Amin Maalouf - Leo Africanus

The unfortunate man did not cry out, but just moaned dully, nodding his head, when, all of a sudden, two soldiers threw themselves upon him, causing him to lose his balance. Before he was even stretched out on the ground, one of them seized him by the armpits while the other simultaneously grabbed hold of his feet. The executioner approached, carrying a heavy sword in both hands, and with a single blow cut the man in two across the waist. I turned my eyes away, feeling such a violent contraction in my stomach that my paralysed body almost fell to the ground in a heap. A helping hand rose towards me to support me, with an old man’s voice:

‘One should not gaze upon death from the back of one’s mount.’

Rather than jump to the ground, which I did not feel capable of doing, I clung on to my donkey, turned back and went away, causing protest from those whom my manoeuvre prevented from seeing the next part of the spectacle: the upper part of the victim’s body was just being put on a pile of quicklime, raised upright facing the crowd where it remained delirious for several minutes before expiring.

In an effort to forget, I decided to attend to my affairs, to go and inform myself about the departures and arrivals of the caravans, to listen to various gossip. But as I proceeded my head became heavier and heavier. It was as if I had been overcome by a fit of dizziness; I drifted this way and that, from one street to another, from one suq to another, half conscious, inhaling saffron and fried cheese, hearing as if from afar the din of the hawkers who were accosting me. Without his attendant, who was still watching the gruesome spectacle, my donkey began to roam about according to his moods and his habits. This lasted until a merchant, noticing that I was not well, took the reins and handed me a cup of sugared water, perfumed with jasmin which immediately relieved my stomach. I was in Khan al-Khalili, and my benefactor was one of the richest Persian traders there, a certain Akbar, may God extend His benefits to him! He made me sit down, swearing that he would not let me go until I had fully recovered.

I had been there for at least an hour, my mind emerging slowly from the fog, when the Circassian made her entrance. I do not know what struck me about her first. Was it her face, so beautiful yet so uncovered, with only a black silk scarf holding back her blonde hair? Was it her waist, so slim in this city where only copiously nourished women were appreciated? Or perhaps the ambiguous manner, deferential but not over-zealous, with which Akbar said: ‘Highness!’

Her retinue did not distinguish her from the simplest bourgeoise woman: a single servant, a peasant woman with stiff gestures, and an air of being constantly amused, who was carrying a flat object wrapped clumsily in an old worn-out sheet.

My gaze was evidently too persistent, because the Circassian turned her face away with a conspicuous movement. Seeing this, Akbar confided in me in a deliberately ceremonious voice:

‘Her Royal Highness Princess Nur, widow of the Amir ‘Ala al-Din, nephew of the Grand Turk.’

I forced myself to look elsewhere, but my curiosity was only stronger. Everyone in Cairo was aware of the drama of this ‘Ala al-Din. He had taken part in the fratricidal war which had set the heirs of Sultan Bayazid against one another. It even seemed at one point that he had triumphed, when he had seized the city of Bursa and had threatened to take Constantinople. But his uncle Salim had eventually gained the upper hand. A relentless man, the new Ottoman sultan had had his brothers strangled and their families decimated. However, ‘Ala al-Din managed to flee and take refuge in Cairo, where he was received with honour. A palace and servants were put at his disposal, and it was said that he was now preparing to encourage a rising against his uncle with the support of the Mameluke empire, the Sophy of Persia, and the powerful Turkish tribes in the very heart of Anatolia.

Would the coalition have got the better of the redoubtable Salim? It will never be known: four months after his arrival ‘Ala al-Din was carried away by the plague. He was still not twenty-five years old, and had just married a beautiful Circassian with whom he had fallen in love, the daughter of an officer assigned to his guard. The Sultan of Egypt, apparently saddened by the prince’s death, presided himself over the prayer for the dead man. The funeral ceremonies were imposing, the more noteworthy because they took place according to the Ottoman custom, which was hardly known in Cairo: ‘Ala al-Din’s horses walked in front, their tails cut and their saddles turned round; on the bier above the body were his turban and his bows, which had been broken.

Nevertheless, the master of Cairo took back the palace of ‘Ala al-Din two months later, a decision for which he was rebuked by the population. The widow of the Ottoman was granted a modest house and such a derisory pension that she was obliged to auction the few objects of value that her husband had left her.

All these matters had been reported to me at the time, but they had not assumed any particular significance for me. While I was going over them in my mind, Nur’s voice came to me, heart-rending but dignified:

‘The prince draws up plans in his palace, without knowing that at the same moment, in a cottage, an artisan’s fingers are already weaving his shroud.’

She had spoken these words in Arabic, but with that Circassian accent which no Cairene could fail to recognize, since it was that of the sultan and the Mameluke officers. Before I could reply, the merchant came back, with his offer of a price:

‘Seventy-five dinars.’

She turned pale:

‘This piece has no equal in the world!’

It was a wall tapestry worked in needlework of rare precision, surrounded by a frame in carved wood. It showed a pack of wolves running towards the summit of a snowy mountain.

Akbar called me to witness:

‘What Her Highness says is the absolute truth, but my shop is full of valuable objects which I am forced to sell cheaply. Buyers are rare.’

Out of politeness I inclined my head slightly. Feeling that he had gained my trust, he went further:

‘This year is the worst since I began working thirty years ago. People do not dare to show the merest hint of their dinars, for fear that they will be accused of hiding their riches and that someone will come and extort it from them. Last week, a singer was arrested merely on the strength of a denunciation. The sultan himself submitted her to questioning while the guards crushed her feet. They got a hundred and fifty pieces of gold out of her.’

He continued:

‘Please note that I understand perfectly well why our sovereign, may God protect him, is forced to act in this manner. He no longer receives the revenues from the ports. Jidda has not had a boat for a year because of the Portuguese corsairs. The situation is not much better at Damietta. As for Alexandria, it has been deserted by the Italian merchants who can no longer find any business to transact there. And to think that this city had, in the past, six hundred thousand inhabitants, twelve thousand grocers open until night and forty thousand Jews paying the canonical jizya ! Today, it’s a fact that Alexandria gives the treasury less than it costs it. We see the results of this every day: the army has not had meat for seven months; the regiments are in ferment, and the sultan looks for gold wherever he thinks he can find it.’

The entrance of a client interrupted him. Seeing that the new arrival was not carrying anything in his hands, Akbar must have thought that he was a customer and asked us to excuse him for a moment. The princess prepared to leave, but I held her back:

‘How much did you hope to get for it?’