Blue gritted his teeth against groans. He was wrapped in salves and bandaging and Hatice’s care. Already they were a family, intent on each other, careful for each other. He thanked God and Allah for his good fortune. Maybe, sometime, they would journey to his own country and she could see for herself the broad, flat land of his birth but somehow he doubted it. His life was here, with this woman and the boy. Life moved on. He had seen indigo-blue on the stalls in the bazaar on their way through to the harbour.
There was firelight and lamplight though it was close to dawn.
Roger sprawled against cushions, exhausted. ‘Is it always like this with you?’ he asked Giles.
‘Only since Kazan joined us.’
‘That is not true. Do not listen to him, pilgrim.’ Her voice was sleepy. She was nestled against the Welshman, safe, her face burrowed against his sleeve. She had confessed her shame to Sakoura. She should never have left the safety of his home, never should have taken Niko with her. It was against the laws of hospitality and, worse, had taken them into danger and others with them. Dai had told her of this fault in her but she was guilty of the same fault yet again, and this time it was beyond forgiveness. Sakoura shook his head. ‘Enough, child. There is no need to chastise yourself like this. You are young, and the young do such things.’ He saw she was still agonised, her bright soul daunted. He smiled at her. ‘You will find this hard to believe but what I tell you is true. This wife of mine, I never dreamt she could be mine. After her mother died she became a spoilt and wilful girl. Her father doted on her and despaired of her both at the same time.’
‘As bad as me?’
‘Worse. Far worse.’ He shook his head, remembering, but he was smiling in remembering. ‘I was the one who rescued her again and again from her own folly, and I chided her as a slave should not chide his master’s daughter, but she heeded me, because she was as full of goodness as she was full of spirit. That was when my master gave me my freedom. He saw that love flowered between us. And now she is my beloved wife and we laugh together at her past follies.’
She hardly remembered the moment when she was free, when Vecdet had crashed through the balcony to the ground below. She remembered the rancid taste of his flesh in her mouth, and the metal taste of blood and knew she had bitten him deep. Then there was Dai pulling her away from the railing and she had clung to him. ‘You came. You came.’ And his grunted, matter-of-fact, ‘Wrth gwrs,’ as if it were the most normal thing in the world and she had laughed wildly. ‘Safe now,’ she heard him breathe. ‘Safe.’ And his hand stroked her hair and smoothed away fear. Now she was cwtched against him, unwilling to leave his side. She scrabbled closer, sleepy and trying not to sleep because too many nightmares lay in wait for her.
‘My honour,’ Roger groaned. ‘You realise, Thomas, I lost my honour, spinning all those tales for that fat slave trader?’
‘In a worthy cause, Roger. What an actor!’ Tom laughed. ‘It was better than the Feast of Fools.’ He regarded the young man’s down-turned mouth. ‘You were magnificent,’ he said. ‘Without you, we could not have carried out our plan.’
‘Without Rémi,’ Roger said austerely, ‘there would have been no plan.’
Tom drew a sharp breath. ‘You are right, my friend. If and if and if. We are all part of one great whole. This is the miracle, the mystery.’ His dark, handsome, austere face creased into laughter. ‘And Blue deserves credit – oh, of course, for his great battle against the mighty Aziz, and you must sing of that, Mehmi. But I never thought I’d thank him for his drunkenness. I only had to think of Blue’s drunken warblings and I knew exactly how to fool the fat donkey.’ There was general laughter though Hatice’s smile was stiff.
Sitting all together before the crackling fire before daybreak, and none of it as they had imagined this last night together.
Roger said. ‘My life has been so dull I have longed for excitement to break the monotony. Now, in one night, so much is changed. So much.’ He laughed, shook his head. ‘I do not think I want your lives. I hate to admit this, but my mother is right; I want a settled, secure life. I do not want to go to war with France. What has France to do with me and mine? I do not want a battlefield and the groaning wounded and sorry dead. I want my promised wife and my home and the children to come, and their children after them. I want fertile fields and secure harvest.’ He looked round at them all defiantly. ‘I do not count this as cowardice.’
Brother Jerome sat with them. He was exhausted by anxiety, exulted in their victory but he was, after all, a man of peace. ‘To keep God’s holy laws, keep a happy home for your family and dependants; cherish your lands and make all fertile.’ He smiled. ‘That is a good ambition. And necessary if, as you say, England and France are to be at war. There must be those who keep the peace.’
‘You are right, of course, Brother Jerome,’ said Dai, ‘but Vecdet was not a peace-keeping sort of man.’ His arm tightened about the girl, hardly believing she was safe, even now.
‘He was an evil man who brought evil down on too many,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It is better that he is dead.’
‘Little fire-eater, I cannot grieve over his death,’ Giles said, wryly. ‘Not a man like that.’
‘What will happen to those wretched slaves now?’ Tom wondered.
‘I shall see that they are taken care of,’ Sakoura promised.
‘Aziz?’ asked Blue. ‘What of him?’
Sakoura hesitated. ‘That I do not know.’
Tom raised his eyebrow. ‘You are surely not concerned for this man, Blue?’
‘He’s a man like me, fighting for a life, and a good fighter at that. He had a bad master. A wonder how he would be if he had a good man to serve.’
‘Who knows? Tom shrugged. ‘Maybe he has learnt to enjoy cruelty too much.’ He paused. ‘But a man’s life can change in a moment. A sweetmeat seller may happen along, or you may be travelling along a road to Damascus.’
‘Or it may be a voice in a vision telling you to serve the Master rather than the man,’ Brother Jerome said, ‘and to turn away from a life of luxury and warfare, like St Francis.’
‘Or revelations from the Angel Gabriel to a man who was once a merchant,’ said Sakoura, ‘like our own great Prophet.’
‘Or,’ said Tom, ‘it may only be a boy voicing comfort in the darkness, and a hand smoothing away fear and distress.’ His eyes fixed on Dafydd’s, saw them widen, saw the slow smile on the brown man’s face.
Later still, and dawn rising.
‘There was a song I wanted to sing for you on this last night, Kazan.’
‘If it is the same song I would rather you did not.’
‘The same but different. This is not the night I had imagined for us all but I would like to sing for you, even so. Listen now, little blue brother.’
‘Warrior on the prancing Arab horse
‘What warrior are you?
‘Shame it is for a warrior to hide his name from another.
‘What is your name, warrior? Tell me!
‘I am Çiçek, granddaughter of Sophia-the-Wise
‘I am Çiçek, granddaughter of Will-the-Wordmaker
‘I am Çiçek who rides a bright star
‘I am Çiçek who shines brighter than a thousands suns
‘A weaver of words is Mehmi the Minstrel.’
The strings quivered into long silence. A sigh rippled round the room. Yes, the boy-girl who shone brighter than a thousand suns, who cozened their stories from their hearts and whose telling made peace amongst them all.
Daybreak, and leave-taking between those who stayed behind and those who travelled on. Roger had hoped to persuade Thomas to join the pilgrimage but he was adamant he could not. ‘I have to see Dafydd safely to Venezia,’ he said. ‘I made my promise to Heinrijc Mertens. After that? Who knows? Perhaps my own road to Damascus.’
‘I shall say a prayer for you when I arrive in Jerusalem.’
Kazan had a wedding-gift for Hatice. She held out to her the little gold
ring with the carved amethyst stone she had found so long ago in the ruins of the monastery of Alahan. ‘Something of my own finding to give to you for your own keeping,’ she said.
‘I shall treasure it always, my daughter.’
‘He is a good man, this blue man,’ the girl said. ‘He will be a good husband and a good father, as you will be a good wife and mother.’
‘As you will be to the Welshman, and he to you.’
The girl blushed poppy-red. ‘You are mistaken,’ she said, quietly. ‘He is my very good friend, none better, but there is not the love of husband and wife between us. Besides, he is promised to a girl in his own country. The piebald is Kara Kemal’s bride-gift to him. I am only Kazan who he has promised to help.’
Hatice smiled but said nothing. Time enough for the girl to discover her own heart. Of the man’s she had no doubt; she had eyes in her head, and she, for one, did not believe he was promised to any other. Time enough, and a long journey ahead.
Niko was crying without shame. His sister Agathi and his great friend Kazan, both leaving him. For a moment, he longed to be going with them; for a moment, Agathi longed to stay behind with him, but the moment passed. This was what was best for them all. He stood contentedly between Hatice and Blue on the harbour side watching the last of the ships making ready.
The girl stood on the swaying deck of the cog watching the last of the ships making ready. There had been early mist on the waters of the bay, but already the sun was breaking through and patches of sunlight lit the harbour in dazzling glinting flashes of silver and blue and green. This was how she was leaving her country of seventeen summers in search of the grandfather she had never known, only stories of him. She fingered the pouch that hung from its thong about her neck and that contained the tiny axe of polished jade. A token of love so skilfully worked, so ancient, so carefully kept. ‘I promised, Nene,’ she murmured. ‘I keep my promises.’ She remembered the night she had left the camp, secretly, silently, not daring to take her leave of anyone. Leaving, what is that? It means nothing. While the heart remembers there is no leaving. She glanced at the man by her side, a quiet brown man with a sword cut down his face that would always be there, always remind her of a night of terror, always tear at her heart and soul. I caused this, I who would give my heart and soul and life for you. Now, she was not alone.
Glossary
Impossible here to give a complete and thorough account of the alphabets and pronunciation of Turkish and Welsh.
What might be useful is the following:
Turkish
ç – ‘ch’ – softens the c, as in çiçek (flower)
ğ– is silent – oğlu (son) pronounced ‘o-lu’
Ş ş – ‘sh’ – as in Inşallah, şehir (city)
ı – short ‘i’ – pronounced ‘uh’
i – long ‘i’ – pronounced ‘ee’
Welsh
much simpler to read than English, once the letter values are known!
c – always hard, as in ‘k’ – cariad
dd – ‘th’, as in Dafydd (Davith)
ff – equivalent to English ‘f’
f – equivalent to English ‘v’
w – used as a vowel ‘oo’ as in cwm (valley)
Select bibliography
Cooking and Dining in Medieval England by Peter Brears, Prospect Books, 2008
European & Islamic Trade in the Early Ottoman Empire by Kate Flett, CUP, 1999
History of the Countryside by Oliver Rackham, Dent & Sons, 1986
History of Turkey, Vol I edited by Kate Flett, CUP, 2009
Nomads in Archaeology by Roger Cribb, CUP, 1991
The Surgery of Jehan Yperman by Dr. A de Mets (trans. L.D. Roseman MD), Xlibris Corp., 2003
Author’s note
The Book of Dede Korkut is an Islamified collection of oral legends of the Oğuz Turks of Central Asia. Oral stories of shamanistic nomads may have been first written in the 14th century.
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First published by Honno
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© Margaret Redfern, 2014
The right of Margaret Redfern to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without clearance from the Publishers.
ISBN 978-1909983-01-4
Published with the financial support of the Welsh Books Council.
Cover design: Rebecca Ingleby
The Storyteller's Granddaughter Page 35