The Storyteller's Granddaughter

by Margaret Redfern

  ‘Let’s be thankful they’ve only the one hump, hey?’

  Rémi grinned again and set about cajoling the lofty animals to kneel. Maybe they were bothered by the noise and fret because the court was full of caravans preparing to leave. It took time to settle them, to load bundles, and Blue was missing. It was Blue’s job to supervise the getting ready in the morning. Already, the courtyard was full of activity and the great doors of the han were open; caravans were already setting out, packs weighted on the camels and the camels flanked by donkeys and mules and dogs and the cameleteers twitching whips and shouting instructions and encouragement. Late risers would be scurrying into clothes inside the dim rooms of the great hall of the han or hunched in the latrines. In the courtyard the mescit still had its worshippers, though the Muslims who had risen early for the call to prayer were the first to pack up, the first to leave; Christians were bleary eyed, late to bed after sitting late over talk and cups.

  That was what Blue had done – sat late over his cups. They’d come to tell him Blue was drunk. Not just drunk but reeling drunk and slurring that stupid song. All stand still. All stand still. Let thy body go. Drunk drunk drunk…

  ‘Leave him behind shall we?’ Twm said.

  ‘No. Can’t do that.’ But he thought about it, thought how simple it would be to leave Blue behind and ride out from the han. This wasn’t the first time, it wouldn’t be the last. He’d had them in trouble before with his drunkenness. Of course, he ended as he always did, hurling abuse. Mercifully, that dialect of his was so broad that very little of what he said was understood by the staid, sober Muslims.

  ‘Yer the wust coward that ever pissed,’ he was ranting. Dai could hear him from across the courtyard. ‘Turd in thi’ teeth. Shit for brains. Lying arsehole. Stinking dog breath…’

  Blue managed to land the first blow before Dai got to him, full in the face of the outraged man he was insulting so roundly. A big man he was, head and shoulders above Dai and with a belly on him. It took three of them to manhandle him, and him belching and farting and threatening seven hells all the way across the courtyard to the sleeping quarters where, of course, he’d woken the early-to-beds with his uproar and they had been bent on revenge. That was when Dai sighed with resignation and applied pressure just below the ear, a trick learnt in the old days, and Blue collapsed mid-word. Silenced but not silent. All night long his snores reverberated throughout the building.

  And here he was, still drunk, giggling like a girl, face bursting shiny red under the bruise-blue stains and reddened eyes unfocused.

  And behind him, of course, an irate merchant. Dai recognised the man from a meeting earlier in the season.

  ‘That liar, that braggart, that thug. Is he yours?’

  ‘He’s mine. What’s to do?’

  ‘He’s broken heads, that’s what’s to do. Your man there…’

  Blue smirked and waved and chortled the next line of the song.

  ‘Dronken is Tabart…’

  ‘…smashed the skulls of two of my best men.’

  ‘…at wine…’ Blue carolled.

  ‘No doubt they were in their cups too.’

  ‘The wust cowards that ever pissed.’ A reverberating belch.

  ‘Who’s to say?’ The merchant was blustering, gagging in his outrage. ‘I’m two men short now. What have you to say to that?’

  ‘Hay!’

  ‘I’m a man short. And seems I’ve the worst of the bargain.’

  ‘Turd in thi’ teeth.’

  ‘It is not a joking matter.’

  ‘Did I say it was?’ He sighed, contemplated the angry man in front of him. ‘What is it you want, sir?’

  ‘I want compensation.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Two men, two days’ pay.’

  He sighed, nodded, sighed again, declined to bargain. ‘That seems reasonable.’ They agreed terms, shook hands, akçes were handed over. The merchant was mollified, reconciled to good terms.

  ‘You are a good man to do business with. But that man of yours!’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘My advice – get rid of him. No good. Always drunk.’

  Dai smiled. ‘But I follow your great Mevlana’s advice.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What was it he said? “Come, come, come again, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times.” How can I refuse when the Mevlana himself says this?’

  ‘You are a good man.’

  No I’m not, he thought; if I were a good man it wouldn’t be Blue’s throat I’m wanting to slit.

  Later, of course, when he’d sobered up, Blue’d be as penitent as he always was, weeping, making promises he would never keep. ‘A were well on wi’ drinkin’. A’m reet sorry, that A’m Dai. Nivver agaan. Nivver agaan.’ Now, he was staggering about the court trying to load the mules though there were men in the service of the han whose job it was to do just that. It was Edgar who led him like a child, Edgar who was the butt of Blue’s jokes and jibes, Edgar who was truly a good man. Not yet fit enough to travel but swearing he was well enough.

  ‘O’ course yer be. A new man, ent ya, altar boy? A knew yer wouldn’t lig i’ bed this morn.’ Blue cuffed Edgar’s head but lightly because despite the joking and jibing the big man had a fondness for quiet pale Edgar. ‘And ’im as was deäd comed out,’ he slurred and Dai turned away to smile because he recognised in the broad speech the story of Lazarus and his rising from the dead. He silently blessed the wise woman again but in the middle of the blessing he paused. He looked again at Blue, closely now. Too pleased he was with the boy’s return to health. Too pleased with himself, more like.

  ‘Blue, what have you done?’

  ‘What yer meän? A’ve done nowt.’ But his eyes shifted away from Dai’s.

  ‘I know you, Blue. You’ve been up to something.’

  ‘Nowt as matters.’

  Dai waited. Blue slanted a bleary-eyed sideways glance at him. Edgar shifted uncomfortably and pulled at the neck of his shift. Dai caught a glimpse of a thin leather thong. He reached out and pulled at it. A small bag came into view.

  ‘What’s this?’

  Edgar blushed. ‘It’s done no harm, Dai, and it pleased Blue.’ He opened the bag. Inside were three live spiders and a few specks that were dead flies.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘That’s ’ow we done it at hoäme. My dad telled me, and his dad telled him afore that, and our fore-elders all said as it was best to do to break a fever.’ He was belligerent, loudly certain he was in the right of it. Dai sighed.

  ‘Tell me, Blue.’

  ‘Well, stands to reason, doän’t it? Fever’s all shivery, use a shivery spider to draw it out. And look at ’im standing straight up this morn.’

  ‘It was the wise woman’s simples that helped him, Blue. You must know that.’

  ‘How can yer tell? How dust know it wan’t the shivery spiders?’ He spat, suddenly, vigorously. ‘Best is a live spider rolled i’ butter and swallered, like A said. But the boy weren’t up to it and yer said A wan’t to try. And A didn’t. A promised yer that A wouldn’t and A kep’ mi promise.’

  ‘So you did,’ Dai said softly. ‘You cared about him, Blue. That was maybe the real medicine.’

  Blue’s eyes filled suddenly and unexpectedly.

  ‘Dai lad, A ’ad to do summat when yer were went. He were like to die afore you come back. A ’ad to do summat. A wrapped ’im in indigo to cool ’is fever then A thought on the shivery spiders. He’s nobbut a bairn, Dai. It’s what mi fayther did and it nivver did none of us no harm. A haven’t done no harm.’ His blackened nails scratched at his armpits releasing a rank stench of sweat and stale ale.

  ‘No, you haven’t.’ Dai agreed but quietly, touched by the man’s worry for the boy. ‘Maybe you did him good after all, Blue. Now, get your body under cold water and do all of us some good.’

  ‘You’re too soft on that oaf, Dafydd. He’ll have us all strung up by our wrists before he’s done.’
Thomas Archer glared at Blue’s retreating back.

  ‘He means no harm, Twm.’

  ‘He might not mean harm but it’s harm done, all the same.’

  Dai sighed; he wasn’t in the mood for another argument with Twm Archer.

  ‘All right, all right, I can see you won’t listen to reason. You’re an obstinate man, Dafydd.’

  ‘So I’ve been told, and often enough. Mam used to say I took after Taid – my grandfather.’

  ‘Now there’s a combination: a stubborn man of conscience.’ Twm was angry. ‘Worried her into her grave, did you?’

  Dai gave him a hard look. ‘Something like that.’ His voice was curt, warning Twm Archer to say no more, but it was the bleakness in the look that silenced the dark man.

  It was late in the day when they left the han. All day the sun struggled to be seen through mist and rain and now it was low in the sky beneath heavy swags of cloud, shooting pale light and shadows by turn along the land. As they were leaving, another large caravan was arriving, with camels and mules and a string of horses. His own dependable brown stallion snorted, nostrils flaring, then whickered and one of the horses in the string neighed in answer and sidled sideways. A chestnut with a pale mane and white blaze down her nose. Dai frowned. Surely he’d seen the horse before?

  He recognised faces, though he did not know their names. There was that squat, greasy ox of a man he’d seen before at the market. Slave dealers. That was one commodity he would not deal in. He knew too well what it was like to be tied hand and soul to a cruel master. Slaves might turn a good profit but not for him and, God be thanked, not for the man he worked for. The Mevlana himself had condemned slavery. There was a glimpse of a skinny curly-haired little boy darting to catch some nothing, and a stream of abuse that followed him. He turned his head and Dai caught a flash of dark bruising down the side of his face. A babe of no more than four summers – too young, surely, to be a slave – was stumbling along, clinging to the hand of a gaunt, strong-faced woman with a lividly scarred forehead. By her side was a young girl, pale as the day’s sun, her beauty all but extinguished by fatigue and fear and hopelessness. No, slaving was not for him. On their way to Attaleia, no doubt, and after that, if trade was poor, across the seas to Candia.

  8

  I wonder, is anyone here

  A stranger so forlorn as I?

  (Yunus Emre, 14thC)

  Darkness again and the walls of the han sheer and stark in front of her. No windows. Never windows. The hans were built for protection as well as comfort. The huge gateway reared up in front of her, its portals elaborately carved, twisting and twining in a rhythmic, ornamental dance of stone. At the heart of it were the stars, Nene had told her, always leaping from one star to another in an infinite pattern. Continual linking paths, continual return to the centre of all things. And so it is for poor weak mortals. Remember this, child.

  The doors were closing against the threatening night but not before she’d caught a glimpse of Vecdet and the huge scarred guard. Business. That’s why they’d left so early. As luck would have it, this was the han they were headed for. They were talking with the hancı who gave admittance and their voices floated back to where she was hidden behind the grand portal of the han.

  ‘A slave,’ she caught, ‘escaped.’

  ‘We’ll look out for him, never worry sir. Slim, brown hair, shabby blue clothes, travelling alone – shouldn’t be hard to spot.’

  A murmur she couldn’t catch and the hancı’s voice raised.

  ‘No loyalty, these slaves. Not to be trusted.’

  Better not beg for admittance, then. Better to accept another night of cold and an empty stomach. The family at Alahan was far away. Niko was somewhere inside the han. The sky had cleared with the rising wind and its great arc was crammed with star clusters that pressed down on her as she gazed into the vastness of eternity. The high mountains were black against the sky; there was the huge mass of Karadağ, the black mountain, rearing up as it suddenly did out of the plain. It was not yet frosted with white but further to the north-east was Argaeus glimmering white with the snow that never left it. The han was not far from the town that the Karamanoğlu had made their capital, their chief place, and from where they had decreed, only ten years ago, that Turkish was the official language. Christian Turks lived there though a mosque had been built on the ruins of their church. But the town gates would be closed by now and if she were given admittance there was no way of knowing that she would be safe. No, better by far the cold night and an empty stomach and keep the freedom so hard won. She bedded down with the sheep that ran outside the han, reared to provide provisions for the travellers. It was comforting to be close to their warm bodies, feel their warm breath, hear their steady munching. An easy target for prowlers in the night, man and beast, and it was the luckless sheep boy’s job to protect them, him and the pack of dogs that ran with him. Both he and the dogs had gazed at her for long moments then accepted her presence without question.

  She knew of this han. She’d never been to it, but Nene had told her of it. This was the place where Nene had first seen the man who was her grandfather. It was long ago, when the Osmanlı tribes were first raiding the coast towns. Nene had told her of it. She thought of it now, dreamed of the telling, slept while she dreamed.

  I was young then – not so young, as far as my father was concerned; he still hoped for a bride-price. I was proud, disdainful even, and the young men dared not offer for me. It made my father angry. But I was young, with a young girl’s dreams. I wanted a hero to sweep me off my feet. Someone courageous and strong. Handsome, of course. He had to be handsome. You dream of Bamsi Beyrek – of course I know you do, child. How could I not? For me, there was the pick of our Greek heroes. Our history is heavy with heroes.

  It was spring. We were returning from a visit to our kin in Cappadocia, father, mamma, me, my young brother. We stayed the night in the han. And there he was. Not handsome, girl, don’t think that. Not handsome. Not even tall and strong. At first sight, not a hero either, but I know now that’s what he was, in his own way. What was it, then, that tore my heart and soul? Who can tell, girl? When you feel this, then you will feel love and you will give your heart and soul and life for your beloved. Let it not be for the sheep-brained oafs! Never for them! Listen to me, girl.

  He was telling stories in the courtyard. That is what he was: a tale teller. He had gathered about him so many, all religions and races. Christian and Muslim alike, and Jew, merchants from the east and west lands, they all gathered to hear him. He had a way of drawing you in, taking you with him into another world. We all love to hear stories. That is what he said. It makes children of us all and we forget to fight. Sharing tales and laughter is what makes peace amongst us. So wise, your grandfather. I stayed on the outside of the gathering, listening greedily to his words. His voice…oh…it was beguiling. Maybe I fell in love with his voice first, girl. Who knows? Our eyes met. Just once, fleetingly, but it was enough. Where was disdain now? Where was pride? They are nothing where love is.

  I could hardly sleep for thinking of him, and when I did sleep I dreamed of him. Before the first call to prayer I crept out into the courtyard. The new day was soft with mountain mist that would clear soon after sunrise. Early as I was, he was already there. He was playing on a small pipe fashioned from a swan’s bone. A haunting sound and a haunting melody though clumsily played. I’m no musician, he told me. This swan pipe was my brother’s. My brother could make it sing like no other. From our first meeting, there was no pretence between us. Your grandfather spoke only the truth. How he was searching for his brother, had been searching for years, hearing scraps of news, meeting travellers who had heard his brother’s wonderful music, recollections of hearing he was in this town, in that village, in one country, in another. He had the gift of languages and this made it easy for him to talk with strangers – I would say touched with Pentecostal fire but that would be blasphemy, eh child? He said it was useful to speak with all tho
se he met but music was the true path to the soul. It was not his gift; that belonged to his brother.

  He was here now because he had met Yunus Emre, our great poet so sadly dead now. That was in Kayseri. Yes, Yunus Emre remembered Ned – that was the brother’s name – and the frail, grey-haired man who travelled with him. Two great musicians, though the older man could no longer play. One of his hands was crippled by a past injury and was now swollen with painful joints. That was three years ago. Where were they heading? Yunus Emre couldn’t remember. They had all three travelled for a while together. They had played, sung, spoken poetry. Your grandfather felt so close, so close to finding them, his brother and the older man…and then nothing. Nothing. It was as if the earth had swallowed them.

  He told me that first morning he would leave me if he had news of his brother. He never pretended otherwise, girl. He was an honest man who loved me as an honest man loves. That morning before dawn I shall never forget, never regret. Our souls met and recognised each other.

  Great love is a gift not given to everyone. Such a man. I was blessed. To be in that place, at that time was God’s plan. We should have travelled a week earlier but my mother had been feverish – not the cave sickness. Later I learnt from the servants that she had been with child but she had miscarried. We did not talk of such matters in my father’s house.

  Of course, I said nothing of our meeting; not to my father, certainly, and not to my mother. She would surely have told my father. But I always wondered if she suspected something. Love shines in the face, child, like the bright sun. There is no concealing it. My father never took much note of me, unless it suited him, and for once I was grateful.

  When we left the han later that morning, I knew he would follow.

  The call to prayer roused her though she had been drifting between sleeping and waking for a long time, feeling the dew that had settled clammily on her eyes and cheeks and mouth. Now it was time to stir, to move, to follow the road to Konya and from there to the great lakes and from there? Attaleia, where she would find a ship to take her to the cold lands.