The Hand of Fatima

by Ildefonso Falcones

  During Ephraim’s lengthy journey from Tetuan to Córdoba and back, Fátima had considered a thousand possibilities: that Hernando had rebuilt his life and would refuse to leave the caliphs’ capital – she could have accepted that! She even came to think he might have died: she had heard of the terrible outbreak of plague that had hit Córdoba six years earlier. He might also not have wanted to give up the position as horse-trainer in the royal stables that he enjoyed so much, or could simply have decided that the Morisco community needed him there, in Christian lands, to copy the revealed book, the calendars or the prophecies . . . She would have understood that as well! But she would never have imagined that Hernando could betray his brothers and his beliefs. Hadn’t she given up her own freedom to allow the money to be used to redeem a Morisco slave?

  ‘And you say . . .?’ Fátima hesitated. Those were the days when they were living together, the years of the uprising in the Alpujarra in which they had both suffered a thousand misfortunes for their God, when Ubaid and Brahim had abused and humiliated them. How could he have kept his actions secret? Hernando had told her about how he had escaped from Barrax’s tent with that Christian nobleman, but how had he kept the whole truth hidden from her after all the sacrifices she had made to secure marriage to him? She had lost her little Humam in that holy war! ‘You say he saved the lives of several Christians in the Alpujarra?’

  ‘Yes, my lady. It is known for certain that he saved the life of the noble who took him into his palace, and that of the wife of a judge in the chancery of Granada, but people talk of many others as well.’

  Fátima exploded. The shouts and insults that poured from her mouth resounded round the room. She strode angrily out into the courtyard, raised her arms to the skies and howled with rage and grief. The old Jewish man gestured to his son, and they both slipped out of the palace.

  A few days later, Fátima called in Shamir and her son Abdul and told them all she had heard about Hernando.

  ‘The dog!’ was all Abdul growled when she had finished.

  She watched as they left the room, serious and determined. The trappings on the scabbards of their scimitars clinked as they left. They were corsairs, thought Fátima, they were used to living with cruelty.

  From that day on, Fátima devoted herself to administering with an iron hand all the profits and wealth the family possessed, while the two young men roamed in their pirate ships. Nothing distracted her from her work, although alone at night she still remembered Ibn Hamid with a mixture of anger and sorrow. Thanks to her offer of a splendid dowry, she married Maryam to a young man from the al-Naqsis family, who by now were lords of Tetuan. She also looked for appropriate brides for Abdul and Shamir. The alliance she had entered into with the al-Naqsis family after Brahim’s death was very profitable, and the fact that she was a woman did not stop her occupying a prominent place in the business world of the corsair city. She was not the first woman to play such a role in the history of Tetuan. After being conquered by the Muslims, its first governor had been a one-eyed woman who was still remembered with great respect. Like her, Fátima was feared and revered. Like her, Fátima was alone.

  PART FOUR

  IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD

  And I say to you that the Arabs are one of the most excellent of peoples, and their tongue one of the most excellent tongues. God has chosen them to convey his law in recent times . . . as I was told by Jesus, who has renounced the children of Israel, who were unfaithful . . . they will never wear the crown. But the Arabs and their tongue will return to God and his law, to his glorious gospel and his Church in the time to come.

  The Lead Books of the Sacromonte: The Book of the History of the

  Truth of the Gospel (ed. by M. J. Hagerty)

  58

  Córdoba, January 1595

  THE DAY had dawned cold and overcast. Hernando, who by now was forty-one years old, seemed to have awoken in as grey a mood as the sky seen from his courtyard. Miguel could not help but be worried about his master and friend. He could see he was nervous, out of sorts, a prey to anxiety, which was unusual in someone who for the past seven years, from the time he came back from riding to the early hours, was in the habit of retiring quietly to a room on the second floor that had become his library. The books, papers and parchments in there were more numerous than the leaves that fell from the trees in winter.

  It was the climax of seven years’ work that was causing the anxiety that Miguel had noticed in Hernando. Seven years’ study. Seven years dedicated to imagining and then putting into practice a scheme that he hoped would bring the two great religions closer, and would completely alter the perception the Christians had of those who had been lords of the Spanish kingdoms for eight centuries, but now found themselves reviled. Hernando had even taught himself Latin in order to be able to read certain texts. His one aim was to reconcile the two religions. He no longer indulged in gaming, and only occasionally allowed himself to visit concubines.

  ‘The seven apostolic brethren!’ Hernando had exclaimed in the courtyard one day, startling Miguel as he was preparing the beds for flowers that would bloom the next spring. ‘If I use that legend as a reference point, all the other pieces will fall into place, including the story of Saint Caecilius that Alonso del Castillo told me.’

  Miguel, who had heard of Hernando’s plans when he had revealed them to his dying mother, was both indifferent and sceptical about his master’s intentions.

  ‘Do you really expect me to trust in any God?’ he remarked bitterly when they discussed the matter one day. ‘What kind of God can He be, whether he is yours or theirs, if He allows people to smash children’s legs to earn a few more coins?’

  In spite of this attitude, it was to Miguel that Hernando turned when he wanted to voice his doubts or the progress he thought he was making. He had to talk to someone, and Luna, Castillo and Don Pedro were many leagues away.

  ‘So who are these apostolic brethren?’ asked Miguel impatiently, but willing at least to try to please his friend.

  ‘According to the legend in some writings,’ Hernando explained, ‘they are the seven apostles sent by Saint Peter and Saint Paul to bring Christianity to ancient Hispania: Torquatus, Ctesiphon, Indaletius, Secundus, Euphrasius, Caecilius and Hesychius. The remains of four of them have been found and are venerated in many places, but do you know something . . .?’ Hernando left the question floating in mid-air.

  Leaning on one of his crutches as he pulled off a dry twig with his other hand, Miguel glanced at his master. When he saw how brightly his eyes were shining, he no longer felt annoyed, and revealed his broken teeth in a smile. ‘No, what should I know? Tell me . . .’

  ‘That of the three apostolic brethren who have yet to be found, one of them is Saint Caeciliius, who was said to have been the first Bishop of Granada. All I have to do is use the legend and make sure that Saint Caecilius’s remains are discovered in Granada. It would even tie in with the parchment in the Turpian tower! It could—’

  ‘But, my lord,’ Miguel objected, letting go of the twig and grasping both of his crutches, ‘don’t the bishops maintain that the person who brought Christianity to Spain was Saint James? Even I know that, but you haven’t named him as one of the seven.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Hernando admitted. ‘I know what I’ll do. I’ll unite the two legends!’ Saying this, he immediately ran upstairs, as though he were about to do so there and then.

  Miguel saw him trip over a step and stumble to recover. ‘I’ll unite the two legends,’ he said mockingly as he bent over a bed of what would be beautiful roses. ‘I’ll unite the two religions,’ he added, as he had often heard Hernando say, busying himself pruning some dead shoots. ‘There’s only one thing that really needs uniting,’ he said, raising his voice almost to a shout in the empty garden, ‘and that’s the smashed bones in my legs!’

  That freezing January morning, as he heard Hernando scolding María, the Morisco woman who did their housework, Miguel remembered his words of frustratio
n. As he looked down at the flower bed where the previous year the roses had grown and filled the courtyard with their sweet perfume, he could not help feeling for an instant that nature was mocking him. Why was everything but his legs reborn so beautifully each year? He had never resented his handicap so much in all his life as in the previous month, when he realized that their neighbour Rafaela was casting her innocent eyes at his crippled legs and hurriedly looking away. She was not the slightest bit curious, and yet could not avoid glancing at them from time to time, although she always quickly stammered some excuse and looked him in the face instead.

  Although he had seen her coming and going many times from the house next door, he had not really noticed her until a few weeks earlier. It had been one night, when he had gone to the stables to check that the new colt that Toribio had brought from the stud farm was settling down properly. Five years earlier, realizing that Volador was growing old, Hernando had decided to set up the farm at Palma del Río with the intention of mating him with some of the rejected mares he had bought at the royal stables. He had also taken on another horseman: Toribio, who since then had been put in charge of training the new colts, something he did with limited success. When Toribio considered they were properly trained, he sent them on to the stables in Córdoba.

  That evening Miguel went to look at a colt called Estudiante, which, like César, the other colt they kept in the stables at the house, was a son of Volador and a chestnut mare. Hernando was worried about the colts, which meant that Miguel often went down to see they were all right, at any time of the day or night. The fact was that neither of them was happy in their stalls. They were both difficult and mistrustful, and when they were ridden it soon became obvious they had been trained using violence rather than skill. Hernando had been forced to admit to Miguel that Toribio lacked sensitivity. One positive result, however, was that the Morisco came down more often to the stables to try to correct these faults, and was soon spending every morning riding. From then on, Miguel could see that his master had recovered his appetite, and that the fresh air of the meadows where he rode had got rid of the ashen look on his face that came from spending so many hours shut up in his library.

  It was when Miguel went down to see that Estudiante was settled next to César that he first met Rafaela. He had just wheeled round on his crutches to return to his bedroom when he heard the muffled sound of sobbing. Could his master be crying? He listened more closely, and looked up in the direction of the library where Hernando was still at work. The light from the lanterns spilled out on to the gallery above the courtyard: there seemed to be nothing wrong there. He realized the sobs were coming from the opposite direction, from where the stables adjoined the next house’s yard. That was where the magistrate Don Martín Ulloa lived. Miguel was about to dismiss the sounds as unimportant, and to continue on his way, but the muted distress reminded him of the way his brothers and sister had tried desperately to contain their tears at night, for fear of receiving another beating. He went over to the adjoining wall. Someone was crying their heart out. He could hear quite clearly now how the person was imploring the heavens for help, just as his brothers and sister used to do . . . and so had he.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ He sensed it must be a girl on the other side of the wall. Yes, no doubt about it. Those were the sighs and tears of a young girl.

  There was no answer. Miguel could hear someone trying to choke back their sobs and stifle their moans, which only set off uncontrollable hiccoughs.

  ‘Don’t cry, my child,’ Miguel insisted, but in vain.

  Miguel gazed up at the starry night sky above Córdoba. How old could his blind sister be now? The last time he had seen her she must have been five or six: old enough to realize her life was different from that of the other children playing happily in the streets. Miguel whispered the same words as he had used to her, years earlier, in the darkness of the dank, foul-smelling room they all shared with their parents:

  ‘Don’t cry, my child. Do you know, there was once a little blind girl . . .’ Leaning against the wall, he sadly remembered, word for word, the first story he had made up for his little sister. ‘. . . who stretched her arms up in the air and jumped up to touch the marvellous starry sky that everyone said was above their heads, but which she could not see . . .’

  For several nights, they communicated in this way through the wall. Miguel told stories that brought smiles to her face, even though he could not see them; the girl was happy to be lulled by his voice into forgetting her misfortunes for a brief while.

  ‘You are the . . .’ she whispered one night.

  ‘Yes, the cripple,’ Miguel sighed sadly.

  A few days later, they finally met. Miguel asked her to come and see the colts he had told her so many stories about. Rafaela sneaked out of an old gate that was hardly used any more, but which gave on to the exit to Hernando’s stables. Setting his mouth in a firm line, Miguel waited for her on his crutches. Even though she only had to travel a few steps, she came to the stables wrapped in a black cloak. Miguel had never seen her close to before: she must be about sixteen or seventeen years old. She had long chestnut-coloured hair that curled over her shoulders, a gentle smile and a snub nose above her thin lips. That night she finally told him face to face why she was so sad. Her father, the magistrate Martín Ulloa, did not have enough money to offer his two daughters a dowry while at the same time paying for his two sons’ extravagant ways.

  ‘They think they’re noblemen,’ Rafaela said bitterly, ‘when really they are nothing more than the sons of a needle-maker whose father weaselled his way into the law through trickery. My father, my brothers, even my mother, behave as though they were all blue-blooded.’

  Don Martín had therefore decided that Rafaela, his eldest daughter, who did not seem to him beautiful enough to attract a suitable husband, should go into a nunnery. If she did, he could bestow the entire dowry on his younger daughter, who was more attractive and by common consent more flirtatious. But he did not have enough money to offer the religious orders he was trying to persuade to take his daughter, so Rafaela could see she would end up in a convent as a maid for the more well-to-do nuns. This was the only solution for a pious, unmarried young Christian woman who had no money.

  ‘I heard my father and brothers discussing it. My mother was there too, but she didn’t say a word in protest at the way they were trying to get rid of me. If only one of them saved some of the huge amounts they spend. They treat me as if I had the plague!’

  Night after night from then on, Miguel was amazed at how the bad-tempered colts allowed Rafaela to stroke and whisper in their ears. One evening, with the girl sitting on the straw opposite him, for the first time in his life he found words failed him. All he wanted was to get closer to her and embrace her, but he did not have the courage: how could he with those crushed legs of his? After she had gone, he spent the rest of the night thinking about it: what could he do for that poor girl? She deserved a far better future.

  59

  The angels said, ‘O Mary! Indeed God has chosen you, and purified you, and has chosen you above all other women of all nations.’

  Koran 3, 42

  ONE MORNING in that January of 1595, Hernando prepared to saddle up Estudiante. ‘I’m going to Granada,’ he told Miguel.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be wiser for you to ride César?’ the other man replied. ‘He’s more—’

  ‘No, Estudiante is a fine horse, and the journey will do him good. I’ll have time to teach and train him – which will give me something to do along the way.’

  ‘How long will you be gone?’

  Hernando was holding the bridle, and was just about to insert the bit. He smiled at Miguel: ‘Aren’t you the one who is supposed to know when animals and people will reappear?’ he said, as he always did whenever he was leaving on a journey.

  Miguel had known he would say this. ‘You know very well that is no use with you, my lord. There are things that have to be done, decisions to be made, rent to
be collected from our tenants, and so I need—’

  ‘And you need to meet your night-time friend,’ Hernando said, taking him by surprise.

  Miguel flushed. He mumbled an excuse, but Hernando would not listen. ‘I’ve nothing against it, but beware of her father. If he finds out, he’s capable of stringing you up from a tree, and I’d like to find you here safe and sound when I return.’

  ‘She’s a very unhappy young girl, my lord.’

  Hernando had finished inserting the bit, and Estudiante was champing vigorously on it. ‘That Toribio will never understand how to use sticks with honey,’ Hernando complained when he saw the colt’s attitude. ‘Why is your friend so unhappy?’ he asked off-handedly.

  When there was no reply, he paused, lifting the saddle in his arms. He sensed that Miguel wanted to tell him something; in fact, he had been wanting to for several days now, but he had always had other things on his mind. Seeing Miguel’s sad face, he sighed and went over to him.

  ‘I can see you are worried,’ he said, looking him in the eye. ‘I cannot stop now, but I promise that as soon as I’m back we’ll talk about it.’