At that moment the halo lifted above the woman, and Gaspare looked up into a shining, awful face.
“Christ!” he gasped, and then his tongue swelled to fill his mouth. His right hand slipped over his open strings with gentle dissonance.
Chapter 6
The street hawkers, heard faintly in the distance, called their wares in two languages, or three, if the patois of the Muwalladun was considered. All the flies of Granada droned, and the Sierra Nevada made a jagged rip in the horizon. Hakiim led his customer along a street baked hard as tiles by the sun.
The latter fellow was a man of imposing size and girth, dressed according to Moorish custom in white. Behind him came another, a small person, heavily veiled, who tended to bounce as she walked, after the manner of small dogs.
“Black?” asked the customer, not for the first time. “Black as ink?”
“Black as the abyss,” replied Hakiim, and he said no more. It was his custom to maintain dignified silence before such customers as he thought might thereby be impressed. And there was something not altogether orthodox about this potential customer: a shade of hazel about the eyes, perhaps, or a slight fault in speech. Perhaps a converted Christian, or a parvenu from Egypt come to Granada to hide his origin.
Whatever, Hakiim’s instincts led him to adopt a haughty attitude and Hakiim’s instincts were rarely wrong.
“I’ve heard that the blacker a girl is, the sounder she is, and the better nurse she makes,” remarked the man, as he followed Hakiim with a heavy, rolling step.
“It could well be true,” the Moor replied, still without great enthusiasm.
The small person who came behind tittered brightly.
“My little wife had a black nurse as a child. Now that she is… now that we are… we thought…”
Hakiim smiled to himself. Soon, if he kept his mouth shut, the fellow would reveal every fact and foible of his household. The Moor did not care, nor was he particularly disturbed by the idea of the ferocious Djoura as a baby’s dry nurse.
The black’s moods were various. Perhaps today she’d choose to exhibit cold pride instead of homicidal fury. Let the man look at her and decide; his family’s safety was then his business.
They turned into a door in the blank white wall of a house: a fine, expensive house, rented by Hakiim for the express purpose of setting Djoura to the best advantage. They passed through to the garden courtyard, where among oranges and tiny cypress the black woman sat, wearing robes of white cotton, brand-new.
In the corner sat the idiot eunuch, who had been commanded to sit still, and who obeyed like a dog. The Spaniard was there, too, crouched unobtrusively in a corner where the welts on his face would not be visible. The welts had come from Djoura, as a result of the merchants’ abortive efforts to feed the woman a sedative dose of kif.
But no such drug seemed necessary, for the black Berber gave the approaching party only the most demure of glances before lowering her shy head and lacing her hands together on her lap.
Hakiim approached. He tentatively extended one hand which was neither bit, clawed, nor spat at. He lifted the slave’s chin for inspection. She smiled.
“This is Djoura,” he said. A shade of question crept into his voice.
He had expected SOME trouble. He had been prepared with discipline, explanations of previous ill-treatment, promises of amendment, offers of help in training… He had set up this entire situation—house, clothing, sale by private treaty—as an attempt to gloss over Djoura’s maniacal temper.
What was in the girl’s head, to go suddenly all meek and winsome? (And didn’t she look handsome, with her face not twisted into a snarl?) Hakiim had the sudden wish he’d stated a higher price.
The customer stepped forward. He gazed down at the woman from over his white-cased paunch. “Girl,” he pronounced, “I am Rashiid ben Rashiid. I am looking for an attendant for my youngest wife and a dry nurse for the baby that is coming. Would you be a good one?”
Djoura batted her curly lashes and smiled at the ground. Then she smiled at the little veiled face that peeped around Rashiid ben Rashiid’s bulk. She wiggled from one side of the seat to the other in an agony of shyness. “I think we would,” she mumbled into her lap.
Rashiid liked the girl’s attitude. He also liked her looks. And it occurred to him that the Prophet had ordained that a man might have four wives, while Rashiid (comfortably situated as he was) had only two.
No need to think further about that now, however. Now there was the baby to consider: perhaps his first son. It was enough that this woman be strong and biddable. Later, when he was ready to brave his present bride’s pique, and that of her family, of course…
But by what strange custom did the Nubian refer to her lowly self in the plural?
Rashiid ben Rashiid laughed tolerantly. “We, little one? Are you twins, perhaps?”
A giggle and a scuff of the ground with one sandaled foot. “No. My brother and I do not look alike.”
Hakiim felt his ears prick up. In fact, it seemed those organs were moving to the top of his head through amazement. He opened his mouth to contradict the girl—to assure Rashiid that there was no brother in the case—when Djoura crooked her finger and the blond eunuch trotted over.
Obedient, like a dog.
Rashiid stared at Raphael, who returned a blue gaze free from either shyness or challenge. Then the large man seemed to puff out larger. He gave out heavy brays of laughter.
“Merchant of women, what is this?” he gasped, when he could. “There was no talk of a… a brother!”
Hakiim shook his head blankly. “I have no idea. The yellow-head is of course no relation at all to her, and…”
A voice in the corner spoke. “They go well together,” said Perfecto. “In contrast. Two for the price of one.”
Hakiim shot a look of fury at his partner. It was not customary for Perfecto to speak in the marketplace; he was not a convincing salesman and his native accent was strong. In dealing with customers of quality it was the Spaniard’s business to keep his mouth shut.
And this… this bizarre attempt to get rid of the idiot by making him part of a package with Hakiim’s prize discovery…
But Djoura took Raphael by the hand, and seeming to gather together slow reserves of courage, smiled into Rashiid’s glowering face.
“This is my brother Pinkie, master. He is not a man but—you know—a boy. He is a good worker and does everything I say.”
Rashiid found his annoyance melting in this girl’s black velvet gaze. “I don’t need a boy,” he stated, masking confusion with gruffness.
Djoura seemed to wilt, and she gave a long sigh. “Without my brother,” she said tremulously, “I must surely languish. Without Pinkie I think I will die.”
Hearing no response, she continued in louder tones. “Without Pinkie I will throw myself into the ocean, I guess. Without Pinkie I will throw…”
Hakiim cut her off, feeling her threats were about to extend from suicide to murder. “Don’t be silly, Djoura. You’ve only just met the creature this week!”
Then he turned to Rashiid. “The eunuch, when we first got him, was sick, and Djoura nursed him back to health. I guess they developed some attachment, but it’s surely nothing that cannot be forgotten in a few days…”
While Hakiim thus held his customer’s attention and Djoura watched them with a gambler’s blank-faced intensity, the small person stepped out from behind her husband to look at Raphael. Surreptitiously, she pulled aside her veil.
She had thick hair hennaed auburn, and eyes like a doe deer. She was no more than fifteen, and she stared at the blond as though he were something wrought in gold.
Her name was Ama, and as she met Raphael’s eyes she gave out a little gasp. She herself wasn’t sure what it was she found there, whether pity, understanding, or sheer stainless beauty, but from that moment she felt—like Djoura—that without Raphael she would surely die.
Rashiid was explaining very carefully to Ha
kiim that it was not that he could not afford either to buy or to keep a eunuch, but rather that his family was small enough that he had no need for a boy, when the small person tapped him on the elbow and stood on tiptoe to whisper something in his ear.
Rashiid accepted the interruption with the exaggerated patience of a man who is humoring a pregnant wife. He listened to Ama’s excited whispering.
“That much? You want her how much?”
“Both of them,” chirped Ama. “I don’t want her to be unhappy.”
Rashiid stole a glance toward Raphael, whose hand was in Djoura’s, and who watched the interchange with disinterested attention. “Dearest swallow,” the householder said, patting his wife on the head, “although your smallest word is law to me, here we must be reasonable. He will eat like a horse!”
“I will sell my jewelry,” offered Ama, a little wildly. “My amber necklace, that my uncle gave me, and the gold chains. They are mine, and that will feed him—I mean them—for a long time. Oh, my husband, do buy them.”
Hakiim knew enough to back away, lest his own persuasion, added to the woman’s, drive his customer to rebellion. Instead the Moor shot a glance at his partner, a glance imbued with all the betrayed fury he felt toward Perfecto. But the expression the Spaniard returned him turned Hakiim’s anger into something like fear.
In an effort to save face, Rashiid turned on Raphael. “Well, boy,” he demanded. “Why should I buy you? What are you good for?”
Hakiim began, “I’m sorry, sir, but the boy is unfortunately…”
But Djoura forestalled him. Squeezing Raphael’s hand with desperation, she hissed, “Tell him, Pinkie. Tell him what a good boy you are!”
Raphael lifted his eyes to Rashiid. “I can play the lute,” he said in faultless Arabic. “Either al ud or the lute of Europe. I can also make music with the Spanish chitarre, the harp, and most other stringed instruments. Winds I have not played so often, nor drums, but I believe I could manage them. I can teach others the mechanics of music. And I can sing.
“There are other useful skills I could learn, probably, but as of yet I haven’t had the opportunity.” The perfect fair brow lowered as Raphael considered the limitations of the flesh.
Rashiid listened to this calmly stated catalogue of accomplishments with some surprise, for he had assumed that any creature which the slave merchants tried to lump into another sale was worthless. But the customer’s feelings were nothing compared to those of Hakiim. Had his mule stood on its hind legs and begun the call to prayer, the Moor could not have been more dumbfounded than at hearing the eunuch talk.
Perfecto, too, was astonished, but his surprise was less pure than that of the Moor, and Raphael’s sudden display of intelligence awoke all the Spaniard’s nightmares.
“Well, then,” Rashiid said equably. “I have not been suffering for lack of a musician any more than for a harem attendant, but if he comes free and has the brain to learn what he is taught…”
He snapped his fingers in the air. “Bring the boy a lute.”
Hakiim sat in red-faced silence as he listened to Raphael’s playing. He reviewed in his mind all the stages of his acquaintance with the blond eunuch, and cursed himself for having at every moment mistaken illness and fear for idiocy.
Why had he never (after the first disgusting day) attempted to talk with the fellow, depending instead on Djoura’s word that he was an untrainable idiot? It was always the Moor’s wise habit to find the best and most salable skill a slave possessed and to emphasize it, and here he had been hearing the boy sing sweetly (Berber songs, among other unlikely musics) these two weeks and had assumed it was no more than parrot mime.
He shot a glance at Djoura, author of this deceit, but the black sat with her maidenly eyes on the ground, hands folded on her lap. Surely the woman had done it on purpose, but to what end? Had she fallen in love with the stinking creature, after washing the gore and dung from him, and determined that they be sold together?
Well, why not—women did become attached to eunuchs, and evidently there was much more to the blond than had appeared. Hakiim began to wonder how much more; he had never yet seen the fellow undressed. His face was hairless enough, having less mustache than many women, but with certain blonds that meant nothing.
What an error, if they had been traveling with a buck goat among all his does, instead of a wether! But remedial, of course. Granada was full of barber-surgeons. Hakiim determined to strip the fellow immediately after Djoura was sold off. His eyes roved from the black’s to the Spaniard’s.
Perfecto, too, refused to meet Hakiim’s gaze, staring instead at the eunuch with such an odd combination of enmity and fear that once more Hakiim wondered how the Spaniard had come by him.
Most males in the slave markets were battle captives whose friends or relatives had denied ransom. These were chancy slaves, of course, since they might at any moment claim Islam, and all who took that yoke were supposedly free of all others. A born slave, castrated in childhood, was a different story. The Saqalibah, for instance…
But this one hadn’t the manner of the Saqalibah.
If the boy was not an idiot (and perhaps not a eunuch), then possibly he was not a slave either. Not legally, at least. Hakiim thought furiously. He wanted no trouble, either with the law of Granada, nor with a kidnapped man’s friends.
Raphael, meanwhile, was so happy he had forgotten both where and what he was. He bounced back and forth between the ancient, small-bowled liuto that had been borrowed for him, and the beautiful ud which belonged to the dusky, somewhat unclean fellow from the bazaar who stood now shifting from foot to foot at the courtyard door. He played a Spagnoletta on the European instrument, then lest the ud be jealous, he improvised upon it a long fantasy which shifted through three classical Arabic scales. The lute spattered like rainfall. The fretless ud sang like a man.
The small wife of Rashiid ben Rashiid cried delighted tears into her veil, while Djoura, equally transfixed by the art of Raphael, was filled with an inchoate pride.
Hakiim thought it time to interrupt. “Enough, Pinkie. You play very nicely, but the gentleman has already told us he has no use for a musician.”
Rashiid cleared his throat and turned his bulk toward the slender Moor. “That is not precisely what I said, merchant. I said if he is willing to do other work as well, and as he has been offered free, I would feel it only Allah’s will that I give him a home.”
Within moments of Raphael’s picking up the ud, Hakiim had evolved an estimate of his value which was roughly three times the value of Djoura. With this in mind he replied, “Your charity does you great credit, ben Rashiid, but there is no need. A good caretaker does not try to sell a horse to a man who wants a camel, nor a camel to a man whose need is for a goat.”
Rashiid’s deep hazel eyes had a hot glow in them, like those of a man who has been allowed to handle a ruby and whose lust is thereby awakened. Hakiim knew that look well, for it was his goal to produce it in every customer with whom he dealt.
But though it seemed Rashiid was willing to pay full asking price for Djoura, that would not half compensate Hakiim for throwing away the musician. Besides, there were some questions to be asked about that one. Hakiim turned to his partner quite calmly and scratched his left ear, a signal between them which had always meant “back out of this sale.”
Perfecto scarcely looked at him. Instead the Spaniard rested his eyes on emptiness as he said quite formally, “We have offered the gentleman a sale and he has accepted.”
Now they were bound. Hakiim’s lips moved in a curse. “We have offered,” indeed! HE had offered, and now Hakiim was out a large sum of money which might have done much to ease the last few weeks’ headaches and speed him on his homeward voyage.
While Hakiim sat with angry eyes averted from the company, regretting monies he had only contemplated having for the past five minutes, Rashiid chuckled complacently and Ama danced her success.
She was a charming little thing and moved h
er feet most cleverly, despite the handicap of her condition, until she spun around to come face-to-face with the black slave she had just purchased, and whose existence she had completely forgotten.
There was something in the set of that face that called an end to the girl’s capers. She backed slowly into the shadow of her husband once more, and peered instead with large eyes out at Raphael.
“I am your mistress. My name is Ama,” said the very small and young person, and then with no pause she flipped around on her stool to present the back of her sleek head. “Do you like the way my new maid has done my hair?”
It was a complex arrangement of many little braids which had been then woven together in drooping swags. Gold coins hung at intervals, gleaming against the dark mass.
Raphael smiled at her, thinking that if Ama represented the circumstances of his life as it would be, it would be quite endurable. “I like the style,” he answered. “It looks like this…” and his fingers echoed the complexity of Ama’s hair on the strings of al ud.
“I’m not sure I do.” Ama swiveled back, brisk as a sparrow on a branch. “She pulls tight—and the way she looks right AT me! She is a bold woman. Maybe Nubians are always bold women. My nurse wasn’t, though. She was nice.
“The coins are her idea. I had to make holes in the middle of them, so I guess they can’t be spent anymore. Djoura said copper, but gold is always better, don’t you think?” Her eyes (not bird eyes, soft almond eyes) flitted briefly to Raphael.
“Your hair is even fairer than gold: not like copper at all. So strange! What did you say your name was?”
All this was said very rapidly, as Ama’s quick, darting eye looked here, there, and everywhere around the mimosa trees and over the fish pool, resting at last on the musician she had come to bother.
His blue eyes (which Ama thought even stranger than his yellow hair) rose to hers. Had they not been so large, perfect, and deep blue, the little lady would probably not have given him time to answer her question; she rarely felt the need of answers.
Raphael Page 13
