by Jane Feather
It should be possible to scare him into silence, at least until they were beyond the walls of the Alhambra; his father was already an ogre. Unfortunately, the boy had been so overjoyed at being freed from his tutor and given into the exclusive hands of his mother that she had been able to make little capital out of their imprisonment. Boabdil did not seem to see it as such at all, and since he was taken out every morning by the soldiers for walks and rides, and was provided with all his favorite delicacies, it was no wonder that the truth of the situation failed to impress him.
Aicha turned the slip of silk over. It was blank on the back. Nafissa would expect a return message, delivered in the same way. Presumably she waited for the tray in the kitchens. She would come with them, of course, and since she was a native of the city of Granada, she could presumably arrange through her family for horses and an escort to await them on the riverbank beyond the city. In the dark hours before dawn, they should be able to make good their escape, and Aicha would be under her father’s protection in half a day.
But it must be soon. Swiftly, she sharpened her quill and began to scratch upon the silk.
“What are you up to?”
“I thought I would try my legs.” Sarita looked up, smiling, as Abul came into the sleeping chamber. She had been sitting on the edge of the divan, thoughtfully swinging her legs while she tried to decide whether they would hold her as far as the open door to the portico.
“Do you have Muhamed Alahma’s permission?” He adopted a mock stern mien even as his heart sang with relief and gratitude for the life that had been given back to him.
“Not exactly,” Sarita said, flexing her toes. “The subject hasn’t been mentioned.”
“Then put yourself back to bed.” Abul leaned over her and swung her legs back onto the divan. “You do nothing without his specific agreement.”
“Oh, such nonsense,” she said. “I am perfectly well again, only a trifle feeble because of all that dreadful medicine they gave me to make me vomit.” She took his hand as he sat on the divan beside her and squeezed his fingers hard. She remembered little of that hideous time; only the fact of Abul stood out clear. As she had drifted in the inert wasteland on the borders of death, yielding the struggle because it was easier to give in to the pain and the weakness than to fight it, Abul had seemed to enter her body. She still didn’t know how he had done it, but he had forced her to open her eyes, and his own had consumed her as she lay looking up at him. She had fixed her being, her core, on those piercing black lights that drew her forth from the depths of the shroud that had become her body, brought her into the light, compelled her to stay there, holding her with invisible, unbreakable chains.
Abul returned the squeeze and propped up the pillows behind her before hitching himself onto the divan to lie alongside her. It had been only a week since that morning and the longest day he had ever spent. At first it had seemed as if the pastilles would not work. Sarita had lain inert for hours, and the physician had said that if the body wouldn’t fight, the antidote could not work alone. In desperation Abul had begun to speak to her, forcefully, angrily, commandingly, shaking her slight shoulders for emphasis as he told her to open her eyes, to hold on to him, that he had strength enough for both of them. And she had done so, at long, long last. A flicker of recognition had appeared in the dull eyes, and her gaze had held. When the violent spasms had racked her body, he had refused to let her slip back, fought to infuse her with his own strength, and somehow it had happened. The paroxysms had weakened as the eternal day mercifully became night and the physician’s pastilles began to do their work. He had not slept all that night lest she slip back without his physical presence to hold on to, and by morning she had fallen into a sleep that seemed normal.
Muhamed Alahma had nodded and offered no opinion, either reassuring or negative, but he had continued to place the pastilles on her tongue; and with amazing speed, it seemed, as startling as the sudden deterioration, Sarita had returned fully to the land of the living, the violent effects of the deadly bane neutralized.
Now a touch of mischief shone in her eyes as she rested her head in the crook of his shoulder and stroked his mouth with a finger. “I feel a great need to visit the baths, my lord caliph. I am sure it will have the most restorative effect.”
Abul chuckled and sucked her exploring finger into his mouth, nipping the tip. “If you wish for a bath, cara, I will arrange it for you, but in here. You’re not strong enough for outside journeys as yet.”
“No, perhaps not,” she agreed. “And certainly not for the cold water and the chamber that makes one melt.” She sat up, suddenly restless. “I really do not feel like lying here, Abul. My legs are twitching with the need to move. I am going to walk to the portico. You may support me if you wish it.”
Abul sighed and accepted the inevitable. He watched as she pushed herself off the bed, stood for a minute, frowning slightly as she tested her strength, then took a firm step. “See, I am perfectly capable,” she crowed triumphantly, walking to the open doorway.
Abul followed her at a discreet distance, ready to lend a supporting hand if she needed it, but apparently she didn’t. At the doorway, she leaned against a column and breathed deeply of the wonderfully fresh air.
“When I was sometimes half of this world and half not, Abul, I heard things spoken.” She didn’t look at him, her eyes on the green finches trilling in the cage, on the gentle rise and fall of the fountain in the center of the court. “I heard talk of poison.” She caressed the cool marble of the pillar against which she leaned, fingering the elaborate curlicues finely traced with gold leaf. “There was no infection taken, was there? Who wished me dead?”
Abul stood just behind her. He had hoped to spare her this knowledge of Aicha’s enmity. It seemed there would be little to gain but further hurt. Aicha would harm no one again, he would ensure that. But in the face of Sarita’s direct question, he could not dissemble.
“Aicha.”
She said nothing for a minute, resting her forehead against the pillar; then her shoulders lifted in an infinitesimal shrug. “I should have guessed. She is a woman of powerful drives. I often felt that I was hindering her in some way. Where is she?”
“Confined with Boabdil in the tower of the cadi. I am arranging to send them both into exile in Morocco.”
“You would visit the sins of the mother upon the child?” She turned to look at him, her expression one he recognized, pregnant with the indignation of the enlightened. In the past it had irritated him, but today it filled him with the joy of renewal.
“They prefer to be together. To separate the child permanently from his mother struck me as the height of cruelty,” he explained calmly. “Do you believe me wrong?”
Sarita shook her head. “No … no … but what of his future? He will grow to manhood and not need his mother. Surely you will not deprive him of—”
“That is for the future,” Abul interrupted. “I will do the best for him that I can.”
Sarita believed him and laid the issue to rest. There would be no need to talk again of the woman who had tried to contrive her death. Aicha had seen a threat in her husband’s love for Sarita, a threat Sarita could not identify, but she had recognized the fact instinctively from the first moment she had laid eyes on the sultana. But it was not necessary now to explore or to hide the contentious subject with Abul, or to talk of the child, no longer to be torn between his parents. She lifted her head to the sun’s warmth.
“Who will be your principal wife, then, if you are to repudiate Aicha? Will you take Farah and make little Salim your heir?”
Abul frowned. Sarita did have the most exasperating tendency to bring up inapposite subjects at inopportune moments. “I have not thought about it,” he said. “In the last days, I have had no time for thinking of anything but you, hija mía.”
She turned, leaning against the pillar at her back, and smiled, her eyes narrowed. “Oh, dear, I have trod on your toes again. I cannot seem to stop myself
from asking the questions that interest me.”
He couldn’t help laughing. “I believe you do it deliberately, Sarita. But I am not going to respond to provocation today. You are by no means strong enough for what would then ensue.”
“Am I not?” She scrunched her eyes, peering mischievously up at him. “And who says not?”
“I say not.” Still laughing, he went back inside, ringing the handbell that would bring Kadiga and Zulema. “Sarita wishes a bath,” he told them. “Have it prepared in the outer chamber.”
“And jugs of hot water for my hair,” Sarita said, appearing from the portico, running her hands with a grimace through the lank, dull strands. “And bring my clothes, if you please. I shall bathe and dress. I have had quite enough of lying abed.”
“If Muhamed Alahma agrees,” Abul said mildly. “We will consult him first.”
The physician had no quarrel with Sarita’s resurgence of energy. “The woman is young,” he said to Abul with an accepting shrug. “Young and strong. So long as she listens to her body, she will come to no further harm.”
“What did I say?” Sarita murmured once the physician had left the chamber. “I said I was strong enough for anything that might ensue, did I not?”
“We shall see,” Abul said slowly, making it sound like a promise. “Let us see what ensues from the bath.”
“Oh …” She lay back against the pillows of the divan. “You mean apart from clean hair and skin?”
He nodded. “Yes, apart from those things.”
“You have something in mind, perhaps?”
“Perhaps.”
“Of course,” she mused, “when it comes to baths, you are a consummate inventor and practitioner.”
“Consummate.”
“Mmmmm.” Her eyes closed dreamily. “I feel like …”
“What do you feel like?” He knelt on the bed beside her, touching her mouth, her eyes. “Tell me what you feel like, Sarita. Tell me what would pleasure you.”
“I have no need to tell you,” she whispered. “You always know.”
He kept his hands on her face, but a grave look showed in his eagle’s eyes as he knelt upright. “On such a subject, there is something, Sarita, that we must talk of. That last time—”
“I know,” she broke in, catching his wrists. “But I was so afraid, Abul. So afraid of what I was feeling … of what I was not feeling. I thought if I pretended, it would come back. I know it was an indefensible thing to do.” Her eyes raked his face anxiously.
“We were both at fault,” he said. “I also was afraid … too afraid to confront you. We must never do such a thing again … show such lack of trust again.”
“Never,” she promised softly. “But we are still learning about each other, querido. One makes mistakes.”
He nodded and leaned over her, his lips replacing his fingers on her face. “Trust me to bring you only the sweetest joy, Sarita mía.”
She caught his hands between her own, filled suddenly with an overwhelming emotion, a deep upsurge of love that brought tears to her eyes. “I belong to you in some way,” she whispered. “How does it happen that I feel that?”
“We belong to each other,” he asserted, smudging a tear with his thumb. “Don’t weep, cara.”
“I am not sad,” she said, sniffing and smiling. “I am very happy. But I do want a bath. I don’t feel at all appealing at the moment, and I shall not until I am clean and have washed my hair.”
“I will do it for you.”
“No,” she said firmly. “Kadiga and Zulema will help me. You are to go away and not come back until I send for you.”
Abul looked absurdly disappointed. “But I thought I was going to use my powers of invention—”
“No!” Laughingly she interrupted him. “Not this time. This is work for women, Abul, and you would only be in the way.”
“No one has ever told me I would be in the way before.”
“That is because no one has ever dared,” she replied with a serene smile. “Your consequence has been overly inflated.”
“When I return,” said Abul, stepping off the divan, “we shall reopen this discussion. I would take issue with you on several matters.”
“That sounds most promising,” she said. “Be off about your business now. I am sure you have sadly neglected things with all this sickroom attendance.” She waved an airily dismissive hand at him. “You may return in two hours. I shall be ready for you then.”
Her voice was haughty, her nose in the air, her expression one of lofty dignity. Abul stared at her for a minute, nonplussed by the novel sensation of being a petitioner denied an immediate audience. Then he gave a shout of laughter.
“Wicked one! You look just like an impudent sparrow pretending to be a peacock. You haven’t the stature for arrogance … and don’t pout, either, it doesn’t suit you.” He bent to kiss her as she pulled a mock offended face. “I would have you remember that these are my apartments and I will return when I choose.” He pinched her nose and straightened. “And when I do return, we will get down to some unfinished business.”
“Some postponed promises, you mean,” Sarita said.
“If you wish to put it that way,” he agreed cordially, going through the arched, curtained doorway into the main chamber. “Do not let Sarita overtax her strength,” he said to Kadiga, who was pouring steaming jugs of water into a round wooden bathtub set before a charcoal brazier that was warming the room to combat any possible chill on a mountain morning in February.
“Of course not, my lord,” the woman answered placidly, sprinkling dried lavender and rose petals on the water.
“I do not need a nursemaid,” Sarita announced from the doorway, having overheard this exchange. “I am capable of judging my strength for myself.”
Abul raised his hands in a placatory gesture. “As you wish, hija mía, as you wish. But there’ll be no promises kept if I find you fatigued on my return.” On which parting thrust he left his apartments to the women, reflecting how easily he had adapted to the loss of his privacy. So easily, in fact, that he was not at all sure he wished Sarita to return to her tower once she was completely restored to health and strength. Perhaps he could organize some compromise whereby she had her own apartments adjoining his. The walk to and from the perimeter tower was certainly an inconvenience, for all that the hours they had spent alone there had had a very special quality of exclusivity.
In the chamber he used for conducting everyday business, he found two men waiting for him. They were both part of the army of eyes and ears he had working for him in the kingdom outside the Alhambra, and they had brought perturbing news.
“There is much talk among the Mocarabes, my lord, of the Christian woman,” the taller of the two said somewhat diffidently. “Ahmed ben Kaled brought a tale to the emir that has caused many councils to be held.”
“A tale of what?” Abul inquired, seating himself at the long table beneath a tall window standing open to the mountains. He was relatively untroubled by the information, having expected it to some extent after the incident with Kaled.
“A tale that the caliph is neglecting his governance because of the woman,” the other man said, toying with the dagger at his belt, avoiding meeting the caliph’s eye.
Abul was now startled. Such a construction had not occurred to him. And however could it have originated? Sarita’s presence in the Alhambra had not been common knowledge until Kaled’s visit. Or had it … ? Was Aicha’s hand to be found in this? “There is more?” he invited, with no indication of his racing thoughts.
“The Abencerrajes, my lord,” the first man said. “They have been summoned by the emir of the Mocarabes to a council. It is said for the same reason. I believe messengers bearing the summons and the reason for it have gone out to other families in the kingdom.”
Abul tapped his fingers on the table in a steady rhythm, making no immediate response. He could not afford to ignore this information, treat the whisperings with the contempt they de
served. The rumor must be scotched, the conspiracies dismantled before they had been truly hatched. How to do that?
“You did well to bring me this information without delay,” he said finally. “I would have you return to your posts and keep me informed of all developments, however trivial they may seem.”
The two bowed low and left the caliph’s presence. Abul sat for a long time in the contemplative peace of his office. He had to act strongly to prove that he was still very much at the helm. Some martial foray to benefit the kingdom as a whole would be the most convincing … but there was no apparent need for militant action at the moment. The Spaniards were quiet across the border; brigands within were generally under control. Perhaps a show of outrage at the rumors …
Perhaps he should descend upon his father-in-law and the gathered clans in a cloud of wrath, demanding satisfaction for their calumny. Of course, relations with the emir of the Mocarabes were not going to be improved by the caliph’s repudiation and punishment of the emir’s daughter. Particularly when her offense concerned the Christian woman in question. It would add the fuel of outrage to the fire. For the moment, it was known to no one. But it could not be long before the news leaked out. And once he had banished Aicha from the Alhambra, there would be no concealing anything.
He stood up and went to the window. Why was he concerned to conceal anything? He had behaved legitimately. He had no reason to defend his actions to his father-in-law. Aicha had attempted murder. It was a crime punishable by death regardless of the identity of the intended victim. But the proof of guilt was murky.
Then again, a man had the right to repudiate a wife whom he no longer found satisfactory. The emir had no just cause for complaint there. But he would need no just cause to foment rebellion. A believable fabrication would do. And Abul held his position on a knife edge in a land of rivalry and dissension. It was always the way. It had been so with his father, and he assumed it would be so with whoever came after him. Not Boabdil … the emir’s grandson disinherited … yet another snake to add to the pit.
