The Hand of Fatima Page 25

  Hernando hid in some bushes while the Berbers Barrax had sent searched here and there without any great zeal. Barrax himself stood at the top of the ravine shouting orders. A couple of soldiers followed the course of the river in the darkness, but soon came back. They were heading home to Algiers the next day, much richer than when they had landed on the coast of al-Andalus; what did they care if Barrax had lost his prisoner?

  Hernando waited until half the night had passed before deciding to climb up along the path the Berbers themselves had made. He tied the dangling ends of the chains up above his ankles with the straps he had taken from the mule. The iron links would probably chafe his skin as the shackles had done before, but they would not hurt so much: where before he had been forced to crawl, now they were little more than a nuisance.

  As he lay hidden at the foot of the ravine he could hear the hubbub and celebrations in the camp. Like Barrax, many corsairs and Berbers had decided to return to their homeland and were celebrating their last night in the lands of al-Andalus. For their part, the Moriscos were still leaving in droves to surrender to Don John of Austria, and either stole away from the Muslim camp or walked away quite openly. On this occasion, the Christian Prince’s decree was fulfilled, and men and women were respected on route. Even little Yusuf had confessed to Hernando earlier that evening that he intended to escape the following morning and give himself up. The boy had got hold of an old crossbow which he planned to take to Don John’s camp as the edict stipulated. He was not yet fourteen but wanted to appear more like a soldier. He announced his decision proudly.

  Listening to him, Hernando forced himself to smile.

  ‘I . . .’ stuttered Yusuf, not daring to look him in the face, ‘I . . .’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Do you think it’s all right? Can I?’

  Now it was Hernando’s turn to look away. His voice failed him as he tried to answer, and he had to clear his throat repeatedly. ‘You don’t have to ask my permission. You . . .’ He stopped and cleared his throat again. ‘You are free and you don’t owe me anything. In any event, it is I who owe you my gratitude.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘May Allah protect you, Yusuf. Go in peace.’

  Yusuf came over to him with all the solemnity one might expect from a young boy, hand outstretched, but in the end he threw himself into Hernando’s arms. Even now, at the bottom of the ravine, Hernando could feel him breathing heavily against his chest.

  He reached the top of the ravine and walked round Barrax’s tent into the camp. There was no need for him to take any precautions: the lookout consisted of one solitary Berber whose head was nodding in a vain attempt to stay awake. The rest were sleeping off the celebrations next to the bonfires. How was he going to find Fátima and his mother? He’d have to search the whole camp, but after being paraded there by Barrax’s sons, everyone would recognize him. He spotted a turban discarded beside the embers of one of the fires, but he did not know how to put it on. Although the guard was dozing, surely he would notice someone prowling among his companions; everything was still and the glow of the torches lighting the camp were bound to give him away. He looked all around him, until . . . No!

  His legs buckled beneath him. He fell to his knees and a cold sweat broke out all over his body. He vomited. He did so again, and a third and fourth time but there was nothing left to throw up and the retching tore at his insides. He looked again towards the entrance to Barrax’s tent: on the same post where Barrax had ordered the swords to be hung, Yusuf’s severed head was impaled. His nose and ears had been ripped off and nailed in a row: first one ear, then the other and at the end what must have been the boy’s nose. Hernando retched again but this time he did not look away. He imagined the vast bulk of the corsair captain on top of Yusuf as he tore off his nose and ears with his teeth. He had threatened to do it so many times! It could only have been because of him. They must have blamed the boy for his escape; La Vieja was missing and Yusuf was the one who looked after the animals. Hernando searched to see if Ubaid’s head was also on display but could not see it. The muleteer must have been more astute, and fled straightaway. He stared once more at Yusuf’s remains, a bitter testimony to the corsair’s cruelty. He stood up and unsheathed the scimitar.

  Hernando crept along the top of the ravine until he was behind the Berber on guard. ‘That old scimitar will be no use to you unless you learn to hold it tight,’ he remembered a janissary once telling him. If he failed, he would have Barrax to deal with again. He tightened his grip on the sword hilt and stiffened all his muscles before bringing the curved blade down with all his might on the soldier’s neck. He heard only the whistle of the blade through the air and the dull thud as the man fell to the ground, his head almost severed. Hernando made his way through the camp undaunted by the sleeping Berbers. All his muscles were still tense, and his teeth were clenched as he stared fixedly at the entrance to the corsair leader’s tent. He lifted the flap and went inside. Barrax was sleeping on the floor on a straw mattress. Hernando waited until his eyes grew used to the light, then tiptoed towards him. He raised the scimitar above his head; his fingers were hurting, the muscles on his arms and back felt as though they were about to split open. There he was! Defenceless! His neck was much thicker than the guard’s and Hernando had not managed to decapitate him completely. He went to deliver the blow but something held him back and the sword stayed above his head. Why not? The corsair ought to know who was going to put an end to his life! He owed it to Yusuf! Hernando kicked him in the ribs. The corsair muttered something, shifted and carried on sleeping. Hernando kicked him even harder in the side. A befuddled Barrax sat up; Hernando gave himself a few moments, just long enough for the other man to work out who it was, long enough for him to look up at the scimitar, just long enough for him to look into his eyes. The commander opened his mouth to scream as the scimitar plunged towards his neck. Hernando sliced his head clean off with a single blow.

  Hernando then went quickly through the camp dressed in Turkish fashion, wearing the clothes he discovered in the tent: a turban which hid half his face, some long loose trousers and a wide tunic that reached to his ankles; he kept the chains hidden beneath his trousers wrapped in pieces of cloth. In his right hand he carried the commander’s head in a sack. He had several daggers tucked in his belt as well as a small harquebus slung from the other shoulder to Hamid’s scimitar. He boldly asked various soldiers he ran into where he might find Brahim’s tent, and finally found it. He strode inside, without thinking, his scimitar drawn. What did it matter to him that Brahim was his mother’s husband? Aisha’s prayers would be worth nothing this time. But the tent the soldiers had directed him to was empty: there was nobody inside. He was replacing the scimitar back in its scabbard when a noise behind him forced him to whirl round, drawing the sword once more. His mother stood silently in the doorway.

  ‘What do you want?’ Aisha asked.

  Hernando uncovered his face.

  ‘My son!’ Aisha went towards him, but for the first time Hernando shrugged off her embrace.

  ‘Brahim?’ he enquired brusquely. ‘And Fátima? Where are they?’

  ‘My son . . . you’re alive! And . . . free?’ stammered his mother.

  Hernando saw that tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  ‘Mother, where is Fátima?’ he asked again, tenderly this time, as he took her in his arms.

  ‘They have fled. They ran off to surrender to the Christians,’ Aisha replied between sobs. ‘At sunset last night.’ Hernando’s disappointment was so obvious that Aisha hastened on: ‘The King was forced to reprimand your stepfather several times. He missed meetings of the council and even battles to . . .’ She hesitated. ‘. . . to be with Fátima,’ she said finally. ‘Since the Christians’ edict only grants freedom to two others, he chose Fátima and his eldest son, Aquil, although he also took Humam with him, after she begged him to do so. Perhaps a child only a few months old will not count.’

  ‘Fátima
. . . Fátima has fled with him?’

  ‘She had to obey him, my son. Brahim—’

  ‘And Musa?’ he interrupted her. He didn’t want to hear any more details.

  ‘In the tent next to this one. In this one, only—

  ‘Let’s get after them!’ he urged her.

  Dawn was breaking. They came upon a string of mules near the tent, and Hernando decided to take one of them for his mother to ride. The muleteer, an old Morisco, awoke when he became aware of his animals moving, but Hernando threatened him with the scimitar. He did not kill him; instead he made him stay with them for part of the journey, just long enough so that he could not make their escape known; then set him free.

  22

  IT TOOK Hernando, Aisha and Musa two days to cover the distance to El Padul and Don John of Austria’s camp. On the way they joined hundreds of Moriscos who were also on their way to surrender. The Prince demanded that all those journeying through the Alpujarra for this reason should wear a white cross on their right shoulder, so that from far away these long columns looked like a procession of great white crosses woven into the clothes of the men, women and children who walked along dragging their feet, vanquished, exhausted, starving and ill. They left behind them the fleeting illusion that they had salvaged their culture, their land . . . and their God. They all knew what their destiny was: exile to one of the Christian monarch’s other kingdoms, far from Granada, the same punishment as that suffered by the Moriscos from the Albaicín and the plains outside the city.

  By nightfall they had reached the outskirts of Lanjarón. Some Moriscos came to a halt there as the light began to fade; many others joined them. There were no festivities, no celebrations or dances; a few fires were lit and people made ready to sleep in the open. There was scarcely any food other than the scant provisions each of them had managed to get hold of at the outset. No one called to prayer.

  Hernando chewed a hunk of bread, took the mule’s halter and said goodbye to his mother.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘There’s something I have to do. I’ll be back, don’t worry,’ he said when he saw how concerned she looked.

  He was heading for the impregnable castle of Lanjarón, which controlled the surrounding district. It was built on the summit of a rocky crag some six hundred feet high to the south of the village; three of the fortress’s four sides overlooked sheer rock faces. Like many other castles in the region, it had been built during the Nasrid period and had been half destroyed following the first revolt in the Alpujarra in 1500, when the Moriscos had risen up against the harsh rule of Cardinal Cisneros: the rebellion which culminated in the betrayal of the peace accords of Granada by the Catholic monarchs. As he made his way out of the Morisco camp, Hernando kept an eye open for any sign of Brahim and Fátima. Despite the fact that they had set off the previous sunset they would not have been able to travel by moonlight alone and would have had to stop off during the first night of their journey, but he could not make them out among the masses of shadows moving sadly about. Perhaps they were further on, already in Tablate, where some of the Moriscos had gone to spend the night.

  He covered the distance separating him from the fortress with the help of the faint golden light of the moon. The mule was skilled and moved carefully, searching for firm footholds . . . just like La Vieja. What had become of poor Vieja? Hernando pushed the thought out of his mind, realizing he was giving way to nostalgia. And the knight? Could he still be alive? He would have liked to know who he was, but the Christian had almost passed out after the blow that had freed Hernando from his chains. Still, had it not been for him, with his eagerness to be free, perhaps Hernando would not have fled and would now be rowing as a galley slave on Barrax’s Flying Horse . . . or dead like Yusuf. Remembering the boy, Hernando was again overwhelmed with anguish. He peered up at the proud silhouette of the castle and sighed. After all these months of hardship and punishment, the Moriscos were surrendering. Again. What was the point of all the deaths and heartache? Would that castle ever again defend a wronged and oppressed people?

  He climbed the path and reached the ruined castle; he dismounted slowly, dejectedly, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the new darkness. He chose the tower that was still standing, on the south side of the fortress, and made his way towards it.

  He tried to work out the direction of Mecca and when he believed he had found it he lifted sand from the ground and cleaned himself with it. He raised his blue eyes to heaven: eyes that were different to those which had looked at Hamid’s scimitar that first time. Gone now was the childish glint, veiled beneath a look of grief.

  ‘There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God.’

  He prayed quietly, in a whisper, holding tightly to Hamid’s scimitar in its sheath above his head.

  How many times had he refused to say that profession of faith to Barrax?

  ‘Hamid, here I am,’ he whispered again. He listened to the silence. ‘Here I am!’ he howled. His cry echoed through the hills and valleys, taking him by surprise. What had become of the holy man? He let a few moments pass by, and drew breath. ‘Allah is great!’ he shouted at the top of his lungs. The silence of the mountains all around him was his only answer. ‘I swore’, he added in a trembling voice, ‘that no Christian would ever lay his hands on this scimitar.’

  After recalling his promise, he buried the sword as deeply as he could at the foot of the tower, tearing his fingers and nails as he dug into the ground with a leather punch he had found in the camp. Then he prayed, sensing that Hamid was there with him, as had so often been the case in Juviles. Finally he used a stone and the punch to hack at the bolts on the shackles until they came loose and revealed his red, raw ankles.

  The sun had passed midday by the time Hernando’s group reached Don John of Austria’s camp. About a quarter of a league away the women began to uncover their heads and faces and to hide the forbidden jewels in their clothes. The Moriscos were met by several companies of soldiers on the flat plain outside El Padul.

  ‘Throw down your weapons!’ they shouted, making the Moriscos line up. ‘Anyone who raises an harquebus or crossbow or who wields a sword will die in the act.’

  At the head of each of the long rows of Moriscos, clerks seated at tables that looked incongruous out in the fields recorded the personal details of every person, as well as of the weapons they handed in. The clerks were in no hurry to carry out their task, and so the wait seemed never-ending. By their side, another army, this one made up of priests, prayed around the Moriscos, urging them to join in their prayers, make the sign of the cross or prostrate themselves before the crucifixes they brandished in their faces. From the lines of waiting people rose the same low garbled muttering that had been heard for years in the churches of the Alpujarra as the Moriscos complied reluctantly with the priests’ demands.

  ‘What have you got there?’ a soldier with the red cross of Saint Andrew embroidered on his uniform asked Hernando, pointing to the bag he was carrying in his right hand.

  ‘It’s not—’ Hernando began, opening it and reaching in slowly with his other hand.

  ‘Santiago!’ shouted the soldier drawing his sword at what he thought was a suspicious movement.

  Several soldiers quickly heeded their companion’s call while the other Moriscos moved away from Hernando, Aisha and Musa. They immediately found themselves surrounded by armed men. Hernando kept his hand in the bag.

  ‘I’m not hiding a weapon,’ he tried to reassure the soldiers, beginning very slowly to pull out the corsair leader’s head. ‘This is what is left of Barrax!’ he shouted, holding the head aloft by the hair. ‘The corsair captain!’

  A murmur spread through the ranks of the Moriscos. One of the veteran soldiers ordered a youngster to go and find a corporal or sergeant, while other soldiers and priests crowded round Hernando and his companions. Everyone knew who Barrax was.

  ‘What’s your name?’ a corporal asked him, forcing his way through the crowd. A
t the sight of the corsair’s head, he smiled.

  ‘Hernando Ruiz!’ came a cry from the far side of the circle before Hernando could even answer.

  He whirled round in astonishment. That voice . . . Andrés, the sacristan from Juviles!

  The sacristan had joined the group together with two priests. He strode over to Aisha and slapped her face as soon as he reached her. Hernando dropped Barrax’s head and leapt towards the sacristan, but the corporal stopped him.

  ‘What is happening? What’s going on?’

  ‘This woman killed Don Martín, the parish priest of Juviles,’ screamed the sacristan, his eyes bloodshot. He made to strike Aisha once more.

  Hernando felt his legs give way when he remembered his mother stabbing the priest. He never imagined they would meet anyone from Juviles, much less Andrés. The corporal seized the sacristan’s arm and prevented him striking Aisha.

  ‘How dare you?’ one of the priests sprang to the sacristan’s defence.

  The Prince’s orders were categorical: nothing was to be done that might provoke an uprising among the Moriscos.

  ‘Don John has promised a pardon to any Moriscos who surrender and no one is going to go against his decision,’ the corporal warned him. ‘This lad’, he added, ‘has brought in his weapons and the head of a corsair captain. The only people who cannot enjoy either the Prince’s favour or his pardon are the Turks and Berbers.’

  ‘She murdered a man of God!’ insisted the other priest, shaking Aisha by the arm.