Leo Africanus (40 page)

‘And if I say no to you?'

‘Say to me “No, you are not to try to save the people of your race from massacre”, “No, you are not to fight so that your son will one day be the master of Constantinople”, and I shall obey. But I will have lost the taste for living and loving.'

I said nothing. She went further:

‘What substance are you made of that you accept the loss of one town after another, one homeland after another, one woman after another, without ever fighting, without ever regretting, without ever looking back?'

‘Between the Andalus which I left and the Paradise which is promised to me life is only a crossing. I go nowhere, I desire nothing, I cling to nothing, I have faith in my passion for living, in my instinct to search for happiness, as well as in Providence. Isn't it that which united us? Without hesitating, I left a town, a house, a way of life, to follow your path, to indulge your relentless obsession.'

‘And why have you stopped following me now?'

‘I am weary of obsessions. Of course I shall not abandon you here, surrounded by enemies. I shall bring you back to your own people so that you may be able to warn them, but there our ways will part.'

I was not sure that I had struck a good bargain, nor that I would have the courage to stick to it. At least I believed that for myself I had set the limits of the venture I had let myself be dragged into. As for Nur, she seemed the picture of radiance. My reservations were of small concern, as long as they did not stand across her way. From my very detailed words she heard only the ‘Yes' which I had not even uttered. And already, without waiting, while I was weaving the lie in my head which I would serve up to Harun in order to give him the slip, she began to speak of boats, quays and luggage.

When, on my return to the land of the Nile, the customs official at the port of Alexandria asked me, between two searches, whether it was true that the Ottomans were preparing to invade Syria and Egypt, I replied with an oath against all the women in the world, blonde Circassians in particular, which my questioner approved with gusto, as if that was the obvious explanation of the misfortunes to come.

Throughout the journey to Cairo, Nur had to put up with reproach and sarcasm. But after our third day in the capital I had to admit that she had not been entirely wrong to undertake her dangerous initiative. The rumours which were going around were so contradictory that the most utter confusion reigned in men's minds, not just among the common people but also at the Citadel. The sultan had decided to leave for Syria, to engage with the Ottoman troops, and then, having had reassuring news, he had cancelled his expedition. Those regiments who had received the order to set off were now told to return to their barracks. The caliph and the four grand qadis were asked, twice, to prepare to accompany the sovereign to Aleppo; twice, their processions had taken the road to the Citadel in expectation of a grand departure; twice they had been told that they should go back to their homes.

To add to the turmoil, an Ottoman plenipotentiary had arrived with great pomp to renew promises of peace and friendship, proposing, once again, an alliance against the heretics and the unbelievers. This waiting and uncertainty blunted the combative
edge of the army, which is probably what the Grand Turk intended. So it was important that testimony from Constantinople should open the eyes of those in authority. It was even more important that it should be conveyed in a manner which would inspire confidence without revealing the source of the information.

Nur had the idea of writing a letter and leaving it secretly at the house of the secretary of state, Tumanbay, the second most influential person after the sultan and the most popular of the rulers of Egypt. She believed that a message from a Circassian woman would be forwarded immediately to the great Mameluke.

That very night, someone knocked at my door. Tumanbay had come alone, an extraordinary thing in this town where the merest commander of ten men would never think of moving without a numerous and noisy escort. He was a man of about forty, tall, elegant, with a clear complexion, a long moustache in the Circassian style, and a short and carefully trimmed beard. At my first words of welcome his face darkened. My accent had worried him, as the Maghribi community in Cairo was well known for its sympathy towards the Ottomans. I hastened to call Nur to my side. She appeared with her face uncovered. Tumanbay recognized her. A sister of his race and the widow of an opponent of Salim, she could not but inspire the fullest confidence.

So the secretary of state sat down without ceremony to listen to my story. I repeated to him what I had heard, without adding a flourish or omitting a detail. When I had finished, he began by reassuring me:

‘It is not a matter of having a testimony that I can produce. The important thing is the inner conviction of those in authority. My mind is made up, and after what I have just heard I will struggle even more vigorously so that the sultan will share my opinion.'

He seemed to be thinking intently. A wry expression hovered over his lips. Then he said, as if continuing a private conversation:

‘But with a sultan, nothing is ever simple. If I press him too much, he will say to himself that I am trying to get him away from Cairo, and he will no longer want to leave.'

His confidence made me bolder:

‘Why shouldn't you leave with the army yourself? Aren't you thirty years younger than he is?'

‘If I won a victory, he would fear my return at the head of the army.'

Letting his eyes wander round him, the secretary of state noticed the icon and the Coptic cross on the wall. He smiled and scratched his head in a conspicuous fashion. He had good reasons to be puzzled: a Maghribi, dressed in the Egyptian style, married to a Circassian woman, the widow of an Ottoman amir, and who decorated his house like a Christian! I was about to explain to him how the house had come to me, but he interrupted:

‘The sight of these objects does not offend me. It is true that I am a Muslim by the grace of God, but I was born a Christian and baptized, like the sultan, like all the Mamelukes.'

With these words he jumped to his feet and took his leave, repeating his thanks.

Seated in a dark corner of the room, Nur had not taken part in the conversation. But she seemed satisfied with it.

‘For this meeting alone I do not regret having come so far.'

Events seemed to prove her right quickly enough. We learned that the sultan had finally decided to leave. His battalion was seen leaving the hippodrome, crossing Rumaila Square before going up the Hill of the Oxen and Saliba Street, where I had gone that day in expectation of a spectacle. As the sultan moved forward, greeted with cheers, a few paces away from me, I noticed that the openwork golden bird, the emblem of the Mamelukes, on the top of his parasol, had been replaced by a golden crescent; it was murmured around me that the change had been ordered as the result of a letter from the Ottoman casting doubt on Qansuh's religious ardour.

At the head of the interminable procession of the sultan were fifteen lines of camels, harnessed with bobbles in gold brocade, fifteen others harnessed with bobbles in many-coloured velvet. The cavalry came next, with two hundred chargers at its head, covered with steel caparisons encrusted with gold. Further away one could see palanquins on mules decked out with yellow silk coverings, to carry the royal family.

The previous evening, Tumanbay had been appointed lieutenant-general of Egypt, with full powers; but it was rumoured that the sultan had taken all the gold in the treasury with him, several million dinars, as well as precious objects from the royal warehouses.

I had asked Nur to come with me to be present at the event which she had worked for. She begged me to go alone, saying that she felt unwell. I thought that she did not wish to show herself too much in public; I soon discovered that she was pregnant. I did not dare to
rejoice too much, because although, at the approach of my thirtieth year, I ardently desired a son of my blood, I realized that Nur's condition would henceforth prevent me from leaving her, and even from fleeing from Cairo with her, which prudence was commanding me to do.

Three months passed, during which we received regular news of the sovereign's progress: Gaza, Tiberias, then Damascus, where an incident was reported. The master of the mint, a Jew named Sadaqa, had thrown some newly-minted silver pieces at the sultan's feet at the time of his triumphal entry into the city, as was the custom. Qansuh's guards had rushed forward to pick up the coins, in such a way that the sultan, severely jostled, had almost fallen off his horse.

It was known that after Damascus the sultan went to Hama and then Aleppo. Then there was silence. For three weeks. A silence which at the beginning was not interrupted by the slightest rumour. It was only on Saturday, the sixteenth of Sha‘ban, 14 September 1517, that a messenger arrived at the Citadel, out of breath and covered with dust; a battle had taken place at Marj Dabiq, not far from Aleppo. The sultan had taken part in it, wearing his little hat, dressed in his white cloak, with his axe on his shoulder, with the caliph, the qadis and the forty bearers of the Qur'an around him. In the beginning, the army of Egypt had had the upper hand, taking seven flags from the enemy and some large artillery pieces mounted on carriages. But the sultan had been betrayed, particularly by Khairbak, the governor of Aleppo, who was in league with the Ottomans. While he was commanding the left flank, he had turned back, which immediately spread discouragement throughout the whole army. Realizing what was happening, Qansuh suffered a stroke. Falling from his horse, he died at once. In the confusion, his body had not even been recovered.

The inhabitants of Cairo were appalled, the more so as other rumours soon followed one another about the advance of the Ottomans, who followed the route of the Egyptian army in reverse. Thus Aleppo had fallen into their hands, then Hama. At Khan al-Khalili, several shops belonging to Turks from Asia Minor or to Maghribis were looted, but order was energetically restored by Tumanbay who announced the abolition of all taxes and reduced the prices of all essential goods in order to alleviate the effect of this news.

Although the secretary of state had the situation in hand, he
waited a month before having himself proclaimed sultan. That very day, Damascus had just fallen in its turn into Salim's hands; Gaza would soon follow it. Lacking sufficient soldiers, Tumanbay ordered the setting up of popular militias for the defence of the capital. He emptied the prisons and announced that the crimes of all those who enlisted would be pardoned, including homicides. In the last days of the year, when the Ottoman army was approaching Cairo, the Mameluke sultan drew up his troops in Raydaniyya camp, to the east of the city. He also brought several elephants and some newly-cast cannons, and had a long deep trench dug, in the hope of sustaining a long siege.

However, this was not the Ottoman's intention. After having given his army two days to rest after the long crossing of Sinai, Salim ordered a general assault, with such a profusion of cannons and such an overwhelming numerical advantage that the Egyptian army scattered in a few hours.

It was thus that on the very last day of the year the Grand Turk made his solemn entry into Cairo, preceded by criers who promised the inhabitants that their lives would be spared, calling on them to resume their normal lives the next day. It was a Friday, and the caliph, who had been captured in Syria and brought back in the suite of the conqueror, had a sermon pronounced in all the mosques in the capital in the name of ‘the sultan son of the sultan, sovereign of the two continents and the two seas, destroyer of the two armies, master of the two Iraqs, servant of the holy sanctuaries, the victorious King Salim Shah.'

Nur's eyes were bloodshot. She was so distressed by the triumph of the Grand Turk that I feared for the life of the child she was carrying. As she was a few days from her time, I had to make her swear to stay still on her bed. As for me, I found consolation in promising myself to leave this country as soon as she recovered. In my street, all the notables had hidden their precious possessions and their flags in their family vaults out of fear of looting.

Nevertheless, that day my orderly and his donkey presented themselves outside my door as usual to take me into the city. The boy told me with some hilarity that on the way he had stumbled over the severed head of a Mameluke officer. As I did not laugh at all, he permitted himself to voice the opinion that I was taking things too seriously. Which earned him a blow from the back of my hand.

‘So,' I growled in a fatherly way, ‘your city has just been occupied,
your country has been invaded, its rulers have either been massacred or have fled, others replace them, coming from the ends of the earth, and you reproach me for taking things too seriously?'

His only reply was a shrug of his shoulders and this phrase of centuries-old resignation:

‘Whoever takes my mother becomes my step-father.'