The Hand of Fatima

by Ildefonso Falcones

  ‘I’m Pérez,’ said the fair-haired man who had helped Hernando to his feet, holding out his hand.

  ‘But we call him “the Diver”,’ butted in another man who joined them, shirtless despite the October cold.

  ‘Hernando,’ he introduced himself.

  ‘Pedro,’ said the bare-chested man in turn.

  ‘Let’s go and see the vicar,’ the Diver suggested.

  ‘You don’t need to come with me,’ the Morisco said.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ insisted the fair-haired man, already heading for the cathedral interior, ‘we’ve nothing to do here; they don’t even let us play cards. We can’t even cheer, as you’ve seen for yourself.’ Hernando tried to catch him up but staggered with the pain. Pérez waited for him and they entered the building together. ‘He quarrelled with the vicar,’ the man explained, gesturing towards Pedro who had stayed behind in the garden. ‘It seems he had a problem with a very valuable necklace,’ he continued as they strolled between the columns of the ancient mosque, ‘but he doesn’t want to tell us the details; apparently he doesn’t want to explain himself to the vicar either.’

  As Hernando well knew, the sacristy was built on to the south wall of the cathedral next to the treasury. It was in a chapel between the mihrab and the library, where building work was still going on to convert it into a larger sacrarium. Halting in the doorway, Pérez humbly asked permission to enter. He was surprised to see Don Juan, the vicar, receive the new fugitive with a smile.

  ‘The Count of Espiel is a bad enemy to have,’ Don Juan said after he had heard Hernando’s explanation. Pérez listened carefully to the story whilst the vicar made notes. ‘I’ll pass this information to the vicar-general, and see what he decides regarding your situation. I hope to be able to tell you something soon . . . and I’m sorry about your family,’ he added as the two fugitives left the vestry.

  ‘How does he know you?’ his companion asked as soon as they were outside the door. ‘Is he your friend? How—?’

  ‘Let’s go to the library,’ Hernando interrupted him.

  Don Julián was busy with the library’s remaining volumes. The new library, next to the San Miguel gate, was smaller and the majority of the books and scrolls ended up in the archbishop’s personal library, which was also where the Korans and Arabic prophecies were hidden.

  ‘May I?’ asked Hernando from the metal grille that now separated scaffolding and workers from the rest of the mosque.

  ‘You know the librarian too?’ whispered the surprised Diver on seeing Don Julián smile as he welcomed the Morisco; a smile that had been tinged with sadness since the disappearance of Fátima and the children.

  They walked among the mosque’s thousand columns with the Diver behind them. Hernando had to repeat the same story he had just finished telling the vicar.

  ‘The Count of Espiel!’ sighed Don Julián, agreeing with the vicar’s gloomy predictions. ‘In any case, the vicar-general will be on your side: the Espiels were one of the noble families who were most vehemently opposed to the construction of the new cathedral, until it was authorized by Emperor Charles V. The new works meant the Espiels lost their chapel, so, in defiance of the cathedral chapter, they financed another church, where they managed to secure patronage for their chapel. Since then relations between the count and the bishop have been somewhat strained.’

  ‘How will it help me to have the vicar-general on my side?’

  ‘As ecclesiastical judge he is the one who has to decide if your asylum complies with canonical and chapter rules. You aren’t a murderer or a highway robber and, from what you’ve told me, your offence could in principle qualify for ecclesiastical asylum. But there’s another more important issue: the right of asylum isn’t indefinite; if it were, churches would become home to delinquents. Here in Córdoba it is restricted to a maximum of thirty days. This allows the fugitive time to negotiate in mitigation of their offence. Knowing the Count of Espiel, you won’t be able to do that.’ Hernando nodded sadly. ‘The count won’t give an inch. He won’t even agree to a sentence that doesn’t involve corporal punishment, which is one of the most common ways of bringing asylum to an end: the Church demands a formal promise from the secular courts that they will treat the offender leniently and, if an agreement is signed, they hand him over. This is where the vicar-general has the greatest influence, because if this agreement isn’t forthcoming, he can extend the period of asylum indefinitely.’

  ‘What would the count achieve by not coming to an agreement with the Church? He won’t be able to remove me from the cathedral or receive any compensation for my . . . crime?’

  ‘The majority of Christians’, said Don Julián, ‘don’t dare contravene the right to sanctuary. The simple threat of immediate excommunication of anyone who threatens to violate sanctuary is enough to frighten their pious consciences.’ Hernando’s hand went instinctively to his kidneys. He immediately recalled the speed with which Juan Velasco and his men had let him go at the mere mention of excommunication. ‘But the Count of Espiel, like many other illustrious individuals,’ the priest went on, ‘can hire people to act on his behalf and by doing so avoid excommunication. Trust no one. As soon as he finds out you’re a fugitive here his men will be posted on the gates to prevent you receiving food or visits; in short, to make life impossible for you. Don’t trust anyone who approaches you in the garden, not even in here. They could kidnap you and hide you in a dungeon on one of the count’s estates.’

  ‘This means, if I’m not kidnapped,’ murmured Hernando, ‘I’ll have to spend my whole life here?’

  Don Julián paused. He turned towards the Diver and gestured authoritatively for him to move away.

  ‘This means’, whispered Don Julián after checking Pérez was two columns away from them, ‘that perhaps the time has come for you to flee to Barbary.’

  ‘And my mother?’ was all Hernando could think to ask.

  ‘She can go with you.’ The two men stared at each other. How much they had shared, all their work and hopes! ‘I’ll start preparing the journey,’ added Don Julián when Hernando let several moments go by without opposing the idea.

  ‘If you can sort out this escape, bear in mind I first have to go via the Alpujarra, the castle at Lanjarón . . .’

  ‘The sword?’

  ‘Yes,’ he confirmed, his gaze lost in the forest of columns. ‘The sword of Muhammad.’

  ‘It will be dangerous, but I imagine it could be possible,’ said the priest. ‘In spite of the ban and the new deportations they’ve carried out in Granada, there are many Moriscos who return there.’ Don Julián smiled. ‘The magical effect of those red sunsets! Good. From Granada you could go to the coast of Málaga or Almería and board a Morisco vessel from Vélez, Tetuan, Larache or Salé.’

  *

  When night had fallen Hernando left the cathedral and went out into the garden. He had Don Julián’s promise to deal with everything, the escape as much as speaking to the vicar-general on his behalf. He found Aisha waiting for him; Don Julián had ordered she be informed.

  ‘We’ll escape to Barbary,’ he announced in a whisper, putting an end to any further explanations as to what had happened. In the semi-darkness he could not see how the expression on his mother’s face changed.

  ‘I’m too old now for adventures,’ Aisha apologized.

  ‘I’m twenty-seven years old, Mother. You had me when you were fourteen. You’re not that old! First we’ll go to Granada and from there, or from Málaga, it won’t be hard for us to cross by boat to Tetuan.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘There’s nothing else we can do, Mother, unless you want me to end up in the count’s hands. It won’t be easy for us either,’ he concluded. He knew Don Julián was right. ‘We’ll have to wait for the days to pass and the Count of Espiel’s men to get tired and stop watching me so closely. You need to be ready.’

  Despite the shock of the news and her haste, Aisha had thought to bring some food: bread, lamb and fr
uit. There was water in abundance in the garden’s well. The service of compline had just finished when Aisha at last said goodbye to her son. The gatekeepers closed all the cathedral gates and everyone who had taken refuge in the cathedral precincts, or just prowled around inside, settled down for the night in the large garden. Some left, while the fugitives or refugees gathered together in spots they had fought to win from each other. Apart from the area occupied by the Perdón gate, the bell tower and a closed section set aside for the archdeacon’s council, the three cloisters surrounding the garden were at the fugitives’ disposal. There they sought shelter during the cold nights.

  ‘Was it your mother?’

  Hernando turned to find himself with the Diver, who, because of the new resident’s obvious contacts with the ecclesiastical hierarchy, had decided to include Hernando in his group, on the off chance he might of some use to them.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come with us. We have some wine.’

  Hernando accepted and accompanied by the Diver turned to cross the garden from the Perdón gate, where he had said farewell to his mother, to the cloister on the south wall. He saw Aisha pass beneath the great arch. In spite of the plan he had just proposed to escape to Barbary, she seemed sad. Where did that sadness come from? he wondered.

  ‘Diver?’ he queried a few steps further on, finally voicing what he had been wondering about all day.

  ‘Yes. That’s what I am,’ smiled the fair-haired man. ‘A diver. I work— I worked’, he corrected himself, ‘for a Basque captain who held the royal concession for the salvage of sunken ships and treasure along the Spanish coasts. We fell out over some gold coins I found a long way from the shipwreck we were salvaging in Cádiz,’ he said, clicking his tongue. ‘I fled, and when they were about to catch me I managed to take refuge in here.’

  Despite Pérez’s explanations, as he stopped in front of the Morisco to enlighten him with words and gestures, by the time they reached the cloister Hernando still had not fully grasped the workings of that fabled bronze contraption thanks to which divers were able to salvage sunken treasures.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said a man who would later introduce himself as Luis. He had sharp features and a broken nose, and his head was covered by a red scarf tied behind his neck. ‘None of us understands it either. It’s most likely a lie.’

  Pérez let fly a kick, which the other man laughingly side-stepped.

  By the light of the large torches hanging in the arches of the garden cloisters another six men were sitting on the floor, gathered around a small wineskin and food supplied by their friends or relatives.

  ‘Welcome to the children’s cloister,’ a man with straight fair hair greeted him, making a space beside him.

  Hernando looked along the cloister, where all he could see were similar groups. ‘Children?’ he asked with surprise as he sat down.

  Juan, the man with straight hair, was a surgeon who had tried to supplement his earnings by some unorthodox practices. He had sought sanctuary after being denounced by some widows, whom he had relieved of their health problems – and their purses. He explained: ‘Several years ago this cloister was set aside for the shelter of Córdoba’s foundlings. They slept in cots on this very spot,’ he added with an expansive gesture, ‘until one night a herd of pigs devoured a few infants. Then the dean of the cathedral, who was very devout, paid for a foundling hospital and returned the cloister to the fugitives. That’s why they call it the children’s cloister.’

  Hernando couldn’t help but remember Francisco and Inés. How much his life had changed in so little time! And now, Azirat, his arrest . . . Suddenly he was aware of the six men staring at him intently.

  ‘Drink some wine,’ advised Pedro, who was still half naked despite the cold of the night.

  Hernando refused the wineskin Pedro offered. By the flickering flames of the torches the penitential garments hung on all the walls of the cloistered garden seemed to tremble in the night. There were hundreds of them, recalling all those punished by the Inquisition, giving the place a macabre feel.

  ‘Give it to me!’ The man beside him, who was called Mesa, dark-skinned and with oriental features, took the skin out of his hands and poured wine straight down his throat, swallowing compulsively. The mouthfuls of wine were usually carefully measured, but on this occasion nobody stopped Mesa from almost finishing it.

  ‘There’s a rumour going round they’re going to hand him over to the law,’ a man they called Galo whispered to Hernando in Mesa’s defence. ‘We don’t know why, but the priests hate him. In fact he only stole a permit so that he could work. He’ll be the first of this lot they expel.’

  ‘One day or another they’ll do the same to us all. They’ll throw us out. Let’s enjoy it while we can.’ The man who spoke was also called Juan, like the surgeon, and was a gunsmith recently arrived from the Indies. He had run into difficulties linked to the mysterious disappearance of a consignment of harquebuses.

  ‘No—’ Pérez started to object.

  ‘Which one of you is Hernando?’

  The shout echoed across the garden. The silhouette of a man with his arms akimbo was outlined in the firelight beside the Santa Catalina gate, where the children’s cloister began.

  ‘Quiet! Keep calm!’ ordered the surgeon when Hernando made to stand up.

  ‘Where’s the son of a whore they call Hernando?’ the man shouted again from the gateway.

  ‘What’s all this racket?’ asked Pérez, getting to his feet. Everyone knew the Diver. ‘The priests will come if you keep shouting. What’s the story with this Hernando?’

  ‘The story is that the cathedral is surrounded by the Count of Espiel’s men searching for this man. The story is they’ve threatened me that if the rest of us try to leave they’ll arrest us and hand us over to the law, unless we hand this Morisco over to them first.’

  The fact was that the majority of the fugitives ventured out into the Córdoba night, even though it jeopardized their right to asylum. The Potro was close by and waiting there were cards, dice and wagers; wine, fights and women. The guards and agents of justice could not mount a permanent watch round the cathedral; besides, slowly but surely, even though it was only after an agreement had been reached about more favourable treatment, the offenders were handed over to the city authorities. They were reluctant therefore to lose any sleep over a hapless bunch who sooner or later would fall into their hands anyway. But if on the one hand the count was paying for the surveillance, and on the other the fugitives were prevented from enjoying their nights outside, the matter became complicated.

  Several fugitives from the other cloisters approached the Santa Catalina gate; in the children’s cloister to the north some others got to their feet.

  ‘It’s true. I’ve seen armed soldiers patrolling the streets,’ one declared.

  ‘It seems you’re in a worse position than me,’ said Mesa, grimacing after another mouthful of wine, ‘and you haven’t even been in here a day.’

  Hernando hesitated, shifting about restlessly.

  ‘Keep calm! Stay calm!’ muttered the Diver.

  ‘Who’s this Hernando?’ asked someone from the south cloister.

  ‘We have to hand him over to the count’s soldiers!’ shouted another.

  In the darkness, many of the fugitives crossed the garden in the direction of Santa Catalina gate.

  ‘Fools!’ This time it was Luis who shouted at them all. ‘What does it matter to you all who he is? I’m Hernando!’

  ‘Me too!’ added the surgeon at once, realizing his companion’s intention.

  ‘I’m also called Hernando,’ declared the Diver. ‘If we give in, today it will be this Hernando, but tomorrow it could be any one of us. You,’ he added, pointing to the nearest man, ‘or you. There’s someone after us all. Perhaps they don’t have the count’s money to hire an army of soldiers, but if they find out we kick out our own . . . Besides, it’s sacrilege to violate sanctuary, whoever does it. If we hand him over, tomor
row it will be the bishop who throws all of us out! And His Grace would be more than happy if he could get rid of us all.’

  ‘Maybe you’ll get lucky,’ Mesa said to Hernando, as all those present were seized by a moment of doubt. They were the only two of the group still sitting down in between their companions’ legs.

  ‘But we can’t get out,’ someone insisted. The muttering which followed his words was interrupted by some curses.

  ‘Hand him over! The bishop won’t even find out.’

  ‘Or maybe he will,’ added Mesa somewhat sarcastically, turning to take the wineskin.

  ‘No, we can’t give him up,’ Luis declared, addressing all the others. ‘Those who want to go out should do so in large groups and through several gates at once – make them have to split up if they want to catch you. The count’s soldiers won’t want to risk their lives if you let them check that this man isn’t in your group. They’ll get nothing out of it; no one’s going to pay them for one of us. Show them your daggers and fists.’

  ‘Any one of us can take on three of them!’ someone exclaimed proudly.

  This time the murmur among the fugitives was one of approval, and a group assembled next to the gate, weapons in hand. Others peered out and confirmed that the count’s soldiers indeed seemed wary of seeing several armed men leaving the cathedral precincts together. Once they had made certain that the Morisco was not among them, the fugitives were allowed to continue on their way. Word spread quickly and a new group hurried off in the direction of the Deanes gate.

  ‘It looks as though you’ve got away with it this time,’ smiled Mesa when the others were sitting down again.

  ‘I thank all of you —’ Hernando began to say.