‘Too many, I think,’ I said.
‘And I. Please begin, for I am host tonight.’
‘What year is this?’
‘By our calendar,’ he said, ‘it is the 1364th year since the capture of Mecca by the followers of Ibram the Prophet.’
Mecca checks out. Who’s the Prophet Ibram? 1364? All the Islamic turmoil was in what, the 600s? This is what? Late 1900s? Maybe even 2000 A. D.?
‘Do you know of one named Mohammed?’ I asked.
‘The father of the Prophet? Not much is written of him in the Book.’
‘Uh, what about Jesus?’
‘I am not as much of a scholar as our physician – Send for Ali,’ he said to another merchant, then turned back to me. ‘Jesus? I think he was worshiped near Galilee, a small sect perhaps? I think he was stoned by his people. The Prophet lived near Galilee for some months during his exile, I think, when he was cast out of Medina.’
Another man came out, bringing his own pillow, and seated himself next to us. He was introduced to me as Ali the physician.
‘He asks of people mentioned in the Book,’ said el Hama, ‘but he asks strangely.’
I sighed. ‘What about Egypt?’
‘The mother of all nations,’ said el Hama. ‘Old before the stone fell from the sky at Qabba.’
‘Well, that’s a start. We share that. What of Greece, Athens, Sparta?’
‘Seats of learning and manliness,’ said Ali. ‘Light-giver and conquering state, of unparalleled achievements, whose glory lasted for centuries. You speak its language.’
‘What of the Romans and their empire?’
‘Who?’ asked el Hama.
‘I have heard of them,’ said Ali, shifting his spectacles. ‘They are barely mentioned in the histories. They were city dwellers who made war on their neighbours and conquered their peninsula. They fought mother Carthage. Twice, I think.’
‘What happened to them?’
‘The second time, Carthage, who only wanted free trade with all her neighbours, defeated these Romans and all their allies. I am told they made wonderful shepherds and farmers.’
‘So there was no Roman Empire?’
‘An empire of wool,’ said Ali. ‘We trade dearly for it.’
‘And Carthage?’
‘Oh, mother Carthage is still there. Only a minor seaport now. It was captured in the eighteenth year after the Prophet’s death. And all Africa north of the River Congo.’
‘What of Europe? The Church?’
‘Europe?’
‘The land north of the Mediterranean, west of the Bosporus. Uh, Dardanelles.’
‘Oh. A land of barbarians. The True Religion of the Prophet took it wholly and easily. What parts the Northerners did not already hold.’
‘What did you do when you met with them?’
‘We offered them forty percent,’ said el Hama. ‘They were great sailors and navigators. They knew the lands of the north from raiding them so often. One of them had already traveled to this land when the True Religion spread over the north.’
‘But there was so much land there,’ said Ali, ‘so much produce and trade that our merchants thought of coming here again only thirty years or so ago, when we developed power enough to make the journey easily. And now we have this whole new world of trade to manage.’
‘It seems so simple,’ I said. ‘Was there a Great Plague? Did the followers of the True Religion put the people whom they conquered to the fire and sword?’
‘Plague? There are always plagues of one kind or another,’ said Ali. ‘Little can be done with them. But a great plague, no. Hippocrates says that nations and cities must reach a certain size before the plagues become endemic. We have very few truly large cities.’
‘You kept Greek learning, then? What about all the lost books? What about the library at Alexandria? Weren’t all the books burned?’
‘Burn all those great works! What a horrid idea!’ said Ali. ‘But where is this place Alexandria? The great library is in Cairo, in Egypt.’
‘Alexandria the Great? Philip of Macedon? Darius the Persian?’ I said.
‘These names are unknown to me,’ said Ali. ‘Hamilcar established the great library at Cairo. Through the many contacts of carthage’s trade network, he had books brought there. They were there when the True Believers took the city. There they remain, though they have been endlessly recopied, and, I am afraid, many errors have crept into them.’
‘Then this ship,’ I said, ‘the lights? These are all applications of Greek science?’
‘Well, yes,’ said el Hama. ‘That, and knowledge of our own, through many centuries of experiment and change.’
I drank my coffee.
‘This will take some getting used to. You say it was thirty years ago your ships first came here?’
‘Oh, they’d been coming, one or two at a time, for centuries, by mistake or accident or foolhardy venturing. Sail was fine for the Indian Sea, or what you call the Mediterranean, or northern coastal trade, and West Africa. But for this western trade, you need something you can depend on. Steam. So it was only after we had dependable steam that the Consulate of Merchants sent trading expeditions here.’
‘And Took-His-Time was captured twenty years ago by one of them? Which is why he speaks Greek?’
‘What can I say?’ El Hama spread his arms. ‘As with all frontier operations there were unscrupulous things done in the name of commerce. Many of the unregulated traders carried out similar actions to gain advantage. Take young people, hold them in virtual slavery, use them as interpreters and so on.’
‘What is this place like, the whole continent, now?’
‘I’m sure Took has told you as much as we know. In the northeast, small hunting, fishing, farming groups. In the south – your east – are the mound-builders, like Took and his people. They go from the southeastern peninsula to just west of the Big River we are on. To the northwest, people poorer than the poorest nomads of the deserts of Egypt, a few of whom were brought back to our lands as curiosities by the unprincipled.
‘To your west, and southwest for a long way, is the country of the Huastecas. They are the meanest people we have met in this world, though they have a culture nearer to ours. We have a few trade stations to the south, but we really don’t like to deal with them much. Neither do your people. But they make such fine jewelry.’
‘And you trade up and down the River each spring?’
‘That is my mission now, though there will soon be others. The trade is so profitable, on both sides, that there is plenty for all, and the trade is so novel to each side that it will remain so. Other markets change, prices come and go. I’m told that right now you can burn cotton in Africa before you can give it away. But bring knives to the New Lands, or take furs back to Egypt, and your market finds itself.’
‘Yet you restrict your trade in certain ways.’
‘You speak of firearms, explosives, certain animals?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not through lack of profit, I assure you. But the Consulate of Merchants learned a great lesson in western Africa. Within twenty years of unlimited trade there, we were fighting ten wars, caring for thousands of refugees, and looking at denuded lands unfit for anything. The place had become desert, which year by year creeps farther into the jungle. That was six centuries ago, and we now know better than to do it again.’
‘That is why we were so surprised to see your horse,’ said Ali. ‘It is, as far as we know, the only one on the continent. If it is the only one, there will never be more.’
This was the first time they had come around to a question for me. I prefaced my story by saying I didn’t understand all that had happened, and certainly didn’t expect them to.