It happened that the kings of Castile and Aragon sent an ambassador, as they did every year, to collect the arrears of the tribute of twelve thousand gold pistoles that, since Ismail, had been paid by the Kings of Granada to their neighbors, the Christian kings.
That ambassador was Don Juan de Vera, celebrated for his valor and beauty.
Isabelle wanted to see him and witness the interview that Abul Hacen was about to have with him. It was agreed that she would stand, invisibly, behind a little grilled window accommodated in the height of the wall.
The hagib had prepared the twelve thousand pistoles. Juan de Vera’s visit was only a formality, always the same, and courteous words were exchanged in the Spanish language in order to mark the vassalage of the Moorish kingdom with regard to the kingdom of Castile.
Abul Hacen was lying on his divan with more nonchalance than usual. Aben Comixer, the Alcaide of Granada, was to his right, the Hagib to his left.
“What is it that brings you here?” said Abul Hacen imperiously, in the Arabic language, to the amazement of everyone.
Untroubled, Don Juan de Vera explained, in the Spanish language, that he had come to collect the annual tribute of twelve thousand pistoles.
Then, by a spontaneous inspiration that he attributed subsequently to Allah, but which was only due to the desire to shine before Isabelle and show her his regal power, his ease as a man and the youthfulness of his character, he raised himself up slightly, sniggered and said: “Tell your sovereign that our mint no longer casts anything but the blades of scimitars and the heads of spears.” Then he turned his head and stared into space to make it understood that the interview was concluded.
Don Juan de Vera, whose mind was not very prompt to reply, remained motionless for a few seconds, then turned on his heel and drew away calmly, darting fiery gazes to the right and the left in order to substitute for the absence of an oral response and to make it understood that such an insult would soon be avenged.
Thus, to put a smile on a woman’s face behind a grilled window, a virtual declaration of war had just been issued.
The rumor ran throughout Islam that the Moorish kingdom was invincible because of the fabulous treasure amassed by its kings, a treasure so great that neither that of Genghis Khan nor that of Solomon, nor the riches of the Republic of Venice, could be compared to it. That treasure permitted ships to be bought indefinitely from the Turks and the Barbary pirates, weapons from Genoa and the French, and armies of mercenaries to be raised in Morocco and Algeria.
The existence of that treasure was known to all the Moors in Spain. They relied on that wealth, which they did not enjoy, but by which they were secretly protected, and whatever his poverty, the most humble of beggars, when he looked at the Alhambra from afar, felt rich because of the mysterious reserves of gold that were contained there.
There was also another legend. Something more precious than gold and jewels was the property of the kings of Granada and reposed in the Alhambra. It was a talisman. If a few tribes from Yemen and Hira had been able to conquer the world with such fabulous rapidity, always bearing the standard of the Prophet further on, it was by virtue of a magical possession rather than by courage or numbers. For all the historians were unanimous. There was something inconceivable in the Arab conquest, something winged that surpassed the luck or energy of men. Okba had not had a considerable army when he went from the Red Sea to the Atlantic and pushed his horse into the occidental sea, regretting that it had interrupted his course. Tharek only commanded seven thousand men when he passed into Spain and had only received a few reinforcements when, on the banks of the Guadelete, he had crushed Roderic’s immense army.
So many unexpected victories concealed a mystery. All the chiefs had had a veiled, unnamable and intangible object transported behind them, as sacred as Moses’ Holy of Holies, as invisible as God himself. When Moussa had had an obelisk raised in Carcassonne, it was not only to attest to his progress in Narbonnaise Gaul, it was to shelter that talisman. The kings had transmitted it preciously for centuries. The Ommeyades placed it in the mosque of Cordova, the Almoravides constructed the Giralda of Seville for it, and Jacob Almanzor transported it to Granada where it remained.
That was what gave the protection that assured the immortality of the race. The Moorish people could sleep in peace. Somewhere under the hill of the Alhambra there was a hidden light, which was its genius.
Now, Isabelle the Spaniard, having heard those stories, got it into her head to possess the treasure and hold the talisman of the ancient kings in Christian hands.
The combat of the two women had thrown Abul Hacen into a great perplexity. He feared his son, whom he knew to the possessed with the love of treason. He feared the partisans that Aixa had been able to gather. On the other hand, Isabelle had sworn that she would no longer be his as long as she was not avenged, and she kept her word.
“I’ll have them locked up together until they’re reconciled,” Abul Hacen said, several times.
But he went to Isabelle’s door every evening and found it locked.
“I’m afraid of being murdered during the night,” said Isabelle, the next morning. “Those who come wouldn’t fail to imitate your voice.” And she feigned a great terror.
One morning, he found her smiling and languid in a room overlooking the Court of Myrtles.
“I can’t do without you,” she said, with a movement full of desire. “And yet it’s impossible to give myself to a man who refuses me the slightest proof of love.”
He sensed that some demand was coming that it would be difficult to realize, and remained mute.
“I’ll forgive you your weakness if you show me your treasure.”
“What treasure?”
She stamped her foot and adopted a more puerile expression than usual. “The one that is hidden here under the Alhambra. It appears that you’re the only one who knows where it is.”
Abul Hacen’s eyebrows furrowed, and he drew away without saying a word.
He came back a few hours later. She was lying on a divan, clad only in a transparent silk tunic. He trembled with contained desire.
As soon as she perceived his silhouette in the frame of the oval door she got up, took his arm familiarly and made him take a few paces, drawing him along and sketching a zambra step, while murmuring to him in a low voice: “My beloved master has come to find me to take me to my treasure. We’re both going to go lie down amid precious stones.”
He was about to push her away violently, rendered furious by her obstinacy. But without paying any heed to his ill humor, she stuck herself to him and sang the refrain of an ancient Arab ballad.
“In the treasure of the Alhambra
“There are the tears of our ancestors
“That have become dull pearls.”
Then he considered her. She was thin and inoffensive; she was speaking as if in a dream, and between her fluttering eyelids shone a gold such as no treasure could contain any purer. He saw beneath the silk the slight undulation of her breasts, and the golden down that descended over the nape of her neck, the amber perfume of which maddened him.
Life was so rapid! Every day that passed took away a little of his strength. It was necessary to admit it to himself; he had difficulties with his sight and sometimes singular losses of memory. There would come a time when enjoyment would leave him, like the last ray of sunlight passing from one mountain to another at the moment of disappearing. Then again, had Isabelle not mentioned lying down in the midst of precious stones? Oh, what bed would be magnificent enough for that creature, which Allah had sent to him?”
“Well, so be it!” he said. “Come with me. I’ll show you the treasure. Only, in your turn...”
He did not finish. She approved by clapping her hands.
They went through rooms and courtyards. They went into the Osario, which was surrounded by a high wall. It was the tomb of kings. Ali the mute was stationed there when he was not accompanying his master.
“This is
the only man who is faithful to me,” said Abul Hacen.
The man in question had leapt to his feet, and he preceded the Emir to a stairway closed by an enormous door, which he opened.
All three went down and arrived in a subterranean room where resin torches were fixed to the wall. Abul Hacen took one, which he lit. He made a sign to Ali, and the latter leaned with all his weight on one of the stone blocks of which the wall was made. With a dull sound, the block pivoted, drawing with it other blocks of large dimension, and unmasked an opening where there was a stairway.
Abul Hacen smiled proudly, showing Isabelle the marvelous mechanism, in the construction of which Arab engineers had long been past masters.
“It was Yussef Zeli, the builder of the Alhambra, who found that secret,” he said. At the bottom of the staircase I’ll show you the place where the workmen who took part in the construction are buried. It appears that Yussef Zeli was in despair at their deaths, but how else could the secret by guarded? For the same reason, later, Muhamad Alhamar was obliged to get rid of his son Hagib, whom he had been imprudent enough to bring here.”
Isabelle reflected that the imprudence was greater for the person to whom the secret was revealed than the one who revealed it. She went down the steps lightly and only stopped when Abul Hacen, who was following her with difficulty, shouted to her to beware of slipping.
They suddenly found themselves before a door of black bronze. By the light of the torch Isabelle saw a hand engraved on that door similar to the one that was on the Puerta de la Justicia. Under the hand there was the design of a key.
Abul Hacen explained the symbol. “Human effort. It tries perpetually to seize the key to the mystery, always fleeing.”
And that bronze door, at the extremity of the damp stairway, was sad and mute, as fatal as the subterranean powers it enclosed.
Abul Hacen had a hesitant gaze. If Isabelle had shown the slightest fear of the darkness and solitude of the place, he would gladly have gone back. But she shivered, delightfully caressed by the coolness, and breathed deeply. She rapped the bronze with her hand.
“Open it quickly,” she said. “I want to see.”
She did not sense the majesty of that fabulous treasure, buried under a palace, like the vertebrae of the race that lived above it.
Abul Hacen opened the door and raised the torch.
What Isabelle saw at first was confused, multiform, tenebrous and menacing. The room into which she had just penetrated was vast, to the point that she could not make out its extremities, and the walls were entirely covered with objects whose usage it was impossible to recognize.
While Abul Hacen placed the torch in a bracket near the entrance, Isabelle perceived huge masses of metal that must have been suits of armor, coffers that cast shadows and aligned pitchers, and suddenly, a fluidity of gold fell on all sides, a precious gleam that, with the light of the torch, immobilized as a sheet. It seemed to her that she was in a bath of gilded things.
Then she gazed, and could not retain a cry of admiration.
The floor was covered with mats from Samanah and Beneseh. There was a copy in solid gold, a foot high, of the ablution pavilion of Caliph El Mamoun, with its cupola encrusted with diamonds. There was a palm tree whose leaves were jewels representing dates of every degree of maturity. There were basins and crystal ewers, white gazelles whose abdomens were woven of pearls, tables of faience, silver or ebony from the land of the Zindjes, supporting trays of ivory or sandalwood, cups of agate or jade, in which radiant gems were displayed and pieces of uncut diamond. In one corner there was a heap of enamel plates and boxes of precious woods lined with silk. In another there was a superimposition of chessboards and pieces, in which every pawn was a material marvel and a masterpiece of workmanship.
Weapons could be seen shining, one of which was the famous sword Dhoul-Fikar28 and another the shield of Amrou with the name of Allah written in seven different scripts. Standards so heavy with embroideries that it would have required several men to lift even one formed a pyramid up to the ceiling. An amber vase from Chahar was overflowing with camphor from Kaisour, and another in cornelian was filled with sculpted gold clasps. One chest must have contained a least seven mudds of emeralds, and another at least as many rubies, and some parts of the floor were strewn with gold dinars that crackled dully when one walked over them.
The crystals sparkled, the rubies bled, the diamonds fulgurated and large mirrors placed on the walls or supported by boxes sent back the light like so many stars, with the consequence that Isabelle thought she was passing through a subterranean Milky Way full of transparencies and luminous illusions.
“All this is yours!” she exclaimed.
And she stirred the emeralds, and made pearls stream between her fingers in cascades.
“You can take whatever you wish,” murmured Abul Hacen. “Remember what you promised me.”
And he drew near to her. His features were drawn, his lips trembling. He put his arms around her and tried to tip her over, but she escaped him. She could not weary of touching the silks and admiring the crystals.
“What promise?” she asked, in a distant voice.
He tried to seize her again, abruptly and kiss her on the lips, in the hope of awakening a desire in her. She understood, and nearly laughed at the folly of that hope. She slipped between his hands again.
“No,” she said. “Keep your own promise.”
She wanted to see and touch what no man had seen: the divine talisman that gave power, the mysterious column that had sustained the edifice of the Arab race.
Abul Hacen shivered. What was this childishness? She believed in a puerile legend. There was nothing other than the treasure he had just revealed to her.
And he started pursuing her among the coffers of jewels and the precious vases. She threw a handful of rubies at him like so many drops of blood, and a handful of sapphires like so many droplets from an enchanted spring. She flagellated him with a necklace of topazes charged with gold pendants, and as she was facing him, behind a bronze urn, she flung that necklace around his neck, so that it made a music of gems as it ran.
He begged her with puerile words and threatened her by turns. He was out of breath, and as if a magic had emerged from the surrounding objects, they both began to tremble. The furniture, the standards and the crystals had been removed from pillaged cities under the flames of conflagrations. There were precious silks that had been snatched from women as they were being raped, whose fingers had often been severed in order to remove tight rings. Those ancient murders, those past dramas, were mysteriously evoked, appearing transparently in the mirrors, and the gleam of cups changed into amorous rage in the man and panic terror in the woman.
She was about to reach the door, but she suddenly slipped and they both fell on to a bed of gold dinars. He clutched her as if he wanted to crush her, but she clawed his face, to the point that he felt blood running into his eyes; she crawled beneath him and escaped again.
They had both lost their reason.
She took the sword of Dhoul-Fikar and raised it.
“I’ll strike if you come any nearer,” she said.
The Emir’s fury evaporated. The supple body that he had before him weakened his entire being by virtue of he need he had to repose against its warmth.
“Well then, I’ll do what you want. But you’ll keep your promise?”
“I’ll keep it.”
“Immediately?”
“Yes. There, on the dinars and the gemstones.”
Abul Hacen took a little rusty key that was attached by a ring to the key of the first door, and moved aside a Persian rug that hid a section of the wall. There was a very low door there. Instinctively, he repeated several times that Allah was the only god and that Mohammed was his prophet. Then he bent down and opened it.
He had taken in his arms a heavy object, which he turned toward Isabelle.
She only saw a mass enveloped with veils on which damp and mold had put gray crystals.
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There was another argument. Isabelle thought she was being deceived. Abul Hacen did not want to recommence the struggle. In the end it was agreed that she would drop the sword that she was still holding and that she would remove a part of her clothing every time he removed off one of the veils enveloping the talisman. He believed that there were seven veils. She would be naked by the seventh.
Abul Hacen sensed the immensity of the sacrilege and his teeth were chattering. Isabelle was laughing in a hysterical fashion and at times, her eyes tipped back. At the first veil she took off her turban, at the second her slippers. Slowly with an undulation of her body, following Abul Hacen’s gestures, she unrolled the long veil that enveloped her. Her breasts appeared, and then the Emir’s movements became jerky and rapid. He had a desire to rip that supple, ancient, interminable silk.
In the end, Isabelle was naked. She had understood that it was necessary to finish it. Perhaps she was also caught up by her game.
The torch put red reflections on her flesh, and in the sparkle of beryls, chrysoprases and sapphires that she picked up in handfuls and poured over herself nervously, she had never been so beautiful. “Come on!” she cried, with a savage indecency.
And she let herself fall on to the ruddy fabric of a standard, extended and offered, only darting a distracted gaze at the talisman that had just appeared and no longer had any importance to her save that of a caprice realized.
Abu Hacen considered with surprise that which had been an object of veneration for so many peoples on the march, which Okba the conqueror had paraded throughout Africa, which Abderame the sage had worshiped, the reason so many men had died with a face illuminated by joy.
The Angel of Lust Page 20
