Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree

by Tariq Ali

  ‘You are spared your duties. You will return to Gharnata and await our return.’

  The old soldier could not believe his luck. He walked to where the horses were grazing and untied his mount.

  ‘I will return,’ he said to himself as he rode away from the encampment, ‘but not to Gharnata. I will go where neither you nor your cursed monks can ever find me.’

  The gates which breached the wall surrounding the house were the only point of entry to the ancestral home of the Banu Hudayl. They had been firmly sealed. Constructed of solid wood, four inches thick and reinforced with strips of iron, their function had been largely ceremonial. They were not built to withstand a siege. They had never been shut before, since neither the village nor the house was considered to be of any military significance. Ibn Farid and his ancestors had gathered knights and soldiers under their command from this and surrounding villages. They had assembled outside the gates and marched off to wars in other parts of the kingdom.

  When Ubaydallah had conveyed the young captain’s message, Umar had smiled grimly and understood. This was not the time for the flamboyant gestures which had caused the death of so many members of his own family. He had ordered that the banner of the silver key on a sea of blue be removed from the wall in the armoury and hung over the gates.

  ‘If that is all they want,’ he told his steward, ‘let us make it easy for them.’

  Several hundred villagers had sought refuge behind the walls of the house. They were being fed in the gardens, while the outer courtyard was filled with children playing games, blissfully unaware of the evil that was stalking them. Yazid had never known the house so full or so noisy. He had been tempted to join in the fun, but decided instead to retreat to the tower.

  Like everyone else, Ubaydallah had been offered the sanctuary of the house, but he preferred to return to the village. Something deep inside told him he would be safer in his own house, independent of the family he had served for so long. In this he was tragically mistaken. Even as he was walking back to the village, a cavalryman, egged on by his friends, unsheathed his weapon and sword-arm raised, charged towards the unsuspecting Ubaydallah. The steward had no time to react. Within seconds, his head, neatly severed from his body, lay rolling in the dust.

  Yazid was tugging at his father’s robe. Umar had just given orders for the armoury to be unlocked and arms handed out to all able-bodied men and women. Zubayda had insisted that they would fight. Memories of al-Hama were burned into her consciousness.

  ‘Why should we wait helplessly for them, first to despoil our bodies and then thrust their swords in our hearts?’

  ‘Abu! Abu!’ Yazid’s voice was insistent.

  Umar picked him up and kissed him. This spontaneous display of affection pleased the boy, but also annoyed him, since he was trying so hard to be a man.

  ‘What is it, my child?’

  ‘Come to the tower. Now!’

  Zubayda sensed the tragedy. She refused to let Yazid return to the tower with his father.

  ‘I need your help, Yazid. How do I use this sword?’

  The distraction worked. Umar ascended the stairs alone. The higher he climbed, the more quiet it became. And then he saw the carnage. The houses had been set on fire. He could see the litter of bodies, near where the mosque had stood. The soldiers had not completed their task. They were riding up the nearby hills in pursuit of those who had attempted escape. As he strained his ears, Umar thought he heard the sounds of wailing women, punctuated by the howling of dogs, but soon there was complete silence. The fires were blazing. Death was everywhere. He looked at a map of the village on the table through a piece of magnifying glass. It was too much, and he let the glass drop to the floor and shatter. Now Umar bin Abdallah dried his eyes.

  ‘The broken glass has no saviours,’ he told the two servants who had been keeping watch. They stood in place like statues, observing the grief that had overcome their master. Words of comfort were on their tongues, never to be spoken.

  Umar slowly descended the stairs. From the tower he had surveyed everything. There was no longer any room for doubt. He cursed himself for not having permitted Yazid to go with his sister. As he reached the giant forecourt he was greeted by an eerie silence. The children had stopped playing. No more food was being eaten. All was still, except for the occasional noise of the blacksmith sharpening swords. They had all caught sight of the fired village and now sat on the ground, watching the flames melt into the setting sun on the horizon. Their homes, their past, their friends, their future, everything had been destroyed. The vigil was interrupted by a woeful cry from the tower.

  ‘The Christians are at the gates!’

  Everyone was galvanized into action. The older women and children were sent into the outhouses. Umar took the Dwarf to one side.

  ‘I want you to take Yazid and hide with him in the granary. Whatever else happens, do not let him come out unless you are sure that they have gone. May Allah protect you.’

  Yazid refused to be parted from his parents. He argued with his father. He pleaded with his mother.

  ‘Look,’ he said, waving a blade which the blacksmith had prepared for him. ‘I can use this sword as well as you.’

  It was Zubayda’s entreaties which finally moved him to accompany the Dwarf. He had insisted on taking his chess pieces with him. When these had been retrieved, the cook took him by the hand and led him towards the formal garden. Beyond it, just below the wall, there was a cluster of trees and plants of every variety. Close by, carefully camouflaged by a circle of jasmine bushes, was a small wooden bench. As the Dwarf lifted it, the stone on which it was placed rose as well.

  ‘Down you go, young master.’

  Yazid hesitated for a second and looked back at the house, but the Dwarf nudged him and he began to climb down the tiny stair. The cook followed, carefully replacing the cover from below. In these dark vaults there was enough wheat and rice to feed the whole village for a year. These were the emergency stocks of al-Hudayl, to be used if the crops failed or in the case of unforeseen calamities. The Dwarf lit a candle. Tears were pouring down Yazid’s face.

  Above the ground, everything was now ready to receive the Christian soldiers who were now using battering rams to break down the gates. When the doors finally gave way, the first soldiers rode into the forecourt, but this was simply an advance party and their captain was not at their head. The rapid destruction of the village, and the fresh corpses which their horses had trampled over in order to reach the house, had engendered in them a false sense of security.

  Suddenly they noticed Moorish knights, also on horseback, poised for action on both their left and right flanks. The intruders tried to race through the forecourt into the outer courtyard, but they were not fast enough. Umar and his improvised cavalry unit bore down with blood-curdling cries. The Christians, unprepared for resistance, were slow to react. Each one was unhorsed and killed. A loud cheer and cries of ‘Allah is Great’ greeted this unexpected triumph.

  The bodies of the dead soldiers were loaded on to their horses and the animals were whipped out of the forecourt. There was a long wait before the next encounter, and the reason soon became obvious. The army from Gharnata was widening the breach in the wall so that they could charge three abreast through the gate.

  Umar knew that it would not be so easy the next time. ‘It is our downfall,’ he told himself. ‘All I can see now is death.’

  Barely had this thought crossed his mind when he heard the tones of a voice not yet fully broken: ‘No mercy on the infidels.’ It was the captain himself, at the head of his soldiers. This time they did not wait for the Moorish attack, but charged straight at the defenders. Fierce hand-to-hand fighting was the result, with the courtyard resounding to the noise of clashing steel and the thud of blows, intermingled with screams and alternating cries of ‘Allah is Great’ and ‘For the Holy Virgin, for the Holy Virgin!’ The Moorish archers stationed on the roof could not use their crossbows for fear of hurting their o
wn side. The Moors were outnumbered and their resistance was soon bathed in blood.

  Umar’s horse was hamstrung and the fall concussed him. Soldiers dragged him to the captain. As the two men looked at each other, the captain’s eyes gleamed with hatred. Umar dispassionately studied his young conqueror.

  ‘You see before you the wrath of our Lord,’ said the captain.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Umar. ‘Our village emptied of its people. Women and children put to the sword. Our mosques given to the flames and our fields desolated. Men like you remind me of the fish in the sea who devour each other. These lands will never be prosperous again. The blood I see in your eyes will one day destroy your own side. There is only one Allah and he is Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.’

  The captain did not reply. He looked at the soldiers on either side of his prisoner and nodded. They did not need further urging. Umar bin Abdallah was forced to his knees. Then the archers struck. Two arrows found their targets as Umar’s would-be-executioners were felled. The captain screamed: ‘Burn this place down.’ Then he ordered two other soldiers forward, but by this time Umar had caught up a sword from one of the fallen men and was fighting once again.

  It took six men to recapture the chief of the Banu Hudayl. This time he was beheaded at once, and his head skewered on the point of a pike. After being paraded round the forecourt it was taken into the outer courtyard. Screams and wails burst forth, followed by cries of anger and the clash of blades.

  An archer who had witnessed Umar’s death ran from the scene and informed Zubayda. Tears poured down her face. She took a sword and joined the defenders in the courtyard outside.

  ‘Come,’ she shouted at the other women, ‘we must not let them take us alive!’

  The women, to the great astonishment of the Christians, displayed a boundless courage. These were not the weak and pampered creatures of the harem about whom they had been told so many fanciful stories. Once again it was the element of surprise which aided the women of al-Hudayl. They were responsible for decreasing the size of the captain’s army by at least a hundred men. Ultimately they succumbed, but with swords and daggers in their hands.

  After two hours of fierce fighting, the killing was done. All of the defenders lay dead. Weavers and rhetoricians, true believers and false prophets, men and women, they had fought together and died in view of each other. Juan the carpenter, Ibn Hasd and the old sceptic al-Zindiq had refused Umar’s offer to hide in the granary. They too, for the first time in their lives, had wielded swords and perished in the massacre.

  The captain was angry at having lost so many men. He gave the order for the house to be looted and burnt. For another hour the men, drunk on blood, celebrated their victory in an orgy of plunder. The children, who had been hidden in the baths, were decapitated or drowned, depending on the mood of the soldiers involved. Then they set the old house alight and returned to their camp.

  Lingering with his two aides, the captain now dismounted and sat down in the garden, watching the house burn. He took off his boots and dangled his feet in the stream which bisected the garden.

  ‘How they loved the water!’

  Beneath the ground, Yazid would wait no longer. It had been silent for a very long time. The Dwarf insisted that the boy must stay, but he was adamant.

  ‘You stay here, Dwarf,’ he whispered to the old man. ‘I will go and see what has happened and then come back. Please don’t come with me. Only one of us should go. I’ll scream if you disobey me.’

  Still the Dwarf would not budge and Yazid, feigning exhaustion, pretended to settle down again. As the grip on his arm relaxed just a little, he broke loose. Before the Dwarf could stop him he had climbed up the ladder and forced up the cover enough to slip through. When he stood up, it was to see a litter of corpses and his house on fire. The sight unhinged him. He lost all his fear and began to run towards the courtyard, screaming the names of his parents.

  The captain was startled by the noise. As the boy ran through the garden, the two aides seized him. Yazid kicked and flailed.

  ‘Let me go! I must see my father and mother.’

  ‘Go with him,’ the captain told his men. ‘Let him see for himself the power of our Church.’

  When he saw his father’s head impaled on a pike, the boy fell on his knees and wept. They could go no further because the flames were overpowering, as was the stench of burning bodies. If they had not held him back, Yazid would have rushed through the flames to find his mother and perished in the fire. Instead they dragged him back to the captain, who was now ready to mount his horse.

  ‘Well boy?’ he asked in a jovial tone. ‘Now do you see what we do to infidels?’

  Yazid stared at him, paralysed by inexpressible grief.

  ‘Have you lost your tongue, boy?’

  ‘I wish I had a dagger,’ said Yazid in a strangely distant voice. ‘For I would run it through your heart. I wish now that many centuries ago, we had treated you as you have treated us.’

  The captain was impressed despite himself. He smiled at Yazid and looked thoughtfully at his colleagues. They were relieved at his reaction. They did not have the stomach to kill the boy.

  ‘You see?’ he said to them. ‘Did I not say earlier today that the hatred of the survivors is the poison that could destroy us?’

  Yazid was not listening. His father’s head was talking to him.

  ‘Remember, my son, that we have always prided ourselves on how we treat the vanquished. Your great-grandfather used to invite knights he had defeated to stay in our house and feast with him. Never forget that if we become like them, nothing can save us.’

  ‘I will remember, Abu,’ said Yazid.

  ‘What did you say, boy?’ asked the captain.

  ‘Would you like to stay at our house and be my guest tonight?’

  The captain gave his aides the signal they knew only too well. Normally they carried out his orders at once, but it was clear that the boy had lost his mind. It was like cold-blooded murder. They hesitated. The captain, enraged, drew his sword and plunged it into the boy’s heart. Yazid fell to the ground with crossed arms. He expired on the spot. There was a half-smile on his face as the blood, full of bubbles, gurgled out of his mouth.

  The captain mounted his horse. Without a glance at his two lieutenants, he rode out of the gate.

  Night came on. The sky which had seemed like a burning abyss a few hours ago was now dark blue. First two and then a pleiade of stars began to fill the sky. The fires had gone out and everything was dark, the way it must have been a thousand years before when the land grew wild and there were neither dwellings nor creatures to live in them.

  The Dwarf, his eyes rigid with horror, was sitting on the ground with Yazid’s body in his arms, swaying gently to and fro. His tears were falling on the face of the dead child and mingling with his blood.

  ‘How did it come to pass that of all of them I alone am still alive?’

  He repeated this phrase over and over again. He did not know how or when he fell asleep or when the cursed dawn announced a new day.

  Since the moment Ibn Basit had told him that he had seen a force of several hundred Christian soldiers outside al-Hudayl, Zuhayr had almost killed his mare by riding without stop till he reached the approaches to the village. Deep lines marked his face, descending from the side of his eyes to the edge of his lips. His eyes, usually black and shining, seemed colourless and dull in their deep hollows. Two months of fighting had aged him a great deal. It was a clear night as Zuhayr galloped through the gorse, his thoughts not on his men, but on his family and his home.

  ‘Peace be upon you, Zuhayr bin Umar!’ cried a voice.

  Zuhayr reined in his horse. It was a messenger-spy from Abu Zaid.

  ‘I am in a hurry, brother.’

  ‘I wanted to warn you before you reached al-Hudayl. There is nothing left, Zuhayr bin Umar. The Christians are in their cups and telling anyone in Gharnata who will listen to them. They are senseless tonight.’

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nbsp; ‘Peace be upon you, my friend,’ said Zuhayr looking blankly into the distance. ‘I will go and see for myself.’

  Within fifteen minutes he had reached al-Zindiq’s cave, half-hoping, half-praying that the old man would be there to calm his fears. It was deserted. Al-Zindiq’s manuscripts and paper were lying there, neatly tied into bundles, as if the old man were preparing to leave forever. Zuhayr rested for a few minutes and gave the horse some water. Then he rode on. He pulled in the horse as he rounded a spur of hillside and looked upward in the familiar direction. The pale light of dawn shone upon charred remains. He rode in a trance towards the house. The worst was true. When he saw the ruins from a distance, his first thought was of revenge. ‘I will seek them out and kill them one by one. I swear on my brother’s head before Allah that I will avenge this crime.’

  As he rode into the courtyard he saw his father’s head mounted on a pike stuck firmly in the ground. Zuhayr jumped off the horse and removed the pike. Gently he looked his father in the face. He took the head to the stream and washed the blood off the hair and face. Then he took it to the graveyard and began to dig the earth with his bare hands. In his frenzy he did not notice a spade lying a few feet away. After he had buried his father, he walked back into the courtyard and saw, for the first time, the Dwarf swaying gently with Yazid in his arms. For a second Zuhayr’s heart leaped into his mouth. Was Yazid alive, after all? Then he saw his brother’s still face, bloody at the edges.

  ‘Dwarf! Dwarf! Are you alive? Wake up, man!’

  Startled, the Dwarf opened his eyes. His arms were as stiff as Yazid’s body cradled within them. On seeing Zuhayr, the Dwarf began to wail. Zuhayr embraced the cook and gently took Yazid’s body from him. He kissed his dead brother’s cheeks.

  ‘I have buried my father’s head. Let us bathe Yazid and put him to rest.’

  Gently, they undressed the body and bathed it in the stream. Then they lifted Yazid and took him to the family graveyard. It was when he was under the ground and after they had refilled the grave with freshly dug earth that Zuhayr, who had displayed superhuman calm, broke down and screamed. The unblocked anguish released the tears. It was as if rain had fallen on Yazid’s grave.