by Jane Feather
How to time it? Absently, Sarita wandered down to the court. The remains of last night’s supper still stood on the low table. Abul had presumably given the order that she not be disturbed. She took a fig from the bowl, sipped from her wineglass, broke a little bread. It was dry and crumbly, but she didn’t notice, eating simply to make up for the night’s abstinence and prepare for the long morning’s work.
The palace slept throughout the heat of the day. She’d seen that yesterday. Or at least, she amended, most of the palace did. The garrison did not, and neither, it seemed, did Muley Abul Hassan, who went about a caliph’s business regardless of the sun’s zenith. No, siesta was not a good moment for clandestine activities. She dismissed the hours between one and four and turned her mind to the night.
Last night she could possibly have effected an escape. Alone in the tower, unwatched … But last night Abul had left her to sleep alone because they had quarreled. Had they quarreled? That seemed too large a word for what had happened. They had disagreed. But over something that obviously cut very close to the bone for Abul: trouble with his wife and son. He had promised she would spend the long hours of darkness in his bed—or he in hers—but last night he had changed his mind. Maybe she could use the same tactics again, but this time deliberately, to keep him from sharing her bed.
She took an orange from the bowl, peeling it thoughtfully. Straightforward fighting with him wouldn’t send him away. It had the opposite effect, as she’d discovered yesterday. It had had the same effect on her, but Sarita chose not to dwell on that truth. So, although the idea of deliberately wounding him was repugnant, she would have to employ a more underhand method to produce the desired result.
She went back upstairs, anxious to begin this day. She put on her orange dress, aware that by wearing it she was reiterating her protest against her captivity, and aware that the protest alone would do nothing to convince the caliph of her desperate need for freedom … freedom, or the power to order her own life? Which was it? Sarita paused, her fingers fumbling over the lacing at her bodice.
It didn’t matter which it was. In essence, they were one and the same. What mattered was that she should make her own decision to leave this place and put that decision into effect. And Muley Abul Hassan must never be in any doubt that she did not accept the arbitrary self-interest that lay behind her present captivity … whatever yearnings her treacherous body might evince.
The door below opened. She stood very still, listening, unwilling to look over the gallery rail and declare herself wide awake and fully dressed until she knew who was down there. The sounds were those of people clearing away, the voices muted as if in deference to a sleeper. She crept to the rail and peered down.
Three women were busily removing the debris of last night. The door stood open to the garden.
Zulema and Kadiga appeared in the open door before she could draw back. “Ah, you are awake already, Sarita.” Kadiga greeted her gaily, coming up the stairs. “Do you wish to walk again this morning? We could take the path to the Generalife, if you wish it.”
Sarita remembered the puzzlement and unease these two had evinced over her desire to walk yesterday morning. Something had changed since then.
“Yes, I should like that,” she said. “I have broken my fast already. But there is no need for you to accompany me.” A slight note of challenge was in her voice as she watched for their reaction.
“But surely you do not wish to walk alone,” Kadiga said, bending to pick up the discarded ivory robe of the previous evening. Her voice sounded perfectly natural.
“Besides, you might miss the path,” put in Zulema, beginning to straighten the divan.
“If you wish to join me, then I shall be happy to have your company.” Sarita yielded without further comment. In truth, she was not averse to their society. Tribal life was essentially gregarious, and she was accustomed to the companionship of her peers.
The two women exchanged a look of relief, a look that Sarita failed to notice as she brushed her hair before the crystal mirror. But then, Sarita was not to know that her attendants were under instructions from the sultana, instructions that required Sarita’s unwitting cooperation.
The three went out into the freshness of early morning. It was the time of day when energies were at their highest, when the air felt light and dust-free, the sun a friendly presence, not yet grown to its full hostile ferocity; the time of day when much could be accomplished. The sounds of the palace at work were carried on the air: the chip of hammer on stone, the ring of the anvil, the clip of pruning shears from the trellised gardens.
Sarita strode out, her bare feet covering the ground at a pace too rapid for her slippered and robed companions.
“Please, Sarita, slow down,” Zulema begged. “Why must we run?”
“If we were as immodestly dressed as you, we might keep up,” Kadiga declared a touch acerbically, using her headscarf to wipe her brow.
Sarita paused, turning on the path to look at them. Their robes clung to their ankles, unlike her own dress, which flowed free around her calves. Their pointed-toe slippers dragged in the dust. The scarves they wore must be very hot. Unconsciously, she ran her hands through her own unbound hair, feeling the breeze lift her curls, cool her scalp.
“Do not come if you do not wish it,” she said. “You are right. You are not dressed for the kind of walking I like to do. Although,” she added with a grin, “I deny the charge of immodesty.”
“We will keep up,” Kadiga said doggedly, mindful of her instructions and the waiting sultana. If Sarita was left to her own devices, there was no way to be certain she would take the direction that would bring her into the sultana’s path.
Kadiga started upward again, linking her arm with Sarita’s. “If we take the left fork at the top of the hill, we will come to the gate of the Generalife.”
Sarita slowed her pace, prepared to compromise, and began to ask them about themselves, about their position in the Alhambra, about others like them, about all the women in the Alhambra. It was a monumental subject, and her companions were not very enlightening, since they had never considered the facts themselves and so failed to ascertain what particular aspects of their situation Sarita might find of special interest.
Sounds of voices reached them from around a corner of the path. One of them was unmistakably a child’s, high-pitched and excited. The other Sarita recognized almost immediately as the lady Aicha’s. They rounded the corner and saw Aicha, a young boy, and a bearded, venerable-appearing gentleman in a turban and black robes.
“Why, Sarita, what a happy coincidence.” The sultana turned as they approached. “The second happy coincidence.” She took the child’s hand and drew him forward. “I happened to meet my son out with his tutor when I was taking my own walk. Greet the lady Sarita, Boabdil.”
The child stared at Sarita, and to her surprise she read hostility in his dark eyes. But he bowed his head slightly and murmured something in Arabic.
“The lady Sarita speaks only Spanish,” Aicha said, patting his head. “You can greet her in Spanish, can you not?”
Boabdil shook his head and turned his back on Sarita.
“You must not be discourteous,” Ahmed Eben said, sharply remonstrative. Boabdil hurled himself at his mother, and Aicha bent to enfold him.
“Do not scold him so harshly, Ahmed Eben,” she said, caressing the child’s cheek. “He is young.”
“Your pardon, lady, but not too young to practice good manners,” the tutor said. “We should continue on our way.” He looked uneasily down the path, trying not to say outright that this meeting, while purely coincidental, mustn’t be prolonged. It was against the lord Abul’s dictate.
Sarita had not followed the words of the conversation, but the meaning was fairly clear. The clinging child, his overt rudeness, the overly protective mother, the remonstrating tutor were all too obvious.
“Who is she?” Boabdil suddenly asked in perfect Spanish, raising his head from his mother�
�s skirts. He shot Sarita another look of pure distaste. “Is she one of my father’s wives?”
“Not exactly, caro,” Aicha said gently. “She is new to the Alhambra.”
“When I am caliph, I shall send all my father’s wives away,” Boabdil announced, still in Spanish. “And then we shall be here alone, won’t we, my mother?”
“You must not speak like that,” Aicha chided, but Sarita heard no conviction in her voice.
Abul’s son was clearly an ill-behaved, spoiled brat, Sarita decided, somewhat shocked, as she wondered why Aicha couldn’t see it. But then, fond mothers frequently failed to see their children’s shortcomings, and presumably when time together was so limited, Aicha wouldn’t wish to disrupt it with unpleasantness. Deciding to continue with her walk, she looked around for Kadiga and Zulema. They were nowhere to be seen.
“Your attendants returned to the tower,” Aicha said blandly, seeing Sarita’s surprise. “They would know that their presence would not be required when you and I are together.”
“Oh,” said Sarita, at a loss.
“Lady,” Ahmed Eben was saying on a note of urgency, “we must continue on our way. In an hour, Boabdil must be in the stable for his riding lesson.”
“But I do not want my riding lesson!” exclaimed Boabdil. “It is a horrid horse, Mamma. Too big, and he bites.”
“Nonsense.” The unmistakable voice of Muley Abul Hassan preceded by an instant his appearance through a screen of rhododendron bushes at the side of the path. “Sultan is as gentle as a lamb. He is bigger than your pony, I grant you, but it is time you learned to ride a man’s horse.” He stepped onto the path. “How fortuitous that we should all contrive to meet in the same spot when there are so many acres in which to walk.” His voice was cold and angry, making Sarita feel uneasily at fault, though she couldn’t imagine how she could be.
“Good morning, my lord caliph,” she said.
He glanced toward her, saying unsmilingly, “I give you good day, Sarita,” before turning back to his wife. “I was unaware you liked to take the morning air, Aicha.”
She met his coldness with a soft smile, as if she heard only gentleness in his voice, and her own voice was honeyed with sensual memory. “I was filled with such joy when I awoke this morning, my lord Abul, that I couldn’t remain within doors.”
“The lady Aicha came upon us, my lord, just as we had reached this place,” the tutor put in, his nervousness apparent. “Boabdil and I were taking our nature walk. We were examining the wildflowers.”
“Commendable,” Abul said in the same cold tone. “I suggest you continue on your way, Ahmed.”
“Why can’t my mother stay with us?” With an impassioned whine, Boabdil flung himself at his mother again, clinging to her waist. “I want to walk with my mother. It’s not fair that I cannot … I want to … I want to …” His voice rose with each repetition.
Whining must be the least attractive childhood feature, Sarita thought dispassionately. Whiners in the tumbling pack of children in the tribe received short shrift from their peers as well as their elders. Well, it was none of her business how the boy’s parents handled him, although it seemed to her that no one could be doing things too well, judging by his general lack of appeal. Deciding that she had no place in this scene, and particularly in view of Abul’s lackluster greeting, she moved away, intending to go back and take another fork in the path.
“Sarita, wait for me on the stone bench where the path divides. We will walk together.” Abul spoke peremptorily over his shoulder.
Sarita stopped and turned back to him, her eyes flashing green fire. “I have no desire to walk further, my lord caliph. I am returning to my prison.” Despite her irritation, she was hard put not to laugh aloud at the sheer surprise on Abul’s face. No one spoke in such tones to the caliph of Granada. Aicha gasped and for a moment forgot her son’s continued pleas.
Abul was momentarily at a loss for words, and the astonishing thought crossed his mind that women had suddenly become most troublesome.
While he stood thus silenced, Sarita moved swiftly away from the group, almost running back down the path, her hair swirling out behind her, her bare feet and strong brown legs seeming at one with the ground they covered. He was reminded again of some dainty forest creature, bounding away from him into the brush, unbroken by restraints, untouched by a domesticating hand.
He let her go, aware that a failed attempt to call her back would leave him at considerable disadvantage in front of his wife and son, who was still whimpering.
“Oh, be quiet, Boabdil,” he snapped. “You are far too old to cry like some infant. Take him away, Ahmed Eben.”
The tutor touched the child’s shoulder, but Boabdil kicked backward at him and clung tighter to Aicha’s waist. Abul took a step forward with a furious exclamation, and hastily Aicha loosened the child’s grip.
“Go with Ahmed, Boabdil,” she said, stroking his hair, wiping his tears with the edge of her scarf. “Oh, do not weep so, darling. Soon it will be sundown, and we will be together again. Then you can tell me everything you’ve been doing.”
Only a deaf man would fail to hear the message under the cajoling tones, Abul thought … the underlying message of conspiracy against the bad man. But at the moment, he could openly accuse Aicha of nothing. It was not impossible for the meeting to have been accidental, and on the surface she was behaving exactly as he would wish, sending the child on his way with cheerful promises of their next meeting. But how to circumvent that underlying message? And was it purely coincidence that Sarita had met up with Aicha and Boabdil? What conclusions had Sarita drawn from that nasty little scene? It certainly hadn’t put him in a particularly good light, if she chose to accept the surface and not look beneath it. And after last night, he had a fair idea where her sympathies would lie.
“I have asked you many times not to undermine what I am trying to achieve with our son,” he said when he and Aicha stood alone on the path. “Encouraging him to cling to you in that way can only do him a disservice. He has to learn to be more self-sufficient, to do things he doesn’t like or isn’t good at.”
Aicha lowered her eyes, the gesture as much to hide her true feelings as to imply submission. She must present Abul with the appearance of agreement. If she did not, there was no knowing what further restrictions he would place upon her. “I know you are right, Abul,” she said softly, “but it is so hard. He is still such a baby.”
“And he will remain so if you encourage him.” Abul looked closely at her. He didn’t believe the act, but he couldn’t challenge it. “When he is less dependent on you, then you may spend as much time with him as he will be able to spare from his duties and education.”
“Yes, I understand.” Aicha offered him a smile. “Last night, my lord Abul, brought me such a mixture of joy and pain. Such pain to think of all the nights my foolishness has deprived us both of the joy.” She touched his sleeve, careful to leave the invitation and plea for a repetition unspoken, except in her eyes, words, and gestures. She knew she had angered him again by this meeting with Boabdil, but she also knew he couldn’t be certain that she had contrived it. She must be extra careful next time, but she had wanted the Spanish woman to see the child, to see the child’s need of his mother, so that she could play on the sympathy Sarita must feel for so cruelly separated a pair. She must surely feel distaste for a man who would do such a thing, and distaste combined with resistance would make her a powerful ally.
Aicha’s mouth was smiling up at him, showing him the full set of white teeth of which she was so justly proud. Few women of the sultana’s age could boast such a feature. Their smiles offered gaps and blackened stumps as often as not. But her eyes were not smiling, Abul noted. They were all calculation. Beautiful though they were on the surface, there was no depth to them, only a cold flat plane. Why had he not noticed that before? Probably because he had never troubled to look. It was a dismaying thought. He hadn’t bothered because she was simply his wife … a wo
man.
A chill of premonition lifted the hairs on the nape of his neck and brought goose bumps prickling along his arms. Would he pay for such arrogant negligence? Pay in some incalculable way?
It was an absurd thought, some distemper brought about by the irritations of the morning. He turned from her with a dismissive gesture and strode back toward Sarita’s tower.
Aicha stood still, her hands pressed to her lips, until the cold fury at that abrupt dismissal had abated. He had treated her with such disdain, contemptuously ignored her soft words and sensual memories. And for the first time, the previously inconceivable took concrete shape.
If Abul repudiated her as his wife, then her son would cease to be his heir, and that would be the end of all her plans. Through Boabdil, she would eventually rule Granada. She would bind the child so completely to her that he would be unable to make a decision unless he consulted her first. In a few years, when he was grown, she would find the means to remove Muley Abul Hassan. Poison was the simplest, most efficient method, and she was well versed in its use. It would happen as long as she stayed close to Abul, receiving his trust and confidence: that trust and confidence she was trying so hard to regain. But if Abul found some other woman to set up in her place, then … then her careful training of her son would be in vain, her glorious plans so much chaff on the wind.
Slowly, she brought herself under control, allowed the fear and the fury to die. If a threat lay in the Spanish woman, then she would remove that threat permanently. But first, as she had already resolved, she must gain her confidence. So far Abul had not put any difficulties in the way of their meeting. Discretion would ensure that he didn’t do so.
