Hart, Mallory Dorn

by Jasmine on the Wind

  Here, the Creator be praised, was something she could defend herself with; she could drive the pin into her captor's hateful, steely eye until it reached his brain. And then she would plunge it deep into her own throat. No slavery, no defilement, no punishment yoke or wire lash for her. What terror did quick death hold for her now? She was a captive, her life was ruined, despoiled, she would end it in defiance, almost as it had begun. She concealed the long pin in the fold of her sash with steady fingers. Papa el Mono's Dolores did not lack for courage.

  Deep reaches of shadow stretched across the floor of her cubicle before Fawzia returned with two big eunuchs in tow. Although Dolores set her jaw and refused to move from the couch it did her no good; the two Negroes calmly grasped her under the arms, pulled her up with no trouble, and propelled her forward. She stumbled out and down the gallery with Sayeda Fawzia's parting advice in her ears: "Esmahee, Christian fool, make the most of the pretty face and body Allah has bestowed upon you. Show your master affection, give him obedience, and he will shower you with gifts and money. You will be petted and pampered and the air in your nostrils will be sweet with incense. Otherwise his patience will fail and you will be sold to a laborer's doxy house, or metal barbs will be stuck in your armpits and your arms slammed down and your bleeding body bound and tossed into the river to drown."

  Muffled from head to toe in the lightweight mantle Fawzia had thrown over her, Dolores padded along with her guards, having chosen the dignity of walking to being dragged. They passed through the small door of the harem's heavy gate, along a gallery and across several halls and courts, and she was glad for the mantle, which hid her brief and barbaric dress from the curious sideways ogles of the male courtiers and functionaries they passed. Presently her guard tapped on an ornate door beside which sat a slave boy whose round eyes judiciously rolled away from her enveloped form. A voice beyond the door called out something in Arabic, "etfahduloo." The slave boy pushed back the door and the impassive guards thrust Dolores through, and at the same time one of them, grunting something unintelligible, yanked away her mantle and cast it to the floor.

  Just a few lamps warmed with their yellow glow the luxury of the chamber before her, across whose carpeted floor wafted the dry, enticing scent of sandalwood incense. Her first darting glance about told her there was no one present in the room, but then, at one end of the saloon where the light barely reached, a movement showed her where her adversary lounged. She attempted to calm the squeeze of panic that assailed her by remembering that he was, after all, only flesh and bone, a man, not a demon. He too could die, for if he touched her he would soon feel the deadly bite of her steel fang.

  She had been instructed to prostrate herself upon the floor on entering her master's chamber and not to budge until he gave permission. Hah! She stood with lists clenched and her head proudly erect, glaring at the outline of the turbaned figure seated so confidently on the divan. His face was in shadow, but she could recall it in her mind as he had looked down at her from his mount, flat and lightly pocked above the scanty beard, cold and evilly calculating. She gritted her teeth to keep fright from making her heart fail.

  In his toneless voice the Moor uttered something in Arabic. She did not respond.

  "I allow you to approach, Christian slave. Come closer," he repeated, this time in Castilian, with an edge of impatience. And when she still did not move he droned, "Do you come or would you prefer I call my guards to drag you by the hair? For a so-called gentlewoman you lack dignity."

  Dolores walked forward, but slowly, until she stood just a few feet from the divan which rested on a low platform. Her purchaser lounged with one leg tucked beneath him, Arab style. She could make out white leggings and the bottom of a patterned tunic, but the upper half of his body leaning at ease on a mound of pillows was still in the deep shadow of the canopy over the divan. Even so, she thought she could discern from the shadows the cold gleam of his stare.

  "Stand there"—he stopped her just below a dim hanging lamp—"in the light where I can see you. Do not fidget." His voice faded away and there was silence for a moment. The Moor cleared his throat. When he resumed speaking there was a curious little catch in his monotone. "Lovely. Indeed, worth every dirham. A beauty to savor first with the eyes before caressing it with the hands."

  Dolores lifted her chin higher.

  "Ah, but you are haughty; that pleases me. There is zest in taming prideful women; you must know that of men. Such women are that much more grateful for any little favor tossed to them later."

  Dolores shivered. The revolting brute. She was merely purchased flesh to him, to be used at will and for amusement broken to whimpering.

  "So. Woman, you may speak. Have you nothing to say? Did they not teach you manners in your castle? Well, perhaps we do not need words for our pleasure tonight. That is just as well. Women babble too much. Perhaps you can win my approval—and your fate could be dire without it—with your silent talents: talents of the seductive eye, the coaxing hand, the seeking mouth..."

  He was mocking her but a leashed excitement was deepening and adding color to his monotone.

  Through lips stiff with aversion Dolores pleaded, "Sir, I offer you a fortune of ransom. Take it. Thousands of maravedis will buy you ten slave women to please your desires. Forcing me will not be worth your trouble, for I will not submit. I demand to be treated with the respect due my station, I demand to be released or ransomed, I demand—"

  "Demand?" His sudden loud stridence silenced her. "Understand, woman, you are nothing but a slave, bought and paid for. You have no station. Your body and your soul belong to me. If I say live, you live. If I say die, you die. If I say fling yourself on the floor so I may warm my feet on you, you do so. I do not wish ransom. I wish you, and without a doubt I shall have you. Without a doubt, my Castilian peach."

  The noble lady disappeared and in her place trembled Dolores of the tavern. "Basta! Cabrón! God grant you such a fever all your bones pour out of you like hot soup! You will have nothing of me but an inert body and undying hatred." Outrage against the unjust fate that had brought her such diminishment shook her. "I do not fear your punishments. God will help me endure them. And I am not your slave, you loathsome carrion," she cried with fists rigid and clenched at her side. Taking a step backward she spat toward him.

  A deep growl came from the divan, and through a terrified rise of tears she saw the Moor get up, much taller and broader of shoulder than she remembered from her only other encounter with him. He strode swiftly toward her as if he were going to strike her to the floor. Quickly pulling

  the skewer out of her sash she ran full tilt at him, propelled by rage and fear, backing her raised arm with all her strength for a vicious slash at his eye. Instantaneously, as she fell upon him she was almost struck numb with horror: Madre de Dios! I have signed my death warrant, the terrible realization flashed through her cringing mind. Oh, dear saints in heaven, I don't want to die. What folly have I committed! I want to live!

  But warned by the flash of the metal pin in the lamplight, the wily Moor had jerked himself out of the way of the deadly point. He grabbed her arm and twisted the weapon from her grasp in a second. She battled his relentless hold on her, clawing at him and kicking, sobbing hysterically.

  But he swung her around, shook her, and, as if from a long distance away, she heard a different voice, a familiar voice crying, "Dolores! Dolores!" She paused a scant second in her mad writhing under those cruel hands to listen to the impossible hallucination, for she thought it was the Moor himself pleading with her. "Dolores! Dolores, for sweet Jesu's sake, you almost murdered me. It's Francho, Francisco de Mendoza, can't you see? Look at me, wild one, look—"

  Shuddering she stared at him, and although she realized it was not her buyer, for a moment all she saw was an olive-skinned, black-bearded, scowling Moor, whose cruel fingers dug into her shoulders unmercifully; a tall, white-turbaned Moor with a single silver earring glittering in one ear in barbaric splendor, with black brows
drawn together over blue eyes, blue as the Andalusian sky—eyes she knew, filled now with concern and remorse.

  "It was miserable and stupid of me to frighten you so," the voice she was imagining in her extremity pleaded, while the suddenly familiar, square-lipped mouth outlined by the beard formed the words, "but I only thought to tease you as you did me once when you first returned my dagger. It was a wretched prank—forgive me, little sister, please..."

  Dolores's lip trembled. "F... Francho?" she quavered into his contrite smile. The fright, the panic, the shock, and the lack of food all day whirled up overwhelmingly inside of her. The blood drained from her head, the room turned purple and buzzing, and helplessly she went limp in his arms.

  ***

  Someone was patting her cheeks too hard. Moving her head away from the insistent slaps, she opened her eyes and found she was lying amid the pillows of a divan, and Francho was alternately chafing her hand and gently slapping her face to arouse her. There was more light now, from an oil lamp on a stand he had moved over to the foot of the divan, and she could see him well, a man more handsome than ever in his cockaded turban and trim black beard, the flashing earring matching in brilliance the cerulean blue eyes now scanning her face anxiously.

  She could hardly credit her senses. But it was true, it was Francisco de Mendoza leaning over her, dressed as a Moor among Moors and living in the regal palace of the Great Sultan of Granada. She tried to pull herself together in spite that her mind staggered. "Francho! What... how did... I don't understand..."

  He pressed a cup of water into her hand and made her sit up and sip it. "In a minute, doña." He stood watching her drink. "Tell me if they provided you with anything to eat?" At her headshake he raised a finger for her to be patient. He crossed to a large tabouret and returned bearing a bowl of what turned out to be a sweet pudding of rice and almonds, flavored with cinnamon, and a tray of aromatic fried cakes. Declaring she first needed her strength restored and that he would not utter one word until she ate something, he sat sternly with folded arms, but, as she noted from the corner of her eye, squelched amusement as he watched her gobble down the delicious dessert and some of the horn-shaped and twisted cakes. "It is only a small refreshment," he shrugged as she chewed. "I did not realize they would starve you."

  "I do feel better now, although starvation is not why I fainted. How should I ever think to find you here? And... Oh, Francho, I almost murdered you! I thought you were the man who had me separated out from the rest of the prisoners, a cruel-looking man, very cold. Madre mía, I almost killed you!"

  She struggled to get up further but he pushed her back gently. "Almost is a long way from having done it. An observer might say I almost deserved it, teasing you so. In any case, hermanita, when you attempt to stab someone you should not be sobbing so hard you can't see your target. Your attack technique would never have caught Reduan off balance either." He squeezed her hand.

  "Reduan?"

  "A powerful military leader into whose harem you were headed until I intervened and God—or Allah—helped us. Snatching you from under his nose has earned me an enemy, one both watchful and shrewd, but I'm hoping that time will deflect his ire."

  "But I don't understand. You are supposed to be in Italy. How come you are in Granada? And to go bearded, like a Moor?"

  He plumped up a mound of pillows and sat back facing her, one leg crooked under him. Soberly he said, "I'll tell you, of course, but it's a long story, and one you must guard in complete silence or we will both land among the severed heads stuck up along the city wall...."

  She listened closely to his tale, astonished. And yet, in spite of her rapt attention to him she was also aware on another level of a giddiness spreading warm through her veins that she could merely reach out and touch the one man who had ever engaged her heart, and that here they were, thrown together and isolated from their Christian world in a city of enemies, each dependent upon the other. A part of her brain whispered: Would I go through the terrors, the humiliations of the past days again just to be rescued and sheltered by this audacious knight in exotic raiment?

  The answer was yes.

  Francho had decided to tell Dolores only as much as she needed to know about his presence in Granada, and in the first few days, still recovering from the fright of her capture, she stared at him with a mixture of relief and awe and admiration that was undeniably heady. For his part, her unexpected entrance into his life rang like the peal of a silver trumpet amid the humdrum drone of ordinary days.

  Even though he had known who would enter his chamber that night, seeing this lovely odalisque moving across the floor toward him in an undulation of veils and silk pantaloons and jingle of bangles, seeing the obdurate fire lance from her tilted eyes in brave, if foolish, defiance, hearing the familiar throaty voice, had made the pulse pound at the base of his throat; she was complicating his life and his mission, she intruded upon his concentration, and yet he was ravished to see her. And in spite of the chivalrous Don Francisco, Jamal ibn Ghulam had enjoyed a shiver of power. Jamal owned this woman as a gift from the Great Sultan, her face and form and will were dedicated to his pleasure, her yielding flesh to his hands....

  A powerful shame had overtaken him while he was trying to revive her from her faint, shame that his pent-up desires should see this Christian woman helplessly fallen into his keeping as a supplier of his needs. Cursing under his breath he vowed by San Bismas that never would he take advantage of either her gratitude or her proximity by assaulting her virtue in any way. And by the time she opened her eyes he had gotten control of, if not any understanding of, his wrenchingly ambivalent feelings toward his "little sister."

  It wasn't difficult to arrange their lives. Dolores continued to live with the other palace women in the harem and after a while reported to him that she was amazed how pleasant was her life in the quarter she had so recently feared and despised, how she enjoyed the baths and the delicacies to eat and the ministrations of the attending slaves, and even the shy acquaintanceship of several Castilian-speaking beauties. Four or five times a week, to keep up appearances and because he enjoyed her company, he sent for her and she was escorted to his chamber to spend the night, sleeping on the divan while he gallantly took to the floor with a pile of pillows and an extra coverlet. If Boabdil dispensed with his services early enough they often ate together from trays brought by his servant Selim, and spoke and drank wine or kavah far into the night.

  Her news and gossip of the Spanish Court was welcome, and nothing seemed to have escaped her attention. The Infanta had been betrothed to Prince Alfonso of Portugal amid brilliant celebrations in which King Ferdinand himself had taken the field against the visiting knights in the gala tourney and broken five lances. The Queen had ignored instructions from Rome and placed her choice of the Bishop of Oviedo at the head of the chancery of Valladolid, thus serving notice to the Borgia Pope, Alexander VI, that her piety did not extend to compromising her realm's independence. The Countess of Feria had been caught in adultery and shamed into a nunnery and her marriage anulled. The Grand Constable Haro had contracted a severe case of gout and suffered loudly. That peculiar Genoese, Columbo, to whom several nobles had shown occasional hospitality, was now desperately trying to coax the Duke of Medina-Sidonia into financing the dubious maritime venture over which Their Catholic Majesties hesitated. Don Antonio de la Cueva's French wife had presented him with twin daughters. It was suspected that King Charles of France would soon claim succession to the throne of Naples, dangerously threatening Ferdinand's own ambitions. The Jews were being squeezed to finance the coming war in Granada; those who did not virtually bankrupt themselves were accused of trying to convert Christians and handed over in chains to the Holy Office. Earl Rivers, the Englishman who had joined himself and his three hundred men to the Spanish cause, had been felled by a battleaxe. And so on.

  Dolores wondered if Tendilla had informed Francho of the death of the Count's wife, Carlotta. "Ah yes," she told him when he pressed her, "la
st fall. It was a shock to see Don Iñigo in mourning bands, so many had forgotten the very existence of the poor woman. She had, after all, been locked away with her broken mind for so many years." But when Francho shook his head in sympathy for Tendilla, she shrugged one shoulder. "Still, wouldn't you imagine your sire's mourning is more respect than grief, after so long a time of estrangement? And there is talk that he intends to marry when his period of mourning is over."

  Francho's head jerked up. "Marry, you say? With whom?"

  "Why, with the Lady Fatima, the high-born Moorish damsel you tell me you helped him to capture, and whom he has been harboring as a guest ever since. He escorted her to Court this winter, and I have to admit, she is as handsome and elegant as he, in spite of her youth. In fact, Ferdinand himself spent hours conversing with her, and if you don't think the Queen was annoyed at such heavy personal interest...!" Her charming laugh fluted out, teasing a smile from Francho too. "You know, it has always amazed me ever since I came to Court how many human traits a ruler shares with a peasant," she giggled, hugging her knees to her chest.

  Enduring some of the sillier gossip Dolores found amusing, Francho finally asked, as casually as possible, "And what of Leonora de Zuniga? How does she fare?" He had written to Leonora, of course, several letters which he had asked Tendilla to transmit, which of course mentioned nothing of his whereabouts. She may have even answered, although the Count responded to his inquiries with a negative; perhaps she had sent her notes to Tendilla's Italian agent via the royal courier to Rome. But he had prepared her for a mystery, and his letters, at least, would let her know he was alive and still loved her dearly.