“My ladies …” Tijmud interrupted. “I have very bad news.”
“Tell us, quickly, what is it about,” Estela ordered.
“I have just found out from one of the slaves that—”
A high-pitched whistling cut his words short. The sound announced the arrival of the governor of Seville, the brother of al-Nasir and of Najla. The two women saw a young man jump onto the deck from another ship. He quickly came over to Tijmud and the ladies and discreetly pulled them apart.
The man who had just arrived looked a great deal like Najla. His features were softer than those of his brother the caliph, and they reflected a calmer and more cheerful character. He kissed his sister without lifting her veil and introduced himself to Estela as al-Nasir arrived. The two brothers embraced and, after looking at each other, joked at the growing size of their respective bellies.
After those courtesies, the host encouraged them to take a look at the city’s magical outline against the sky, with its palm trees and minarets, before they docked.
“Our grandfather transformed this city into the capital of our empire. He paid for the walls that protect it from the river, made of pebble and limestone and crafted by the most skilled hands. He also had an aqueduct raised, a new bridge, and the Great Mosque. You will see the beautiful citadel and the gate of Yahwar, which are also among his works.”
He turned to the women with emotion in his face.
“I came to love Seville like a favorite woman. …” He turned his gaze to Estela, approving his brother’s taste. She lowered her head timidly.
Najla looked at the stepped paths on the edges of the river where thousands of people had congregated to greet them. Never had such a consort of ships as this been seen in Seville, nor such pomp in the caliph’s court.
When al-Nasir had embarked, he was accompanied by thirty ships transporting fifty horses, two hundred Imesebelen, his retinue, sixty concubines and fifty other slaves, as well as his porcelain and silver and all he would need to remain away a long time without yearning for Marrakesh.
A sudden breeze from the west swelled their sails as they arrived, bringing the coolness of the distant ocean. When she breathed in, Estela broke into tears. After so many years of confinement and humiliation, for the first time, she felt a little freer. Seville was not so far from her land, from her people. It made her feel closer to home.
When Estela saw the various palaces forming the citadel, she couldn’t imagine anything more beautiful. There were more than a dozen buildings surrounding a number of cross-shaped courtyards connected by curving underground passageways. Each had distinct vegetation and its own aroma. One abounded in scents of jasmine, another of iris, a third of basil. Each of the buildings also had distinctive decorations on the floors, walls, and arches. Al-Nasir’s father had been responsible for those changes to the Umayyad buildings that they referred to as Al-Mubarak. Above them rose that fantastic residence.
Estela was lodged in an outbuilding close to Princess Najla and, of course, the caliph’s rooms. Following the advice of his sister, Estela had gone back to al-Nasir’s bed, and since that time she let him love her, although she found no pleasure in the act.
For the first few days in Seville, she enjoyed the gardens passionately. She tried to feel their plenitude, excited to be in some place that wasn’t the harem in Marrakesh. She listened to the fountains and saw herself reflected in the ponds, amid the chants of finches and swallows.
On one of her walks during her second week there, she received a secret visit. It was Tijmud, who had managed to slip out of his quarters to warn her.
“Señora …” he called to her, protecting himself behind an enormous sheet of honeysuckle under the shadow of a wall.
She turned without knowing who he was.
“Here! Behind you.”
Estela saw the Imesebelen and walked toward him cautiously.
“What is it, Tijmud?”
“Come closer. I have to tell you something important; the thing I couldn’t tell you on the ship. … Remember?”
Soon they heard voices coming toward the courtyard and Estela became very nervous. She feared being discovered with the guard, and to avoid it, she pushed him quickly into the vegetation, and then entered behind him. They gazed carefully between the branches, and to their shock they saw the caliph appear together with Pedro de Mora.
“Either we do it next spring, or you will have serious problems with some of your governors, believe me,” Don Pedro explained to him. “I have learned that many are making pacts with the Christian kings, even paying them not to be attacked. As you see, the situation is critical and it is beginning to seem more and more like the one that existed before the glorious Almohad conquest, when other governors named themselves kings of their small territories.”
“The king of Aragon is attacking us in Valencia,” al-Nasir said. He had just received notices from the east. “And the worst thing is it appears he is conquering territory. To our misfortune, he seems to have forgotten the terrible punishment we inflicted on him last year in Barcelona. And the king of Castile, surely in league with him, has managed to steal from us a number of frontier towns and their castles.” He looked at the sky, certain that Allah was the one guiding him. “The time has come to attack them, Pedro. Let us get ready to deal them a definitive blow. A few days ago I had a vision. I was inspired by the Prophet …” Pedro de Mora looked in his eyes. The crystalline blue of his gaze was like an open window into his most intimate thoughts. Al-Nasir went on revealing what he’d seen.
“I’ve been given a sacred mission from him: to sweep the entire peninsula clean of Christians, to eliminate the infidel from the land that was also Al-Andalus to our predecessors. And he ordered me afterward to cross the Pyrenees and turn to Rome. The strength of Allah will force the pope to hand over his city. The Eternally Benevolent, the Grandiose One has made me see it.” He brought together his hands on his chest and raised his eyes to the sky. “Pedro, I have a noble lineage behind me and I will not stop until I see Christianity defeated by my hands, forever.”
He raised his arms and shook them, enthused by his own words. Afterward, he smoothed out his tunic and seemed to return to a calmer state.
“Therefore, we must consider a long campaign and you will play a decisive role in it.” Pedro de Mora wondered what he was thinking. “You must drive a wedge between the kingdoms of the north, stoke up their quarrels, break their ties the way you did in the past with Navarre. If they pulled together, we could never defeat them. But defeat them we shall, and they will taste the dust of defeat if they continue on their own.”
“I will go to the kingdom of León. The monarch thinks well of me and I know he will continue in his grievance with his cousin Alfonso of Castile. I will try to make my way into his court, undermine his already damaged relations, try to bring things to a head …”
Pedro de Mora was unconcerned with matters of religion; he didn’t understand them, he didn’t even believe in God. His only faith consisted of chasing the enormous pot of money he would get if al-Nasir managed to see through his plans. He would never have made it so far staying on the side of the Christians. He dreamed of Alfonso VIII, defeated by the Almohad troops, kissing his feet, kneeling before him, absolutely humiliated.
Al-Nasir greeted his idea of going to León with approval.
“Your plan agrees with me. A great deal. In any case, try to return before September. I will need you to support the first of the attacks. That one, as I have foreseen, will hurt a great deal, because we will hit them in the depths of their soul, I assure you.”
They went on walking to the next courtyard, and Estela took advantage of their solitude to leave her hiding place with Tijmud. Both were conscious of the risk they would run if they didn’t separate soon. The guard spoke to her without losing time.
“It was him … Pedro de Mora.” He took her hands to preven
t her from interrupting him. “A slave saw him tampering with the henna that day. The woman has said nothing since; she was terrified, because she was afraid he would come after her as he had with the other three women. But a few days ago, I gained her confidence and she told me everything that had happened.”
“The bastard.” Estela wrinkled her brow. “I can’t understand why he would want to kill Princess Najla. … It’s terrible.”
“Don’t be mistaken. It was for you, not the princess.”
“Are you sure?”
“And he will try again.”
Estela shivered.
“Be careful and stay on your guard. I will try to be close to you, to protect you, but never take your eyes off him.”
VI.
During that same summer, that of 1211, rumors spread all around that there would be war between the north and south. Once more, you could hear words like reconquest, holy war, faith, and crusade.
When the fields were plowed and the first September rains arrived, some said with relief and others with worry that the battle would take place the following spring, when the new pasture had grown in.
Indeed, the two armies began to prepare themselves.
Amid copious rains that rendered the land almost impassable, the fortress of Salvatierra, on its high hill, was in a ferment throughout that autumn. With reason, it was said that its denizens never slept.
The orders that arrived from Toledo were definitive. They should rally against the enemy, striking out at his positions, burning his fields and granaries, destroying his orchards and robbing his livestock. That mission was given the name “wasteland” and it continued pushing on through the south with very little resistance on the part of the Saracens. No one understood why the Moors had put up so little energy into defending their redoubts.
At the end of September, in Salvatierra, they had a remarkable visitor. It was a surprise for Diego and the cause of his next and most astonishing mission.
“I want to see Diego de Malagón,” the recent arrival ordered after speaking with Bruno de Oñate. He had appeared with an escort of twenty well-armed horsemen.
“I will show you where he is,” the castle’s bailiff said, though confused by the man’s behavior, and directed him to descend down what seemed to be an endless set of stairs.
Amid the shadows, at the end of a poorly lit passage, they came to a worn wooden door that creaked as if it hadn’t been opened in years. Inside, the atmosphere was suffocating. A great spray of light came down from a skylight in the ceiling. With their back to the door, three men were writing painstaking messages on sheets of parchment no larger than a cherry. One of them was Diego. The recent arrival approached him and touched him on the shoulder.
“Whoever you are, wait. I have to finish a phrase and I can’t leave off in the middle.”
Without turning to see who it was, Diego wet the tip of a very thin swallow feather in the inkpot and wrote three words and two symbols on that tiny sheet. He did so under the attentive gaze of the newcomer, in a language he didn’t know. When he finished, he took off a large lens he’d strapped to his face to expand his field of vision and turned to see who’d come for him.
“I can’t believe it!” Diego shook his hand, charmed to see him again.
“Me neither! I imagine everyone thinks you’re still dead. … Well, not everyone; I’ve been following you since they hanged you from that gallows.”
“Don Álvaro Núñez de Lara in Salvatierra. … What a pleasure it is to see you.”
Diego encouraged him to sit and asked after his wife, Doña Urraca, as well as his children and his father-in-law, the lord of Biscay.
“Everyone is well, thank you. I’m still grateful for what you did. …”
“What are you talking about? I don’t remember …”
“The message you intercepted. Do you know what I’m talking about now?”
Diego’s thoughts turned back to the mountain pass of Muradal, when he had slain that Saracen courier. He still felt the man’s agony and the bitter memory of what had happened.
“Yes, yes … of course.”
“Thanks to your work, we were able to destroy the most important spy network that al-Nasir had planted in Castile and Aragon. That message was impossible to decipher because it was made with new codes and symbols. We only recognized a name and a city: Arévalo. From that, we were able to figure out where the first spy was located, and once we had him, the rest of them fell. Just a little while back, we caught the last one in Valladolid.” He paused a moment. “It’s been the best operation in memory in Castile. The only thing left to do is find their new leader, and we still don’t know his name, let alone where he lives. It’s a real nightmare.”
“One day he’ll slip up and we’ll capture him. … You’ll see,” Diego commented. “And by the way, you haven’t told me what the motive is for your visit.”
“The position of ensign of Castile makes me directly responsible for this fortress as well as its missions. Let’s just say I act as a liaison between all of you here and the king. Bruno de Oñate informs me of what happens here, and the king and I study what our next actions should be. Did you know that?”
Diego said he didn’t.
“Then listen. Our next mission will be the most decisive one we have undertaken up to now, and that’s why I’m here. You’ll know what I’m talking about when I have discussed with your superior what your role in it is to be, but I can already anticipate it will be an essential one. Then we’ll talk to you.”
Two hours later, Diego asked for permission to enter a small room beside one of the armories, a discreet place where Bruno de Oñate and Álvaro Núñez de Lara were waiting for him.
“Close the door and sit down,” Bruno ordered.
“Do you know Seville?” Don Álvaro laid a map across the table.
“I was never there, but I’ve memorized this map down to the last details, the same with Córdoba and Granada. I know the names of the streets, the plazas, the mosques, where the main buildings are located …”
“Excellent, Diego. Now you’ll have to learn the extensive network of underground pipes.” He unfurled another one with a complex system of forking passages that was superimposed on the map below. “You’ll need to in order to penetrate al-Nasir’s palace. We know he’s living in Seville now, and this is the best opportunity.”
“Pardon me, I don’t know if I heard correctly. … You’re telling me that I’ll have to break into the chambers of the caliph himself?”
“Exactly,” Bruno interrupted. “You have heard right. Your mission will consist of making off with his precious Koran.”
“A Koran?”
Don Álvaro passed Diego a drawing showing a book with a cover adorned with arabesques and an infinity of geometric shapes. In its center was an enormous green stone.
“Not just any Koran … you have to find this one! The most beloved of al-Nasir, his favorite. It is the only copy of its kind.”
“And I’m expected to risk my life to steal a book?”
“You won’t steal it. If you did, you would give us away and our final objective would be compromised. I’ll explain it to you better. We know that al-Nasir is used to hiding a great number of his secrets and strategies in its pages. Some time ago, our ambassador saw him do it and found out from others that it was where he hid his most important documents, as if in a lockbox. They say it’s for some mystical reason, maybe so Allah blesses his plans, we don’t know.
“Once you take it, you will look for all the documents it contains, one by one. And that is where your participation is essential, because we need you to memorize them. …” Don Álvaro added. “Your exceptional ability to remember what you read has made you the chosen one for this plan.”
Bruno de Oñate took the floor, explaining more details of the operation.
“We know there
is a pipe that opens into one of the courtyards in the castle, the one closest to the caliph’s residence. That will be where you enter. You’ll be in disguise, and you’ll be able to move around the precincts once you’re out.”
Diego seemed worried about the difficulties of that mission.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able …”
“You’ve been training for three years, you’ve participated in many operations, and you’ve always behaved properly, with the necessary temperament,” Bruno said, encouraging him. “You can do it.”
“I believe so, too,” Don Álvaro added.
“You’ll have a week from today to organize everything. We will study the operation, every step you have to take, and we will practice it with you as many times as necessary. In Seville, you will be assisted by one of our best men. Don’t worry, everything has been thought of. You won’t have any difficulties.”
Diego rubbed his hands together nervously. He was assailed by a multitude of questions, though he understood it wasn’t the right moment to ask them. Except for one.
“Do we know where the book is kept?”
The two men looked at each other, waiting for the other to respond. Their faces said it all.
“Don’t tell me, I have to find it myself, right?”
VII.
Diego spoke softly to Sabba, in the language they shared. He begged her to be calm from that moment on. She understood and snorted discreetly.
They were on the banks of the Tagarete River, where it intersected the Guadalquivir as well as the gates of Seville. His first contact was waiting for him there.
Diego, distracted, watched the incredible effect of the sun on the four copper spheres that crowned the mosque’s minaret. It looked like a lighthouse, its glimmer visible from two leagues away.
He had traveled through Al-Andalus with a dozen enormous Flemish mares, posing as a horse trader. It hadn’t been too difficult apart from his voyage through the Muradal Pass, where a group of Calatravans had to help him through after an initial operation to clear the area out.
The Horse Healer Page 51