Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [197]
‘Was Nicholas there?’ Gelis had said.
‘Yes,’ said Godscalc. ‘It was Nicholas who found out the professors were traders. He stayed behind to look at some goods.’ His voice was sour. It conveyed a disappointment that Gelis saw reflected more sorely in Umar. Umar had thrown open the casements of Timbuktu’s spiritual wealth, and Nicholas had responded, as ever, to the dulcet call of personal profit.
Bel said, ‘What do you expect? With what he has on his shoulders, he doesna want to sit down and speir whether Moses lived before Homer.’
‘I see that,’ Gelis said. ‘He prefers to sit down and mend pumps. Pumps don’t argue.’
The next day, she found a teacher who would instruct her in Arabic, and thereafter visited him daily. The lesson lasted an hour, and she spent it poring over a washed wooden tablet, learning to recite the Fatiha alongside thirty-two black pequeninos, none of them aged over six. She felt ill with excitement.
The salt caravan arrived just before March. Diniz heard of it first, and burst in among them, his face blazing. Nicholas was carving a puzzle. He said, ‘Well, you know what will happen. The merchants go to deal, and the camels unload in the appropriate storehouses. Then they return to the abaradiou to rest and wait with their drovers. Until the storehouses are full, we do nothing.’
‘We could go and look,’ Diniz said.
‘We could,’ Nicholas said. ‘The traders would assume us to be rivals.’
‘Jorge’s whistle,’ remarked Bel. It had become a team-word for doom-laden tactics. It didn’t stop Diniz from borrowing robes and, convincingly turbaned, trotting a mule to the north of the city and going to see for himself.
It was not one of the largest caravans: not the ten-thousand-beast azalai of May, but there were more than a thousand animals in it, swaying in with slabs of salt on each flank, and the drovers trudging between them. The smell, the groans of the camels, the shrill cries of the men from the haze of sand that surrounded them were as thrilling as if every animal had been loaded with gold.
And they were. They virtually were. He would have stayed longer, except that his looks and his youth attracted attention. He let the traders dismount, and walk to meet their fellows ahead of him. He was setting off quietly home when he was stopped by a hand on his reins.
It belonged to a soldier whose blue headcloth concealed all but the bridge of his nose and his eyes – not one of the bodyguard of the Timbuktu-Koy, but a man of the Tuareg chief Akil ag Malwal. There were four of them, and their master rode up before them, his knives at his knee, his gazelle shield slung behind by his quiver.
The commander Akil said, ‘So modest, lord! One would think – we are honoured – that you wished to be taken for one of us. May I assist you?’ His moustached and pitted face was unveiled.
There was no interpreter, but the man had used simple Arabic. Aided by anger, Diniz scraped together what fragments he had. He said, ‘When one trades, one wears the dress of a trader. I am here only for pleasure. I wished to see a sight unique in the world.’
Akil replied with elaborate courtesy. ‘I hear you, but alas, my poor brain cannot distinguish your words. Is your master, who speaks Tamashagh, not here to interpret?’
‘I am my own master,’ said Diniz. ‘My lord Niccolò, if you seek him, is at his lodging.’
‘No doubt. It was Umar ibn Muhammad I spoke of,’ said Akil blandly. ‘But now, as I recall, he claimed to have no control over you either. The girl pleases you?’
Diniz stared.
‘I sent you a girl, and another to the lord Niccolò. The Timbuktu-Koy requested it. He has many daughters to protect, and soldiers’ whores make good slaves. But I detain you. I have a packet for you, addressed to the lord Niccolò. Perhaps you will convey it to him, with my compliments? It came with the caravan.’
‘With … A missive from the north, for the lord Niccolò?’ Diniz said. He began by speaking quickly, and slowed. A soldier was unpacking a satchel.