Hart, Mallory Dorn

by Jasmine on the Wind

  The afternoon dragged on, for after Comixa departed several others took his place, and then Boabdil asked to hear the ballad his acclaimed troubador was composing in honor of his Sultan's brave declaration of war. Approving of the finished stanzas, Boabdil finally gave Francho permission to retire. Flinging a cloak over his satin tunic, Francho hastily made his way down the Albayazin and with quick greetings to Ali and Azahra sat down in his old chamber to write an urgent dispatch. Leaving the house he told Azahra that he would return shortly, and she asked no questions but nodded silently and dumped his wooden bowl of spiced lamb and rice back in the pot to keep hot.

  ***

  It was at the fete for Muza Aben Gazul that Francho finally caught more than a passing glimpse of Reduan Venegas, who spent most of his time in the vega whipping Granada's swollen army into fighting units and who seemed to have no patience for the intrigues and politics at the Alhambra. If Francho looked for a family resemblance in the Moorish-Spanish warrior, he was disappointed. Reduan was of middle height with a flat, undistinguished face, cold eyes, and a thin, humorless mouth surrounded by a scraggly, pale beard. He lacked the crackling vigor and brute strength of Muza Aben, but he had something else—a sharp, incisive mind capable of shrewd tactical planning. From his aloof manner and rigid bearing Francho guessed his men were more afraid of him than fond of him, a good reason why he remained in a somewhat secondary position to the inspiring Muza Aben Gazul.

  Reduan's conversation, as Francho overheard it, was terse and laconic. He had a slight tic on the right side of his face, which grew more pronounced when he seemed to be bored. What communicated itself to Francho's covert study was that the man was an egoist, even more a lover of self and of power than an idealistic patriot. The unsupported impression was not productive for the moment, but Francho stored it away.

  If the lavish banquet was a personal triumph for Boabdil, who for once was given the obsequious respect he craved— although Francho suspected this was because the lesser aristocrats merely followed the example of Yussef Abencerage and Ahmad Zegri, whose superficial homage mirrored their relief to have the throne out of each other's grasp—it was also an artist's triumph for Francho, whose name was announced in the entertainments by Boabdil himself and later shouted out by the delighted guests sitting on low banquettes around the walls, who pelted him with flowers and money and did not allow him to resume his seat at the steps of the Sultan's dais for an hour. A flush of pleasure rose to color the strong planes of his face, and his heart squeezed with the impossible wish that somehow Tendilla, di Lido, Nunez, Leonora, Dolores, his friends and even his foes could hear the cries and loud finger snapping for his talent. If he grinned and swaggered back to his place, none could blame him, he excused himself.

  The day after, a colorful tournament was held on the Vivarrambla, impressive with the experienced arms and caparisoned, trained steeds of the most daring of Granada's knights. But Francho's frustrated longing to lock weapons with them was somewhat mitigated later as he read a missive received from Tendilla: the Lady Fatima and her entire company had been waylaid in a short battle at Espinos and were now captive at Alcala la Real. The Count also mentioned laconically that the lady comported herself graciously and did not seem at all distressed at this interruption of her nuptial journey—or even with the loss of her considerable marriage portion.

  Hardly a few hours later the Vizier Comixa, waving a message recounting the ambush, rushed in horror to the Sultan's chambers, where the ruler was relaxing with his wife Morayama and watching his Head Musician teach one of his little daughters how to finger the guembri. Salaaming to the ground until his old bones nearly creaked, the distraught uncle feverishly requested of Boabdil one hundred Christian captives from the Alhambra dungeons to add to the ransom of gold and pearls he was collecting to offer.

  A secret smirk lit Francho's inner being, both for the feeling of power that coursed its way through him and also in behalf of one virgin given at least reprieve from an arranged marriage that had evidently chilled her heart.

  ***

  Boabdil's anger with this Christian coup prompted a stern decree that in no case would any more Christian captives be ransomed, regardless of rank or circumstance. In the same communique informing Tendilla of this, Francho had also added: "I pray you, my lord, give up the enclosed letter into the hands of Doña Leonora de Zuniga...."

  The euphoria of his triumphs, however, did not last and soon a melancholy gripped him which he tried to keep to himself. To everyone about him Jamal ibn Ghulam was the same strapping, cheerful musician as ever, even a bit grander in fact as the Sultan's unending largesse afforded him more sumptuous tunics, bright leather shoes, big gold rings, and even a slave boy to bring his meals. But when he was alone in his own small garden he wandered about disconsolate, plucking idly at the leafy shrubs. He swam more fiercely than ever, and his wrestling partners complained he seemed to want to kill them. His moodiness did not escape the Sultan, who had an uncanny sensitivity to unhappiness and who believed for some reason that Jamal yet grieved for the sweetheart he had found murdered in Malaga. Francho did not deny it.

  They were alone one early spring day, almost a year after Jamal ibn Ghulam's arrival in Granada, moving about huge ivory chess pieces on an inlaid gold-and-onyx board when Boabdil raised his head and regarded his companion, perhaps a decade his junior, with a paternal air.

  "You ought to take a wife to you, Jamal. There is only one cure for the loss of love gone forever, and that is the love of another. In your position you can negotiate for a woman of decent upbringing and with reasonable dowry."

  "Great Sultan, I just am not made to forget that easily. Some men love once and that is all." Francho stretched muscles cramped from sitting still and concentrating too long.

  "Then you must have a concubine who you need not love but who will at least warm you at night and fill the empty hours. Come now, Jamal. Who can live like a hermit and be surrounded by the sensuous beauty of this, my glorious Granada? Whichever of my many palace women catches your eye, that one you need only ask for. You can glimpse them on their way to the outer court to buy their baubles and trinkets."

  Not to seem ungrateful for Boabdil's genuine concern for his well-being, Francho first smiled and then looked thoughtful for a moment. "Well, perhaps you are right, Excellence. But I need a while longer yet to mourn, else I reproach myself for taking too lightly the tragic death of my lady."

  Boabdil tossed him a golden-skinned Safary peach, the first of the season. "In a few months, then, singer of songs, remind me of my promise. For a man like you, to live without the affection of a woman is unhealthy."

  But Francho did not want a concubine. He wanted Leonora. And thus he wanted the snow to fully melt in the high mountains so that the main Spanish forces could come through the passes and the final war could begin, the faster to get him home.

  The Darro and Xenil rivers were already rising higher in their beds with the snow melt, and so a week later he was not surprised to see Muza Aben's ebullient troops returning with hundreds of booty-laden mules and donkeys and a long, wretched line of dirty prisoners. Francho was just returning from a visit with old Zemel, the hospitable artist who had fashioned the beautiful, crooked-neck lute whose tone had captured both the Sultan and the Sultan's guests, but this time he had gone to commission a gilded minstrel's harp, for the Sultana Morayama had shyly mentioned that she much admired the sound of that celestial instrument.

  Bemused by the memory of Zemel's gossipy tales of the Spanish, Sicilian, and French families whose members had in the past purchased his famous instruments, Francho pulled the mule he rode into a cross street to allow Muza Aben's lumbering cortege to go through. From the number of burdened animals and the captured banners displayed upside down it was obvious that several large merchant caravans had also been waylaid in addition to the herds and goods and dwellers taken from raided towns.

  And then one pennon struck his eye like a physical blow—a golden antelope on a fi
eld of blue—and he swung sharply around in his saddle to stare at it fluttering upside down from the lance of a chain-mailed Moorish knight. With a growing dread he turned his attention to the file of captives now plodding past and ran his gaze over the weary, frightened faces of the couple of hundred Spanish villagers, merchants, muleteers, guards, and peasants trudging along with bound hands, wailing children running along at their mothers' skirts. And then, as he hoped he wouldn't, he spotted Dolores at the very rear of the file of prisoners.

  A susceptible, mustachioed sergeant had allowed her to ride on a baggage donkey, for the delicate leather shoes peeping from under her ripped skirt were in tatters. She kept the hood of her dusty velvet cloak drawn to shadow her grime-streaked face, and she cradled in her arms the rag-wrapped infant of the woman walking beside her, but she jogged along as erect as if the mule were a white mare with gilded hooves, and she stared out of proud, reddened eyes at the grinning, gratified citizens of Granada, who lined the way, hooting. Oh yes, it was Dolores, indeed, and after the initial disbelieving shock of seeing her in such a plight an unreasoning stab of anger cut through Francho.

  Idiota! How had she come to get herself captured? She must have been traveling near the border, and by herself evidently, since Medina-Sidonia's guards or banners were not to be seen. Francho's life, his mission, was proceeding smoothly. Why had she to roll up a boulder into his path? At last, resignedly, he urged his mount to fall in with one of the soldiers bringing up the rear of the slow procession. "And do you take all these Christian scum to the Alhambra dungeons?" he asked, with mild curiosity.

  The soldier glanced at Francho's long brocade coat and medallion of service to the Sultan and answered politely, "No, sayed, these all go to the Alcazaba. Now that none can be ransomed the palace cells are too good for them." The man snorted companionably and grinned. "But if you see one of them that pleases your eye, sayed, these are all the able-bodied and will be sold for slaves shortly. If I were a rich man," he winked, "there is one flame-haired wench up ahead I would spend some dinars for."

  Francho smiled back. "And when will this particular slave auction be held, should I be in need of servants?"

  "In a day or two, as soon as they are inspected by the slave masters and the best of the lot cleaned up and put in shape to bring more money. The sales of these captives go fast. 'Tis strange you are not aware of them. Most gentlemen are anxious to obtain a Christian dog, especially of some breeding, to wash their feet. Prices will rise higher now, now that the Sultan has forbidden ransom, and the 'betters' will be on the market."

  Francho slipped a dirham into the brawny hand and rode off scowling down a side street leading toward the palace. The day, which had started so pleasantly, with no complications, was ruined. He certainly could not allow Dolores to be sold as a concubine or slave, or even suffer her to languish in the dripping and rat-infested cells below the Alcazaba. Most probably she had not been molested by her captors; she was obviously a lady of quality and the habit of treating the wealthy less roughly because of the ransom they would command was engrained. But now, once dragged onto the selling block, Dolores would no longer be a high-born lady—she would be reduced to a female of no rights, a property, a slave, a body to be used and abused if such was her owner's bent. That could not happen. He would have to purchase her himself, even if sheltering her involved taking her into his confidence, although he was sure there was one thing he could trust Papa el Mono's daughter not to do—not to rat.

  Plague on the female, anyhow! Why couldn't she have stayed where she belonged, safely in Seville enjoying the largesse of her aging Duke. A jolting thought suddenly crossed his mind. Even in her dishevelment Dolores would draw the eye of every man who came to the sale, and many of them would be very rich, with many concubines already in their women's quarters. And even with the considerable gold he had accumulated in gifts from the Sultan and other admirers of his talent, he could never match these inveterate buyers of choice female flesh. Never. But there was Boabdil—

  Stopped in midstride at the entrance to the Sultan's private saloon by the sinewy arm of M'jambana, Francho made out from the mute's hand gestures that Boabdil dined with the gentle Morayama this late afternoon and wished to be alone with his wife. Suffering an uncomfortable pang behind his breastbone, whether from annoyance to have to bide his time or jealousy of Boabdil's idyll, perhaps both, Francho asked M'jambana to bring word when the Sultan could see him, even if for a moment, no matter what time. He made his way back to his chamber, where a palace lackey had already lit his oil lamps, and picked up a volume of Jorge Manrique's Coplas, that great, sonorous elegy which he was rereading in Arabic translation. He tried to concentrate, to relax his taut facial muscles, but with little success. He knew that his excitement was not just because of his need to rescue Dolores from disappearing forever into some rich Moor's harem, but that it was caused by Dolores herself, her presence in Granada, and he remembered the peculiar skip of his heart and the palpitation of joy that had flooded through him at the sight of her on that donkey not twenty paces distant from where he sat his horse. He felt a shameful thrill of power humming through him now to know she was dependent on him for her freedom, maybe even her life.

  Remembering his lascivious dreams his stomach muscles tightened again, and a heat began rising in his face as he wondered, not without more shame, how grateful would she be? Villain! Varlet! He slapped the book down in disgust for his baseness, growling and muttering to himself through his forked black beard, and launched himself across the couch at the brass table standing there in order to fill his empty innards with nuts and candied fruit and halava and give himself something to do. He had finally dozed off when, hours later, the huge mute tapped softly on his door to fetch him.

  He found the Sultan sitting bare-chested, being prepared for bed by several servants softly padding about him. Boabdil's smooth, tan skin was stretched over a fine-boned frame that was well proportioned if a bit narrow in the shoulder. A scattering of dark strands on his chest ran down in a line to disappear into the broad silk sash wrapped about his waist. His brown hair was tousled by the unwinding of his cloth-of-silver turban. He looked boyish, relaxed, and more assured, as he had been ever since his defiance of the implacable foe to the north had gained him what he hungered for—greater respect from his subjects. He watched Francho approach with a mild expression on his face, and his eyes crinkled in a huge yawn as he suffered his valet to pull off his low, gilded boots. "What is it, Jamal? I told M'jambana I do not require you for tonight; you should take advantage of such freedom. Repose has not avoided me lately and I am tired from an—um—exalted evening." His smile was sleepily suggestive.

  Francho immediately fell to his knees in a deep salaam. "A boon, a Great Sultan, I beg a boon," he cried. "I have come to remind you of a promise you made to me."

  The urgency in his voice prompted a sharp glance of curiosity from Boabdil. Waving his valets away from his couch to keep them from removing his pantaloons, he complained, "Can it not wait until the morning, minstrel? Must what you wish be accomplished in the dead of night?" He yawned again, significantly, but anyhow in curiosity cocked an eyebrow. The self-contained ibn Ghulam had never asked for anything before.

  "Morning might be too late, Great Sultan. I beg your indulgence now, Excellence." Francho's ordinarily resonant voice was muffled because his turbaned head was still touching the floor.

  "Well, look up, look up, singer of songs. Since when are you so abject? This favor you crave must be no less than half my realm." Boabdil chuckled, amused and intrigued. He was in an expansive mood and wondering what his musician could so suddenly need.

  "Excellence, today I saw the new captives brought in by Muza Aben Gazul and his cavalry. There was one among them, a well-born young woman, so she seemed by her dress and demeanor, who took both my eye and my breath. It's of her I beg leave to speak."

  The Sultan leaned forward, more than curious, now, his hands braced on his thighs. "Is this a tall lady w
ith hair of auburn and great doe eyes the color of silvered smoke?"

  Francho blinked. "But—how does the Sultan know this? Have you already viewed the captives, then?"

  The indulgent smile seemed to wipe itself from Boabdil's face, to be replaced with a petulant droop. "No, I have not seen this damsel. But not an hour ago this self-same female was described to me by another petitioner. It seems she is of the nobility, a Baroness de la Rocha, and she has made great issue that she is under the protection of one of Ferdinand's council, the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, who will happily pay a good ransom for her so she insists. As I am sure he would. But Tendilla's scurrilous refusal to release the ward of my Grand Vizier has sealed this woman's doom, and no matter her station or offer of gold, she will be sold as a slave."

  "Indeed, Excellence, as is right, an eye for an eye," Francho agreed. "But in this captive my soul has trembled to see a woman whose attributes match that of my departed love. Excellence, I would have this Christian female as concubine. All prisoners are yours until they are sold. Once you offered me any slave in the palace. Now, O most generous of rulers, I beg you to sell this one slave to me."

  Tranquility disappeared entirely from Boabdil's face; he threw up his hands and rolled his eyes to heaven in exasperation. "Allah have mercy, I would gladly give you the wench as a gift had I known sooner you desired her, musician. But I have already given my promise to sell her elsewhere."

  Francho rocked backward on his heels, taken aback. "Promised her! To whom? When?" he demanded, unheeding of the impudence of his questions.

  "Tonight, as I said. To my good general Reduan of the house of Venegas, whose request I cannot refuse. Tomorrow he will install her in his harem." Boabdil moved his shoulders uncomfortably under Francho's stricken expression and looked away, rubbing at the stubble of beard on his cheek. "I am truly sorry, my friend. But I am also happy that your heart is free of the grave at last. Perhaps there is another among the captives or here in my house that will please you as well, now your mourning has passed. A Moslem woman of soft voice, more obedient than those haughty Castilians...."