Amin Maalouf - Leo Africanus

‘But there is no proof, Majesty, that Harun was the assailant. The mountains are full of highway robb—’

The chancellor interrupted me, his tone louder than that of the sovereign.

‘The Zarwali’s corpse has just been found. He was buried near a house where your sister and her husband used to live. The soldiers recognized the victim; his jewels had not been taken. Is that the crime of an ordinary highwayman?’

I must say that since the first news of the disappearance of the Zarwali, which had reached Fez four months earlier, although I did not know the slightest compromising detail, the possibility of Harun taking vengeance had crossed my mind. I knew that the Ferret was capable of pursuing his hatreds to the end, and I was not unaware that he had chosen to live in that part of the Rif. Thus it was not easy for me to declare his innocence. However I had to defend him because, coming from me, the least hesitation would have condemned him.

‘His Majesty has too keen a sense of justice to agree to condemn a man without him being able to plead his own case. Particularly when it concerns a respected member of the porters’ guild.’

The sultan seemed irritated:

‘It does not concern your brother-in-law any more, but you, Hasan. It was you who asked for the Zarwali to be banished, it was at your insistence that he was ordered to go into exile in his village, and it was while going there that he was attacked and assassinated. You bear a heavy responsibility.’

While he was speaking, my eyes clouded over, as though they were already resigned to the darkness of a dungeon. I saw my fortune confiscated, my property scattered, my family humiliated, my Hiba sold on some slave market. My legs began to give way, and sweat overcame me, the cold sweat of helplessness. I forced myself to speak, with difficulty, miserably.

‘What am I accused of?’

The chancellor broke in once more, made aggressive by my too evident fear:

‘Of complicity, Granadan! Of having left a criminal at liberty, of having sent his victim to his death, of having held the royal pardon up to ridicule and of having abused the benevolence of Our Master.’

I tried to rally myself:

‘How could I have guessed the moment that the Zarwali would return from his pilgrimage, or the route he would take? As for Harun, I have lost sight of him for more than four years, and I have not even been able to communicate to him the pardon which has been conferred upon him.’

In fact I had sent message after message to the Ferret, but in his obstinacy he had not bothered to reply. However, my defence did not leave the sovereign unmoved, and he adopted a more friendly tone:

‘You are certainly not guilty of anything, Hasan, but appearances indict you. And justice lies in appearances, at least in this world, at least in the eyes of the multitude. At the same time, I cannot forget that in the past, when I have entrusted you with various missions, you have served me faithfully.’

He was silent. In his mind a debate was in progress which I forbore to interrupt, since I felt him slipping towards clemency. The chancellor leaned towards him, evidently seeking to influence him, but the monarch silenced him abruptly, before decreeing:

‘You will not suffer the fate of the murderer, Hasan, but that of the victim. Like the Zarwali, you are condemned to banishment. For two whole years, you will not present yourself any more at this palace, you will not live any more at Fez, nor in any other of the provinces which belong to me. After the twentieth day of the month of Rajab, anyone who sees you within the boundaries of the kingdom will bring you here in chains.’

In spite of the harshness of these last words, I had to make an effort not to make my relief too evident. I had escaped ruin and the dungeon, and a long journey for two years did not frighten me in the least. In addition I was allowed a month to put my affairs in order.

My departure from Fez was flamboyant. I decided to go into exile with my head high, dressed in brocade, not at night but right in the middle of the day, passing through the swarming alleys, followed by an imposing caravan: two hundred camels, loaded with all sorts of merchandise, as well as twenty thousand dinars, a treasure protected by some fifty armed guards, dressed and paid for out of my own pocket, in order to discourage the bandits who roamed the roads. I stopped three times: in front of the madrasa Bu Inania, in the courtyard of the Mosque of the Andalusians, and then in the street of the Potters, near the ramparts, to shower the passers-by with pieces of gold, reaping praise and ovations in return.

I was taking risks by organizing such a show. Some spiteful words whispered into the ear of the chancellor, then into the ear of the monarch, and I could have been arrested, accused of having mocked the royal punishment which had struck me. However I had to run this risk, not only to flatter my self-esteem, but also for my father, my mother, my daughter, for all my family, so that they should not live in disgrace through the period of my banishment.

Of course, I also left them the wherewithal to live safe from need for years, nourished, with servants, and always dressed in new clothes.

When I was two miles from Fez, on the road to Sefrou, sure that all danger had now passed, I went up to Hiba, perched on her mount in a palanquin covered with silk.

‘In the memory of the people of Fez there has never been such a proud retreat,’ I called out contentedly.

She seemed worried.

‘One should not defy the decrees of Destiny. One should not make light of adversity.’

I shrugged my shoulders, not at all impressed.

‘Did I not swear that I would take you back to your tribe? You will be there in a month’s time. Unless you wish to accompany me to Timbuktu, then to Egypt.’

Her only reply was an enigmatic and anguished ‘ Insha’ allah ’.

Four days later we were going through the pass of the Crows, in weather appreciably colder than I had expected in the month of October. When we had to stop for the night, the guards set up the encampment in a little depression between two hills, hoping in this way to shelter from the freezing winds of the Atlas. They made the tents into a rough circle, with mine rising up in the middle, a real palace of cloth, its sides decorated with artistically calligraphed verses from the Qur’an.

It was there that I was to sleep with Hiba. I awaited this moment with anything but displeasure, but when dusk fell my fair companion obstinately refused to sleep in the tent, without any obvious reason, but with an expression of such fear that I gave up arguing. She had found the entrance to a cave half a mile from the camp. There she would sleep, and nowhere else.

To spend the night in a cave in the Atlas mountains, in the company of hyenas, lions, leopards, perhaps even those huge dragons that were said to be found in such numbers in the neighbourhood, and so poisonous that if a human body came into contact with them it would crumble like clay? It was impossible to instil such fears into Hiba. Only my marvellous tent could terrify her on that cold autumn night.

I had to give in. Overcoming my own misgivings, I let myself be led towards the cave, in spite of the entreaties of the guards and their irreverent winks. Seeing Hiba absurdly weighed down with a large pile of woollen blankets, a lantern, a goatskin full of earners milk and a long bunch of dates made me feel that my respectability was somewhat in jeopardy.

Our shelter turned out to be cramped, more of a hollow in the rock than a real gallery, which reassured me, since I could easily touch the bottom and thus assure myself that no creature was in residence. Apart from my indomitable Hiba, who was behaving more and more strangely, piling up stones to make the entrance smaller, carefully clearing the earth away, wrapping up the goatskin and the dates in wool to protect them from frost, while I, idly mocking, continued to shower her with sarcasm and reproaches, without succeeding either in cheering her up or in irritating her, still less in diverting her from her feverish antlike bustling.