Amin Maalouf - Leo Africanus

On my third day of business the criers announced the arrival of the army of Fez. It consisted of two thousand light cavalry, five hundred crossbowmen, and two hundred mounted pistoleers. Seeing them arrive, the terrified inhabitants decided to treat with them. And, since I was the only Fassi in the town, I was begged to act as intermediary, which, I must say, seemed most amusing. From our first meeting, the officer commanding the royal army took a liking to me. He was an educated and cultivated man, assigned, however, to carry out the most frightful task: to hand over the town and its notables to the vengeance of the opposing clan. I tried to dissuade him.

‘Those who have been banished are traitors. Today, they have handed over the town to the sultan; tomorrow they will give it to his enemies. It is far better to negotiate with brave men who know the price of devotion, sacrifice and fidelity.’

I could see in his eyes that he was convinced by my reasoning, but his orders were clear: to gain possession of the town, to punish those who had borne arms against the sultan and hand over authority to the head of the exiled clan, with a garrison to assist him. However, there was one argument which he could not set aside:

‘How much does the sultan hope to gain in exchange for his protection?’

‘The exiled clan has promised twenty thousand dinars a year.’

I made a little calculation in my head.

‘There are thirty notables on the town council, and a further twelve rich Jewish merchants. If each one of them were to pay two thousand dinars, that would make eighty-four thousand —’

The officer interrupted me:

‘The annual income of the whole kingdom barely comes to three hundred thousand dinars. How do you imagine that a little town like this one could collect such a sum?’

‘There are undreamed-of riches in this country, but the people hide them and do not seek to make them bear fruit; they fear being stripped of them by the rulers. Why do you think the Jews of this country are accused of being miserly? Because the least expenditure, the slightest ostentation, puts their fortune and their lives in danger. For the same reason so many of our cities are dying and the kingdom is becoming impoverished.’

As the sovereign’s representative the man I was speaking to could not let me speak in this way in his presence. He asked me to come to the point:

‘If you promise the notables of Tafza that their lives will be spared and the customs of the city respected, I will persuade them to hand over that amount.’

Having obtained the officer’s word, I went to see the notables and informed them of the agreement. Seeing them hesitate, I told them that a letter had just arrived from Fez bearing the sultan’s seal, demanding the immediate execution of all the leading figures in the town. They began to wail and to lament, but, as I have recounted in my Description of Africa , within two days the eighty-four thousand dinars were deposited at the officer’s feet. I had never seen such a huge quantity of gold, and I learned afterwards from the mouth of the sultan himself that neither he nor his father had ever possessed such a sum in their treasuries.

When I left Tafza, I received valuable presents from the notables, happy to have saved their lives and their town, as well as a sum of money from the officer, who promised to tell the monarch about the role I had played in this strange business. He also gave me a detachment of twelve soldiers who accompanied my caravan back to Fez.

Before even going home, I went to see Master de Marino. I gave him the consignment he had ordered, and returned him his servants, his horse and his mules. I also gave him presents worth two hundred dinars and told him my adventure without omitting a single detail, showing him all the goods I had amassed for myself; he said it was worth fifteen thousand dinars at least.

‘It has taken me thirty years to collect such a sum,’ he said to me without the slightest trace of jealousy or envy.

I had the feeling that the whole world belonged to me, that I needed nothing and no one, that henceforth fortune would obey me implicitly. I was no longer walking, I was flying. As I took my leave of the Genoese, he shook my hand for a long time, leaning forwards slightly; I stood up straight, my head high, my nose raised. The old man held my hand firmly in his, longer than usual, then, without straightening himself up, looked into my eyes:

‘Fortune has smiled upon you, my young friend, and I am as happy for you as if you were my own son. But be on your guard, as riches and power are the enemies of sound judgement. When you see a field of corn, do you not see that some ears are straight and others bent? It is because the straight ones are empty! So keep that humility which has led you towards me, and which has thence opened to you, by the will of the Most High, the paths to fortune.’

In that year took place the most effective attack ever launched against the Maghrib by the Castilians. Two of the main coastal cities were taken, Oran during the month of Muharram and Bougie in Ramadan. Tripoli in Barbary would fall in the following year.

None of these three cities has been recaptured since by the Muslims.

916 A.H.

10 April 1510 — 30 March 1511

I have made a rose flower upon your cheeks,

I have made a smile open out upon your lips.

Do not push me away, for our Law is clear:

Every man has the right to pick

What he himself has planted.

I had from that time a court poet, fond of my wine and of my servant girls, greedy for my gold, ready to sing the praises of my visitors and above all of myself, at each feast, each time a caravan returned, sometimes even simply at meal times, when friends, relations, attentive employees, busy merchants, passing ulama , and masons engaged in the construction of my palace were gathered around me.

Since my journey to Tafza my fortune had multiplied, my agents were travelling all over Africa, from Badis to Sijilmassa, from Tlemcen to Marrakesh, laden with dates, indigo, henna, oil and textiles; I took part myself only in the larger caravans. The rest of the time I ran my business from my diwan , and used to supervise, a cane in my hand, the construction of my new residence, on a hill not far from my uncle’s house, where I had settled as master after the birth of my daughter, but which day by day seemed more confined, more modest, more unworthy of my fortune. I waited impatiently for the day when I would be able to live in my palace, my superb incomparable palace which I dreamed about and talked about incessantly, and for whose construction I had employed the best artisans, charged with the task of carrying out to perfection each of my costly desires: ceilings of carved wood, arches covered with mosaics, fountains in black marble, without thinking of the expense. When, sometimes, a figure caused me to hesitate, my poet was there to pronounce the words: ‘At the age of twenty, wisdom is not to be wise.’ Of course he was carving these words with my gold.

The day when the building work began was one of the most magnificent in my life. At dusk, surrounded by a horde of courtiers, I went to deposit some precious talismans and some child’s hair, cut carefully from my daughter’s head, at the four corners of the new building; I had suddenly become very susceptible to magic and superstitions, and I was the first to be amazed at this. This is probably the fate of rich and powerful men: aware that their wealth owes less to their merits than to luck, they begin to court the latter like a mistress and venerate it like an idol.