She laughed softly. ‘Somebody much more useful. He is a man called Thomas Busshe. He is a monk, a friar in a Franciscan monastery near Colchester. But he also lectures on theology and philosophy in Oxford.’
Saladin’s disappointment was crushing. ‘A monk,’ he said with disgust. ‘A scholar. I don’t even know where Colchester is.’
‘It’s an old city, north of London.’
But Saladin had no clear idea where London was either. ‘So why is this fat old scholar hauling his backside from one end of the world to the other?’
She laughed again. ‘Actually he has two purposes. He wants to speak of the Mongols, and our family’s business. And he means to deliver me a letter. It was sent to his monastery, but it is intended for us. It comes from Cordoba.’
He frowned, thinking through his mish-mash geography. ‘Cordoba? The city of the Moors in Spain?’
‘Who would write to us from Cordoba, do you imagine?’
‘Family? A Christian warrior?’
‘No,’ she said carefully. ‘Quite the opposite. Our correspondents are Moors, Saladin. Muslims. And yet they are cousins. And yet they are descended from Robert the Wolf, just as we are...’
II
The letter had come about because of a visit by an English scholar called Peter to his sponsor, Subh, a lady of Cordoba - and Joan’s distant cousin.
It wasn’t difficult for Peter to find his way through the dense heart of Cordoba. Though born in England, he had spent years in Toledo, and was used to tangled Moorish streets. But Cordoba had its own intricate beauty. As he walked, he came across little squares where the prospect would unexpectedly open up, and he found himself looking down sloping cobbled streets and under arches to silent crowds of rooftops beyond. It was May, and baskets of flowers added splashes of colour everywhere.
But the city seemed half empty. There were fewer people than flower baskets, it seemed, ragged children throwing stones into dry fountains, a firewood seller leading his donkey through deserted streets. Some of the grandest houses were abandoned, the gardens weed-strewn, the vines out of control, the ponds clogged.
He found his way to the River Guadalquivir, in whose embrace Cordoba nestled. The old bridge still stood proud, the labour of the Romans enduring centuries. From here he took his bearings. To the north-west was the Jewish quarter, to the east the Christian, and between them the Moorish quarter.
And there was the great mosque, with the cross of Christ fluttering on banners above its gates. There could not have been a clearer symbol of the Reconquest. Just six years earlier Cordoba itself had at last submitted to the armies of the Castilian king Fernando III, and the most beautiful mosque in al-Andalus had been reconsecrated as a Christian church.
Peter walked out of the centre of the city, looking for the home of Subh, the sponsor of his scholarship.
The house was well appointed in the old style, a remnant of the Moorish past. The gate was open, and he walked through an elaborate archway into a small but neat patio, where vines clung to slim pillars, and pot plants stood like soldiers around a pond where fish swam and a small fountain bubbled. Peter, in his woollen tunic and with his pack on his back, dusty from the road, felt shabby.
A woman came striding out of a doorway. A small crowd of men followed her, perhaps a dozen, mostly younger than her. They were nervous, agitated, and they chattered in dense Arabic. With his bright blond hair and blue eyes, Peter felt even more out of place.
When the woman saw Peter she stopped dead. ‘Who are you?’
She was taller than Peter, and aged perhaps forty, judging from the lines that gathered around her full mouth. But her hair was as dark as her eyes, her cheeks were high and her nose strong, and there was a sway to her ample hips that was almost animal. Peter was twenty-two years old and a virgin. He was overwhelmed by her primitive force.
He bowed hastily, but in the process his pack tumbled over his shoulder and clouted him on the head. Some of the younger men sniggered. ‘I am Peter,’ he said nervously. ‘A scholar from Toledo. We have been corresponding.’
‘We’ve been more than just corresponding, Peter of Toledo,’ she said. ‘I’ve been paying your wages for the last year, and I’ve kept you alive from the look of your scrawny frame. Well, you evidently know who I am.’
‘You are the lady Subh, who—’
‘Oh, straighten up, man, I can’t abide bowing and scraping.’
There was an amused glint in her eye that told him she knew exactly the effect she was having on him. He said, even more confused, ‘I have brought the fruits of my studies into the history of your family—’
‘I should hope you have or there’d be little point you coming all this way, would there? Look, young man, I’m afraid I don’t have time for you just now. We have something of a family crisis going on.’ She waved a hand at the men behind her. ‘Look at this lot. All my relatives, nephews, cousins, even a few uncles. All flocking around me, the way they came huddling around my husband when he was alive, may he rest in the peace of Allah. I won’t bother introducing you because they’re not worth a clipped crown, the lot of them. All save this one, perhaps. Peter of Toledo, meet my son, Ibrahim.’
Ibrahim was about Peter’s age, perhaps a bit younger. He wore a tunic and leggings of a severe black cloth. He bowed to Peter. He was handsome, but his eyes, startling blue, were cold. ‘What are you, Peter of Toledo? French?’
‘English.’
Ibrahim grunted, uninterested. ‘All Christians are the same.’ He turned away.
‘Ibrahim is as strong as his father,’ Subh said, ‘but ten times as difficult. Follows the teaching of the Almohads. Allah be thanked for sending me such a devout son.’
‘Your mockery is inappropriate,’ Ibrahim said sternly.
‘Yes, yes. Well, we don’t have time for this. Come.’ And without another word she swept out of the courtyard and into the street beyond. The relatives followed her like baby geese.
Peter stood for a heartbeat. Then he dropped his pack in a shady corner and ran after the little mob, for he had no idea what else to do.
He found himself striding alongside Ibrahim. ‘Where are we going?’
‘To the mosque. Zawi is in trouble with the Christians.’
‘Who is Zawi?’
‘A cousin. Another one of the hapless flock who huddle under my mother’s wing, and look for her protection when their foolishness and impiety leads them into trouble.’
He sounded stern and contemptuous, as only a very young man can be, Peter thought, aware of his own youth. ‘You don’t sound as if you have much respect for your family.’
‘When the Christian armies came, my cousins did not fight for Cordoba as men. Now they cluster around a woman for protection. They are less than men.’
‘And,’ Peter asked carefully, ‘did you fight?’
‘I was too young,’ Ibrahim said quickly.
Which Peter, versed in interpretation, understood to mean that his formidable mother had not let him fight. ‘I would be interested to learn of your culture,’ he said now. ‘The principles of the Almohads, who see the whole world as a unity “plunged in God”. A fascinating concept.’
Ibrahim glared at him with stony contempt. ‘You know nothing of our culture. No Christian does.’
‘That remark only shows that you know little of Christians yourself. I am a student, and a translator. I speak and write Arabic, pure Latin, and the dialects of the Castilians and the Aragonese, as well as Greek, French, English and other tongues. In Toledo I have translated works of Arab scholars into Latin, and Latin into Arabic, and—’
‘You plunder the intellectual wealth of a higher culture as you plunder our African gold.’
Peter didn’t rise to that. ‘You can’t translate philosophy without knowing something of its context.’
‘Perhaps you think we all wandered in from the desert. Moors have been in this country for five hundred years.’
‘I know that,’ Peter said. ‘But the
Almohads did come from the desert, only a few decades ago - didn’t they?’
Ibrahim was predictably offended, and stalked away after his mother. Peter was forced to hurry after them, his feet already aching from his journey.
III
A group of people, men, women and children, had gathered in a rough semicircle before the mosque’s northern wall. Perhaps a hundred strong, they all seemed to be Christian. Many wore grubby crosses stitched to their shoulders, the papal symbol of the Reconquest. And they all seemed to be wielding stones, cobbles and lumps of concrete. Even the smallest children clutched pebbles in their tiny hands. It was a stoning, then. The Christians looked hungry for it to begin. There was no sign of any forces of order, of the Christian king’s soldiers.
But Subh, without hesitation, marched straight into the middle of this mob. Subh’s relatives hung back, but Ibrahim stayed with her, and Peter hurried after them.
At the centre of the crowd was a boy, dark-skinned, cowering against the wall. He stood awkwardly, dragging one wounded leg. His clothing was filthy and stiff with dark blood, and the left side of his face was swollen and battered. Two men stood near him, both stout and sleek, one expensively dressed, the other a Christian priest in his finery.
Subh stood proud before the cowering boy. ‘You won’t be harmed, Zawi. Stand straight, and stop that sniffling.’ She glared around at the muttering crowd. The skin of her face shone with fine oils, and the slight breeze wrapped her loose white clothing around her so that her hips and breasts were prominent. In that moment of peril she looked magnificent to Peter, powerful, authoritative. Once again he felt a pang of helpless lust.
She called out clearly, “‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.” Aren’t those the words of Christ, recorded in the gospel of John? What, are you surprised that a Muslim knows the words of your holy books? I dare say I know your own creed better than most of you, and those tatty crosses sewn to your shoulders make no difference to that. Which of you fine Christians has condemned this snivelling boy?’
‘I did, Subh.’ It was the fat, finely dressed man who stood with the priest. His purple-dyed silk cloak must have been extraordinarily expensive.
‘Alfonso,’ Subh said with disgust. ‘I might have known it was you. What do you accuse him of, muhtasib - mocking the size of your fat arse? If so you’ll have to have half of Cordoba stoned.’
That actually won her a laugh.
Alfonso preened, plump fingers plucking at his leather belt. ‘The crime is rather more serious than that, lady. This sand rat of a nephew of yours has fornicated with my granddaughter. My granddaughter, my Beatrice. Come here, child.’ A girl, mousy, plain, stumbled forward from the crowd. ‘Fornicated!’ Alfonso thundered. ‘What do you have to say to that?’
There was an angry murmur from the crowd.
Peter murmured to Ibrahim, ‘In Toledo it’s no stoning offence for a Muslim to sleep with a Christian.’
‘In this town it is. And Alfonso is the muhtasib, who supervises the market. He is a man of influence in Cordoba.’
Subh was undaunted. ‘And you have proof of this, do you, Alfonso the Fat? Oh, I’m prepared to believe that this wretched whelp of yours is no longer a virgin. But what else, beyond her word against his?’
‘It was him,’ Beatrice said, and she raised an unsteady finger to point at Zawi. ‘He forced me!’
The crowd murmured again. But the priest looked down at his shoes, uncomfortable.
Subh, sharp, in control, noticed this. ‘Forced you? Ah, but that isn’t the story you told earlier, I would wager. Is it, child?’
‘Yes - no - but it was Zawi, it was!’
Subh snorted, but Peter noticed she did not call on the boy to deny it for himself. She stalked about, regal, sneering at the stone-wielding crowd. ‘And if so, what did you think of his scars?’ Beatrice said nothing, and Subh went on, ‘Come, child. If you lay together you must have noticed those.’
Beatrice glanced at her grandfather, uncertain.
Subh turned to the boy. ‘Show them what I mean.’
Zawi’s embarrassment apparently overcame his fear. ‘But, aunt—’
‘Show them. Drop your trousers.’
The boy complied, to reveal bare legs and a grimy sash around his waist. The crowd hooted, mocking his skinny legs and his shrivelled cock, and the boy was mortified. But Subh plucked aside the sash, and the crowd gasped at a mesh of scars on his belly.
‘The result of a pious mule-whipping,’ Subh said. ‘A childhood gift from one of your sons, I’m told, Alfonso. Child, how could you not notice that?’
The girl, confused, stammered out, ‘But I did sleep with him. All right, he didn’t force me. But I did. It was in the orange grove behind the—’
Subh drowned her out. ‘Your word against his! That’s all we have. Who are you protecting, Beatrice? Who? Somebody known to your father - one of his business associates?’ She spat that out with utter contempt. ‘And for that will you take the blood of a boy on your hands? Will you go to meet your Maker with that unforgiven sin on your conscience?’ She turned on the crowd. ‘Will you? And you?’
As Zawi pulled up his trousers, Alfonso made one last try. He cried, ‘You will not contradict me, woman! The facts of the case are clear! This girl has been violated. This girl, of a line tainted by no Moorish blood or Jewish, a Christian line that has survived since the days of the Gothic kings...’
But nobody was listening. One cobble was actually hurled, bouncing off the mosque wall harmlessly. But the mood for blood was gone, washed away by the sheer power of Subh’s personality. Even the priest walked away.
Subh approached Alfonso. ‘Gothic kings, eh? Well, I,’ she said, ‘am descended from Ahmed Ibn Tufayl, vizier to the emir of Seville, and that is no lie. I know the truth about you and your family, muhtasib. For centuries you called yourself al-Hafsun. My family worked with yours, in those days. You were muwallad. But when the Christian kings returned, you conveniently called yourselves Christian once more. Your blood is no more pure than your slut of a granddaughter.’
And she turned her back on a fuming Alfonso. ‘One of you,’ she called to her hapless relatives, ‘take Zawi home and clean him up. And tell him that if he gets up to this kind of mischief again, especially with a Christian, and especially with a granddaughter of that slug Alfonso, I’ll cut off his cock myself.’ She rubbed her hands as if to clean them of dust. ‘Well, that’s that sorted out. Now, what’s next?’She smiled brightly at Peter. ‘What are you waiting for? Come with me.’
He dared do nothing else but follow.
IV
In the patio of her home, Subh served Peter tea flavoured with the zest of an orange, and dried olives and apricots in thick cream.
It was May, and the garden was fresh, the leaves on the trees brilliant green, the roses flowering, the blossom on the pomegranates bright red. Somewhere a nightingale sang. This was a typically Moorish setting, Peter thought, an oasis-garden made by folk who cherished life where they found it.
But Ibrahim stalked about, restless. He seemed very angry that his mother had saved the life of his distant cousin. ‘You lied shamelessly,’ Ibrahim accused her. ‘You knew very well that Zawi slept with that wretched girl. It was written all over him.’
Peter said, ‘But the scars - the girl didn’t recognise them.’
‘He keeps the scars covered up with his sash,’ Ibrahim snapped. ‘Even while making love. Wouldn’t you?’
‘Oh, of course I knew he slept with the whelp,’ Subh said. ‘Why do you think I didn’t question him? For fear he would blurt out the truth, or still worse profess some undying passion for the spread-legged little she-goat, and get himself put down.’
‘And you made an unnecessary enemy of Alfonso in the process.’
‘But he is already my enemy. You see, my son, I believe that to lie is wrong, but to allow a foolish boy to be stoned for a bit of careless lust is more wrong still.’
Ibrahim sna
pped, ‘Our family has lived in this den of decadence for too long. It has poisoned our blood, which must be cleansed!’ And he stalked off, unsatisfied.
So Peter was left alone with this woman, her languid form draped on a divan. Impossible fantasies ran through his head.
Subh sighed. ‘It is a trial to have a son whose soul is so much purer than mine. A reminder of the time when the holy Almohads ran all our lives, and the Almoravids before them.’
After the fall of Toledo a century and a half earlier, a bruised al-Andalus had fallen under the sway of cultists from across the strait, Almoravids and later Almohads, men of the desert with veiled faces who dressed in skins and stank of their camels, devout, disciplined and cruel. Attitudes hardened on both sides. The popes granted crusading indulgences to knights who fought in Spain, challenging the fundamentalism of the desert warriors.
‘The boy means well, of course. But he simply isn’t pragmatic. Are you pragmatic, scholar? Or are you religious?’
‘Not especially, though I do plenty of work for the religious houses, mostly the Franciscans. My ambition is to be a philosopher, for which I need to find patrons - like yourself, to whom I am eternally grateful.’ Peter’s career was a new sort, unimagined not so long before. Thanks to the injection of scholarship from the conquered regions of al-Andalus there had been an explosion of learning across Christendom, and all over Europe itinerant scholars like Peter were trying to make a living. ‘Of course,’ he went on, ‘the task of the scholar is to reconcile all our philosophy with the revealed truth of God.’ That was the official truth, but actually, it seemed to Peter, thanks to the Aristotelian studies of the Moorish scholars, across Christendom the close ties of devotion and scholarship were loosening.
Subh was still thinking about her son. ‘Ibrahim can’t see that the subtext of the little encounter today is my rivalry with Alfonso the Fat, and the long war he is waging to destroy me. That’s why he was trying to have poor Zawi put down - it’s nothing to do with the law, or what Zawi may or may not have actually done. It’s all to get at me.’
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