MANSA MUSA'S TREA'SURE
A BEGGAR’S MOON painted Timbuktu gold as the peddler’s gate creaked open. Two shadows slipped outside the royal palace. A bearded man in camel-herder’s garments guided his youthful companion along the darkened alley. They melted into the thinning supper crowd hurrying home on the dusty street. The slender, beardless young man, dressed in similar fashion, accompanied the older man in silence. Matching his older brother’s long strides, Suleyman noticed a lightness in Musa’s step.
Suleyman remembered his brother explaining how wearing a
