by Jane Feather
“What were you doing that made the man take you to the caliph?” Kadiga inquired, her eyes alight with curiosity as they reached the gallery.
“I was trying to walk out of this place.” Sarita thumped down on the divan and began absently to massage her toes. It was generally a soothing exercise, but since it did nothing to satisfy her empty belly, it had little power this time to lessen her irritability.
“Why?” The two spoke the one-word question in unison.
“You are so fortunate to have the caliph’s favor,” Zulema went on.
“Yes, and to live in this fashion,” Kadiga put in with a hint of envy. “You are housed in such luxury, with these beautiful clothes and jewels. You have nothing to do …” She looked ruefully at her own work-reddened hands.
“The life of a whore,” Sarita said succinctly. “I would rather be a washerwoman.” The incomprehension on their faces was beyond breaching, she realized, and gave up, lying back on the divan with a sigh of defeat.
“Well, what robe will you wear?” Kadiga moved to an embrasure where now hung the robes they had all been examining that morning with such interest.
“I couldn’t care less.”
“There should be one of ivory silk, embroidered with topaz,” said a deep voice.
Sarita sat up abruptly, and the two other women turned with a gasp to the head of the stairs, where stood Abul. His soft-footed arrival was explained by the simple slippers he wore beneath the loose folds of a burnous.
“How do you know?” Sarita asked.
“Because the choices were mine,” he said, coming over to the divan. “I picked them very carefully with your coloring in mind. Tonight, I would like to see you in ivory with topaz.” Taking her hands, he drew her to her feet. “It should make a startling contrast with your hair.” He ran his hands lightly through her curls in a gesture that was rapidly becoming familiar, before taking her place on the divan. “Hurry now. I had thought to find you dressed and ready for your supper.”
Zulema’s busy fingers were already unlacing the bodice of the orange dress. Sounds came from the court below, the soft plucking of a harp accompanying the wonderful chinking of china, a tinkle of glass, and the most succulent aromas drifted upward. Sarita lost all interest in argument and stood compliant while her dress and shift were removed. She wondered if she was becoming accustomed to being in Abul’s company in nothing but her skin, or whether it was just that she was so tired and hungry that she was unmoved by the knowledge of those black eyes roaming over her body as she stood waiting for Kadiga to bring the ivory robe. But when he reached out a seemingly indolent hand and stroked her flank, her body leaped at the touch, her skin rippling beneath his hand as if she were a caressed cat.
She turned on him, saw his eyes amused, desirous, smiling at her. “You’re not playing fair,” she said tightly, as she had done in the baths.
“I never promised to do so,” he replied, as he had done before.
Sarita remembered uncomfortably that they were not alone. Kadiga was looking frankly fascinated by the exchange, Zulema puzzled. “Hand me that robe,” Sarita snapped, holding out her hand for the garment hanging over Kadiga’s arm. “It’s cold.”
Abul rose from the divan with a soft laugh. “I will await you in the court, querida.”
Sarita joined him within a couple of minutes, having rejected all her attendants’ efforts to brush her hair or put slippers on her feet. She was far too hungry for such niceties and came running down the stairs, holding up the hem of the ivory silk, her mouth watering. She was only peripherally aware of the harpist beside the fountain, the sweet melody filling the air.
“What is it that smells so good?” She came over to the low table that had been placed between two ottomans. Abul was stretched out on one of them, his head resting on an elbow-propped palm.
“Come and see,” he said, gesturing to the couch opposite. “I will pour you wine.”
Sarita decided that lying down to eat was hardly a Christian habit and sat down instead, facing the table. She watched Abul pour wine from the jug into delicate crystal goblets. In other circumstances, she would have paused long enough to admire the rare and precious crystal, but tonight she simply drank deeply of what she judged to be a rather special Rioja. Her eyes met Abul’s over the goblet, and she saw that he was laughing.
She found Zulema at her elbow, proffering a bowl of rose-scented water, and impatiently followed Abul’s example, dipping her fingers in the water, drying her hands on the linen towel draped over the woman’s arm.
“Better?” Abul said. He tore off a chicken leg from the golden-brown roasted bird sitting in the middle of the table. “Try this.” He placed the drumstick on Sarita’s plate.
Sarita tried very hard to eat daintily, but until she had satisfied the growling monster within, she found it impossible to pick slowly and eat savoringly from the array of dishes on the table. In addition to the chicken, which tasted of lemon and garlic and spices, there were cubes of lamb, stewed with honey and tossed with whole almonds, and there was a curious substance like steamed flour that would have been bland except that it had boiled raisins and pine kernels in it; there was flat bread and yellow butter and white goat’s cheese; and yogurt with honey; and a great platter of cakes and sweetmeats.
They ate with their fingers, but frequently Zulema and Kadiga presented the towels and finger bowls. Again it struck Sarita that the passion for cleanliness among these people was somewhat overdone. Her own people ate with knives and fingers around the campfires, using bread for trenchers, passing the leather flagons of wine from one to another. She was accustomed to licking the grease off her fingers, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, sharing knives and flagons. But she noticed how particular Abul was, how he took relatively small mouthfuls, kept his hands clean, ate slowly; and once her initial hunger had been satisfied, she found herself emulating him because she felt uncomfortable otherwise. Yet another example, she thought, of the delicate surface of this fairyland, a surface that concealed a base far from delicate, if her experiences of the afternoon were anything to go by.
Abul maintained a considerate silence while his companion satisfied her hunger. The harpist continued to play, and an insidious relaxation crept over Sarita, dispelling the emotional stresses and strains of the day. She found she couldn’t keep hold of her anger, which did surprise her since she believed herself so ill-used as to justify continual fury until the ills were redressed.
Kadiga and Zulema discreetly left when the table was sufficiently depleted to indicate that their presence was no longer required. Sarita swung her legs up on the divan, since Abul looked so very comfortable in that position, and took another sip of her wine with a little sigh of contentment.
“Happy?”
The question took her by surprise, as much because she realized that somehow she was. “No,” she said. “Have you ever heard of a happy prisoner?”
Abul shook his head slightly, not in response to her question, but in resigned reproof. “The constant reiteration of that complaint, Sarita, grows tedious.”
“My apologies, my lord caliph, but I fear you will continue to hear it for as long as I am held in this way.”
He closed his eyes. “Listen to the music.”
Sarita’s hand moved surreptitiously to the cushion behind her head. She pulled it out and held it on her lap, tapping her fingers against it with calculated insouciance.
Abul turned his head, regarding her with narrowed eyes. “You do like the spice of provocation, don’t you?”
“The provocation is on your side, not on mine. It isn’t as if I’ve thrown it.”
“Well, do so, if you wish. I’ve no objections to the consequences in the least.”
Sarita looked away from Abul, evincing a fascination with the harpist to hide her laughter. She lay watching the musician for a minute or two, remembering the morning. “Is he blind also?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“Why do you no
t let your son spend time with his mother?” It was the wrong way to introduce the subject of Aicha, but too late to retract.
The silence crackled, all languor vanished, yet Abul did not appear to move. “Where did you hear that I did not?”
This was dangerous ground. It shouldn’t have been, but somehow she knew it was. The danger pricked the air like so many dagger tips. How to contain the damage?
Sarita stretched languidly. “Oh, it was just something your wife said this morning. She came upon me in the baths.” Rolling onto her side, she faced him, allowing a petulant note to enter her voice. “You had left me all alone, asleep and exposed to anyone who might have chosen to enter. Or have you forgotten?”
“You were in the care of the keepers of the baths,” Abul said, but she could hear the faintest hint of hesitation.
Abul silently blamed himself for his lack of foresight. He should have known that once her curiosity was aroused, Aicha would set out to satisfy it. And how better to do so than face-to-face with the object of that curiosity? But what had been said between them? If they had discussed Boabdil, then they had presumably covered considerable ground. He would have given much to avoid a meeting between Aicha and Sarita at this juncture, particularly one he hadn’t prepared for. There was no knowing to what devious use Aicha might decide to put the new arrival. His wife was too expert a schemer, Sarita too unversed in the political and domestic machinations in which the women of the Alhambra excelled and delighted. In fact, he rather thought his Christian import didn’t believe that the women of the Alhambra had any sphere of influence at all. She would discover the truth, eventually, but he would prefer that discovery to happen once he had stormed the citadel and was certain of her allegiance.
“Nevertheless, it was not comfortable to wake alone in a strange place, with no friendly face and rather confused recollections of how one arrived there,” Sarita was saying. “Your wife was kind enough to escort me back to this tower. We talked a little on the way.”
“And you talked of Boabdil?”
“Among other things.”
“What did you tell Aicha of yourself?”
Sarita thought. “Of myself … very little. Of the people of my tribe, rather more.”
“Of how you came to be here?”
“The barest bones.”
So she was not innocently incautious. But had Aicha influenced her … tainted the trust he knew Sarita had in him?
“What did Aicha tell you of Boabdil?” He made his voice mildly curious. “She has a great love for the child.”
“So do most mothers.”
“I wasn’t decrying the power of maternal affection,” he said mildly. “Far from it.”
Sarita paused. She had responded with unthinking belligerence, springing from what Aicha had told her of the father with the son and the sense she had had a minute before of the unseen danger inherent in this topic. It seemed time to ease the subject to a close.
“She said little.” Sarita sipped her wine, closed her eyes, pretending to be absorbed in the music.
“But she did say I prevented her from spending time with Boabdil.”
Why was Abul persisting in this? Sarita looked for a palliative response. “Yes, but she also said that was the way of your people. It was just that such a separation was hard for a mother to bear.”
And for such a son. But he kept that sad thought to himself. He bore his own responsibility for the difficulty Boabdil was having with the rite de passage. However, he felt the need to explain himself, although why he should, Abul didn’t know. He was hardly answerable to this diminutive, hot-tempered creature of the olive grove.
“Boabdil is my heir,” he said, as mildly as before. “He has reached the age when he must learn to live with men. He has things to learn that will enable him to govern wisely, to fight well, to behave with wisdom, that he cannot learn among women.”
“But there are things women can teach: matters of wisdom also. A child must learn those things as well.”
“Among your people, maybe.” Abul sat up, swinging his legs off the ottoman, suddenly irritated by a viewpoint so far removed from the realities of the situation. Sarita knew nothing about it, and she was sounding uncomfortably like Aicha, who seemed to have done her work well. He spoke curtly, definitively. “But among ours, a boy must grow to manhood in the values of his father. He must learn to eschew women’s weakness and embrace the sword and scale of authority.”
There was no possible response. Muley Abul Hassan was simply stating the facts as he believed them and making it very clear that he would entertain no opposing opinion. Sarita felt a gut-deep surge of fellow feeling with the sultana, a feeling that transcended her earlier unease … unease amounting almost to disbelief in Aicha’s description of her husband’s attitude toward his son. Aicha knew her husband a great deal better than Sarita knew the caliph, and it must be assumed she spoke with authority.
“Come.” Abul leaned down and took her hands, pulling her to her feet.
That morning in the baths he had promised that the long hours of the night would be spent in his very own brand of gentle persuasion. Surely in the present chilly atmosphere he could not be so insensitive as to propose such a thing, she thought. But then, perhaps he could be. He didn’t think like she did.
“No,” she said.
“No, what?” He looked puzzled.
“I am not coming to bed.”
So that was what she was thinking? Well, for the moment he’d lost interest in the sensual coaxing of his intransigent guest. He had enough obstacles to overcome in that area without finding her ranged against him on an issue that was no business of hers. Besides, it was time to deal with Aicha. He had let matters slip far enough.
He gestured to the harpist and the man rose immediately, bowed, gathered his instrument, and left the tower in a swishing of robes and soft pad of sandaled feet.
Sarita stood still, meeting Abul’s steady gaze with her own. She looked so fiercely determined, as if prepared to do battle to the death to hold him off, that he decided with a touch of grim amusement to exercise a little vengeance.
“You are looking tired,” he said, as if they were having an ordinary conversation. “It is time you were in bed, after such a day.”
“No,” she stated, wondering for how long one could rely on statements to ensure events.
Abul smiled, pinched her nose as if she were a small child making a token protest, and lifted her in his arms. “You are going to bed, Sarita. I didn’t say I was coming with you.”
Before she could absorb what he had said, he had carried her upstairs. He set her on her feet by the divan. “I’ll leave you to put yourself to bed. After my earlier self-restraint, I don’t think I have the energy for further trials of endurance. Sleep well.” He dropped a kiss on the nose he had pinched and left her.
Sarita stood there, frozen with surprise and indignation. He had neatly turned the tables, making her feel like a presumptuous fool. But at the same time, the knowledge that she was at last alone, through choice, filled her with an indescribable relief. She unbuttoned the ivory robe, pushed it away from her body, and went to a rear window. The cool air of the nighttime mountains bathed her skin. The dark ravine below offered not menace but the possibility of salvation. The star-glitter on the snowcapped mountains drew her soul out of captivity, out to the open road.
Her eyes dropped downward again. It would have to be the ravine. No one would suspect such an escape route. She could follow the valley to the city walls, parallel to the road. How to get down, though? Her gaze roamed around the gallery, around the richness of Damascus silk, the plethora of luxury. Somewhere in this tower an inventive mind would find the wherewithal for escape.
But not tonight. Tonight was for recuperation.
With a murmur of thankfulness, Sarita slipped beneath the silken coverlets of the divan. She stretched, glorying in the space, the absolute sense of privacy.
Privacy was a rarely experienced luxury. Ther
e was birdsong from outside her windows: the song of freedom.
Sarita slept.
Chapter Nine
Abul strolled back to the palace, allowing the peace of the evening to clear his mind and soothe a vexation that arose not because Sarita didn’t understand the necessities of life in the Alhambra, or even that she presumed to align herself against him on such a vital issue, but because, aligned against him, she placed herself firmly beside Aicha, whether she intended it or not.
It was a thoroughly disagreeable thought on a purely personal level. It piqued his pride, Abul realized with astonishment. Women did not pique a man’s pride. Aicha had no such power, but it seemed as if the little Christian did.
His step slowed and he almost turned back to the tower, fired by the sudden urge to overpower Sarita and her pride and her obstinacy in the way he knew he could. But it would be a sham victory and would besides do nothing about his problems with Aicha.
He continued on his way. He was certain Sarita had not told him everything of her discussion with Aicha. She had implied that Aicha blamed the system rather than himself for her separation from her son, but Abul knew that Aicha did not think that, and he found it hard to believe she had convincingly pretended otherwise. So what had been said? Had Aicha started with her subtle venom, found that it didn’t work on Sarita, so had changed her tune, playing the grieving but bravely resigned wife and mother? The latter approach would certainly work better with Sarita, Abul was convinced. He didn’t think she would easily believe ill of him … or was he deceiving himself? What did he know of her? Apart from the fact that she delighted him, sent rivers of sunshine through his blood even when she was at her most infuriating, filled his mind when he wasn’t with her … She had become, in other words, his most powerful obsession. Apart from that, he knew nothing of her.
It was a sobering recognition, made even more so by the intuition that it was not an obsession that would soon pass. But for tonight, he must try to put her out of his mind. He was going to reinstate Aicha publicly, as he had decided to do that morning. He would have little chance of circumventing her cunning if he continued to ostracize her, and he couldn’t run the risk of her going behind his back with Sarita as she was so clearly doing with Boabdil. If, as he suspected, she had already begun the process with Sarita, although for what ends he couldn’t yet guess, he must keep a step ahead.
