Abbas did not move as Hernando punched him, unwilling even to protect himself from the beating.
The last thing the blacksmith was aware of before losing consciousness was how the other men pulled Hernando off him. He no longer heard the curses and insults Hernando was still shouting at him.
Before reaching Seville, Azirat refused to continue galloping at the same speed he had kept up since leaving Lomo del Grullo. Hernando dug his spurs into the horse’s flanks once more, as he had been doing over the almost seven leagues covered at a flat-out gallop. But the animal was incapable of carrying on and despite the spurs his gallop became ever slower and more laboured until finally he could not go on.
‘Come on!’ cried Hernando, spurring him and urging him on with his body. Azirat staggered. ‘Gallop,’ Hernando sobbed, tugging furiously at the reins. The animal sank down on the road. ‘God! No!’
Hernando jumped from the saddle. Azirat was covered in lather; his flanks were bloody, his nostrils dilated with the effort to breathe. Hernando placed his hand over Azirat’s heart: it seemed about to burst.
‘What have I done? Are you going to die too?’
Dead! The madness of the gallop in which he had tried to seek refuge vanished at the sight of the broken animal. Pain coursed through Hernando once more. Weeping, he pulled on the reins to get Azirat to his feet, and forced him to walk. The animal swayed as if drunk. There was a stream nearby, but Hernando did not lead the horse to it until he saw some signs of recovery. When they reached it, he did not allow him to drink: he offered some water in his cupped hands, but Azirat could not even lick. Hernando took off the saddle and bridle. Using his tunic as a sponge he rubbed him all over with cool water. In Hernando’s imagination the blood on Azirat’s flanks, caused by the cutting of the spurs, merged with Ubaid’s brutality. He rubbed the animal down again and again, and then forced the horse to walk, all the time offering him water from his hands. After a couple of hours, Azirat extended his neck to drink directly from the stream. Hernando covered his face with his hands and abandoned himself to grief.
They spent the night out in the open, next to the stream. Azirat nibbled at the grass, while Hernando cried inconsolably as images of Fátima, Francisco and Inés danced before him. As he heard their voices and their innocent laughter he beat the ground until his knuckles bled; he howled with pain as he smelt them once more and thought he felt the warmth and tenderness of their bodies beside his. At the same time, he tried to banish the unimaginable scenes of their deaths at the hands of Ubaid, whom he also saw in his mind’s eye standing triumphant with the still beating heart of Gonzalico in his hands.
Hernando made the next day’s journey on foot. Those who crossed his path were unsure if it was the man pulling the horse or the horse that was dragging the wreckage of a man holding on to its reins. It was only as dawn broke on the third day that he dared mount up again. Although Azirat showed some signs of recovering, Hernando kept him at a walk for the next two days, until they finally crossed the Roman bridge and passed the Calahorra tower.
Hernando had no more success than Abbas when it came to obtaining information from his mother.
‘Why do you want to know?’ she ended up shouting on the night of her son’s arrival in Córdoba, once the countless visits of condolence had finished and they were alone. ‘I saw it! I saw how they all died! Do you want me to tell you about it? I managed to escape or perhaps . . . perhaps they didn’t want to kill me. Then I spent the whole night wandering in the mountains until I found a way back to Córdoba. I’ve already told you all that.’ At this Aisha had collapsed defeated into a chair. She had found herself forced to lie a thousand times throughout the day; so often that she had considered telling him the truth. At every question their visitors asked, at every expression of regret, at every silence, she could see the tremendous pain in his face. But no! She mustn’t! Hernando would run straight to Tetuan. She knew it; she was certain. And she would lose the only son she had left.
‘Why do I want to know?’ muttered Hernando, pacing the gallery with his hands clenched. ‘I need to know, Mother! I need to bury them! I need to find the son of a whore who killed them and . . .!’
Sensing the blind rage in her son’s voice, Aisha raised her head. She had never seen him like this. Not even . . . not even in the Alpujarra! She was about to say something, but kept quiet. She was terrified by the sight of Hernando, staring into the distance, scratching viciously at the back of his hand.
‘I swear I’ll kill him,’ her son finished his sentence, as he gouged deep bloody furrows on his hand.
‘Ubaid!’
The howl shattered the peaceful silence of the August morning and rang out across the mountains.
‘Ubaid!’ Hernando shouted again from the highest point of one of the Sierra Morena peaks, out over the dense forests spread at his feet. He stood upright in the stirrups as if trying to rise higher than the mountains all around him, making himself visible to anyone who might be hidden in the vegetation. The only answer was the scurrying and flapping of surprised animals. ‘Vile dog!’ he continued. ‘Come to me! I’ll kill you! I’ll cut off your other hand – I’ll tear you apart and scatter your remains to the scavengers!’
His shouts were lost in the vastness of the Sierra Morena. Silence returned. Hernando collapsed back down into the saddle. How was he going to find the One-handed One in those mountain ranges? It had to be the outlaw who responded to his challenge! He unsheathed his sword and raised it to the sky.
‘Vile pig!’ he howled again. ‘Murderer!’
*
Hernando had left Córdoba astride Azirat after he had made all the necessary arrangements. He had said goodbye to his mother after one final attempt to persuade her to give him some information, the slightest detail with which to begin his search. She had still not said a word.
‘Where are you going?’ Aisha asked him.
‘Mother, to do what every man who calls himself a man should do: take revenge on Ubaid and find the bodies of my family.’
‘But . . .’
Hernando left her with the words still in her mouth. After that, he headed to Jalil’s house, where the old man promised him he would have what he needed: a good sword, a dagger and an harquebus: they would be handed to him secretly on the Camino de Las Ventas.
‘May Allah go with you, Hernando.’ The old man bade him a solemn farewell, standing as straight as his body allowed.
Hernando went to the stables to see the administrator. For a few moments, as the Morisco explained the reasons for his absence, the man behind the desk studied him: his face was wan, and the dark rings round his eyes were evidence of a sleepless night spent sobbing, lashing out at furniture and walls, crying out for revenge.
‘Go,’ muttered the administrator, ‘and find the man who murdered your family.’
That first day, after waiting in vain for Ubaid to respond, Hernando urged Azirat down the mountain. Until the sun set he rode through reedbeds, crossed streams and climbed hills from where he again issued his challenge. He asked at inns and questioned people he met on the road: nobody knew anything as to the whereabouts of the outlaws. They had not been active for some time.
On returning to Córdoba Hernando hid the weapons in a thicket so he could cross the Colodro bridge without problems. He left Azirat in the stables. Before going home he visited the stone benches outside the convent of San Pablo, to check if the Brothers of Mercy had been more fortunate and had discovered his family’s bodies. His emotions were in a turmoil as he pushed his way through the curious onlookers to get a closer look at the decomposing bodies: on the one hand he prayed to be able to find and bury them, on the other, he did not want it to be here, surrounded by Christians, stolen goods and guards, jokes and laughter.
‘I’ll find him! I swear I will, even if I have to cross all Spain!’
This was all he said to his mother when she let him into the house again. Then he shut himself in his bedroom, torturing himself with Fátima’s
still lingering scent.
The next day Hernando made ready to leave even before first light. He wanted to take full advantage of the daylight hours! Again, he returned to Córdoba empty-handed. The next day he did the same, and the one after, and the one after that.
Every day Aisha watched him return a little more crushed. She wept, her own sobs accompanying those she heard coming from her son’s room in the still of the night. She again considered telling him the truth, even if it was only to see him smile again, but she did not do so. Fátima’s pleading look and the fear of being left alone, of sending her only remaining son to a certain death, prevented her. She herself had already lost five children. Surely Hernando would survive the same misfortune? Children died in their hundreds before reaching puberty, and as for Fátima, he would surely find another wife. But also . . . also she was afraid; she was afraid of ending up alone.
Hernando continued to roam the mountains, every day more haggard than the one before. By now he did not even speak or cry out for revenge. At night the only sound was the murmur of his constant prayers.
‘He’ll get through it,’ Aisha told herself every day. ‘He has a good job,’ she repeated, trying to convince herself, ‘and he’s well respected. He’s the best horse-breaker in the King’s stables! Abbas says so; everybody agrees. There are dozens of healthy young girls prepared to marry a man like him. He’ll be happy again.’
But when nearly twenty days had gone by, Aisha realized that her son was going to devote his life to the search. He was never going to give up. Should she tell him the truth? Aisha was overcome by a tremendous sense of anxiety. Her whole body shook: not only had she deceived him, but she had allowed him to torture himself all this time. How would Hernando respond? He was a man, a deranged man. If he did not beat her, at the very least he would hate her, just as he hated the person he thought had killed his family. What could she do? She imagined Hernando screaming abuse at her, and the beatings from Brahim seemed mild by comparison. He was her son – the only one she had left! She could not confront him!
The following morning, after Hernando dragged himself off on yet another search for the outlaw, Aisha left Córdoba by the same Colodro gate. She walked head bowed, carrying a small bundle. The late August sun still beat fiercely down. As she had on that fateful morning, she travelled the league between the city and the Montón de la Tierra inn. When it came into view, she was almost paralysed by the pain gripping her and thought she would be unable to go on. What if her plan did not work out? She would kill herself, she resolved.
After Brahim had killed the outlaw and shut himself away with Fátima in the upstairs room, she remembered how the Marquis of Casabermeja’s four men had left the inn to bury the body. She struggled to put her husband’s lecherous expression out of her mind; she strove to forget the words he had hurled at her as he passed by, dragging Fátima. Woman! Tell your son the Nazarene I’ll be waiting for him in Tetuan. If he wants his children back he’ll have to come and find them in Barbary. The marquis’s men: they were what interested her and she tried to concentrate. Fátima’s pleading look, begging her not to do it, to tell Hernando nothing, came flooding back into her mind with unusual clarity.
Aisha stopped, squatted down by the roadside, buried her face in her hands and broke down in tears. Hernando! Shamir! Fátima and the children!
After a while she managed to recover. This was her last chance.
The marquis’s men, she whispered to herself.
They had not taken long to return to the inn and she seemed to remember they had not been carrying spades or tools. The outlaw’s body could not be far away. She ran her gaze over the inn’s surroundings. Where would they have buried him? Whilst she tried to relive the scene, she lifted her eyes to the burning sun as if it could help her. Where . . .?
‘You’re sure nobody will find it?’ She heard the words of the marquis’s footman when the gravediggers returned echoing in her ears, as if they were saying them right there and then. At the time she had not paid any attention. ‘You all know his excellency wants this body to disappear; no one must know it wasn’t the outlaw . . .’
‘Don’t worry,’ one of the soldiers replied offhandedly. ‘Where we’ve left it . . .’
Left it! They had said ‘left’! Soldiers didn’t like to work; why exert themselves? Aisha walked round the inn, paying careful attention to the undergrowth and stubble. No, it could not be there. She looked at trees and their roots, remembering the ones in the Alpujarra that formed hollows large enough to accommodate a man on horseback. She kicked at several mounds of dry earth, and even dug with a little spade she carried in her bundle in what could have been suitable burial mounds. The sun had passed its midday zenith and was blazing down; Aisha was sweating as she searched. Finally she came across a dry and unused irrigation channel. She followed its route and her eyes fell on the spot where it joined another. The way was blocked with stones. She did not hesitate. She hurried over, and only had to remove a few rocks and poke around in the earth below until all of a sudden the putrid smell of the body hit her. The outlaw!
Aisha wiped away the sweat running down her face, straightened up and gazed about her. In the afternoon heat, after the midday meal, nothing moved. She continued digging up the body until Ubaid appeared. It was definitely him: his heart, torn out by Brahim, had been placed on his stomach. She stared at it for some time. Then she took Fátima’s delicately embroidered white shawl out of the bundle, kissed it sadly and dirtied it with dry earth. She had found it behind a flowerpot the day after the kidnap, overlooked in her Christian neighbours’ pillaging. She had kept it for Hernando, but not wanting to upset him had not managed to give it to him yet. She knelt down by Ubaid’s remains and tied the shawl round his neck. She got up and turned to look around her. Only the buzzing of insects swarming all over the outlaw’s body disturbed the silence. She still had to carry out the most important part of her plan. The Camino de Las Ventas was close by. Gripping the body under the armpits, she started to pull it from behind. She decided to head along the channel leading to the road. The outlaw’s heart fell on to the ground. Aisha took a long time: she had to stop and rest after every few steps and check that nobody was in the vicinity, but at last she did it. With a final effort she dragged the body to the roadside. When she let go of it, she felt tremendous stabs of pain in every muscle. A tear rolled down her cheek as she looked at the white shawl tied to the outlaw’s neck. She went and hid behind some trees a short distance away, waiting for someone to find the body. As the heat diminished, Aisha saw a party of merchants come to a halt beside Ubaid’s body. She slid out from among the trees and made her way back to Córdoba.
‘They say the body of Ubaid, the One-handed One of the Sierra Morena, has been found on the Camino de Las Ventas, near the Montón de Tierra inn,’ Aisha remarked to one of the guards at the Colodro gate. ‘Do you know anything about it?’
The man did not deign to reply to a Morisco woman, but Aisha’s features twisted into a sad smile when she saw him sprint off to find his sergeant. Moments later, a group of soldiers set off at a gallop towards the inn.
Hernando was surprised to see a press of people gathered around the Colodro gate. He even thought twice about going in that way, but what did he care now what happened to him? He’d spent another unsuccessful day hurling shouts, threats and insults into the void between the mountain peaks. He had even had to flee when he ran into a hunting party’s mastiffs chasing a bear. He spurred Azirat on towards the crowd; as he drew closer he could make out a large number of guards and soldiers amongst them, as well as richly attired nobles; he even thought he recognized the chief magistrate walking up and down.
To get through the gate he decided to keep to one side of the main body of people and make his way through the curious onlookers who were standing around at a distance. From his vantage point on the horse he could see over the heads of the crowd. It was then that he saw the man’s body. It was tied to a stake driven into the ground; the mann
er by which the Holy Brotherhood executed criminals captured outside the city. A shiver ran down his spine. That body . . . it had only one hand. He didn’t need to get any closer, only sharpen his gaze and even just smell the air around him. Ubaid!
He paid no attention to the people who were arguing whether it was or was not the feared outlaw of the Sierra Morena. He pulled on Azirat’s reins and approached the stake, unable to take his eyes off the Narila muleteer’s corpse.
‘Where do you think you’re going on that horse?’ A soldier stopped Hernando as he rode blindly forwards, forcing men and women to leap out of his way.
Hernando jumped down and handed the reins to the soldier, who took them, perplexed. Hernando pushed his way past nobles and merchants until he stood squarely in front of Ubaid’s body. The Brotherhood, even though he was dead and they were unsure of his identity, had shot him full of arrows.
Suddenly people made room for him. Don Diego López de Haro was there, and gestured to them to stand aside.
‘Is it the outlaw?’ he asked, coming up to Hernando. ‘You knew him. Is this the man who killed your wife and children?’
Hernando nodded without a word.
A murmur ran down the lines of people.
‘He’ll commit no further crimes now,’ the Brotherhood’s leader asserted.
Hernando stayed silent, his eyes fixed on Fatimá’s shawl around the outlaw’s neck.
‘Go home, lad,’ the royal stable master advised him. ‘Get some rest.’
‘The shawl,’ Hernando managed to stammer. ‘It was . . . it was my wife’s.’
It was the Brotherhood captain himself who went up to Ubaid and carefully untied the garment. He gave it to Hernando.
In spite of the dirt, Hernando could sense how soft the material was. He fell to his knees, buried his face in the shawl, and wept. But these tears were unlike the many he had shed until then; they were liberating. Ubaid was dead, although it had not been at his hands, and he blessed whoever had put an end to the murderer’s miserable life.
The Hand of Fatima Page 53
