The Storyteller's Granddaughter

by Margaret Redfern

  ‘Let go of your grief

  ‘Set that free as well…’

  He had heard Taid talk of another storyteller who, he claimed, he had rescued from drowning in the thundering Mawddach waterfall. A young boy he was then, the storyteller, travelling with his brother to escape the cruel King Edward of England at the end of the first war with Wales. And the brother; a strange one, a gifted musician who played as well as the great pencerdd, Ieuan ap y Gof, who was his guide and teacher; and this though both brothers were Sais born and the older spoke, if he spoke at all, in a garbled tongue. Neither brother had married, as far as his grandfather knew. Married to their art, more like, like this young Mehmi. Dai wondered who Kara Kemal would choose as bride, and if the son would be dutiful enough to marry her.

  Later still the talk turned to their journey.

  ‘Bandits, you say?’ said Twm. He was more relaxed than Dai had ever seen him, leaning back against the cushioned dais, fingering the carved stem of the drinking cup. So beautiful his dark face with its high cheekbones and the proud lift to his head. Little wonder the girl had eyes for no one but Thomas Archer.

  ‘For some time now. Since the last snow melted. Which route are you taking?’

  ‘It’s shorter through the valleys.’

  Kara Kemal nodded. ‘Not such a straight road but, as you say, the shorter way. I have friends who would gladly give you shelter.’ He was frowning, pulling at his lower lip.

  ‘But?’ Dai prompted him.

  ‘A dangerous route these days. My advice…if you want my advice, my friend?’

  ‘You know I do.’

  ‘Stick to the Konya road. There are more hans along the routes to Konya, and more travellers. Safety in numbers, dear boy, safety in numbers. If you are determined to leave tomorrow and will not wait to travel with this caravan you say is following behind you, better not take the road less travelled.’

  Dai flicked a glance to where the guide and muleteers were sitting; he saw the relief on the Amir’s face and wondered if he would have slipped away in the night had Twm insisted on the other route.

  ‘Is it really so dangerous?’ Tom asked, his eyebrows lifting.

  ‘These are troubled times, and troubled times ahead. The bandits are roaming the land without any restraint. They’re very fond of robbing merchants.’ Kemal paused, his hand hovering over the almost empty dish of aruzza, then sighed, replete. ‘Not another mouthful,’ he murmured. Then, almost in the same breath, ‘The Osmanlıs have taken Nicomedia. Have you heard that?’

  ‘Not a thing – but we’ve been away for months now. Isn’t that the tribe that besieged Brusa some years ago?’

  ‘That’s the one – they came out of nowhere. A puling, straggling horde, then. No one paid them any heed yet they starved the city into surrender. And Nicaea, remember, only five years ago? It took them twelve years of siege but they did it.’

  ‘Are they planning to take over the whole Karası beylik?’ Twm was amused, disbelieving, but Kara Kemal didn’t laugh.

  ‘It seems that way. After that, who knows? They may decide to come further east. The Karamans have made deals with them so they must consider them a threat.’

  ‘But the Karamans have the strongest beylik in all Anatolia.’

  ‘That may have been so but there’s talk of marriage with the Osmanlıs.’

  Dai frowned. ‘You really think there’ll be trouble, Kemal?’

  The old man nodded. ‘Yes, I do. There’s something about them. Such a small tribe to make such gains. And they are getting stronger.’

  ‘They have nearly a hundred fortresses, they say,’ said the eldest son, ‘and Orhan, the leader now, visits them all the time, making sure they’re kept in good repair.’

  ‘If they can control the sea roads, the Venetians and Genoese will have to dance to their piping.’

  ‘I see what you mean – unless Venezia and Genoa go to war against them. Of course, war against a common enemy may end the feuding and fighting between those two city states.’

  ‘Is that likely?’ Kara Kemal’s voice was dry with disbelief.

  ‘Is any of it likely?’ said Twm. ‘You’ll be talking next of the Osmanlıs taking Constantinople.’

  Kara Kemal laughed. ‘Enough, my friends. This is a night for rejoicing. Tell me, what became of that strange friend of yours, the young man from Tangiers who had such plans to travel the world? You were travelling with him the first time we met, remember, as his interpreter?’

  Dai smiled, remembering. ‘Abd Allāh Muhammad, yes.’

  ‘That’s the one. Everyone called him Ibn Battuta, didn’t they? What news of him? Did you stay with him long? Did he return home or did he travel on to the Far Lands, as he said he would?’

  Dai lifted his hands. ‘So many questions! Let me see: as far as I know, he is still travelling. I left him at Nicaea. In fact, we were there not long after the Osmanlıs had taken the city. They were building a new mosque.’

  ‘Then you know far more than we do, my son.’

  ‘You’re a dark horse, Dafydd.’

  Dai laughed. ‘It was horses that kept us there for over forty days. One of them was sick. Ibn Battuta refused to wait any longer and left with a few of his companions and slaves but me – well – it was nearing the year end and I was wanting to get back to Heinrijc Mertens. I knew the Venetian fleet would be sailing soon from Constantinople…’ he shrugged. ‘We parted company.’

  ‘So he’d be without his interpreter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  And that hadn’t pleased him at all, Dai remembered. ‘Sometimes I hear stories of his travels from merchants who have met him. India? I am sure of it. How could he not arrive there with his baggage and companions and slaves?’

  ‘Dai my friend, I think you did not entirely approve of him.’

  ‘I liked him well enough. He was a man of courage and vision.’ He paused, considered, and a memory came to him of when they were in Manisa, shortly before they arrived in Nicaea, and two of the slaves tried to escape – one of the slaves his own. Yes, Battuta had given him a slave, probably one of the many gifts given to the traveller by the people he visited. Battuta took it for granted there would be slaves. Everyone did. These two took the horses to water and made off for a town on the coast where the Genoese had – still had – a trading station. They were stopped and brought back, punished, resumed their life of slavery. It was one of the reasons he had decided it was time to go his own way. Battuta had made him a gift of his slave when they parted company and his first act had been to free the man. And the man had stayed with him, refused to leave. Madness! They’d sailed together on the Venetian fleet and he was with Heinrijc Mertens yet, a freed man who chose to enslave himself of his own free will.

  Dai became aware that they were looking at him, waiting. Such a tale was not fit for a feast and he was a poor tale teller at the best of times. He laughed. ‘Did you hear about the time Battuta visited Birgi and saw the black stone that had fallen from the sky? No? It was like this…’

  Mist still clung to the circle of mountaintops the next morning but below them the great plain was clear, a cool dry wind whispering in the old stones of the building. Dai and Kara Kemal walked around the repaired walls, the old man proud in showing the improvements made since Dai’s last visit. There were sections of wall that had been rebuilt using stones from the ruins that lay outside the gates of the courtyard; columns and carved stone that told their own tales of other times, other builders. Always there was a past, thought Dai, here and in his own country. Would they never be rid of it? Never be free of it? No future, it seemed, only the past.

  They climbed the steps to the ramparts. Any crumbled stone had been cleared and made good. ‘My sons’ work,’ Kemal boasted. ‘We’re safe here from any bandits and no-goods, hey?’ They looked down on the activity in the courtyard. Blue was at the furthest end of the courtyard, huddled with the three brothers in a conference that filled Dai with misgiving. What mischief was the man into now when he
should be readying them for the day’s journey? Twm was directing the muleteers. Blue’s job. Maybe Twm was remembering the collapsed bundles on the mule yesterday. Was it only yesterday? Giles was carrying out panniers, his arm muscles bulging, an enigma of a man, even now; spare of speech, skin that would never turn brown in the sun but was reddened and weather-beaten; close-cropped hair that hinted at indeterminate ginger; eyes that were neither brown nor green. A man from the Marches, that country that was neither Wales nor England. Edgar was directly below them, his hair tangled with gold curls and no sign of the tonsure that had marked him out for what he was and that he had covered with his hood until recently. The children were with him, drawn to him despite his quiet ways. Dai could see him smiling his pale smile, still weak as a day old kitten though he swore otherwise. The day before had worn him out, no mistaking, but he was better for the night’s rest and female fussing. Rémi was with him, both young men as joyful in the games as the children. And had they played games when they were young? Dai wondered. Not much of a chance for either of them, from what he knew of Rémi and what he guessed of Edgar.

  ‘He has a good soul, that one,’ Kara Kemal said abruptly. ‘Where did you find him?’

  ‘More like he found us, Kemal.’ Dai laughed, remembering. ‘Tangling with the merchants in Aleppo and it wasn’t the better part of the deal he was getting. He heard Blue blustering in that unspeakable language of his. Seems our Edgar comes from that part of the country.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘We don’t ask questions of each other, Kemal. Best not.’

  ‘So you take each other on trust?’

  Dai nodded.

  ‘That could be dangerous in these times, my friend.’

  ‘Could be. It’s worked out so far.’

  ‘“Men’s bodies are like pitchers with closed mouths; beware till you see what is inside them”,’ Kemal quoted.

  ‘Then I’ll be wise and look at the contents and let the inner meaning guide me,’ Dai said carelessly. Kemal shook his head. ‘Always an answer – and from the same teachings of our Rumi’s Masnavi.’

  Dai grinned. ‘Of course. He is my teacher’s teacher.’

  ‘And when did you learn to speak with a flattering tongue?’ Kemal asked.

  On the road below spirals of dust resolved themselves into a long caravan. The rumble of trampling hooves and men’s voices and whistling grew louder, and the squeaking and grating of harness and jangling of metal rose up to the two men. They watched from their safe nest. Mules plodding, heads down and a long procession of stately camels, all laden with heavy bales of furs and hides; a string of horses that would fetch a good price; an army of men riding as guards, one cantering back up the line – a messenger, probably. At the end of the caravan, trailing behind in the dust kicked up by the animals, came a lengthy column of men, women, children roped together. One of the women carried a very young child, no more than a dwt, thought Dai, but no doubt heavy enough for carrying a day’s distance. Early morning and they walked wearily. They wouldn’t fetch as good a price as the horses – couldn’t expect to be looked after as well as the horses, either.

  ‘They’re early on the road.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ah. The caravan you would not wait for. Perhaps this is fate, my friend.’ Kemal was mischievous. He recognised the tone in the one clipped word; a stubborn man when he’d a mind to be, this quiet brown man. Kemal leaned further forward over the rampart, squinting into the pale sunlight. ‘Now there’s a sight I thought never to see again.’ He leaned further, so far that Dai gripped him by the arm, pulling him back.

  ‘Wanting a closer view than you reckoned on, is it?’ he grunted.

  ‘No closer than need be, if that’s who I think it is.’

  ‘Vecdet. Yes, it’s him.’

  ‘Then you do well to keep clear of him. He’s a bad man.’

  ‘“The pitcher that holds deadly poison?”’

  ‘As the good Rumi says.’

  ‘Better travel alone than in company with that man.’

  ‘You will take care, dear son?’

  ‘Of course, my father.’

  ‘And that one?’ He nodded towards Blue, stretching now and flexing his muscles. Loud shouts and laughter and hands slapping his back and pinching his shoulder muscles. ‘What kind of pitcher is he?’

  ‘He has his moments.’ Dai hesitated. ‘There’s no malice in the man, see. He’s been good for Edgar – taken him under his wing, isn’t it.’

  They walked on. Beyond them, beyond the rock-strewn stretch of flat land, mountains reared up into the mist, their tops hidden. Dai was suddenly gripped by longing for his own mountains, and the glittering sea and wild riverlets tumbling down the mountainsides through land that was sodden and peaty, and somewhere above him buzzards hanging on the winds mewing their mournful cry and kites flashing red in sunlight as they soared and dipped. He shook his head, cleared the image from his mind, though memories were coming more and more frequently these days. He had to stay focused; there was work to be done, a day’s travelling ahead of them.

  ‘My friend…’ Kara Kemal was saying. He sounded hesitant, stopped, fumbled for words.

  ‘Say what you have in mind. What troubles you?’

  ‘There’s one wishes you ill, my friend.’

  ‘So you were seeing that, were you? There’s nothing gets past you, does it now?’

  ‘You know? And you are not worried?’

  ‘I am curious. There is no reason for any of these men to be holding a grudge against me.’

  ‘Maybe it comes out of the past.’

  ‘Maybe it does. But our past has no place here. We’ve all left our pasts behind.’ Even as he spoke Dai knew it wasn’t true; the past littered their way, forcing itself into the future as these scattered stones told of other, older lives.

  ‘For your sake, I hope you are right. But take care, my friend, or perhaps one morning you will wake to find the past rising up and staring you in the face.’

  ‘Better that than knifing me in the back.’

  ‘So you do know there is danger.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Kara Kemal nodded, his turbaned head bobbing against the sun-whitened stones. His eyes were hooded, impossible to read. ‘I shall offer prayers for you.’

  ‘Better to offer them for my troubled companion.’

  ‘That as well. Come, if you must go, it is time you were on your way.’

  They had circuited the walls and climbed down the re-made steps into the courtyard. Dai was on the last step when Kemal said from behind him, ‘That wife I talked of – I think you’ve chosen her already?’

  Dai waited until he had stepped down into the courtyard. ‘You see too much, my friend.’

  ‘“A true lover is proved such by his pain of heart.”’

  Dai grunted. ‘Pain of the heart now, is it? And I’m thinking that it’s nothing more than an ache in the guts from last night’s eating.’

  ‘Ah, my son, words, only words: “When we fall in love we are ashamed of our words.”’

  ‘Father Kemal, you tie me in knots with your quotations.’ Dai’s gaze was fixed on Twm and the horses. ‘Is it so obvious?’ he asked at last.

  ‘Only to me, my son. “Love unexplained is clearer than explanation by the tongue.” Who is she?’

  ‘I don’t know. Truly. I think she is the granddaughter of a wise old Greek woman who died only days ago. They were living with a yürük tribe that summers up in the mountains near the Göksu.

  ‘The Sarıkeçili. Well, they used to be of that tribe. I think they go now by the name of Karakeçili.’ He was poised on the last step, smiling. ‘So, my son, what now? You have offered for her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’ Dai sighed, laughed at the expression on the old man’s face, sighed again. ‘I’ve hardly even spoken with her. Besides, she’s probably promised to one of the men. And I have these to look out for.’ He swept a hand to take in the courtya
rd, and the scattered group. ‘It is not to be, my father.’

  ‘My son, who are you to decide what is and what is not to be? Only Allah the all-compassionate, the all-knowing decides.’

  ‘Well, I’m here and she’s there. Allah has decided.’

  The old man chuckled. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘There is always room for faith,’ but Dai had already turned away and the old man had spoken quietly.

  Twm and Rémi and the muleteers had already assembled their small caravan: ten mules, twenty camels, their horses, a cluster of dogs, no more than that. They carried lightweight, precious goods: fine silks of great beauty and richness and wonderful colour; precious stones – rubies, this time, and pearls and amber; pepper, of course, and saffron and sesame and ginger; high-quality goats’ wool made into hats of the material called bonnet that was so popular in France and England just now – Heinrijc Mertens prided himself on being fashionable. The spun gold and gold thread so loved by the Venetians would be bought in Attaleia, together with silver and gold plates and spoons and trays and pots; Those, and their bedding, clothes, provisions, water were the most cumbersome bundles. And always there were the oddities Mertens loved; these were not for trade but for himself. His collection, he called it. Dai had a few items close hidden that he knew would please the old man.

  Blue was nowhere to be seen and Twm was fretting, fearing the worst. ‘Never here when he’s supposed to be, Dafydd,’ he grumbled. He was the only one of them who called Dai by his given name. A morning for ghosts it was to tap him on the shoulder, Dai thought, if ghosts could tap, for there was a note in Twm’s voice that was just like his youngest brother’s voice. ‘He’s not here, Dafydd. He promised he would be. He promised.’ He was about to mouth the same words of comfort he had used to his own dear, dead brother when Kemal’s three sons came into view with Blue in their midst.

  ‘It’s another howry drear daäy,’ he greeted them but he was smiling, well pleased with himself. The youngest, slightest of the brothers, Mehmi-the-poet, clapped him on the shoulder and all three were laughing, loud in their praise. Repairs to the walls that they had thought would take hours of heavy labour had been accomplished in a blink, a snap of the fingers, with the help of this man-mountain.