by Peter Kerr
Nedi was now standing at the cave’s entrance, his impatient yelps urging Pedrito on. Heart pounding, sweat stinging his eyes, his every breath a rasping gulp, Pedrito finally staggered headlong into the cave, half dreading what he might see there, half fearful that the cave would be deserted. Yet, even before his eyes had become accustomed to the gloom, he discerned the sound of sobbing – hardly the most alleviating of sounds, but allaying the worst of his fears, nonetheless.
‘Oh, Pedrito, thank heavens you’ve come. I just didn’t know what to do.’ It was Saleema’s voice. She was clearly upset, but alive, and that was the most important thing.
Peering into the darkness, Pedrito could see that she was kneeling by the fire, which amounted to nothing now but a heap of dying embers. She was crouched over one of the crude mattresses that she’d helped cobble together when first faced with making the cave some sort of home.
‘It’s Farah,’ she wept. ‘I’ve been keeping her as warm as I could, but I ran out of firewood and – and I couldn’t – I mean, I didn’t want to leave her in case…’ She paused to pull herself together, then went on to tell Pedrito that his mother had started coughing up blood during the night, and her condition had deteriorated so much by dawn that Saleema was convinced she was dying.
‘I didn’t know what to do,’ she whimpered. ‘All I could think of was to tell Nedi to go and fetch you. But as much as I wanted to believe that he’d understood, I honestly didn’t hold out much hope.’ She then reached out and gave Nedi a hug, showering him with praise, as well as tears.
Pedrito, meanwhile, knelt down beside his mother and gazed at her ashen face. He could see she was breathing, though only just.
Saleema told him that she had been lying motionless like that for hours, and nothing would make her stir. ‘I honestly thought she was going to die. But – but I didn’t know what to do. I tried to give her water to sip, but…’
Pedrito patted her hand. ‘It’s all right. Just being here beside her was the best thing you could have done.’ He ruffled Nedi’s head. ‘And you did well too, boy. A real guardian angel after all, eh?’
As if responding to the sound of Pedrito’s voice, Farah half opened her eyes, looked lovingly up at him and smiled. ‘Lahm min lahmi,’ she said, her voice barely audible. ‘Flesh of my flesh – come, give me your hand.’ She raised her head slightly, took Pedrito’s hand in hers and pressed it to her lips. Then, with the faint glow from the fire glistening in her eyes,’ she reached up and stroked his cheek. ‘Ibni wahid … my only son … be happy.’ She rested her head again, beckoned Saleema to come closer, then whispered to Pedrito, ‘And look after my little habib … you have both shown me more love than I have ever known.’ Farah then closed her eyes, the smile she had smiled when greeting Pedrito a few moments earlier still lingering on her lips. ‘I prayed you would come back to me one day, my little baby … and my prayers were answered. Yes,’ she sighed, ‘I am a fortunate woman … and a happy one.’
Pedrito buried her in the shade of an old olive tree on the fringe of the little field, where, as a child, she and her friends had marvelled at the wide vista of land and sea spread out before them, in the innocent belief that they were gazing down on the entire world. Saleema, with Nedi at her side, looked on in tearful silence as Pedrito built a little cairn of stones at the head of the grave, then stepped back and whispered a short but heart-rendingly poignant valediction…
‘Ma’asalama, ma’asalama … Ummi. Farewell, and be at peace … my Mother.’
He turned round and stood comforting Saleema in his arms for a while, neither of them able to utter a word, or even feeling the need to. What they felt in their hearts said more than words ever could.
Then, as though wanting to let them know that he understood, Nedi gave a little whimper and nuzzled his head against Pedrito’s leg. But only for a second or two. He then reared up and propped his paws in the crook of Pedrito’s arm, panting his deceptively gormless-looking smile, first at him then at Saleema. Nedi had done something similar for Pedrito when he was grieving at the grave of his adoptive parents back at Andratx, and his intervention then had given Pedrito the encouragement he needed to pick up the pieces of his life and tackle the future with a sense of hope. It had the same effect now.
He gave Nedi’s head another well-deserved ruffle, then said to Saleema, ‘Come on then, little lady. It’s time to take you home … at last!’
27
‘THE LONGEST MILE IS THE LAST MILE HOME’
LATER THE SAME DAY – ON THE ROAD TO SANTA PONÇA …
Saleema had greeted Pedrito’s yearned-for words with a show of gratitude so physical that it almost knocked him on his back. Her excitement also let Nedi know in no uncertain manner that his unique form of canine counselling had done the trick again. He was patently and justifiably pleased with himself.
However, the truth of the matter was that Pedrito had been faced with no choice. Leaving Saleema to live in the cave alone would have been unthinkable, and taking her back with him to the Christian camp an absolute impossibility. So, the only option left was to set out with her for her family home, hoping against hope that what they found when they got there would be other than the scene of desolation that Pedrito had always feared.
But, for the moment, the fullness of Saleema’s happiness was tempered only by the deep sympathy she felt for Pedrito’s grief following the death of his mother, a sadness which also tugged agonisingly at her own heartstrings. Above all else, though, was the thought that, after a long and enforced separation culminating in a series of living nightmares from which she’d often feared there might be no escape, she was about to be reuinited with her mother and father. She was going home, and surely fate would soon lend her time to help soothe Pedrito’s pain, and allow her to share with him the joy she had finally been blessed with.
For his part, Pedrito was experiencing what had become an all-too-familiar state of mixed emotions, although on this occasion the mixture was weighted decidedly against anything positive. He was with Saleema, and for this he was profoundly grateful. But countering that there were negative thoughts of what they might find at her home, of subsequently having to return to El Real to make ready for a do-or-die assault on the city, and, more immediately, of the fear that they might encounter trouble somewhere along the road they were now travelling. All of this on top of the sorrow inflicted by the loss of the person who had brought him into this world, and who had sacrificed her own life to save his. The woman he had only once called ‘Mother’ – but not, to his present shame and eternal regret, until he was standing over her grave.
The little procession that had come down Na Burguesa mountainside from Génova comprised Pedrito, mounted on Tranquilla, followed by Saleema, sitting side-saddle on Masoud the donkey, with Annam the goat bringing up the rear on the end of a rope. Nedi had relinquished his usual shadowing role in favour of trotting jauntily along at Pedrito’s side – a place now more appropriate, no doubt, for a dog of proven inspirational qualities such as his own.
After giving a deliberately wide berth to the macabre site of the Battle of Na Burguesa, Pedrito was now leading the way westward below the hillside where he and King Jaume had dallied for a while prior to the decisive phase of that bloody confrontation. This was the pretty stretch of coastline which the king had offered to name after Pedrito once the war was won. Costa d’En Blànes, he’d said he would call it – though with his tongue firmly in his cheek, to Pedrito’s way of thinking at the time. Such light-hearted exchanges seemed a long way off now. The savagery of that very battle and the brutal drudgery of the three-month siege it led to had ensured that. King Jaume had still carried the air of an impetuous, devil-may-care young knight back then, but now he was a campaign-hardened commander-in-chief on the cusp of leading his army into a historic victory for Christendom – or to glorious death in defeat.
Such were the somewhat morose thoughts vying with Pedrito’s admiration of the surrounding secenery as he went along at t
he head of his little caravan of refugees. They had been wending their way through the rows of almond trees that occupied the lower slopes of the hill and had now entered a clearing within a copse of pines fringing the shore.
Suddenly, Nedi stopped in his tracks and started to bark at something unseen up ahead. This prompted Tranquilla to dig her heels in as well, and nothing Pedrito did would make her budge. To make matters even worse, she then lapsed into her habit of staring wide-eyed over her shoulder.
Saleema let out a little cry of anguish.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Pedrito, with as much reassurance as he could fake, ‘they’re only being spooked by the movement of the shadows. Sunshine, sea breezes and trees – always a problem for skittish animals.’
The expression on Saleema’s face suggested that she was disinclined to believe this somewhat tenuous appraisal of the situation, and her intuition was about to be proved sound. With Nedi barking more frantically and Tranquilla incited into a spasm of nervous whinnying, six armed horsemen broke from the cover of a dense clump of trees up ahead, while six others did likewise from the rear. In a trice, Pedrito and his little party were surrounded. They had been ambushed. Saleema’s screams of terror were immediately added to the din already being made by Nedi and Tranquilla. Only the donkey and the goat appeared unperturbed, making good use of the delay in forward motion to nibble enthusiastically at whatever edible greenery was within reach.
Pedrito’s initial reaction had been that of utter dismay. One of his worst fears had materialised, and there would be little or nothing he could do to singlehandedly protect Saleema. Even with Nedi’s assistance, any resistance he offered against such odds would be easily overcome. Then, as the men emerged from the shadows, he noticed that the one who appeared to be their leader was clad in a chainmail hauberk under a white mantle emblazoned with a large red cross.
‘Ho, Master Blànes,’ the fellow called out, his smiling face aglow beneath a fringe of red hair. ‘What brings you to this neck of the woods?’ It was Robert St Clair de Roslin, the novice Knight Templar from northern Britain who had established a friendly bond with Pedrito since their first meeting in a Salou tavern when he had been responsible, even though indirectly, for Pedrito being hired as helsman on King Jaume’s galley. ‘Hmm,’ Robert added with a wink, ‘and with a pretty wee lass for company too, eh! Aha, and a Moorish one into the bargain, if my eyes don’t deceive me!’ He spurred his horse towards Saleema, then dismounted to have a closer look. ‘Aye, and a real bonnie one she is at that, so why the glum expression, my friend?’
It was a long story, Pedrito told him, but he would gladly give him the gist of it, if he had the time to listen. He then glanced around at Robert’s companions and said hesitantly, ‘But it can be for your ears only, I’m afraid.’
Robert readily assured him that this wouldn’t be a problem. He explained that he and his troop had been patrolling the area between El Real and Santa Ponça on orders to deal with any bands of Moorish militants they came across. They were on their way back to camp, but had noticed Pedrito and his entourage making their way down through the almond groves and had decided to lie in wait for them here. ‘Just to make sure you weren’t murderous desperados,’ he said with mock malice. At that, he dismissed his men and told them to wait for him at the edge of the wood a short way farther on.
After Pedrito had given him an abbreviated account of what had caused him to be here with Saleema – being careful, in the process, not to mention the identity of his natural father – Robert asked him if all of this was known to King Jaume.
‘Leaving the camp regularly to help two Muslim women surely wouldn’t have met with his approval, would it?’ he probed.
Pedrito didn’t reply, and pointedly so.
The ever-perceptive Robert, however, detected answer enough in his eyes. ‘Well, no-one can ever accuse King Jaume of being a heartless man, and that’s a rare attribute for a king.’ He shot Pedrito an urgent glance. ‘But don’t you go telling him I said that last bit, mind!’ He then looked admiringly at Saleema, who, being an Arabic speaker and therefore unable to understand the ongoing conversation in Catalan, was sitting quietly, though impatiently, in the shade at the edge of the clearing. ‘Man, oh man,’ Robert murmured, ‘but she’s a real wee beauty, right enough. And just see how she looks at you with those big dark eyes. Hmm, it makes me wonder if I’ve done the right thing.’
When asked by Pedrito to explain what he meant by that, Robert tugged at the front of his surcoat. ‘See this white mantle of mine? Well, it’s only us unmarried Templars who are allowed to wear it. We’re bound by life-long vows of, ehm, purity, you see. The rest wear the black or the brown.’
Pedrito couldn’t help smiling. ‘So, you wish you hadn’t taken the vows of chastity, is that it?’
Robert couldn’t take his eyes off Saleema. ‘Hmm,’ he drooled, ‘we’re forbidden to even kiss a woman – and that’s any woman, right down to our own mothers, aunties or sisters.’ He turned to look Pedrito in the eye. ‘You’re a lucky man. All right, you’ve had your bad luck as well, and there’s no denying that, but you’ve got a heaven-sent gift in yon lass there. And besides, I can see that there’s more to her than just the looks of an angel. So, come what may, cherish her with every breath you take.’
‘Oh, I will, I will,’ Pedrito insisted. ‘But all the same, I have to admit that the “come what may” scenario troubles me a lot.’
Robert tilted his head inquisitively. ‘What in the name of Saint Mary are you talking about, man?’
‘It’s just that Saleema’s a Muslim and I’m a Christian, and if King Jaume wins this war – well, we all know what the attitude of the Christian Church is towards –’
Robert cut him short by swatting the air with his hand. ‘Ach, don’t you go bothering about all that stuff! You’ve got a heaven-sent gift here – a God-given soulmate – and no mortal has the right to question the sanctity of that.’
Confused, Pedrito frowned. ‘But I thought the very basis of the Templars’ creed was anti-Muslim. Going on Crusades to rid Jerusalem and the Holy Land of the Saracens. Helping re-take Spain from the Moors and destroy any of them who refuse to convert to Christianity. I mean, that’s what King Jaume told me was the exact purpose of his mission here.’
Robert adopted a learned demeanour that belied his youth. ‘Ah, but some things transcend religious divides,’ he said in confidential tones. He gestured towards Saleema, then patted Pedrito’s shoulder. ‘What you have here is surely one of those things, so never let anyone or anything try to destroy it. Where there’s a will there’s a way, laddie, no matter how many bishops and archbishops say otherwise.’ He looked surreptitiously over his shoulder, then hissed, ‘But, hey – don’t you go telling anybody I said that last bit, mind!’
Pedrito gave a little chuckle. ‘You’re a living puzzle, Robert, you really are.’
‘Me? Never! Nah, they don’t come any more transparent than me. You get what you see with the St Clairs of Roslin, and that’s a fact.’
‘I can’t argue with that,’ said Pedrito, ‘but how can you devote your life – and purity – to an order of Christian monks, yet cast doubt on the words of bishops and archbishops? That’s what puzzles me.’
Dolefully, Robert lowered his eyes and contemplated his white mantle. ‘I had no choice but to take the vows. My family, you see – the St Clairs, the barons of the lands of Roslin and Pentland in the Lowlands of Scotland. Devout Templars all of them, and guardians of the Holy Grail, no less.’
Pedrito frowned. ‘The Holy Grail, you say?’
‘Yes indeed! The drinking cup used by Christ at the Last Supper – brought back from the Crusades by a forebear of mine – and one day we’ll build a fine chapel at Roslin to keep it in, you’ll see!’
What Pedrito could see was that Robert was starting to wallow in a pool of nostalgia, so rather than probe further into his Holy Grail claim, which he was tempted to do, he listened in silence while Robert indulged himself
in thoughts of home…
‘Scotland,’ he smiled, a faraway look in his eyes. ‘Oh yes, it’s a grand wee country, man. Majestic mountains and mighty rivers, where we hunt the stag and fish the salmon. Where men drink whisky instead of your sissy wine – or, ehm, as well as, in some cases. Where we eat real haggis, and none of your copycat chireta rubbish.’ A rebellious scowl gathered on Robert’s brow. ‘Aye,’ he growled, ‘and where we don’t have any of your damned wailing bagpipes to frighten our deer!’
‘Sounds like a fine country,’ Pedito tactfully conceded. ‘A paradise on earth – even better than Mallorca, eh?’
Robert returned to the here-and-now with a conciliatory jerk of his head. ‘Well, maybe the climate is just a wee bit better here. I’ll give you that.’ He prepared to remount. ‘But you should come and see it for yourself some day. You’d like it.’
‘Nothing I’d like better,’ Pedrito sighed, ‘but I’ve a few more Mallorcan hills to climb, if you see what I mean, before I can even start to think about your Scottish mountains.’
‘No doubt, no doubt,’ Robert replied, settling into his saddle. ‘We’ve tough times ahead of us here in the coming days and maybe even weeks.’ He pointed westward. ‘But I don’t think you’ll encounter anything to bother you and your wee train between here and where you’re headed now. Our patrols have done a fine job of mopping up any stray Moors who might have caused trouble, and any who managed to escape will have made their way north into the high Tramuntanas to join those wretched souls who survived the battles.’ Robert stole one final approving glance at Saleema, then said to Pedrito, ‘Fare ye well, my friend, and do whatever must be done to keep your little angel. For, mark my words as a man of God, He’ll never send you down another as perfect as her.’
With that, he saluted theatrically, reared his horse dramatically, then swashbuckled off at the gallop to join his men.