The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [279]
Those who could not afford boats lined the alleys, climbed to roof-tops and packed into upper rooms that shook and trembled over the alleys. The privileged guests made their way to the river where the Sultan’s ceremonial barges covered the water. Under the awnings, their gilding seemed mellow as honey. The guests began to climb in. They included an emir of mechanical interests and a Syrian dealer in alum. Between them, in snow-white headcloth and elegant galabiyya, walked David de Salmeton, with the Portinari merchant Abderrahman ibn Said at his elbow.
They were seen. Across the carpet of boats, from an ancient felucca with an awning of canvas, Jan Adorne tugged the sleeve of his father’s coarse robe. ‘Look at that! Why not us?’
His cousin Katelijne said, ‘You know why. He’s an agent of the Vatachino but your father is here to represent Genoa. Genoa.’ Her voice, muffled by veiling, was impatient. Jan had never admired her: she made him feel dilatory; she reinforced, by her presence, his father’s impression that he was lazy. He hadn’t been allowed home in five years. It wasn’t his fault if she was made to wind up like a spring. Like a kite. She had got into trouble over that.
Lambert chimed in. Lambert said, ‘Don’t be silly, Jan. The Sultan has to keep in with the Venetians.’ He smiled foolishly at Katelijne. Lambert was Jan’s second cousin and an ally, except where girls and beards were concerned. They had a running series of bets over both.
Jan said, ‘He got rid of Claes soon enough, when Father complained. And their red-headed Scotsman isn’t doing much business. Doesn’t the House of Niccolò count as Venetian? Maybe it doesn’t.’
John de Kinloch and Meester Reyphin both smiled, but his father said angrily, ‘Be quiet, all of you.’ When the Chief Dragoman called over in greeting, he hardly answered. Preparing for the afternoon’s journey had made the Baron Cortachy thin and bad-tempered, and his beard, now it had attained some dimension, had white threads in the fairness. Certainly, there had been a lot to arrange, and the emirs and the Dragoman had kept changing the rules until at last, with an oath, his father had actually thrown away the bundle of dog-eared notes he had inherited from Great-uncle and Grandfather as if they had become so much rubbish. Of course, things had changed. And Grandfather and his brother had been on a different mission. One less complicated. Nothing could be more complicated than this one. Jan Adorne groaned, and saw Lambert grin. Lambert knew what he was groaning about.
The processional route from the Citadel to the river being three miles in length (no one in his senses in Cairo built next to the river) the sun was quite high by the time the Royal Saddlecloth emerged by the water, followed by the musicians and pages in yellow silk; the Mameluke Guard; the Standard-bearer; the singers; and finally the Mace and Poniard and Parasol of State, under which appeared Qayt Bey’s immense snowy beard glowing saffron. The elephants had recently died, but a good proportion of his hunting cats were represented, followed by the glittering cavalcade of the Mamelukes. The noise was annihilating, and reached its zenith as the Sultan, dismounting, took his place in the floating chamber, pillared in gold, carpeted in jewelled silks which, unfolding its cloth-of-gold sail, proceeded to undertake the brief sail to the designated place of the Ceremony. Twelve hundred boats followed.
The Syrian dealer in alum said, ‘Is the heat too much? We shall be there very soon. I fear my words have not entertained you.’
‘On the contrary,’ said the trader Abderrahman ibn Said. ‘In Timbuktu the flood reaches the cutting in January; it would have arrived in Mopti the previous autumn but, being larger, spreads widely and slowly. We rejoice for the Joliba, as you do for the Nile.’ He spoke, since his companion was silent. Messer David