Song of the Eight Winds - An Epic Tale of Medieval Spain

by Peter Kerr

  The captain frowned. ‘But what about the rest of the fleet?’

  The king glowered at him. ‘What about them?’

  ‘Well, it – it’s just that I,’ the captain flustered, ‘it’s just that I thought you’d want to wait for the rest of the fleet to arrive. I mean, if the Moors send out ships to attack us when we draw close to the island, we’ll need strength in numbers and –’

  The king raised a hand. ‘There’s an expert in the seafaring ways of the Moors standing right here, so let’s ask him what they’re likely to do, shall we? Well?’ he said to Pedrito, cocking his head inquisitively.

  Pedrito motioned towards the setting sun. ‘No need to worry, senyor. The Moors won’t attack us at night. It isn’t their way. Besides, word of your huge fleet being assembled back at the mainland will have reached them long ago, you can be sure. And what’s more, they don’t know any better than we do how many of our vessels survived last night’s storm, so it’s unlikely they’ll commit their ships to anything until they know what they’re going to be up against.’ Pedrito stole a glance at Captain Guayron, whose looks in his direction were anything but cordial. ‘And that isn’t a Moorish tactic in particular,’ he added pointedly, ‘– just common sense.’

  The look that the captain then shot Pedrito informed him in no uncertain manner that he might ultimately rue the day he’d slighted him in such a way, and especially in front of the king. Not that Pedrito was unduly bothered. He had nothing against the royal galley’s captain, but his overriding concern was to return to his family on Mallorca, and if this man had his way, the landing would be delayed until his father’s mule had grown a beard.

  As for the king, his only reaction to Pedrito’s advice was to vent his mounting impatience on the captain. ‘Well, you heard what the helmsman said! So I repeat – give the order to get under way, and give it immediately!’

  3

  ‘THE MEETING PLACE OF THE WINDS’

  OFF THE NORTH-WEST COAST OF MALLORCA – FRIDAY 7th SEPTEMBER...

  And so the voyage continued in fine weather and on a calm sea until the next morning, when the royal galley and those vessels which had caught up with it were finally approaching Mallorca’s Cape of Formentor and preparing to sail round into the Bay of Pollença. Not a single Moorish ship had been sighted since dawn, however, and this was something that puzzled the king as much as it pleased him.

  ‘What do you make of it?’ he asked Pedrito, who was once again manning the twin tillers by himself. ‘Surely the Saracens have seen us and will have planned some sort of resistance.’

  ‘If I had a free hand, I’d be scratching my head,’ Pedrito confessed. He thought for a moment. ‘In all honesty, I’d never claim to know the finer workings of the Moorish mind – no one can, unless he’s a Moor – but I can’t fathom why anyone, even the Moors, wouldn’t engage us at sea now, if only to weaken us for whatever battles might follow if we do manage to establish a foothold ashore.’

  King Jaume scrutinised Pedrito’s face again. ‘You intrigue me, Master Blànes, you really do. The way you speak, the things you say. First I said you talked more like a philosopher than a helmsman – now you talk more like a military man than a philosopher.’

  Pedrito allowed himself a little chuckle. ‘Let’s just say you can develop more than your arm muscles during five years on a Moorish pirate galley – if you’re lucky, and keep your ears open.’

  ‘Hmm, intriguing, intriguing,’ the king murmured. He stroked his chin in his habitual way. ‘You must tell me your story sometime, for I’ve an idea it may be as colourful as my own, though doubtless in very different ways.’

  Just then, they were joined by the captain and his sailing master, both of whom appeared to be in a state of high anxiety.

  ‘Look yonder, Majestat!’ the captain urged. He pointed to the northern sky. ‘That cloud above the summit of the cape.’

  ‘What about it?’ the king shrugged.

  ‘It comes from the quarter of the Provence wind,’ the sailing master said. ‘It doesn’t bode well for us, senyor.’

  ‘Master Sagran’s right,’ the captain affirmed. ‘If a Provence wind hits us as we try to round the cape, we’ll be blown onto the rocks. We’ll never make it into the Bay of Pollença.’

  The king turned to Pedrito. ‘You know the ways of the Mallorcan weather better than any of us. So, what do you say? Are these gentlemen right about this wretched wind from Provence?’

  Pedrito looked up at the clouds already forming above the mountain range that ran fully forty miles the length of the coast away to the galley’s starboard side. ‘The Tramuntana is what that wind’s called in Mallorca. The same name as these mountains, and just as cruel and unforgiving to the unwary.’ He nodded his head gravely. ‘The Meeting Place of The Winds is what the Mallorcan fishermen call the Cape of Formentor. It can be a wild and unpredictable place. And it’s true – any ship sailing broadside to a Tramuntana in these waters would be in real danger of being smashed against the cliffs. Sí, and it can happen with very little warning too.’

  As if on cue, an eerie silence fell as the sky leadened. Then, of a sudden, a sharp northerly rose up, whipping the sea into a seething foam and slapping the sails of the ships back against their masts.

  ‘A white squall!’ the captain shouted, raising his forearm to protect his eyes from the stinging spray. ‘Quick, Master Sagran, make ready to strike your sail before it’s torn to shreds!’

  The command ‘Cala! Cala!’ – ‘Hold fast!’ was soon being called from vessel to vessel, followed by the order, ‘Carga! Carga!’ – ‘Lower sail!’

  Confusion reigned as the buffeting wind made the hauling of ropes and the furling of canvas well nigh impossible for sailors already in danger of being swept overboard by wave upon wave breaking over their decks. For all that, every ship in the vicinity was eventually under bare poles, though now being tossed perilously close to each other by the angry sea.

  The king’s expression was grim. He may not have had much experience of naval matters, but he realised well enough that he was now in very real danger of losing his life, and with it his chance of having his name engraved in the annals of Christian glory. There was nothing he could do now but pray, so pray he did.

  Falling to his knees on the rain-lashed poop deck, he beseeched Christ and his Holy Mother to deliver him and those with him from their present danger. Then, with hands clasped and eyes closed, he raised his face to the storm and implored God Almighty to remember that he, His chosen vassal, was undertaking this mission to exalt the faith that God himself had given him, and to abase and destroy those who did not share it.

  From his position at the helm, Pedrito was close enough to hear the young king’s entreaties. He couldn’t help but compare them to his own humble prayers while a captive of Moorish pirates; earnest pleas to be released from the purgatory of slavery and returned to the bosom of his family. As yet, his prayers remained only half answered at best, and he wondered if the king’s unshakeable conviction that his royal rank had been granted by God Himself would stand his exhortations in any better stead than his own.

  ‘Save us, dear Lord, from this terrible tempest,’ King Jaume begged, ‘so that the good work I have begun in Thy name may not be in vain. For remember that Thy loss will be greater than mine, if my mission to spread the teachings of Thy dear Son to the disbelievers should be allowed to fail.’

  But pray as he might, the storm continued to rage, and the plight of the royal galley and all the fifty or so vessels presently with it grew ever more critical.

  ‘This is yet another of your eight winds sent to plague us,’ the king barked at Pedrito, his mounting feelings of desperation inciting him to lash out at the person nearest to him. He slashed the air with his hand. ‘Damn your Saracen song and its heathen winds!’

  Though struggling to keep the tillers from being torn from his grasp as the galley was driven ever closer to the base of cliffs, and sympathetic as he was to the king’s state of mi
nd, Pedrito felt sufficently maligned by what he regarded as this childish outburst to take a deep breath and shout back, ‘To curse the wind, senyor, is to invite the wrath of God.’ He gave himself a moment to confirm that the king had been adequately taken aback before making the deliberately provocative qualification: ‘According to an old saying of Moorish sailors, that is.’

  He was fully aware that, under less fraught circumstances, he would have been inviting perhaps worse than the wrath of God by goading the monarch in this way. However, as both he and King Jaume were now equals in the life-threatening situation in which they found themselves, his instinct compelled him to respond bluntly to what he had been taught by the school of life to regard as the futility of pitting one religion’s god against the other – given that he remained to be totally convinced of the existence of either.

  The king’s view was less ambivalent, however. ‘Spare me your Moorish proverbs!’ he snarled. ‘I fear the wrath of God, as do all good Christians, but I care nothing for Muslim gibberish!’ Raising a hand, he jabbed a finger into the eye of the gale. ‘If Allah has sent this damned Tramuntana wind to overwhelm us, then I do curse it, and I call upon the one true God to restore, in His infinite mercy, the wind that will take us to Pollença!’

  But still the Tramuntana howled down from the north, while panic began to spread through the crews fighting to contain the chaos into which their ships were being hurled.

  Captain Guayron clambered back onto the poop deck, consternation staring from his eyes. ‘We’ll have to bear away southward from this wind, my lord,’ he cried. ‘It’s our only chance.’

  ‘No!’ the king shouted back. ‘You were the one to tell me yesterday that God would send a wind to take me to Mallorca, if we turned back then. Well, we didn’t turn back, yet He still me sent such a wind, and I’ll keep faith in Him again.’

  The captain was becoming frantic. ‘This Provence gale is likely to blow for hours, perhaps days – I’ve seen it many times – but we’ve only minutes to save ourselves from being being smashed against those rocks. We have to harness the wind to take us out of here!’

  But his entreaties fell on deaf ears. The king was adamant: the grace of God was without limit for those who believed in Him, and those who truly believed owed it to God to stand firm when their faith was being tested – as it was now.

  No less was Pedrito’s will to live being tested, however. Although he realised that the king’s upbringing by the Knights Templar had instilled in him an unquestioning belief in the benevolence of God, Pedrito didn’t understand how even this could blind him to the fact that to ignore the captain’s warning was tantamount to committing suicide and, in all probability, mass murder as well. He decided to tackle the king’s ideology head-on – though with as much subtlety as he could. The prospect of feeling the thrust of King Jaume’s sword was no more attractive, after all, than the likelihood of going down with his ship.

  Hesitantly, he reminded the king of the seafarers’ belief that the eight winds he had sung about were actually God’s messengers. Then, before the king had a chance to erupt into another anti-Moorish rant, he offered the suggestion that, for any benefit to be realised, such messages might have to be read correctly.

  King Jaume scowled. ‘I told you I’ve no time for riddles! If you have something worthwhile to say, then say it straight!’

  ‘What I’m saying, senyor, is that perhaps God has sent this Tramuntana wind to tell you that there may be a better landing place than Pollença.’

  The king’s frown deepened, but he said nothing, his silence suggesting to Pedrito that he should expand on what he had just said – but quickly, and it had better make sense!

  Thinking fast, Pedrito advised him that to sail from here on a broad reach ahead of the wind would ultimately take them under the lee of the southern extremity of the Tramuntana mountain chain, where there was an uninhabited island sheltering a bay which would make a safe haven for his entire fleet – or as much of it as might yet survive this storm.

  The king still said nothing, but his expression had become slightly more receptive.

  ‘What’s more,’ Pedrito swiftly continued, ‘the place I speak of is just round the headland from my own home of Andratx. I know it well. It’s not much more than sixteen miles overland from the city – just half the distance you’d have to march from Pollença.’

  ‘And how far by sea?’ the king enquired, his interest kindled.

  ‘About three leagues – nine or ten miles, maybe.’

  ‘And the name of this place?’

  ‘The island is called Sa Dragonera. It’s mountainous, narrow and over two miles long, lying off the bay of Sa Palomera, or Sant Elm, as the Christian fishermen call it. And there’s ample anchorage in Es Freu, the channel between Sa Dragonera and the shore.’ Pedrito was warming to his theme. Perhaps there was something in the old sailors’ belief that the winds were God’s messengers after all. Anyway, if espousing the belief would help persuade the king to desist from committing himself and his followers to a watery grave, then espouse it Pedrito would. ‘Sí, senyor,’ he enthused, ‘and the place is well protected from this north wind and easily defended too.’

  ‘And fresh water for our men and horses?’ the king queried.

  Yes, there was a good spring on Sa Dragonera, Pedrito confirmed. ‘Clear, sweet water, senyor, and plenty of it, with none to share it with but lizards and a few wild goats.’ As it was now obvious that the king was becoming more sold on this idea by the second, Pedrito added the clincher: ‘And better still, there’s a little islet called Es Pantaleu, tucked into the bay at Sa Palomera, which would make a perfect place for your Majesty to take rest and discuss fresh tactics with your nobles.’

  King Jaume promptly turned again to the captain. ‘Well,’ he barked triumphantly, ‘I told you my faith in God would be rewarded. So what in heaven’s name are you waiting for, man? Ràpidament! Give the order to go with the wind for Sa Palomera, and see that word is relayed for all the other ships to follow on!’

  4

  ‘THE WORTH OF UNSHAKEABLE FAITH’

  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8th – THE BAY OF SA PALOMERA (SANT ELM), SOUTH-WEST MALLORCA…

  After arriving in the bay on the Friday evening, King Jaume and the key members of his entourage had set up camp on the islet of Es Pantaleu. All the other vessels that had followed him southwards from the Cape of Formentor had also made it safely through the storm, which by then had blown itself out. It was a thankful young king, therefore, who finally fell asleep that night, exhausted by the harrowing experiences of a voyage that had almost cost him his life, and still fearful that some, or even all, of the ships that had been delayed by the first day’s storm might not yet complete the crossing to Mallorca.

  His anxiety was to increase considerably at dawn the following morning, when he emerged from his tent to see a huge army of Moors amassed on the shore not much more than what he reckoned to be a good crossbow shot away. They were armed to the teeth, flashes of light from the rising sun glinting off the silvered bosses of their shields. Turbanned and loose-robed, they stood perfectly still. Their silence, broken only by the occasional whinnying of a horse, was eerie and more menacing than a fanfare of war.

  King Jaume was with his cousin, En Nunyo Sans, who, along with two more of the expedition’s most able and experienced military campaigners, En Guillen de Muntcada and his older cousin, En Remon, had been summoned to discuss how best to revise the original invasion plans, which had been nullified (due to divine intervention or otherwise) by the previous day’s Tramuntana gale.

  ‘Now we know why they didn’t attack us at sea,’ the king murmured.

  ‘D’acord,’ Nunyo Sans replied, his voice thick with foreboding. ‘Why risk their ships when they knew they’d outnumber us as heavily as this on land?’

  Solemnly, the two other nobles expressed their agreement.

  ‘There could be upwards of five thousand men there,’ Remon de Muntcada muttered as he scanned th
e shoreline, ‘and fully two hundred horse, perhaps.’

  En Guillen cast his eyes towards the channel between the coast and Sa Dragonera Island. ‘And with only a third of our fleet here, we’d be hard pushed to assemble a landing force big enough to challenge even half that amount.’

  The immediate outlook was bleak indeed, and even the usually-optimistic king was obliged to admit as much. All the same, he wasn’t about to capitulate without making a wholehearted attempt at taking Mallorca, no matter how unfavourable the eventual odds.

  ‘God has brought us this far,’ he stressed, ‘and as we do this in His name, I believe no less than before that He will see us through to victory.’

  But En Remon de Muntcada ventured a more pragmatic view. ‘As much as I admire your faith, Majestat, it would take a miracle equal to that of the loaves and fishes for us to mount a successful attack on such a superior force as is facing us now.’

  Nunyo Sans was quick to back him up. ‘En Remon speaks as a good general, and although he’s as God-fearing as any man, what he says makes sense. To pit our limited forces against those Saracen hordes would be too great a favour for even a king to ask of the Almighty.’

  King Jaume shrugged off that pronouncement with a firm reminder that, in good time, God would deliver enough of the fleet to swell their current numbers to an adequate level – if they had faith.

  His three nobles said a concerted amen to that, though swapping anxious glances.

  For all that the mounting risks of the mission lay heavily on his shoulders, and despite the cautioning words of his trusted noblemen jarring his impatience for action, a serene smile spread over King Jaume’s face as he gazed for the first time above and beyond the Moorish troops assembled rank behind rank along the curve of the shore. His eyes had been drawn to the mountains that protected the bay like enfolding arms. Their lower slopes were carpeted in swathes of evergreen oak, their rugged flanks cloaked by pinewoods, their sunbathed ridges glowing gold against a cloudless sky like the points of a giant’s crown. Languorously, he inhaled the resinous scent of the island drifting over the water on the still morning air.