John Masters (16 page)

The next morning the trumpets sounded early, and I rode out at David's side, and the army took its stand on the ridge between the marsh which is called Janda and the river, and the Christians came against us. Behind the center of their host I saw a domed litter drawn by white donkeys, gold and silver glittering in the sun, and David said that was the litter of King Roderic. Then the battle began.

For a time I sat upon my donkey held in thrall by the spectacle before me—so many thousands of warriors under the bright sun upon the grass beside the marsh—the army of the infidels silent under the green banners, steel casques on their heads, their horses light-footed and flecked with nervous foam; the army of the Visigoths under banners of boars and lions and eagles and here and there a Cross. Their horses were mighty and strode ponderously upon us, and their leaders wore long floating hair and carried twohanded swords and wore horns or wolf masks upon their helmets, like to the sea raiders who pillage our shores of Wessex. As the armies met, I saw that on the right the Visigoths stopped many paces short of the Moors and rested upon their swords, and to the left the same. Only in the center did King Roderic's host fall upon us. It was all I could do to keep out of the warring, for great horses reared over me and swords whistled, with a mighty shouting upon the summer air. I saw David smite a bishop so that his arm flew free of his shoulder, then a blow from behind knocked me off my ass, but David helped me again to the donkey's back, shouting, "Not yet, Aethelred, such as you are immortal!"

Then the commanders of our right wing and our left wing, seeing that Count Ilian and the Archbishop stood idle before them, swept round like the horns of a crescent moon and fell upon King Roderic from left and right and behind. His men became affrighted and fled, like an army of mice set upon by cats, and I saw many horses galloping away riderless, and the domed litter of King Roderic was abandoned upon the field, but none saw the king.

Then the soldiers of General Tarik again gathered together and fell upon Count Ilian's host. The count rode toward us, his hand raised, but the Moors flew by him like greyhounds unleashed, and in a moment a wailing arose in his host as the Moors rent them, and soon they too broke and fled. On the other side Archbishop Oppas' men did not wait but turned and ran, only the Archbishop coming forward to make obeisance before Tarik.

The battle was over, though for several hours more the Moors cut and hacked at the Christians as they tried to recross the river, until the ground and the bank squelched with blood and the water ran deep, dark red into the lower marsh on its way to the sea. Then Tarik's trumpets sounded a halt, and the Moors gathered their prisoners—to the number of 20,000, David said—and at the same time lit fires, set up spits, stripped a score of Christian corpses of their clothes, and set them to roast over the fires. The dusk was falling, and never have I heard, since, or hope to hear, such a wail of fear and horror as arose from the massed prisoners. Tarik gave an order then, and the prisoners were marched away.

I turned, blind, to run. I had betrayed Christ for this! David's arm stopped me with a jerk. "It is only to spread terror," he said. "When the prisoners are out of sight, the bodies will be decently buried." Then Tarik called, and David hurried to him, I following more slowly. Count Ilian and the Archbishop were there, and Tarik had just finished speaking. David translated: "King Roderic is dead—or fled. I take possession of all this land in the name of the Commander of the Faithful, the Caliph Walid."

He stooped, gathered a handful of dust, and threw it in the air. Every Moor's sword flashed, and a great shout arose, beginning with those close by who had heard what the general said, and spreading as ripples on a pond so that there was still a distant shouting when David said, "Thank the general's magnanimity for your life. Then go. He has no further use for you."

Count Ilian walked away, like a man dreaming, and disappeared in the dark, blood-soaked field. To the Archbishop, David said, "Bring hither all those of quality who have surrendered, and all the women and baggage of the Visigoths. The general will give you his commands tomorrow."

Gradually the space about the general's tent cleared. I had seen the wrath of God, and I still lived. Now I longed, I prayed, only for...

David ha-Cohen was beside me. "My master, Abd-al-Malik, has been appointed Lord of Torrox and Guardian of the Rock," he said. "I am to be his chief minister. Stay with me. Be my friend, my companion in work and play, for I have come to hold a great love for you, Aethelred—and not such a love as Count Anseric's!"

The words rushed from my mouth, from my heart. "I cannot stay, David. I am sick at heart, for I have seen more than my spirit can encompass. I must to Rome to learn the Word and take it back to Wessex."

"Back to the land of fog and bog," he said bitterly. "You are a bigger fool even than I believed, if that is possible."

He walked away and around, then came back. "Take this." He pressed something hard into my hand, and I saw the glint of gold by the starlight. "Go now, down this valley to the sea, then follow the strand north to a little village of fishermen on an island called Gades. Ask there for Timothy Opadianus. He is of my faith. He will find you a vessel going to Rome. When you pass the Rock, think of me." He embraced me suddenly and cried,
"Shalom!"
and was gone.

It came about as he had said. A month later I passed the Rock at high noon on a stormy day. The cloud streaming from its crest seemed to be green, like the standards of the Moors, and to have the words of that faith hidden in it in their long, slender writing. I gazed at the Rock until darkness hid it.

After five years in Rome I returned to Glastonbury on foot and never saw David ha-Cohen, or the Rock, again.

From Damascus this looked as though Musa were setting up his own dynasty in Spain. The caliph recalled him, stripped him of his wealth and honors, and soon afterward, as a token of appreciation for all that he had done on behalf of his lord and his religion, sent him the head of his son.

In honor of Tarik, the leader who had actually taken the Rock, the old name of Calpe, though still known and used, was overshadowed by the new one of Tarik's Mountain,
Djebel Tctrik
—Gibraltar.

Besides bringing their faith into Europe, the Muslims were also responsible for introducing the famous apes. These animals, Barbary apes, are in fact tailless monkeys, macaques
(Macaca sylvana, magus,
or
inuus).
They cannot be descendants of the monkeys whose fossil bones have been found all over Europe as far north as England, for they are of a quite different species. Nor can they have come from Africa by a secret tunnel (the geological faulting under the strait rules that out, even without the abstruse arguments of common sense). The Moors brought them, and the true oddity about them is that they have never spread into southern Spain but have remained confined to Gibraltar; also that though there are plenty still wild in North Africa, there are none in their original country of origin, Persia—where they have become extinct.

They are odd beasts, grayish brown, not very large, not very attractive. Their numbers have probably always fluctuated considerably. Throughout Moorish times they were strengthened by the infusion of fresh blood from Africa. Then after two centuries of neglect and inbreeding under the Spanish they found themselves pampered and superstitiously nurtured as the alleged symbols of British power on the Rock. But they are there, with the Gibraltar candytuft and the Barbary partridge, an exotic and irrational part of the Gibraltar background, stealing fruit, fouling rooftops, grabbing baubles from children's hands, watching the bustle below from their fastnesses on top of the Rock and at the head of the eastern cliffs (a place here has long been called the Monkeys' Alameda, or "garden walk").

For the rest, the story of Gibraltar during these years is part of the story of Spain and particularly of Andalusia. Spain remained subject to the Damascus caliphs until the Omayyad family was overthrown by the Abbasids. In 756 a refugee of the Omayyads, Abd-er-Rahman, grandson of the Caliph Hisham, arrived in Spain and declared that he, not the usurper in Baghdad, was the true Commander of the Faithful. Thus began the independent Caliphate of Cordoba, which lasted, in great magnificence, until 1031. Cordoba became the intellectual capital of Europe and one of the most civilized cities in the world. There was considerable religious tolerance, and many Jews reached prominence as scholars and statesmen. For these three centuries Gibraltar was either totally uninhabited or nearly so.

When the Cordoba caliphate collapsed, it first broke up into a number of independent emirates until in 1080 these vanished under a new invasion from North Africa by the fanatic Almoravides. The Almoravides lasted until 1145, when they in turn succumbed to the weakness of power and went under to the Almohades, also from Africa. All this time the Visigothic-Celtiberian-Romans (that is, the Christians), starting in the unconquered Asturias, were slowly working their way southward, reconquering, uniting, consolidating, so that each successive wave of Muslims ruled over a smaller piece of Spain. The Almohades lasted until July 16, 1212, when they were defeated in the climactic battle of the whole 700-year reconquest at Navas de Tolosa in the Guadalquivir Valley. King Alfonso VIII's victory was largely due to a shepherd, Martin Alhaja Gontran, who led the Christians by unknown tracks and unguarded paths to the attack. After the defeat the Muslims broke up into small kingdoms, of which the only one to affect Gibraltar was the Kingdom of Granada.

Although Tarik's invaders had landed at Gibraltar, it was at Algeciras and Tarifa that they made their first ports and fortresses. The provincial capital under the Visigoths had been Asido, and it remained so under the Moors, but now called Medina Sidonia. In spite of the remarkable incorporation of "Asido" in this name, the title comes from the fact that new Muslim immigrants were allotted to that part of Spain most like their homeland; the ones who came here were from Sidon, and the whole area was known as Filistin (Palestine). Gibraltar was dependent on Algeciras during all the early years.

Meanwhile, in 844 the Norsemen pass by in their longships, after having sacked Cadiz.... In 1003 a great battle is fought on the River Miel, by Algeciras, between rival claimants for Almansor's power (he had died the year before).... After the fall of the caliphate the Wali of Algeciras (Gibraltar's overlord) sets himself up as independent ... but soon falls under the Emir of Malaga ... who soon falls under the Emir of Seville.

This last, hard pressed by the warlike King Alfonso VI, asked the Almoravid king of Morocco to come over and help him. Many, including his own son, warned him that one needed a long spoon to sup with the Almoravides, but the emir made a famous answer: "I would rather be the King of Morocco's camel herd then a vassal of the Christian dogs." He had his wish, for King Yusuf came, seized Tarifa, Algeciras, and Gibraltar as bases for his invading armies, and soon ruled all Muslim Spain. The foolish emir died in 1088, a beggar in exile in a Saharan oasis.

The Almoravides persecuted Christians, Jews, and other Muslims alike, and large numbers of all religions, especially Jews, fled into Christian Spain. For a time in the thirteenth century it looked as though Spain might forge the first free or open society of modem times, and a Castilian king was proud to call himself King of the Three Faiths; but Navas de Tolosa so crushed the Muslim power that Christian bigots were able to say, "We need no help," and turn Spain upon the opposite and fatal course of "unification," that is, exclusion of all but the official race, religion, and way of thought. Laws forcing Jews to wear distinguishing yellow patches were approved in 1370 and 1405. In 1412 savage edicts were promulgated excluding Jews from many trades, defining what they must wear, and forbidding them to employ Christians; and worse. Anti-Semitism was encouraged, and in 1391 over 4,000 Jews were murdered in Seville alone.

When the Almohades came from Morocco to overthrow the Almoravides, they landed at Gibraltar, seizing it in 1146. The Almohade emperor, Abd-al-Mumin, was the real founder of Gibraltar as a city and fortress. He decided that the Christians were now so strong that neither Tarifa nor Algeciras could be relied on to stay out of their hands much longer. A third and final strongpoint was needed. Gibraltar was the obvious place, and he called in a famous mathematician and engineer to fortify it. This man was Al-Hajj Yaish, who built the great mosque of Seville, now part of the cathedral.

At Gibraltar the foundations were laid on May 19, 1160, and all essential work finished in six months, which is very fast work indeed. Abd-al-Mumin did not stay long but came back in November to see the completion of the building and then stayed two months listening to poets, holding council with the Muslim governors of Andalusia, and presumably dallying with houris in his harem, though it is hard to associate such gentle activities with the Rock.

It is also hard to disentangle Yaish's city from the one built after the Moors had lost and regained Gibraltar in 1333; but there was certainly a complex system of walls, keeps, and towers at the northwest corner of the Rock, dominated by a fortified qasabah and that by a Tower of Homage. Most of the town huddled under this, though there must have been a settlement far to the south at Europa, for there was a Muslim shrine near the Point, and close by there was—and still is—a remarkable underground reservoir, the roof supported by Moorish arches, later known as the Nuns' Well. Yaish also put in an aqueduct from the Red Sands to the town and probably designed the Moorish baths under the present Gibraltar Museum. The "Moorish Wall" which runs straight up the west face of the upper Rock is Yaish's, but the Moorish Castle is not. Yaish's Tower of Homage was destroyed in the siege of 1333 and the present one built by Abu '1 Hassan, "King of Gibraltar," in about 1340. The Spaniards called it "La Calahorra," and the British, the "Moorish Castle." The attribution of any works to the original Moorish invaders of 711 is an error due to misinterpretation of an inscription which was once over the gate of the qasabah.

Abd-al-Mumin's forethought in fortifying Gibraltar bore its first fruit when Navas de Tolosa ended the Almohade power fifty years later and they began to disengage from Spain. Tarifa did not fall until 1292, and the then King of Morocco took the opportunity to get out of Europe altogether by selling Algeciras (with Gibraltar) to the King of Granada.

There now steps into the story the founder of a remarkable family which became the most powerful grandees and the largest landowners in Spain. This man, Alonso Perez de Guzman, was a knight from Leon in the north, who so distinguished himself in the taking of Tarifa that the king made him
senor,
or squire, of Sanlucar de Barrameda. Guzman
el Bueno,
"the Good," as he was known, soon expanded his power and in 1309, partly from ambition and partly from genuine outrage that the Muslims still held parts of Spain, he attacked Gibraltar. He landed on the Red Sands, south of the wall that protected the town, and took up a position on the steep slope above the castle. There he erected catapults and war engines and started battering the defenses. Near the end of August the Moors surrendered. This was the first of Gibraltar's fifteen sieges and the first of its four major turnovers of population, for nearly all the Muslims left.

Now that Guzman el Bueno held the Rock for King Ferdinand IV of Castile, the problem was to repopulate it and hold it. Being in the forefront of a never-ending war, and subject to raids, sieges, and attacks, it was not a desirable place of residence, and King Ferdinand had to take extraordinary measures to attract a population. He gave Gibraltar a charter which in effect made it a sanctuary for thieves, murderers, and runaway wives: all would be pardoned if they would just come and live in Gibraltar for a few months. Prisoners were also sent there from the jails and released to be free citizens. Gibraltar became, and must have resembled, a frontier town of the badlands, complete with loose women, ne'er-do-wells, remittance men, and, in place of the U.S. Cavalry, such knights and men-at-arms as Guzman could find for its defense.

The Moors tried to regain the Rock in 1315 (Second Siege) but failed. In 1333 the King of Granada instituted the Third Siege. The governor of the fortress was then one Vasco Perez de Meiras, a nobleman from Galicia in the northwest. Meiras had ambitions of founding a mighty family and had spent the funds allotted for the defense of Gibraltar in buying himself estates around Jerez, already rich and long since famous for its sherry wines. On June 17, after four and a half months of siege, in which Meiras' heroism somewhat redeemed his venality, Gibraltar fell once more. The Christian convicts, strumpets, and knights marched out, and the Muslims marched in, making the second population turnover. The King of Granada did not retain overlordship for long, as the Moroccans, whom he had called in to help during the siege, decided to keep it for themselves—but few of the Muslim people would have left on that account.

Alfonso XI was now King of Castile, and the recapture of the Rock became his obsession. Indeed, with this second loss of it to the Moors the place became, in Spain, not just a port and fortress, but a holy cause. Alfonso at once began the Fourth Siege and came very near to success but in the end had to march his army away, defeated. Seven years later he inflicted a crushing defeat on the Muslims at Salado, just west of Tarifa. In the aftermath he could easily have retaken Gibraltar, but an unaccountable lethargy overcame him, and he did nothing until it was too late. When he did begin operations once more, it was against Algeciras, a famous siege which began in August, 1342, lasted eighteen months, and brought down, as volunteers, the flower of Europe's chivalry, including King Edward Ill's grandson from England. During the siege the King of Morocco gathered 12,000 troops in Gibraltar to help drive away the Christians. Nevertheless Algeciras did at last fall, was later razed to the ground, and ceased to exist as a town for four centuries. Gibraltar was now the only port on the north side of the strait left in Muslim hands, and in 1349 Alfonso XI returned to the attack, in the Fifth Siege. His army soon began to suffer from the Black Death (bubonic or pneumonic plague) then ravaging Europe, and on March 26, 1350, the king died of it. The principal Moors went out from Gibraltar in mourning to pay their respects to their dead adversary.

At this time Gibraltar was visited by the famous Moroccan traveler Ibn Battutah. He went, he said, because he wanted to take part in the Holy War against the Christians. Of Gibraltar, then under the Moroccan king Abu Inan, he wrote: "I walked round the mountain and saw the marvelous works executed on it by our master [the previous king] and the armament with which he equipped it, together with the additions made thereto by our master Abu Inan, may God strengthen him, and I should have liked to remain as one of its defenders to the end of my days." But he did not stay: he visited Malaga and Granada and then returned to his home in Tangier, probably convinced that nothing could save the Muslim cause in Spain.

The rotations of Gibraltar from the hands of the kings of Granada to the kings or emperors of Morocco and back again make a dizzy story; but it is not important. The grip of any central Muslim authority was fast slackening; indeed, the man whom the Emperor of Morocco appointed wali, or governor, of Gibraltar in 1350 at once declared himself its king—this is the "king" Ibu Battutah refers to—and no one seems to have cared very much.

Apart from the Sixth Siege, a confused civil war between Granada and Morocco factions, Gibraltar relapsed into comparative quiet, and for eighty years the only other mention of it in the records is the visit of a Castilian admiral, who dropped in on his way to sweep Castilian pirates out of the western Mediterranean and was received with much courtesy and feasting, including plenty of
couscous.