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By Root 2754 0

learned to know that night. He, who had seen his father in Bruges cast into the fire the ledgers that contained all his hopes, that night in Timbuktu broke through door after blistered door, their metal patterns red-hot and spitting and smoking, and, ignoring the burning books, the priceless, curling scrolls, the smoking vellum, rescued the people. Not the scholars, who were quick to comprehend, and fit, and able to act, but the others: the households of servants and their families; the grooms asleep behind the plunging mules in the stables; the elderly, lost and bewildered in smoke-darkened rooms. And gradually, as the streets and houses were cleared, the flames began to hesitate at the ditches and to shrink under the onslaught of water. White steam became mixed with the smoke, and the hissing of water with the crackling growl of the fire. It was being contained.

Nicholas had suffered all this before, long ago, on a hill-top fortress in Cyprus. Then, the blaze had been intentionally started. He knew, as if he had been told, what kind of part Akil had played in all this: half deliberate, half experimental. As his work slackened and he could think, it became clear to Nicholas that it would not be possible to bring the commander to book; that the Koy was not strong enough to deal with the crisis this would evoke. As the fire had been contained, so must be its repercussions. As he worked, Nicholas began to talk to the people about him.

It was over by dawn. By dawn, a quarter of the city had gone, but the rest had been saved. By dawn, Nicholas in the Ma’ Dughu, with the Katib Musa and the members of all the great houses, had drawn the commander Akil ag Malwal before the young Koy and with determined voices had defined the mistake, reduced the disaster to an event which would not happen again, and for which there were both remedies and compensation. No one there was in any condition to say more, nor should more have been said.

They dispersed, having arranged to meet in due course. But meantime, no retribution would be wreaked. The breach had been closed, at the expense of twenty lives and a suburb destroyed.

‘But it will happen again,’ Umar said, in the house of crying babies and frightened wife to which he had taken Nicholas to bathe his blisters and rest. Even with the shutters fast closed, the acrid smoke crept into the room, so that he ended the words with a cough. His hands and face, too, were grey with scorching.

Nicholas said, ‘They managed well. They will do better if it happens again. And there is time to rebuild before the rains. How could Akil be so stupid? Their trade disrupted, their precious books lost, and the young Koy ready to be provoked by every challenge.’ He broke off. ‘Oh, Christ God, the books.’

‘Do you wish you had saved them?’ said Umar. He stood, his face masked in the creams Zuhra had smoothed on his skin, his burned hands hanging loose. He was not looking at Nicholas.

It was the tone that made Nicholas look up. Seated on the low bed, his head bent, his hands dropped between his knees, he had been thinking of the two libraries he had seen and known, their contents now ashes. Now, his senses quickened, he listened to Umar’s voice. He said, ‘You would have put them first? Before ordinary people?’

‘I have put them first,’ Umar said. ‘The jurists, the scholars, the libraries. Is that not why I came back? Of course, I thought, they cannot always be saved. Of course, disasters occur. Teachers are killed, schools destroyed, books unhappily burned. But properly nurtured, the tradition of learning continues.’

He broke off. He said, ‘If, that is, one is not forced to make the choice that you made tonight. When such a thing happens, one man cannot be expected to save both people and books.’

‘Umar?’ Nicholas said. He rose, but without coming closer. He said, ‘Do you think I don’t know why you have done what you have?’

Umar faced him. There was nothing comic about the daubs of white on his brow and cheekbones and nose, on either side of which his eyes shone, black and white. He looked fierce, like a witch