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Chapter 2

The King’s Cobra

Finely dressed emissaries from throughout Africa disembarked from their camel caravans and

approached the ornately carved metal doors of the Timbuktu royal palace. So skillfully designed

was the imperial residence that visitors could only marvel that such an architectural masterpiece

could exist amid the sand and serpents of the Sahara. Four thirty-foot high white stone towers

crowned the main octagon base. Once inside, the high domed ceilings seemed nonexistent, as if

the building opened up into the sky. They pulled the eyes upward and forced a gasp at the sheer

elegance and detail of the vibrant frescos of Mandinka history and lore within a sea of painted

stars. Although there were larger and more politically important kingdoms in Africa, Timbuktu’s

Albaka, the annual festival of the Winter Solstice, was a highlight on the social calendar of all the

right people. Remote as the city was, the caravan across the Sahara seemed to be part of the exotic

experience, and the royal family provided excellent armed escorts as a deterrent to banditry.

The Great Hall was alive with music and celebration. Noblemen and women, government

officials, ambassadors and merchants, renowned scholars and artisans from around the region,

formally attired in their finest tribal colors and fabrics, came to pay tribute to Prince Omar’s

parents, Mansa Kanja and his queen, GoGo Bah.

When Kanja Khan inherited the throne, and thus the royal title Mansa, he had his choice of

wives from around the West African region. Many were more attractive than GoGo, and more

politically important to vital allegiances. Kanja was considered more elegant than virile and

preferred beauty in his women over brains. Yet he made the smartest decision in his life, among

all the unwise ones he was to make in the future, when he married GoGo on the strong advice of

his mother Queen Kaddy, a shrewd puppeteer of her son’s public image. Although Kanja was a

good man, Kaddy knew he was not ruthless enough to rule. By marrying GoGo, a direct

descendant of Sundiata the Great, founder of the Mali Empire, Kanja had unified his nation after