The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [288]
A new voice said, ‘They saved you. They saved us from getting killed, from making fools of ourselves. We all owe them our lives.’
Tobie. Tobie sitting with John, crosslegged, quietly, as the central pool dimpled and simmered.
Nicholas pulled himself up on one elbow. Below the shawls he was dressed, Cairene-style, in white lawn. His bones, too, were of lawn, and where his stomach and head once had been, there was nothing but air. He had swallowed the Nile and, patently, relinquished it; and along with it, all the taut needle-mesh of his torture. His feet and head ached, that was all. He said, still half astray, ‘Where am I? How did you do it?’
They all turned. The fifth man said, ‘You are in the Nilometer, Nicholas: in the private ground of the Sultan. Men are waiting to speak to you. I have said I will bring you when you are ready.’
The language was the classical Arabic of the schools. He knew the voice. He knew the face, unwithered by age, of the imam of the Sankore Mosque. In Timbuktu, he had passed his last night under the roof of this man.
Nicholas said, ‘Katib Musa,’ and, moving somehow, placed himself under his hands. The hands stroked, concealing his tears.
The voice above him was calm. ‘Nicholas, did you not remember? Timbuktu is the daughter of Cairo. You had only to ask.’ And after a moment, ‘The others have gone. Take your time. We have had a great sorrow, you and I.’
On such a night of festivities, the Sultan Qayt Bey did not propose to reappear outside the Citadel. Instead, he sent his Grand Emir back to the island of Roda to occupy the pavilion where the Feast of the Abundance had just taken place, and where the professors of al-Azhar, the doctors of law, the religious leaders of his people had advised that a meeting of importance might best be secretly held.
Seated upon the dais in the innermost room of the kiosk, the Dawadar Yachbak felt no resentment: his wives were insufferable on such occasions; his concubines overexcited. The claims of the Frankish merchants the Vatachino had been expertly debated and, on the best of advice, had been found to excel those of the banking firm with Venetian affiliations. It was known that Franks, needy of God, sometimes went to great lengths to deride or damage a rival, and the truth could not always be distinguished.
When it appeared that a mistake had been made, he himself had enquired why the Frank from Timbuktu had not gone immediately to al-Azhar the Resplendent, the oldest, the greatest University in the world, and asked them to support his credentials. Three at least of its judges had fled to al-Azhar from Timbuktu and knew the Frank well: his care for that city; his respect for its law and religion; his eminence in the world of trade; his wealth. Especially his wealth.
The story ran that he had lost his principal wife, and hence his zest for life. Such things happened. A further report seemed to say that the wife was alive, and at Sinai, to which the man was currently hastening. Hence the urgency of this meeting, the Italian doctor had said – the doctor who had come to the University with this news, and whose knowledge of esoteric medical writings, he had been told, was not to be despised.
He recognised the doctor at once, as the three Franks were now presented before him: short and pallid and hairless. He knew also the man they called John, the Alexandria agent whose black-tinted beard had been glimpsed, now and then, in its true shade of inedible orange.
The man Niccolò, the former Nicomack ibn Abdallah, was crippled, he knew, and therefore permitted to take three steps and make his courtesy from the cushion placed in front of the dais. His companions took their places beside him and the Qadi called Katib Musa stepped to join the secretaries and lesser ulama who sat on either side of the Executive Secretary himself.
There were no interpreters present: not the Chief Dragoman, nor even the Second. None was required, since the merchant spoke impeccable Arabic. The Dawadar