Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [142]
It looked in fair condition for an object brought two thousand miles for this purpose. The King, already erect and rustling forward at the sight of the horse, exclaimed and chortled with pleasure when the pavilion was spread and explained to him. Then Nicholas presented him with his spectacles.
When the platters of food began to arrive, Gnumi Mansa would have them taken nowhere else but the new tent where, lenses glinting, he sat in state with his chiefs, flanked by Saloum, Loppe and Ahmad, Nicholas and Jorge, and the other seven white men from the ship. Godscalc did his duty as well as he could, thrusting his hands into bowls of rice and maize and stiff breads, of improbable fish and melting fruits and unwieldy meats including, he suspected, the component parts of several dogs; and duly exclaiming with rapture over a dish of cooked elephant. His fingers, his robe and his chin all became unavoidably greasy and his throat ached as he conversed as well as any man could against the uproar of the King’s feasting subjects outside.
The liquor, when it came, was all the more welcome, although it proved to be no juice of the grape but the yeasty stuff Diniz had already described, made from the sap of the palm tree, and with the appearance and flavour of whey. He was mildly thankful, draining his gourd, that along with fresh wafers he would be able to provide a flask or two of something more seemly for the Mass he was to hold, it had been agreed, tomorrow morning.
Nicholas, settling beside him said, ‘Diniz was right. It’s strong wine, Father.’
‘I had already decided,’ said Godscalc. ‘Not at all suitable for the altar, although I shall have to draw on your stocks to give a sip to the numbers of communicants that our Muslim friend seems to have conjured up from this community of raging recidivists.’
He stopped, wiped his lips, and continued. ‘I still cannot understand how such a thing came about. One moment, the King was fit, I swear, to kill the lot of us; and the next, Saloum the marabout had not only pleaded our cause, but exhorted the company to manifest its adherence to the Christian tenet.’ He knuckled his chest and repeated, ‘Manifest.’
‘Saloum owes his freedom to you,’ Nicholas said. ‘He and the King both recognise it.’
‘But his beliefs!’ Godscalc said. ‘Were I saved fifty times over, I could not have repaid my rescuer by damning the souls of my flock; by ordering them to embrace heresy, for so the Christian religion must appear to him.’
‘It happened: why worry?’ Nicholas said. ‘Gnumi Mansa—’
‘Henry,’ said Godscalc. He kept his eyes open.
‘Henry Mansa wants the good opinion of the Portuguese and only needed to be reassured that you weren’t shocked by his respect for Saloum, or by any small disarray in his Christian practices. They’ve even brought out some goods to barter – a piece of civet and some half-dozen skins, and a sack of malaguetta in the pod. The visit is a success.’ He stirred, as if about to get up and leave, but was prevented by the appearance of a young, brightly robed woman with pleated hair who stooped smiling before them with a dish of wild dates.
Godscalc found two or three and let her pass; the girl was one of a dozen, all charmingly dressed and gold-adorned, whose sole task had been to serve the King and his guests. Godscalc stared at the dates in his palm and spoke to the man beside him with sluggish bitterness. ‘Why do you lie to me? I have been spared out of gratitude. I am allowed to say Mass out of gratitude, and commercial expediency. And the marabout feels no embarrassment because none of it is genuine. They are no longer Christians, and when I have gone, they will revert to whatever state they have lived in since the abbot departed. Tell me I am wrong!’
‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. Loppe would know,’ Nicholas said, ‘if you think it worth asking him. I’d prefer Jorge, I must