by The Rock
"Woman!" an old voice was yelling in Berber, "What doest thou, shameless?"
"It's the duenna," Pedro said, laughing. "Shall I hold her off?"
The girl was slight, her skin like an olive's, her hair blue-black—and she was pulling her veil up now, rising to her feet. The green eyes glowed above the black cloth. "Are you a slave?" Judah whispered. The old woman panted up, screeching. The girl nodded. The old woman grabbed her by the wrist, pulled her away. "I shall find you," Judah said in Ladino, the Hebrew-tinged Spanish which was the lingua franca of the Sephardim. Then she was gone, hurrying down the steps beside the old scold, the black robe fluttering behind her.
"Let's follow them!" Pedro said, still chuckling. They started down the steps but had not taken three strides when heavy hands fell on their shoulders and a deep voice growled, "Slow, there." Three large Negroes, naked from the waist, curved scimitars stuck in their sashes, fell in beside them. "Do you think our master sends out his women without protection?" one said. "Such as they are not for Christian dogs... They were passing a large stable, and without warning the three seized them, threw them inside, and slammed the door shut. They heard the scrape of the bolts and the Negroes go on laughing down the steps.
They scrambled out of the dung-littered straw and leaped at the window—but it was barred. They began to batter at the door with their fists. At last an old man came, mumbling, and let them out—but by then the steps were empty, and when they ran down to the street next below, so was that.
Pedro took Judah's arm and led him into a coffee shop. "Sit down, friend," he said. "You look as if you've been hit on the head with a mace."
Judah sat sipping his coffee, staring at the wall, seeing only those green eyes. He'd traversed the Mediterranean three times, gone once to England, and knew the stews of every port from Cadaques to Pasajes. He'd enjoyed scores of women of every color, size, and quality, but he had never fallen in love. And now, at first sight! It was impossible, he told himself. Worse, it was ridiculous. But it was so. There was no escape from it.
"I shall find and buy her," he said at last, "even if I have to come and live here and become a subject of the King of Granada."
"I guessed somehow you wanted to see more of her," Pedro Santangel said dryly. "If she weren't a Jewess, I might challenge you myself—"
"I'll kill you if you do," Judah said.
"—but she is, and, well... for such as me, that makes her impossible. But I have an idea...
An hour later a burly, broken-nosed man passed slowly along the street below the wall of the castle. He wore a dirty old brown djellabah with the hood up and a pair of battered Moorish slippers. A big basket of green vegetables hung on his left arm, and as he shambled along he seemed to be chanting his wares; but in truth the tune that he sang was a phrase from the Song of Songs;
"Shuvee, shuvee Hashulamit
Shuvee, shuvee v'necheze bach.
Return, return, O Shulamite,
Return, return, that we may look upon thee."
There were a few Jews in Gibraltar—one, indeed, the banker Chaim Uziel, was a distant relative of the Santangels; but though they would understand what he was singing, they would be unlikely to betray him. Judah trudged on.
"Return, return, O Shulamite...
It was hotter than ever inside this accursed stinking garment, he thought. Pedro Santangel, back on the ship, must be ill with laughing.
Up and down, along and across, all through the city Judah passed; and even into the fortress to cry his vegetables in the empty square under the Tower of Homage until a sleepy soldier came, cursing, to drive him out. The walls of the narrow streets seemed to give off heat like ovens. On the south walls the awnings were out to keep the glare from the barred windows, and under the north walls dogs slept and men snored. Judah tramped on, chanting:
"Return, return, that we may look upon thee...."
His sweat soaked the djellabah. From the houses now and then a voice cried angrily, "In the name of Allah, hold your tongue now, and let us sleep." Once a woman came to her door and spent five minutes picking over his wares; fortunately she did not buy, as he had no idea what price to ask.
He reached the height of the town, above and to the south of the castle. Half a dozen apes played, dozed, and scratched each other for fleas nearby. He picked a cabbage out of his basket and threw it at them, crying, "Lead me to her, shameless ones!" An old dog ape grabbed the cabbage and retreated with it. All the others dropped what they were doing and followed him. Judah's shoulder throbbed, and he thought his left arm would drop off. She'd never hear him, or if she did, she'd only laugh. What would she want of a thirty-year-old man with half his fingers gone, broken nose, big ears...?
He got up, hitched the basket into place, and started along the path. Something white gleamed at his feet, and he stooped to pick it up. He turned it over curiously—an ivory statuette of a naked woman, her hair piled up to form a hole so it could be worn as an ornament; but what Moorish woman would wear a naked woman, her slit clearly showing, dangling round her neck? Still, it was well made. The apes must have been playing with it. He put it into the inner pocket of the djellabah and started back down the nearest flight of steps.
"Return, return, O Shulamite..."
Almost at once a girl's voice answered with a cradle song that he remembered his mother singing to his youngest sister.
He listened, pressed close under the wall. The singer was inside a three-storied house, with a walled garden below and the open mountain above. The tower of the castle was a quarter of a mile to the north and at the same level. Steep steps, interspersed with sections of ramp, led down on either side of a deep gutter and water channel into the town, houses becoming thicker all the way.
Then he saw her at an upper window, behind bars. He called softly, "What is your name?"
"Tova is my name. Tova Hassan they call me," she answered in the lilt of the song.
"I will buy you. I am not really a seller of vegetables."
"I did not think so."
"I love you," he said.
"How do I know what love is?" she sang. Her voice faded as she moved away from the window. Judah stared longingly for a moment more, then called, "I will be back soon," hitched the basket higher on his arm, and hurried down the steps.
The sun was sinking over the mountains across the bay when Judah presented himself again at the house on the hill, this time at the main door. He wore a richly embroidered Moorish robe of blue and gold, with a thick gold waistband and blue silk turban. He had never worn Muslim clothes before, but nothing else of quality was available in Gibraltar. Pedro Santangel stalked ceremoniously at his side, elegant as always, with a sword added to his costume.
Judah knocked on the door with the hilt of his dagger. Two minutes later it opened suddenly, and one of the large Negroes who had thrown them into the stable appeared. Judah spoke in his sailor's Berber. "I am Messer Judah Conquy of Tarifa. Is your master, the honorable Suleiman Qureshi, in?"
"What has that to do with you?" the Negro growled. He stared at the two of them suspiciously, as though trying to remember where he had seen them before.
Judah snapped his fingers, and Pedro dropped a coin into the Negro's hand. "Important business," Judah said. "I am a shipowner and merchant. It is urgent."
The Negro disappeared. The door slammed. They waited.
"Perhaps she is like one of those loud-voiced partridges men put out as decoys to bring other game down," Pedro said cheerfully. "We shall get our throat cut."
After five minutes the door opened, and the Negro reappeared with a brief "Come." He led them down a passage and round an inner patio, where a fountain played, flowers grew in blue and yellow pots, and caged birds sang. There was also a redlegged partridge on a long tether, pecking for corn upon the grass. Pedro nudged Judah and muttered, "See?" In a cool room the other side, under a gently waving palm fan worked by a young girl—black, lovely, unveiled—a thin man sat on a pile of leather cushions.
"I am Suleiman Qureshi," the man answered. He was bald and gray-skinned, with a pendulous lower lip. His eyes were small, dark, and alert. "You are the Jew shipowner of Tarifa. But how can you benefit me? We are rivals, not collaborators."
Judah bowed again and came to the point. The worth of a female slave, young and in good condition, was about 120 dinars here or in Morocco, rather more in Granada. He must offer more, because the fact of his coming proved that he badly wanted the girl. He said, "You have a slave of my faith here called Tova Hassan. She has not betrayed you, but I chanced to see her. I wish to marry her and will buy her from you for two hundred and fifty dinars."
There was a long silence. The black fan girl's eyes rolled, and her teeth flashed. The bodyguard moved his bare feet on the tiles. The water tinkled more loudly in the patio. A reflection from the sky glowed red on Qureshi's bald head.
"No," he said.
Judah snapped a finger. Pedro pulled a silk purse out of his fob, opened it, and poured a torrent of heavy ten-dinar pieces onto the low table in front of Qureshi. Judah knew that there were fifty of them, five hundred dinars in all, borrowed from Chaim Uziel the banker.
"No," Qureshi said.
Pedro scraped up the coins, poured them back into the purse, and put the purse away. Judah said stolidly, "You must love her very greatly."
Qureshi smiled thinly. "No, Jew, it's not that. Do you remember buying a number of singularly excellent carpets in Larache two years ago? In spite of being warned that they had been promised to the wazir of the King of Granada?"
Judah remembered at once. The man who had threatened him had obviously not expected any competition, and when Judah had bought the carpets at a fair price, he had gone off scowling and muttering about Jewish dogs. He must have been an agent of this Suleiman Qureshi. If Qureshi wanted revenge, it was no use offering him money, so Judah bowed and said, "I recall the occasion perfectly. Now, with your permission..."
The thin man's eye glittered in the failing light. "Are you sure you won't bid higher, Messer Conquy? She is small, but between the thighs, aiiih, what a fire burns!"
Judah stepped forward and pushed the merchant backward off his piled cushions. Pedro drew his sword and pointed it at the Negro. "We go," Judah snapped. "Do not hinder us." The merchant began to shout and rave; footsteps and answering shouts echoed high in the house. Judah and Pedro ran across the courtyard, down the passage, and out into the open.
The sun had set, and in the town a few lamps showed against the twilight. "That was a bold answer," Pedro said, "though it may lead us to the bastinado."
"I couldn't help myself," Judah said. They hurried on toward the harbor, walking now, but fast. The Water Gate was still open, and they went out onto the jetty. At the gangplank of the Gaditana the captain said, "We've just finished unloading, Judah."
Judah saw Manuel Barrachina on the deck. There was no reason to wait. "Sail at once," he said and ran aboard.
A sailor was hauling the gangplank in when a figure appeared out of the gloom and called, "Stay! Where are you bound?"
"Tarifa," the captain answered.
"Allow me passage, please. I will pay well," the man said. He was richly dressed in black, his face hidden.
"Come on, then. Five dirhams."
The man stepped on board and paid the money. The captain pointed to the hatch, and the passenger went below. Five minutes later, the sail billowing, the Gaditana slid past the end of the jetty, eastbound.
Judah called for wine and sat down on a coil of rope. "What in the name of St. Thomas were you doing all day?" Manuel Barrachina asked. "The sailors have been telling me all manner of strange tales. What is the truth?"
"I'll tell you in a moment," Judah said, "but first what of you?"
"Nothing," Manuel said. "They kept me waiting two hours, then told me to come back, and when I did, said the governor was sick and asked me to give my message to an assistant. I refused. I think the governor's not in Gibraltar at all. So I have wasted my day."
"Except that you've seen el Penon, which your master the Duke swears he's going to get back one day," Pedro said. "Now, I'll tell you what mad pranks this Judah Conquy, whom we all thought was just a rough merchant, with no thought in his head beyond trade, has been dragging me into...."
Judah drank and watched the bulk of the Rock fade into the darkness, and the dim point of light on the southern point vanished while his friend, with great animation, told of their adventures and misadventures. But he was not listening. His mind was full of her, of how he could free her.
An oil lantern burned day and night on the end of the stone jetty at Tarifa. Shortly after it came into view, the passenger appeared on deck and walked aft. He peered at them in the dark. "Who is the principal authority in Tarifa, gentlemen?" He spoke a poor Castilian, but easy to understand.
"The Duke of Medina Sidonia's agent," Manuel said. "The alcalde, the mayor," Pedro said. "For he is a servant of the king."
The Moor looked from one to another. "The alcalde," Judah said, "Don Alonzo Arcos, a most respected and honest gentleman. I'll guide you to his home."
Shortly afterward the captain brought the Gaditana alongside. Judah took the Moor to the Casa Consistorial—Don Alonzo lived behind it—and went back to his own rooms above his warehouse on the waterfront. His housekeeper tried to make him eat, but he would not. For hours he paced the floor, thinking of one plan after another to gain Tova Hassan and, one after another, rejecting them. An hour before dawn he flung himself on his bed. Before his eyes closed someone knocked on the door, and a voice called, "Judah Conquy!" He leaned out of the window. The man said, "Come at once to the Casa Consistorial."
A dozen men were already gathered in the hall of audience upstairs, with lamps lit and curtains drawn. The alcalde sat in his big chair, a tall, fork-bearded Moor beside him—the passenger from Gibraltar. Gathered around them were other shipowners, captains, a few knights, Manuel Barrachina, and the parish priest.
The alcalde said, "Come close, Messer Conquy. Pray silence, gentlemen.... An affair of great moment has come upon me. This Moor, Ali el Curro, is a nobleman of Gibraltar. Wronged by the governor, the wrong not redressed by their king, he fled secretly today from his post as deputy commander of the fortress. He wishes to become a Christian...."
"The Holy Ghost be praised!" the priest cried, crossing himself.
"... and he says that if we act before the day after tomorrow, two hundred men can seize Gibraltar."
A dead silence suddenly fell, louder than any noise. It lasted long seconds, then everyone spoke at once—Impossible! ... A miracle ... A trick ... We must go at once ... Wait!
The alcalde raised his hand. "The governor of the fortress, all the knights except one, and most of the soldiers have gone to Malaga to pay homage to their king, who is visiting there. Gibraltar is almost without defenders."
The clamor broke out again, some arguing for and some against the idea, but the alcalde, a man who imposed by dignity rather than force, said quietly, "A state of war exists between our king and the King of Granada, even though there are many peaceful exchanges. So we will not be committing any treachery in making a surprise attack. We have good reasons ... we all know of the losses suffered by the duke and many other citizens. But there is an object greater than gold here, gentlemen. Two jewels are missing from the circlet of Don Enrique's crown —Granada and Gibraltar. I cannot sit idle here when the chance is offered to me of winning back one of them. I will therefore go to take Gibraltar, either tomorrow night or the next. I call upon you to provide men, for as you know, I can command no more than fifty of our own here. How many will each of you give, and when can they be here? And from you, shipmasters—how many ships, and how many men and horses will each carry?"
"I'll go!" Judah cried. "I have two ships in port." Here it was, the answer he had sought for in vain, presen
ted to him like a gift from God! He jumped with excitement.
The alcalde smiled, raising his hand slightly. "Thank you, Messer Judah. But let us talk of the soldiers first...." Manuel Barrachina spoke up at once. "The duke has forty horse and forty foot here in his castle. In the absence of my master the agent, who is with the duke, I pledge them all. But I must add that Gibraltar is, and will be, a part of the duke's domains, not of His Majesty's."
"That is not for such as you and me to settle, Messer Barrachina," the alcalde said gravely. "I have your promise of the soldiers. That is all I need."
The old knight Don Carlos Fuentes then promised twenty men-at-arms, and the young knight Don Fernando Ponce de Leon, a nephew of the Count of Arcos, as many; and others promised horsemen until the total stood at eighty horse and one hundred and eighty foot.
"That will be enough," the alcalde said. "But I shall send messengers galloping to the king, the duke, the Lord of Jerez, and the Count of Arcos, entreating all to send more men immediately. For once we have taken the fortress, we must be prepared to hold it against a counterattack by the Moors."
Young Ponce de Leon said, "My uncle the count will not weaken himself by sending more soldiers unless the duke sends as many."
