by Jane Feather
She turned to Aicha, her hand outstretched in farewell. “Thank you for bearing me company, lady.”
Aicha heard the dismissal in the polite tones, and she heard the questioning of her statements. Had she made a mistake? She had thought if the woman was not content to be in her husband’s power, she would make an easy ally with potentially useful access to Abul’s thoughts and plans. A slight distortion of a truth that would be guaranteed to enrage any woman with a heart worthy of womankind should draw her into Aicha’s net. But the woman sounded as if she didn’t want to hear any more, almost that she wasn’t sure that she believed what she had heard.
Aicha swallowed the acid surge of resentment. She still wanted this woman as an ally. She wasn’t sure quite why, but only that it might be potentially useful. And if Abul desired her, and she remained unwilling, then she could be very useful. So she smiled. “Thank you for listening to me. I wouldn’t wish you to think ill of my husband. He has only done what all men do in his position when their heirs reach a certain age, but …” She touched a finger to her eyes. “But he has not properly understood the closeness of my relationship with Boabdil. He was a sickly child, you see.”
“I see,” Sarita said gravely. She knew how close the women of her tribe grew to their children, but the children were never removed from their mothers’ sphere of influence. Sons simply gravitated to the men as they grew older and their interests and pursuits took them in that direction. Boabdil’s separation did sound forced, even if Aicha was exaggerating.
“I will talk to the lord Abul about you, if you still wish it,” Aicha was saying. “Do you wish to return to your tribe?”
“No,” Sarita said frankly. “Your husband has said he will not stand in my way if that is what I wish, but he will not permit me to leave his protection unless I return to my people.”
Aicha felt the ground shift beneath her feet. So her husband had offered to return the woman, but had presented her with an unacceptable alternative. Something very much out of the ordinary was going on here, and she would need time to dig and delve and come upon the truth.
“I go to keep siesta,” she said, still smiling. “We will meet again soon.”
“Yes, indeed. I bid you farewell.” Sarita stood and watched the woman turn the corner of the cypress path before she went into the cool, fountain-soothed peace of her tower.
Her nap in the Hall of Repose had left her with no desire to sleep through the afternoon. Zulema and Kadiga were presumably keeping siesta themselves, since the tower was deserted. Sarita paced restlessly, moving from the court to the upper gallery. The windows at the rear looked out over the ravine to the Generalife and the mountain peaks behind; at the front they faced within the compound, looking across the trellised garden and over to the main buildings and gardens of the palace.
She stood at a front window, staring across the garden, absently shaking out her orange dress, noting that it was now quite dry. A sleepy air lay over the Alhambra, as sleepy as the atmosphere had been in the encampment yesterday afternoon, when she had slipped out to keep her tryst with Sandro. Sorrow stabbed, a shank of iron in her heart. But now she felt also a sense of finality. Sandro was dead. That whole period of her life was over. She must take the experiences within herself, part of the river of experience, and move on down that river, enriched by the loves and hatreds of the past, by the good and the bad.
And then it came to her. What was to stop her from simply walking out of this place in the quiet of afternoon? There were no locks on her doors, no guards, no watchdogs. She had her bundle, her own clothes. No one had taken any notice of her when she had walked around before; why would they this time? They had seen her with the caliph and with his sultana, clearly on friendly, easy terms, clearly no prisoner.
It was such a simple thought, brilliant in its simplicity. Sarita stripped off the caftan and with a sigh of relief put on her shift and dress, feeling instantly returned to herself. Fortunately the overly sensitive people of this place hadn’t had time to do too much damage to her feet, but if she stayed around much longer, she’d have soles like butter. She kicked off the detestable slippers with their silly toes and rolled her feet around, feeling the shape of the ground, regaining her true sense of balance.
She found her bundle where Yusuf had placed it the previous evening. Everything was there. Her hair was still pinned on top of her head from the baths. She let it down and pulled a comb roughly through the unruly curls. It was fairly perfunctory grooming since the springy mass resisted all ordinary attempts at tidying, but it made her feel better. Then, after one last look around the exquisitely gilded cage, she went out into the hot afternoon.
Where was Abul? The question was an unwelcome one. She had been doing her best to put all thoughts of her captor out of mind. For some reason, it didn’t feel right to walk away without a word of farewell, yet she knew such niceties were absurd. If she paused to say farewell, she would have no reason for the salutation: she wouldn’t be going anywhere. On such a resolute determination, she left the garden and began to walk toward the palace, hoping she would remember the way through the maze of courts to the great outer court and that strange gate with its open hand and splayed fingers. She’d been on horseback when she’d made the reverse journey, and the light had been dimmer, softer. Everything looked quite different, somnolent under the sun’s glare, but there was bound to be some indication as to the way out of this fairyland.
There were few people about, and those there were barely glanced in her direction, until she found herself in a court full of soldiers in pronged round helmets like steel skullcaps. The alcazaba rose behind her, and Sarita realized that the fortress of the Alhambra obviously didn’t keep siesta. Here she was noticed. The men stared at the slight, bareheaded figure in the bright orange dress, and some of them looked away. Others spat on the ground with a gesture of disgust. Sarita began to feel very uncomfortable. Were women not permitted in this part of the palace? Was it because she was different from their own women … because she was unveiled?
Whatever it was, her discomfort increased with each step she took, and she had to fight the urge to run across the court to the horseshoe gates she could now see standing open at the rear. She felt like some wanton, brazenly exposing herself in an exclusively male setting. Blushing, she walked steadily, head lowered, through the armored throng.
She had reached the gate when it happened. Suddenly, her feet left the ground and she was crushed against a massive chest encased in a leather jerkin. A stream of Arabic, violently imperative, competed with her terrified screams. Blindly, Sarita struggled, but she was like a fly in the hand of a giant … and the giant had turned with her and was carrying her back across the court, through the now grinning soldiers. She kicked out, trying to find purchase with her bare toes against his shins, pushing with her hands against his chest. The man gave out a short, sharp exclamation, and Sarita felt herself being moved, as if she were a doll, lifted and slung around his neck. He gripped her ankles with one hand at his shoulder and her wrists with his other, so that she dangled limply like a hunter’s kill. There was nothing she could do in this position to change anything. She had no power of movement. Her head was hanging against his chest, bumping with each step, and she could hear her own heart thudding in her ears. She opened her mouth on another scream of protest, but the man carrying her like so much dead meat didn’t falter in his purposeful stride as he bore her back through the courts and colonnades.
He was clearly in no doubt as to his destination. The thought calmed her, stilling the violent thudding of her heart. She was not being carried off to provide sport for a garrison of hungrily lusting Moorish soldiers, but back into the palace. As her fear died, a ferocious rage took its place, blinding her mind to all clear thought.
They were crossing a small courtyard where robed men, either turbaned or with silk scarves over their tarbooshes, stood in groups. Sarita had the feeling they were in some kind of antechamber. Her anger superseded even the drea
dful embarrassment she felt as the men all stared at the soldier and his burden. Then he had elbowed his way through half-open double doors, and they were in a hall filled with people.
Abul did not at first notice the interruption. He was concentrating on the arguments of a citizen of Granada who was vociferously defending himself against his neighbor’s accusation that he had sullied the water cistern with the refuse from his tanning yard.
A buzz in the generally attentive silence of the Mexuar brought Abul’s head around from the two principals. A member of his garrison walked to the center of the hall, between the four marble pillars that supported the cupola. Abul took in the man’s burden and wondered distantly why he was surprised. Of course, he didn’t expect anyone to disobey him, because no one ever did. It hadn’t occurred to him that the Christian girl would simply ignore his edict. But he should have recognized the possibility, from what he knew of her already.
The soldier unslung Sarita, dumping her unceremoniously on the marble floor at his feet. She was on her own feet without thought. Her hand slashed through the air, smashing against his cheekbone with a resounding crack as she brought one bare foot up in a vigorous kick against his shins. There was, it seemed, a collective indrawing of breath, and then the soldier moved.
Sarita’s head was caught in the crook of his elbow. His eyes, black and fierce, stared with implacable fury into her own. At her throat was the curved blade of his scimitar. She was staring her own death in the face. The blade pricked her throat, and black dots danced in front of her eyes; her chest tightened and she struggled for breath.
Then the caliph’s voice rang out in that breathless instant of silence. It was a harsh command. She saw the soldier’s eyes shift even as his arm gripped her neck with a convulsive jerk. Then the command was repeated, a fraction higher, a fraction louder. The soldier’s eyes shifted again, and his grip loosened. The knife point moved, and she was dropped to the floor. This time she made no attempt to get up. Her heart was beating so hard she thought she was going to be sick, and her body was bathed in the sweat of pure terror. The marble was cool beneath her cheek, and she struggled to keep the whimpers in her throat from bursting from her lips.
Abul was still speaking. She could hear his voice in the mist-wreathed air over her head as she pressed herself to the cool marble. She could make no sense of the words, but his tone remained harsh and commanding. He was giving a string of orders, it seemed. But why would he say nothing to her? Why would he not come and raise her from the floor? Touch her cheek in the way he did? Smile at her with that gentle amusement …
What was she doing, thinking like that? What was she doing, lying here like a broken reed? Sarita lifted her head … She got no further. The soldier bent over her, scooped her off the floor, and slung her across his shoulders again. Turning, he walked out of the hall.
Sarita knew now she was not going to be harmed. Abul had spoken, had prevented the soldier from reacting according to instinct, had reminded him of his duty and obeisance. But Abul had done nothing to reduce the ignominy of her present position. In fact, he had probably ordered its continuance. Nevertheless, she had learned her lesson well and lay limp and quiescent across the soldier’s back as he strode through the palace, turned onto the cypress path, and marched through the wicket gate of her own tower garden. At the door of the tower, he set her on her feet and pushed her within, still treating her as if she were inanimate, Sarita recognized vaguely. The door snapped shut behind her, and she heard a new sound—that of a key turning in the lock.
Now she really was a prisoner. Or was it simply that her prisoner status had been made manifest? Either way, it made no difference to the present situation.
Her legs were trembling, her knees buttery. She sat down abruptly on an ottoman beside the fountain. After such a manhandling, she felt bruised, battered, as if she’d been viciously beaten, yet she doubted there were any marks on her skin. The bruises were to her pride and sense of personal integrity. For the moment, she was defeated.
Chapter Eight
No one approached the tower as the afternoon drew to its close. Sarita sat huddled over her knees for a long time, seeing the soldier’s eyes, her death contained within their dark depths, feeling again the knife point pricking her throat. But eventually her spine ceased its shuddering and her customary equilibrium reasserted itself. She hadn’t had her throat cut. Abul had prevented that. But he’d done nothing else to improve her condition. Quite the opposite.
Sarita went up to the gallery. The light was fading fast beyond the windows, the first star a faint point in the darkening sky. She became aware for the first time of hunger. She hadn’t eaten since that morning, and then only a piece of buttered flat bread and a cup of jasmine tea. There were no apricots left in the bowl; in fact, there was nothing edible in the entire tower. Water aplenty from the fountain, but the staff of life was dismayingly absent. And where were Kadiga and Zulema? For supposed attendants, they were being remarkably negligent.
It grew darker. She knew there were oil lamps in the tower; they’d been lit, the scent of the perfumed oil filling the air, last night when she’d bathed and eaten lamb pastries. Her mouth watered. She set out on an exploration in search of flint and tinder, and came up empty-handed. Her stomach complained loudly. It grew yet darker. The stars were bright now against the night sky. She could see the glitter on the snowcapped peaks of the Sierra Nevada. The air had cooled, and from the front windows of the gallery the deafening cacophony of cicadas filled her ears, and the rich scents of the garden rose heady and luxuriant as she leaned out. But a grumbling belly couldn’t be satisfied with the fragrance of mimosa and oleander and roses.
Craning out of the window, Sarita could see the flickering lights of the palace. She could almost smell the suppers being eaten in the well-lit courts and galleries, could hear the musicians with lute and lyre and flute entertaining the diners.
This was ridiculous. She leaned farther out of the window, trying to gauge if there were footholds in the outside wall. But the stone was as smooth as glass. Anyway, what good would it do her? A simple walk to freedom through the palace was impossible. If she’d learned anything this afternoon, she’d learned that.
She retreated to the moon-washed gallery. The rear windows offered only the steep fall to the ravine, a fall into now pitchy black. She was hungrier than she could ever remember being. If she could find some light, it would improve matters. But a renewed search for a tinderbox came up as empty as the last. The court was darker than the gallery, the starlight from the upstairs windows shining less effectively among the columns below.
Bed seemed the only sensible option. The only possible option to pacing hungry and increasingly exasperated around her dark prison. But she wasn’t tired. She was hungry. She wanted a cup of wine. And she wanted to do battle. More than anything, Sarita wanted to do battle with Muley Abul Hassan.
Flinging herself down on the cushioned, silk-hung divan in the gallery, she let her mind loose on all the offenses committed by the caliph. They were legion, beginning of course from the moment of her abduction. And they were all exacerbated by the insidious persuasion. Not that persuasion seemed his present tactic. Imprisonment and starvation were not the tactics of the gentle persuader. Apparently she had met the other side of the caliph of Granada: the authoritarian side he had told her existed, but that he felt no need to bring into play. Clearly, he now felt that need.
When she heard the door open downstairs, she didn’t move. It seemed to have come after such a lengthy period that it no longer mattered. She lay still on the divan, hearing the footsteps on the stairs. She recognized the footsteps. Muley Abul Hassan had entered her darkened prison. She lay still, waiting.
“Why do you have no light?” He spoke from the head of the staircase, his voice as calm and unruffled as if this afternoon hadn’t happened.
“There in no tinderbox.” She remained on the divan, staring up at the high ceiling.
“Did you look in the ceda
r chest below?”
Sarita let her silence provide the negative, and he turned and went back to the court. Steel and flint scraped in the quiet, and a soft glow rose to the gallery, offering faint illumination.
“Come down, Sarita. There are some things we have to talk about.” His voice from below was still unruffled, but Sarita fancied it had a rather forceful undertow. She turned onto her side with a thump.
There was a minute or two of silence while she waited with a tingle of curiosity to see what he would do next.
“Sarita, do not put me to the trouble of fetching you.”
She reassessed the forcefulness beneath the calm tone. She had every intention of talking with him at some length and with some force of her own, having first made a silent statement of her annoyance. However, if noncooperation was going to invite further manhandling, it was not a viable option. She wanted nothing that would increase her present disadvantages.
Sliding off the bed, she went to the stairs and made her way down to the now well-lit court. Abul was leaning against one of the pillars, his arms folded. He was wearing the britches, tunic, and leather boots of his working day, a sheathed knife in the broad belt at his hip.
“I am hungry,” Sarita announced without preamble as she stepped into the court. It was intended as an accusation, but Abul failed to respond accordingly.
“Good,” he said. “That was my intention. Contemplating one’s foolishness on an empty belly tends to be salutary.”
Sarita’s eyes narrowed as her temper rose. “Oh,” she said. “So it’s foolish, is it, to wish to escape imprisonment? I consider it to be a perfectly reasonable aim.
