The Hand of Fatima

by Falcones, Ildefonso

  ‘Hurry up!’ Hernando said. ‘Why are you still standing there?’

  ‘This is where my journey ends, my son,’ the old man said.

  Son! That was the first time Hamid had called him that.

  ‘But you can’t stay here,’ Hernando protested.

  ‘Yes. I have to. I have to stay with the women, children and old men. My place is here. Besides . . . what would a lame old man like me do chasing around the mountains?’ Hamid forced a smile. ‘I would only be a burden.’

  His mother, Hamid . . . Perhaps he should stay as well? Hadn’t she told him peace would come? As dozens of Moriscos streamed past them out of the castle, the old scholar seemed to read his thoughts.

  ‘Fight for me, Ibn Hamid. Here.’ The old man unbuckled the precious sword hanging from his belt and offered it to him. ‘Always remember, it once belonged to the Prophet.’

  Hernando received it solemnly, holding out both arms so that Hamid could lay it in his outstretched palms.

  ‘Don’t ever let it fall into Christian hands. And don’t cry, my boy.’ Unlike his mother, the old man allowed Hernando to embrace him. ‘Our people and our faith matter more than any one of us alone. That is our destiny. May the Prophet guide and be with you.’

  The Christian army entered Juviles, and more than four hundred Christian women, set free by their captors, came out to greet them.

  ‘Kill them! Kill the heretics!’ they demanded of the soldiers.

  ‘They slit my son’s throat,’ one cried.

  ‘They killed our husbands and sons,’ sobbed another woman with a baby in her arms.

  ‘They desecrated the churches!’ a third one tried to explain above the uproar.

  Some of the women were from Cuxurio and Alcútar, but others came from all over the Alpujarra. When the soldiers had dispersed through the village streets and square, they listened with horror to the stories the captive women related. In every town and village where the Moriscos had revolted, there had been brutal killings and massacres, most of them on direct orders from Farax.

  ‘They amused themselves torturing the Christians,’ one woman told them. ‘They cut off their forefingers and thumbs so they could not make the sign of the cross before they died.’

  ‘They hoisted the deacon on a rope up to the top of the bell tower,’ another one said, sobbing. ‘They tied him to a piece of wood with his arms outstretched, to mock the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus. When he reached the top, they let go of the rope, and he came crashing down to the stones of the square. They did the same four times over, clapping and laughing each time. Then, when he was still alive, though all his bones were broken, they handed him over to the women for them to stone him to death.’

  The same scene was repeated all over the village. The soldiers, once they’d heard the women’s terrible stories, were soon crying out for vengeance. A young girl from Laroles said that the Moriscos, after accepting the Christians’ surrender, went back on their word. They seized the priests and daubed their feet with oil and pitch before burning them on a bonfire, executing them, and then dismembering their bodies. Another woman from Canjáyar told how in her village the Moriscos had pretended to hold a mass. The deacon and sacristan were made to stand naked on the altar. Then they forced the sacristan to read out the list of Moriscos, and whenever someone heard their name called, they went up to the altar and took revenge on the two Christians with stones, sticks or their bare hands, making sure they did not kill them outright. Finally, still alive, they were cut into pieces, starting from their toes.

  While all this was going on amongst the soldiery, however, a party of sixteen Muslim scholars went to petition the Marquis of Mondéjar. They threw themselves at his feet, begging him to pardon them and all the men in the villages that had surrendered. The marquis yielded, and promised clemency for all those who laid down their arms. He made no such promise with regard to Aben Humeya and the armed bandits. Instead, he ordered his army to advance on the castle at Juviles.

  News of the marquis’s terms spread like wildfire through the Christian ranks. After all they had seen and heard, after the grief and tears of their women, after marching endless leagues to defend the Alpujarra without receiving pay or reward of any kind, they refused to accept them. The Moriscos had to be punished, and their possessions shared out among the soldiers!

  As the army approached Juviles castle, they were met by Hamid and two other old men waving a white flag. They said they wanted to hand over the fortress to the Christians, and begged for mercy for the more than two thousand women, children and old men still seeking refuge inside.

  The marquis accepted. He issued a decree pardoning the men and declaring that the women and their children be set free. To calm his soldiers’ anger, he authorized the looting of any valuables they could find in the castle and village. He also ordered that the men who had surrendered be held prisoner in the village. As many Morisco women and children as possible were shut in the church; the rest were herded into the main square, guarded by soldiers still indignant at his decisions.

  The marquis’s clemency and the discontent among the Christian army soon came to the ears of the long column of Morisco fighters fleeing towards Ugíjar. Hernando smiled openly at three old men who had refused to stay in the castle, and were now struggling to keep up with the others.

  ‘Nothing will happen to the women,’ Hernando said, raising his clenched fist.

  None of them replied. They plodded forward, a grim look on their faces.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Hernando asked. ‘Didn’t you hear that the marquis has pardoned all those who stayed behind?’

  ‘It’s one man against an army,’ the oldest-looking of the three said, without glancing back. ‘It won’t happen. The Christians’ greed will be too strong for any command he may give.’

  Hernando went up to him. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The marquis has a vested interest in pardoning us: it will bring him a lot of money. But as for the soldiers with him – they’re no more than mercenaries! People with nothing who enlisted to seek their fortunes. Christians only respect whatever brings them money. If the women had been taken prisoner, they would have been respected, because there is money involved. But since they are not, no decree or ruling by any noble will prevent . . .’ Hernando’s smile was wiped from his face. He gripped Hamid’s scimitar at his belt. ‘. . . the soldiers doing their worst,’ the old man finished wearily.

  Without a second’s thought, Hernando started to run. He avoided the Moriscos in the column behind him, and gave no answer when they asked what he was doing as he bumped into them. Juviles! All he could think of were his mother and Hamid. Hearing the protests as Hernando pushed his way through the men, Brahim wheeled his horse round. When he reached the three old men, one of them stopped him with a gesture.

  ‘Where is he going?’ Brahim asked.

  ‘I imagine he is going to do what all Muslims should have done: to fight. To give up his life for his people, his family, and his God.’

  The muleteer scowled. ‘That is what we are all fighting for. This is war, old man.’

  The Morisco agreed. ‘More than you can know.’

  *

  By the time Hernando reached Juviles night had fallen. Christian soldiers were everywhere. He skirted the village along the terraces, and approached the church where the women and children were being held from the south side of the square. By now it was completely dark; the only points of light came from the soldiers’ camp fires. Hernando crossed the same open plot of land where his mother had stabbed the priest: the church and square were up above him. She did it for you, Hamid had told him on this very spot as they stood watching his mother wreaking her revenge. Now the soldiers’ conversation came to him as a distant murmur, occasionally broken by a laugh or loud curse.

  He was straining to hear beyond the soldiers when somebody leapt on his back, then held him down with his knee. Hernando had no time to cry out; a hand immediately covered his mouth. He felt the ste
el of a knife at the back of his neck. Exactly as he had killed the horses, he thought. Was he going to die the same way?

  ‘Don’t kill him,’ he heard someone hissing in Arabic just as the blade was about to slit his jugular. There were several men around him. ‘I thought I saw something glistening . . . Look at his scimitar.’

  Hernando felt a hand grabbing the sword. When the metal ribbons jangled, they all held their breath, but down in the square the Christian soldiers went on talking apparently unawares.

  ‘He is one of us,’ another of the men said as his fingers explored the metal ribbons on the curved scimitar.

  ‘Who are you?’ whispered the man holding him down. He took his hand from Hernando’s mouth, but pressed his blade more firmly into his neck.

  ‘Ibn Hamid.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ a third man enquired.

  ‘The same as you, I should think,’ replied Hernando. ‘I came to rescue my mother.’

  Still pressing the knife to his throat, they turned him over. None of them could see each other’s face in the dim glow from the Christian fires.

  ‘How do we know he isn’t trying to fool us?’ Hernando heard them discussing amongst themselves.

  ‘He speaks Arabic,’ one of them said.

  ‘Some Christians know our language too. Would you send a spy who did not speak Arabic?’

  ‘Why would the Christians send a spy here?’ asked the first man.

  ‘Kill him,’ the other one said dismissively.

  ‘There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God,’ Hernando recited. The pressure from the knife immediately lessened. He went on with the Muslim profession of faith.

  Gradually, as he repeated the same prayer that only a few days before had saved him when the Moriscos of Juviles had wanted to hand him over, the knife was lifted from his throat.

  He soon discovered they were three Moriscos from Cádiar who had come to free their wives and children.

  ‘A lot of them are being held in the church,’ one of them explained. ‘Others are out in the square, but there’s no way we can find out where our women are. There are hundreds of them with their children, and no one can see a thing! The soldiers would not allow them to light fires, so they are nothing more than a mass of shadows. If we move forward now we won’t be able to find them, and the soldiers would hear the noise.’

  What about the men? thought Hernando. And Hamid? They had only mentioned women and children.

  ‘What about the men who stayed in the castle?’ he asked.

  ‘We think they’re being held in the village houses.’

  ‘How can we free them?’ Hernando whispered.

  ‘We have time to think of a way,’ another of the men rejoined. ‘We’ll have to wait until first light: we can’t do anything until then.’

  ‘In daylight? What chance will we have in daylight? What can we do?’ the lad said, surprised.

  There was no reply.

  The chill of the night gripped them as they hid in the bushes waiting for dawn. They went on talking in hushed voices. Hernando learnt what had happened to the women and children from Cádiar, and explained that in the church and on the terrace where they were hiding he had discovered how intense his mother’s suffering had been. As the night wore on, the village fell silent. The soldiers were dozing by their fires. The four Moriscos could feel their muscles seizing up with the cold. The Sierra Nevada had no pity on them.

  ‘We’ll freeze to death.’

  Hernando could hear one of his companions’ teeth chattering. He himself could feel the cramp in his fingers as he grasped the scimitar: they seemed stuck to the scabbard.

  ‘We need to find shelter until dawn—’one of them began, when suddenly he was interrupted by a woman’s shriek from the village square.

  Her scream was followed by a second, and then a third.

  ‘Halt! Who goes there?’ They heard a soldier on guard next to one of the fires call out.

  ‘There are armed Moors in among the women!’ came the shout from another fire.

  Those were the last words they heard with any clarity. The Moriscos stared at each other. Armed Moors? Hernando peered over the top of the bushes protecting them. The screams of women and children mingled with the soldiers’ shouted orders. Dozens of them ran from their camp fires towards the square, swords and halberds at the ready. Everything was a jumble of shadows. Then the first harquebus was fired: Hernando saw the spark, then the flash, followed by a cloud of smoke that hovered above the black mass of shapes outside the church.

  More shots. More flashes of light in the darkness. More shouts.

  Hernando was the first to jump up and run towards the square. He raised the scimitar above his head, clasping it in both hands. The Moriscos from Cádiar followed his lead. After a few moments’ hesitation, the women in the square began trying to defend themselves from the soldiers who were lunging at them from all sides.

  ‘There are Moors here!’ More cries from in among the tangle of people.

  ‘They’re attacking us,’ shouted the Christian soldiers from all sides of the square.

  Everywhere was in total darkness.

  ‘Mother!’ Hernando began to shout.

  In the dark, the Christian harquebusiers were firing in all directions. Hernando nearly fell over a body on the ground. Close by him on the right there was the flash of another gunshot, and he was engulfed in smoke. He wheeled the scimitar through the dense cloud and could feel his weapon sink into flesh. Then he heard a shriek of a man mortally wounded.

  ‘Mother!’

  He still had the scimitar raised above his head. He could not see a thing! He could not recognize anyone in this chaos. A woman jumped on him.

  ‘I’m a Morisco!’ he shouted at her.

  ‘Santiago!’ came the shout from behind his back.

  The halberd grazed his side and plunged into the woman’s stomach. She clung to him, and he felt her warm breath on his face as she expired. Struggling free of her dying embrace, he wheeled his sword through the air. It bounced off a metal helmet and sank into the Christian’s shoulder. Hernando felt the woman’s body slip down his legs.

  ‘Mother!’ he shouted again.

  He stumbled over more and more bodies of women and children. He was splashing through blood! The church doors remained shut. What if Aisha was inside? Although the army captains were ordering their men to stop firing, the soldiers paid no attention. They were so afraid and furious that they went on slaughtering anyone they ran into. No one could halt the killing.

  Hernando still could not see. How was he going to find Aisha? What if she were one of the bodies lying in the blood-soaked square?

  ‘Mother,’ he groaned, his sword lowered.

  ‘Hernando, is that you?’

  Hernando raised the scimitar again. Where was she? Where had the voice come from?

  ‘Mother!’

  ‘Hernando? ‘A shadow reached out to grasp him. He drew his arm back to strike. ‘Hernando, it’s me,’ Aisha said, shaking him.

  ‘Mother! Praise be to God! Let’s go. Let’s get out of here,’ he replied, taking her arm and pushing her . . . but where to?

  ‘Your sisters! Your sisters are missing!’ she insisted. ‘Musa and Aquil are already with me.’

  ‘Where are the girls?’

  ‘I lost them in the tumult.’

  Two shots were fired in their direction. On the left close by them, a body sank to the ground.

  ‘There’s a Moor!’ they heard a Christian soldier roar.

  Thanks to the flashes from the guns, Hernando could make out a shadow next to him. It was a small figure . . . perhaps it was Raissa? He thought it was a girl. Raissa? They would all be killed. He grabbed the figure by the hair and pulled her towards him.

  ‘Here’s Raissa,’ he told his mother.

  ‘What about Zahara?’

  This time three shots were fired directly at them. Hernando pushed his mother forward, and dragged the girl along
with them.

  ‘We have to go!’ he shouted.

  He guided himself by the outline of the church tower, where someone had lit a torch, pushing his mother in front of him. She had hold of her two boys, and he pulled the girl along with him. Crouching down, they reached the terrace. Then they ran along it, stumbling, falling, getting up again, gradually leaving behind the gunfire and the terrified screams of women and children.

  They only came to a halt when the gunfire was a distant echo. Aisha collapsed in a heap. Musa and Aquil started sobbing, while Hernando and the girl said nothing, trying to get their breath back.

  ‘Thank you, my son,’ Aisha said, suddenly standing up again. ‘We must get on. We can’t stop here. We’re still in danger. Raissa?’ Aisha ran over to the girl and caught hold of her chin. ‘You’re not Raissa!’

  ‘My name is Fátima,’ the girl panted. ‘And this is Salvador,’ she said, showing them a baby she was clutching to her breast; he was only a few months old. ‘Humam, I mean.’

  Hernando could not see Fátima’s huge black almond-shaped eyes, but he did notice a gleam that seemed to pierce the darkness around them.

  That night, more than a thousand women and children were killed in the church square at Juviles. Those who had sought refuge in the church survived, because the doors were barred, but daylight revealed the ground outside littered with the corpses of defenceless women and children, together with the bodies of several Christian soldiers who had been killed by their colleagues in the confusion. Only one dead Morisco male was discovered. He was identified as a villager from Cádiar. The Marquis of Mondéjar launched an investigation into the mutiny, which concluded with the execution of three soldiers who, under cover of darkness, had attempted to rape a woman: it was her cries that had caused the confusion that sparked the massacre.

  11

  SHE WAS thirteen and came from Terque, in the district of Marchena, on the eastern slopes of the Alpujarra. Fátima explained this to Hernando as they made their way to Ugíjar. And no, she had no idea where her husband was. Humam’s father had joined the men who rushed to fight the Marquis of los Vélez in the far east of the region. Like so many other Morisco women, she had ended up in the square at Juviles.