Hart, Mallory Dorn

by Jasmine on the Wind

  Francho spotted a few of ibn Rasoul's relatives in the crowd of courtiers, but they, ashen, made not a move to step forward in their kinsman's behalf.

  "Too long have I lived by a believing heart only to find that my reward is this loathsome assault behind our walls. Now I will believe no one," Boabdil stormed, a tinge of hysteria in his tone, grasping the edge of his silk-draped divan in a white-knuckled grip. "Your blade drips the gore of foul treachery, ibn Rasoul. Had not Allah in His mercy sent rain, the whole city might have burned to the ground. Who are the other curs who aided you in this cruel plot? Speak out while you can!"

  The shaken poet, precipitously dragged from his bed and accused of a heinous crime, could not collect his wits. "No one, there was no one," he gasped. "I... I mean, I do not know. I am innocent of wrongdoing, my Sultan, I am your faithful servant," he wailed.

  "Liar! Liar and traitor!" Boabdil shouted, pointing an accusing, shaking finger. With the other hand he grabbed up a sheet of parchment lying by his side and brandished it at the culprit. "And I suppose you know nothing of this foul desecration which was found fastened with a bloody Christian dagger to the door of our Great Mosque?" He held up the parchment and displayed it carefully all around the room, causing gasps and roars of shocked protest from his audience, for, as Francho saw by craning his neck, upon it was written in great red letters, "Ave María!"

  Francho averted his eyes hastily, fighting to erase the grin threatening to reveal itself. What had Pulgar casually noted at the commencement of their raid, the rogue? "My return route comes close to the Great Mosque."

  "Muza Aben Gazul, remove this evil odor from my audience chamber and see he spits out the names of the others involved in this infamous crime against the people of Granada. I sentence them to pay the forfeit before the whole city and let my people, whose bellies will now suffer hunger for this treachery, curse them in Allah's name."

  Screaming of his innocence, pleading for mercy, the doomed ibn Rasoul was hauled away amid a hubbub of cries of abhorrence for him and approval for the Sultan. But some of the spectators in the sea of turbans only murmured nervously, for men who were tortured finally shrieked out names to stop the pain, any names at all. The Sultan surveyed the unquiet faces before him with bitter distrust. "If any of you that stand before me as loyal subjects have betrayed your people along with ibn Rasoul, we will soon surely know it," he threatened. "Now go, all of you, go, get out!"

  The disturbed throng of ministers, council members, community leaders, and aristocrats backed away with no further urging, for none had ever seen the Sultan so enraged. Quickly they funneled out through the portals into the Second Plaza.

  Francho sat downcast and still for a moment, suffering from a deep regret that he had unwittingly lifted the dagger of the talented and amiable ibn Rasoul, a man whom he would have preferred alive to many others in the Sultan's Court.

  "You too," the Sultan turned and snapped at old Comixa, who stood silently, with turned-down mouth. "I need no officious advice this morning. I need to sleep." He rose from his throne and walked slowly, almost stumblingly, toward the wall of airy archways leading to his personal apartments, followed by M'jambana, who held the straining Aswad on a brass-link lead. With negative gestures he prevented several lingering, solicitous courtiers from accompanying him, but he looked back at his musician and nodded.

  As padding servants undressed the slumping ruler in his bedchamber, he said nothing. Francho sat cross-legged on some pillows near the divan, industriously plucking out a favorite plaintive but soft and soothing air. Glancing up with a quirked brow he saw all the anger had drained from Boabdil's weakly handsome face, and that now it was weary and lined with pain. An image of a stained glass portrait he had once seen of the bearded, youthful, strained visage of Christ in His Passion flitted blasphemously through his mind.

  At last, garbed in a flowing robe and with screens pulled up in front of the fretted windows to block the morning light, Boabdil let himself be led to his divan. "Give me sleep, friend Jamal," he groaned as he stretched out on the pillows. "Find for me the peace of sleep and then go to your own rest, minstrel. In a few hours we will consider how to bring calm to my subjects."

  The exhausted Sultan's light snore came quickly this time, and Francho was grateful. He wearily picked himself up and shouldered his guembri, but instead of leaving the chamber he walked out on the ruler's balcony to view once more with tired but triumphant eyes the calamitous damage he had caused to happen, the three smoking areas below where the blackened towers gaped roofless amid the ruined char of surrounding buildings. The morning air, still damp from the unseasonable and sudden heavy downpour which occurred just before dawn, was still heavy with the miasma of burnt wood and roasted grain, a sadistically delicious odor, as if hundreds of loaves of bread had been blistered in a giant oven. In his mind's eye he could see again the jagged tongues of orange fury leaping against the dark sky, hot flames from the three blazing towers and the buildings they had showered with sparks erasing the light of the stars as cries and screams and shrieks rose from those who were fighting the fires and those who were fleeing them. He imagined again the rejoicing in the Christian camp as the raiders returned victorious and victory beacons were lit to signal an end to Granada's smug invincibility. And it was he, he who had placed the enemy within Ferdinand's grasp.

  The unease which lately assailed him brutally wedged its way in again. The enemy? Ali and Azahra? Old Zemel? The hard-working Mustafa Ata? He would not even allow the thought of the amiable and generous Boabdil to cross his mind but frowned it away, irritated with such sentimental folly, hardly suited to a knight fighting in the King's service. Better think of the bellicose Muza Aben, of Reduan and the brutal Zatar, the selfish Abencerrages and Zegris, dour Comixa, bitter Ayaxa, the dungeons filled with Christian wretches. This was the enemy, the revilers of Christ, alien dwellers on the sweetest leagues of Christian soil; the ancient foe. But alien dwellers? After many several hundred years? His restless mind discomforted him.

  His right fist clenched and unclenched. His jaw tightened. How long had it been since he had grasped the cold, sure hilt of a sword, a sword, naked, forthright, openly raised and openly wielded, unhidden. So much in his life was secret, hidden. He looked down and noticed mild abrasions on the palm of his hand and shook his head at the folly of running with the arsonists when he could have waited safely in the garden. Had he suffered a grievous wound or bad cuts and scratches he couldn't explain he would have had to flee with the raiders to the Christian camp and leave his mission here unfinished. And Dolores would have been left alone, unprotected, perhaps sold finally....

  He forced his purpose back in focus, for today was his triumph, and behind the face of a false mourner he was going to revel in the results. For a moment more he stared out at the rising, thin smoke and the tiny figures of people picking through the remains of Granada's pyres. Then he turned on his heel to seek his own couch for a few hours. His dry lips stretched in a small smile as he imagined describing the adventure to Dolores—his most rapt and admiring audience.

  ***

  The ordered pace of Dolores's life was disturbed that week. The ladies inhabiting the royal harem were allowed an "en masse" outing to view the executions on the Vivarrambla from their gay array of curtained carts and litters. This rare privilege turned the violent deaths of Nuri ibn Rasoul and the eight others whose names he had screamed out, along with the delinquent tower guards, into an exciting entertainment for them.

  But Dolores, accustomed to more freedom, had little stomach for the horror of a field of tortured and broken men tied spread-eagle on the ground and ponderously trampled into boneless gore by huge royal elephants in jingling harnesses. She was unnerved by the ugly, brutal mood of the spectators, who hurled their curses even at the bloody and mangled remains. She could not shake twinges of guilt for the suffering of the innocent victims, although their tragedy had only indirectly to do with her. Looking for Francho she glanced up at the raised ro
yal platform and viewed the Sultan's glittering presence as he sat under a striped kiosk and peacock fans, surrounded by his counselors. The royal concubines' conveyance in which she rode was pulled up close enough that she could see tense strain on Boabdil's face under the plumed, cloth-of-gold turban and note that the royal gaze seemed to rest on a point just above the carnage.

  But these dreadful public executions, which temporarily unraveled the fabric of her tranquil days, were wiped from her mind a week later when, in answer to an outraged protest and challenge from Boabdil, Ferdinand agreed to formal battle on open ground and the first clash of two great armies she had ever seen took place within her view from the harem roof. Details were not clear, of course, but the day was fine and she had no trouble making out the line of thirty thousand Moslem warriors (Francho had said) ranged in bristling opposition to the much larger Christian force drawn up to face them.

  Turning her head she could see that every high tower and balcony in the city was jammed with the people of Granada, eyes riveted on the battlefield, and they seemed to her uncharacteristically anxious and subdued, and even the women crowding at the grill to either side of her did not chatter or giggle much. Everyone was mesmerized by the immobility of both armies—doll-like at this distance— separated by a scant five hundred feet. And the hushed, expectant silence, where even a bird did not twitter in the city or swoop in the ruined fields, lent an air of chimera. A breeze rippled the rainbow plumes and pennants on both sides. The sun flashed sparks off Spanish plate armor and visored casques and Moorish mail shirts and spiked helmets and reflected from painted shields and the shining flanks of pawing chargers. Amid the stiff forests of raised, steel-tipped lances, she could see the green-plumed Grand Sultan facing an armored Christian King from whose lance flew the pennon of the Cross. Moorish cavaliers returned the scowls of Spanish knights, yet not a man moved among the rigid file upon file of horsemen and infantry glaring at each other across the divide.

  Then there was a silent glitter as Boabdil suddenly raised his mesh gauntlet. There sounded a blast of a deep-toned horn, and the Sultan's arm fell. Immediately the silence was dissolved as immobility broke into spurting action and a muted thunder of hooves rose to her ears as the opposing armies galloped into each other with a cacophony of trumpet calls and wild rallying cries, inexorable waves of death melding and mixing violently so that the deadly clang and clash of steel upon steel easily rose to the ears of the onlookers on the city walls. Choking dust sprang up around the fierce battle lines and was billowed by the breeze into the cerulean sky. In twenty minutes the blackened earth of the vega was heaped and strewn with broken, fallen bodies, the cries of both living and dying warriors, and the screams of wounded horses wafting back to the city with terrible clarity.

  Trying to follow the confused fury of hacking blades, flying bolts and balls, of crushing hooves, swinging maces, and viciously flung javelins, Dolores could soon see that the Moors were being pushed back, yard by bloody yard, toward the city. But now, and the women grimaced and covered their ears, the big cannons on Granada's walls thundered out, expertly aimed to hurl their murderous missiles of stone shot and iron shrapnel into the rear of the pressing enemy lines, leaving big, tragic gaps in the ranks of Spanish foot soldiers and bowmen. She heard the tiny sounds of trumpets blowing in frantic recall above the clangor of the melee, and, following their gesticulating commanders, the Spanish forces turned and retreated out of the range of the bombards, immediately pursued by platoons of saber-swinging, howling Moors.

  Now what had been one huge battle broke into numerous pockets, every inch of ground disputed with bloody valor. Dolores could make out some of the Christian banners, and the main leaders were not hard to spot. There was no mistaking the great iron-encased, orange-and-black-plumed figure of Ferdinand of Aragon, who laid about him steadily, a succession of nobles and knights at his back wielding their own bloody swords. Muza Aben's bright green helmet popped up at various points on the field as he urged forward his cavalry in a charge upon the most desperate contests and waved on faltering Moorish foot who were visibly suffering from fatigue and wounds. Once, the women about Dolores gasped with horror to spot Boabdil on his white Barbary steed suddenly left dangerously exposed as his soldiers fled in panic from a charge, but the Sultan reared his white horse and galloped to meet the attack alone. At the last minute an alert Moorish commander—Dolores thought it was Reduan — pounded up with a flying wedge of cavalry weighted with purple Abencerrage plumes, and the Sultan was safely flanked again as he engaged his foes.

  Even though Ferdinand's forces were greater, the Moors were fighting for their lives and held the enemy from coming close enough to use their cannon on the city, although the Moslem ranks were tattered by the bursts of shot and shrapnel. For two hours the battle went on and on along the undulating line, and the outcome was uncertain. Servants brought food to the roof, and Dolores sat with the other women in the shade of silk awnings to eat date and lamb stew and rosewater pudding. Nevertheless she picked at her food, upset. She was afraid God would smite her where she sat as a faithless traitor, for she wanted the Christians to retreat, to go away, to leave her alone.

  "See, see," a plump, pretty Arab girl with eyes big as black pearls gasped where she watched from the grill. "A catastrophe is happening. The infidel warriors have circled behind our army, like two great arms of the evil one. They will cut our warriors off from our gates!"

  Fifty women at once rushed to the grill to stare out into the distance, where large units of Moorish cavalry desperately chopped and hacked at the pressing Christian forces, who were forming a relentless pincers that threatened to trap the entire Moslem army. A few moments later the women cried out, for, with a desperate shout that was audible to them, a line of Moorish foot soldiers wavered, broke, and turned tail before the enemy's vigorous onslaught, fleeing in ignominious confusion for the city walls. A panic started that spread like a contagion among the outnumbered and heavily battered Moorish pikemen and archers, who also broke and ran. A universal gasp of disbelief and shame rose from the hand-wringing throngs on the city's roofs who viewed the rout.

  A flurry of cavalry led by Muza Aben and the Sultan himself galloped along with the troops, attempting frantically to stem the tumultuous retreat of the beaten infantry, but the mindless surge of disengagement could not be stopped. The decimated ranks of horsemen were forced to flee as well, and even their valiant defense of the backs of their vanquished soldiers against the rampaging Christians did nothing to lift the sinking hearts of the citizens on the walls.

  The Spanish cavalry broke off pursuit as the city's bombards began speaking again and squadrons of crossbowmen on the walls let loose a curtain of deadly flights of steel bolts to allow the gates to open and admit the defeated army. By straining her eyes Dolores could recognize the tabard colors of some of the hundreds of shouting, jubilant Spanish knights caracoling their horses and brandishing triumphant swords just out of range of the cannon.

  Much subdued the women of the harem returned to the food bowls arranged on a fringed cloth under the awning. Sayeda Fawzia planted her ample form before Dolores and pointed to the untouched morsels before her. "Do you not wish to eat a celebration meal, Christian?" she demanded acidly. "Waste not the food, for even the Alhambra will soon yearn for bread. All of you," she warned the dispirited women around her who stared at the floor or clung to each other bewildered by what they had just seen, "do not leave what you have chosen to eat to be given instead to the animals. Each morsel is precious to our survival. The longer we resist, the greater the enemy too will feel the pinch of siege."

  Hands on portly hips, the patriotic harem mistress tried to rally the spirits of her charges, but the luxuriously garbed ladies retrieved little appetite. Many of them suffered their own private fears of a Christian victory, as Dolores was aware. Those from distant lands feared freedom amid strangers; others feared being sold into a worse bondage than they suffered; some, the old ones remaining from Muley Abul Hass
an's days, feared dying in poverty. Dolores feared too, and her heart was sad. She feared the end of her sweet and happy dream.

  ***

  "I miss the flowers," Dolores sighed into the night. "These on the bushes have no scent."

  "The roses will bloom again," Francho murmured, rubbing an itching shoulder blade against the bark of the young cypress tree they leaned their backs against. "In January it all begins afresh. At least the rain has stopped."

  "Sí. We could not have sat out here last week, it was so wet."

  "Still, it is much too warm and close. Unseasonable for November."

  "But pleasant," Dolores crooned lazily, rubbing her hand in absent fashion up and down his thigh. They sat companionably silent for a moment, listening to a nightbird warble somewhere in the little garden. But she gathered her wandering thoughts and looked over at him, his face alternately in shadow or palely lit by a huge, creamy moon filtering through the dark, moving branches. "Are you hungry?" she asked him softly. The rations of thin stew, turnips, and bread Ali drew from the kitchen, sometimes supplemented by gifts of cheese and dried fruit from the Sultan, were not very filling over a long day. She thought his face seemed thinner, the cheekbones sharper.

  He looked back at her. "Me? No. Just pensive."

  She smoothed the coverlet they'd carried out to lounge upon. "And content?"

  His half grunt, half ironic chuckle reflected his worry. "Ay, querida, how could anybody be content who must attend the Sultan's agony day after day? Each day he rides through the city and sees the miserable, pinched faces of the adults, the children's dull eyes and bony frames. Even the well-to-do have used up their caches and walk about gaunt. And yet the people disdain surrender and shout at him, 'We will not give in!' Their courage surprises him, he admires it, but he knows it is useless suffering. He wakes by night sweating and in terror."

  "And that is when they come for you."