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Three weeks and two skirmishes later, all the territory I wanted to sell to Anuk’s uncle was ours--for now. After a quick trip by sea around the peninsula to Bizerte, I saw our flag flying over the port. Sending the Abdalwadid Sultan and the treasure confiscated from Algiers and Bizerte to Rouen on another ship, Anuk and I headed for Cairo.

A week later, I was definitely glad that Anuk was with me. The Mameluk troops in Alexandria were not happy to see an armed Christian soldier on a ship landing in their port and swarmed the ship. Anuk told them to back off, explaining that I was a friend of the Sultan and was here to discuss business with him.

They still insisted on sending a contingent of troops with us as the small ship we transferred to wended its way up the Nile to Cairo. Even after my travels through England, France, Holland, Denmark, Castile, and North Africa, and with all the new things I’d seen, I was awed by the river and the fertile land spreading farther than I could see. Anuk explained that the river was still receding from its annual flood and soon the fields would be planted again when they had dried enough. The huge lizard-like animals swimming and floating in the water or lying on the shore were mind-boggling. Anuk warned me that they were extremely dangerous, and one of them could attack suddenly along the shore without warning, dragging large prey and even adults into the water.

Sentries on horseback galloped for the palace when they saw our ship approaching Cairo. Anuk explained how riders from Alexandria would have already told the Sultan of our pending arrival and the sentries were watching for our ship to let him know we were arriving. Yet another rider called out to the ship as we got closer, giving us instructions as to where we were to dock. Suddenly the men rowing and tending the sails doubled their efforts. “I think you have impressed my uncle. He never leaves the palace to greet guests; they are expected to go to him, and then he makes them wait. He will meet us at the docks,” Anuk explained excitedly.

“Just what is the proper way for an outsider to greet a Sultan?” I asked.

“Since you are a Sultan yourself you greet him by name and shake his hand.”

“But I’m not really a Sultan,” I protested.

“Not only are you a Sultan, but you are a very powerful Sultan. By coming to meet you, my uncle is acknowledging to his troops, Viziers, and to his people just how powerful you are,” he explained.

The crowd at the docks--easily a few thousand people--although standing back a respectable distance, was huge for this early in the morning. People even stood along the riverbank for the last few miles as we approached. A large pavilion stood near where we docked and the Sultan came to greet us as we debarked. I motioned for Anuk to go first to make the introductions but he was swept aside by his uncle, barely able to bow as the Sultan rushed by to shake my hand. “Sultan Michael Miller, it is an honor to finally meet the man I have heard so much about,” he said in English that was easily good enough for me to understand. I was impressed.

“Sultan Al-Nasir Muhammad, I am likewise happy to meet the man I have heard so much about from so many people,” I replied.

When I motioned to Anuk, he produced the swords of the two Sultans we had defeated. “I bring you a gift of the swords of the Marinid Sultan and the Abdalwadid Sultan,” I said graciously. There was a gasp from everyone near enough to hear and the undercurrent of whispering got louder as they whispered my words repeatedly to those far enough away that they hadn’t heard.

“You defeated both armies?” the Sultan gasped.

“I did, and have come to ask your permission to let Anuk be Emir of Maghreb al-Aqsa (Morocco), and his brother to be Emir of Ifriqiya,” I answered, getting another round of even louder gasps from the crowd which had been inching forward to hear better.

“I am not opposed to your request, but some might wonder where their loyalties would lie,” he commented thoughtfully.

“I have no doubt that Anuk will fulfill his duties faithfully, and will warn his brother of the consequences should he ever oppose me,” I answered.

“It took less than half an afternoon for his troops to storm and capture Tlemcen,” Anuk commented somberly. “Fewer than twenty of his men were injured, mostly the Marinid cavalry when they first rode into the city. The city is now being taken apart one stone at a time. When they finish, only the mosque will remain,” he added.

“Why would you leave just the mosque?” the Sultan asked, curious.

“It was not involved in the attack and I have no desire to offend anyone by desecrating a holy place. If it had been involved in the fighting, I would have torn it down first like I did some of the Catholic churches in France which were involved in battles against me,” I explained.

“Sultan Mike has come to discuss a deal with you,” Anuk interjected, hoping to discuss a more pleasant subject.

“A deal?” the Sultan asked, perking up. I unrolled the much-marked-upon map I brought from Tlemcen. Pointing to the peninsula where Bizerte was located, I explained the area I wanted to divest myself of, and why, and admitted that I had no idea if any of my territory lay to the south of the coastal mountains, but he was welcome to that territory as well until reaching the frontiers of Maghreb al-Aqsa. Everything from Bizerte to Al-Nasir’s territory was included.

“At what price?” the Sultan asked suspiciously. I told him I wanted three architects and three engineers who could help turn Rouen into a city as beautiful as the ones I’d seen the last three months, and especially to build a beautiful new palace worthy of a Sultan. I wanted him to supply the marble for the floors of my new palace, and provide me with an area twenty miles on a side along the Nile where I could grow cotton near a Mediterranean port or close enough to the sea that I could build a small dock. I would also need seeds and enough people to plant, cultivate, and harvest the cotton.

He agreed readily, and we went the next day to look at the area while Anuk visited with his family and brought his older brother, Farad, up to speed. Their father, Al-Nasir’s brother, was the commander of the Sultan’s troops and their family was well off because of it. I was surprised when he offered the hand of his daughter Jamillah to me as a wife. Not to be outdone, the Sultan also offered his daughter Ruba.

The hastily arranged marriages were well attended by the Who’s Who of Cairo and environs. When I left a week later, my boat was so loaded with gold, silver, ivory, jewels, pearls, silk, and beautiful female slaves from all over the world that Anuk, his brother, and the two Viziers almost had to take the second ship which was loaded with the rest of the girls’ dowry. As it was, there was barely room for Farad’s wife Salih, their infant daughter, and Anuk’s new bride.

Many of the female slaves were European and older than me, having been captured when the Mameluks retook the cities of the Holy Land after the last Crusade. Rebecca ended up as my favorite even though several were prettier than she was. Her comment about the Holy Land still haunts me to this day. “How can there be anything still holy in a land which has been awash in so much shed blood? The Crusaders would kill every man, woman, and child in the cities they conquered. When the cities were re-conquered by the Muslims, anyone left alive after the fighting was sold into slavery.”

She was the one who had taught the Sultan English. He purchased her from a wealthy family five years ago specifically to teach him English.

Everyone was surprised at how informal everything was aboard the ship. I insisted they simply call me Mike and stop constantly bowing to me. After I laughed while explaining Anuk’s diplomatic way of letting me know that my decision to demolish Tlemcen had been a mistake, they were more relaxed around me and gradually became less worried about speaking up.

Before leaving, I pledged to the Sultan that, as long as he didn’t attack any Europeans, I would come to his assistance if they attacked him. Surprised by my offer, he agreed--unless they invaded first.

We dropped Farad and his family off in Algiers after I introduced him to my troops stationed there. I explained what I expected of him as Emir. I expected the welfare of the people under his control to come before enhancing his own lifestyle, showing moderation until he met the needs of his people. I prized compassion, justice, foresight, creativity, and ingenuity in dealing with issues that arose. I also valued new ideas that would improve the lifestyle or productivity of the people. I wanted to see better housing, walls around cities, and possibly even dams if they would help control annual flooding on rivers that didn’t need the inundation to enrich the flood plain each year like the Nile did.

The Marinid Vizier had previously asked about the possibility of building at least one dam each on the upper Sous River and the upper Sebou River to save some of the annual rains that rushed to the ocean. That way, they could use the water throughout the year to increase the amount of land under cultivation. He said their engineers could build a stone and mortar dam that would hold enough of the annual runoff to significantly increase the productivity of the lands below the dams. I agreed to the proposal, and if it worked, I wanted them to start looking through my northern lands for other streams and rivers where a dam could help save spring runoff for agriculture later in the year, and could mitigate the severity of any annual flooding.

I told Farad to let me know if they needed food or anything else to get through until they could make the necessary improvements. Anuk had already related the stories he’d heard about my first winter in Rouen. Unable to build enough housing to protect everyone, we had crowded over three thousand people in the castle and more in the three churches that later became Anglican churches. My wives had worked side-by-side with the women in the castle to prepare food for everyone and to sew warm clothing for those who didn’t have enough. I worked alongside the men carrying stones or driving wagons full of stones to continue building through the winter.

I also led hunting expeditions of several days each, sending our catch back each day while we sought shelter from the cold each night. Considering the original condition of the people we brought here, I know that hundreds of them wouldn’t have survived the winter where they had come from. We lost less than a hundred all winter, all from disease or injuries.

We dropped Anuk off in Tetouan with his wife and his Vizier. He was eager to review his new Emirate and to begin making improvements. He would immediately have engineers begin looking for the best place to build two dams, and would go ahead with the construction of a dam strong enough and tall enough to catch a good portion of the excess runoff.

While the three-week trip home was long, especially after spending nearly four months in the hot, dry desert, it was far from unpleasant. Jamillah and Ruba thoroughly enjoyed the attention I lavished on them, especially at night in our cabin. Rebecca and several of the other slaves voluntarily joined us each night to make for many very enjoyable nights of sex.

Even so, the sight of the Normandy coast was a welcome one. Later, the sight of my wives bouncing excitedly on the docks in Rouen was an even better one. They bounced even more when I held Jamillah and Ruba tightly to me and motioned to the two of them. Margaret had given me permission long ago to choose additional wives without her input. Her initial worry that the slimmer, prettier women would distract me from her had proved unfounded.

For their part, Jamillah and Ruba were a bit nervous about the crowd of women waiting to meet us. Several of the women rushed onto the ship as soon as the gangplank was in place, and took off with my two newest wives (after a quick kiss hello for me) while the crew and other passengers gawked in amusement. At least my wives waited on the dock for me to catch up with them and gave me a proper greeting.

I was surprised on our way to the castle at how much work had been done already in preparation to build the new palace. Dozens of buildings had been demolished in the area I had chosen to build the palace. For some time, I had toyed with ideas for the design and was now certain that I’d need a much larger area than I had originally planned. Margaret told me the citizens of Rouen were excited that I was finally building a palace commensurate with the position the city now held in the world.

After breakfast the next morning (a rather late breakfast), I called together the architects and engineers who would work on the new palace design and went over my crude drawings. They were awed at the scope of the project at first, becoming more excited with each item I explained something. My design was for one large circular central palace and five smaller, circular, attached palaces spaced equidistant around the outside of the main building. Each attached secondary palace would be attached to the main palace and to the secondary palaces on each side of it by a wide, covered walkway. All six palaces would have two floors below ground and three floors above ground.

One of the smaller palaces would house the library, court, scriptorium, and small hospital for the occupants of the palace, and on the top floor, the Kings’ Council. The palaces on either side of it would each hold six halls on the ground floor where visiting nobles could hold court while they were here. The upper two floors would each hold ten suites for the nobles and their entourage. Each member of the council would have a large mosaic of their coat of arms on one wall of their suite. The main hall where my wives and I conducted most of our official business would have a large mosaic of my coat of arms on the floor.

The fourth palace would contain the formal dining room, kitchens, bakery, buttery, and other food preparation rooms. The upper two floors would be housing for the staff. One of the below ground rooms would be an ice room.

The final palace would have the main entertaining hall, with chapels for each of the major religions on the second floor, and more suites for visiting nobles on the third floor.

The spaces between the walkways connecting each palace would be solariums for my wives and their ever-increasing herb collection. The large area between each spoke would have a domed roof made up of glass panels giving my wives more than a hundred times the space they had now for their herbs. The walkways would be covered, but the sides would be open into the covered herb gardens.

Even though the winter was mild, Jamillah and Ruba saw snow for the first time.

I dispatched engineers to survey the smaller rivers and streams in my European territory to determine which, if any, might find a dam useful to control annual flooding or to provide extra water for irrigation later in the summer.

Dispatches continued to arrive almost weekly from Anuk, Farad, or the troops still in southern Maghreb. The task of bringing the existing Marinid territory under control was complete, but controlling the southern portion of it presented a bit of a problem. Evidently, a couple of nomadic tribes from just south of there were determined to test us and see if they could take the area away from us. Almost monthly, we’d get another ship full of captured nomadic troops who were too defiant to incorporate into existing cities, or to leave alone after they were defeated. Other people from villages supporting the rebellious nomads were sent north and incorporated into existing towns and cities unless they, also, were too defiant. Villages that didn’t harbor or otherwise support the rebels were left alone to continue their lives uninterrupted.

----.----

On a chilly but still unusually warm Wednesday morning in late February, the atmosphere in Rouen crackled with excitement and immense pride. All the old buildings in the inner city where the new palace would be built were now gone. Their inhabitants had since been relocated into the buildings surrounding a new, much larger town square outside the inner wall. Tens of thousands of Rouennaise showed up today to help begin the digging for the main palace. The pit was about four feet deep by the end of the day--not a very productive day for so many people, but the point of the day was one of involvement--not productivity. Over half of the populace, even small children, showed up throughout the day to help. When I tried to let my wives begin the excavation, everyone insisted that I remove the first shovel full of dirt. My wives turned the next sixteen shovels full before making way for the city’s political and religious leaders, and then the general population.

A few days later, a dispatch from Captain Oquendo arrived. He had pursued the raiders in the south across a vast expanse of the Sahara until coming in contact with the people of the Mali Empire--a fabulously wealthy empire that traded gold, slaves, and ivory for salt, copper, and iron tools. He related humorously that our mounted archers were now mounted on camels they had purchased and learned to ride since the horses wouldn’t last long in the desert. “It’s like trying to learn to ride the gunwales of a ship in a bad storm,” he complained.

He and a small contingent of troops went with the representative of Ko Mamadi, the Mali Sultan. They spoke with the Sultan in hopes of negotiating a trade agreement, as well as letting them know that we had no designs on their territory.

The most interesting news was a message forwarded from Rolt. The renegades Rolt chased had holed up in “the most God-forsaken and fly-infested village in the world. There are no trees or crops. Caravans bring in all their food, mainly dates and millet. The only exception is the occasional meat of a camel that is too weak to keep alive. Even the buildings here are made from blocks of salt.” The inhabitants had given the troublemakers refuge in the village.

After a two-day siege of the city, complete with Demons wailing all night, the city surrendered. They had awakened each morning to find their sentries, camels, and some of the slaves missing. They finally surrendered themselves and their town. He allowed the villagers to leave, but the two hundred or so troublemakers were enslaved, shackled, and added to the ranks of the existing slave population, digging two-hundred-pound blocks of salt from the open-pit mine.

Rolt estimated they would need at least 8,000 camels to transport the existing salt blocks--more by the time the annual caravan arrived. He sent half of his troops back to Fes to guard twenty-five camels, each loaded with two hundred pounds of gold captured in the city. In return, he asked to have stone and masons sent to build a more secure wall around the town, as well as stone houses. He also hoped for a larger variety of food for the new and existing slaves.

It was too late now to get more copper to the caravan before it left for Taghaza. Instead, I sent word to Pease and Baha to begin stockpiling copper, in any form, in Fes for later transshipment across the Sahara, even paying slightly higher prices than normal if necessary. I didn’t want them to tell anyone what we were doing, and suggested shipping copper from Europe to New Aragon or Malaga for transshipment on one of our own ships bound for one of the four ports equidistant from Fes.

The going rate for copper in Mali was five times what we could get anywhere else--three times more after estimated expenses. If anyone else found out what we were doing, the price of copper would climb sharply. Until we increased our own production from recently captured mines near Almeria and elsewhere, secrecy would be required.

Once the spring planting was well underway, my wives accompanied me to see how the new lands were doing. I also sent a representative to London to make King Edward a proposal. The port there needed to be expanded and I offered to pay for the entire expansion and modernization if I was allowed to keep one third of the newly expanded portion of the port for use by our ships to dock and unload free of charge, including several warehouses to hold our cargo. If our docks and facilities were available, any other ships that docked and unloaded at our facilities would pay the standard fees to the London dockmaster.

Anuk was excited to see me and to report on the last several months. The capture of Taghaza, the salt mine, alone would make this a vastly wealthy province, but advanced messengers reported that Captain Oquendo would arrive in a day or two and had very exciting and profitable news from the meetings with the Mali Sultan.

In addition, work on the first two dams was proceeding very well. They would be larger than originally conceived, with completion of both dams expected before next year’s floods. Work was already beginning on six more dams, paid for with part of the gold Rolt had sent back. I’d already received nearly five hundred pounds of gold from Anuk and had promptly ordered the construction of large estates in Rouen for both Oquendo and Rolt. Their wives were excitedly presiding over the planning and construction in the absence of their husbands.

The promise of a consistent water supply had excited people living along the rivers. They were eagerly preparing more land to plant. They were also intrigued by the prospect of being able to maintain larger herds of cattle, sheep, goats, and horses because of the extra water and the alfalfa.

Anuk began building towers along the city walls to house cannons as I’d done around Rouen. In addition, one of the first things he did was to import copper from anywhere he could find it. When the caravan left for Taghaza, there was enough copper to add two hundred pounds of gold to the profit. I promised him much more copper for next year’s caravan.

Oquendo’s advance messenger returned to him, letting him know that I was in Fes. With that knowledge, Oquendo hurried ahead of the rest of his troops, riding late into the night, eager to report to me the next morning.

The Sultan of Mali had been impressed with our defeat of the nomadic groups that constantly plagued his northern border, as well as the annual caravans. He was just as impressed that we left in peace the villages that didn’t cause problems. He agreed to let our caravans travel directly to the capitol of Niani to trade, where our salt would bring two or possibly three times as much as it did in Oualata, the official trading town. The additional travel would add two or three months to the round-trip, but the profit would definitely be worth it.

The Sultan had noticed the weapons our soldiers carried and was anxious to purchase such weapons. Their cavalry was very limited as horses were expensive to feed and maintain. They marveled at our wealth when they heard that we could put over 200,000 men on horses. Their cavalry was equipped with iron swords and iron-tipped lances. Their infantry consisted of bowmen and spearmen in a ratio of three bowmen to one spearman. Their spearmen used rudimentary wood spears, but Captain Oquendo was impressed with the fact that the bowmen frequently used poison-tipped arrows. The Sultan was eager to purchase steel swords, crossbows, and the alfalfa we used to feed our horses.

The bad news was that it was against Mali law for anyone trading inside the Mali Empire to use anything but gold dust, and the amount of gold dust to purchase what he hoped to buy would have severely depleted their supply. To that end, he gave us a parcel of land along the coast where we could build a trading post and a small town. Nobody had sailed all the way from that location to our ports before, but small fishing vessels from the coastal villages had sailed back and forth between neighboring villages for as long as anyone could remember. They traded for goods brought from northern ports in short steps. Goods purchased by one village were traded to neighbors farther south. Those neighbors used some and traded the rest to villages even farther south.

Twenty-five men had stayed behind to begin building a small, fortified village with the aid of two hundred slaves the Sultan had given us as a gift. In our village, his representative would trade with gold nuggets and gold bars since it would no longer be in their country; the port was ours, and our laws applied there.

I was so excited that I was shaking. We now had a market for the steel swords we had confiscated from defeated enemies or replaced with Damascus steel ones, as well as crossbows we had confiscated or no longer needed--a market paying well in gold. In addition, we would be opening up a new sea route to the area formerly accessible only across the desolate desert. I wondered what else, who else, and what other riches lay beyond the Kingdom of Mali and along the coast.

Not wanting to offend his host, Oquendo used part of the money they confiscated from the raiders to purchase the twelve hundred slaves the Sultan had offered to sell him. The transaction took place in the new port. Slaves were either criminals or defeated enemies--usually the latter. Their system of slavery, as well as the one in the area of North Africa we now controlled, was much like my unofficial one, where slaves were treated much like lesser members of the family. They were free to move about and perform their tasks, and could even, eventually, buy or otherwise earn their freedom.

Oquendo knew of my dislike for most forms of slavery and suggested that I let them earn their freedom with some form of indenture. That would bring us more people and would allow the slaves to earn their freedom. He said many of the male slaves had already offered to join our army since they had been warriors before.

I agreed, and decreed that each adult would serve an eight-year indenture. Children would only serve a four-year indenture upon reaching adulthood since each cost less than half what an adult cost. Men wanting to join the military could do so and would have their indenture reduced to four years of military service. They would come to Rouen for a year to learn our tactics and weapons before returning to serve three more years. The other slaves would be spread across the territory we controlled to help increase its productivity. Families were to be kept together, even if the man came to Rouen for military training.

Evidently, some of Oquendo’s men had expressed an interest in some of the slave women as wives. I assured him that, providing the women agreed, they would be allowed to marry them--also provided those who were already married got permission from their first wife. He and his men would be handsomely rewarded when they got home with a monetary bonus and extra time off. Any man wishing to marry one of the slave women could simply pay the equivalent of her purchase price from their bonus and eliminate her indenture altogether.

I immediately sent messages out. One message went to Rouen asking to have two engineers able to oversee the building of a small port and fort sent here. They should bring a hundred stonemasons, each with three sets of stone working tools. We also needed fifty carpenters, and a hundred sets of woodworking tools to help build a small fort and other buildings. In addition, I sent a list of other things to bring:

Four plows with harnesses

Assorted gardening tools

Seeds for grain, vegetables, and fruit

Baled alfalfa and seeds for alfalfa

Four small wagons and two large wagons with harnesses

Horses for the plows and wagons

Two bulls and twenty cows

Fifty military horses with saddles and tack

Lots of miscellaneous iron cooking ware

The old and captured iron and steel swords

The unused crossbows and 250,000 bolts

A thousand sheaves of arrows for longbows

As many steel knives as they could get

As much copper as they could get their hands on--in any form

Two hundred casks for water

Six cannons including powder and ammunition

The shipment was to go to the port of Anfa on the Atlantic coast of North Africa. The ships were to remain loaded in Anfa awaiting the arrival of Captain Huurluyt and further orders.

The other messages went to several major ports looking for Captain Jacob Huurluyt, commander of our newest and biggest ship, one just recently built and launched in New Aragon. He was to bring his empty ship to the relatively small Atlantic port of Anfa and ask for Sa’di, a messenger from Sultan Mike. Everyone who knew Captain Huurluyt touted him as the best and boldest captain they knew of. He would be the perfect person to explore the African coast.

I asked Anuk to have someone from the southernmost port in our territory who knew the area, people, and language farther to the south ready to sail with Captain Huurluyt when he arrived, and to have enough food and water available to restock the ships. I also asked to have two cartographers sent to document the coast and the route to the new port. Nobody else was to know anything about this. If it worked, we would have the first port in a previously unexplored part of Africa, and a hope for more new contacts beyond.