Sultan Ahmad Abu al-Abbas al-Mansur is holding court on the broad top step of a flight of six leading to the arched doorway of a squat gatehouse at the far end of the palace gardens. Shaded by parasols held aloft by bodyguards, he sits on a small stool, staring down the length of the central pool like a Moorish King Canute. He is dressed simply in a linen robe, Nicholas notices with surprise, a plain white turban framing a tightly curled grey beard and prominent cheekbones. Were it not for the grandeur that surrounds him, he could be a village grandfather taking a break from his gardening.
Behind him, in the shadow of the arched doorway, stands Minister al-Annuri, a taciturn spectre in white, his hooded eyes watching Nicholas come forward like a falcon that’s just spotted a hare break cover. Yes, thinks Nicholas, I could see you carving flesh off a living body, and smiling while you do it.
The brief ceremony plays out just as al-Seddik foretold. He and Nicholas prostrate themselves at the foot of the steps. When the minister is called forward, Nicholas catches the words England and Elizabeth in the brief speech he makes.
The letter is duly read. Sultan al-Mansur makes a brief reply, though whether to thank the queen for her declaration of friendship or to comment on the weather, Nicholas cannot tell, because it’s delivered without the slightest hint of approval. It is only when, after a brief pause, al-Mansur removes a huge gold ring set with precious stones from his finger and hands it to Nicholas, via al-Seddik, that it becomes clear the queen’s greetings have been welcomed.
With the ring clutched tightly in his right hand, Nicholas shuffles backwards on his knees behind al-Seddik’s broad, silken rump. Once they have retreated a suitable distance, the minster stands up and start walking slowly backwards. Nicholas follows suit.
And then, from behind the sultan’s stool, a man emerges, a basket wedged under one arm. As Nicholas watches, he descends the far right edge of the steps and proceeds to cast sand over the path, moving forward as Nicholas retreats, as though he were sowing a field.
‘What’s he doing?’ Nicholas whispers to al-Seddik out of the corner of his mouth.
There is a slight hint of embarrassment in al-Seddik’s reply. ‘He’s cleansing the pathway between you and His Majesty. Remember, Dr Shelby, in this city you are the infidel.’
It is a poor way, Nicholas thinks, to reward a man who has the power to save your throne. But given the weight of the ring he’s clutching, he thinks he’ll be able to live with the insult.
Al-Seddik’s men escort Nicholas through the lanes towards the Street of the Weavers. Unable to contrive a moment alone with the Moor, Nicholas has consoled himself with an offer to join the minister for the iftar feast at sunset, followed the next morning by a ride out to al-Seddik’s kasbah in the mountains for a day’s hawking. As De Lisle is to remain in Marrakech, in case the sultan has need to call for him, it promises an opportunity for Nicholas to reveal what he has discovered.
Crossing the open ground where, on his arrival, Nicholas had seen the pitiful clusters of humanity corralled like beasts at market, he notes the space is empty now, save for a few Berbers encamped there with their sheep. He recalls a few words from Adolfo Sykes’s letter: Connell is paid for his treachery in gold and slaves… God help the poor souls who become his property…
Certain now that poor Hortop was alive when he went into the sea, Nicholas can find little mercy in his heart for a creature such as Cathal Connell. When the plot is foiled, he should count himself lucky to escape with a swift beheading.
Nicholas wonders how many young men have come here on Connell’s ships, believing they were embarking upon a lucrative mercantile life? Did any refuse to pay the blood-tax – to sell their souls and become janissaries in someone else’s war? He remembers what he told de Lisle in the hammam, when he’d seen the butchered slave Marcu: Few of us have no limit to the courage in our hearts.
Nicholas tries to gauge the extent of the conspiracy. He imagines an unbroken line connecting Cathal Connell to Muhammed al-Annuri and Arnoult de Lisle, via Reynard Gault and his fake pedigrees, all the way to the Escorial in Madrid and the throne of Philip of Spain. He sees a new nobility replacing the old in Marrakech – a Catholic Christian government made up of young men with purchased dignity.
By the time he dismisses al-Seddik’s two taciturn guides at the entrance to the Street of the Weavers, Nicholas is already imagining himself on the first night home. He has returned to Bankside from Cecil House, crowned with laurels, the garlanded victor of a desperate battle. He is breathing in the rosewater scent of Bianca’s hair as he unlaces the points of her carnelian bodice, burying his mouth in the warm arc of her shoulder. Seizing his second chance at life, the bliss he’d thought a capricious god had chosen to deny him.
He pushes on the ornately carved door and steps into the house of Adolfo Sykes.
The first bloodstain lies on the mud-brick wall, beside the doorway that opens onto the courtyard. A handprint – the fingers splayed in agony. Nicholas has to fight every fibre of his body to force himself on into the garden.
It is bathed in warm evening sunlight. But the heavenly scent of citrus has gone. And he cannot hear the beating wings of the swifts darting around the upper gallery. All he can smell is the stench of spilt blood and bowels emptied after death. All he can hear is the contented murmuring of the feasting flies. All he can see is Hadir’s flayed corpse strung beneath the branches of the old pomegranate tree, like a newly washed coat drying. And huddled around Hadir’s bare feet – like petitioners before His Majesty al-Mansur – are the bodies of grandmother Tiziri the Methuselah-woman, Gwata the boy who fetches the water and his sister Lalla who does the washing.
And then the Devil speaks to him from behind his shoulder. Not with a sulphurous pungency, but with a soft Irish lilt.
‘I know what these audiences with the daft old heathen are like,’ Connell tells him cheerily as Nicholas stares at the carnage. ‘They drag on so long you could swear you’re going to die before it’s over. Well, today you were right.’
36
Ned Monkton glowers at the tabletop in concentration.
‘Think hard,’ Bianca urges. ‘A casual comment. An aside. Something that might have sounded inconsequential at the time. Anything.’
It is the evening of the day after the move from Dice Lane. Ned is sitting with Bianca and Rose in a booth in a quiet corner of the Jackdaw, while Timothy plays ‘Lady, Weep No More’ on his lute to a party of sentimental Kentish drovers. Farzad is tending his cooking pot.
‘There is nothing else to remember,’ Ned says plaintively. ‘Master Nick said the journey was diplomatic, that’s all. He told me Robert Cecil would shut you down if he didn’t go. He gave me the letter for Lord Lumley, and then he made me swear to keep my gullet shut. He’ll be livid when he learns I broke my oath.’
‘It will be our secret, Ned.’
Rose asks, ‘So why is this Gault fellow so eager to know if Master Nick told you a different story?’
Perplexed, Bianca puts her head in her hands. ‘Because, I suppose – like me – he doesn’t believe Cecil sent Nicholas to the Barbary shore to learn how the Moors make medicine. Whatever the real reason, I think it has something to do with Solomon Mandel’s murder. Mandel was in the service of the Moroccan envoy who came to London some few years ago. He was a translator. To my face, Gault denied knowing him. But he was there in his official capacity as Rouge Croix Pursuivant herald. So he must have met Mandel. He’s hiding something, I know it.’