Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [236]
Dead and dying, the unfortunate men had no money and no possessions and, indeed, might not have been identified as Tuareg except that it was a Friday, and someone from upriver came into the mosque, where the bodies had been laid out to keep them out of the rain, although the walls had begun to dissolve, and the straw of the roof had seen better days.
But it could be seen, of course, that the community’s intentions were good, and messages had been sent off straight away, and straight away answered. They were ordered to carry the two corpses immediately towards Timbuktu, from which city great (and generous) men were setting out already to meet them.
A man and a woman couldn’t travel as quickly as drumbeats. Umar brought men and camels and – in eternal hope – a physician; he and Gelis raced with them down the side of the shallow, rock-strewn, inimical river until they heard the sounds of chanting and horns, and saw the drift of men and women and children strolling cheerfully towards them, with a herd of goats, a hump-backed ox, and two litters.
Umar swung himself down, ignoring the greetings, the people pressing around him, laughing and singing. He used his shoulders to push through the crowd to the litters. A goat stood astride one.
Gelis got down more slowly, and didn’t come forward as Umar drew back the first rain-sodden blanket.
Beneath it was what had been the vigorous bulk of Godscalc of Cologne. The eyes in the misshapen face were intact, and were open. Umar looked down. Godscalc said, ‘He is not dead.’
His eyes had not changed, nor his lips moved. The words, in Flemish, were nothing but breath. Umar said, ‘I hear you. Dear friend, I have you under my hand, and I thank your God and mine.’ Then, answering some pleading in the open eyes, he turned to the other.
He knew, by then, that Gelis had run forward and had knelt beside Godscalc and that the physician, too, had forced his way through. He kept his back to the girl, and unfolded the cloth, soaked with blood, that lay over Nicholas. He heard the doctor’s voice, speaking gently to Godscalc, and then felt Gelis behind him. Her eyes were turned away. She said, ‘Tell me.’
Umar looked down, unspeaking. He touched the cold skin.
There seemed nothing familiar about the bloodless face, turned to one side, its saucer eyes closed and pushed about by blackened pillows of flesh, scored with white contusions, so that the eyelashes stuck out at unnatural angles. Half his face was raw and marbled, like meat on a stall, and his swollen lips were stuck fast together. Nicholas could not have spoken, even if the bloody mess of his body was an illusion; even if he had been alive. Then Umar saw a shadow move, small as a mite on the torn flesh of the neck, and then a bead of fresh blood.
He said, ‘He is alive, but …’ He stopped, for the physician pushed him aside. Umar rose.
Gelis said, ‘But?’
The doctor said, ‘I can do nothing here. We must take them back quickly. The camel-litters are steady.’
‘But?’ said Gelis again. Her skin was so pale it looked dead.
‘But?’ said the physician testily. ‘But I do not know if either will survive the journey. As it is, this one should not be alive.’
He was referring to Nicholas. Umar thought, as he stepped forward to take the weight of the strapping, how many people had said that of Nicholas, through all his brief life. And he wondered whether it was by their wish or his own, that this had happened. Some of the hostility Nicholas generated had been his own fault, but not all. It was a heavy burden for a man to carry unless he were very sure of himself, and Umar doubted whether Nicholas had ever been as sure as he seemed. That was – that had been – his saving grace.
Chapter 34
SEPTEMBER CAME TO an end, and no long procession of bearers left the Metropolis of Negroland to journey south-west to the sea with the possessions of Nicholas vander Poele, Gelis van Borselen and Father Godscalc