Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [263]
Nicholas groaned. ‘Come with me!’
Umar laughed a little, to show he understood. Here at Taghaza was where he turned back. He could not do so at once: there was as yet no caravan travelling south, so he must wait till one gathered. Meanwhile, the camels could rest. All the camels Nicholas possessed were now Umar’s and, sold at home, would bring him the worth of a hundred slabs of salt each. Being well enough off, Umar had protested, but only at first. To continue at once to Sijilmasa was beyond the beasts, worn as they were. It was bad enough that Nicholas had to do it.
‘No. I’m glad,’ Nicholas replied, when he said so. ‘It’s best to be quick. I wish I could see you leaving as soon as you’re ready. There are so few going south.’
‘To Timbuktu,’ Umar said. ‘But if I can’t find a caravan going there, I’ll get one soon enough for Walata. Send me word from Oran.’
‘And you, too,’ Nicholas said. ‘About everything. Will it be another Zuhra?’
‘There can only be one,’ said Umar, a smile in his voice. ‘So where shall I send this word? Where are you going?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ Nicholas said.
There was quietness. ‘I thought you did,’ Umar said.
‘That, yes,’ Nicholas said. ‘I think I want a stake in the world. The kind of stake that you have. If I couldn’t have it in Timbuktu, then I must find somewhere else to begin.’
‘You have begun,’ Umar said.
‘There is no cradle under my roof,’ Nicholas said. ‘I want the teachers sprung of your line to help instruct the poor fools sprung of mine. I mean to match you, child for child. I think I have become patriarchal in your desert.’
‘I think it began long before that,’ Umar said. ‘You had another and better teacher in worse adversity.’ He broke off.
‘Godscalc?’ Nicholas said. ‘Different, not better. I challenged him to try and convert me.’
‘To what?’ said Umar.
‘To anything,’ Nicholas said. ‘No. I don’t mean that. But the way to Ethiopia, with the best teacher, didn’t do for me what you have done.’
‘Yet,’ said Umar, ‘you are troubled for me, when I turn to Mecca at sunset, and yet raise my voice in praise from the Christian Eucharist. I should like you to trust me in some things. There are many forms of perfection. You and I, we try to attain them. You know how I have failed.’
‘You speak to me of failure?’ Nicholas said.
‘Is that not what we have been speaking of all along?’
‘Yes,’ said Nicholas. ‘I know. I will remember. And this place? You brought me here to see Taghaza, too.’
‘I should have spared you, I think,’ Umar said. ‘One small race exploiting another: there is no solution. But remember this when you are trading.’
‘Trading?’ Nicholas said. ‘You make it sound like the filthiest occupation on earth. Is it?’
‘Yes,’ said Umar. ‘And no. It depends on the trader.’
They parted next day. Umar rode outside the walls with the caravan, and kept pace for a little by Nicholas. Then he leaned over and touched him, and left. Nicholas watched him go.
Umar didn’t look back. He rode directly to Taghaza, where the diamond huts were set sparkling among the empty black holes of the mine-shafts. He sang under his breath as he went.
Nicholas heard it, as he walked in the opposite direction. His beast plodded beside him; the caravan was full of chatter so that his voice, fitting itself into the plainsong, was no more remarked on than Umar’s, for both were half in the mind.
Nicholas wove no descant around it, for the descant stands off from the song. He sang each second line, and Umar’s voice, disembodied, alternated with his, and became one with it in the refrains. At the last, the distant voice was only an echo. Then Umar went through the gates, still without looking back, and the singing was gone.
Sijilmasa was a metropolis: a teeming green crossroads at the edge of the desert from which the caravans set out south, for the gold. Under the palm trees of Sijilmasa were fruit and flowers, eggs and cheeses, milk and dates and sweet water, and also every vice that money could buy,