The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [265]
Cairo, Mother of the World – city of intrigue, city of turmoil, city of spies – was seldom deceived by the foreigners who slipped within her walls. Many vanished. Those who were allowed to remain were the unofficial diplomats, the tactful men of affairs whose presence promised some advantage to the Sultan and his advisers. The only fee such people had to pay was that of absolute discretion. Whatever disguise they might choose, the general run of Mamelukes and Cairenes must never penetrate it. And concomitant with that, the foreigners were aware that their every word, their every movement was watched.
These were the terms on which John le Grant made his regular visits. Given patience, the system provided for certain approaches, certain meetings, certain opportunities for discussion at the highest of levels, and occasionally with the Sultan himself. When these did not occur, it was an immediate sign of dislocation, even of danger. He had warned Nicholas. They were out of favour. And he could do little about it until he found out more about David de Salmeton, who had ousted them.
High on its spur of the Maqattam Hills, the Citadel of the Sultan looked down on the domes and minarets of the city, and on the broad Nile beyond with its islands moored like palm-masted ships. The report of the Informers came first to a house in the north of Cairo owned by the great Mameluke official, the Muhtasib, and went from there to the even greater Grand Emir, the Dawadar Yachbak, who asked that the matter be pursued.
It was noted that the merchant’s agent who came regularly from Alexandria had recently visited the Garden of Balm, bringing back with him a friend who passed for an interpreter. It was reported that this was probably true, in that the man spoke native Arabic, sometimes with a Maghgribian accent, sometimes of the kind taught in the schools; sometimes with an inflection such as they had in Bursa and Constantinople. The man was not therefore a trader, as suspected, but was more likely an Ottoman spy. He was followed.
This did not greatly concern the native Cairenes, long accustomed to a floating population from al-Maghgreb and al-Andalus, from Syria and the other Arab-speaking countries of the East. His name, Nicomack (father of Aristotalis), was common enough, and he used the patronymic ibn Abdallah, given to converts.
In the course of a handful of days, he hardly became a familiar figure in a city with a population several times that of Paris, but he made acquaintances. Students in the Mida Alley pastry-shop found him amiable when he stepped in to watch the contortionist, and prepared, if amused, to barter his jam-filled fatir for their stipend of bread. The dice-players round this or that fountain welcomed him with his few dirhams and his stories, which were good enough for the Guild; and the dyers at Batiniyya were flattered by his interest, and pleased by his readiness to argue or to pay for a bowl of liquorice-root, or something savoury from a pedlar. When he found his way, as he did once or twice, to a house of pleasure, the flute-players appreciated his enthusiasm for their art, and the girls, who were often the discarded concubines of a man of importance, were heard to express the same sentiments.
It was noticed that he did not respond to the invitations extended to him in the street when some Mameluke’s mistress, veiled and robed on her mule, would have her eunuch bend and speak to him as he sat arguing in the very path of the travelling shower from the water-camels. Thus he was cautious. On the other hand a Moorish merchant, hearing him versifying to music, invited him upstairs to his harem to recite a qit’ahs and sing, and he accepted. Later the merchant reported the women greatly moved although, of course, they remained behind the wrought screen. He had sung Berber songs, followed by others of some refinement.
Sometimes, on such occasions, he seemed to enjoy wandering about those alleys whose gates were not closed after dark, or sometimes, like the rest, he had to make himself scarce when a group