Amin Maalouf - Leo Africanus

‘You will get me out of here, won’t you?’

Her voice was imploring, but somehow reassuring. With a gesture which I was the first to be surprised at I put my hand out in front of me as if I was swearing on the Book, and delivered this oath in a slow loud voice:

‘I swear that I shall not marry before I have got you out of this accursed quarter.’

A smile lit up her whole face. I turned round and ran away as fast as my legs would carry me, because it was this image of her that I wanted to keep before me for the duration of my journey. The same day, I went to see my father and Warda to give them news of their daughter. Before knocking at the door I remained motionless for a moment. There in a crack in the wall, dry and faded, lay the knotted blade of grass which Mariam had tied together the day of her capture. I took it in my fingers and laid it stealthily on my lips. Then I put it back in its place.

I was thinking once more of this blade of grass when Khali opened his eyes. I asked if he felt better; he nodded, but went back to sleep immediately. He was to remain in this condition, hovering between life and death, unable to move, until the beginning of the hot season, when it was impossible to cross the Sahara. So we had to wait several months in the vicinity of Sijilmassa before continuing our journey.

911 A.H.

4 June 1505 — 23 May 1506

My uncle seemed fully recovered when we took to the road again that year at the beginning of the cool season, towards Tabalbala, which lies in the middle of the desert of Numidia, three hundred miles from the Atlas, two hundred miles south of Sijilmassa, in a country where water is scarce and meat too, save for that of the antelope and the ostrich, and where only the shade of a palm tree occasionally alleviates the tyranny of the sun.

We had reckoned that this stage would take nine days, and from the first evening Khali began to speak to me about Granada, somewhat in the way my father had done a few years earlier. Perhaps the illness of the one and the despondency of the other had had the same effect, of making them wish to pass on their witness and their wisdom to a younger and somehow less endangered memory, may the Most High preserve my pages from fire and from oblivion! From one night to another I awaited the continuation of his story, whose only interruptions were the howlings of nearby jackals.

On the third day, however, two soldiers came to meet us. They brought a message from a lord whose lands lay to the west of our route. He had heard that the ambassador of the King of Fez was passing this way, and he insisted on meeting him. Khali made enquiries of one of the guides, who told him that the detour would delay us by at least two weeks. He made his excuses to the soldiers, saying that an envoy of the sovereign on a mission could not make visits to noblemen whose lands lay out of his way, all the more since his illness had already delayed him considerably. However, to show in what esteem he held this lord — of whom as he told me later, he had never heard spoken before — he would send his nephew to kiss his hand.

Hence I suddenly found myself entrusted with an embassy when I had not yet reached my seventeenth year. My uncle ordered two horsemen to accompany me, and provided me with several gifts which I was to offer in his name to this friendly nobleman: a pair of stirrups decorated in the Moorish fashion, a magnificent pair of spurs, a pair of silk cords braided with golden thread, one violet, the other azure, a newly-bound book containing the lives of the holy men of Africa and a panegyric poem. The journey lasted four days, and I took advantage of it to write some verses myself in honour of my host.

Having reached the town, which was I believe called Ouarzazate, I was told that the lord was hunting lions in the neighbouring mountains, and that he had given instructions that I should join him there. I kissed his hand and conveyed the greetings of my uncle. He appointed quarters where I could rest until his return. He came back before nightfall and summoned me to his palace. I presented myself, kissed his hand again, and then offered him the presents one by one, which pleased him exceedingly. Then I gave him Khali’s poem, which he had read by a secretary who translated it for him word for word, since he knew little Arabic.

Then it was time for the meal, which I was awaiting impatiently, since my stomach had been empty since morning except for a few dates. We were brought roast and boiled mutton, coated with extremely fine flaky pastry, something like Italian lasagne, but firmer. Then we had couscous, ftat , another mixture of meat and pastry, and several other dishes which I can no longer remember. When we were all amply satisfied I stood up and declaimed my own poem. The lord had several phrases translated, but for the rest of the time he merely watched me, with a tender and protective eye. When I had finished, he retired to bed, because the hunt had fatigued him, but very early the next morning he asked me to breakfast with him, gave me through his secretary a hundred pieces of gold to take to my uncle, and two slaves to attend on him during the journey. He commanded me to tell him that these presents were simply an acknowledgement of his poem, and not an exchange for the gifts which he had presented to him. He also gave me ten pieces of gold for each of the horsemen who accompanied me.

For me, he was keeping a surprise. He began by giving me fifty pieces of gold, but, when I left, the secretary indicated that I should follow him. We went along a corridor until we reached a low door which led us into a small courtyard. In the middle was a horse, fine-looking but small, on which was sitting a beautiful brown rider, her face uncovered.

‘This young slave is the lord’s gift for your poem. She is fourteen, she speaks Arabic well. We call her Hiba.’

He took the bridle and put it in my hand. I took it, my eyes looking up, incredulous. My gift smiled.

Overjoyed to have met so courteous and generous a lord, I returned immediately to Tabalbala, where the caravan awaited me. I told my uncle that I had fulfilled my mission perfectly, and I reported each word and each gesture in detail. I gave him the presents which were intended for him, and the remarks that had accompanied them, and I ended by telling him about my delicious surprise. At this point in my story his face clouded over.

‘Did they really tell you that this slave girl spoke Arabic?’

‘Yes, and I was able to check this on the way back.’

‘I don’t doubt it. But if you were older and wiser you might have heard something else behind the secretary’s words. To offer you this slavegirl was perhaps a way of honouring you, but it may just as well have been a way of insulting you, of showing you the abasement of those who speak your language.’

‘Should I have refused?’

My uncle laughed good-naturedly.

‘I can see that you are going to faint at the mere suggestion that you should have left that girl in the courtyard where you found her.’

‘Then I can keep her?’

My tone was like that of a child hanging on to a toy. Khali shrugged his shoulders and signalled to the camel-drivers to make ready to depart. As I was leaving he called me back:

‘Have you already touched this girl?’

‘No,’ I replied, my eyes lowered. ‘On the way back we slept in the open air, and the guards were close by me.’

There was some malice in his grin.

‘You are not to touch her now either, since before we will sleep under a roof again the month of Ramadan will have begun. As a traveller, you are not required to fast, but you must show your submission to your Creator in other ways. You must cover your slavegirl from head to toe, and forbid her to perfume herself, to use make up, to do her hair, or even to wash.’