Hart, Mallory Dorn

by Jasmine on the Wind

  But as the plump official waddled before him into the Sultan's private saloon, he could not help one last, fervent prayer "Santa Cecilia, sweet guardian of musicians, put honey in my mouth, let silver flow from my fingers, do this and I will forever keep vigil for you on this day...."

  Padding past the small knots of turbaned courtiers scattered in conversational groups about the lavish, gilded, and arabesqued chamber, Mustafa Ata halted before a deep, pillowed divan canopied with great swags of shimmering silk. He made a low and reverent salaam. "O Great Sultan, I bring you Jamal ibn Ghulam to whom the pomegranate ring was given—a fine musician whom actually I had marked for my Sultan's services many days ago."

  Sapphires flashed as the Sultan waved his ringed hand. "Ah yes, Mustafa, you are very discerning. I am sure somewhere in your reports there is mention of this minstrel and a future appointment for a hearing. It is not your fault I chanced to hear of him before you could present him."

  Stunned, Francho could only stand and stare in shock, for he was looking at his erstwhile friend, the gentleman of the pavilion, Abdullah, grandson of Mohammed—or Boabdil, Grand Sultan of Granada. Entirely different did he appear now, in his cloth-of-gold pantaloons and brocaded tunic, a ruby shooting fire from one earlobe and a diamond the size of a walnut pinning a trio of white egret plumes to the shimmering gold turban. And in spite of the small, formal smile shaping the bearded mouth, the face that had seemed mild was now tense; the softness, the affability had disappeared behind the closed and impersonal gaze of a ruler of half a million people.

  Two red-sashed Nubians, great arms akimbo, guarded either side of the divan. A kneeling slave kept the Sultan's wine cup full, while another waved a languid peacock fan over the royal head. The odor of precious frankincense from Yemen wafted from a jeweled burner, and Francho soon realized that the tiny flashes of silver light, as if hundreds of fireflies were flitting about in the delicate fretwork of the walls, were actually reflected sparks from a marble bowl of quivering mercury at the Sultan's side.

  "Play for me, minstrel, and sing. I have need of your soothing offices," the Sultan ordered.

  Francho salaamed, not recovered from his surprise. "I... I pray my humble efforts will please my Sultan," he stammered.

  "Such modesty, O singer of songs!" Boabdil responded with some acidity. "And did I not hear you term yourself the greatest musician in all Islam? Well, we shall see. You may begin."

  But Francho remained transfixed, confounded, poise shattered. His brain skittered about, unable to light upon one number in his repertoire. Nervously he plucked out a few chords but his heart skipped a beat; he could remember nothing! His mind was frozen as solid as ice and he frantically chipped at it to unlock at least one small song from its paralyzed grip. Mustafa Ata, seated cross-legged on the lowest step of the dais, stared daggers at him. Shifting the guembri he cleared his throat. He frowned and recleared his throat.

  "Perhaps you know the 'Bullfight of Gazul'?" the Sultan prompted, noting his distress. "It is my favorite."

  The ice vaporized. With gratitude flashing from his eyes Francho nodded. He struck a chord and then another, and expertly swung into the opening lines of the ballad, all the more vigorously for his relief at the passing of his stupor. The Sultan's smile spread and Mustafa Ata relaxed, lips pursed in pleasure.

  From Vegas and Sierra, from Betis and Xenil

  They have come with helm and cuirass

  Of gold and twisted steel,

  In gowns of black with silver laced,

  Within the tented ring,

  Eight Moors to fight the bull are placed

  In presence of the King...

  The heel of Francho's hand thunked the wood of the guembri to simulate the pawing of the crafty black bull. As the song progressed he let his voice sink to a whisper or rise to a shout as the sense of the verse demanded, and throughout the many stanzas his fingers kept up an insistent, driving rhythm broken only by loud staccato twangs for the shouts of the crowd and the snorts of the bull.

  At the triumphant ending his royal audience jumped up in delight and clapped his hands, and there was also enthusiastic finger snapping from the listeners around the room. "You see, Mustafa Ata, have we not heard the truth? Is he not an excellent artist?" the Sultan exulted.

  "Oh yes, indeed, O Great Sultan, so I have thought from the first I heard him. Oh yes, by the Holy Name of the Prophet, he is indeed, as you say, the finest artist in the kingdom," the appointer of royal entertainers babbled, his multiple chins folded into a fawning smile.

  "Inscribe his name immediately upon your ledgers: Jamal ibn Ghulam. And it is my desire that he have the title of Head Musician of the Royal Entertainers. See that we pay him very well and that he is contented, for Allah has bestowed upon him a great gift and I am joyful in his presence."

  "Yes, yes, Excellence, it shall be done as you direct."

  "And you, good Mustafa Ata, may go to the royal treasury and select a few pearls for your perspicacity. In you I have a faithful and capable servant."

  "Thank you, thank you, most Excellent and Greatest of Sultans," Mustafa cried, salaaming his great bulk, the top of his turban almost touching the floor in his happiness.

  Boabdil raised his voice to the rest of the saloon. "And now leave, all of you. I wish to enjoy privately the fine talent of my new Head Musician. Begone!"

  Swiftly the elegant courtiers bowed out, and even the slaves, fan bearers and guards melted away through a doorway heavily screened with clicking strands of lapis lazuli and quartz beads.

  As soon as they were alone Boabdil's face underwent a curious transformation: the tense and arrogant aspect of the ruler drained away, and in its place appeared the mild, sensitive face Francho knew from the pavilion, eyes and beard of a medium brown, small-nosed, gentle-mouthed, a face forever youthful, regardless of time. The gem-encrusted fingers lay relaxed on the silken knee; the furrows of majesty between the eyes had smoothed and disappeared.

  "I think you understand my deception of the kiosk," he said to Francho. "It was an opportunity too good to miss. A Sultan seldom finds such easy occasion for playing pranks."

  "I might have done the same myself, had I been in your position, Excellence," Francho smiled back, weak to think he had successfully leaped his first hurdle four days back and hadn't even known it. "But if in my ignorance of your exaltation I might have made statements of which Your Excellence disapproves, I beg that my outspokenness be forgiven."

  "But that is your charm, Jamal." Boabdil beckoned Francho forward to sit on the top step, on the thick carpet spread before the divan. "You voice peaceful sentiments not often heard in the bloodthirsty circles about me. And I believe that you are honest. Are you honest?"

  Francho's blue eyes looked steadily at this Sultan who had so quickly stepped out of his royal personage and conversed with him as a friend. He saw a lonely, troubled man. But he was not unaware of the pitfalls ringing a ruler's request for honesty and did not let the Sultan's intimate tone prompt him into boasting. "I usually do not lie," he answered prudently.

  Boabdil laughed. "Yet see, that is an honest answer. Had you protested complete honesty I would not have believed it. I like you, Jamal ibn Ghulam. I have honored you for your talents, but I also have need of a truthful man about me. Yes, my mother is truthful, but her words are flavored by her sapping ambition. My Vizier, Comixa, is truthful but his words lack the ring of passion; he has become old. All the others are dissemblers; they tell me what they think I wish to hear or they exaggerate to enflame my passions and I must hear the mutterings of the people through their mouths. But you are of the people, ibn Ghulam. Will you tell me truthfully what they are saying?"

  The invitation was an invaluable opening. Caution would advance nothing. Boldness might. "Their words are not flattering, O Sultan," Francho responded, holding his breath that the reaction to this was not annoyance against him.

  It wasn't. Boabdil rose, clasped his hands behind his brocaded back and moodily paced his da
is. "And what news is this? If I thought they looked kindly upon me, minstrel, would I not go among them to hear their praise myself? I stay cooped up here in the Alhambra, hoping their passions will boil away where they will not fling rocks and mud at the sight of me, or perhaps hire an assassin to strike me from my horse. You found me at the summer kiosk belonging to Yusef Comixa, yet here in the Alhambra I have gardens and pavilions to delight the angels. But here I am a prisoner sulking in a golden jail, and so with a few trusted slaves I steal away to that little pavilion outside the walls where I pretend I am a free man, unencumbered with the woes of half a million faithful in a sea of pressing Christians."

  Furrows returned to his brow; petulance and anger colored his voice. "Did you ever imagine, minstrel, that a Sultan could be caged in his own palace?"

  "I have always thought rulers the very fountainheads of power, Excellence."

  The Sultan's lip curled in self-disgust. "And what is power without men to do your bidding? My policies are unpopular, I cannot enforce them. If I butcher my enemies as some would have me do, in a trice others would spring up like djinn from the ground. I believe as you do, that peace is our only salvation, no matter what the tribute. And with peace I shall build Granada into a glory rivaling even ancient Cordoba. But my people have no vision; they want only revenge and blood spilled in vain to recover what is gone forever."

  From his cross-legged position Francho came to his knees, sitting back on his heels, but careful that his head remained always lower than the potentate's. He spoke intently, with his habitual half-frown. "O Sultan, there are many citizens who hope for peace, many—in the souks, in the Albayazin, on the farms, in the shops. And their voices could be swelled to a roar if those who were uncertain what to do saw a firm power declare for peace, one who would keep all the bellicose under control."

  Fists planted on his hipbones, Boabdil's diamond-clasped plumes trembled with his excitement. "Aha! See there? You already do me good service, Jamal. My advisors are men from the ancient families of aristocrats, firm in the traditions of honor, of noble heroics and courage and the blessed death of a warrior. My generals? They are itching to fight; it is their reason for existence. It does not behoove them to tell me of the people who see the wisdom behind the course I would choose."

  Sighing, seeming to Francho for all the world like a child, petulant because he could not have his way, Boabdil filled his wine cup but left it to sit on the low table while he walked to a grilled window at the rear of the dais and, standing with his back to his new confidant, looked down at the troubled city he loved. The small table, within easy reach of the Sultan's divan, also held a bowl of fruit and a long, jeweled knife.

  "Well. If it is a show of strength my partisans need to prop up their opinions for peace they shall receive it. Momentarily my ambassadors to Ferdinand the Catholic will set out for Seville, to return with the promise of an army of Christian warriors to aid me in securing my throne, for I have been faithful to the letter of my vassalage. And then, minstrel, those who urge war in the face of my edict of peace will either discover obedient silence or face execution."

  He plays right into our hands, Francho thought, he must be kept on the throne at all costs! Yet instantly he tempered his jubilance, remembering that it was the weakest of the Moorish leaders who spoke thus conciliatorily, only the weakest.

  As if reading his mind Boabdil continued, breathing in the fresh breeze from the neighboring hills framed in his window: "Fortunately my enemies are divided, each one jealously watching that the other does not become strong enough to usurp the throne. They would rather bear my shortcomings than face each other's murderous vengeance." His chuckle was dry and without mirth. "Ah yes, I am aware of my shortcomings, Jamal ibn Ghulam. But my hope lies in the hate of Yusef Abencerrage for Muza Aben Gazul, and in Muza Aben's venom for Reduan Venegas, and Venegas's spite for Samel Zegri."

  There it was, Francho thought, some of the names of the powerful aspirants to the throne of Granada, the men he had been sent to observe and, if possible, thwart. And there were others just as dangerous....

  But Boabdil had finished his diatribe. He turned away from the window with a smile that softened his mien again. "And now I am satisfied of one thing more—that you, to whom I talk as we had commenced, man unto man, did not come here to make an attempt on my life."

  Startled, Francho answered, "That is most certainly true, O Great Sultan, for I am your most loyal and obedient of subjects." He judged it would not be amiss to make this plainer. "But I wonder and fear that you would put such trust in a wanderer, unknown and unvouched for, for not in every instance..."

  His voice trailed away as Boabdil laughed—in fact, the Sultan was grinning; he opened one hand toward Francho with a slight snap of his wrist, and a skinny knife, a slim and deadly little sticker, slid down from his beaded sleeve. "Trust? You flatter yourself, O singer of songs. Tis not you I trust but the faithful black man hidden back of that hanging, whose sharp eyes have been on you every minute. And because you did not move from your place, nor send the paring knife into my back, nor poison my cup when you had every opportunity I could give you, you are still alive and I still like you. Well then, come out, M'jambana."

  The draperies concealing a niche rippled and a huge Nubian wearing the conical cap-and-turban combination of the palace guards stepped out, resheathing his narrow, curved scimitar. He rolled his eyes fiercely and uttered weird, unintelligible sounds.

  "M'jambana lacks a tongue, but his eyes and ears and scimitar work perfectly. He was presented to me when I was a boy, a frightened savage whose father had cut out his tongue in sacrifice to some heathen god. Master and slave we grew to manhood together. He is never far from me."

  One could see the black was no ordinary slave. He wore a sleeveless velvet jacket embroidered in gold thread from which his bulging black arms emerged in naked magnificence except for a wide gold band on one huge bicep. His grin was the grin of a tiger, teeth widely spaced and filed to sharp points. He stationed himself immobile behind the Sultan's divan, a barbaric Goliath with shiny hoop earrings adorning his distended earlobes.

  "M'jambana is a loyal slave," Boabdil explained, reseating himself and reaching for a fruit and the paring knife, "but a very poor conversationalist And my loving Sultana, Morayama, Allah bless her, is dutifully silent as a wife should be. My son is in the hands of the devil Christians, who teach him their incomplete faith, and my little daughters know only of the harem. Of my courtiers, I trust few. Ah, Jamal, a ruler is a man alone, a veritable monk in the cell of government, a solitary sufferer." A wave of self-pity washed the fine-featured face. "But why do you smile?"

  Forthrightness was what the Sultan seemed to want, and this he would receive. Boldly Francho observed, "O Sultan, you have a harem of women more beautiful than the sun, casks of jewels, a thousand slaves to do your bidding, entertainers to amuse you, and a palace of shining beauty. Some might mistake your 'cell' for Paradise itself."

  Suddenly annoyed, Boabdil leaned forward, grasping the edge of the divan. "By what right do you speak? You look at all this through common eyes, with no inkling of my responsibilities. How dare you imply I complain without cause?"

  Francho's gaze did not waver. "You asked me to speak the truth as I see it."

  "I suppose in your wisdom you can tell me how a man can be happy in a nest of vipers?"

  "No, Excellence, I am not that wise. But I can do my very utmost to keep the sound of their reptilian hissing from your ears and help to repair their strikes at your heart," he answered, disarming the moment. He took up the guembri in his hands and roguishly tilted an ear inviting a request.

  Smiling again, Boabdil leaned back on his pillows and considered the brash commoner before him: a musician, but with an intriguing frankness and a certain commanding air, a man who addressed his ruler respectfully but spoke without ambiguity; a genuine artist, an aesthete, a virtuoso of sensitive and delicate refinement, yet hard-headed at the same time. This ibn Ghulam was a dua
l character, able to live successfully on two planes. Could he learn from him the secret of existing and working with bitter reality without crushing the sweet and fragile dreams in his heart? Was there still time to learn how to extract happiness from his life?

  Boabdil tented his hands and placed them against his lips with friendly amusement. "So. You withdraw from the fray and use your instrument as a shield? Very well. Then you shall be my shield. Bring forth your music, Head Musician, and soothe away the angers of a day spent in argument with a hostile council."

  Folding his long legs under him again, Francho played and sang his ballads, one following another, choosing only those about happier events, along with a few of his most eloquent love songs. The Sultan relaxed, his bearded mouth curved in a wide, childlike smile, transported, sometimes striking his hands to the tempo to make the background of a tambour. At the end of the love songs, which particularly delighted him, he would call out, "That one! Remember that one. It pleases me."

  Francho showed his white teeth and answered, "I am fond of that one too. Our tastes are similar, Excellence."

  When at last he was dismissed, Francho received Boabdil's instructions to obtain a pass from Mustafa Ata and to attend his ruler's pleasure every day at this time without fail. Then Boabdil put out his jeweled hand. "You may return my ring."

  Francho took the ring from his pocket. The fruit engraved on it was not a persimmon or peach, as he had thought, but a pomegranate, of course—la granada, the pomegranate, what better symbol for the Great Sultan's ring. He gave it up, and Boabdil put it back on his thumb.

  "You shall have others more costly, Jamal, do you continue to please my ears."