by Jean Gill
‘Best get it over with sooner rather than later,’ she told him frankly.
‘If he hits me, he hits me.’ Gilles shrugged. ‘But I won’t be dismissed. I won’t leave you.’
The thought had never occurred to Estela. ‘Tell him to hit you if he wants,’ she advised her man, ‘but that you’ll always put me first. Then he won’t hit you. And you’re not his to dismiss. He knows that.’
Gilles’ furrowed forehead suggested his confusion but he left, presumably to find Dragonetz and test Estela’s theory. She dismissed the thought. She had been challenged to a duel with wooden swords, to end when the first combatant demanded cuddles and honeyed sweetmeats. A less pleasurable appointment was to follow.
FOR THE FIFTH TIME, Estela bade the page-boy wait. It was just as well that she was not required in a hurry to attend the Queen in the palace gardens, as she could not walk through the Aljaferia without stopping to stare at some new architectural marvel.
Her family and entourage had been allocated the third and top floor of the square tower that had gained Dragonetz’ military approval. Even this older, more basic accommodation was decorated with strange plants and birds morphing into the inscription, ‘Allah’s is the kingdom’. Whatever she was not supposed to say, the ghosts of Malik’s ancestors were all around her.
She had a stiff neck from gazing at the painted ceilings, which were not as fancy or colourful as in the newer parts of the palace but still boasted brightly patterned stars and symmetries. As did the broad undersides of arches in the horseshoe doorways. She was surrounded by curves when she was accustomed to rectangles; the illusion of ethereal light when she was used to dark solidity.
As she followed the boy down the steps from the peaceful top storey, the brick walls grew thicker and the echoes louder from soldiers and servants. The alabaster walls of the first storey showed signs of fire damage, scorched and fractured in who-knows-what attack or siege. Also on the first floor was access to the baths and, through a narrow passage, to a deep circular well. Dragonetz had been disproportionately excited on discovering the well, especially when he found that it drew from the River Ebro itself.
She walked along the passageway bordering the garden, past the Throne Room and between the marble columns, past the Oratory of the Moorish kings. The Christians in the Palace mostly pretended it didn’t exist, closed their eyes to the sweep of the vault, the exquisite stonework of the prayer niche. A Muslim guard was kneeling there now, murmuring prayers in liquid Arabic.
A heathen, condemned to hell, Estela reminded herself. Dragonetz was right. It was important to use the right names in Zaragoza, the capital of Christian Aragon. But how, Estela wondered, did the Queen see only her own religion in the Palace of Joy? Was there some magic, which made invisible all that Estela could see and touch?
Her hands reached out of their own accord to lace made of alabaster; flowers that looped into Arabic script; dazzling in bright red, blue, green and gold. Her dress and slippers made rose petals and shadows on white marble flooring.
‘Porphyry, mother-of-pearl, ivory, ebony and coral,’ she murmured, naming the precious materials as if a line of poetry. She could hear the song of wood and stone, of magical craftsmanship. Her fingers traced the plasterwork, feeling for the artist’s thoughts. If the craftsmen had turned stone to lace, they had made of plasterwork their embroidery. The fine details of fruit, flowers, curling leaves and Arabic script teased Estela’s fingers, asking to be read by touch.
She closed her eyes, the better to trace a line of Kufic script, opened them again, smiled. She had not been wrong. One craftsman had sneaked his own words onto the stone, not those of the Surahs. ‘Should you find any mistake in my work, I shall be surprised!’
Conscious that she must not keep the Queen waiting, she quickened her footsteps but her eyes were drawn to a pattern on the wall. Just one more stop, she told the boy, and herself, as she inspected a familiar symbol. There could be no mistake. She’d seen the same interlaced arabesques a thousand times, on her lute and on the fabric she’d recovered from the caves in les Baux.
The Gyptian’s words were slippery as serpents, and yet they’d proved true before, in retrospect, if you knew how to interpret them. The first time they’d met, in Narbonne, the fortune-teller had chilled Estela with her predictions and she’d been wary when their paths crossed again.
The Gyptian had sent her down a tunnel, told her ‘The girl should know what she came for. Even though she doesn’t know yet what she came for. Family. You should know where you’re from.’ Estela shivered, remembering the dark closing in, the sensation that something was watching her, the legends of Moorish treasure and a demon guardian in the place known as le Val d’Enfer, the Valley of Hell. Remembering a heap of antique metal and pottery goods, and the instruction, ‘Touch only what is yours.’ And she had left with a piece of silk brocade, embroidered with the same design as her oud.
Estela had defied the Gyptian, told her she sought nothing and would pay nothing, but the response had been, ‘Payment is always taken.’ And Estela had gone into the tunnel.
She shivered again, looking with disbelief at her motif engraved on a palace wall. A man who’d learned to form such swirls by carving bones had carved the motif of her oud, of her brocade, in alabaster that must be a hundred years old, perhaps more.
The symbol looked at first glance to be the same as its fellows, joining in an endless repeated pattern. Except that it was not endless. Estela’s symbol stopped in a corner, tailing into a signature, the same signature as on the fabric but carved in stone. It was as cheeky an insertion as the one she’d found by an engraver who claimed he made no mistakes.
What this meant she had no idea, but she was certain that she’d found a clue to her history in the Moorish Palace of Joy. To be considered later. She had an oud, passed down through her mother’s family and then to her. She had a swathe of cloth, found in a cave in Provence, with the same pattern and strange signature, looking Arabic, and yet nothing Malik knew. And she had the words of a dead woman, who claimed the gift of prophesy.
She skirted the pebbled beds, the red-flowered pomegranate and the orange trees, whose tiny fruit had just set, and she reached a figure seated by the rectangular pool, in the shade of a vine-covered trellis.
‘My Lady.’ Estela curtseyed deeply to the Queen, whose face looked sallow and tired. Never a beauty, Petronilla had glowed with the bloom of pregnancy when Estela had first known her. Was that but a year ago? The ill health of her child showed in the Queen’s mien, and Estela knew what she could never say. The only cure was to have more children, to provide for the kingdom and herself against the loss that was only too likely. As a mother, Estela screamed without words; as a healer, she knew how many children died, how many babies were not born and how many women died giving birth. No, it was not easy to be a woman. She must make more allowances for the Queen’s sharpness and extremes of piety. What was it Dragonetz had said? Maybe, that could have been me.
‘Can I bring you some relief, my Lady?’ she asked gently, rising from her curtsey to stand before the ruler of Aragon.
Brown eyes, red-rimmed and dull, met hers. ‘Not unless you can tell me what ails my son.’
‘I would have to study him as a patient before I could treat him.’ Estela stayed soft, wondering whether the Queen would finally turn to her for help, wondering whether she could in fact diagnose the condition which left such a precious child so sickly.
Petronilla waved her hand in a gesture that dismissed the offer and all hope. ‘I hardly think you could succeed where our finest doctors fail. It is not a woman’s work to practice medicine.’
Estela bit her lip, hard.
‘But the court needs entertainment. I wish you and Dragonetz to sing for us tonight.
‘Of course, my Lady.’ Estela lowered her eyes, hoping to express demureness rather than seething resentment. She could still feel the Queen’s gaze.
‘And I hope there’s been no misunderstanding ab
out your quarters.’
Estela waited, her head bowed.
‘Ramon was very generous and tolerant in Barcelone but you are under my roof now and we must set an example. My Lord Dragonetz has his own accommodation, as befits Ramon’s Commander. You and your entourage have yours. I don’t expect there to be immodest contact between the two. Your reputation has suffered enough and it is my duty to lead you back to the paths of righteousness.’
Estela kept her eyes on the paths of multi-coloured pebbles, apparently random in placement and yet forming strictly mathematical patterns, weaving and interweaving, like the arabesques on her oud. She and Dragonetz would have to sneak around again to lie together, perhaps even to see each other. And how did Dragonetz’ son fit into Petronilla’s view of a righteous life?
The Queen was still speaking. ‘You must of course look after the child, whatever his origin. We were all born in sin.’ Her tone said clearly enough how much more sinful bastardy was. Or whatever she considered to be Musca’s condition. ‘Nobody is above criticism.’
Certainly not someone whose father renounced his monk’s vows to sire her, then returned to the monastery, Estela realized. There must have been some church doubts on the legality of such a renunciation and of its issue. Estela’s rush of compassion was stemmed at the Queen’s next words.
'But Pedro needs peace and protection from the rough behaviour I have seen from your offspring and his rather inappropriate companion.’ How it must hurt to see Musca’s rude health and the games played by the two little boys. Estela tried to maintain a level of understanding. If she did not, she would commit treason.
With magnanimity, Petronilla added, ‘You must keep them out of sight and hearing but you may exercise them outside the Palace. I trust we understand each other and that you have no complaint regarding our hospitality in such magnificent surroundings.’
‘I have never seen anywhere that shows man’s works and God’s glory to such effect,’ was the safest response Estela could find. It was not safe enough.
‘God’s glory is indeed around us and, in time, we will knock down the heathen mosques and domes, replace them with works of faith.’
Nothing was all the response required or given. May Malik and Layla never see such times.
The Queen continued, ‘But even infidels can be very skilled and the architecture does deserve our admiration. There are even some good Moors at our court. I can only hope they see the error of their ways and find salvation in our Christian kingdom.
My dream is to see Pedro crowned in Zaragoza, to achieve that for which I was born and to unite Barcelone and Aragon forever!’ For a few seconds, Estela recognized the innocent child-bride she’d helped give birth, then the veil of misery descended again. If only that first child had been healthy, how different everyone’s life would have been!
‘I wish you to come to prayer with me. I need all my ladies to accompany me and we shall walk, in penance and humility. We will go to the cathedral this very afternoon and make offerings so you need to change into your outdoor shoes and clothing suitable for church. Wait in the entrance courtyard when you are ready.’
‘At once, my Lady.’ More garments and jewels for the statue of the Virgin, thought Estela, as she returned to her chambers, kicking the stairs as she climbed and scuffing the toes of a rather pretty pair of silk slippers.
She could no longer avoid telling Dragonetz exactly how she was perceived in court and his reaction would not be conciliatory. She would soften the comments about them sharing chambers and he would accept the need to be discreet, for her sake. After all, they’d observed the same charade in Les Baux.
However, there was no way of softening Musca’s banishment or the slight on his lineage. Nor any way Dragonetz would accept either. She would wait until after they performed together, then suggest they found a place of their own, away from court, as they had in Barcelone. The further away, the better, as far as she was concerned! Exercising Musca indeed! Their dog was more welcome than their son at this court!
Nici had already discovered the joys of the fields and ditches surrounding the palace on three sides and was undoubtedly a better companion for Musca and his foster brother than any of its other residents. More intelligent too! Estela fumed. The only good thing to come out of the interview was the prospect of singing with Dragonetz in public. They would have fun drawing up a programme, practising together, singing always for each other, however big their audience was. They would bring joy to this palace, as it deserved!
And she did owe Mary a debt of gratitude so the visit was well-timed. She knew what she should give as an ex-voto, to say thank you. When she thought of Malik, between life and death, only one precious possession could express how she truly felt. After all, it was less of a sacrifice than a goshawk. And she had an unfinished conversation with Mary to continue. She had just learned what kind of woman she was not.
WEARING THE DRABBEST costumes they could find, with the highest necklines, Petronilla’s ladies progressed solemnly along the paved streets between the Aljaferia and the cathedral. The sun was past its mid-day burn but still glaring. Estela could feel the sweat trickling in furrows underneath the dun linen gown. She’d pulled the clean white wimple as far across her forehead as it would reach without blinding her and she was glad of having had it well starched.
Some of her companions were suffering floppy headgear that was already damp and offered little protection from the sun. One white-skinned redhead had even worn a lightweight cloak, the hood concealing even her eyes, earning a disapproving look from the Queen. Those with the palest skin would toast first, thought Estela with a certain unchristian satisfaction. She’d been criticized often enough for her olive skin, however she’d tried to lighten it with lemon juice and whatever care she’d taken with gloves and gowns that covered every pore of skin.
Sweat attracted the flies and Estela was not the only one surreptitiously jutting out her bottom lip to blow an insect off her face. The instinct to flail her arms around, each time she felt the prick of landing or – worst – crawling, was difficult to master but Petronilla’s beady eye was surveilling her troubadour closely.
Already the wonder of Zaragoza’s architecture was reduced by familiarity to merely beautiful surroundings and Estela could resist the urge to stop and stare at marquetry doorways, which combined eight different woods into three-dimensional patters of stars and suns; or friezes that brought to life the gardens of paradise.
The cathedral itself was less impressive close-up than in the first impression across the shimmering Ebro. Building work was in full swing and Petronilla gave a nod of satisfaction at the progress. Watching the lines of men and donkeys hauling on ropes, shifting stone blocks into place, Estela reflected that she was not the only one sweating. Then she was blinded as she stepped into the dark of the cathedral.
Blinking as she grew used to the light, Estela’s attention was drawn by the queue of supplicants to the jasper pillar and the wooden figure of Madonna and child on its flat top. Petronilla’s guards would have moved the queue aside to let the Queen through but she stopped them.
‘In the eyes of God, we are equals,’ she said and took her place behind a man in peasant-brown breeches and jerkin. Her ladies followed suit, not without some sighs. Petronilla’s piety might be admirable but emulating it was not always popular. At least it was cool in the stone interior, and untroubled by flies.
The Lady’s Chapel was the heart of the cathedral, hundreds of years old, like the pillar and statue. In turn, each person knelt on the marble floor to kiss the pillar and pray. There was no need to guess at the Queen’s prayers but Estela closed her eyes as she waited and felt the other stories in that place of worship. What songs were there. Songs beyond romance, of a mother’s love, of a man’s fear of death, of repentance and hope, of desperation and projects planned. As a healer, Estela had heard many such stories and, opening her eyes, she read the people around her. Shabby shoes, a terminal cough, a woman clutching her empty
belly.
What would somebody read in her own appearance, she wondered, as she stepped in her turn to the place before the pillar. As she knelt, she slipped a little on the marble, worn uneven by so many feet and prayers. Cold even through her gown, dispassionate, the floor had absorbed a million stories without comment.
Estela kissed the pillar. Jasper she thought, remembering von Bingen’s description of the stone, ‘When a woman brings forth an infant, from the time she gives birth through all the days of its infancy, she should keep a jasper on her hand. Malign spirits of the air will be much less able to harm her or her child.’ Estela’s little jasper stone was in her scrip with her money, tied around her waist under her skirts. Hers was reddish in colour whereas the pillar was green veined, as far as she could tell in the dim candle-light.
Above her, at about the height of a tall man, Mary looked serene, with her own child tucked under her arm, a carved dove on his hand. Her mantle was fine white lace with gold braid borders. Her coronet sparkled with green gems. If the outfit was one of Petronilla’s offerings, the gems would be real emeralds; if not, they could be glass, but offered honestly. Nobody offered counterfeit in prayers to the Virgin.
Estela offered her heartfelt thanks, for Malik, for Musca, for Dragonetz. She took the piece of old fabric out of her scrip and looked at the symbols one last time. ‘The Gyptian said it was a piece of my life,’ she murmured, ‘that would show me who I am, where I’m from. I don’t understand what the pattern on my oud was doing in a cave in Les Baux. And now in the Palace of Joy.
But she always spoke in puzzles that I’d probably be better off not solving. I don’t know what she meant by payment but it sounded like a threat to me, to my true family. Dragonetz and I have suffered enough from my relatives and I won’t let them hurt Musca. I’m giving this to you, part of who I am. If you mean me to find out more, then you will lead me to that understanding. If not, then be with me and my family as we travel through life.’