by Peter Kerr
‘Well, if I grant some land at Sa Palomera to Ali – which I fully intend to do – surely it’s only right and proper that I do even more for you – considering the greater contribution you’ve made to my efforts.’
Pedrito shook his head. ‘While I appreciate your generosity, senyor, you mustn’t feel that you owe me anything. As you will recall, on the very first day of our voyage here, you took one of the two tillers from me to help steer your galley through that terrible storm.’
King Jaume smiled reflectively. ‘The day that would change my life, I’d said before setting sail. But it was keeping on through that first storm that turned out to be the deciding factor, no?’
‘The first of a few deciding factors,’ Pedrito ventured, mirroring the king’s smile. ‘But at the end of the watch that you helped me struggle through on that occasion, you told me you had done me a favour. I promised I would repay it, and I have done no more than that in any help I’ve given you since. So,’ he concluded with another shake of his head, ‘you owe me nothing. All I ask now is that I’m allowed to live in peace where my heart is – at home, on the little farm my father – my adoptive father, my true father – lived and worked on so contentedly all of his days.’
‘And so you shall,’ the king whispered keenly. He threw an arm round Pedrito’s shoulder and gave him a hug. ‘And so you shall.’ Then he pushed Pedrito away and patted his cheeks with both hands. ‘However, I have greater things in store for you as well,’ he declared. ‘Much greater things!’ He moved in close and lowered his voice again. ‘For it’s no secret that I was hardly one of the richest kings in Christendom when I agreed to lead this crusade, and now more wealth than I ever dreamt of is mine – even after every man with me has taken his share.’ He swept his arm in a wide arc. ‘And when all of the island has been purged of the infidel trespassers, I will populate it with good Christian stock from Catalonia and Aragon, and even from France. Good Christians like yourself, Little Pedro, who will help make Mallorca the heaven on earth our Lord God Almighty intended it to be.’ He raised his eyes and offered up a silent prayer, before smiling at Pedrito and saying, ‘But the details can wait for another day, amic. So, off you go now on that old hack of yours – home to your little farm, and’ – he winked suggestively – ‘to enjoy some time alone with your beautiful little Mooress, eh!’
*
King Jaume had insisted on Robert St Clair de Roslin and two armed squires accompanying Pedrito to the city limits. Looting, wanton violence and murder were rife within the capital, with mobs of Christian soldiers running amok in a fever of greed and lust. Even oil lamps that had famously illuminated the streets had been torn from walls and thrown into houses newly stripped on their valuables. The flicker of flames and the sickly-sweet smell of fresh blood mingled with the roars of the rampaging victors and the screams of their victims as Pedrito and his escorts made their way towards the Gate of Chains.
This was the same gate by which Pedrito had both entered and left the city on the fateful night he had first been thrown together with his mother and Saleema. But now, instead of approaching it through the cramped dinginess of the kasbah, he was passing along a wide avenue which, only a few hours earlier, would still have stood as a shining example of many virtues of Moorish culture, from the magnificence of its architecture to the serenity of the scholars, poets, artists and philosophers strolling through lovingly manicured gardens.
What, he wondered, would be the thoughts of the Christian God, whose devotees had won this battle against those of His Muslim equivalent, if He could actually look down on the mindless destruction now being carried out to His eternal glory? What, he wondered, would be His verdict on those of His followers who had slaughtered thousands of vanquished Muslims, including defenceless women and children, without even a moment’s thought of giving them a chance to convert to Christianity?
Yet King Jaume had made it known from the outset that full remission of sins would be granted to those who helped him achieve his goal. The papal legate who had bestowed the sign of the cross upon him before he embarked on this campaign had confirmed that such a concession had been authorised by God’s personal emissary on earth himself. So, it followed that the appalling crimes now being committed during the sacking of the city would be regarded by the perpetrators as sins from which they were instantly forgiven – given that they even saw their actions as sinful at all.
‘I wish you good luck, laddie,’ Robert St Clair said to Pedrito when they reached the gate. ‘You’ll need it. For, much as I envy you your beautiful wee Moorish lass, I wouldn’t want your problems when the priests start doing what they came here to do.’
‘I’ll just have to hope King Jaume intervenes in our favour,’ Pedrito shrugged.
‘Aye, well, King Jaume thinks a lot of you, and there’s no denying that. Even regards you as a friend. But never forget that he’s controlled by the Church, and the rules are clear – Muslims either convert or … well, at best they’ll be expelled, if they can afford to pay for the privilege.’
Pedrito pondered the fact that none of the thousands now lying dead in the streets had been offered the option. Whatever money or valuables they possessed had been taken from them, along with their lives – no questions asked. ‘It seems strange that it’s regarded as a sin to marry a Muslim,’ he reflected aloud, while looking back towards the sounds of brutality and terror echoing through the city, ‘but not a sin to kill one – or many.’
‘Ah,’ Robert said sagely, ‘but this is a holy war, don’t forget.’
‘It’s certainly a religious one,’ Pedrito muttered, recalling the contention made by al-Usstaz, his philosphising companion back on the pirate galley, ‘but that isn’t necessarily the same thing.’
‘You’d better keep such provocative thoughts to yourself if your new landlord pays you a visit,’ Robert advised. ‘He’s a stern man, that Berenguer de Palou, and he didn’t become Bishop of Barcelona by condoning blasphemous utterings from anyone.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Pedrito replied. ‘King Jaume told me exactly the same thing himself. But don’t worry, I’m not about to commit verbal suicide. Anyway,’ he continued, deciding a change of subject was called for, ‘what of you, Robert? I suppose you’ll be going back to your homeland, now that your work here is done?’
‘No, no, no,’ Robert chuckled. ‘The stags will be safe from my arrows for a wee while yet. No, the real work of us Templars hasn’t even started here. We’ll be given our share of the lands and wealth of the island, as agreed – and without having to pay the king a one-fifth cut of the booty that he gets from everyone else, by the way. And in return we’ll establish a proper seat for our order here – you know, to help Christian pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land. And then, if I’m lucky, I’ll go on a crusade to Jerusalem myself one day. Oh aye,’ he said expansively, ‘the Scottish stags will be safe from my arrows for a wee while yet, right enough.’
‘Then maybe I’ll meet up with you again here on Mallorca,’ Pedrito grinned. ‘If you’re ever down Andratx way, just ask anyone where my little finca is. You’ll always be made welcome, humble though it is.’
Robert gave Pedrito’s hand a hearty shake. ‘Good luck again, my friend. I hope the angels who gave you the gift of your bonnie lass will bless you both with a long life together.’ He feigned a cough. ‘Ah-ehm, after endowing her with the wisdom to embrace the one true Faith, of course.’
THE FOLLOWING DAY, 1st JANUARY 1230 – OVERLOOKING THE BAY OF ANDRATX, SOUTH-WEST MALLORCA…
When Pedrito approached the old Ensenyat’s farm, dawn was only just breaking over the crest of the little hill they called Turtle Mountain on the road between the inland village of Andratx and its eponymous Port. Yet here was Nedi galloping towards him over the bridge spanning the Torrent de Saluet. And there, on the other side, was Saleema, standing just as Pedrito remembered her when they’d bid one another a poignant farewell a week that seemed like a lifetime ago.
‘He’s been scratching at the door for the
past hour,’ she said, taking Pedrito’s hand as he got down from old Tranquilla’s back. ‘It’s as if he knew you were coming.’
Nedi, meanwhile, had sat himself down between them, gazing up, first at one and then the other, the customary ‘gormless’ smile and dangling tongue indicating his delight at having his little family back together again.
Pedrito patted his head. ‘Dogs know things us humans don’t, eh, Nedi?’
‘I think so,’ said Saleema, ‘because, once he’d got me out of bed, he took me by the finger tips and pulled me along here as fast as I could run.’
Pedrito smiled wistfully. ‘Just as he did to me at El Real when…’ The words stuck in his throat. He tickled Nedi under his chin. ‘Yes, dogs know more than we give them credit for, don’t they, boy?’
‘And the way he’s sitting there,’ Saleema said, ‘I think he’s acting as my chaperon.’ She batted her eyelashes at Pedrito. ‘Doesn’t want you to get too close to me, hmm?’
Pedrito gave her a blank look. ‘Maybe he isn’t so smart after all then, huh?’
‘Or smarter than you think.’ Saleema sniffed the air. ‘I’ve never smelt a battle-soiled soldier before, but if you’re a typical example, I wouldn’t want to get any nearer one until he’s had a good scrub!’ With that, she skipped off laughing towards the Ensenyat finca, with Nedi trotting by her side and Pedrito leading a weary old Tranquilla along behind.
*
‘This time for good?’ Senyora Ensenyat said to Pedrito when she and old Baltazar met him at the door. There was an enquiring smile on her face as she reached up to kiss his cheeks, but there was a distinctly more serious look on it when she pulled away. ‘This time for good!’ she growled, repeating the words that had haunted Pedrito on his way back to El Real and an unknown fate seven days previously. She poked him in the chest with her finger and gave him a motherly scowl. ‘You’ve returned safely, as we prayed you would every moment you were gone, so make sure it is for good this time! Promise?’
Pedrito gave her a reassuring pat on the hand. ‘I promise that if I ever have to leave here again, it won’t be by choice – just as I had little say in the matter on the two previous occasions. First a bump on the head by pirates, then the call of a king, remember?’
‘That’s hardly the sort of promise this young lady needs from you,’ Senyora Ensenyat scolded, hooking a thumb in Saleema’s direction. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are, Little Pedro!’
Pedrito glanced at Saleema, who was standing behind the old lady, batting her eyelashes at him again, an impish smile dimpling her cheeks.
Her girlie wiles hadn’t gone unnoticed by old Baltazar, however. With a wink to Pedrito, he laid a hand on his wife’s shoulder. ‘Preciosa,’ he said patiently, ‘I think Little Pedro will know how lucky he is.’ He then winked at Saleema. ‘I know I would … if I were fifty years younger!’
And so the sound of laughter rang out over the little valley, heralding what Pedrito hoped in his heart of hearts would be the start of a life of peace and simple contentment in a place he’d constantly dreamed of returning to during the dark years of his exile. Yet even as he was sharing this longed-for moment with Saleema and his elderly neighbours, the fever of plunder and bloodshed was still raging back in the city; a disease that would spread like a plague as King Jaume fulfilled his solemn vow to purge the entire island of everything and everyone Muslim.
This was an understandable source of anxiety for Saleema. She’d made no mention of it during the hearty homecoming meal that Senyora Ensenyat had insisted on preparing for a suitably scrubbed Pedrito. And, although she had avoided broaching the subject during the hours she’d spent strolling with him round the deserted sweep of Andratx cove that same afternoon, it was one that was bound to surface sooner rather than later. And it did.
As evening fell, they climbed the gentle rise from the shore and paused in the little vegetable garden of Pedrito’s family home, there to watch the sun go down over the Punta Moragues headland at the western extremity of the bay. Pedrito led Saleema to a place where, perhaps centuries earlier, someone had removed the top few courses of rough-hewn stone from the horta’s enclosing wall and replaced them with a flat slab, broad enough for a few people to sit side-by-side. This was the very spot where he, his parents and little Esperança had spent countless evenings just like this, delighting in the views of the bay, the pine-cloaked arms of its enfolding hills, and beyond to the spangled waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
It was hard to imagine now that, five long years ago, those very waters had carried to this peaceful haven the Moorish pirate galley whose raiding party had so swiftly and brutally changed Pedrito’s life forever. But it took only a glance towards a nearby corner of the horta for evidence of that barbarous incident to be brought starkly back into focus: the two simple crosses fashioned from almond sticks, the neatly raked soil between the rough chunks of limestonestone that marked the perimeter of the burial place, the two little earthenware cups containing posies of wild flowers at the base of each cross.
Pedrito swallowed hard and brushed a tear from the corner of his eye.
Saleema laid a hand on his. ‘I came with old Baltazar and helped him tend the grave only yesterday. Senyora Ensenyat told me where to pick the flowers – down in the field where you were captured. She said she’s been doing that every day since you were taken. Said she believed it would bring you and your parents a little closer.’
Lost for words, Pedrito drew Saleema’s head to his shoulder. And there they sat, their thoughts intertwined like the fingers of their hands, while the glow of the setting sun painted the sea red and pulled a blanket of lengthening shadows over the surrounding landscape.
It was Pedrito who eventually broke the silence. ‘I know you fear for the wellbeing of your own mother and father as well. But keep believing that they’re safe, and I promise I’ll do all I can to find them for you – just as soon as I possibly can.’
Saleema hesitated for a moment before saying, ‘You mean, when you go with the Christian king to seek out the thousands of Moors who have taken refuge in the mountains?’
‘Well,’ Pedrito began uneasily, ‘if he feels in need of an interprepter, as I’m sure he will…’
Saleema put a finger to his lips. ‘Death by the sword is the same in any language, and I know that the chances of my mother and father surviving the Christian clearances are slim – even if they’re still alive right now.’ She took Pedrito’s face in her hands and looked deeply into his eyes. ‘All I have now is you. So, what is to become of us? I know that what we feel for each other is a sin in the eyes of your God, just as it is in the eyes of mine.’
Pedrito wagged a finger. ‘Only in the eyes of those who claim to speak for those gods, but that’s all.’
‘Isn’t that enough?’ Samleema came back. ‘Seems to me that the holy men have the final word on everything, including the right to take someone’s life for breaking laws that were decreed by Allah – or God.’
‘Laws that they tell us were decreed by Allah or God.’
Saleema frowned. ‘But such thoughts are forbidden – punishable by death, surely!’
‘How can anyone forbid you to think?’ Pedrito countered.
Saleema’s frown deepened. ‘What you’re saying frightens me, Pedrito.’
He gave her an understanding smile, then tapped his chest. ‘Listen to your heart and you’ll hear the angels sing. That’s what my mother told me when I was little.’
‘Hear the angels sing?’ Saleema shook her head. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘It means you’ll be told what’s right – what’s good. God’s word can come from your heart, sometimes more than it does from the mouths of those who tell us they’re his chosen go-betweens. That’s what I was brought up to believe anyway. And I never even met a priest in all my life until a few months ago, when I fell in with the Christian army that’s butchering defenceless women and children in Medîna Mayûrqa even as we speak. Yes, and those same priests
say they have the power to forgive the soldiers their sins because they’re being committed in God’s name. The same priests who blessed the dead, rotting bodies of enemy soldiers when they were being catapulted into the city to spread disease and death through the population. Tell me, are those the voices of any god?’
Saleema kneaded her forehead. ‘I don’t know … religion … I don’t know what to think.’
Pedrito mulled things over for a bit, then said, ‘I remember discussing religion with King Jaume – one time when he’d had a cup or two of wine – and he said it gives people hope, so, whatever its faults, it would be a sin to take it away.’
‘Well, I suppose there’s something to be said for that,’ Saleema reasoned.
‘So, why don’t you and I make hope our religion?’
While Saleema, eyes raised and a forefinger pressed to her cheek, was giving due consideration to that radical proposition, a shaggy black shape came hurtling towards them from the direction of the bay.
‘Hello, Nedi,’ Pedrito grinned. ‘Been doing a bit of exploring, have you?’
By way of reply, Nedi proceeded to shake a coatful of sea all over them.
‘Stop it!’ Saleema squealed, pulling her knees up. ‘You’re soaking me, you inconsiderate creature!’
‘Well,’ Pedrito laughed, ‘he is a water dog, after all. Yes, and not so inconsiderate either, are you, boy?’ A reflective look came to his eyes as he patted Nedi’s sodden head. ‘We talk about hope, and that’s exactly what you gave me, didn’t you? Over there by my parents’ grave, when I was in the depths of despair, with nothing to live for, by my way of thinking.’ He glanced at Saleema. ‘The look of encouragement Nedi gave me at that bleak moment may have amounted to a word from God as well, if you see what I mean.’
Saleema reached down and tickled Nedi’s ear. ‘So, what you’re saying is that, if we look into Nedi’s eyes, we’ll hear the angels sing as well?’
‘Well my mother – Farah, I mean – did say he was an angel, didn’t she?’
