The Walking Drum Read online

  They were handsome animals, and the groom who cared for them was a desert Arab, a deaf mute. Obviously, the horses were his life and could be in no better hands, but I took time to caress them and become acquainted, feeding each a few fragments of naida, a confection made by soaking wheat for several days, allowing it to dry, then pounding it into cakes.

  After visiting the horses a second time, I left by a roundabout route so that I might not be followed, and I discovered myself in the corner of a bazaar where there were several karob and wine shops. Hurrying past, I was stopped by a cool but familiar voice.

  "If you wish to know, ask Kerbouchard!"

  The voice was that of Valaba.

  Turning, I saw her standing in the entrance to a wine shop, two young men beside her. She wore the Byzantine costume affected by some of the fashionable women of Córdoba, a tunic of pale blue that reached to her ankles and a mantle of dark blue embroidered with small Moline crosses of gold.

  "Kerbouchard," she said, "knows the far regions of the world. Ask him."

  One of the young men, slender and pale, merely glanced at me, taking in my rough student's clothing. The other, a big, loose-jointed young man with mildly amused eyes, was more interested.

  "We were speaking of the earth. Is it true that some Christian theologians believe the world to be flat?"

  "Theologians," I said, "should go to sea. The roundness of the world is proved every time a ship disappears over the horizon."

  Valaba turned toward the interior of the shop. "Kerbouchard, it is good to see you again. Will you join us? I would have you tell us of the lands beyond Thule."

  "Beyond Thule?" The tall young man put his hand on my shoulder. "Are there such lands?"

  "They are a mystery only to scholars and writers of books. Fishing boats go there each season. I am a Celt, from Armorica, in Brittany. Fishing boats have sailed to those far lands from our isle of Brehat since before memory. Nor were they alone. Basque and Norman boats have been there also, and those from Iceland."

  "Tell me of those lands."

  "That I cannot. Our boat went for fish, and the land is remote, its people savage. When we caught our fish we came home."

  The fair-skinned young man was bored. He was also haughty. His look was disdainful. "A fisherman? In a student's clothing?"

  "We are all fishermen after a fashion," I said. "Some fish for one thing, some for another." I smiled at him. "Tell me, what are you fishing for?"

  He stared at me, shocked at my reply. Before he could speak, Valaba said gently, her eyes showing her amusement, "You do not understand, Roderick. Mathurin Kerbouchard is Count Kerbouchard. In his country it is customary that all boys learn the way of the sea."

  The title, of course, was nonsense, although it had been said there were such at some bygone time. The rest of what she had said was simply the truth. I wondered how she knew so much. Or had she merely surmised? Titles had never impressed me. They were given to the servants of kings. I knew one who got his by helping the king on with his trousers each morning, or whatever he wore. We Kerbouchards were servants to no man. My father often said that he knew of no king with a family half as old as his own. Not that the age of the family was important, many an old tree bears bad fruit.

  Roderick did not like me, but the other young man was interested. He ordered wine for us, coffee for himself. "You are a scholar, yet you have been a man of the sea. It is a rare combination."

  "There is knowledge at sea to be found nowhere else. Lately, I have been reading accounts of many voyages, but so much is left out. The sea has an enduring knowledge passed from father to son for generations.

  "It is our custom in sailing from our land to the great fishing grounds in the west to sail to Eire, the green island beyond England. From there it is but five or six days with a fair wind to Iceland, and but two days, perhaps three, to the Greenland. From there it is another five days or less to the fishing grounds.

  "Our fishermen and those of Eire learned of these lands by watching the flight of birds, for when birds which nest only upon land fly off over the ocean, there must be land beyond. Where they flew, land must lie waiting, so fishermen followed a flock as long as it could be seen, then another flock until it was lost to sight, by then they could see mountain peaks on the far land.

  "Over the years our people have found many lands, and the monks from Eire, seeking a hermitage, were often there before us. Such men already lived in the Iceland before the first Vikings came. The Vikings speak of it in their own sagas.

  "Explorers and discoverers are often those who draw attention to what simple people have been doing for years. I doubt if any land has ever been found where some hunter, fisherman, or trader had not been before."

  "Such men would not have the courage for such adventure!" Roderick said.

  "Who speaks of courage? Or adventure? The men of whom I speak have time for neither. They fish for fish to eat or sell."

  The big young man agreed. "Mas'udi speaks of this in his geography. The seafarers go and return while the geographer sits in his study and tries to shape the earth and its lands according to a theory of his own."

  Valaba was saying nothing, toying with her wine glass and listening. The big young man puzzled me. He had the hands and shoulders of a peasant and the face of a thinker—if such a face there is. It was the face, at least, of a thoughtful man.

  His clothing was rich, and the one jewel he wore was a magnificent ruby, yet I could not place him. He was no scholar as such, nor did he have the appearance of a soldier.

  We talked long, of the writings of al-Bakri, of Hind, and of Cathay. Over the wine glasses the conversation moved and sparkled over many topics and half the globe. Valaba suggested, "You must come to my house tomorrow. We are having many guests, and ibn-Quzman will sing."

  Ibn-Quzman, a wandering minstrel, had taken the zajal, a popular form used by troubadours, and given it real distinction. He had become the delight of Córdoba as well as Toledo, Seville, and Malaga. Naturally, I knew of him, yet I had never expected to hear him sing.

  Even now I dared not. At such a gathering there would be spies who might report my presence to ibn-Haram or to Prince Ahmed.

  "O Light of the World!" I said. "I would choose to spend my life within the sound of your voice, but if I came to your house at such a time, that life would be short, indeed."

  The big young man smiled. "Come," he said, "I want very much to speak with you again, and you need not fear arrest. You have my word."

  He arose, and Valaba and Roderick moved with him. "Do come," she said, "and have no fears."

  They left, and excited by the afternoon, I walked slowly back along the streets. Who was the friendly young man, scarcely older than myself, who accompanied Valaba? Safia heard my story. "Mathurin, you are indeed fortunate. The young man with the big hands? He had a strong, rugged face? A wide smile?"

  "He did."

  "It is Ya'kub, the eldest son of Yusuf himself, and his favorite."

  Abu-Yusuf Ya'kub was much talked of in Córdoba. Between himself and his father there was a rare understanding all too uncommon between Moslem rulers and their sons. Yusuf knew Ya'kub had no ambition to rule before his time, or at all, for that matter.

  Extremely able, educated in the business of government, Ya'kub preferred to assist his father and remain free of the sharp focus of public attention. Safia seated herself and poured coffee. "But Valaba!" she exclaimed. "First, the bride of Prince Ahmed, and now Valaba, the most beautiful woman in Córdoba! I should be surprised, but I am not. After all, you are extremely handsome."

  "I scarcely know her."

  "She knew you well enough to see that your horse awaited you in the guard's stable."

  "What? You cannot know what you are saying! She could have had nothing to do with that!"

  "Nevertheless, it was she. It was her gold with which your guard gambled at the end of the corridor so he might not hear or see what happened in your cell.

  "She could do no m
ore. Had you escaped in any other way the guards would have lost their heads. Not that I would mention it. Such things are better accepted and remembered than talked about. It could do her harm."

  "She has power in Córdoba."

  "Yes"—Safia was bitter—"and so had I, upon a time, but power is a breath on the wind and soon lost." She put her hand on mine. It was the first time she had ever touched me. "Mathurin, do not fail me. I have nowhere else to turn."

  "I have no answer but to say I shall not fail you." Pausing, I said, "You have never told me what it is you do."

  "Whatever it is will soon be at an end. Believe me, I could not do less than I have done."

  Fear was upon her, it flowed in her veins, shadowed her eyes. That she was engaged in some intrigue was obvious, and that she had sources of information was obvious. More than that I did not know.

  It was midnight when I left, for she feared to be alone. I left by a small gate in the garden wall, for I now had a place to live close by the horses. Holding to the deepest shadows, I went along the small alleyway to the street. I hesitated before emerging.

  Nothing.

  The air was tight with danger, nor did I like to know there were enemies at whom I could not strike because they were unknown to me. And still, I had no weapon but my dagger. Drawing it from the scabbard, I glanced at the blade.

  A Berber soldier saw it and laughed. "It is a toy!" he sneered. "Stained only with milk!"

  "The milk left no stain," I said, smiling, "but come to me, and we will see if a dog's blood will stain it."

  The sneer left his face. "It was but a jest. Who would die for a jest?"

  "You could." I held the blade in my hand, waiting.

  "You are crazy!" He walked away down the street, glancing over his shoulder at me.

  So I sheathed my blade in its scabbard rather than his belly and walked homeward, smelling the jasmine and thinking that no doubt he was right.

  A man would be crazy to risk dying in a world where there was jasmine.

  To say nothing of Aziza, Sharasa, and Valaba.

  22

  THE MAJOR CONSIDERATION of the world of the twelfth century after Christ was Islam, and so it had been for more than five hundred years. Never before had a single idea created, in terms of conquest and culture, an impact such as the religion given to the world by Mohammed, the camel driver of Mecca.

  Christianity, the other great moving force of my time, had in a thousand years won to its teachings only a few lands in western Europe. On the other hand, in the space of one hundred years following the death of Mohammed in 632, the Arabs had carried the sword of Islam from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, holding at one time most of Spain, part of southern France, the isle of Sicily, all of North Africa and Egypt, all of Arabia, the Holy Land, Armenia, Persia, Afghanistan, and almost a third of India. The empire of the Arabs was larger than that of Alexander the Great or of Rome.

  They came with the sword, but they retained the best of what they discovered. Much that we know of Arab science was born from the minds of Jews, Persians, Greeks, various Central Asiatic peoples, and the Berbers, but it flowered under Arab protection, impelled by Arab enthusiasm.

  A scholar was welcome everywhere and might travel thousands of miles, welcomed in each city by a sultan, a bey or emir, presented with gifts, honored, escorted, entertained, and, above all, listened to with attention.

  Here and there were signs of change. Rulers came who were ignorant or cruel men whose interests lay elsewhere than with the propagation of knowledge. Indications of decay were evident under the flush of greatness, yet for more than five hundred years the Arabs carried the torch of civilization.

  A fever of discovery lay upon the world; old libraries and bookstalls were ransacked for books; scholars from all countries were welcomed; men delved, experimented, tried new things. Nothing like it had ever happened within the memory of man. The Greeks of Athens had thought, speculated, and debated, but the people of the Arab world experimented, tested, explored, and reasoned as well. New ideas did not frighten them, and the stars were close to them in their deserts. Their ships, with those of China and India, had made the Indian Ocean as busy a place as the Mediterranean.

  Among other books I had found and read The Periplus to the Erythean Sea, a guide and a pilot book to all the ports of the Indian Ocean and adjacent waters; the Hudud al-Alam, a geography and guide first published in 982, as well as the work of Sharaf al-Zaman Tahir Marvazion, China, The Turks and India, written in 1120.

  Until the beginning of the Conquest, the Arab had lived on the outer edge of civilization, subject to its influences but accepting little of its teaching. A practical people, they were not inclined to speculate or form theories. They introduced the objective experiment and the accurate observation of phenomena. Their lives as shepherds, desert travelers, or seamen had given them a working knowledge of the stars that developed into a study of astronomy.

  Arab ships had sailed to China, to Malacca, Sumatra, Borneo, and Java. Their religion had been established in islands unheard of in Europe, and where their religion went, trade followed. The pilgrims who made the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, brought with them itineraries, and these helped to build the geographical knowledge of the Arabs.

  At the library most of the books had leather covers on paper of good quality but handwritten by such as me. They were of a size easily handled or carried and convenient for use. Several lists had been prepared of available books, one of those The Fihrist of al-Nadim, to which I often referred.

  Haroun and I had taken to meeting in a wine shop near the great mosque. We often drank a date wine flavored with cassia leaves or ate Foul Madumnas, a dish of beans, hard-boiled eggs, and lemon, into which we dipped bread, eating as we talked.

  We talked of alchemy, into which I was delving, of the writings of Jabir ibn-Hayyan, known to the Franks as Geber, who experimented in al-Kufah about 776, and of the writings of al-Rhazi, the greatest in chemical science. Jabir had described the two operations of reduction and calcination, and advanced almost all areas of chemical experiment. It was the good talk of young men to whom ideas are important, to be alive was to think.

  "Tonight," I told him, "I go to the house of Valaba!"

  "You are fortunate," Haroun said ruefully, "you will go as a guest, I as a guard!"

  It was night upon the banks of the Guadalquivir, and under the orange trees, under the palms and the chinar trees, there was music and laughter, the soft play of light from many lanterns, the stir and movement of people. Bronze lamps threw their light through colored glass from trees and balconies. It was a colorful, shifting, and kaleidoscopic scene.

  From across the spacious court a haunting voice sang to the music of a lute and a qitara, a song filled with the sad loneliness of desert spaces. Only an hour ago I had been staring in discouragement at my dull student's clothing, longing for just one of the gems lost with my ragged coat. True, I had bathed, and I had brushed my clothing with care, but it looked like nothing more than it was.

  I would not go. I would look like a skeleton of death at a place where all was elegance and beauty. I would not shame myself nor the memory of my ancestors.

  A slave appeared, and a genii could have come no more suddenly. "Oh, Master, I come from Abu-Yusuf Ya'kub! He begs to offer tribute to Your Eminence!"

  With that he took from his shoulder a long bag. Opening it with a gesture, he drew out of it a magnificent suit of clothing, a mantle ... everything.

  Now I stood beneath the palms wearing breeches called sirwal, baggy breeches of black, of the thinnest wool, carrying a sheen like silk; a short jacket called a damir of the same material and trimmed with gold; a zibun, or shirt, of the finest silk; a crimson sash of silk, and a mantle of black wool of the same material as the suit, but brocaded with gold and crimson. My turban was of dull but rich red, and in my sash I wore a jeweled dagger sent me by Ya'kub, but alongside it my Damascus dagger that had been my companion through so many troubles.


  Valaba would be somewhere about, and Ya'kub would be here. The gift from Ya'kub surprised me, although it was customary to make such presentations to traveling scholars—gifts of clothing, horses, purses of gold coins, sometimes slaves were given when a scholar shared his knowledge with a ruler.

  Suddenly, my name was spoken. It was Averroes. The qadi smiled and put a hand on my shoulder. "So? Valaba has captured you at last! She has been looking forward to this, Kerbouchard! It is not often we have a distinguished geographer among us, and particularly one who has sailed the seas himself!"

  Geographer? Who was I to argue the point? Call me what they would, I alone knew my ignorance. True, I had read more of geography and studied more maps, charts, and portolans than most, and I had sailed what to Moslems were unknown seas, yet I was woefully ignorant of so much I needed to know.

  The term "unknown seas" distressed me. Man has gone down to the sea since the beginning of time, and often left accounts of his voyages, yet so much has not been told. The call of the horizon finds quick response in the heart of every wanderer.

  We of the Veneti had legends of sailing to distant lands, faint, cloudy stories of brooding cliffs and crashing waves, of temples, gold, and strange cities. Julius Caesar wrote in his Commentaries about our great, oak-hulled ships with leathern sails, but he knew nothing of what ports they visited or with what strange cargoes they returned. Perhaps records of their far-flung voyages had been kept in the great destroyed libraries of Tyre, Carthage, or Alexandria.

  We strolled across the garden, Averroes and I, and many turned to look, for the qadi was a great man and a noted scholar. We talked of geography, medicine, and the stars, and I told him of remedies used among our people, and of healing herbs of which my father had spoken.

  Ya'kub came toward us, walking with Valaba. There was a somewhat surprised look in her eyes to see me in my new finery, gratifying to me. We walked among the trees, followed by all eyes. This stroll was sufficient to make my fortune in Spain, yet who they were meant less to me than what they were saying and that I, a mere wanderer, was accepted as an equal by Averroes himself.