by Peter Kerr
The gatekeeper chuckled delightedly to himself while Pedrito shook what remained of the contents of the purse into his cupped hands.
Then, with the postern door finally open to the sound of waves lapping gently against the quayside, Farah said, ‘One last thing, Shafeeq – you’ve taken all our money, so I want you to shout to the guards and tell them to let us go on our way. We don’t want to step out there just to be herded up and brought back inside again.’
Shafeeq grinned as he trickled the coins from one hand to the other. ‘You’re not the first to leave the city tonight, and I doubt if you’ll be the last.’ He flicked a coin in the air. ‘As long as they can afford the price of kindness and compassion, of course!’
‘Well, we’ve paid through the nose for that,’ Farah retorted, ‘so kindly see to it that we’re allowed to go in peace.’
‘Go in peace?’ he guffawed. ‘And who’s going to stop you, huh? The more useless idiots like you who leave the city the better. All the less mouths to feed if the siege happens to last a while.’ He slapped the rump of Farah’s donkey. ‘Now, get out of my sight and let me go back to sleep!’
*
It had been Pedrito’s initial intention to take Farah and Saleema to the safety of his adoptive parents’ finca near Port d’Andratx, but he soon realised that the journey might well prove too long and arduous for Farah. Despite her gritty attitude, the lack of food had obviously had an adverse effect on her already frail physical condition. Furthermore, the road to Andratx would take them past the scenes of those first bloody encounters between the Christians and Moors, the same stretch of countryside inland from Santa Ponça where Saleema had said her own parents’ finca was located. Naturally, her first wish would be to be reunited with them, but from what Pedrito had seen of the devastation that had been wreaked upon some of the farmsteads thereabouts, he decided it would be kinder not to expose the girl to such potential grief so soon after her traumatic experiences of the previous day. Where, then, could he find a secure refuge for his mother and Saleema, at least until he had fulfilled his obligation of reporting to King Jaume? It was Farah herself, who, as if sensing Pedrito’s dilemma, came up with a possible solution.
After clearing the south-western perimeter of the city at daybreak, they had reached the road leading up from the coast at Porto Pi and were taking cover in a thicket of monte bajo while column after column of Christian forces trudged by on their daily trek northward to the vast new camp being constructed at El Real. While Pedrito knew that he could safely have presented himself to the leaders of the troops, who were fully aware of his mission, he thought it might have created problems to be seen in the company of two scruffily-dressed Muslim women, so keeping out of sight until the forces had passed appeared to be a more sensible course of action.
‘Your Christian king will be expecting you,’ Farah said to him at length. ‘And I can see you’re anxious to keep your word.’
Pedrito still wasn’t anywhere near coming to terms with the fact that King Jaume’s adversary in this war was actually his own father, so all he could manage to do was offer his mother an awkward little smile. ‘Well, a promise is a promise. But, to be honest, my main concern at this moment in time is to find somewhere safe for you both to stay until we see which way the war’s likely to go.’ He stroked his chin. ‘It isn’t easy. I mean, I’ll be expected to be on hand at the Christian camp, and at the same time I’ll want to be able to make sure whenever I can that you’re both all right too.’
Saleema looked at him in the way that a damsel in distress might regard a knight on a white charger galloping towards her turret.
This wasn’t lost on the ever-observant Farah, who smiled discreetly, then said to Pedrito, ‘I was born and brought up in a little settlement called Génova.’ She hooked her thumb over her shoulder. ‘It’s up on the slopes of Na Burguesa Mountain there – not far from where you said the most recent battle took place.’
‘I know where you mean. It was on a rise near there that King Jaume took his first look at Medîna Mayûrqa. Fantastic views of the city.’
‘Yes, and you can see all the way round to where your new Christian camp is being set up as well.’
Intrigued, Pedrito raised an eyebrow. ‘So?’
‘So, where better to be able to watch which way the war’s going?’
Pedrito was beginning to understand what his mother was getting at, but only just. ‘And it’s not too far from the camp at El Real for me to come over and check on your safety occasionally, right?’
‘And for us to check on your safety as well,’ Farah came back. ‘King Abû has war engines too, you know.’
But Pedrito was far from convinced. He shook his head. ‘No, there would have been terrible damage done to the Génova area when the Christian soldiers raked through at the end of that battle. There may not even be a house still standing.’
‘Maybe so, but who’s talking about houses?’
Confused, Pedrito frowned. ‘But you can’t just sleep behind a wall. It’s getting cold at night now, and there could still be more autumn storms. Gales. Thunder and lightning. Rain coming down in sheets. You’ll need a roof over your heads!’
‘There’s plenty of room at my parents’ finca,’ Saleema piped up. ‘We could be there in a couple of hours or so, and my mother and father would be delighted to have Farah as their guest.’
Pedrito didn’t hesitate to pooh-pooh this suggestion. Although he couldn’t let on to Saleema, there was every chance that her parents might not even be alive now. ‘Trouble is,’ he said, ‘I haven’t time to go that far with you at the moment, and I’m not letting the pair of you go on your own. It’s a bandits’ free-for-all along that road now, you know. Besides, even if you did make it, you’d be too far away for me to come and check on you regularly.’ He shook his head again. ‘No, you’d be much better tucked away for a while up in the hills there by Génova.’ Pedrito responded to Saleema’s downcast expression by promising that he would, however, take her home to her parents at the earliest possible opportunity. He then cast Farah a searching look. ‘But you’ll still need a roof over your heads. And you say this won’t be a problem, even if there isn’t a house left standing up there?’
Farah dug her heel into the donkey’s ribs. ‘Just follow Lucky and me,’ she said with a self-assured nod of her head. ‘I know the very place.’
*
There was certainly ample evidence of the aftermath of battle to be seen as they made the ascent towards Génova hamlet. Large sections of the drystone walls retaining the tilled bancales had been knocked down, allowing the ochre soil to spill over the terraces and bury any crops that hadn’t already been trampled flat by the retreating troops and their pursuers. Farmhouses had also been damaged, some showing signs of having been torched, others comparatively unscathed, but most with their livestock enclosures torn open. Clearly, either the fleeing Moors had been hell-bent on denying the victorious Christians access to captive supplies of meat, or the Christians had seen fit to make ongoing life as difficult as possible for the local Moorish people, innocent and unthreatening as they might be.
Though many of these farms appeared to have been abandoned, a few, surprisingly, were still occupied, as witness the stoical attempts being made by folk to make good the damage done to their homes and fields. Hens were still pecking away in some back yards, and a scattering of sheep and goats could be seen grazing freely here and there on the pine-studded hillsides. There were even a few families, armed with long canes, determinedly knocking the autumn crop of almonds from their trees in the time-honoured way. Life, despite everything, was going on.
Yet there existed a harsh reminder that death was also present. Although out of sight, the scene of the most recent battle was only a short way over the lower folds of the Serra de Na Burguesa. From there, the fetor of decomposing flesh now drifted upwards on a gentle sea breeze which, only a few days earlier, would have breathed an invigorating whiff of brine into the island’s mountai
n air.
With Pedrito and Saleema following gamely behind, Farah urged Lucky onwards and upwards through a patchwork of little farms until they came to a narrow shoulder of flat land, where the ground rose steeply through woods on one side and fell away steadily towards the coast and the island’s central plain on the other. As Farah had said, there was an uninterrupted view all the way from Porto Pi northward round the city to the Christian encampment at El Real.
Viewed from up here, the tents of the camp appeared no bigger than neatly arranged rows of wheat grains, and while it was impossible to actually see the Christians’ seige engines, bursts of dust erupting from the city walls revealed that the bombardment of Medîna Mayûrqa was already under way. Also, what looked like tiny balls of fire could be seen rising in high arcs from the camp to plunge down inside the city’s outer defences. Pockets of flame flickered among the buildings where these projectiles landed, producing plumes of smoke that spiralled upwards into the cloudless morning sky. While there was no such visual indication of reprisals by the Moors, Pedrito assumed, from what he had been told by the three mercenaries at the inn, that their fearsome algarradas would be returning the Christian artillery assault with equal ferocity.
However, he was standing some three miles away from the action, so not the faintest echo could be heard of the terrible din that must have been accompanying these first serious salvoes of the seige. Silence, in fact, was a conspicuous feature of the landscape that Pedrito now found himself in. It was as if the things of nature, though far from this latest outburst of human violence, had reacted in the same way as they had to the earlier encounters between the two armies. Not a bird sang, not a leaf stirred. Even the soothing jangle of sheep bells which had resonated round the hillsides down by the hamlet of Génova could no longer be heard. This little sliver of uninhabited land was steeped in an eerie hush that, to Pedrito, seemed totally at odds with the breathtaking beauty of the place. Saleema, who had been clinging to his hand all the way up the mountainside, shivered as she too became aware of this.
In contrast, Farah appeared hardly troubled at all, the only negative aspect of her demeanour being a trace of disappointment in her voice when she began to relate how this secluded spot had been a favourite place for her and a few friends to come and play when they were children. Even then, the little wedge of land had only been used to graze sheep and goats on weeds that grew between the gap-tooth rows of ancient olive and almond trees after the spring and autumn rains. The presence of those selfsame trees suggested that this tiny finca had once been carefully tended, but had ultimately been abandoned, perhaps because of its remoteness from the ‘hub’ of the scattered Génova community, or perhaps because the fertility of the soil had been exhausted by over-grazing, as was often the case on the poorer mountain farms.
Be that as it may, according to Farah there had at least been some life about the place back then, even if only when used as a playground for the handful of children who could be bothered coming up here. But, she sighed, by the looks of things now, it seemed that even the local kids had long since forsaken what she and her friends had regarded as a special hideaway of their very own – a secret eyrie from where they could look out over what they thought was the entire world.
Pedrito could see what she meant, but what her reminiscing hadn’t explained was why, apart from its secluded and elevated location, she had chosen this place as a refuge for herself and Saleema. He looked around for a sign of somewhere that would provide a roof over their heads, but there wasn’t even a ruined wall for them to shelter behind – only those few ancient trees, standing forlornly on an otherwise empty sliver of land.
Farah read his puzzled expression. ‘Look over there,’ she said, nodding in the direction of a rocky overhang at the landward side of the field. ‘What do you see?’
Pedrito raised his shoulders. ‘A rocky overhang?’
Farah widened her eyes, inviting further speculation.
Pedrito repeated his gesture. ‘The base of a little cliff with some old vines clambering along it?’
Farah allowed herself a mischievous smirk. ‘Precisely, and that’s what will provide a roof over our heads.’
Mystified, Pedrito and Saleema looked at each other, then at Farah. ‘Those old vines?’ they asked in unison.
Chuckling to herself, Farah gave Lucky the donkey a kick in the ribs. ‘Follow me, children! Follow me!’
*
What the vines had been concealing was a heap of boulders, which in turn hid the entrance to a cave.
‘People must have lived in here at one time,’ said Farah, holding her lantern up to what looked like primitive animal drawings on the walls, ‘but not even the local shepherds knew about it when I was a child. That rockfall covering the entrance could have happened hundreds, maybe thousands, of years ago. So, who knows,’ she shrugged, ‘maybe us nosey kids from the village were the first to set foot in here in all that time?’ She laid the lantern on a little ledge just above her head, then gave Saleema a reassuring smile. ‘Anyway, it’s home sweet home for us now, habib – for a while anyway.’
Saleema smiled back, though without much conviction. When she had made her dash for freedom from the Almudaina Palace, she had only been wearing flimsy slippers on her feet, which were now cut and bruised from the climb up the rough mountain tracks. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she had had to rely on Pedrito to haul her up some of the steeper inclines, so her arms and back were now starting to ache in sympathy with the soles of her feet. Taking a deep, quivering breath, she glanced round the spartan conditions inside the cave, her facial expression suggesting that this sudden change from the luxurious surroundings of the harem could take a bit of getting used to. Her bottom lip began to tremble.
Farah patted her on the head, then, maintaining a cheery façade, she addressed Pedrito with mock haughtiness. ‘Now then, my boy, if you’ll help unload the rest of my wordly possessions from my pack animal’s back, I’ll start to make things comfortable for our little lady here.’
Once again, Pedrito found himself admiring the pluck of this woman. Although he wasn’t yet able to easily regard her as his mother, so long had someone else occupied that special place in his heart, he couldn’t help but recognise a steely determination in her that was also a trait of his own. That said, she had endured far worse tribulations in her life than he had, and even now, when she must have been on the verge of collapsing from hunger and the fatigue of the journey, she was still able to find the generosity of spirit to think more of someone else’s immediate wellbeing than her own. It was a rare attribute, and one worthy of trying to emulate.
Saleema seemed to pick up on this. Wiping a tear of self-pity from the corner of her eye, she took Farah’s arm and helped her sit down on a rock. Then, dusting off her hands, she chirpily said, ‘Well then, Pedrito my boy, you heard what your mother said, so let’s unload the donkey and start to make this cave a home!’
In reality, there wasn’t that much to unload. Farah’s wordly possessions amounted to a couple of blankets, a few basic kitchen utensils, a cup, a bowl, an earthenware pot, a bottle of oil, a little pouch of salt, some candles, and a small piece of flint with its striking iron – all in addition, of course, to the lantern, which she had already drawn into service.
While Pedrito and Saleema went about their task, Farah explained that, a little farther into the cave, there was a hole in the roof, and if you lit a fire immediately below it, the smoke would be drawn up to emerge through a small opening in the ground a few hundred paces higher up the mountain. As children, she and her friends had recognised the twin values of this natural chimney – one, that it kept the cave entirely free of smoke, and two, that the place where the smoke eventually emerged gave no clue as to the actual location of the cave. She then disclosed that, round a corner just a little way beyond the ‘fireplace’, there was another chamber, much larger than the one they were in now, where, over the ages, a small lake had been formed by water seeping down through the
limestone to drip from stalactites dangling from the roof like giant, misshapen carrots. That water, Farah assured them, was the sweetest and purest you could ever hope to taste.
So much for warmth and water, thought Pedrito, but what about food? Without that, the natural ‘comforts’ of the cave would soon count for nothing. He put this to Farah.
She chuckled again. ‘Well, the field outside may not be producing much these days, but what little food it does provide will keep us going for a bit.’
Pedrito and Saleema looked at her, their heads canted inquisitively.
Farah reached out and took the bowl that Saleema was holding. ‘It’s autumn, the season for harvesting almonds and olives and grapes, and there’s plenty of those out there.’ She tapped the bowl. ‘So, if we fill this whenever we’re hungry, we won’t starve.’
Pedrito frowned. ‘You’d need to soak the olives for a few weeks to get rid of the bitterness before you could eat them, though.’
Farah shrugged. ‘Well, we’ve plenty of water, and I daresay we’ll have plenty of time too … inshallah’
She noticed the look on Pedrito’s face becoming even more concerned. ‘And, don’t worry – I’ll make sure we get some meat as well.’
‘Meat?’ he frowned.
‘Well, maybe not exactly meat, but as near it as a barren little field like that can provide.’ Farah paused for a few moments, enjoying the looks of utter puzzlement on Pedrito and Saleema’s faces. ‘Again, it’s autumn,’ she went on, ‘and we’re bound to get some more rain.’ She indicated the lantern on the ledge above her head. ‘And at night, after the rain, we’ll take the light and go hunting.’
