The Storyteller's Granddaughter

by Margaret Redfern

  Dai had never heard so many words from Amir all at the same time. The man was agonised, torn between an easy journey for his son and his own honour to deliver this caravan as swiftly as possible to Attaleia. A night spent in fitful sleep by his son’s bedside hadn’t helped. Dai nodded, agreed; better for the boy, wasn’t it, to take it in easy stages? See how he was when they arrived at this han.

  Edgar begged them to set Rashid up with him, bolstered with blankets and cushions, but Dai shook his head. It was Blue who roundly objected: ‘Yer got mawks in yer heäd, altar boy. Yer reckon yer clink an’ cleän but yer straight from liggin i’ bed and likely as need tenting yersen afore the day’s ower. E’ll coöme along wi’ me.’ He added slyly, ‘A’m good fer a piller, Fustilugs reckons.’ The boy made no complaint though his teeth ground into his lower lip when he was lifted up into Blue’s brawny arms. Then his head lolled against the man’s broad chest, his face pale as a corpse, but a weak smile touched the corners of his mouth.

  ‘He’s right,’ Rashid murmured. ‘A good pillow. I’ll do well enough. Tell father not to fret.’

  Looking at them as they waited to fall in behind the two larger caravans, Dai sighed: Edgar the new-recovered; Rashid new-wounded and who should, by rights, not be moved at all today; Twm with his sword-arm bound up and resting in a sling, reins gathered up in his left hand; Blue as bruised and battered as Dai knew himself to be; Giles surreptitiously easing bruises and stinging flesh wounds; the muleteers and cameleteers moving cautiously, carefully – ‘crambling’, Blue said – and Amir for once not urging them on. Even the animals seemed subdued. Only Rémi seemed the same as ever. And a musician and a girl-boy added to their group. Easy pickings they would be for any scavenger that came their way today and his responsibility to see they came safe to journey’s end, wherever that may be. Twm was looking his way and rolling his eyes in disbelief and suddenly he felt laughter gusting through him and saw Twm’s face unexpectedly crease into hilarity. All will be well and all will be well yet, he thought.

  It was a slow journey, made slower by the combined caravans, but, even so, it was their small caravan that lagged behind until Dai urged the other two to go on without them. He settled his mind to a night at the unknown han and the hancı who was cousin-in-marriage to Amir. A quiet day; windless and warm with the mountains at their backs and the great bowl of the high plateau ahead of them and that city of learning where Kara Kemal’s revered Mevlana lay in his tomb.

  ‘The Mevlana. Who is he?’ Twm asked. Dai remembered what Ibn Battuta had told him: in early life he was a theologian and a professor. One day a sweetmeat seller came into the college-mosque with a tray of sweetmeats on his head and, having given him a piece, went out again. This was a rough, crude man but Jalal al Din left his lesson to follow the man and disappeared for some years. Then he came back but with a crazy mind, speaking nothing but Persian verses which no one understood. His disciples followed him and wrote down his words in the book now called The Masnawi. Love and acceptance, love and acceptance. That was the creed of the holy man, the Mevlana, Jalal al Din Rumi, even though his beloved, his Shams, was killed, murdered, by the very people who claimed to revere the Mevlana. Love and acceptance. That was everything.

  Afterwards, Dai looked back on that day as a turning point in all their lives but he couldn’t pin it down to any one thing. The day before should have been the pivot: the girl, of course, and the miracle of her coming; and Kara Kemal’s choice to send with her his youngest son; then that short, vicious battle that had done as much to bond them each-to-each as it had to set them moaning and groaning this dawn, and had itself become a tale for the telling; Edgar’s tale that had them all staring – ‘gawming’, as Blue would say – and set still tongues wagging; the signing that had given Rémi new life – look at him now, riding by Edgar’s side, fingers flashing as he sign-talked, and pale Edgar flushed and chuckling and Rémi making those snorting noises that passed with him for laughter. There was as well a new respect shown to Edgar by Giles, and Blue crooning all the while they made ready: ‘Who’d ’a thowt it, altar boy?’ Then grinning and nudging Edgar so vigorously that the boy was sent constantly reeling. ‘A’ll ’ave ter find yer a new naäme, woän’t A? Can’t keäp on calling yer “altar boy” when yer not no longer, can A?’

  Dropping into Dai’s thoughts was the memory of the dark night and Twm’s insistent questioning: do any of us have the right to make our own choices? Find our own happiness? Taid made his choice, he thought, but it wasn’t for his own happiness. It was for mine. Has his choice given me happiness? And what of my own choices? Were any truly made freely? He shrugged the questions away from himself. Another day he would think about such matters, a day when he was alone and his mind was not moving as sluggish as water along a silted shoreline.

  But today, this slow journey with the wounded boy and anxious father and any hope receding of reaching Attaleia before the Venetian fleet sailed, this was where all changed. He had expected the men to be fractious, quarrelsome, edgy as they had been for so much of the journey but they were all of them buoyant, in holiday mood, singing snatches of song whenever Mehmi played for them, or played for the invalid cradled in Blue’s arms as the tanbur was cradled against Mehmi’s shoulder. He was letting his horse pick its way with no hand on the rein; Blue was riding with the reins in one hand, the other secure about Rashid in his cradle of bedding, for all the world as if it were a dwt in his arms. Ambling, they all were, as if time no longer existed. As if they were with Rashid in his drowsy poppy-sleep. As if they were moving through a dreamland that shimmered in late summer sunshine where they would be healed of the most grievous wounds of body and heart and head and soul. Even Twm was rested, his skin less taut, the worry-line that so often creased his brow eased. He had trotted the grey horse alongside the girl’s piebald, Kara Kemal’s bride-gift, and there they were, talking together, Twm’s head bowed, the girl’s tilted up in that way she had. That would please her, Dai thought, Twm’s company. He wondered what language they were speaking; Kazan’s halting Venetian or Twm’s murdered Turkish? Whatever it was seemed to be not a problem. He pushed away all other thought.

  They arrived at Amir’s han just after mid-day. The cousin-in-marriage wrung his hand until Dai was sure it would drop from his wrist. They were welcome, welcome – to rest, to eat, to stay the night, if that was their wish. And the boy, Amir’s son! A thousand pities to see him wounded and so pale but what a brave son, for sure! How proud Amir must be to have such a son!

  Amidst the flow of talk, the fat little man summoned servants to take charge of the animals, his comely, plump wife to bring pitchers of water to wash off the dust of travelling, his dark-eyed daughters to bring fresh water to ease their thirst. He had them seated on plump cushions in the shade of the courtyard and great platters of rice and yoghurt and olives and fresh fruit in front of them, enough for everyone, everyone! As for the boy, a spoonful of broth would put fresh life in him. This wife of his, she would know best what to give him. She was a wonder, a marvel! What a lucky man to have such a wife! What a lucky man to have such daughters! Such a family! Amir was welcome, welcome, and his friends with him!

  And the broth did do much to restore Rashid. A miracle, Amir’s cousin-in-marriage claimed, his wife worked miracles! She was as clever as the cleverest apothecary. She was the best of wives, the best of mothers, the best of sisters, hey, Amir? Now let the boy rest awhile and he should be well enough for them to travel on to Konya. How far? Not even an afternoon’s travelling! Soon they would be close enough to see Konya and its wonderful gardens and rippling streams; its many minarets and domes of the medrese, the learning places. It was but an hour distant – two hours maybe. Well, maybe a little more because they were travelling so slowly but no more than three. Four at the most!

  Ah Konya! Did they know that the Ilkhanids had sacked other cities, destroyed them utterly, killed thousands of people in Erzurum, in Sivas, in Kayseri, but though the castle was slighted, there was no
massacre in Konya? The great Mongol commander, the man of war, met with the Mevlana, the man of peace and love, during the siege of Konya. Love and peace won. The Lodge of the Mevlana was proclaimed so holy it must be inviolable. Had they heard of this?

  Ah Konya! Not what it used to be now that the Karamans had made Laranda their chief city – and renamed it ‘Karaman’ after themselves, in a show of vanity – but Konya was the place of the sublime Mevlana’s eternal rest! Amir did right to take his son to that holy place for blessing. A pity this was not the April month when the healing rains collected in the beautiful April Bowl given to the Mevlevi only ten years ago. A wonderful vessel of bronze skilfully inlaid with gold and silver motifs and inscriptions to the benefactor, the ruler Abu Sa’id Bahadur Khan. Never had he seen such a miracle of workmanship! Had they heard tell of it?

  They had; Kara Kemal had told them of it but Dai hadn’t the heart to tell this cousin-in-marriage, so full of goodwill and pleasure in their visit. A bursting bladder of a man he was, with short, thick arms that waved about like the trunk of that extraordinary creature Dai had seen once in the Far Countries. It was Mehmi who broke into the torrent to say that his father, too, had journeyed to Konya to see the great April Bowl just after it had been presented to the Lodge. His father also was a follower of the Mevlana.

  ‘Is it so? Is it so? That is good,’ beamed the cousin-in-marriage. ‘He saw it with his very own eyes, as I did?’ He had taken his wife when she was grieving over the loss of their youngest, a boy not yet three years old and his wife no longer young enough to bear another. Ah! A bitter time that was. He thought his wife would never cease grieving the death of the little one and so he had taken her to Konya to the Holy Men at the Mevlevi Lodge. He saw for himself, with his own eyes, these eyes looking at them even now, how the tip of the holy Mevlana’s sash was dipped in the water and the water given to such supplicants as he and his wife to drink, or poured over them if they could not. And its powers were so great that all who were afflicted were healed; and those who were barren became fertile. See for themselves! See this youngest of his daughters! The miraculous gift of Allah and the Mevlana, born nine months after his wife had drunk the healing waters of the April Bowl, and grown now into this imp of mischief!

  He swung his daughter up into his arms. Seven years old, and like to break hearts when she was older. A beauty, like his wife. Didn’t they agree?

  The dark-eyed, plump-cheeked little creature giggled and dimpled and patted her father’s face with plump, dimpled hands. For sure she would be a beauty, Dai thought, a day-bright maid, and not a murmur of regret that this was not the sturdy son that all fathers longed for. He only rejoiced. Who would have guessed this beaming, garrulous fool of a fat man had suffered such a loss? Suffered still for the loss of his precious dwt, his son, his three-year-old? Dai wondered if the man berated himself because he had not been able to keep the boy alive. A bitter loss indeed to have any family – brothers, sisters, mother, grandfather – who you could not keep alive, though you begged and begged God’s help and forgiveness and offered your own life in their place.

  He became aware of Kazan’s thoughtful stare fixed on his face, realised he had been lost in his own dark thoughts, that the cousin-in-marriage was talking on, talking of the Mevlana’s mausoleum standing four-square in the Palace Gardens that themselves had been gifted by Sultan Alaeddin Keykubad to the Mevlana’s father, with its great pyramid roof pointing a finger to the sky.

  ‘My father says there is talk of building a new roof,’ said Mehmi. ‘Have you heard of this?’

  There was talk of a dome as high as a Mevlevi’s turban, a ‘Dome of the Sky’, to soar aloft as befitted such an exalted man, though he’d wanted nothing more than the dome of the true sky itself above him and his father. What would he think of all this splendour, this man who cared nothing for show? Look at his tomb, draped in costly covers embroidered with gold thread! And next to it his father’s grave, the coffin standing up out of respect for the son. Did they know about that? Wasn’t that a wonder? Wasn’t that a marvel? Had Mehmi’s father talked of it? And now they were dancing – dancing! – to the music of the ney and rebab and tanbur and çalgı zilleri and def and turning in circles when there had never been such a thing before. Ecstasy, they said, they achieved ecstasy and oneness with Allah. But the Mevlana, Jalal al Din Rumi, he had never done this. How could it be?

  ‘I’d forgotten he talks more than a donkey drops turds,’ Amir said later that afternoon.

  ‘He’s a good man, Amir.’

  ‘He’d be a better man if he talked less.’

  Dai laughed out loud. After a moment, Amir let his face relax into the beginnings of a smile. ‘He’s done well enough by my youngest sister. When the boy died, we feared for her reason. His one son lost to him and never a word of reproach.’

  ‘He seems to me a man who counts his blessings.’

  ‘Endlessly. No stopping him.’ But he was smiling still then silent and Dai wondered what it was he didn’t – wouldn’t – say. At last he said, ‘He looked after us well enough, for sure.’

  ‘Very well – and Rashid is the better for it.’

  ‘He is, isn’t he?’ The man sighed with relief. ‘I’ll be easier still when he’s had the Mevlana’s blessing.’ He glanced sideways at the calm-faced brown man riding alongside him. ‘You’re a good man as well, master. There’s not many masters who’d do as you’ve done.’

  ‘And a non-believer at that,’ Dai laughed. He was moved by Amir’s praise but he wondered what it was the man had wanted to say.

  They were ambling again through the warm afternoon. Even the animals snickered and brayed and barked softly and the soft pad of their feet on the dusty road was soothing. From behind them drifted mellow snatches of sound of the oud; echoes of sounds from a far-off world, it seemed. Edgar had insisted on taking his turn with Rashid and Mehmi was keeping pace with him. Twm came alongside him.

  ‘Your Kazan is a strange one.’

  ‘My Kazan?’

  ‘You’ve chosen to make him your man – or boy, I should say.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘He’s some strange ideas.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Dafydd, you know he has!’

  ‘Well now, no I don’t. What ideas are these?’

  ‘You’d try the patience of all the saints that ever were – including all those obscure saints of your benighted country.’

  ‘Well now, there’s many of those never famed for their patience.’ He chuckled. ‘Come now, tell me. What has the little blue brother been telling you?’

  Twm didn’t laugh. ‘I asked him about what he said. Freedom to choose. You know?’

  Dai nodded.

  ‘I told him what you’d said – that there was duty and honour that couldn’t be shirked. Know what he said?’

  Dai shook his head.

  ‘That there was something in what you said but you’d got the wrong words.’

  ‘There’s nothing new, then. I suppose he gave you the right words?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, he did.’

  ‘Now who’s trying the patience of all the saints?’

  Twm smiled. ‘That Nene he talks of – that’s the grandmother we met, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Sophia.’

  ‘Sophia. That’s it. A Christian, Kazan said.’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Strange, that, isn’t it? A Christian living amongst the yürük?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Seems this grandmother was as much a Sufi as a Christian, according to Kazan. It was all one to her. Love and tolerance – or love and forgiveness – the two most important beliefs for Christian and Sufi. That’s what she said, according to Kazan.’ He glanced sideways at Dai. ‘And that’s where Kazan says you got the wrong words.’

  ‘Is it now?’

  ‘“Not duty and honour,” he said, “but love and tolerance.”’

  �
�Well, there’s good now.’

  ‘Don’t go all Welsh on me.’

  ‘But it’s Welsh I am. A true Cymro.’

  ‘Dafydd, sometimes you exasperate me beyond reason!’

  Dai laughed but he relented. ‘Did Kazan quote the Mevlana?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s a verse in the Mevlana’s book, the Masnavi…’ Dai heard the words ringing in his head as he had heard them the first time when he was in a black hell of despair and guilt and anguish: Gel, gel, yine gel…

  Come, come, come again,

  Whoever you may be,

  Come again, even though

  You may be a pagan or a fire worshipper.

  Our Centre is not one of despair.

  Come again, even if you may have

  Violated your vows a hundred times.

  Come again.

  He translated the words aloud, fumbled them, tried again, wondered if Twm really was listening.

  ‘I think he told me this,’ Twm said, when Dai had finished. ‘We had a few language problems.’ He grimaced. ‘All right, so my Turkish is not as good as yours.’

  Dai said nothing.

  ‘Dafydd! It’s not as bad as that. We managed to understand each other. Kazan’s Venetian isn’t so good, either.’

  ‘Good enough to put me right, isn’t it now, telling you I’d the wrong words? He’s a bright one. Don’t you think so?’