Scales of Gold (42 page)

He had promised Nicholas he would not become angry, but it was impossible. Jorge at least knew that it was impossible. He saw Nicholas and Loppe glance at each other again; then Loppe began to translate.

It was extremely brief – so brief that he had hardly finished when the King shouted a question to which Loppe replied at length, without translating. The King, like Godscalc, knew when names were being omitted. The King, it was apparent, was even angrier than Godscalc at being deceived. He stood, continuing to exclaim; and the rustle behind him became an array of sloped spears and stretched bows. The King waved a fist at Loppe, and Loppe turned again to Nicholas.

‘He heard the names of the abbot and Prince Henry. He knows therefore the padre is a genuine priest who may carry back tales of his backsliding. He continues to pretend therefore that he is a sorcerer. Father Godscalc, will you permit Saloum to speak? Our lives are lost otherwise.’

‘He would kill a priest?’ Godscalc said.

‘No. He would let the leopard kill a priest,’ Loppe said softly. ‘And then he would make sure none escaped with the tale. Those on board the ship, too.’

He had to allow it. He had no idea how a marabout, a Muslim holy man whom – God in heaven – he had spent a week trying to convert to Christianity could save the lives of a boatload of men and women of the opposite faith. It was with amazement therefore that he saw the short Mandingua Saloum step forward with his fellow slave Ahmad – clever, polyglot Saloum with his curling black beard – and by merely naming himself and his companion, cause the vast, feathered figure before him to fling out his arms, and the twinkle of weapons to shiver and halt.

The King’s narrowed eyes studied the three black men before him, and he asked a question. It was directed at Loppe, but
Saloum answered. He answered at length, during which a murmur passed through the armed men standing waiting. Then the King asked a last question, and was answered. For a long moment he stood, then, lifting his hands, he clapped them loudly. From somewhere behind, a horn wailed. Drums began to beat. The King tossed his head with its white feathers and, advancing, stopped before Nicholas, taking his hand and then releasing it. He snapped his fingers and spoke.

‘Gnumi Mansa says
Peace, peace
’ Loppe said. ‘Repeat it and bow.’

The King moved on, and stood before Godscalc, repeating the ceremony. Then the King clapped his hands once again, and this time a man came forward and laid before him a box. Once, it had been identical with that of Godscalc. Now the leather cover was frayed and furred over with fungus and the contents, when it was opened, were tarnished and sickly and crumbling from two years of insects and rot. The King spoke.

‘He has kept your God for you,’ Loppe said. ‘He wishes you to eat your God with him, and will have fresh blood brought, since the old blood has dried.’ And bending solemnly, he received from the King and held out a shallow worm-eaten receptacle in which still reposed the furred scum of wafers.

‘Tell him,’ said Father Godscalc, ‘that before God I commend his safe keeping of such articles, and will willingly celebrate the mysteries with him presently, using the box and the wine I have brought. Meanwhile, will he introduce me to the other Christian men of his following?’

They began to walk together among the chiefs and Godscalc, listening to the King and to Loppe, took the hand of smiling black men called Jacob and Nuño, who cracked their finger-bones at him and offered him all their houses and the houses of their grandfathers for his sole use. He was aware, as he smiled and blessed these black recipients of the evangelical doctrine, that many more of both sexes were pouring into the grassy space, both from its confines of high trees and bushes and from the village on top of the rise, and forming a circle were moving round the Baobab, ululating and clapping their hands, while others brought mats so that all the meeting-place under the tree became floored.

Then, accompanying the King back to his carpet, Godscalc saw that the horse left by Nicholas on the shore was now being led into the arena by Lázaro, the splendour of its harness disguising the state of its lubberly legs. And behind it, conducted by Vicente and carried on the stout shoulders of Vito, Fernão and Luis, the strongest of all Jorge’s men, was the mighty roll of flax canvas
which contained, Godscalc knew, the fabric of a tent which would offer shade the equal of another Baobab tree to its new owner.

It looked in fair condition for an object brought two thousand miles for this purpose. The King, already erect and rustling forward at the sight of the horse, exclaimed and chortled with pleasure when the pavilion was spread and explained to him. Then Nicholas presented him with his spectacles.

When the platters of food began to arrive, Gnumi Mansa would have them taken nowhere else but the new tent where, lenses glinting, he sat in state with his chiefs, flanked by Saloum, Loppe and Ahmad, Nicholas and Jorge, and the other seven white men from the ship. Godscalc did his duty as well as he could, thrusting his hands into bowls of rice and maize and stiff breads, of improbable fish and melting fruits and unwieldy meats including, he suspected, the component parts of several dogs; and duly exclaiming with rapture over a dish of cooked elephant. His fingers, his robe and his chin all became unavoidably greasy and his throat ached as he conversed as well as any man could against the uproar of the King’s feasting subjects outside.

The liquor, when it came, was all the more welcome, although it proved to be no juice of the grape but the yeasty stuff Diniz had already described, made from the sap of the palm tree, and with the appearance and flavour of whey. He was mildly thankful, draining his gourd, that along with fresh wafers he would be able to provide a flask or two of something more seemly for the Mass he was to hold, it had been agreed, tomorrow morning.

Nicholas, settling beside him said, ‘Diniz was right. It’s strong wine, Father.’

‘I had already decided,’ said Godscalc. ‘Not at all suitable for the altar, although I shall have to draw on your stocks to give a sip to the numbers of communicants that our Muslim friend seems to have conjured up from this community of raging recidivists.’

He stopped, wiped his lips, and continued. ‘I still cannot understand how such a thing came about. One moment, the King was fit, I swear, to kill the lot of us; and the next, Saloum the marabout had not only pleaded our cause, but exhorted the company to manifest its adherence to the Christian tenet.’ He knuckled his chest and repeated, ‘Manifest.’

‘Saloum owes his freedom to you,’ Nicholas said. ‘He and the King both recognise it.’

‘But his beliefs!’ Godscalc said. ‘Were I saved fifty times over, I could not have repaid my rescuer by damning the souls of my flock; by ordering them to embrace heresy, for so the Christian religion must appear to him.’

‘It happened: why worry?’ Nicholas said. ‘Gnumi Mansa—’

‘Henry,’ said Godscalc. He kept his eyes open.

‘Henry Mansa wants the good opinion of the Portuguese and only needed to be reassured that you weren’t shocked by his respect for Saloum, or by any small disarray in his Christian practices. They’ve even brought out some goods to barter – a piece of civet and some half-dozen skins, and a sack of malaguetta in the pod. The visit is a success.’ He stirred, as if about to get up and leave, but was prevented by the appearance of a young, brightly robed woman with pleated hair who stooped smiling before them with a dish of wild dates.

Godscalc found two or three and let her pass; the girl was one of a dozen, all charmingly dressed and gold-adorned, whose sole task had been to serve the King and his guests. Godscalc stared at the dates in his palm and spoke to the man beside him with sluggish bitterness. ‘Why do you lie to me? I have been spared out of gratitude. I am allowed to say Mass out of gratitude, and commercial expediency. And the marabout feels no embarrassment because none of it is genuine. They are no longer Christians, and when I have gone, they will revert to whatever state they have lived in since the abbot departed. Tell me I am wrong!’

‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. Loppe would know,’ Nicholas said, ‘if you think it worth asking him. I’d prefer Jorge, I must tell you, to keep his illusions. Whatever the truth, you can’t do anything about it except agonise, and you might as well agonise over what can be helped. Look at this.’

He was pointing, Godscalc thought, to the black girl who had returned, all shining eyes and teeth and heavy gold bangles, and was now kneeling before them. Then he saw that she was offering coloured comfits, heaped in a willow basket made in Madeira.

‘The
Fortado
has been here,’ Nicholas said. ‘They informed the King that you and Diniz your companion were secret enemies of the white men’s Church who, if allowed to survive, would send thunderbolts to destroy his crops and burn his cities and dry up his rivers. They told him to leave the rest of your party untouched, but that the white lords would reward him if he destroyed you. Saloum saved you twice over. He told them you were a true priest, and persuaded them not to kill you for it. Now will you upset all he has done?’

Godscalc couldn’t answer at first. He felt very tired. Now the shadow of the vast tree was dimming the roof of the tent, and outside the Mandingua voices seemed to have grown louder and shriller, half drowning the cries of the first of the night-flying birds. He could hear music: the wailing of some sort of horn; the
sound of plucked and sawn strings; the drubbing, in increasing volume, of many different drums. There was a hollow tingle of bells. The skirts of the tent were folded back and Gnumi Mansa … Henry … returning bespectacled and staggering from the well-beaten place of common withdrawal was settling himself afresh and calling for Nicholas. Nicholas, who had avoided using his name.

Godscalc said, ‘Did you choose to punish me because I believe in something? Or because of what I know?’

Nicholas viewed him. His face, gleaming fawn under his hat, was fretted, Godscalc saw, by the loops and rings of brown hair stuck to fresh, dimpled cheeks whose innocence seemed as always in harmony with the large open eyes, their whites and irises so distinct that they seemed to reflect heaven and earth in their soft, rounded expanse. Innocence echoed by the full, relaxed lips and profound voice. Innocence belied only a little by the curious, fastidious nose, and the set, perhaps merely stoical, of the chin and the jaw. Innocence wholly belied by long acquaintance, which taught that the features so assembled were the outer manifestation and cloak of a man few people knew – perhaps none.

Nicholas said, ‘I brought you here because I needed a ship. It’s nothing to do with me if you can’t do your job.’

When the priest went to sleep, the King showed, despite himself, a certain relief. The box of decaying wafers, still prominently displayed on the carpet, was discreetly scuffed to one side and a number of elderly men robed in white could be observed making themselves at home at the back of the tent where the horse had also been tethered. Against its throat and below its fine gilded headstall hung a minute purse of red leather which had not been there before.

Nicholas sat between the King and Jorge da Silves in what appeared to be a great pressure of flesh, some of it belonging to the official party and some occasioned by the unexpected accommodation in their midst of the magnificent young women who had feasted them and who, now the platters had gone, still jumped up from time to time to refill the gourds. Jumped up and reinserted themselves in their places in a manner that turned Diniz crimson, Nicholas saw, and was already creating an awareness among the older men: the cheerful, hard-drinking Luis; the handsome helmsman Fernão; the lively red-headed Vito and even the austere Vicente himself.

The King, he saw, was aware of it and so were his chieftains. They seemed to be laughing. The palm wine appeared yet again, and he took two gourds and gave them both to Jorge. The drumming surged. Loppe, on the King’s other side, paused in his translation and looked at him.

Smiling, Nicholas spoke in Flemish, not Portuguese. ‘What is happening?’

It was a game they had played before. Loppe spoke to the King and to Nicholas, the words in Flemish slipped in between. ‘The men and women outside are going to perform for you. The men will leap and fight, and when the fires are lit, the women will dance, clothed and half-clothed. They are graceful.’

‘And the women here in the tent?’ Nicholas said. Their shoulders were bare, and their arms, and their slender ankles and feet. He could feel their breath on his neck, and once, a tongue.

‘All the women here are the King’s wives. You are his guests until dawn, so he will offer experience of them as his feast-gift.’ Loppe was smiling too, with rare affection and mischief.

Nicholas said, ‘What do we do?’ He felt hollow. He brought his brain on guard with some suddenness, like a sentry caught napping.

Loppe said, ‘It is your choice. He will have made provision for all of you. He will be complimented if those of rank among you requisition the favours of his favourite wives. Not to do so might seem a slight, unless a man is clearly incapable. The padre is asleep.’

‘And our Knight of the Order, or as soon as I can arrange it,’ said Nicholas. A shocking pang ran through him and remained somewhere, throbbing.

‘Leave him to me,’ Loppe said.

‘I don’t know if I should,’ Nicholas answered. ‘Loppe, are you sure? It seems …’

‘He has many more,’ Loppe said. ‘More than he can satisfy. This will keep them contented. These young women are mostly with child, and hence barred to him and restless. The occasion can produce nothing but good: the King will appoint you his brothers.’

Nicholas smiled at the King and felt the smile spread idiotically. The subject under ostensible discussion was unicorn’s horn. He said in Flemish, ‘What did Doria do?’

‘He wasn’t asked,’ Loppe replied. ‘He put altogether too many questions about the source of the gold. What you see before you, Niccolino, is virgin territory.’

‘In a manner of speaking,’ Nicholas said. When the wine came round again, he refused it.