Hart, Mallory Dorn

by Jasmine on the Wind

  Francho nodded, aware that in the past six months he had garnered a haughty enemy, antagonistic to his influence on the Sultan and perhaps even mildly suspicious of his designs. In his presence Ayaxa acted as if he did not exist, but he could feel her sharp stare boring into him when his back was to her, as a mother lion eyes the biting fly that settles on her heedless cub. She seemed the only one aware to what extent the Sultan could be swayed by the opinions of an obscure musician. The other courtiers ignored his constant presence with the Sultan as one more example of Boabdil's feckless character.

  His meteoric rise to royal favor still stunned him, and he often thought to pinch himself in case this was just a wild dream conjured by a youth in the boredom of Mondejar. It seemed only yesterday that Ferdinand's first ultimatum had forced Francho to wait in despair and declining hope for the Sultan to remember him, passing the days in a frenzy of frustration. Events were becoming crucial and he needed facts to pass on, not the wild rumors of the marketplaces. No one was certain what tack Boabdil would take. It was a delicate moment, when the impressionable ruler might be swayed by someone crafty reinforcing his reach for peace— and there Francho found himself, along with other languishing entertainers, moping in Mustafa Ata's antechamber unsummoned as the days flew by.

  Once Mustafa Ata even ventured to mention the minstrel his Sultan had so enjoyed to a preoccupied Boabdil as he strode to the council chamber, but was brusquely ignored. The Chief of Entertainments returned to Francho and shrugged; then retired to his chamber to brood over his own fate if Boabdil was actually deposed.

  And then one dark and silent morning at an hour after midnight a pair of burly palace guards sent by Mustafa Ata beat on Francho's door in the Albayazin and awakened him. Sending Ali back to bed with a few reassuring words, Francho dressed and mounted the mule they had brought for him, slinging his guitar on his broad back, not allowing himself any more than a tingle of hope that his luck had prevailed. The large square they passed through on the way to the Alhambra was deserted, yet only a few hours before, hundreds of torches had bobbed and flamed, and Muza Aben Gazul had worked up the huge crowd into a chant for war. Francho had loitered on the fringes of the throng, watching the vaguely Oriental features of the stocky general work with passion as he railed against Christian treachery and the Sultan's cowardice. Francho remembered the warring reactions called up even within himself as the throng shouted approval for the general, for had he been truly born a Moor he would have reviled the Sultan too and looked upon this bulldog of a warrior as Granada's only salvation from peace at the price of liberty. With the stubborn Muza Aben Gazul on the throne, Granada might have a chance of flouting Ferdinand; with Boabdil there was none.

  But Jamal ibn Ghulam had no business with personal preferences, he who fought his war on the field of hypocrisy and treachery. And so he had sternly reminded himself that he stood firmly for Boabdil.

  The guards had escorted him through dimly lit courts and halls to the Sultan's bedchamber, where he found the ruler in a furred dressing gown moving restlessly about the room while a graybeard physician stirred up an odiferous potion in a silver beaker. The low couch on the dais showed a tangle of satin coverlets and pillows; the jagged shards of a large mirror smashed to smithereens lay on the thick carpet along with the gold cup the Sultan had hurled at it. There were dark circles under Boabdil's tired eyes, and the corners of his mouth drooped into his double-pointed beard.

  A sleek, black leopard sat chained at the foot of Boabdil's couch, tail twitching, yellow eyes slit and ominous, made restless by the Sultan's nervous pacing.

  The physician bowed and handed Boabdil the beaker. The Sultan threw back his head and gulped the liquid, then pitched the container into the heap of pillows on the bed. "Gahh! A city famed for its schools of physic, for its sages of medicine, and not one, not one can cure my aching head!"

  The graybeard stammered, "N-newt's tongues, Great Sultan, dissolved in oil of beech, and a pinch of mercury—"

  "Get out, get out, you poisoner!" Boabdil shouted, and a low rumble emerged from the throat of the great cat. Gasping, the purple-turbaned physician scurried from the room with as much dignity as his haste could muster.

  Boabdil climbed the dais and sank onto the couch, edgy and despondent. "You may come closer, minstrel; I will not bite you. And Aswad eats only council members and assassins."

  "With M'jambana at your door and Aswad at your feet, your sleep is well guarded, Excellence."

  "From physical enemies, perhaps. But not from the anguish brought by the faithlessness of my enemy and the stupidity of my subjects. Or from the throbbing skull that has plagued me for days." He stared at Francho from eyes rimmed in red. "But what do you know of sleepless nights and heavy heart? You almost offend me, minstrel, standing there free, your brow smooth, your life unburdened by care or pain..."

  "I was not always a rootless minstrel, Excellence," Francho reminded him softly. "The soil of Malaga is salt with the bitter tears of a man whose only flower of the heart lies buried in her tortured ruins." The raggedness of his tone, even constrained as it was, pierced the young ruler's self-absorption.

  Boabdil made a helpless gesture. "That was unworthy of me, Jamal. But either my fulsome burdens have dulled my memory, or I did not realize.... You were betrothed?"

  Francho nodded. "Yes," he said, thinking of Leonora and how he missed her, so that involuntarily a shadow passed over his face. "And I have also lost my family, my home, my friends, all perished with my city. If I seem detached from tribulation it is because nothing will ever touch me so terribly again. Such shock as I have suffered forms an armor."

  "Then I should be walled about with such an armor at present, for all the shocks I have sustained in this bloody game of greed. What think you now, talker of peace? Now that Granada, your last haven, is threatened with the same fate as Malaga, will you stand to defend it with those who feel we can pinch to death the striding colossus? Or do you still hold your view that life in captivity is better than the finality of death?" Boabdil gazed at him bitterly, but in his voice there was an underlying appeal that nerved Francho to continue his stand.

  He took the plunge. "The wheel of fortune turns slowly, O Sultan, but it turns true. I reason that peace as the wheel turns under us will serve our ultimate victory better than the devastation of war. Once we were the colossus and bestrode all of this land and the Christians trembled before our might. And see, how in a few hundred years they have come from a tiny corner of the north to regain all they say was theirs. But the wheel grinds round and our turn will present itself again. And to what avail if our bones rot under the soil and our strength is smashed and ruined beyond recall?

  "The Sultanate of Granada swarms with our people; no matter how many Spaniards Ferdinand brings with him to settle here, they will not outnumber us. Even as slave to the Christian yoke yet we will live, and there will come a day when the legions of Ferdinand will depart to fight other infidels, in France or Sicily perhaps, great wars which will sap their strength and drain their resources. Then will we have the opportunity to reward treachery with treachery."

  Francho stopped in momentary confusion. He had allowed the persona of Jamal ibn Ghulam to carry him away, and the Sultan gave close attention to his words. His task was to see Boabdil clung to peace by reason of his own misty dreams as preserver of his people, not to give him concrete and terrible ideas for the future. But what other way was there to urge Boabdil into Ferdinand's hands? Peace now seemed to mean total surrender. Only a coward would choose it, and he did not believe that Boabdil was so craven. But peace that carried with it an aggressive hope? The impractical Sultan might cling to that.

  Filling his lungs with the incense-sweetened air of the ornate bedchamber, Francho used every ounce of his ability to project strong conviction and continued to expound his argument that a calm surrender would be Granada's finest ally in the long run. After a while some of the strain eased on Boabdil's face. He leaned back on his pillows, visibly le
tting go his tension, and requested Francho to pluck his guembri—no voice, just the soft, melodic, sweet notes of the instrument. And soon the miserable Sultan fell into a heavy-breathing sleep.

  From that night forward Boabdil required Francho's constant attendance, even during important audiences, so that the blue-eyed, black-bearded musician who in public said little soon became familiar to the entire Court as the current royal intimate.

  Boabdil told him, "You realize, Jamal, that my friendship may cost you your life? The Sultan's favorites are the first executed should their protector be overthrown." The smile was ironic, the soft brown eyes sad.

  "You do not force me to serve you, Excellence." Francho shrugged, offering his insouciant grin. "If such disaster comes to pass it results from my own free choice. It does not frighten me away to know I will share in your fate, of good or evil."

  "I have not many friends, minstrel."

  "Nor has any man if he would count truthfully."

  "But I shall count you among the few."

  Francho's thoughts then were full of irony: He likes me because I echo back his own will but with a strength and conviction he does not possess. Yet by urging him to follow his dream of peace I am a greater enemy than any of his Moorish foes for I weave the Christian noose he places about his own neck. Within him there are seeds of tragedy —only water them and he will do the rest. I sneer at him, his weaknesses, his trust, at the very moderation of his disposition and the irresponsibility that allows him to put more store in the advice of a minstrel than in all the words of his experienced advisors. And yet—there is a sensitive depth to the man, a yearning for beauty, a gentleness and a generosity that is appealing. In a poet, perhaps, Francho remonstrated to himself sternly, pulling back from the pitfall of pity. But not in a person who insists on leading a nation.

  Thus with his own sort of courage the Sultan had ignored the great processions around the city crying war and the rabid demonstrations of contempt for him just below the very walls of the Alhambra, and he drafted his pacifying response to Ferdinand. And today, as Francho had witnessed from the niche above the council chamber, Muza Aben Gazul and the council threw their sneering defiance in the Sultan's teeth. Now the great Sultan sat pale and gnawing his knuckle, sunk in self-loathing and anger, looking as if he wanted to retch up his last meal. Nor was the ruler any more distressed than his companion, who struggled to keep a composed aspect to shield the furious workings of his brain.

  The acceleration of popular outrage with Boabdil's policies in the past months had prompted Francho to send a message asking Tendilla's advice on the course he meant to take should the situation get out of hand. But no clear answer had come. And now the crisis was here: Boabdil's peace effort was lost, war seemed inevitable, and the people threatened to sweep Muza Aben Gazul onto the throne. Still, Francho reasoned, if Boabdil could be kept clinging to the throne, it might at least be a short war.

  "Excellence, what action will you take now?"

  The silence allowed faint cries and shouts from below to reach them in the moment it took Boabdil to answer. "The only action I can. I will let my offer of friendship stand with Ferdinand and prepare to fight off rebellion by holding the Alhambra. The city will fight but I shall not. When the conquest is a reality Ferdinand will be disposed to treat with me leniently and I can do my best to bind up the wounds of my people."

  "The people would call Muza Aben Gazul Sultan."

  "Let them. He will ultimately be killed or captured by the Spanish."

  But Ferdinand did not want the stubborn and fiery Gazul to gain a power which could hold the Spanish to a long and expensive siege. Under Boabdil, on the other hand, with a taste of war to intimidate them, the spoiled citizens of Mohammed's last stronghold in Spain might allow their Sultan to talk them into a quick surrender.

  "O Sultan, if you shut yourself in the Alhambra while your people battle for their lives you will be named to all the generations to come as the most reviled of rulers. The Christians will mock you, your people will despise you. You can count on only your palace Nubians to protect you, and twice their number would not hold the ravening mob, who would murder you as the goat for all Granada's tribulations. And if you live you will be as a leper, shunned by all, abhorred, spat upon."

  Boabdil started and fixed upon his musician a disbelieving glare. "Say you I should turn about my face? Become a champion of war when I have always spoken peace?" he cried in indignation. "My subjects have disliked me through my whole life and thus Allah wills it. Now what cruelty is this that you measure the full misery of my fate to torture my ears?"

  Francho did not hesitate. He could feel Boabdil's need to be directed. He made a deep and reverent salaam and dropped to his knees, a humble posture to mitigate his stern words. "I beg my Sultan to forgive my boldness, which is not impertinence but true concern. You must not allow degradation to fall upon your house. If a father warns a child to fear the rushing waters of the river that fill the nose and stop the lungs—if the father binds the boy to safety with rope and yet the child wriggles free and falls into the torrent—will the father stand upon the bank and hope the child learns to swim so that when he struggles to shore the father may kiss his face and wring out his clothes? If you were this father, would you not plunge in to save the child, without thought of his disobedience? If you drowned with him your spirits would meet together happily in Paradise. If he drowned alone his curses would follow you throughout eternity."

  "But—perhaps there is time yet..."

  Francho pressed on. "No time at all, Excellence; the boy is already leaping into the flood. That is the reality and it cannot be changed by closing your eyes and refusing to look. You have seen today another man who stands ready to take the place of the father. Will you allow Muza Aben to take your place? Or, now that the die is cast, will you lead your people and be with them in their destiny?"

  Boabdil jumped up and stood over his kneeling musician, the anger of betrayal in his eyes. "This, then, is your secret of existence, minstrel, the 'armor' that sustains you in this violent world?" he grated. "You shift your convictions as easily as the wind!"

  "Nay, I do not shift them," Francho retorted heatedly. "But when they conflict with duty and sense I must place them in abeyance. You are the Great Sultan of the country of Granada, the champion of the Hand and the Key, the Living Sword of the Prophet, praise Allah. You have a duty not to desert your people, be they wise or foolish, and you must perform it. You have done your best to lead them in the path of wisdom, but their eyes are blinded with rage and they are not able to see the future. Now you must stand with them in their trial and let the future rest in Allah's hands."

  Boabdil blinked. The angry light slowly died from his eyes. "But it was you who spoke once of the revolving wheel and that a peaceful surrender would hasten our time for revenge."

  "But now there will be no peace, Excellence, for in spite of your impassioned pleas to the council they have thrown off your hand from the wheel's laboring crank and cast longing glances toward Muza Aben Gazul, the man of war. What is written is written. In spite of your majesty you are only one man. If the people of Granada with the army at their back demand war you must hear them."

  A heavy silence followed as Boabdil turned away, face slack, shoulders slumped under his embroidered silk coat, even the red plumes in his turban seeming to droop. It looked to Francho as if the man's ears were listening to silent voices, others who had spoken the same reason to him in less poetic words. Francho let out his breath. He could only pray that he would be able to convince Abu Abdullah where the others had failed.

  A pang of sympathy ran through him. The man, after all, was a pawn, pushed this way and that by stronger, more clever people—even by Francho himself, a most unofficial advisor. A more venal and cruel ruler would never have trusted Ferdinand's promises; would have so coveted the riches of Gaudix and Almeria that at the surrender of El Zagal he would have struck like lightning and with untold bloodletting taken the cities for
himself, pushing back the Christian frontier and letting Ferdinand fume over broken pledges. To have saved Granada would have required a leader of positive and wily action from the beginning, before the fall of Baza, and this was not Boabdil. Now no matter how he decided he could only lose, ultimately. His decision for war now would keep him on the throne, but would help only one future—a young Christian knight whose service to the Catholic rulers could win him back his name.

  Francho got up and passed behind the Sultan, who stood staring from the fretted window, his arms folded so tightly against himself his knuckles were white. He was unseeing of the verdant, crowded city below him, so was he wrapped in misery. Francho went out on the balcony to calm his own nerves. He began softly to sing the "Lamentation of Don Rodrigo," knowing his words would be clear to the man at the window:

  The host of Don Rodrigo were scattered in dismay

  The Christians lost the battle, nor heart nor hope had they.

  He saw his royal banners where they lay drenched and torn,

  He hears the cries of victory, the Arabs' shouts of scorn.

  He looked for the brave captains that had led the hosts of Spain

  But all were fled except the dead, and who could count the slain.

  "Last night I was the King of Spain, today no king am I;

  Last night fair castles held my train, tonight where shall I lie?"

  Several stanzas later he looked up to see Boabdil at the balcony doorway, the smooth face suddenly expressionless. "You are right. The wheel will turn, Jamal ibn Ghulam," the Sultan said with stiff lips. "The Prophet whispers to me that it will turn."

  An hour later Boabdil stood before the reconvened council and in front of their eyes tore up the copy of his pleading capitulation to Ferdinand, causing a shocked silence both with the men who sat cross-legged before his dais and with the nervous group peering down from the screened niche, where Francho also stood discreetly in the background. He saw the giant ruby which tacked the Sultan's plumes to his turban shooting spicules of red fire as the ruler surveyed the suspicious faces turned up to his.