments they used. Their sources, being similar to those for his dyes, told him sometimes as much as the text about their age and their origin. He enjoyed patiently tracing the clues, and the words made him think, and kept other thoughts out.

When he heard the tambours rap in the streets, he thought of the other drumming he had heard in the night, signalling something of moment. And then the distant shouting outside had erupted into the yard of the caravanserai where he sat. After a while, he went out on the long, wooden balcony and looked down upon turmoil.

Solid in the midst of the running feet, the throwing open of great doors, the scurrying of servants and clerks stood the turbaned person of the old Tuareg, his son al-Mukhtar at his side. He looked up and saw Nicholas. ‘Hah! Is there gold coming, do you think, or has some mother-defiler spoiled the silent trade for a second time?’

‘How should I know?’ Nicholas said. ‘I suppose those men who are not blind will see the panniers coming, full or empty. Or those who were blind will see the panniers empty and know that they are thieves and debtors.’

‘You speak of these trifles?’ the merchant said. He lifted a string from his waist and waved the glittering thing at the end of it. ‘I hold you a thief and a liar. You said I would see. I see your face on the balcony, but I do not see my book. I would rather see my book.’

‘Then,’ said Nicholas, ‘you need two pairs of spectacles. I shall think about it, when I have seen whether you have gold or not.’ He waited, smiling, while the old man roared with laughter, plucking his turban and flinging his arms in the air.

It meant – that conversation – that the gold had arrived, and that his pact was remembered and honoured. It meant that he was as wealthy, or wealthier than he had been on the day he came back from Cyprus, provided the
San Niccolò
returned with her cargo. Provided the gold stayed secure until he returned from the mountains. Provided he returned from the mountains.

He did not go home immediately, but waited until the calls for prayer had ceased, and walked quietly through a city virtually silent except for the chatter of captive monkeys and the bad-tempered groan of camels tied in the shade. The rise and fall of murmuring voices warned him, in this lane or that, to give way to a group prone in prayer. When he passed the wall of the Grand Mosque, the Jingerebir, the sound from the thousands behind was like the resonance of a beehive, firm and steady and confident as the voices you heard, too, in San Marco. He arrived home, and opened the door of his chamber, still thinking, and found Umar standing there.

In Latin dress, Umar had always had a presence. He had more than that in the white garments and cap of the justiciar, pure against his black silken skin; moulding the power of his shoulders and body and arms. His face was as it had always been from the day he dived into the harbour at Sluys, and Nicholas first came face to face with him. He stood as if he had been waiting for some time.

Nicholas said, ‘You’re not at the mosque?’

‘No,’ said Umar. ‘They are thanking Allah for the safe acquisition of the gold.’

‘I see. Sit down,’ said Nicholas. He kept all sign of irritation out of his voice. ‘Sit down, Umar, and let me sit down too. You know I need the gold?’

Of course,’ Umar said. ‘Or you wouldn’t have come. You need this gold, yes. But you don’t need to leave now it’s here. You don’t need to find Prester John and come back with more. There are no rivers of gems. There is no miraculous mirror. You know that.’

‘There is Father Godscalc,’ said Nicholas. ‘I gave him a promise. I gave you a promise.’

Umar said, ‘I didn’t put you at risk of your life.’

‘I thought you did,’ Nicholas said. ‘Not, of course, over the slaves; but afterwards. It didn’t strike you, apparently, that you were the person I was concerned about. You believed I was
determined to find the mines at Wangara, and you misdirected me accordingly. It doesn’t matter. Except that now you think my whole object is to tap the wealth of Ethiopia, and you would like to misdirect me again, by telling me it doesn’t exist. That is not why I am going.’

Umar always sat well, his head up, his back straight, his hands now clasped in his lap. They were clasped so tightly his nails glittered pink-white. He said, ‘So how do I stop you?’

Nicholas tilted his head. ‘Several ways. Kill Father Godscalc.’

‘Do you think I am joking?’ said Umar. He raised his hands and lowered them slowly as fists on his knees. ‘Why should I do this? Why should I come here, knowing what you will say? Do you think I do not know you? You make promises, extravagant promises, in the hope of obliterating what you think are your mistakes. I did not, I do not deserve the promise you gave me. Now I know it; now I can tell you. You owe nothing either to the padre. He is a good man: his cause is good; he depends on you. But your own nature pushed you into making an undertaking that was senseless. Nicholas, you have a place in this world. Men will lose more if you die than they will ever gain if Father Godscalc reaches Ethiopia.’

Ending, he had leaned forward a little, his back rigid; his hands outspread on his thighs, Nicholas saw, to stop them trembling. Nicholas uprooted himself from his seat and took two strides away, and then made himself turn. He put both hands in his belt. ‘Two groats up on the ecu?’ he said.

‘That,’ said Loppe. Umar. ‘Money management, yes. Management of estates: I ran Kouklia, but you designed it. Management of a people, if one were to find a man wise enough to take you as his counsellor. Let me tell Father Godscalc. Let me tell him you must not go.’

‘Have you done that already?’ said Nicholas. He had spent the day in the grip of fear, and apprehension, and joy. Now he felt only pain.

‘No,’ said Umar. ‘He will say yes. He is half ready to say it already. If you withdraw, he will accept it.’

‘And go alone to his death,’ Nicholas said. ‘So that no Christians will come to or from Ethiopia.’

Umar rose too. The trembling had stopped. Nicholas looked him in the face, and saw what he had done. Umar said, ‘I am sorry. I see that of course you must go, and that it would not be right for anyone of my kind to stop you. But if you will allow – although I am not of your faith, and although I can give you no Christian safe conduct – if you will allow, I myself will come and guide you.’

Then Nicholas said, ‘No! No, I am sorry,’ and took a step forward, gripping Umar’s arm with his hand. Beneath his fingers, the flesh felt like wood. He said again, ‘No, I was unfair.’

He dropped his hand. He said, ‘I’m going with Godscalc; I must go. I understand, I think, what you’re saying. You may be right; I accept it. Another time, perhaps it could be different. But not this time. I must go. And of course, you mustn’t come with us. If you thought I had a place, yours is even more clear. Your place is here, with your people.’

‘It makes no difference,’ Umar said. ‘If you go, then so do I.’

‘No,’ said Nicholas. They stood facing one another and Umar’s face looked, he thought, hollow and weary, as if it had been the face of his own father or grandfather. He wondered if his own looked the same, and was swept with disgust.

He could think of nothing to add. Umar said, ‘How do you think you can stop me?’ Then he turned, and walked out of the house.

The gold was in the house by next day, thirteen camel-loads – four thousand pounds of it, enclosed in iron boxes with many locks which had once contained books, before they rotted. The next night, the Timbuktu-Koy gave a great banquet in the palace, so that all might rejoice over the safe return of the traders with their chief expedition safely accomplished. There would be more gold, diverted this time through Djenne, or other gathering-places. The white traders who had come from the sea had taken much of this load. But in return they had cowries, and promises, and whether the promises came to anything or not, they owned the twinkling moons, bright as diamonds, which none in Timbuktu had ever seen before, much less possessed, and which the greatest kings of the world would still gaze on in wonder. They had spectacles.

Umar did not come, as he usually did, to lead Godscalc and Gelis and Nicholas to the palace with the pomp of his full family retinue, and they made their way with their own servants, mounted for dignity’s sake, and attired in brilliant light silks. Gelis, unveiled, had dressed her hair in Italian style, winding it with the pearls she still had, and it shone like wheat, and hung before her ears like barley-husks. In return for his gifts, the Timbuktu-Koy had not been niggardly, and her arms clicked with heavy, smooth bracelets. Godscalc, too, had left behind his white gown and wore a caftan of silk, with a cap of the same colour on the pruned and tamed bulk of his hair.

Nicholas had tried, also, to choose a brocade worthy of the occasion, and his servant had wound and pinned a scarf of silk round his hair, and laid on his shoulders the necklace the Timbuktu-Koy had given him. Hung from it was a grey hollow
object which he understood to be a unicorn’s horn, and efficacious against almost everything. A week ago, he would have joked about it. Now, riding to the palace, he said nothing.

It had been a curious day. For the first time, clouds had hidden the sun, and by afternoon, the sky was livid and splashed with flickering light, which seemed to stream to the low yellow horizon. Sometimes, above the cheerful din of the streets, a low growl would be heard, as if a pride of lions were stalking the firmament. It was breathlessly hot: a few weeks hence, the sun would hold the city at the height of its thrall. Gelis looked up and said, ‘You will need to go soon.’

Since the gold had arrived, they had not spoken of what was to come. There had been enough to do, signing documents, making formal depositions, taking physical charge of the great weight of metal. At least, shod in iron, it wouldn’t be simple to steal. And Umar would see it was safe.

He hadn’t seen Umar since yesterday. He wondered if Umar had spoken to Godscalc, and whether that accounted for the priest’s heavy silence. That, or the inescapable reminder that mankind thought that gold was important. Or perhaps simply an accumulation of doubt over an adventure which had always seemed faintly unreal, and which now seemed quite plainly foolhardy.

They would see Umar at the palace. Nicholas hoped, with fervour, that the disagreement was dismissed and forgotten, and that Umar had abandoned his madness. If not, Nicholas wondered how he would prevent the other from coming, short of hurting him. He would probably have to hurt him.

Gelis said, ‘For a rich man, you look very bleak. It may not rain after all. How lucky that you mended the fountains.’

Tonight, the whole of the palace had been opened, with all its chambers, courtyards and pools, all its flat roofs and its balconies. Lamplit flowers, sickly with scent, poured and clambered over the pillars, and incense smoked in the pavilions where tasselled cushions were heaped on the benches. The cloths which hung from the walls were magenta and purple and gold, and occasionally sewn from the skins of spotted cats of the hunting variety. The floor-tiles had been swept, although grass grew in petty wisps where the cracks were. The sound of water, in spray and in movement, could be heard everywhere.

‘Now they have a water engineer,’ Gelis said, ‘all they need is a really good manager. Why doesn’t Umar take it in hand?’

‘Why don’t you?’ Nicholas said. ‘It will give you something to do.’ He had been given a cup, and was sipping from it.

‘I told you,’ she said. ‘I’ve begun learning Arabic. That’s fermented.’

‘I know. Would you like some?’

He found himself under close scrutiny. She said, ‘Oh, dear. That’s why you were so quiet on the journey?’

‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Drink, I’m told, usually makes me rather noisy. Are you sure you wouldn’t like some?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not celebrating. You don’t look as if you’re celebrating either. I suppose I don’t blame you. Do you have to go?’

He said, ‘I’ve only just come.’

‘To the Fountain of Youth.’

‘Just another irrigation job,’ Nicholas said. He was slightly taken aback to discover quite how much he had had to drink. He said, ‘I’m not worried. Not about that. Let’s go and find some sheep’s eyes.’

‘Then about what?’ she said. They were standing in one of the corridors and all the other revellers had passed them by.

It seemed likely she would find out. He said, ‘Umar and I disagreed. I shall find him, and all will be well.’

‘Will it?’ she said. ‘I don’t know all that many people who can tackle Umar sober and alter his mind. What about? Ethiopia?’

‘No,’ he said. He saw Zuhra walking towards them with her frizzled hair grooved and pleated, and gold earrings the size of thick golden buckets suspended on either side of her headband. He deduced that Zuhra’s family had dressed her for today: she wore a long tunic made of silks and all the rest of her bracelets, which presumably represented her dowry. In spite of it all, she looked lovely. He felt embarrassment for Umar, and then resentment, and then the pain he had felt before.

Umar was not with his future wife, or at least not the Umar who had been Loppe. Walking beside Zuhra was the youth of the same name, the Timbuktu-Koy’s son. He was pestering her. At the same moment, Zuhra saw Nicholas. Her face stiffened.

It occurred to Nicholas that it was no pleasure, being extremely rich. He took a single, cowardly step to one side. Gelis said, ‘That’s Muhammed ben Idir’s son. Damn him, look what he’s doing!’ She looked round. ‘You’re not going to let him?’

Nicholas, now four paces away, said, ‘He’ll stop now.’ Behind him, the corridor led to a garden pavilion and freedom.