Hart, Mallory Dorn

by Jasmine on the Wind

  He pulled open the thick door, which, along with the sturdy walls, had kept the sounds of their combat from becoming public knowledge. The passage was momentarily empty. "I'll leave you as the corridor branches," he told her in a low voice. "You must find a tiring room where you can wash away the tear stains from your face." He looked down tenderly at her delicate, ivory face, the small nose tipped with pink from crying. "Weeping or laughing, you cannot help but be lovely, can you, doña?" he murmured, chucking her chin to strengthen her wobbly smile. Bending, he brushed her lips with his.

  They set off, making sure the door to the chamber was firmly closed behind them. Holding lightly to his good arm, she looked up at him with anxious eyes. "Will you be back soon?"

  "Of course, soon. Think you I would allow the other gallants the remaining sets of dances with you when 'tis only on my arm which you belong? Not likely, my Lady." Her relieved smile removed the last of the black anger from his heart; that, and the thought that his good right arm would soon propel a steel-tipped lance straight into the Count of Perens's face.

  ***

  Dolores came into the corridor just a few steps ahead of the chattering ladies in whose company she had visited the convenience chairs set up in a special chamber. She was just in time to recognize the two figures hurriedly stepping from a room down the hall. She shrank back to mingle with her companions, an unwanted pang of jealousy stabbing at her for the way Francho had pressed Leonora to him as they hurried off, the little Zuniga looking up into his face as if he were a god. Dolores's useless reaction irritated her, but not enough to stem her curiosity at why Don Francisco had held a kerchief pressed to his arm. Pretending she needed to return to the tiring room, she hung back until her twittering friends disappeared toward the main hall, then glided noiselessly up to the chamber Francho had just quit.

  An intuition, a feeling, the stealthy way the two had exited, had piqued her interest. She listened first for any sound coming from the room, but the muffled music of drums and tambourines from the dancing was enough to hide anything faint. Shrugging at her own too lively imagination, feeling foolish, she pushed open the door and walked in.

  The sour vomit smell that assailed her made her crinkle her nose. A quick glance around and with a muttered oath she ran to where Don Felipe de Guzman sprawled on the floor, seemingly dead. She knelt and put her ear against the stained velvet covering his chest, and a wave of relief washed over her as she heard a heartbeat. Sitting back she saw his sword was in its scabbard. There was no blood. He certainly smelled as if he were in a drunken faint. Then she noticed the blackening eye and bruised jaw, and the faint red thumb marks on Felipe's neck. And she understood Francho's arm. Of course. There had been a fight.

  By her pulling up Don Felipe's shirt the narrow niching on it hid the marks on his throat. She could do nothing about the purpling eye and jaw, but anyone finding him would suspect he had weaved into a door before passing out. She desired that Francho stay free and alive, and so if he had attempted to cover this hostility—for the rooms showed signs of hasty putting-to-rights if one looked carefully—she would help him.

  She was on the point of making a hurried exit when one of the candles burning in a wall sconce guttered and a metal object, partially hidden under Guzman's body, gleamed and caught her eye. Stooping, she drew Francisco de Mendoza's bracelet medallion from under the unconscious Count of Perens and held it reflectively on her palm. Then, smiling, lowering her lids on the gleam in her gray eyes, she dropped it safely in the pocket among the folds of her flowing skirt and glided out of the room, back to the dancing and entertainment, to the huge supper that would be served somewhere before midnight, and to the unctuous attentions of the Duke of Medina-Sidonia.

  Chapter 15

  Urging his fine dappled gray up the steep path to the looming fortress of Alcala la Real, Pietro di Lido reflected on the luck that his mission's ship to Rome was being outfitted in Cartagena, making reasonable a stop at Alcala to pick up Don Francisco de Mendoza, who had returned to his post from Seville six weeks before. He knew the gentlemen riding behind him, followed by their escort guards and baggage mules, could use a night's rest as well. And he looked forward as much to the little game to be played out for them as to the sumptuous meal Don Iñigo would surely spread.

  That night he hardly had to interrupt his dining in order to display the requisite polite disappointment when Tendilla announced that his son was absent from the board suffering with some sort of gastric upset. And the next morning when di Lido joined the refreshed party waiting for him in the castle courtyard he had no trouble generating a look of concern as he announced to all that he had seen Don Francisco and that that gentleman was suffering a bad congestion of the lungs and a fever and could not join them immediately; however, as soon as he was well he would sail on his own and meet the party in Rome or Constantinople.

  With a gracious bow he accepted Don Iñigo's salute and Godspeed and his wishes for a successful embassy and then smartly led out his impressive little cavalcade, the bright banners of their houses fluttering proudly from the lances of their alert and armored escort.

  "Tis a pity Don Francisco has caught a fever and is too ill to ride," Don Diego de Cerda remarked to di Lido as their horses threaded their way down the mountain's steep slope. "He's a sharpling at cards. I was hoping on the sea journey to gain back some of the gold he relieved me of at Baza. Ah well, the opportunity is flown, now."

  Di Lido flicked a bit of mud from his silken knee and smiled pleasantly. "I shall be glad to provide you with a chance to recoup, señor. Although I may not give you so good a game as Don Francisco."

  From de Cerda's grin of acceptance, the amused savant knew that the Viscount did not realize from whom the young Mendoza had acquired his skill at cards. The months at Mondejar and Baza had been long and sometimes dull, and a bit of gaming always perked up the brain. His flat turban was secured against the wind by its own tail tied as a wimple under his chin. He pulled this closer about his ears and hunched into the fur collar of his fur-lined cape. "Tis always cold in these high places," he grumbled to de Cerda. "I am looking forward to the civilized climate of the Eternal City. E vero!"

  PART TWO: Granada

  Chapter 16

  Standing at the lip of one of the high passes through the Sierra Nevada, the traveler imagined that if he but blinked his eyes the mirage that was the great, long valley of the Sultanate of Granada, laid out to right and left below him, might disappear, merely a creation of a brain weary of mountain dun and the somber green of pine and spruce. In most of Spain winter still hung on, and even in Andalusia the early spring rains caused chill. But in this lovely southern valley, protected on every side by humped ranks of towering mountains, it was astonishingly, eternally June.

  As far as Francho could see on that crystal clear morning stretched a living mosaic of fields and forest, green, gold, and brown, alternating with flower-dotted, open meadows, where herds of animals grazed. The sun glinted from a vast Crosshatch of irrigation ditches netted across the land, carrying along the life-giving waters of streams, which descended like silver ribbons from the high snowcaps of the surrounding peaks. Growing up the flanks of these giant guardians were olive trees and neat fruit orchards, stands of frond-waving date palms, garlands of vineyards, and patches of purple gentian blooming wild and vivid. Below and hidden in the hearts of the rearing granite barriers— and especially coveted by their enemy—were the Moors' labyrinthian, slave-worked mines, which delivered to them the earth's riches: gold, silver, iron, lead, sparkling marcasite, and sapphires large as eggs.

  Gleaming white towns and villages dotted the valley, each with a creaking water mill and a mosque tower rising above its red tile roofs. And in the distance, drawing the eye like the main jewel in a tiara, there rose behind its thousand-towered walls the fabled city of Granada, the resplendent dream of centuries of pashas, spread out on the plain and climbing in steep tiers along the creased, purple foothills of the mountains.


  Every rising breeze brought the perfume of orange blossoms, of scythed grass and warm, moist earth to Francho's enchanted nostrils—as well as the smell of mules and donkeys as a caravan coming up behind him from the rocky defile crowded him close to the edge of the cliff. Pulling his eyes away from the view he settled his pack more comfortably on his back, filled up his lungs with the scented air from the valley, and set off on the descent down to the vega.

  To the eye of anyone who beheld him he looked an ordinary figure in his white turban and flapping, long tunic; a tall, olive-skinned, black-bearded Moor with all his possessions in one small pack on his back, the only difference between himself and the other subjects of the Sultan who traveled along the packed-earth road to Granada being the lacquered and inlaid seven-string guembri fixed atop his bundle. He shared his route with local fanners driving produce carts, and with the owners and shouting boys attached to files of donkeys and camels heaped with bulging sacks of goods for the lucrative souks of Granada.

  Although the warm sun forced him to halt several times for something to drink, his brisk stride ate up the leagues, and by noon the reddish walls of Granada were scarcely a league distant. He could make out the houses rising along the hillsides, dazzling white or pink or blue, a maze of buildings pierced by the gilded spires of minarets gleaming in the sun and separated by avenues and squares lined with trees and palms, an unusual amount of lush greenery for so densely inhabited a city. And high above all, in solitary splendor on its own peak, sprawled the palace-fortress called the Alhambra, renowned citadel of western Islam.

  Francho had no doubt he looked his part. Two weeks of simulated illness at Alcala and two more weeks camping in the hills with Ebarra had given him the beginning of a short black beard which he'd shaped in the Moorish manner and which he actually liked; he thought it gave his strong-nosed face a more serious appearance. His dark hair was cut shorter. His skin was naturally a pale olive, and his brilliant blue eyes were no detriment; for after hundreds of years of intermarriage between Arab and Goth many Moors were blue-eyed, with fair complexions and even blond hair. Only those Moors of pure southern nomad stock had the dark skins and the piercing black eyes of the desert dweller.

  Francho wore the humble costume of the poor, an unbelted brown tunic which almost covered the baggy brown breeches secured about his ankles, and leather sandals. In fact, the loose-fitting clothing had a liberating effect, for there was no weight of a heavy swordbelt around his waist or any bother with buttons or tangled points when he disrobed. In his pack, around which he had wrapped the old cloak he had worn in the mountains, he carried an extra cotton turban cloth and a tunic, some food, a few handwritten pages of Arab verse, some sections of the Koran bound with cord, a wooden bowl, and a flint. Hidden under his garments was a filled purse. The snake-headed dagger was stuck under the band of his breeches, and, incautiously he knew, there was a tiny silver cross sewn inside the waistband of his pants.

  At one village, because he was close to his goal and in high spirits, he unslung his guitar and treated his fellow travelers and the delighted urchins about the well to a rousing ditty, lifting his voice to sing it strong and clear—and for the first time awarded his white smile to the enthusiastic applause of a circle of grinning strangers and their cries of "More, more, more!" But with a rakish bow and salaam he continued on his way again.

  His thoughts centered on his new identity as his feet carried him along. He reflected that this was now the fourth time that he had changed lives, nor would this be the last time, if fortune ran with him. He had gone from monastery to tavern to castle, and in each one he had felt comfortable but yet not a true part. In fact, sometimes he envied men that he saw, not merely noblemen but even common householders, because they lived just one life with one name and suffered no confusion about where they belonged.

  If God—if Allah—willed it, however, he expected that this recurring detachment, the vague feeling of incompleteness that had always drifted with him, would find its peace as soon as he took his father's name and his rightful place as Francisco de Venegas, Marquis of the realm.

  Thinking of his rightful name brought up the startling discovery he'd recently made, that the Moorish general Reduan, known for both the strategic cleverness and the ferocity of his attacks, was a Venegas! Both Tendilla and di Lido thought the other had recounted this to him but neither had, until Tendilla mentioned it at Alcala. It seems that Reduan's grandfather, Pedro de Venegas, who would have been Francho's granduncle, was captured as an eight-year-old by the Emir of Almeria, adopted, and brought up in the Moslem faith. Pedro made a fortunate connection by marrying one of the Emir's daughters and subsequently rose to great power and prestige. His son, named Abul Cacim Venegas, became Grand Vizier to the Grand Sultan Abul Hassan, Boabdil's father. And now the grandson, Reduan Venegas, was the second in command of Granada's forces— in spite of the fact that at one time he had been in league with Zoraya and El Zagal against Boabdil and the Abbencerages. How bizarre, Francho reflected, that this second-generation Moorish warrior was his cousin once removed.

  The road as it approached the city was now lined on either side with country estates belonging to the wealthy citizens of Granada city, and through the trees Francho caught glimpses of fine houses, each with an airy and graceful pavilion set in a hedged garden, often reached by a delicate bridge crossing a narrow, silvery brook. Squinting up at the sky he judged it was not much past the hour of one; plenty of time to gain the city and search for a place to live. A growl in his stomach told him he was hungry; the enticing grove of willows he had just come to called to him to rest But because the side of the road was already preempted by a peasant sleeping in the shade of a cart loaded with honking geese, he climbed the low bank and walked farther back into the copse, pleased with the springy feel of the tangled wayside grass under his tired feet

  The soft gurgling sound of water drew him on, and he proceeded further until he came to a brook which flowed crystalline over smooth stones and between tufts of shaggy grass, its bank decorated by a willow whose long, trailing withes dipped into the stream. Delighted, Francho sat down amid bobbing red poppies and there made a leisurely meal of bread and sausage from his pack, washing it down with the cold elixir from the stream, which he scooped into his bowl. Stretching his muscles with pleasure, for never had food tasted so delicious nor water so sweet as they did in this tranquil little dell, he was reluctant to leave. And so he detached his guembri from the pack and leaned back against the trunk of the willow. Fleetingly a memory of Dolores crossed his mind, which he thought was strange. He could picture her as a child, bare-legged, with tangled hair, edging along the dirty wall of an alley to peek out and see if all were clear, or, as now, displaying her beauty and jewels at a Court banquet, or even, although his stomach clenched with the thought, practicing her allure in Medina-Sidonia's bedchamber. But not here, not in such simple, pastoral peace. He sniffed, and in a minute it became clear what brought the perturbing young woman to mind—the air was heavy with the perfume of a jasmine bush growing nearby.

  He laughed and stretched. The lofty Baroness de la Rocha, practicing her haughtiness, might not appreciate the simple pleasure of the sun shining warm through the lattice of willow leaves. Trying to blank out both the insistent floral scent and the tilt-eyed temptress from his mind, he forced up a picture of golden Leonora and imagined her sitting by his side, smiling and happy. Yes. He would mark this charming place and bring his love here some day. The thought soothed him.

  Tightening the guitar strings, he strummed a few chords, trying to decide what song was just right for his mood. A blue-and-gray bird dove from a low branch to swipe at the brook, where a darting water insect had caught his bright eye; the tiny splash he made, along with the buzzing of a fat bumblebee around the field flowers, were the only background sounds as Francho's fingers caressed the guitar strings. His rich baritone was resonant and carried well, and he had a trained and elegant control. With almost no change in the volume of his
voice he could deliver the ring of a warrior's pride or the soft yearning of a lover.

  In the valley sings a bird, O love, a fowl of snowy plumes,

  And I shall silence him at once; the wildling bird presumes.

  His song, 'tis not so sweet enough e'en though that it endears,

  The nightingale alone, my love, is worthy of your ears.

  Ay sweet, sweet, sweet, ay sweet.

  Twice he played the six stanzas of this lilting Arabic love song to a squirrel that chittered at him from the tree, then he changed keys and continued with "Melissandra," the ballad of a maiden whose lover seeks her for seven years and at last, after many a trial, finds her.

  Becoming engrossed in his music and the mellow sound of the guembri as it floated out in the open at last, not soaked up by muffling drapes, Francho swung into the rousing "Bullfight of Gazul": "Sultan Almanzor of Granada, he hath bid the trumpet sound"—his guitar became a martial instrument, decisive and compelling—"summoning all the Moorish lords from the hills and plains around..." He went through the whole colorful saga of the festive bullfight, changing the tone of his voice to fit the various personages described and thumping the guitar with the heel of his hand to represent the bull, which was an effect he had invented himself.

  When he finished, with a triumphant flourish and a rich laugh and smiling broadly to himself, he paused to sip the water left in his bowl and glanced up lazily at the blue sky showing between the leaves. The sun had progressed but he was still loath to go, unwilling to leave the bucolic glen for the crowded hives of the city. A twig crackled behind him and he looked around, thinking he had waked the peasant sleeping under the cart who had come, scratching his beard, to see what the racket was about.

  Instead the branches of the willow were pushed aside by a turbaned man of medium height, light-skinned, with a light brown beard and sad brown eyes, and simply dressed in a plain white tunic with yellow leggings and heelless slippers.