Scales of Gold: The Fourth Book of the House of Niccolo

by Dorothy Dunnett

  She hadn’t moved. The Byzantine eyes, drawn in black, were fully upon him. He guessed that she had had no warning, and was touched suddenly by her courage. He obeyed an instinct and, instead of turning aside, made her a gesture of ordinary courtesy. The merchants showed no surprise, but, talking together, moved about the court and freely mingled with the women, sharing their couches as the bowls of food were brought round. Musicians came, and the sound of pipes and horn and drum and single-string fiddle began to weave behind the chatter.

  The Timbuktu-Koy took Nicholas to where his wives and daughters were seated, and Nicholas behaved as he should. Beside him Father Godscalc said in Flemish, ‘They should not have done that.’ He looked heated.

  ‘Gelis? said Nicholas. ‘She chose, I imagine, to conform to the custom. Bel is robed.’

  ‘Bel is a dangerous woman,’ said Father Godscalc. He paused. He said, ‘These are high-born women. But if they offer a slave, it would not be a sin in this place to take her. You cannot obey every rule of the Church.’

  ‘I know it is a long time since Tendeba,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘Then take your eyes from her,’ said Godscalc.

  He spoke roughly. Nicholas looked at him. He said, ‘Gelis? I am in no state to deflower her. I am only looking at an object of beauty, not yet soiled, not yet defaced, not yet neglected. I wish I had never brought her.’

  ‘You wanted her to know the truth,’ Godscalc said.

  ‘And does she know it?’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Do you know it yourself?’ Godscalc said. ‘She knows your nightmares. I think sometimes she shares them. But turn your gaze from her, Nicholas. You got a child on her sister.’

  ‘She is not Katelina,’ Nicholas said. It was not the answer it appeared to be: he had forgotten Godscalc was there. The discovery filled his mind, and his body, too, began to acknowledge it. He felt giddy.

  Godscalc rose. He said, ‘Nicholas, come away. You are unwell. Your hosts can be in no doubt about it.’ He caught Umar’s eye.

  Umar said, ‘No harm has been done: perhaps good. Let him withdraw: there will be other meetings. Diniz can stay and bring the ladies home.’

  ‘You trust Diniz?’ said Godscalc. He gave a half-smile.

  ‘Wholly. He thinks of Bel as his aunt, and Gelis, I fancy, as an inconvenient and difficult cousin. Which is not to say –’

  ‘– that his jaw hasn’t dropped,’ said Nicholas unexpectedly, if blearily. ‘Umar? If you’re taking me home, you’d better do it.’

  Chapter 28

  ‘HOW MUCH is A little?’ said Diniz the next day. They were in a chamber of their own residence, discussing their audience. ‘They said they had some gold in store. We could go now. We could get back home now.’

  ‘And spend it,’ said Nicholas. His colour was back, and his grasp. He always recovered quickly, once the weakness caused by the high fever had left him. He said, ‘Don’t you trust Gregorio? He has leave to borrow everything you need for your business, once the Bank’s affairs have been settled. The Ghost carried enough to do that.’

  ‘If she got home,’ Gelis said. Today she was properly clothed, if more lightly than usual. It was a statement. In his turn Nicholas, who had shunned her after the night of delirium, was treating her now with all the pleasant informality he used towards Diniz and Umar, which was another statement. Bel, watching, had sometimes had to escape from the room.

  Godscalc said nothing. The point at issue, he knew very well, was whether or not they were going to Ethiopia, and hence miss the spring sailing. Diniz wanted to go home rich to his mother, and pay out Simon, and start becoming a Nicholas. Gelis wanted Nicholas to go home, he thought: he was not quite sure why. On the other hand, Nicholas had given him a promise, and had made it possible to keep it, by ensuring that the Timbuktu-Koy would let them stay.

  Umar said, ‘A little, by the Koy’s standards, means a reasonable consignment of gold. But if you stay until the autumn, there will be much more. And the Fortado will have gone.’

  Godscalc had forgotten the Fortado, with Mick Crackbene on board, waiting patiently at the mouth of the Gambia. He wondered if the child Tati was there, or had been got rid of, or had even gone with Doria, poor creature, and died. He said, ‘They don’t know Doria and the others are dead.’

  ‘They will,’ Umar said. ‘They will hear Raffaelo Doria lost his life, and that there is no secret map of the gold mines to wait for. And then they will leave.’

  ‘When?’ said Nicholas. ‘We took nearly two months to come here.’

  ‘Filipe will tell him,’ said Bel.

  They looked at her. Then Nicholas said, ’Of course. The boy who escaped from the slaughter of Jorge’s other wretched gold-hunters. But he would try to follow us. Or go back to the Niccolò.

  ‘Would he?’ said Bel.

  ‘No. You’re right. He mightn’t,’ Nicholas said. He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘So when might the news reach the Fortado, if he ran very hard? Perhaps within the next week? Umar, would the drums take the news quicker than that?’

  ‘Not in detail,’ Umar said. ‘Crackbene would not sail until he was sure.’

  ‘Could he sail?’ Diniz said. ‘How many men has he left?’

  ‘Nine. Just one more than the Niccolò. Yes, he could sail,’ Nicholas said. ‘He could be in Madeira by the last days of April.’

  ‘Handing over his cargo to Simon,’ said Diniz, shifting irritably. ‘I think we should go.’

  ‘I think we are discussing this far too early,’ Nicholas said. ‘We have at least two weeks in hand before the river starts to dry back. If the Fortado is going to leave, we might as well give her time to do it. And I should like to see the salt caravan coming in. Because of us, the Wangara gold wasn’t sold last time. If there is enough salt to make it worth while, the next market might bring gold well worth waiting for.’

  ‘You mean we don’t buy it direct?’ Diniz said.

  Nicholas gazed at him. Gelis said, ‘Not unless you want And-Agh-Muhammed to wear your whistle too. In any case, I doubt if the Wangara gold-miners want spectacles.’

  ‘You have shell-money,’ Umar said. ‘But the demoiselle is right. You need the goodwill of the merchants: you must not steal their primary trade. This will make the gold dearer to buy, although it will still bring you great profit. Do you have enough money, or spectacles?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Diniz. ‘If we took away the existing gold now, and sent back the San Niccolò with a cargo.’

  ‘But then,’ Umar said, ‘you could not go to Ethiopia.’

  It was like a dance, Godscalc thought: each of the innocent proposals represented a hidden interest; no one acting from purely unselfish motives except himself and, he thought, Bel. Nicholas said, ‘I haven’t forgotten Ethiopia. That is why I have said, let us wait two weeks until the caravan comes. Then we shall talk again.’

  There followed a curious two weeks. The sun blazed; the city seethed with activity; and no one now slept even at noon at Kabara its port, for the linking pool and canal were already shrinking, and soon the river would fall, and all the easy trading would cease.

  The rains that formed the Joliba fell from February to July upon the distant hills at its source and took a year to creep along its full length. By July the height of the flood had reached the low-lying land two hundred miles before Timbuktu and turned it into the single vast lake they had crossed, weakening and slowing the surge so that Kabara did not enjoy true high water till January. Then from April to July, the river diminished to its lowest, most difficult level. So the harvests by the Joliba took their season from the flux of the river, and so did the gold-mining, confined to the space between January and May, between the fall and rise of the flood. By summer, the city would pant and crumble in silence.

  Umar was prepared to talk of these things, and Godscalc listened. The rift between Umar and Nicholas had ended, and the friendship between them, always positive, seemed heightened by the past contemplation of loss.

  It was more diffi
cult to persuade Umar to talk about Prester John, and when he did so, the news always seemed to be bad. The travellers who crossed the desert to Cairo spoke of the way to Ethiopia as a hopeless journey through waterless sands or, further south, of dripping, shuddering rainforests full of animals and of heathens who ate human flesh. Beyond that were terrible mountains, terrible even for travellers, and impassable for a Christian army.

  ‘Is that what you fear?’ Godscalc said to Umar, when for the second time he had heard such a tale. ‘Yet you knew I had sworn to find my way there if possible. I have undertaken to you and the Koy not to parade my faith, or attempt to obtain converts here. Those heathens you speak of are the ones I must see. And if, as you say, the way is too hard, then I shall bring back notice of that, and you will be spared visits from others less amenable. I think I am being fair.’

  ‘You are never less than fair,’ had said Umar gently. ‘If you wish to go, none will stop you.’

  They had seen the gold. It lay with other goods behind locked doors in the large storeyed warehouses where the resident merchants had their homes, and where the traders came to stay and to buy. The central courtyards were full of roaring camels, and scavenging birds jostled about on the roof-tops. There was, as Umar had said, a reasonable amount. There was enough to make a return trip to Lagos worth while, if they wanted to make it. They entered into the first preliminary talks that might, in time, lead to a bargain; and, before he left, Nicholas sometimes mended their pumps.

  It amused Gelis, Godscalc saw, this eternal preoccupation of Nicholas’s with the practical. The rusting machinery of the palace gave him pain, and he arranged twice to go there, and spent a contented few hours in some courtyard. He was not excluded from the public part of the harem, although Gelis had never returned. The day after their audience, the Timbuktu-Koy had sent young girl slaves to serve Diniz and Nicholas.

  They were older than Tati had been, and experienced. Nicholas did what Godscalc had given him leave to do, and the priest hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry. He was sorry that Diniz, too, should find restraint impossible, but he kept silent. They were neither of them promiscuous, and the governor had had his reasons. If Bel and Gelis also noticed, they had said nothing to him.

  Umar had thought he was referring to it when, walking in the street with him one day, Godscalc mentioned slaves. They were talking Flemish and could not be understood, but even so, Umar slowed a little before he spoke. ‘They are both young men, Father; and without wives.’

  ‘You’re over-tolerant,’ Godscalc said. ‘You are not old, and celibate so far as I know. But that was not what I meant. I questioned your logic. You accept slavery here, despite all that occurred on the Niccolò?’

  ‘You think we exploit them?’ said Umar.

  ‘I think, from what I have seen, that you treat them as the Portuguese do,’ Godscalc said. ‘In a wealthy community, they are needed as servants, and seem happy and comfortable in that role. They wash, they market, they cook, they carry burdens, they bring water. They tend gardens and plant herbs and run errands. We said on the Niccolò that the lives of such slaves were pleasanter than they would have been with their families, except that they are not hired by their own choice, and have lost their homes and their dignity. And the more they are needed, the greater their value in money, and so the trade is debased.’

  He had spoken with vehemence, but Umar showed no offence. They were stopped, twice, by acquaintances before he replied. Then he said, ‘I told you that you were free to go to Prester John’s land, but if I am not eager, then this is the reason. Yes, the slaves here are happy, although some masters are more just, as in every country, than are others. They come to the city from the lands round about. Some were brought in or were captured, but many came from choice, and most of these were idol-worshippers from the forest, who are now of my faith. Also, at present the city is orderly: it cannot itself be plundered of people. Hence the situation is very different from the coast, where tribe despoils tribe, and the traders pass up and down every hour, collecting their booty. It could become like that here, if the Christians come.’

  ‘Or even if the Mamelukes come,’ Godscalc said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Umar. ‘You might find black faces in strange places then. I think I see Nicholas over there. I am glad you asked me. I should perhaps tell you that it was not intended that I should be celibate. My family have chosen a wife. Her name is Zuhra.’

  Godscalc halted in his surprise. He said, ‘You are happy?’ He wondered if Nicholas knew.

  Umar smiled. ‘It is my duty. Of course.’

  ‘Then you plan to stay here?’ He realised too late that it was an uncivilised question.

  ‘I think,’ said Umar, ‘that Europe will manage without me.’

  Gelis, too, became familiar with the narrow lanes of the city: the sludge walls and soft, rounded corners where the rains had dissolved the grey rough-cast and left melting, half-repaired shapes of booths and houses and workshops, shrines and markets and mosques. The secret of baking mud-bricks and using mortar had come, it was said, from the masons of the towns of Dia and Djenne, two hundred and fifty miles to the south-west; but there was clay to be had at Djenne, whereas the villages along the Joliba made their bricks from mud mixed with gravel and dung, so that families lived through the rains in homes made of half-liquid ordure.

  In Timbuktu there were mud-and-straw huts on the outskirts, but the wealthy could afford to import something more permanent. Many of the merchants’ houses were built of clay-covered stone as was the Andalusian mosque, although the rest seemed to cling to the primitive fashion, rising tall as monuments made of cuneiform blocks and webbed with shadows cast by the rods men scaled like flies to repair them. The exception was the Grand Mosque they called Jingerebir, built in the style of the palace and likewise mismanaged, so that water for the ablutions had to be brought from outside.

  Nicholas had not been allowed there, but the pieces of its irrigation system had somehow found their way to his lodging, so that whenever Gelis entered the courtyard, she burned her ankles on fragments of metal. Then, apologising, he would remove them into the shade and resume what he had been doing, which was sometimes nothing to do with metal at all, but an idle pastime such as carving a farmuk, with which he entertained the hordes of black children from the slaves’ quarters.

  Gelis had seen one before: he had sent a toy like it from Florence when Tilde de Charetty was a child, and she had tried to force Tilde de Charetty to give it to her. It was only a split wooden ball that rode up and down on a string, although he could make it do much more than that. She stayed sometimes with the children, watching him with it. Watching him. He was always careful to talk to her, and once remarked on her new robe. She wondered what sort of compliments he paid to his little black girl, who went about wearing nothing at all.

  She had a new robe because she and Bel had been visited by a man with bales of cloth made in Florence. The man said his employer had some from Syria, too. The regular Barbary galleys left Pisa in April and unloaded at Tunis, Algiers and Oran before going to Almería and Málaga in July or later. The goods they brought came south over the al-Sahra with the next camel-train. They would know when it came.

  Gelis and Bel bought what he had, and even found someone to sew it. Directed to a wide portico covered with straw, they had discovered a group of white-shirted men seated cross-legged beneath it, their black heads stooped over their needles. To one side, an old man read aloud, a great book in his hands.

  He was robed, and had a pair of Murano spectacles clipped on his nose. Gelis said, ‘So how did that come about? Maybe the price of the girl?’

  ‘Do ye want to take her place?’ Bel of Cuthilgurdy enquired. ‘If ye don’t, dinna mention it. The folie love of lichory is doing well enough in this city without you. There have been, I understand, some advance negotiations in the matter of gold: a case of making wee, tempting pre-emptions while the prices are high. If ye look over the wall at the Sankore, ye’ll see the
scholars all walking about bumping into each other.’

  ‘In return for what?’ Gelis had said.

  Oh, the same,’ Bel had answered. ‘Gold or such-like. The doctors and imams here are all merchants. Ye remember what Father Godscalc was saying. It’s like Bishop Kennedy of St Andrews. If you can read the Good Book and count the holy angels of paradise, you might as well get into business.’

  Gelis remembered. She remembered Godscalc’s expression on returning from his first excursion into that part of the city they had so far heard of and discredited, because the pursuit of learning for its own sake, the ability to set up schools and attract great men of letters, the purchase of writing materials, the hiring of scribes and the formation of great collections of books were the privilege of a few princes in Europe whose courts scholars were proud to attend. Centres of high education did not occur on the edge of the Sahara.

  Of course, Muslim teaching had come early to Africa with the traders – even before Timbuktu itself had been founded. Under the Mali empire there had grown a tradition of learning. In Timbuktu, the first teachers, they said, had been black; and from Umar’s own family in Kabura, by the Joliba flood-plain. Tuareg settlers grew rich, and joined the ranks of traders and scholars, to whom in turn the ruler gave lavish concessions. Pilgrims came to dead scholars’ tombs, and students arrived from the south. The city became endowed with Baraka, divine grace. The word was written – they had seen it – in the palace. It was also thus, they had heard, in Granada.

  They had been told there was a university within the arcades of the mosque of Sankore, the disciple of Cairo and Damascus. They had been told of pupils sponsored by merchants who, becoming distinguished pedants themselves, set up their classes in the courts of their houses and taught logic and rhetoric, grammar and history, prosody and astronomy so long as there was light.

  Moving astonished through the city they had heard the calls to prayer, but also the rhythms of chanting, the drone of the solitary voice interspersed with responses, to the accompaniment of drumbeats and piping. Some of the choruses were formed of the shrill voices of children reciting the Koran as they exchanged their native Mandingua for stumbling Arabic. Others had not been young at all.