She suspected that when the excitement of their escape had abated, she at least would be able to go home and not be blamed for what had happened. But while not wishing to be abandoned by Mamadi, she hated him too much to leave him. She was a woman with a taste for revenge and whereas from back home she would have been unable to do anything to harm him, here, in their current situation, she could. He had ruined her life, after all, interfered with her destiny. Her pride was too great to stand the insult of it.
One day, when his entreaties became particularly irksome, when his passion for her seemed eternal, she came up with a novel idea for curing it.
“Perhaps,” she smiled innocently, “perhaps if you cut off one of your toes, you who love me so, and present it to me, so that I may rub my brow with it, this might relieve the pain of my headaches. It is a magic cure I have heard of.”
Without hesitation Mamadi drew his dagger and slipping off his left boot severed the small toe of that foot. Bowing, he handed it to her.
“Leave me now and I will see if the magic works,” she sighed, as if weary from the pain of her headache. “Come back tomorrow.”
Once outside, with the help of his last, not very bright slave, Blali, he made his way to his lonely room and bandaged the wound, hope rising in his heart. The next night, trying to hide his limp, he returned to Sia's room.
“I am afraid the pain has not gone. My head feels as if it will split like a melon dropped on a stone. Perhaps though,” she suggested, “I was wrong about the spell. Perhaps, if you were to present me with a finger instead, that will work. Yes, I believe that it was the severed finger of a true love …”
Again, not hesitating for a second, Mamadi Sefe Dekote slapped his left hand down upon the table, drew his dagger and sliced off his little finger. Gritting his teeth, he fought hard and managed a smile, once more bowing to present it to her.
The next day, sure enough, Sia no longer had a headache, but when Mamadi Sefe Dekote approached her she only laughed at him, throwing him out of her room and then sending a note via his despised slave, to explain the way things now stood.
“I do not love people with only nine fingers and nine toes,” she wrote. “Why would I wish to give myself to an incomplete creature like you?”
They were beyond the reach of their own people here, of course, and safe from the wrath of the city fathers, but Sia was convinced that word of Mamadi Sefe Dekote's humiliation would quickly get back to everyone who knew him. Sia was quite certain that their doings were the subject of eagerly received gossip back home, and she was correct.
At last the proud warrior was being made a total fool of, Sia smiled to herself with satisfaction. Indeed, now she lingered in this foreign town just to watch his unhappy progress, to see him wincing when he walked down the street or maladroitly dealing with anything requiring two hands.
There was another reason to remain, even after the foolish warrior's wounds had begun to heal. Sia's beauty and her now obvious independence had opened several possibilities. All the higher born men of the town had begun to show considerable interest in her. Soon, Sia re-established communication with her family and it was arranged that an income would be paid to her, but it was also agreed that she might stay away a while longer. The still-virgin Sia Jatta Bari, with the serpent no longer an option, and wealthy men she had not known from childhood in the offing, had suggested this herself.
Mamadi Sefe Dekote, however, had not disappeared from the picture. He had again been saving money and was selling off possessions that were not vital to him. The spare warhorse had gone, but he had decided to keep his lowly slave Blali.
With the money he had thus accumulated Mamadi Sefe Dekote went to a witch, the most renowned in the area. In return for his gold, she made him a love potion the power of which had seldom been equalled. This potion she mixed into hair oil, and, as part of her agreed role in their transaction, brought it to Sia. Posing as a hairdresser and offering a free sample of her ability in the hope of future work, she was allowed to give the beauty-conscious virgin a treatment.
After only half of the oil was applied, Sia jumped to her feet and flung a garment over her bare shoulders.
“Where are you going so suddenly, my lady” the witch asked.
“I hear Mamadi Sefe Dekote summoning me,” Sia cried desperately, before hurrying from her house and running to his room down the street. “Yes,” she breathed anxiously, as she burst through his door. “You were calling for me, and I am here.”
“I didn't do any such thing,” Mamadi said, raising one eyebrow disdainfully as he reclined languidly on his bed. “It is my understanding that you cannot love anyone with nine fingers and nine toes. Go away.”
Confused and strangely unhappy, Sia returned to her house and allowed the ‘hairdresser’ to continue the treatment, but hardly had she applied a drop or two more of the oil than again Sia leapt to her feet and ran once more to Mamadi Sefe Dekote. Again, he dismissed her harshly.
Back home the witch went to work again, rubbing the last of the love potion into Sia's hair as the girl twitched and shivered with excitement and confusion. After dressing her hair nicely the witch pretended she would return if required, for a modest fee, and left. At once Sia felt driven to go to Mamadi again.
Arriving sheepishly at his door, she fought to retain some dignity as she stood looking at him.
“You must have been calling to me,” she sighed. “All I can hear is your voice constantly in my mind. All I can see before my eyes, open or closed, is your face, your body.”
“All right, I suppose I have been thinking of you,” he replied with a yawn. “Come to me tonight. Not too early, mind you.”
“I will come to our marriage bed tonight,” she whispered huskily, wondering how she could stand the intervening hours. Then she blew him a kiss before departing.
No sooner had Sia gone than Mamadi Sefe Dekote shouted for Blali to prepare for the night's big event. If he did not follow instructions exactly, Blali was bluntly told, his life would be forfeit.
As soon after dark as she felt was reasonably proper, Sia went to Mamadi's room, where apparently he had retired without her. Seeing his shoes beside the bed as she entered, she smiled to herself. Closing the door on the darkened room, she felt her way across the floor and slipped under the blanket beside him.
He said nothing but turned to face her in the gloom.
“Truly you did not earn the name ‘He Who Speaks Little’ for nothing, but please, tell me now that you love me. I know you have reason to be angry but at last we are together …”
Wordlessly he took her in his arms and all through the night, lustily, in every conceivable position, many, many times and hour after hour, he enjoyed her, and she responded with equal enthusiasm. Finally, exhausted and satiated, she lay her head upon his chest, dozing at last as dawn broke and faint light showed around the cracks of the shutters and under the door.
At full light, the town already bustling, the door was kicked in and Mamadi's voice boomed around the room.
“Blali, you lazy thing,” he shouted from the doorway. “My horse's stall is full of dung, and you have not cleaned it, nor groomed, watered and fed the animal.”
“Apologies, master,” muttered the yawning Blali from the bed, reaching up to open the window shutters above it. “But I have been occupied with this woman.”
Outside, passers-by glanced in, drawn by the uproar, and went away giggling.
Fully awake now, Sia sat up clutching the blankets around her, looking from Blali to Mamadi. Jaw set, she rose with legs and knees like jelly. Dropping the blanket, she dressed quickly, though not fast enough to hide the bruises and bitemarks upon her neck, breasts, thighs and buttocks.
Walking shakily to the door, she paused as she passed Mamadi Sefe Dekote and said with grudging admiration, not looking at him. “You take a good revenge.”
With that she went home. It is said that she died of shame not long afterwards. But who knows?
The Knig
ht and the Lady of Loch Awe
This tale has a theme common to many of the cultures whose men went off to the Crusades. Aside from the nature of the far-off campaigning, though, it takes a gentle, reflective line, and Black Colin does not exact the grisly vengeance one would find in other Highland stories.
Breathing heavily and sweating profusely in his padded leather jerkin and chain mail, Black Colin looked down at the dead Saracen at his feet. The fierce Mediterranean sun was taking its toll, but on this particular day in what had been a long campaign it was the enemy who were in full retreat, leaving the field to him and his comrades. In a flash his mind went back to his home in the cool, green glens of Scotland. There he had land, wealth, status and family but, above all else, a beautiful wife whom he had left for the Crusades. They had been married a very short time before he had ventured off. He had taken the decision to go so lightly, so thoughtlessly and without a backward glance. Now, as he removed his helmet and wiped his forehead, it sickened him to recall it.
Visions of home itself were less painful, and remembering his proud heritage while surrounded by so many foreigners, some of very high birth in their homeland, cheered him a little.
It had been during the wars between England and Scotland in the reigns of Edward I and Edward II that his father had made his name. As one of the leaders in the cause of Scottish independence, Sir Nigel Campbell had served boldly. The Knight of Loch Awe, as he was generally called, had been a school friend and comrade of Sir William Wallace, and a loyal and devoted adherent of Robert Bruce. As reward for his heroism in the war of independence, the Bruce gave him the former lands of the rebellious MacGregors. This included Glenurchy, the great glen at the head of Loch Awe through which the river Orchy flows, in a wild and isolated region of the Highlands. Sir Nigel Campbell had had a fight on his hands before he was able to expel the MacGregors and settle down peaceably in Glenurchy. Colin was born soon afterwards. As the years went by he earned the nickname of Black Colin, on account of his jet-black hair, dark skin and his temperament.
Over time the boy's fierce temper and rashness were beaten, reasoned or loved out of him by his tough father, kind foster-father and devoted foster-mother. As all Highland chiefs did in those days, Sir Nigel Campbell sent his son to a farmer's home for fosterage and so the boy became a child of his foster family as well as the son of his father.
Young Black Colin ate the plain food of the clansmen, oatmeal porridge and oatcake, drank the milk of the cows and occasionally enjoyed the beef from the cattle herds. He ran and wrestled and hunted with his foster-brothers and learnt woodcraft and warlike skills, such as broadsword play and the use of dirk and buckler, from his foster-father. Most importantly of all, he won a devoted following in the clan. In these times a man's foster-parents were almost dearer to him than his own father and mother, and his foster-brethren were bound to fight and die for him and to regard him more highly than their own blood relations.
The foster-parents of Black Colin were a couple named Patterson, who lived at Socach, in Glenurchy. In every conceivable way, they fulfilled the trust placed in them. Indeed, in Black Colin's case they did more than was strictly necessary, and became closer to him as a consequence. With his mother dead and a father who was unusually cold, the Pattersons were in his heart his first family. In some ways he came to regard his title and future responsibilities as a duty and a burden.
Sir Nigel Campbell died in his forties, leaving Black Colin to become Knight of Loch Awe, lord of Glenurchy and all the surrounding countryside while he was still only in his late teens. Colin was already renowned for his strength and handsome face and by virtue of this extra slice of good fortune he became the young man all the girls in the district wanted to capture. By luck, for a young man's fancy can seldom be trusted, advice from his foster-mother and the wit, charms and merit of the young woman in question, he married the best, brightest, and truly loveliest of all the girls in the area.
The couple dwelt happily enough together on the Islet in Loch Awe but it was not long before Colin became restless. He had yet to perform great feats of arms, and, sadly for him, the peace in the land then looked like lasting. He was too young, too well schooled in war and too brave to be content with the life of what amounted to little more than that of a gentleman-farmer. Soon, a cause would inspire him to leave his responsibilities as clan chief, husband and landlord.
One day a traveller arrived at the castle on the Islet with fascinating tales of the many places he had been. This fellow was a palmer just returned from the Holy Land who had visited all the holy places in Jerusalem. He eloquently described his experiences, the customs and religious sites of the various distant lands, all of which interested Black Colin's wife.
“The Saracens rule the country with a fist of iron and hinder men from worshipping at the sacred shrines,” the palmer said. “But soon this may be remedied, for coming home by way of Rome, I heard most wondrous news. It seems the Pope has just proclaimed a new Holy War.” “What's that?” Colin cried, coming quickly out of his daydream of what he might have done had he lived in former times, during the last Crusades. His attention was captured by the word ‘war’.
“The Pope has declared that his blessing will rest on the man who would leave wife, home and kinsfolk, and go forth to fight for the Lord against the infidel.”
The palmer's words greatly moved Black Colin, and when the old man had made an end he raised the hilt of his dirk and swore by the cross it formed.
“I swear by all that is sacred that I will obey this summons and go on crusade.”
The fair Lady of Loch Awe turned pale. They had barely been married for a year and already he was to leave her alone for what might be a very long time, if he survived the journey and the battles and illnesses he must face. She tried to master her emotions as she turned to her husband.
“How far from me will this errand take you?” was all she could manage to say and still be in command of herself.
“Why, all the way to Jerusalem, if the Pope bids me.”
“And how long will you be away from me?” she whispered with difficulty.
“It is hard to say,” Black Colin barked excitedly. “It may be many years if the heathen try to continue to hold the Holy Land against us. In the end, the warriors of the Cross must prevail, but I can not return before that time, of course.”
“What shall I do during those long, weary years,” she asked, growing stronger as the inevitability of it all sank in.
“Why, my darling,” Black Colin responded, waking up a little from his ecstatic dreams of war and victory. “You shall live right here on the Islet and manage our affairs as lady of Glenurchy until my return. Our vassals and clansmen will obey you as they do me, and the tenants will pay their rents and dues to you. You will hold and control the land in my place.” He had thought she would be just as excited by this prospect as he was over the Crusade, for she was a clever young woman and he knew she had her own ideas and longed to influence their affairs.
“I see,” the Lady of Loch Awe said with a sigh. “But if you should die so far away in that distant land …” her voice nearly broke and she stopped, cleared her throat and tried again, pretending to be cool and practical. “How will I know? What am I to do if eventually I hear that you've been killed or carried off by some dread disease? How am I ever to know for certain?”
“Yes. We must think,” said Colin, a touch sobered by talk of his mortality. “Wait seven years, and if I have not returned by then, you go ahead and marry again. Take a good brave husband to help you guard your rights and rule the glen, for I'll be dead in the Holy Land.”
“No,” she said gently, her heart breaking. “I will be the Lady of Glenurchy until I die, or perhaps a bride of Christ, hoping to find peace for my grieving soul in a nunnery. I'll let no second husband have me or hold your land. Please,” she said, no longer acting and desperate to avoid the awful uncertainty so inherent in the campaigns of those times, especially such distant ones. “Give
me some token that we can share between us, something that on your deathbed you can send to me. That way, if I get it, I will know that you will never come home and that you have died.”
“I will do as you ask but I may have no deathbed as such,” Black Colin answered, both touched and amused. He understood her need, however, and so he went to the clan's blacksmith and had him make a very large gold ring. On one side of it was engraved Colin's name and on the other that of the Lady of Loch Awe.
Breaking the ring in two, Colin gave his wife the piece with his name and kept the one with hers.
“I vow to wear this near my heart,” he solemnly told her, “and will only part with it if I am about to die, in whatever circumstances.”
Nodding and weeping bitterly, his lady also swore to keep her half of the ring, which she put on a chain round her neck. Then, with heavy hearts and great mourning from the whole clan, Black Colin and the sturdy band of Campbell clansmen who had volunteered to go with him, marched away to the swirl of the bagpipes, plaids fluttering in the breeze. Many looked back with a lump in their throat, and those who were older or wiser feared to find themselves supplanted when they came back after God only knew how many years.
Colin had not shared such doubts at the time, but they had begun to plague him recently. How could he have abandoned her with such an easy mind?
Some men's courage rose as the miles lengthened behind them, while others became homesick or sentimental. By the time they had reached Edinburgh and boarded a ship at Leith, many were already thinking of home as an abstract ideal and looking forward to the joy of battle. All were also eager to see Rome and the Pope. Later, they believed, would come Jerusalem.
Black Colin now remembered that all he had dreamt of then was glory and how he would fight with such valour as had seldom been seen in all the battles in all the world. These days all he dreamt of was home and his lady.
Journeying up the Rhine, he and his Highland clansmen had made their way through Switzerland, then over the passes of the Alps. Coming down into Italy, they were astonished at the splendour of the cities, which surpassed their wildest imaginations. At last, with many other bands of Crusaders, they reached Rome.
Myths and Legends from Around the World Page 23