Robert Silverberg: Lion Time in Timbuctoo

In the dry stifling days of early summer the Emir lay dying, the king, the imam, Big Father of the Songhay, in his cool dark mud-walled palace in the Sankore quarter of Old Timbuctoo. The city seemed frozen, strange though it was to think of freezing in this season of killing heat that fell upon you like a wall of hot iron. There was a vast stasis, as though everything were entombed in ice. The river was low and sluggish, moving almost imperceptibly in its bed with scarcely more vigor than a sick weary crocodile. No one went out of doors, no one moved indoors, everyone sat still, waiting for the old man’s death and praying that it would bring the cooling rains.

In his own very much lesser palace alongside the Emir’s, Little Father sat still like all the rest, watching and waiting. His time was coming now at last. That was a sobering thought. How long had he been the prince of the realm? Twenty years? Thirty? He had lost count. And now finally to rule, now to be the one who cast the omens and uttered the decrees and welcomed the caravans and took the high seat in the Great Mosque. So much toil, so much responsibility: but the Emir was not yet dead. Not yet. Not quite.

“Little Father, the ambassadors are arriving.”

In the arched doorway stood Ali Pasha, bowing, smiling. The vizier’s face, black as ebony, gleamed with sweat, a dark moon shining against the lighter darkness of the vestibule. Despite his name, Ali Pasha was pure Songhay, black as sorrow, blacker by far than Little Father, whose blood was mixed with that of would-be conquerors of years gone by. The aura of the power that soon would be his was glistening and crackling around Ali Pasha’s head like midwinter lightning: for Ali Pasha was the future Grand Vizier, no question of it. When Little Father became king, the old Emir’s officers would resign and retire. An Emir’s ministers did not hold office beyond his reign. In an earlier time they would have been lucky to survive the old Emir’s death at all.

Little Father, fanning himself sullenly, looked up to meet his vizier’s insolent grin.

“Which ambassadors, Ali Pasha?”

“The special ones, here to attend Big Father’s funeral. A Turkish. A Mexican. A Russian. And an English.”

“An English? Why an English?”

“They are a very proud people, now. Since their independence. How could they stay away? This is a very important death, Little Father.”

“Ah. Ah, of course.” Little Father contemplated the fine wooden Moorish grillwork that bedecked the doorway. “Not a Peruvian?”

“A Peruvian will very likely come on the next riverboat, Little Father. And a Maori one, and they say a Chinese. There will probably be others also. By the end of the week the city will be filled with dignitaries. This is the most important death in some years.”

“A Chinese,” Little Father repeated softly, as though Ali Pasha had said an ambassador from the Moon was coming. A Chinese! But yes, yes, this was a very important death. The Songhay Empire was no minor nation. Songhay controlled the crossroads of Africa; all caravans journeying between desert north and tropical south must pass through Songhay. The Emir of Songhay was one of the grand kings of the world.

Ali Pasha said acidly, “The Peruvian hopes that Big Father will last until the rains come, I suppose. And so he takes his time getting here. They are people of a high country, these Peruvians. They aren’t accustomed to our heat.”

“And if he misses the funeral entirely, waiting for the rains to come?”

Ali Pasha shrugged. “Then he’ll learn what heat really is, eh, Little Father? When he goes home to his mountains and tells the Grand Inca that he didn’t get here soon enough, eh?” He made a sound that was something like a laugh, and Little Father, experienced in his vizier’s sounds, responded with a gloomy smile.

“Where are these ambassadors now?”

“At Kabara, at the port hostelry. Their riverboat has just come in. We’ve sent the royal barges to bring them here.”

“Ah. And where will they stay?”

“Each at his country’s embassy, Little Father.”

“Of course. Of course. So no action is needed from me at this time concerning these ambassadors, eh, Ali Pasha?”

“None, Little Father.” After a pause the vizier said, “The Turk has brought his daughter. She is very handsome.” This with a rolling of the eyes, a baring of the teeth. Little Father felt a pang of appetite, as Ali Pasha had surely intended. The vizier knew his prince very well, too. “Very handsome, Little Father! In a white way, you understand.”

“I understand. The English, did he bring a daughter too?”

“Only the Turk,” said Ali Pasha.

“Do you remember the Englishwoman who came here once?” Little Father asked.

“How could I forget? The hair like strands of fine gold. The breasts like milk. The pale pink nipples. The belly-hair down below, like fine gold also.”

Little Father frowned. He had spoken often enough to Ali Pasha about the Englishwoman’s milky breasts and pale pink nipples. But he had no recollection of having described to him or to anyone else the golden hair down below. A rare moment of carelessness, then, on Ali Pasha’s part; or else a bit of deliberate malice, perhaps a way of testing Little Father. There were risks in that for Ali Pasha, but surely Ali Pasha knew that. At any rate it was a point Little Father chose not to pursue just now. He sank back into silence, fanning himself more briskly.

Ali Pasha showed no sign of leaving. So there must be other news.

The vizier’s glistening eyes narrowed. “I hear they will be starting the dancing in the marketplace very shortly.”

Little Father blinked. Was there some crisis in the king’s condition, then? Which everyone knew about but him?

“The death dance, do you mean?”

“That would be premature, Little Father,” said Ali Pasha unctuously. “It is the life dance, of course.”

“Of course. I should go to it, in that case.”

“In half an hour. They are only now assembling the formations. You should go to your father, first.”

“Yes. So I should. To the Emir, first, to ask his blessing; and then to the dance.”

Little Father rose.

“The Turkish girl,” he said. “How old is she, Ali Pasha?”

“She might be eighteen. She might be twenty.”

“And handsome, you say?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, very handsome, Little Father!”

There was an underground passageway connecting Little Father’s palace to that of Big Father; but suddenly, whimsically, Little Father chose to go there by the out-of-doors way. He had not been out of doors in two or three days, since the worst of the heat had descended on the city. Now he felt the outside air hit him like the blast of a furnace as he crossed the courtyard and stepped into the open. The whole city was like a smithy these days, and would be for weeks and weeks more, until the rains came. He was used to it, of course, but he had never come to like it. No one ever came to like it except the deranged and the very holy, if indeed there was any difference between the one and the other.

Emerging onto the portico of his palace, Little Father looked out on the skyline of flat mud roofs before him, the labyrinth of alleys and connecting passageways, the towers of the mosques, the walled mansions of the nobility. In the hazy distance rose the huge modern buildings of the New City. It was late afternoon, but that brought no relief from the heat. The air was heavy, stagnant, shimmering. It vibrated like a live thing. All day long the myriad whitewashed walls had been soaking up the heat, and now they were beginning to give it back.

Atop the vibration of the air lay a second and almost tangible vibration, the tinny quivering sound of the musicians tuning up for the dance in the marketplace.