De la Cueva grunted assent. Pulgar turned around to the other shadowy figures in the boat. "Man your oars, and softly, do you value your lives. Pull us into that small point we approach."
The oars dipped quietly into the water and the boat swung its prow toward the nearby shore. Jumping out, Pulgar helped them quietly beach it on the narrow point, then led off cautiously toward a bright wink of light glimmering among the reeds. The light snuffed out. Pulgar whistled softly, the three characteristic notes of the whippoorwill, and a second later the signal was returned. A figure rose from the weeds, barely outlined against the spangled sky, and waved them forward. Muttering "Stay" to the men crouched on the shore, Pulgar and de la Cueva slipped forward to meet their host.
"Give you welcome to Granada," the figure whispered.
Pulgar approached, peering to see what he could of the man's features. "Jesu, María, Mendoza, is it really you behind that beard?"
"'Tis not Mohammed, you great ox. Is that Antonio with you?"
"Sí," de la Cueva answered, clasping the hand the figure stuck out. "So here you have been, rogue, and not in Italy as we supposed. Don Iñigo first swore us to secrecy and then informed us you were most intimate with the Sultan. A fine bosom friend for a Christian knight!"
"So it leads to such signs of friendship as we will perform tonight, spare me such other relationships," Francho chuckled.
"And how does your harem these days, noble Moor?" Pulgar leered from the dark. "Lucky fellow..."
"I regret, old friend, but I haven't an houri in this world to lend you," Francho disenchanted him. A fish splashed in the water, making all three jump. Francho became serious. "In approximately one hour from now the guard on the storage towers will change, and this will allow us our best chance, as you've been told. On inspection tours with the Sultan I've noted the roof traps are bolted from the inside and only unlocked for the few minutes when the guard shifts change. We must look sharp and be on our way."
"We have the details of your plan well in mind, Francisco," de la Cueva assured him. "But Hernan here is entertaining a hare-brained stunt in his head that will get him killed."
"I have a little love note to leave behind," Pulgar grunted, patting something concealed in his tunic. "My assigned route looks to pass very close to the Grand Mosque."
Happy to be in action with his good friends again, Francho nevertheless sternly ordered, "No side trips, Pulgar, there's too much at stake here to risk any nonsense. I'll go first into the tunnel. Let the men follow me, and one of you bring up the rear."
For the fourth time Francho crept through the suffocating dusty narrowness of the conduit, leading the coughing men behind him, finally helping them to emerge with muffled gasps into the welcome night air of Zemel's garden. He huddled with them behind the acacia bushes, a tight group of sinister shadows in dark tunics and cowls, with naked daggers stuck in their belts and pouches carrying flint, short torches, and combustibles slung over their shoulders. At a muted command from de la Cueva three of the men moved to Francho's side, doubtless taking him for a renegade Moor he thought, which didn't matter so long as they took his orders. The raiders had all studied the map and memorized the course of action. There was no need for further discussion but there was a need for haste, not to miss the midnight change of the guard. Francho clasped Pulgar by the shoulder.
With a whispered "Santiago!" Pulgar took his men in a muted scramble over the wall first. Then went de la Cueva's group, and finally Francho's men clambered over, dropping into the cobbled alley on the other side. He took them at a lope through the crooked streets and deserted little squares without incident and without sighting the others, who had swiftly struck out in different directions. They avoided the occasional late horseman or pike-armed watch by melting into doors and niches or flattening against a dark wall. Presently they approached their objective, one of the three huge towers which remained from a former city wall, now stuffed to their battlements with grain and hay and enough foodstuffs to feed the city through any possible siege. Francho detoured through a handy back passage in order to come up on the rear of a scalable building which he had noted abutted a motley of structures hemming in the old, square tower.
Gaining the top of the flat-roofed building by pulling themselves up from a lean-to shed roof, Francho and his soft-shoed cohorts flitted from roof to roof until they stood above a narrow alley separating them from the looming bulk of the tower. One of his men now performed a fancy gyration and unwound from his body a long length of rope, his vague silhouette shrinking perceptibly about the middle. Much shorter ropes from the other men's pouches now served to lower Francho and two of his companions to the top of a low, one-story building adjacent to the taller structure, where the first man waited.
Using the second rope the two men with Francho slid to the ground, but remained hidden in the deep shadow of an angled wall. Francho stayed on the low roof, crouched and tense, giving his attention to the lantern-illuminated entrance to the alley a short distance to the right, where the guards who were supposed to be patrolling the tower base lounged at their ease. Presently he saw them jump up with a snap to attention, for the sergeant of the guard had just appeared. The sound of sharp scolding drifted to his ears and the guards were replaced with fresh men.
In his sash Francho carried a long, sharp dagger, one which he had eased from the sheath of a Moorish courtier trading next to him at a crowded stall in the First Plaza, the man unaware that his device-engraved weapon had been transferred from the sheath on his hip to under Francho's mantle. He readied the dagger impatiently. Finally the new guards strode out of the circle of light and approached down the murky alley, one holding up a small lantern. Francho drew back, waited until the footsteps were just below him, and then leaped out and down upon an unsuspecting back, bearing the guard to the ground and jamming his dagger between the man's shoulderblades before the stunned man could cry out; while his two lurking companions at the same time jumped the remaining guard, jerked back his head, and with a crack and a grunt dispatched him.
Swiftly they hauled the dead guards into the shadows and waited with indrawn breath to see if anyone had heard or taken heed of the lantern tumbling to the ground. Nothing seemed to stir. Francho now glanced up. His man still on the upper roof, one of the skilled mountaineers from the Asturian levies that had been assigned to each group, was supposed to have twirled his rope with its specially weighted loop to snag one of the outlined battlements of the tower, praying that the guard up there did not hear the small thud of the rope. From small noises that his ear had made out Francho could imagine the man expertly lancing the loop— and failing. It would take a magician to settle that rope over the jutting stone in the dark of the night. Tracing himself with the cross he hissed upward as a signal that the alley guards had been secured. To his amazement he heard the soft smack of the loose end of the rope against the side of the tower, and as he groped for it heard the Asturian slither down the other rope to join them.
With a leap Francho began a swift hand-over-hand ascent of the stout rope, bracing his feet against the tower's thick stone wall, and his system was so keyed up that the climb seemed easy. Reaching the battlements he first peered through the crenellation and made out the vague form of the guard, evidently impatient to be relieved, leaning over the opposite parapet to see what transpired with the sergeant at the main portal below. As quietly as he could Francho pulled himself up and over the ledge to then slither rapidly into the angle of an abutment where he froze into an amorphous shadow. But the guard had heard the light, scraping noise of his arrival and now straightened up to peer curiously into the dark, showing no alarm at what he took to be just a rat gnawing at the old timbers of the roof from underneath. Yet—he sauntered across the roof.
Francho let the guard approach perilously close to where he was hunkered, then flipped a bit of crumbled mortar off to the side and tensed the muscles in his thighs. The man whirled toward the sound, crying, "Who's there?" and in that second Francho
launched himself forward like a missile from a catapult. The long dagger plunged in an arc toward the man's unprotected throat, there was a gurgled cry and a gag, and the guard's body slumped, his pike thumping on the timbers. Francho eased the body down.
The raider who had followed hauled himself up and over the ledge and looked down to urge the two others on. In a few moments they all heard a muffled, cheerful hail from inside the tower, and Francho hastily pushed his companions to a position behind the hinged lid as the stout bar that secured the trap from inside the tower thunked aside. The new guard lifted the trapdoor back and began to climb out. "Ho! Kassim! Thought you were forgotten, eh? That misery of a sergeant stopped to aaarrgh—!" The Asturian rammed the dead guard's pike into the replacement's back with such force that it easily pierced the man's leather armor. With a quick lunge Francho and a cohort grabbed at him and kept him from tumbling back down the ladder to the floor below.
Now it was a matter of minutes before the off-duty guards waiting to return to barracks wondered what was taking Kassim so long to descend.
Francho stayed on the roof. The sergeant below would surely call up from the outside impatiently, and a muffled promise of immediate descent might delay his suspicions for a short, precious time. But the other men, well briefed, disappeared down the trap and dashed from the short ladder to run down the tower's stone steps as it spiraled against one wall, drawing short, oil-soaked torches from their pouches and igniting them from the lanterns which hung at intervals along the stair. In a few minutes, having delivered his delaying response, Francho dropped through the trap to join his men. They were working swiftly, one to each floor, touching the flaming torches to left and right behind them as they ran between the long mounds of sacks and bales, throwing burning wads of oil-wrung rags into the huge, open bins of grain, tossing packets of gunpowder into the farthest corners. He knew their steps would be made fleeter, as they raced from the crackling and flaring at their heels, by the knowledge that they had to finish their task and get up the stairs before the flames and smoke on the floor above cut them off.
Wielding a torch of his own on the dry wood of bins holding lentils and beans, Francho started from a far corner of the top floor, anxiously eyeing the smoky staircase as he criss-crossed the aisles. After what seemed like an eternity, with the flames licking at his own heels, he saw the first man leaping up the stairs as if all the devils in Hell were after him, coughing in spite of the kerchief over his face, and behind him pounded the second man. Throwing his torch at a far cluster of barrels of cooking oil Francho dodged away from the explosion and scrambled after them, and to his relief all three of his men made it back to the roof, gasping and choking.
Already there was a commotion below as the guards opened the main portal and fell back before rolling clouds of smoke. Francho swiftly pushed his panting men over the battlements one after another. They practically slid down the rope, swinging away from the side of the tower to avoid bright flames licking from slit windows and dropping to the ground in a dead sprint to get across the alley. Francho went last, descending as quickly as his men, but just as he was almost down a running guard spotted him in the lurid light emanating from one of the narrow slits.
The guard hauled up and then made a dash at him, hurling his pike inaccurately and shouting loudly to his comrades for help. Dangling in the air above him, Francho let go and dropped, landing in front of the guard in a crouching position. He sprang at the startled man and knocked up the arm that brandished a curved knife, then surged forward to drive his own wicked blade deep into the bearded face. The guard shrieked, a gush of blood obscuring his twisted features as he fell. Leaving the jammed dagger, which he could not pull out, Francho darted to the rope and was hauled up on the low roof by the Asturian as more guards ran into the alley carrying flares.
Amid a hail of furiously hurled pikes that clattered against the wall of the low building whose roof they quickly quitted, they clambered higher and fled the same way they had come, trailed by the shouts and curses of the soldiers, who could not follow because the mountaineer had cut the ropes, and the frightened cries of householders peering out their windows. Even though they were slowed up by one of the men, who gritted his teeth on a bad ankle, Francho nevertheless managed to spirit his group out of the area before the guards could scurry through the disjointed maze of alleys below to intercept them. Descending unseen in the sleeping streets they flitted back along the direct route Francho had chosen, happy to hear the cries and yells of "Fire! Fire!" dying away behind them. One of the men plucked at Francho's sleeve and pointed to the left of them where a garish orange glow was climbing the night sky. With a gleeful grin hidden beneath his black beard Francho hastened them on, rejoicing that Antonio de la Cueva had been successful too; and where two groups had succeeded surely the third would not fail. The muffled explosions and ugly crackling were waking even Zemel's quiet quarter by the time they reached his wall.
In fact they found de la Cueva waiting alone behind the acacia bushes in Zemel's garden, the young Count having already sent his men to safety through the tunnel. "Thanks given to God," de la Cueva breathed as Francho dropped down before him. "But Pulgar is not yet here, and your tower was further distant than his. He should have gotten back by now."
"If something has gone amiss there is nothing we can do for him," Francho whispered back, urging his own men to hurry as they scrambled into the tunnel. "Return to the safety of the boat, Antonio. If he and his men don't get to you within the quarter hour you'll have to leave without him."
"We can return along his route. Perhaps they've been cornered and a diversion would free them."
"No. We have no swords, and any citizen with a weapon is alert for us now, for the guards saw us departing. Reduan will turn out his best squadrons to find us. Look you, Pulgar is indestructible, Antonio, no cause for worry," Francho calmed his friend, although he was worried himself. "They may have been forced to take a longer way around or are hiding to avoid the chase. Now go on."
"And leave you to go after him alone? Oh no, amigo, I know that elaborately bland tone in your voice. I suppose you are chivalrously considering my wife and babies, eh?" The shorter nobleman thrust his face toward Francho's indignantly. "Since when have I ever run from a fight?"
"It wouldn't be a fight, it would be a massacre, you stubborn—"
His argument was interrupted by a low chuckle, and Hernan del Pulgar dropped from the wall behind them. "Report victory, señores," he panted in a low voice.
In great relief both friends smiled at this puffing apparition as Pulgar's men swarmed over the wall behind him. "You're late," Francho accused in a whisper.
The massive frame struck a swaggering pose. "A little private errand," he shrugged, grinning and dusting off his hands as if he had just won the war by himself.
Nevertheless, Pulgar had lost one of his men, who, probably overcome by smoke, had never emerged from the fiery tower. With no time to ask whatever else Pulgar had been doing, Francho hustled the remaining men and his two friends into the conduit with hardly a farewell because he still had to close and lock the hatch, go over the wall, and return to his little house the same way he had come, and then, apparently awakened by the growing hubbub of aghast citizens rushing to see the fires, make a swift return to the Alhambra. Left alone in the dark he put to rights the hatch and again made the mark of the cross on his breast, willing his luck not to desert him now, now that the miraculous feat was accomplished. He pulled the hood of his mantle over his turban and putting one toe into a crack between the stones of the wall boosted himself up to the top, pausing just a second to view the angry flaming red sky outlining the buildings ahead and then pulled himself over.
***
Haggard, Francho would describe the drawn faces of the upset, hastily dressed officials and citizens packing the square audience chamber, haggard with the realization that the terrible smoking ruins in the lower city presaged catastrophe, or perhaps, as in Francho's case as he slumped wea
rily on a dais step to the rear of the throne, merely from lack of sleep. Only Boabdil's countenance showed some spirit, and that was because he could assuage his shock with rage; a rage that was focused upon a group of men coming toward him, parting the sea of spectators like a wedge. The front officials pressed back and aside, and Muza Aben and his men now reached the cleared space before the throne, where the Grand Sultan's choler was hardly cooled by the two Nubians waving peacock fans above him.
The grim general jerked a half-dressed prisoner from the grip of his guards and flung the man sprawling to the ground. "Great Sultan, I bring this traitorous vermin to grovel before your judgment. To him belongs the device on the dagger found protruding from the body of the depot guard," Muza Aben's voice vibrated with passion.
"Mercy, mercy, O most benign of Sultans, I am innocent!" the man wailed, raising his head, his voice high but clear against the threatening silence of the throng, and Francho recognized him as a shy member of the wealthy Rasoul family, a clan already in disgrace for the execution several years before of one of its members for spying for El Zagal. The slim, long-nosed young man who raised a terrified face to his ruler was popularly admired for the sad poetry he composed, some of which Boabdil had requested Jamal ibn Ghulam set to music. Now the Sultan glowered so angrily at the captive that the man commenced to tremble. "Yes, O Excellence, the weapon is mine but I did not use it. Yesterday it was stolen from me, or perhaps lost, I do not know..."
"You do not know?" Boabdil retorted, and it was clear to Francho that the Sultan had found a scapegoat for the impotence and the grief that assailed him. "Do you expect me to believe that, dog? You are of a family of traitors who have conspired against my throne before. Who is there who can swear you were not lurking about the towers this past terrible night?"
"M... my wife, my servants..." ibn Rasoul stuttered.
"Hah! His wives and servants! Ordered to lie for him, Excellence," Muza Aben bellowed.
Hart, Mallory Dorn Page 67
