As he jumps down onto cobbles gritty with windblown sand, he is instantly made aware of his ignorance. Looking around, he sees no despotic chieftains dismembering their enemies with wickedly curved swords, no mountains capped with lightning, no endless deserts of black sand, no men with eyes in the centre of their foreheads or possessing just one huge foot on the end of a single leg… Just a busy little port that could be Dover, were it not for the heat and the colour of the men’s skin.
A committee of welcome waits on the breakwater. Some are Moors in long robes that make Nicholas think of Roman togas, the others – judging by their faces and their dress – are Europeans, Jews and Levantines. They have the same cautiously expectant look he’s seen in the faces of the merchants and factors who gather on the quaysides in London. They are here to haggle over the newly arrived cargo, and to get themselves the best deal for their own goods when the Righteous is empty and ready for the return voyage to England.
Standing apart from the men of commerce is a gang of labourers, ready to do the heavy lifting. They are a sullen group. Of every age from young to greybeard, they are dressed mostly in tattered hose and slops, their chests bare and gleaming in the heat. Save for the fact that most of them are Blackamoors, this could be Galley Quay or Botolph’s Wharf on the Thames, Nicholas thinks.
The most alien sight in his immediate compass is a herd of beasts lying hobbled nearby. He takes them to be camels. They wait patiently for their cargoes, their indignant faces reminding him of old Walter Pemmel when he launches into one of his customary tirades against the petty rules of the parish aldermen.
The camels’ overseer is a young lad of barely ten. He wears a grubby woollen tunic and shouts first in Spanish and then in English, ‘One camello, seven English pennies! One half-camello, eight English pennies! All very good camellos. No lames. Carry cargo very good.’
For a moment Nicholas wonders if by ‘half a camel’ he means he’s also offering them for meat, before it dawns on him that half a camel is a shared load – and the extra expense is to cover the cost of searching out the rest of the load.
In a cool chamber set into the inner wall of the Kasar el Bahr sits a man in a pristine white robe, behind an elaborately carved European table that Nicholas assumes is a relic of Portuguese rule. On his head he wears a voluminous cloth binding that Nicholas can’t help thinking looks like a giant onion. The man has a lean, knowing look, as though there’s not a subterfuge for avoiding customs duty that he hasn’t yet seen through. Studiously ignoring his two visitors, he prefers to study a quill and inkpot set beside two books. One is a simple calfskin-bound volume the size of a large loaf, the other much smaller, but far more extravagantly bound and inlaid with intricate Moorish designs picked out in gold.
‘We have to be the first to speak,’ whispers Connell in Nicholas’s ear. ‘To him, we’re infidels. Don’t ask me to explain the logic in that, but it’s his realm we’re in now, so needs must.’ He beams his skull’s smile at the customs official, swings the clay pot onto the table and says, expansively, ‘Peace be upon you, Muly Hassan. I’ve brought you a little of what you like.’
The change is instant. The previously immobile official springs to his feet and begins pumping Connell’s now-free hand. When he speaks, his English is surprisingly good. Nicholas guesses it’s the result of a lifetime spent mixing with foreign merchants. He wonders if there might be any customs officials in London who can speak the language of the Moor. He doubts it.
‘Wa alaykum, Sayidi Conn-ell. You have good voyage, yes?’ the man says through a broad set of neat yellow teeth. ‘Allāh, the most merciful, the most compassionate, filled your sails with a profitable wind, yes?’
‘Aye, he did that, Muly Hassan,’ says Connell, tapping the taut cloth cover of the pot. ‘He must know how much you like English barberry preserve.’
Nicholas watches in stunned silence. Can this Cathal Connell, the bringer of presents of jam, be the same Cathal Connell who might – might – have thrown a palsied English apprentice into the sea while he still lived?
‘But I’ve brought you a present more valuable than barberries, Muly Hassan,’ Connell continues, glancing at Nicholas. ‘This young fellow here is an envoy of Sir Robert Cecil, a minister of our sovereign majesty Elizabeth. He has letters for your prince.’
‘Captain Yaxley of the Marion, he tells me this,’ says Muly Hassan. He makes a small bow to Nicholas. ‘The governor of Safi will make audience with you in the Kechla very soon. But first we must make honour to His Majesty Ahmad Abu al-Abbas al-Mansur, the Golden, the Conqueror of the Songhai, Commander of the Faithful. This is required on arrival.’
For a moment Nicholas wonders if he is expected to kneel, or make some other formal salute to the sultan. When Elizabeth passes Southwark in her royal barge – on the way to Whitehall or Greenwich – the salute from the riverbank is usually good-natured cheering and ribald shouts that generally echo Farzad’s slanders of the Pope and the King of Spain. But what does a freshly minted envoy do when first setting foot onto a foreign shore? Robert Cecil has omitted to tell him. He looks to Connell for a lead.
But Connell is showing no reverence, other than to drop his bill of loading on the table next to the barberry preserve. He unrolls it. Then he and Muly Hassan pore over the neat lines of handwriting that list in detail what is crammed into the hold of the Righteous. Every now and then Muly Hassan makes a tick with his quill on the roll, then puts an entry in the small, gold-embossed book on the desk.
The powerful taking their cut, thinks Nicholas as he watches. The Barbary shore, it seems, has more in common with England than he’d imagined.
With the sultan’s tithe agreed and recorded, Connell and Nicholas return to the Righteous. The six crates of matchlock muskets are already on the quayside. But there seems to be no hurry to remove the rest of the cargo.
‘There’s no gain to be had by your hanging around here, Dr Shelby,’ Connell tells him. ‘At the speed these rogues work, it’ll be a while before our holds are empty. And my boys will want some time ashore to take their ease. If you catch my drift.’
He puts out a hand for Nicholas to shake.
‘You have my gratitude for bringing me to a safe landfall, Captain Connell,’ Nicholas says, wondering if this is the same hand that helped roll Edmund Hortop overboard. It feels like he’s clutching a knot of rope that’s been dredged up from the ocean floor.
‘Don’t count your chickens,’ Connell says with a laugh. ‘Give them the chance, and these heathens will cut out your heart and sell it for a treat, long before you reach Marrakech.’
Glad to be away from Connell, if only for a while, Nicholas sets off up the hill towards the Kechla, the old Portuguese citadel on its crest. He has not gone far before a young man in a brown djellaba falls in beside him, matching his stride with an easy lope. He has a head of tight black curls and the contemplative face of a poet.
‘I am Hadir Benhassi,’ he says, as though it’s a prize he’s been awarded. ‘Welcome to Safi. Please, tell me, have you been sent here by the Worshipful Company of Barbary in London?’
Nicholas is looking into a pair of eager brown eyes.
‘I fear not, Master Benhassi. My name is Nicholas Shelby. I’m a physician. I’ve been sent by my queen’s minister to study physic in your land. How can I be of service to you?’