Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [262]
Nicholas said, ‘Christ! I know who he is.’
‘Be quiet,’ said Umar, but smiling. The fat man walked over to Umar and Nicholas, stopped, and flung out his arms.
He cried, ‘Lords! May Allah be praised! You have arrived! You ask who I am? Lords, I am Jilali, humble brother of your servant Abderrahman ibn Said, here only to welcome and serve you. You will eat at my house! Good liquor, and rice and fine camel flesh! And then you shall show me what you have brought.’
‘Layer-pasty,’ said Umar, but in a murmur. ‘Nicholas? You promised me layer-pasty?’
Then and in the day that followed, they saw all they wished of Taghaza, place of salt and gold and starvation.
The greatest buildings in it were the bullion warehouses and the caravanserai, and the patched-up walls which surrounded it for security. The other erections were low, for salt collapses under its own weight, and all the dwellings and mosques in Taghaza were formed of salt-bricks, and the flat roofs were covered with camel-skins.
So Taghaza sparkled and glittered and blazed, set upon its acres of empty white sand. And year after year, the caravans arrived and departed, bringing gold and carrying salt to the south for the Negroland people who craved it. And the other caravans came from the north, and took the gold away, and brought back silk for Timbuktu, and pestles and cooking-pots and food for the miners, and sometimes cloth for their tents.
The day they arrived, Nicholas had first set eyes on the tents, thick as cysts, clustered round the black lips of the underground salt mines. And emerging from the caverns at dusk, an ant-crawl of Negroes, each with a basket of slabs on his head. It was not gold which was found in the nests of ants as big as cats; it was salt.
‘It is a sight worth seeing once,’ had said the brother of ibn Said cheerfully that evening, pushing steaming bowls under their noses. Jilali was pleased: Nicholas had brought him a fine gift of civet. ‘But there is no need to return: we who deal here are happy to act for you. There are troubles. You were asked for a toll on the way? The Sanhaja like to charge a ducat per camel: bare-faced robbery. And the slaves you have seen. None but the blacks can work in this heat, but they last only two years. The wind is excessive; the wind blinds them. You are enjoying the drink?’
Nicholas spoke, in the face of Umar’s silence. ‘It is remarkable. I have tasted fermented millet before, but not this.’
‘Rice,’ said Jilali ibn Said. ‘It is good after a long journey such as yours, even if you have to resume it tomorrow. And it puts energy into the miners. It makes them happy, so that they will go and cut the difficult salt, for the white always fetches the best price. You know your Timbuktu merchant will buy five hundred slabs at a time? And if he stores double that, and waits for the price to increase, he can make such a profit! I have known one man make a thousand gold mithqals a season. You brought no gold yourselves?’
‘The katib is not trading,’ said Nicholas. ‘And no, I have none but gold for the journey.’
‘I happened to see,’ said Jilali. ‘But books, that is excellent. Forgive me, but my lord could have brought more books had he not packed so much of small value. The weaving in Timbuktu is naïve, and the carvings remind me of those made by children.’
‘They were made by children,’ Nicholas said. ‘I am desolate to suggest it, but with such a journey behind and before, the katib and I find ourselves in great need of sleep. Would it offend you and your household if we retired?’
‘How could you think it?’ said the merchant. ‘It is the rice wine. And tomorrow we must set forth, for the caravan departs, as I have said. You know I can take you only so far as Sijilmasa?’
‘You have said,’ Nicholas said.
‘But my brother Mustapha will guide you from there. Sijilmasa is a metropolis! It will amaze you! And travelling there, by the grace of Allah, I shall have three good weeks or four in my lord’s company. Such an honour!’
The chamber they were given to sleep in was unlit and