‘This Emperor Moulay, what’s he like?’ asked Hector. In the two weeks he had been in the Spaniard’s company, Luis had proved to be an amiable escort, friendly and always ready to talk as they travelled into the interior on their way to Meknes, the imperial capital. Until now Hector had tactfully avoided asking how the Spaniard came to be serving a foreign emperor in Barbary.
‘Moulay Ismail is shrewd and utterly ruthless,’ answered Diaz frankly. ‘He’s the most unpredictable and dangerous man you would ever wish to meet, a despot who treats everyone as his personal slave. Oh yes, and he loves animals.’ He gave Hector a mischievous glance. ‘It’s just that some of his animals expect to be fed. Last time I was in the palace, Moulay was watching the senior comptroller of his treasury trying to avoid several hungry lions. Moulay suspected the comptroller of false accounting so he had the man lowered into the lion pit in the palace menagerie. The Emperor was sitting up on the edge of the lion pit, looking down as the animals stalked their prey, and he was enjoying every minute of the show. The wretched financier ran around for a good ten minutes, whimpering and pleading for his life, before the lions finally pounced.’
‘Was the man genuinely guilty?’
Diaz shrugged. ‘Who knows. The Emperor didn’t care, and he had other things to think about. The lions were still excited. One of them leaped up and tried to pull the Emperor off the wall. If Moulay hadn’t been wearing a mail shirt as he always does, he would have been dragged down into the pit as well. But the lion’s claws didn’t get a grip.’
‘Why on earth do you serve a man like that?’
The Spaniard grimaced. ‘I’ve not much choice. An unfortunate matter of a death at Ceuta where I was serving as a soldier. Someone was killed in a brawl over a woman. I thought it best to leave the city and offer my services elsewhere. Besides, I’m in good company. Men from almost every nation serve Moulay – two of his doctors are French; his field artillery is operated by Hollanders and Italians; there’s a clever gardener from England who does the royal parks, and so many Spanish are enlisted in his cavalry or as musketeers that we have formed a mess of our own. You’ll meet some of them when we reach Meknes which should be tomorrow, or perhaps the next day, if this cursed mud and rain doesn’t slow us down too much.’
Hector and his companions were riding mules commandeered from the amazigh, while Ruis was mounted on a handsome cavalry horse of a breed native to the region. Somewhere far behind them Piecourt and the group of captives from the galley were on foot, herded along by the black soldiers. Hector did not feel sorry for the premier comite and his people though it had been cold and wet for most of the journey.
Luis Diaz swerved his horse to avoid a particularly treacherous-looking puddle. ‘When we get to Meknes, I’ll bring you to see the Emperor. He’ll reward me if I’ve done the right thing in fetching you to his presence. But if you anger him and he gets irritated, I’ll suffer. So listen carefully to what I have to say. First of all, take note of what Moulay is wearing. If he is wearing green, that’s all right because that’s his holy colour and Moulay prides himself on being a direct descendant of the Prophet and a good Mussulman. He always has a copy of the Qur’an carried in front of him, prays five times a day, observes the month of fasting, all that sort of thing. So if his clothes are green, he’s likely to be in a good mood.’
The Spaniard adjusted his plumed hat to a more rakish angle before continuing.
‘But if Moulay is wearing yellow, be very, very careful in what you say. That’s his killing colour. On the days he dresses in yellow, he tends to have people executed or mutilated. Of course I’ll try to avoid your meeting him on a yellow day, but it may be too late by the time we get an appointment. But whatever colour he is wearing, you must always treat him with the greatest deference. Fall down on your face before him, answer his questions honestly and clearly, and above all, don’t go so near to him that you touch him. The last time that happened, the unfortunate man had his arm instantly sliced off with a scimitar by one of the Black Guards. And watch out for changes in the emperor’s complexion. Though his skin is tawny, you can tell his mood by the reddish tinge that spreads right across his face when he is getting angry. If that happens, stand clear. Something terrible is going to happen.’
Hector decided this was the moment to ask the question that had been troubling him ever since Dan had told him about the Emperor’s harem. ‘Are there any women in the palace?’ he asked. ‘And is there any way of making contact with them?’
Diaz gave a yelp of sarcastic laughter. ‘You are looking to get yourself treated with something nastier than being thrown to the lions, like being stretched out on a rack and sawn in two parts, from the crutch upwards. That was the fate of the last person who meddled with the Emperor’s women. Of course there are women in the palace. Moulay’s harem is the largest in the known world, several hundred women according to rumour, and he considers himself a great stallion. He rarely lies with the same woman twice. One of the French doctors told me that in the space of three months no less than forty sons were born to Moulay in the harem. The palace grounds swarm with his children, and a pestilential pack of brats they are. Completely out of control as no one can lay a hand on them.’
Though shaken, Hector persisted. ‘Is it true that he prefers light-skinned women?’
Again, the sarcastic bark of laughter. ‘The Light of the Earth, as he is called, prefers virgins of whatever colour. But he’s not choosy. If someone’s wife takes his fancy, then he’ll make the necessary arrangements, for he pretends he follows the Qur’an in all things . . .’
Seeing Hector had not understood, the Spaniard went on, ‘The Qur’an forbids adultery, so the Emperor makes sure that the woman becomes a widow.’
‘The man sounds like an ogre.’
‘Oh, he certainly is,’ answered the officer blithely, and spurred his mount forward.
MEKNES CAME IN SIGHT the following afternoon, and the travellers paused to take in the view. The city was built on a spur of land overlooking the river Fakran, which flowed across their path on its way towards the Atlantic. The valley floor was intensively cultivated, the greenery of the fields and orchards rising up the slope to lap against the suburbs of the imperial capital. The nearest houses were unexceptional, low buildings in the natural colours of the mud and clay from which they were built, their roofs of tile or thatch. Behind them stood the city proper, a great number of more substantial houses huddled together in a dense mass with the domes and spires of mosques rising above the congestion. There was no sign of a city rampart. Instead, to the left from where the travellers stood, a great boundary wall reached to encompass what was almost a second city. This wall, painted white, was four stories high and seemed to go on for ever, curving away out of sight. Hector judged that it was perhaps three miles long, and beyond it he glimpsed the tops of pavilions and towers, turrets clad in shining green tiles, the domes of mosques, some of them gilded, and a series of edifices in blue and white whose functions he could not guess. Clearly the whole enormous conglomeration was some sort of gigantic, sprawling palace. Beside him Bourdon let out an exclamation. ‘That place makes even King Louis seem restrained!’ Luis Diaz looked across at him enquiringly, and the pickpocket added, ‘I mean the King’s new palace at Versailles. His builders had just made a start on it when I was last in Paris, so I went to have a look. It was vast, yet it was nothing compared to this. What manner of king could command such an undertaking?’
‘Not a king, but an emperor,’ corrected the Spaniard, ‘and the work never ends. Moulay wants his palace to extend from here to the sea, that’s more than eighty miles.’