“And she reciprocates your love, I suppose? That’s why you were out walking like a moon-calf in this miserable parched mudhole of a city all night long?”
“She spent the night with the crown prince,” Michael blurted in misery.
“Ah. Ah, now it comes out!” Sir Anthony was silent for a while. Then he glanced up sharply, his eyes bright with skepticism. “But how do you know that?”
“I saw her leaving his palace at dawn, sir.”
“Spying on her, were you?”
“I just happened to be there. I didn’t even know it was his palace, until I asked. He came out himself a few minutes later, and went quickly off somewhere. He looked very troubled.”
“He should have looked troubled. He’d just found out that he might not get to be king as quickly as he’d like to be.”
“I don’t understand, please, sir.”
“There’s word going around town this morning that the Emir has recovered. And had sent for his son to let him know that he wasn’t quite as moribund as was generally believed.”
Michael recoiled in surprise.
“Recovered? Is it true?”
Sir Anthony offered him a benign, patronizing smile.
“So they say. But the Emir’s doctors assure us that it’s nothing more than a brief rally in an inevitable descent. The old wolf will be dead within the week. Still, it’s rather a setback for Little Father’s immediate plans. The news of the Emir’s unanticipated awakening from his coma must rather have spoiled his morning for him.”
“Good,” said Michael vindictively.
Sir Anthony laughed.
“You hate him, do you?”
“I despise him. I loathe him. I have nothing but the greatest detestation for him. He’s a cynical amoral voluptuary and nothing more. He doesn’t deserve to be a king.”
“Well, if it’s any comfort to you, lad, he’s not going to live long enough to become one.”
“What?”
“His untimely demise has been arranged. His stepmother is going to poison him at the funeral of the old Emir, if the old Emir ever has the good grace to finish dying.”
“What? What?”
Sir Anthony smiled.
“This is quite confidential, you understand. Perhaps I shouldn’t be entrusting you with it just yet. But you’d have needed to find out sooner or later. We’ve organized a little coup d’etat.”
“What? What? What?” said Michael helplessly.
“Her Highness the Lady Serene Glory would like to put her brother on the throne instead of the prince. The brother is worthless, of course. So is the prince, of course, but at least he does happen to be the rightful heir. We don’t want to see either of them have it, actually. What we’d prefer is to have the Mansa of Mali declare that the unstable conditions in Songhay following the death of the old Emir have created a danger to the security of all of West Africa that can be put to rest only by an amalgamation of the kingdoms of Mali and Songhay under a single ruler. Who would be, of course, the Mansa of Mali, precisely as your young lady so baldly suggested the other day. And that is what we intend to achieve. The Grand Duke and Prince Itzcoatl and I. As representatives of the powers whom we serve.”
Michael stared. He rubbed his cheeks as if to assure himself that this was no dream. He found himself unable to utter a sound.
Sir Anthony went on, clearly and calmly.
“And so Serene Glory gives Little Father the deadly cup, and then the Mansa’s troops cross the border, and we, on behalf of our governments, immediately recognize the new combined government. Which makes everyone happy except, I suppose, the Sultan, who has such good trade relationships with Songhay and is on such poor terms with the Mansa of Mali. But we hardly shed tears for the Sultan’s distress, do we, boy? Do we? The distress of the Turks is no concern of ours. Quite the contrary, in fact, is that not so?” Sir Anthony clapped his hand to Michael’s shoulder. It was an obvious strain for him, reaching so high. The fingers clamping into Michael’s tender sunburned skin were agony. “So let’s see no more mooning over this alluring Ottoman goddess of yours, eh, lad? It’s inappropriate for a lovely blond English boy like yourself to be lusting after a Turk, as you know very well. She’s nothing but a little slut, however she may seem to your infatuated eyes. And you needn’t take the trouble to expend any energy loathing the prince, either. His days are numbered. He won’t survive his evil old father by so much as a week. It’s all arranged.”
Michael’s jaw gaped. A glazed look of disbelief appeared in his eyes. His face was burning fiercely, not from the sunburn now, but from the intensity of his confusion.
“But sir—sir—”
“Get yourself some sleep, boy.”
“Sir!”
“Shocked, are you? Well, you shouldn’t be. There’s nothing shocking about assassinating an inconvenient king. What’s shocking to me is a grown man with pure English blood in his veins spending the night creeping pitifully around after his dissolute little Turkish inamorata as she makes her way to the bed of her African lover. And then telling me how heartsore and miserable he is. Get yourself some sleep, boy. Get yourself some sleep!”
In the midst of the uncertainty over the Emir’s impending death the semi-annual salt caravan from the north arrived in Timbuctoo. It was a great, if somewhat unexpected, spectacle, and all the foreign ambassadors, restless and by now passionately in need of diversion, turned out despite the heat to watch its entry into the city.
There was tremendous clamor. The heavy metal-studded gates of the city were thrown open and the armed escort entered first, a platoon of magnificent black warriors armed both with rifles and with scimitars. Trumpets brayed, drums pounded. A band of fierce-looking hawk-nosed fiery-eyed country chieftains in flamboyant robes came next, marching in phalanx like conquerors. And then came the salt-laden camels, an endless stream of them, a tawny river, strutting absurdly along in grotesque self-important grandeur with their heads held high and their sleepy eyes indifferent to the throngs of excited spectators. Strapped to each camel’s back were two or three huge flat slabs of salt, looking much like broad blocks of marble.
“There are said to be seven hundred of the beasts,” murmured the Chinese ambassador, Li Hsiao-ssu.
“One thousand eight hundred,” said the Grand Duke Alexander sternly. He glowered at Li Hsiao-ssu, a small, fastidious-looking man with drooping mustachios and gleaming porcelain skin, who seemed a mere doll beside the bulky Russian. There was little love lost between the Grand Duke and the Chinese envoy. Evidently the Grand Duke thought it was presumptuous that China, as a client state of the Russian Empire, as a mere vassal, in truth, had sent an ambassador at all. “One thousand eight hundred. That is the number I was told, and it is reliable. I assure you that it is reliable.”
The Chinese shrugged. “Seven hundred, three thousand, what difference is there? Either way, that’s too many camels to have in one place at one time.”
“Yes, what ugly things they are!” said the Peruvian, Manco Roca. “Such stupid faces, such an ungainly stride! Perhaps we should do these Africans a favor and let them have a few herds of llamas.”
Coolly Prince Itzcoatl said, “Your llamas, brother, are no more fit for the deserts of this continent than these camels would be in the passes of the Andes. Let them keep their beasts, and be thankful that you have handsomer ones for your own use.”
“Such stupid faces,” the Peruvian said once more.
Timbuctoo was the center of distribution for salt throughout the whole of West Africa. The salt mines were hundreds of miles away, in the center of the Sahara. Twice a year the desert traders made the twelve-day journey to the capital, where they exchanged their salt for the dried fish, grain, rice, and other produce that came up the Niger from the agricultural districts to the south and east. The arrival of the caravan was the occasion for feasting and revelry, a time of wild big-city gaiety for the visitors from such remote and placid rural outposts.