The Hand of Fatima Read online

  That night, while she tried to recover her composure, Brahim confirmed her conclusions, and did not vent his anger on his first wife as he had done in the Alpujarra. Fátima wept silently, secure in the knowledge that only a few feet away from where she had collapsed, Aisha too was weeping secretly, wordlessly comforting her in the way the two women had learnt to communicate with one another up in the mountains.

  At the same time as this was going on, Hernando was entering the door of a small, dilapidated house on Calle de los Moriscos in the Santa Marina parish. Ever since Fátima had handed over their money as part of the ransom for the first Morisco slave and Hamid had questioned his attitude, Hernando had changed. And he felt all the better for it. Why not trust in God? If Fátima and Hamid did so . . . Besides, she had promised that Brahim would not lay a hand on her and he believed her. God, how he believed her! ‘I’ll kill myself first,’ she had assured him. Encouraged by her promise, Hernando put at the disposal of his brothers in faith the ease with which he could move throughout the city, his many contacts, his intelligence and his craftiness. The community received it all with fondness and gratitude. Fátima shared these feelings too, much more so than on those occasions when he had handed over a coin towards the purchase of the mule which he intended to use as barter for her. Then she had taken the money and hidden it, almost out of a sense of duty, but showing her unhappiness, as if she was unsure that this was the right approach. He had put her value as that of an old mule! Hernando chided himself now when he saw her smile and those black almond eyes of hers open wide when she learnt of the latest service Hernando had provided for one of their brothers. There was much to do, Hamid had assured him during the long conversation they had had after the celebration for the first ransom paid.

  Because, despite everything, Córdoba was a magnet for Moriscos. It was the city of the caliphs, the city that had scaled the heights of Muslim culture and religion in the West, while living conditions there were no worse than those the Moriscos endured in any other Spanish city or town. In all of them pressure from the Christians was suffocating; if possible, this was even more true in the villages, where the Moriscos suffered the hatred of the old Christians at close quarters. And everywhere without exception they were exploited by the authorities or the Christian lords. For this reason, two years after their deportation, a steady stream of illegal immigrants still kept arriving in Córdoba, drawn both by its past glory and its current prosperity.

  The Moriscos were forbidden by royal decree from leaving their places of residence without carrying the relevant permit issued by the local authorities. This contained a detailed physical description of the person, where he was going, why, and how much time he was permitted to be absent from the town where he was registered. Dozens of Moriscos found some excuse to get their hands on the permit and arrived in Córdoba, but when their permits elapsed they found themselves in the city without proper papers.

  In agreement with Hamid and two elders from the Albaicín in Granada who had become leaders of the community, Hernando busied himself with these recent arrivals. Once their permits had expired, they had two options: marry a Morisco woman previously registered in Córdoba, or allow the authorities to arrest them and go to jail for three or four weeks. The council knew that the influx of newcomers was good for the city, supplying cheap labour and more rent for house owners. In both cases, whether through marriage or by serving the jail sentence, the Moriscos were then given the relevant permit according the holder the status of Córdoba resident.

  Hernando knew about all the Moriscos who hid in the houses of their co-religionists when the permits allowing them to roam freely through the city had expired. He played the part of matchmaker, as on that night when he went into the small building in Calle de los Moriscos to announce that he had found a wife for a good wool carder from Mérida, a skill that was much in demand in Córdoba among the weavers’ guild.

  But not all those without the proper documents were wool carders, nor were all the Morisco women of Córdoba willing to enter into marriage, and so most of the men ended up in prison, where Hernando had to be extremely careful.

  The royal prison was nothing more than a business leased to a governor. The authorities’ only responsibility was to provide a place in which to detain convicts with the corresponding shackles and chains. The prisoners had to buy their own food or have it brought in from outside; their beds were rented in accordance with the tariffs the King had allotted to the offences committed. Cost varied depending on whether one, two or three people shared the same mattress. Those who were able to, paid. The poor and destitute lived in the prison on public charity, but such charity was hardly going to be extended to the heretical new Christians who had carried out so many atrocities during the uprising.

  Hernando had to determine when was the best time for a Morisco to be arrested according to what was available in the prison. He made sure that the governor was paid appropriately, and that the community provided food for the prisoner. He had not stopped his night-time forays in the Potro district, but now he was after information rather than money. When was a bailiff planning to search the Morisco houses that he was responsible for? What was the news from the prison? Who was the best bailiff to arrest a Morisco and where? Who owned Morisco slaves and how much had they cost him? How long would it take the city council to grant residence to some person or other? Any information was worthwhile, and when the opportunity arose he would spend some of the scarce funds the elders gave him to buy someone’s goodwill or to persuade a servant drinking wine in a tavern to tell him the name and origin of this or that slave living in his house.

  Freeing the slaves taken prisoner during the war in the Alpujarra had become the community’s main objective. However, the Christians, who had bought these men and women at much lower prices than if they had been Negroes, mulattos or white people of whatever origin, soon discovered their co-religionists’ interest in them, and hugely increased the cost of the ransom. Every Córdoban Christian who owned Morisco slaves became a small-scale trader determined to reap profits. This was especially true of the men, since the women were rarely put up for sale as the children of slaves inherited their mother’s status. Getting a Morisco woman pregnant therefore guaranteed a good return within a relatively short time.

  Hernando hesitated over whether to continue his trips in the Weary Virgin. Juan pressed him to keep working with him. What harm could it do him to make some good and easy money? ‘The boy who goes with me now’, Juan complained with a knowing wink, ‘doesn’t like to chat about the women in the Berber brothel.’ He even offered more money, but one day when Hernando was walking towards Plaza del Salvador along Calle Marmolejos, he saw a sight that led him to dismiss any idea of continuing his night-time outings on the boat. All along Calle Marmolejos, up against the wall of the San Pablo convent, was a series of stone benches where the corpses of people who had died in the countryside and been brought to the city by the Brothers of Mercy were displayed. Hernando got used to looking at the corpses, trying to judge by their clothes or complexion (although neither was much different from their Spanish counterparts) whether he was dealing with a Morisco or not. If it seemed he was, Hernando would let the elders know so that they could enquire in other communities if anyone had lost a relative. But the benches were not only used to display corpses. They were used for many other things: bread and any other confiscated goods were sold there; jobless workers put themselves forward for hire; illegal traders or swindlers were held up to public scorn and, above all, wine from outside the region was poured away. On this particular day, on a stone bench next to one on which the body of a woman was beginning to decompose, a customs officer and a bailiff were standing alongside a large wine-keg, surrounded by a swarm of youngsters ready to throw themselves to the ground to drink the wine as soon as the first blow of the official’s axe split it open. Unlike other goods, confiscated wine was not resold. Hernando could not help looking at the barrel. He recognized it at once: he had transporte
d many similar ones on the Weary Virgin. With his stomach in knots, he hurried on, leaving behind the sound of splintering wood and the whoops of delight from the youngsters as they hurled themselves on the wine. That night he did not find León in his Potro inn.

  ‘They arrested him,’ Juan explained a few days later, in the midst of his mules in the Campo de la Verdad. ‘The customs people discovered where he hid the barrels, although given how they made straight for the spot, it seems likely someone informed on him.’

  30

  Plaza de la Corredera, Spring 1573

  MANURE WAS a valued commodity in the Córdoba of kitchen gardens and a thousand flower-filled courtyards. Hernando went on working in the tannery for the two miserly reales a month they paid him. This enabled him to demonstrate to the authorities that he had a steady job, but at the same time, thanks to the protection he enjoyed from the foreman who was dallying with the boss’s wife, he could continue with his other activities. But he was so busy that he could not collect enough manure for steeping the hides in, and although the foreman made excuses for him, the shortage of manure had become untenable.

  At dawn on the first Sunday in March fifteen fighting bulls from the pastures outside Córdoba, accompanied by some cows, came thundering across the Roman bridge into the city. Cowhands on horseback drove them on with the long poles they had run the bulls with from the countryside. Despite the early hour, at the far end of the bridge the fun-loving people of Córdoba awaited their arrival. From there, the bulls were sent along the bank of the Guadalquivir to Calle Arhonas, then up that to Calle del Toril and into Plaza de la Corredera, where the bulls would be corralled until evening.

  The day before, the foreman had warned Hernando: ‘We need manure. Tomorrow there is to be a bullfight with fifteen bulls. You’ll find plenty of it along the route they take and in the squares near the Corredera where the noblemen’s horses will be.’

  ‘Working on a Sunday is not allowed.’

  ‘Maybe so, but if you don’t work tomorrow be sure you’ll not work on Monday either. The tanner has already warned me. Yes,’ he added quickly, seeing the threatening look on Hernando’s face, ‘I won’t have a job either. If that’s what you want, we’ll both lose our jobs.’

  ‘The noblemen’s servants won’t let me.’

  ‘I know them. I’ll be there. They’ll allow you to collect manure. Take it from the bulls first.’

  So there was Hernando positioned at the end of the Roman bridge in the midst of the throng. He was carrying a large, woven grass basket and sheltered behind a fence the town council had built to force the bulls to turn and continue their run along the riverbank. The locals spilled out on either side, so that in the event of any trouble their only way out was to jump into the river. At the narrow entrance to Calle Arhonas another barricade had been put in place to make the bulls take that street. From there, anywhere where the bulls ran along the adjoining streets of La Ajerquía was protected by large wooden planks, and Calle del Toril was blocked off, with only one exit: Plaza de la Corredera.

  Hernando saw how nervous everyone became when they heard the rumble of the bulls and cowhands in the Campo de la Verdad.

  He heard shouts of: ‘Here they come! They’re on the way!’

  The thunderous noise of the animals crossing the ancient stone bridge mingled with the shrieks of the crowd. Some men jumped over the fences and began to run in front of the herd; others made ready darts to throw at the bulls or old capes to distract them from their path. Hernando watched the big fighting bulls pass in front of him, following the cows: they bellowed, galloping blindly in a group ahead of the cowhands. There was a sharp, sloping turn from the bridge to the riverbank so that several bulls collided heavily with the wooden fence. One of them fell, sliding along the ground and was trampled on by the ones coming behind. A young man tried to wave a cape at it, but the bull jumped up with astonishing agility and gored his thigh, tossing him over its head. Hernando saw how two other men running in front were also gored, but when the bulls turned round to finish them off they were forced to continue their stampede by the cowhands’ prods.

  The shouts, chases, dust and deafening noise lasted only a few moments before bulls, people and horses disappeared round the corner of Calle Arhonas. Hernando forgot all about the manure he was supposed to collect and stood mesmerized by the people left behind after the bull run had passed: the man with the cape was bleeding profusely from the groin, clinging to a girl who was shouting in despair; men, women and children were trying to climb out of the river where they had jumped as the bulls roared by; and there was a trail of the wounded, some on foot, limping and moaning, others laid out on the bank of the Guadalquivir. By the time he remembered his task, several old women and children had already rushed forward to scoop up the manure trampled into the road. He looked at his empty basket and shook his head. He was not going to get a single dropping there. He came out from behind the fence and approached the wounded man, who was already surrounded by a large group of women, to see if he could help him in some way.

  ‘Clear off, Muslim!’ an old woman dressed in black spat at him.

  ‘That young man will die, if he’s not already dead,’ Hernando finished saying to Hamid after high mass. They were standing beyond the cemetery with Fátima and a pregnant Aisha; Brahim was chatting to some other Moriscos a little way off.

  ‘Yes. Many do die . . .’

  ‘What pleasure do they get out of it?’

  ‘The fight, the struggle between man and beast,’ Hamid answered. Grimacing, Hernando spread his palms in a gesture of incomprehension. ‘We did it ourselves too,’ the holy man pointed out. ‘There were famous bullfights in the court at Granada. The Zegrí family, the Gazules, the Venegas, the Gomeles, the Azarques and many other noblemen distinguished themselves at the time by fighting and killing bulls. What’s more, no Muslim holy man ever dared ban those festivals, and yet the Pope of Rome forbade Christians to take part on pain of excommunication. Any Christian who dies in a bullfight does so in a state of mortal sin and any priests who attend are defrocked.’

  Hernando remembered then the army of priests who ran out of the houses on Calle Ribera once the bulls had passed, trying to save the souls of the injured with holy oils and prayers.

  ‘In that case, why do they fight bulls? Are they not so religious after all?’

  Hamid smiled. ‘Spain loves its bulls. The aristocracy love bulls. The people love bulls. It must be the only topic, apart from the question of money, that puts King Philip’s Christian faith at odds with Pope Pius V.’

  The Muslim noblemen Hamid had mentioned were only part of the nobility of Córdoba. There were also the Aguayos, the Hoces, the Bocanegras and, of course, the members of the distinguished house of Fernández de Córdoba and its no less illustrious branch, the Aguilar family. Córdoba was nothing if not aristocratic! Many noble families had won titles and royal favours during the Reconquest, and whenever there was a fiesta for bulls, they tried to outdo each other in displays of luxury and ostentation.

  After the noon-day meal and before the bullfight began, in each palace the lords’ teams of assistants formed up. These teams consisted of servants richly clad in matching costumes. There might be as many as thirty, forty or sixty servants to each noble, but only two of them fulfilled the function of footmen: they were the ones who would accompany the lord into the square. The people of Córdoba positioned themselves in front of the palace of the Fernández de Córdoba family on the Bailío hill, outside the palace of the Marquis of Carpio on Calle Cabezas, or around the many other palaces and family mansions, to view and applaud the noblemen as they came out on horseback, accompanied by their families and escorted by their teams of servants laden with food, wine and seats for their betters.

  The Plaza de la Corredera had been made ready for fighting the bulls that burst on to it one by one through the arch and passageway leading to Calle del Toril in its east façade. In the north wall, the longest on this unevenly shaped square, b
arriers had been put up in front of the porches of the houses that looked on to the square, and their balconies, adorned with tapestries and shawls, were rented by the town council to noblemen and rich merchants who competed with each other in the lavishness of their dress. Among them, mingling discreetly and in defiance of the papal edict, were priests and members of the cathedral chapter. On the south side, against a white wall which the town council had ordered built in order to close off the square, rose wooden platforms on which could be found the chief magistrate as representative of the King and the governor of the bullring, together with other nobles and gentlemen. Dotted around the rest of the square there were more fences, behind which members of the public could protect themselves from the bulls.

  From Plaza de las Cañas, where the servants were installed with spare horses for the bullfighters and those of their families, Hernando heard the roar of the crowd as the opening parade got under way. Each nobleman was accompanied by the two footmen carrying their lances, and they were all dressed in Moorish costume, their garments adjusted to allow them freedom of movement. Their hats and cloaks hung from their left shoulder, and they all wore swords. Every nobleman was dressed in the colours that matched his teams’ livery, and rode in Moorish fashion with short stirrups. The foreman from the tannery kept his word and was waiting for Hernando in Plaza de las Cañas. Thanks to him, Hernando succeeded in getting past the bailiffs, who were preventing the public from mixing with the gentlemen’s servants. Hernando had his large grass basket with him, but he could see he was not the only one who had come to collect manure.