by Jane Johnson
Return, then, as sole king to this city of Granada as its lord and master. I sincerely lament the disturbances that have passed and desire to atone by my future conduct for the part I have taken in them.
From Granada, Moulay Abdullah al-Zaghal
He held the scroll out to Momo, who made no move to take it.
“How interesting, and how humble,” Momo said at last. “My uncle is admitting his error in usurping the throne that is rightfully mine. And seeks to offer me his loyalty.” He laughed. “How uncharacteristically generous of him.”
The second man bowed and stepped forward, bearing the bag of jewels. “He sends you these gems to demonstrate his familial love and good faith.”
“And these, sire.” The third man made his obeisance and set the bag of coins with a rich chinking sound at Momo’s feet.
Qasim made to pick them up, but Momo put a warning hand on his arm. “Don’t.” He looked to the messengers. “Would you take a glass of sherbet?” When they acquiesced, he sent a page running and the boy returned moments later with a jug and glasses of the stuff, the ice already melting in the short distance between the icehouse and the audience chamber.
“Come,” he said, “make yourselves comfortable and don’t stand on ceremony. Amin, take their outerwear.”
Another of the pages ran in and retrieved the men’s apparel from them; the fourth man—who held the letter—awkwardly shrugged off his cloak.
The light of comprehension suddenly dawned on the vizier’s face. He turned and gestured to the captain of the royal guard. “Seize them!”
There was a scuffle, but nothing more: the “messengers” carried not even a fruit knife between them: we had divested them of their weapons—swords, daggers and a couple of boot stilettos—before they entered the audience chamber. Under questioning they soon capitulated, which took less time than you might have expected from men sent by the fearsome al-Zaghal. All but the leader. I stood before him. There was blood running down his face now, as well as sweat. I felt no regret at having caused it to flow: I knew well what mandrake poisoning could do to a man. It was a miracle I had survived, and I was sure al-Zaghal would not have gently dosed his missive and gifts.
“How did you know?”
There was hatred and madness in his eyes, eyes I had recognized as those of the man who had almost hacked down the door to Momo’s bedchamber in Almería all those long months ago.
“You were all wearing gloves. On this, the hottest day of the year.” I shuddered, remembering that long-ago chieftain’s son writhing in agony. I wondered where al-Zaghal had found a poisoner so clever as to be able to imbue paper and jewels with this terrible decoction.
Momo ordered that the messengers be beheaded and their bodies hung from the battlements. Their heads and a letter addressed to al-Zaghal were dispatched back to Granada. I had never seen him so coldly angry. He had changed, I thought, in the past three years. And when I considered what had happened to him in that time—his capture at Lucena, his imprisonment, the loss of his children, the coldness of his wife and the recriminations of his viperish mother, the loss of his throne and his home, the wounds to both body and soul he had taken at Loja—I supposed it was no surprise that he was a different man to the innocent lad I had loved.
Did I love him any the less for what he had become? Truly, I did not. If anything, I loved him more. And from that day on, I took it upon myself to smell and taste all his food and drink, to check his clothing and blankets. He never asked me how I knew about the mandrake: perhaps because his mind was not on me at all. But I feared what would become of me if he ever discovered my secrets.
Message to Abu Abdullah Mohammed,
rightful sultan of Granada
Jumada al-Thani 13, 891
Sire, I regret to inform you that the town of Íllora, the Right Eye of Granada, has fallen to the infidel, and the enemy then moved upon Moclín. The women, children and the elderly were evacuated for fear that the inhabitants of that town would suffer the same fate as those poor souls in Ronda. God protected them, but by ill chance a lombard fell upon the tower of the armoury where our black powder was housed and the explosion was so great that nothing but ruin remains. Queen Doña Isabella and her daughter rode into what remains of Moclín to meet with King Ferdinand, may Allah curse them all. The forces of the infidels now hold all the towns and castles west of Málaga.
Your servant,
Musa Ibn Abu’l Ghrassan of the Banu Serraj
Message to the rightful sultan of Granada
Jumada al-awwal 7, 892
Sire, the world goes in fear following a great shaking of the earth. Some say it is caused by the marching feet of the mighty army of unbelievers now heading for the port city of Málaga under the orders of the Christian king Ferdinand, others that God is trying to wake the faithful to the need to join together to fight to save our kingdom, the last bastion of Islam in the West.
Your uncle Sidi Abdullah Md al-Zaghal this very morning marched his troops out of the city of Granada to face the infidel. He will join forces with the garrison of Vélez-Málaga and with God’s grace defeat the heathens. We will hold the gates of the city open for you.
Your servant,
Musa Ibn Abu’l Ghrassan of the Banu Serraj
Musa Ibn Abu’l Ghrassan of the Banu Serraj was true to his word: the gates of Granada were held open for us, then closed against al-Zaghal when he fled back to the city from Vélez-Málaga. The messenger he had sent was captured by the Christians as he tried to make his way to the city to give orders to coordinate efforts between the garrison and al-Zaghal’s army. He’d given up his message easily: al-Zaghal had been lured into a trap by the Marquis of Cádiz, from which he’d barely escaped with his life.
Musa and Momo stood together on the battlements of the Alcazaba, watching as al-Zaghal and his straggler army were turned away—one tall and lithe and golden, the other squat and dark with a beard so vast it could house entire colonies of mice. Aysha screamed down at her brother-in-law, “You killed my beautiful Rachid, you black-hearted devil! May you fear the blade in the night and poison in your water! May you die alone in a place where no one even knows your name!”
Unsurprisingly, she and Musa had become great friends: Aysha defying tradition by being determinedly present in even the public areas of the palace (“I have been a prisoner before, and it shall not happen again!” she had boomed when Momo had suggested she might be more comfortable staying in the harem). To me, they seemed much alike, the tribesman and Momo’s mother. Have them switch attire and shear the old man’s beard for the woman to wear and I swear you’d hardly notice the difference. Hard and unbending, they egged Momo on to see himself as some sort of saviour of Islam, a hero to his people. I did what I could to provide him with gentler distractions, like walking in the palace gardens where we had grown up together.
We sat now in the Courtyard of the Stained Glass, enveloped by the fragrance of jasmine and herbs. Momo leaned back against a lemon tree and closed his eyes, inhaling, the golden spangles of light from the candle lanterns patterning his cheek.
“Ah, how I love this place. It is balm to my soul,” he said, after a long silence. “Look at it, Blessings. Take note of its sacred geometries, see the perfection of its dimensions, and how the pools mirror the scene above, making an exact counterpoint. Life and death, right here before us in the code of the mortal architect and the immortal one: their works a perfect shadow of the other. As above, so below.”
All I could see was the inverted reflection of the Tower of the Moon, where he had been imprisoned by his father all those years ago. Now he was imprisoned again, by his own emotional ties to the place.
He turned to me, his eyes on fire. “The Alhambra was created as an earthly paradise. As sultan, my actions are designed to match the patterns God decreed: surely when he wrote my fate, Allah meant for me to strive to offer him my best.” He shooed away a night insect that had the temerity to brush his cheek. “I must find a way to
protect Islam in this peninsula. I am the only one who can do it, even if it means great sacrifice. The Alhambra has been trying to teach me this: it’s been here all along, transmitting this message, but I’ve been too blind to see it. Here it is, the perfect symbol of our perfect faith, the physical embodiment of a spiritual truth. It must be saved, no matter the cost. I must fight to preserve it, don’t you see, Blessings? Only I can save it.”
He closed his eyes again before I could respond; but I had no idea what to say. The Alhambra was lovely, that much was true: it had been the scene of many atrocities, yet the serene pillars and elegant towers, oblivious to all the blood spilled, soared away from it into the night, indifferent to the sufferings of mere men. These buildings would outlive us all, I thought. And suddenly I hated the place with savage loathing. It was a cage, a beautiful cage, but a cage all the same. The kingdom of Granada was shrinking, town by town, as the tide of infidels rolled in inexorably: soon we would be cut off, without means of escape. The Alhambra would be an island in the middle of their bloody sea. The Christians would surround us, here on this little hill; then bring their terrible lombards to bear on its walls. They would batter down its gates and hang Momo from its battlements, for the carrion birds to pick clean, the way they had the messengers he had hung from the walls of Vélez-Blanco…
The vision seemed so clear to me, so graphic and detailed: his lovely body bruised and smeared, his head lolling, a crow upon his shoulder, pecking and pecking, like the crows on the battlefield at Lucena. I was so gripped by horror that it was some moments before I realized he was speaking again.
“…the Nasrid dynasty. It is my solemn duty, before God. And surely my body will mend better now that we are here. Now that Mariam is installed in her apartments surely she will remember how it was when we were first together here, how sweetly we loved, and we will make more children, heirs to carry on the task God has set us.” He turned to me as if beseeching the answer he needed to hear.
Spiritual sickness gave way to its physical counterpart and I had to swallow the bile that rose suddenly in my throat. I’d got used to having him to myself since he and Mariam had been apart. “I’m sure you’ll heal better now that you’re here,” I said, then added, “but shouldn’t you wait till you are hale before making advances to the Lady Mariam?”
He squeezed my shoulder. “I’m sure you are right, Momo: but I may not be granted the grace of such leisure. I have to stop my uncle before he destroys my people.”
It was not long before we received a series of messages from the south that bore out Momo’s worst fears: the governor of Málaga under al-Zaghal’s orders had replied to Ferdinand’s request to give up the city with a terse response: I was sent here to defend, not to surrender, and had promptly fired the bodies of several captured Christians back over the citadel walls into the enemy camp.
There had been savage fighting. The Christians had paraded throughout their camp the heads of the Muslims they captured; in retaliation, there had been an assassination attempt on King Ferdinand, though the man attacked had not been the king but some lesser noble who resembled him. The Christians had killed the assassin, chopped his body into pieces and catapulted them into the city, where the governor had ordered that the fragments be collected, washed, perfumed and sewn back together with silk thread, then given a martyr’s funeral.
Supplies inside the city walls were running low: Ferdinand had blockaded the port and prevented any resupply—of either food or men—from the sea. The messenger reported stories that the people of Málaga had eaten every cow, sheep, horse and mule within the city walls and were starting now on dogs, cats and rats. “Soon they’ll be down to the leaves on the trees and the bark on the palms,” he said, and burst into tears. “I beg your pardon, Majesty: my family are inside the city.”
Momo dried the courier’s tears with the hem of his robe.
“My God,” he said when the man had been taken away. He rubbed distractedly at his forehead beneath the edge of the giant turban. “We must do something or Málaga will be reduced to rubble and its children will be dead of starvation.” He summoned Qasim and beckoned to me to follow. Then he wrote a letter to Queen Isabella, for the Málaga courier to bear to her.
By the time he’d finished dictating it, he was shaking. I put my hand on his arm. Briefly he covered it with his hand, then returned it to me. “I must go to Mariam now. Our time here will be limited, and if we’re ever to conceive an heir to carry on the dynasty, it’ll be within these walls.” He gave me a wobbly smile. “Wish me luck.”
I returned him a wan reflection of his own smile.
Qasim and I watched him go. He looked not like a man about to joyously reunite with his wife but one walking to his execution.
The vizier rolled the letter tight and applied the royal seal. He did so with such alacrity I could tell he was relieved. “Where will we go?” I could not much bear the idea of returning to Almería, let alone Vélez-Blanco.
“Guadix, probably, once al-Zaghal has been dealt with.”
Guadix was not so bad, I thought. I remembered our days there after Momo’s escape from the tower. All those pretty young men;
though how many of them still lived if they had been pressed in his uncle’s bloody service? “You think the Christians will leave us in peace there?”
He shrugged. “Who knows? But he’ll be safer there.”
In the end, it was taken out of our hands. The people of Málaga, in their desperation, surrendered, against the wishes of their governor and lord, and what followed broke every tradition of civilized warfare. The city’s Jewish population was imprisoned for ransom—thirty doblas for every man, woman and child. Who was left to pay for them? Who could afford it? They had lived there in great extended families. One hundred captives were sent as slaves as a gift to the pope in Rome; others were parcelled out among other Christian rulers with whom Isabella and Ferdinand wished to curry favour. Christians who had converted to Islam were used for spear practice or were burned at the stake.
Worse was to follow. Instead of honouring the terms of the treaty, King Ferdinand marched on the towns of Vera, Mojácar, Vélez-Blanco and Vélez-Rubio; and all capitulated without a fight, having heard what had happened in Málaga. Momo’s uncle continued to fight on, doggedly, furiously, fuelled by hatred.
Upon hearing of Ferdinand’s treachery, I thought Momo was going to have a falling fit like his father. He mastered himself with difficulty. “It must be a misunderstanding. The king will surely return my towns to me once my uncle is removed from the field of play. This is his way of ensuring the land is withheld from him. Ferdinand is closing down his paths of escape; his hunting dogs are fanning out to run their quarry to ground. Yes, that’s what he’s doing.”
I knew he didn’t believe it; knowing the truth made him irascible, prone to headaches and small outbursts of temper. He threw a chess piece at me on a morning I’d heard Mariam crying in the harem, and though he immediately apologized and tended the wound with his own hand, it left a scar I have to this day.
Then five Muslim clerics begged audience with him. They did not make obeisance or even bow. Their headman went straight to the point: “We believe the emirate should be handed over to Moulay Abdullah al-Zaghal. Your father was clearly not in his right mind when he bestowed it upon you, as has been made abundantly clear by your many failures to defend our land and people.”
Momo paled. Then flushed. His eyes went as hot as embers. “This is treason. Seize them!” he told the captain of the royal guard. “Hang them from the Gate of Justice.” And when the man hesitated, he unsheathed his sword.
I saw Qasim’s face in that moment. The vizier was never surprised by anything, but now he looked stunned. He’d thought the situation under control; that his clever stratagems for managing Momo were all working. Now he saw his error.
The guards dashed forward, secured the clerics and hustled them away. I heard they had taken them to the cells rather than executing them immediately, no
doubt believing the sultan would change his mind.
He did not.
30
Kate
NOW
Abdou had taken her home, held her while she shook, made her sugar-laden tea—“For shock: you’re in shock”—and listened as she raged and cursed over and over while trying and failing to get hold of her sister.
It was evening before Kate’s phone rang, and when she looked at the number that came up on the screen, she did not recognize it at all. So when Jess’s voice, shaky and seeming very far away, came out of it, she felt disorientated.
“Kate? Kate, are you there?”
“Where the hell are you? And where’s Luke? James called me.”
“I’m so sorry…James. Oh God, James. There was nothing I could do.”
Kate went cold all over. “What do you mean, there was nothing you could do?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just wasn’t expecting him to turn up in such an out-of-the-way place. I thought Cornwall was the end of the world, but West Pembrokeshire, it’s like the land that time forgot.” She was babbling now.
Kate shook the phone in a sort of rage, but it was no substitute for shaking her twin, who sounded drunk or something. Slurring her words, talking too fast. “What the hell are you talking about? What are you doing in West Pembrokeshire? None of this is making any sense!” Her voice had risen to a shout that made Abdou, at the other end of the long salon, cutting something up on the wooden chopping board, turn and stare at her questioningly.
“Sorry, sorry, it’s the medication. It’s pretty strong.”
“Medication? Why do you need medication?” Jess never took anything if she could help it: she even toughed out headaches. “Where are you? Where’s Luke?”