Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [208]
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