Novel 1984 - The Walking Drum (v5.0) Page 17

  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 Averroës. 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, Averroës 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 the
y were saying and that I, a mere wanderer, was accepted as an equal by Averroës himself.

  Wherever my eyes turned there were beautiful women, fingertips stained with henna, the luster of their eyes heightened with antimony. Many wore a comb at the back of the head attached to a scarf of gauzy material, but all their costumes were striking and beautiful.

  The Prophet forbade the wearing of silk, but he who was a good husband should have understood women better than that. These all wore silk, and many of the men did as well.

  Silk had come to Spain with the Moors, and by the tenth century was the principal export, ornamental silks and tapestries being shipped to all the ports of the Near East. Until the birth of the silk industry in Spain the Coptic silks of Egypt and the Sassanid silks of Persia had been preferred. Now the Spanish silks superseded all others.

  Almería was especially known for its turbans for women and damask for drapes. Lightweight, contrasting to the heavier satins, velvet and damasks were made in Catalonia and Valencia. Court robes and vestments for the clergy were ordered from Spain by most of the Christian nations.

  For a moment Valaba and I were alone. “It was gracious of you to invite me here. I have done nothing”—I waved a hand—“to compare with these, although I have ambitions.”

  One eyebrow lifted slightly. “I suspect your ambitions, Kerbouchard, and if stories of the Castle of Othman are a criterion, I suspect you would find plenty of cooperation out there.”

  She studied the crowd. “Sixty or seventy of the people here might be ranked among the most brilliant in Córdoba, and perhaps twenty more who will be their equal in a year’s time, but few of them will be better informed than you.”

  She looked directly into my eyes, and hers were very beautiful. “Be sure of this, Kerbouchard. You would not be here unless you belonged here.

  “John of Seville has kept pace with your studies, and only last week Averroës was reading a book on alchemy translated by you from the Persian.”

  “Introduce me to your guest, Valaba.” The tone was cool. “I do not believe we have met socially.”

  It was Prince Ahmed.

  His eyes were utterly cold.

  “Prince Ahmed,” Valaba said, “my very good friend, Mathurin Kerbouchard!”

  “And my very good friend!” Ya’kub appeared from under the trees where he had been talking with Averroës.

  “Of course, Your Eminence.” Prince Ahmed’s eyes were bitter. “These are your domains.” His pause was brief. “But I understand that Kerbouchard likes to travel.”

  “Believe me, Prince Ahmed,” I said, smiling, “you must forgive me if I avoid your city. You make a guest almost too welcome!”

  “Without assistance you would still be my guest. Sometime I expect to learn who assisted you.”

  “Assisted me? I assure you, sir, I was alone on the face of that rock, very much alone. No one could have helped me in that situation. If you doubt me, try scaling that cliff yourself.”

  “I am not a performer.”

  “Each of us plays many roles. Some are heroes, some villains, and some merely”—I paused slightly—“mountebanks.”

  His face went white under the olive skin, and for an instant I thought he would strike me, but he turned abruptly away. His back was stiff as he walked away, and Ya’kub turned to me. “You make enemies, Kerbouchard.”

  “I did not choose him for my enemy, Your Eminence; he chose me. He owes me some months in a dungeon.”

  “He has been paid in laughter,” Valaba said.

  Then at a signal from Valaba, ibn-Quzman sang, a low, haunting melody, the love song of a desert rider, following it with a wild, fierce song of war and vengeance. Yet I could not lose myself to the music as I wished. There were enemies who might even dare the displeasure of Ya’kub for the pleasure of spilling my blood. Powerful friends could make armor of a word, and from their lips a phrase could be a shield. This had I witnessed tonight.

  Yet I placed less faith in the words of men than in my own hands and the steel behind my sash. That man who is no longer on guard is one who invites death.

  Ibn-Quzman crossed to Valaba as she stood beside me, and I said, “I envy you. You sing more beautifully than any other.”

  “You are Kerbouchard? We must talk one day of the Celtic bards and their songs.”

  “And you could explain the writings of al-Mausili. I know too little of music to understand all he has written.”

  “You know of him? His uncle, Zalzal, they say, played the lute better than anyone.”

  We talked idly for a time, and when he had gone on, Valaba put her hand upon my arm. “Ya’kub wishes to make a place for you.”

  Ya’kub overheard the remark and came over to us. “Loyal men are not easily found, Kerbouchard, and there are dangerous days before me. I could make a place for you that would allow leisure for study.”

  “I am sorry.”

  He was not pleased, and I hastened to explain. “There is no prince I had rather serve, but I have a mission and but lately have received a clue.”

  Briefly, I explained. “If my father lives,” I added, “I must find him; if he is indeed dead, I must know. Nothing else would keep me from serving you.”

  “I had thought of you as commander of my personal bodyguard.” He smiled slightly. “Rumor has said you are skilled with a sword.”

  “May I suggest a man?”

  “I trust few men, Kerbouchard.”

  “This one can be trusted. I would stake my life upon it, and he is here tonight, in command of the guards around these walls. He proved loyal to me in time of trouble.”

  “His name?”

  “Haroun el-Zegri.”

  “I know the man.” He listened to the music, then said, “Come! Let us dine.”

  On the table where food awaited us I saw sugar for the first time, white, gleaming crystals. It was something of which we in Christian lands had heard but never seen. We had for sweetening only honey or sweet grasses.

  There were heaps of food in infinite variety. Plates of carra bige, a pastry sausage of chopped almonds and walnuts mixed with sugar and over which melted butter had been poured. This mixture was rolled into a thin pastry and baked for fifteen minutes or so. It was served with a spoonful of natif, a fluffy mix of sugar, egg white, and orange flower water.

  There was rice with sour lemon sauce, pilaf Egyptian, shebach, an Egyptian fritter, green and black olives, brains fried in batter, artichoke hearts also fried in batter and served very hot, and kebaeba, a mixture of red meat, pine nuts, and crushed wheat. There was louzine saparzel, a Syrian dessert of quince, ground almonds, and cardamom seeds served in small squares. There was rose jam, made of rose petals, sugar, and lemon.

  There were skewers of beef, lamb, and veal, smoking hot and ready to be served in a number of sauces and styles. There was wine from Portugal, Italy, and Greece as well as coffee, sweetened with sugar.

  The moon arose, holding its light beyond the minaret of the great mosque, and Valaba said, “Then you will be leaving soon?”

  “At any moment.”

  “We have hoped you would remain. Ya’kub is a good man, and the time is near when he will need good men about him.”

  “It is well to think of Ya’kub. He is a rarely fine man.”

  She turned toward me. “I think of you, too, Kerbouchard. The way you take is filled with risk.”

  “Are there other ways?”

  “For some, even for you, perhaps. You are a strange man, Kerbouchard. You are an adventurer yet a scholar.”

  “There have been many such, even Alexander, and Julius Caesar. I but dabble in scholarship. Learning to me is a way of life. I do not learn to obtain position or reputation. I want only to know.”

  “Is not yours the best way? To learn because one loves learning?”

  “There are places I have not seen, Valaba. I would feel their suns upon my face, the brine of their seas upon my lips. There are too many horizons, and too many dreams of what may lie beyond
those horizons.”

  “What are you seeking, Kerbouchard?”

  “Must one seek something? I seek to be seeking, as I learn to be learning. Each book is an adventure as is each day’s horizon.”

  “What of love, Kerbouchard? Did you love Aziza?”

  “Who is to say? What is love? Perhaps for a time I loved her; perhaps in a way I love her still. Perhaps when a man has held a woman in his arms, there is a little of her with him forever. Who is to say?

  “A ruined castle, an ancient garden, a moon rising over a fountain…love comes easily at such a time. Perhaps we loved each other then; perhaps we do not love each other now, but we each have a memory.

  “Love is a moment of stillness that sometimes a word can shatter to fragments, or love can be a thing that endures, a rich deep current that flows unending down the years.

  “I do not think one should demand that love be forever. Perhaps it is better that it not be forever. How can one answer for more than the moment? Who knows what strange tides may sweep us away? What depths there may be or twists and turns and shallows? Each life sails a separate course, although sometimes, and this is the best of times, two lives may move along together until the end of time?

  “Listen to the music out there. Is the song less beautiful because it has an end? I believe each of us wishes to find the song that does not end, but for me that time is not now.

  “You see?” I spread wide my hands. “I have nothing. I have no home, no land, no position. I am an empty gourd that must fill itself.

  “I would owe no debts to destiny, Valaba, nor could I exist on the bounty of another. I am not a lapdog to be kept by a woman. I do not know what awaits me out there beyond the rim of things, but destiny calls, and I must go. For you and me, today is all we have; tomorrow is a mirage that may never become reality.”

  “You speak well, Kerbouchard. Did you learn that on those bleak northern moors?”

  We were walking slowly through the shadows, away from the crowd, away from the music. There was a dim, unlighted court ahead of us, and through the open gate to that court I could see the lights of the house.