The Horse Healer

by Gonzalo Giner

  The following spring brought with it a torrent of light and color, an explosion of sensations, but also an infinitude of births, almost all with complications.

  For a while, Diego came to think that all the mares of Toledo had reached an agreement to foal on the same days. It was so much work, it was almost suffocating.

  And thus, during those bustling days, when it seemed impossible to take even another case, Galib passed him a letter from the Laras, an urgent notice.

  “For another bleeding?” Diego saw himself again in those stables surrounded by those giant warhorses, half crushed between their ribs and knocked about by their robust necks.

  “Don’t worry, he’s only trying to understand what could be causing a limp in Doña Urraca’s walking mare, and afterward, of course, fixing it.”

  Galib raised his voice, making it sound slightly feminine.

  “And bring that handsome young apprentice of yours to help us. …” He laughed. “That’s what Doña Urraca said to me when I saw her early this morning.”

  “I remember her well. …” Diego reddened. “She was a very nice woman.”

  “Very pretty, no?”

  “You’re right, she is.”

  The mare was standing calmly in the central courtyard of the castle without seeming too affected. To her side stood a boy who brushed her with a currycomb in one hand and a softer bristled brush in the other.

  Only a moment after they were announced, she appeared. She was in a green dress and had her hair pulled up in a veil. Her bodice, showing generous cleavage, glimmered with an intricate design of gold. The first person she looked at was Diego.

  “I do say, though you’ve become quite a man, you still have that clean and noble gaze from before. I’m very happy to see you, Diego.”

  “Your words do me honor, madame. And forgive me for saying so, but I find you much more beautiful than I remembered.”

  She thanked him for the compliment, asking about his age.

  “I’m eighteen now, madame. Imagine, four years have passed since I came to Toledo.”

  A curly-haired girl, blond and with a roguish gaze, peeped out from behind her mother’s skirt.

  “This must be little Flora!” Galib stroked her head, impressed by her incredible resemblance to her mother.

  “Did you hear her grandfather has remarried?”

  Out of pure courtesy, he said he had not, though everyone was informed of the dishonorable episode that Doña Urraca’s mother had been involved in; the wife of Don López de Haro, she had fled in the arms of a simple blacksmith from Burgos.

  “He’s on his way to introduce his new wife to us, Doña Tota Pérez de Azagra. They were married only a month ago. The Azagras are a very influential family in Navarre. They have a title and rights as the lords of Albarracín.”

  Diego, estranged from the conversation, looked over the mare without finding any injury, mark, or discoloration on her hooves that might awaken any suspicion.

  Doña Urraca continued talking with Galib. She began to explain that her husband, Don Álvaro Núñez de Lara, was in Normandy, on orders from the king, to reclaim the lands of Gascony from his English counterpart. According to him, those lands had been established as a dowry of Queen Eleanor of England, the wife of the Castilian monarch and sister of the English King Richard.

  Diego used a small hammer to tap each of the hooves in case some difference of sound indicated foot rot. Galib watched him from the side without ignoring the woman. He trusted that Diego would have seen that detail as well, only that one. … If he did, he would have a definitive diagnosis.

  “I need to have her walk on sand.”

  The stable boy was the only one who heard Diego. Doña Urraca seemed lost in her thoughts and Galib was at her disposal.

  The boy untied the rope and led the mare to a place alongside the courtyard where there was ample river sand. They exercised the horses there regularly to keep them in optimal condition.

  “Do you see her limping?”

  Galib pulled slowly away from his hostess to come closer to the spot where Diego was, not wanting to miss anything.

  “You’ll have her trot right in front of me, at least ten or twenty times.” The boy obeyed immediately.

  Both Diego and Galib concentrated on how she moved her legs in case she showed any abnormal or strange movement, but they saw nothing until the mare stopped, when the exercise was over.

  Diego looked at her feet, how she placed one over the other. After forcing her to change her posture three or four times more, the animal still kept the same defect. It left no room for doubt.

  “There is a solution, madame.” Diego spoke with Galib’s permission, after receiving from him a gesture confirming his suspicions.

  “As you say, young Diego.” Her expression showed great satisfaction.

  “The problem is in the rear part of her hooves, in what we call the heels. Luckily it can be repaired with a special horseshoe.” He lifted one of her feet and showed her the area he was talking about. “I myself will make them. You’ll notice the difference from the first day.”

  Doña Urraca seemed convinced, even more so after seeing the expression of pride on Galib’s face. She praised Diego without restraint, petted her mare’s neck, and shared one last surprise before saying good-bye to them.

  “By the way, I would like very much to have you both among the invitees to the feast we are holding this Saturday. We are celebrating the presentation of my father’s new wife.”

  “We would be most thankful, madame, but we are not of your class, we might stick out,” Galib commented, hardly believing what he had just heard. As a mudéjar, he had never been invited to such an event.

  “Be quiet and come with Benazir. We’ll be waiting for you!” Doña Urraca made a gesture of leaving, considering the conversation over.

  As Diego and Galib returned to their stables, besides remarking on that surprising invitation to the feast, Diego wanted to talk about something that had been eating at him for some time: the impotence he felt at not knowing the origin of many diseases.

  “In Doña Urraca’s mare, what do you think could have been the source of that pain?”

  “I don’t actually know,” Galib responded. “But as you well know, the normal cause is an imbalance between the different humors.”

  “Humors … Ridiculous!” Diego protested, tired of not finding other reasons more compelling than those of the Greek Hippocrates. “I remember the day you denounced the blacksmiths to me because they thought themselves as capable as the albéitars. A problem, a solution. That’s precisely what I heard you say. … According to you, they acted blindly, applying remedies they couldn’t understand the workings of, for diseases they couldn’t understand either. Don’t deny it. It’s the same thing we’re doing!”

  Galib remembered that abandoned, skeletal little boy who had come to him years back. Now he had become a man, almost a colleague, capable of arguing and supporting his reasons. He decided to teach him something that could seem very far from the matters of his profession, but before that, he explained what could have made the horse limp.

  “I suppose that it’s the fault of an erosion of a small bone that has hardly been described in any of the books you’ve read up to now. That small bone is attached to a tendon that supports flexion throughout the leg.”

  Hearing that surprising explanation, Diego felt bad. After contradicting him and putting his professional capacities in doubt, Galib had once again overwhelmed him with unexpected perspective.

  “Master, why did you speak to me of humors, then?”

  “As I just said, it’s a supposition. Hippocrates, whose wisdom you’ve just knocked down several degrees, attributes this kind of a limp to an overabundance of yellow bile. I don’t know if he’s right, because I haven’t yet been able to demonstrate my theory. Do you understand?” Die
go agreed and bowed his head in conciliation. “It makes me happy to see you dissatisfied with whatever doesn’t seem clear to you. And I beg you, don’t ever abandon that attitude. Always try to explain to yourself what has been the reason for a certain pain, lump, fever, or even death.” He tousled Diego’s hair affectionately. “But you should also learn to be humble when you don’t know the answer. In those moments, look to heaven. Your god and mine know all. We are only a smallness at his side. We chase after the truth; he is the truth.”

  XXIII.

  Doña Tota Pérez de Azagra was a woman with few blessings.

  Still, Diego López de Haro, her husband, possessed one of those gifts that turned its possessor into something special. Maybe it was his grandiose stature, maybe his clear, honest gaze, or perhaps both.

  He was a well-formed man, strong, already with gray hairs. His brown eyes shone with intelligence, and his nose, great seriousness. But it was his chin, wide and powerful, that gave him an air of undeniable authority.

  Diego looked at them shyly, unable to forget his father. How proud he would have been to see him there, among all these important people. He tightened his belt to cinch the long tunic of green silk that he had bought with the money Galib had saved for him, the first proper clothes he’d had in his life, far from the simplicity of the woolen vests and leather shorts that he usually wore. Under that cloth, he also wore new red breeches and shoes with a lozenge design. For the first time, he felt important. The only thing that made him feel uncomfortable was the tall cap atop his head, since he normally kept it uncovered, but still, he felt happy. …

  He had never been to a feast, and he marveled at everything. He was surprised by the luxury that blazed in the dresses of the women, some very beautiful, and in the food that was offered. Without any company with whom to take refuge, his best ally in his quest to go unnoticed was dark red in color and had a deep scent of wood: an excellent wine made on the banks of the river Ebro, as the person who served it explained.

  Four mugs of that product robbed him of his timidity and pushed him toward some solitary young woman with whom he could talk. While he walked around and studied his possibilities in that regard, he listened to snatches of various conversations. He heard some say that the worst of their enemies had just died: the Almohad caliph Yusuf. And that he had been succeeded by his son Muhammad, whom they called al-Nasir. Others repeated the surprising news about Sancho VII, the king of Navarre, who was in Marrakesh, supposedly wooing a woman from the caliph’s court, after repudiating his wife some months back.

  “He must be planning to carve up Castile with that Moor, or else he’ll be asking him for money, as he’s already done on other occasions,” a brother of Álvaro Núñez de Lara said loudly. “King or no king, he seems like a mere traitor to me. …”

  Diego saw that a young woman with dark skin was looking at him from aside. He looked away for a moment until he decided what he was going to do with her, and then Doña Urraca came over, wanting to introduce him to her father. Diego followed her steps until he came to the man who was oozing vitality, although he was around seventy years of age.

  “Father, I want you to meet a promising young man who works as an albéitar. A new friend of my family, Diego of Malagón.”

  “Have I seen you before, young man?”

  “I don’t believe so, sir.”

  “Diego is the assistant,” his daughter clarified, “who has come with Galib’s wife, Benazir.”

  “I still have not had the chance to greet that good man …” He studied Diego from head to foot. “I’m glad to know you’re in training to be an albéitar. We need them in Castile, good ones especially. Take advantage of your time; you’re in the hands of the best one.”

  “To work at his side is a privilege, I assure you.”

  “Young man, you must understand that the cavalry represents our greatest arm to defeat the Saracens. We need healthy horses, vigorous ones, and someone who can act with diligence and a steady hand when they fall victim to some infirmity. That is why your profession is so important, I would even say vital, perhaps more so than a doctor’s.”

  “Father, is it true you’re staying in Toledo only a week?”

  “Sadly yes, my daughter. The king has called me to Burgos to begin a new campaign, this time against Navarre. His Majesty is trying to open a new path to the sea and unite Castile with her possessions in Gascony, on the other side of the Pyrenees. It is decided that in this quest, he will take Vitoria, San Sebastián, and Fuenterrabía. And he will, believe me, as well as anything else necessary to meet his objectives.”

  “And what response do you expect from the king of Navarre when he sees his territories attacked? He will declare war against us again. …”

  “No, my daughter. It appears he is lost in a strange love affair with an Almohad princess. If he is in Marrakesh, as our spies assure us, he will not change our plans.” He stopped conversing in an instant when he saw the archbishop of Toledo. He begged their pardon and ran after him.

  Doña Urraca accompanied Diego a while more, introducing him to other people. The most influential families in Castile were there: the Azas, the powerful Castros, the Ruiz Giróns, the Laras, of course, and the Haro clan.

  Then Diego was alone again and tried to find the girl he had seen before, but he couldn’t, and suddenly he found himself captured by friendly hands, those of Benazir, who pushed him to the center of the hall where the dancing was taking place.

  “It would be cruel for you to leave a feast like this one without feeling a woman’s body beside yours,” she whispered in his ear.

  Diego reddened immediately. More proof that Benazir had decided to display her seductive charms once again. It wasn’t the first time she’d done it in recent weeks. While they were measuring him for his clothes, he could feel how her hands sought him out with renewed desire, and he noted her agitated respiration when she helped him remove his tunic, grazing his skin with her hands, touching him on all sides.

  “Don’t be alarmed, Diego. We have my husband’s permission. And besides, I won’t accept the excuse that you’ve never danced. The steps aren’t difficult; I’ll teach you.”

  “I’m all yours,” he answered her, without wanting to give her the impression that his words obviously did, judging from her sweet gaze.

  Diego looked at the men’s posture and imitated it. He passed an arm around her back and they faced each other, waiting for the first notes to sound. He didn’t manage to hide his nervous tension.

  The first sounds from the clavichord rang out, and all present bowed to their companion. The women bent over graciously, receiving the men afterward with two small leaps. When Benazir did it, Diego looked once again at her lovely body. That night she wore a dress not often seen on Muslim women. The cloth gripped her waist, showing her curves clearly, and opened at the top, showing generous cleavage. She seemed to intuit his thoughts and also saw where his eyes were roaming, and she smiled, showing she was in league with him.

  The dance was an authentic martyrdom for Diego, and not because it was unknown to him and difficult, which was also true, but rather for the whirlwind of feelings that he had begun to feel. Benazir’s excessive proximity, her perfumed skin, the touch of her body; he fought against his own thoughts and desires, but at the same time, she made him aware of hers. She took advantage of the least contact to make him feel her body. Their cheeks touched several times and were finally touching throughout the last steps, when they spun one around the other.

  When that dance was over, she said something in his ear. Diego couldn’t hear clearly because the noise of the applause drowned out her voice. He even thought it had been a stupid misunderstanding, but he thought he had heard something as terrible as it was worrying; he thought he heard her say that she wanted him. …

  From that night forward, Diego avoided Benazir as much as he could.

  And yet the echo o
f those words followed him over the course of the following months like a heavy torment. He knew he was too fragile to decide between duties and desires when it came to her. But he was also conscious of the grave consequences that his lack of strength could lead to if he wasn’t capable of holding back that storm of sensuality. He still could. Besides the profound and enormous affection he felt for Galib, he would never offend the man who had given him work. To wound him with such a deception would be like wounding himself.

  For that, and for everything, he couldn’t betray him.

  He stopped his Arabic classes to avoid temptations.

  Galib didn’t understand, but Diego justified himself by saying that the pace of the work had become exhausting. He tried to avoid Benazir at every moment. He fled from those places where they might run into each other. He also went more frequently to church and tried to busy his mind with more reading to keep from thinking of her.

  Amid so many tribulations, the month of December came, with cold and snow as a prelude to the changing of the century.

  A few days after the beginning of the year 1200, on a day like any other, Diego arrived at the forge very early. He needed to make a complete set of horseshoes for the horse of a demanding and rich Jewish businessman. He had promised to have them ready before lunch.

  He lit pinewood—its resin would keep the fire burning—and he readied enough coal to reach the desired heat. He didn’t ask after Galib, because he assumed he was at the market, like every Tuesday, where they needed him to affirm the good health of the animals before people would buy them.

  Diego breathed in a mouthful of smoke with pleasure. The scent that came from the furnace had always captivated him. He hummed, enchanted, proud of the work that he had in his hands.

  He placed several bars of iron inside to soften them and readied his hammer and a chisel to cut the metal afterward. He also placed a punch close to the anvil. He would use it to perforate the metal, opening holes where the nails would later go. Afterward, he would use another tool to finish the edges of the holes.