Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [209]
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,