Master of Shadows (7 page)

It was when he ducked down into the chamber once more that he spotted the bones. Scattered on the ground around the walls were long bones, ribs and, here and there, fragments the Moor easily recognised as parts of skulls.

Disturbed by Badr’s movements, John Grant awoke. For an instant he was unaware of all that had happened, still befuddled by sleep, but when he looked at his mother’s body, the truth of it all rushed around him like flood water. He turned to look at Badr and saw that the big man was holding, balanced on the palm of one large hand, a human jawbone, the teeth shining like misshapen pearls. He gasped, horrified, and then as his eyes grew accustomed to the light he spotted the rest, scattered around the four walls of the chamber like bleached driftwood. Feeling suddenly unclean, he stood up, brushing at his clothes, and it was only by luck that his head found the gap between the slabs rather than a skull-cracking collision. Realising that he was visible to any lurking predators, he ducked back down again.

‘They are long gone,’ said Badr. ‘Hopefully many miles from here. Perhaps back at Hawkshaw licking their wounds.’

John Grant slumped down on to the floor, his sorry head between his upraised knees and his momentary revulsion at the sight of the desiccated human remains replaced by overwhelming sadness.

Aware of the need to get moving, and to keep moving, Badr gently ruffled the boy’s hair.

‘Let us take care of her now,’ he said.

The thought of leaving his mother in such a lonely place, surrounded by the scattered remains of ancient dead, brought a horrified protest from the boy at first – until Badr suggested that perhaps there was no better place to lie than among friends.

‘These are the bones of people like your own,’ he said. ‘They lived and died long ago, that much is true, but no doubt they farmed the land around here just like you … just like your mother.’

Without another word, John Grant silently set about tending to his mother’s remains.

‘She didn’t sleep like that,’ he said. ‘Never on her back.’

With great tenderness they rolled Jessie on to her left side. Only a few hours had passed since her death and the stiffness of rigor mortis had not yet set in, so that John Grant was able to move her arms and legs until her body formed a familiar S shape. He placed her hands together beneath her chin, and arranged her long hair so that it seemed to flow over her shoulder and down towards her waist.

They went outside then, and Badr used his scimitar to collect swathes of gorse branches, still covered in delicate yellow flowers shaped like tiny silk slippers. It was a laborious and painful process to get the greenery back inside the tomb, but when it was all in position, Badr withdrew from the chamber, back into the passage, so that mother and son might be alone.

John Grant knelt down by his mother’s side. For an instant it seemed to him that he was the adult and she the child, and that he was a father come only to see that his daughter was safely asleep. The moment was brief, however, and quickly replaced by cold reality. He stooped and placed the gentlest of kisses on her cheek, and then another, and a third.

‘You will always be with me, Mum,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

He began gently to place the gorse, layer by layer, over her body. Badr helped, and soon there was not a trace of her left visible. By the time they had finished, the chamber was all but filled with the fragrant, thorny harvest, and they turned and left her there.

‘No one will disturb her,’ said Badr. ‘The thorns will deter even the most determined of passers-by.’

John Grant nodded, his face expressionless.

‘Come,’ said Badr. ‘We must make a move. The sun has risen already, and by the time it sets, I swear we shall have put this place far behind us.’

‘I would stay here for ever,’ said John Grant.

Badr turned to face the boy and found him gazing back at the entrance to the tomb, his mother’s tomb.

‘She lived her life protecting you,’ said Badr. ‘That duty is mine now. I will not fail her in death … as I did in life.’

John Grant was silent.

‘Come,’ said Badr again. ‘Now. Our first task is to get down off this desolate hillside and find two horses. I plan to take you far from here, and walking is not in my nature.’

Without looking again at the boy, he began striding downhill. He counted a hundred paces before he allowed himself a glance over his shoulder. He saw John Grant raise one hand to his mouth, kiss the fingertips, and hold them palm outwards towards the entrance of the tomb. Then he turned and ran towards the Moor without looking back.

10

For the rest of the day that followed, John Grant said not a single word. Badr Khassan, still unnerved by his momentary brush with the push, was content to let him be. As the last of the light was leaving the sky, they descended a steep slope that led on to a wide and level plain. A river, black and smooth as oil, ran parallel to the base of the slope, murmuring softly. Set back from the river, cut into a sheer wall of rock, was the low entrance to a cave. Badr judged they would find no better shelter.

‘We can allow ourselves a fire tonight,’ he said. ‘See if there’s wood to be gathered. Dry wood, mind.’

For the next hour they occupied themselves making a camp – setting and lighting a fire, clearing stones from the spot within the cave where Badr proposed they might sleep, gathering piles of bracken and other foliage for bedding. They had no provisions, and the thought that tomorrow’s priority had to be finding food weighed heavily on the Moor’s mind. A look at the boy, however, reminded him that there were empty spaces in the world that required more than meat and drink to fill them.

The cave was shallow, little more than a rock shelter, and as the darkness deepened so the stars revealed themselves once more.

Doubting the boy was in the mood for answering questions, and in hopes of distracting them both from a grief so dark and heavy it was palpable, Badr began to speak.

‘There is more than one kind of light in the sky,’ he said.

John Grant said nothing, but Badr sensed the boy was paying attention. He was seated cross-legged by the fire and gazing into the flames.

‘Long ago, Greek astronomers observed that while most of the stars remained in place, a few were ceaselessly on the move across the heavens. They called them planets, a word that means
wanderers
.’

He paused to add more wood to the fire, and sparks danced high like living things.

‘Some people have seen patterns among the stars – the word for such shapes and forms is constellations – and there are many stories to explain their presence there … stories of animals, and hunters, and gods.’

‘My mother told me the righteous dead cut their way through the curtain of night on their way into heaven,’ said John Grant. ‘The pinpricks of light are glimpses of the glory of heaven, seen through the holes left behind.’

Badr was taken unawares by the boy’s little speech – and found it was he who was suddenly lost for words. John Grant continued to look deep into the fire.

‘Do you think my mother made it through?’ he asked. ‘To heaven, I mean.’

Badr took a deep breath before answering.

‘I hope so, John Grant,’ he said. ‘If your mother was undeserving of heaven, then there’s precious little hope for the rest of us.’

‘So there ought to be another star in the sky tonight,’ said John Grant, looking beyond the flames and out into the night.

‘There ought to be,’ said Badr. ‘There surely ought to be.’

The morning that followed was bright and clear. Badr awoke lying curled on his side against the rear of the cave. He glanced at the boy, lying on his back close by the smoking remains of the fire. He was quite still, but his eyes were open. Badr wondered if any sleep had been had there, and then, noting the blue of a cloudless sky, resolved to try and raise his own spirits, if not those of the boy. A fresh start was in order and he stood and stretched, feeling the years in his muscles and bones. He slowly rolled his head around on his shoulders, his beard brushing his chest, and then stretched back until he was looking at the roof of the cave. He repeated the move over and over, first in one direction and then the other, listening all the while to a crunching sound deep in his neck like a wooden wheel grinding upon gravel. He stopped and rubbed his face with both hands. Feeling suddenly unclean, aware of his own heavy scent, he strode down to the river and began removing his clothes.

Still immobile, disinclined to move as much as a finger, John Grant watched the Moor strip off. He could not recall ever having seen a man’s naked body before, far less the body of a black man. Dark though the skin of Badr’s back and legs was, still John Grant could make out distinct shiny patches – some on the shoulders and others on the man’s lower legs. They were clearly burn scars, healed well enough but with a texture that looked tight, less flexible than the surrounding flesh. He thought about what Badr had said about the circumstances leading to his father’s death – how Patrick Grant had rescued him from a burning bed in a burning house.

The Moor waded out until the dark water was up to his armpits before leaning forward and beginning to swim. He kicked his legs up behind him and his strokes were powerful and sure. John Grant watched as he struck out for the opposite bank, some tens of yards away. The current carried him downstream, but his confident poise in the water made it clear he was unconcerned. Reaching shallow water once more, he turned and began swimming back. Before he made it, the flow of the river had carried him out of sight, and John Grant wondered vaguely what would happen if he never saw his guardian again. After a few minutes he heard the sound of heavy breathing and Badr appeared beside the pile of clothes he had left behind. He picked up his cloak and dried himself roughly with it before dressing once more.

He returned to the cave and crouched by the smouldering embers of the fire, gauging whether it might be brought back to life. Seeing glowing flecks of red among the greys and blacks, he stooped and brought his face close to them, before blowing softly. John Grant watched, still as a corpse, until there was a soft whoosh and the Moor’s efforts were rewarded with a bright orange tongue of flame that curled upwards from the remains. Carefully Badr placed small twigs around the flames, coaxing them with more of his own soft breaths.

‘I have heard it said that no one who has been loved is ever truly lost,’ he said, attending to the fire rather than looking at the boy. ‘That if those who loved them breathe on the embers now and then, their memory returns to warm the living.’

‘How is it you know so much about everything?’ asked John Grant.

Badr smiled and shook his head, in the manner of a big dog, so that droplets of water were flung in all directions.

‘I had the benefit of an education, my boy,’ he said.

‘I am not your boy.’

Badr kept tending to the fire, slowly adding larger pieces of wood. There was already warmth to be had from it, and he rubbed his hands together over the flames.

‘No indeed, and I do not forget it,’ he said. ‘It is nonetheless my duty to take care of you. I gave my word. You are not mine – but you are my responsibility.’

John Grant roused himself at last, stood up and walked away from the fire.

Minutes passed while Badr allowed his thoughts to be absorbed and consumed by the flames, and John Grant stared out at the eddies and whorls winding and unwinding on the black slick of the river’s surface.

‘You felt the push, didn’t you?’ the boy asked at last. ‘When you touched me … just before the horsemen came back … you felt it, didn’t you?’

Badr looked up, but the boy still had his back turned to him.

‘I felt … drunk,’ he answered. He was struggling to find the words to describe the sensation. ‘Or as though I was falling. And there was pressure … like the force of that river I just swam in. I felt I might have been swept away.’

‘What you said last night about the stars that move across the sky …?’ John Grant turned to look at him. ‘The wandering planets?’

Badr nodded.

‘Well I think there’s another planet – and that we live our lives upon it.’

‘My teachers said only the heavens moved,’ said Badr. ‘That we alone are fixed in place and all else moves around us.’

‘Well I tell you we are on the move as well,’ said John Grant. ‘I feel it – and now you have felt it too.’

Badr turned back to the fire, poked at the flames with a stick and watched as the end blackened and charred in the heat.

‘Are you hungry?’ he asked.

John Grant shrugged his shoulders.

‘Well I am,’ said Badr. ‘And now you have a decision to make.’

John Grant looked at him squarely.

‘I am going in search of food,’ said Badr, standing up straight. ‘And when I leave, I shall not return. I have had my fill of this place. There is a fire here, and shelter of a sort. If you want to stay, I will not force you to leave.’

The boy looked at him sullenly.

‘I would prefer that you accompany me,’ said Badr. ‘You have seen something of the world as it is – perhaps too much for one so young. I would ask that you come with me, so that I might keep my word to your father.’

John Grant walked past Badr, into the cave, and hunkered down with his back against the wall.

Without another word, Badr strode down to the riverbank and turned to follow its course. He counted a hundred paces before he allowed himself a look back over his shoulder. The boy was coming, and at a run. He caught up easily, and the Moor was impressed by the turn of speed. For all that he had fairly sprinted over the ground, his footfalls on the hard-packed earth along the riverbank had made hardly a sound.

‘You are quick on your feet, I’ll give you that,’ he said.

John Grant said nothing, but Badr noticed he was not winded, and breathing quite easily, so the sudden burst of exercise had had no apparent effect on him.

‘Maybe it would help you to know that I lost my mother too – and when I was younger than you are now.’

They kept walking in silence for a few more minutes before the boy replied.

‘Did she die?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Badr. ‘But she was taken from me just the same – or rather I was taken from her. I never saw her again, and I have no idea whether she lives or not.’

John Grant weighed the information carefully.

‘What happened?’

Badr snorted, almost a laugh.

‘Where to begin?’ he said, more to himself than to the boy. ‘My father said our family came once upon a time from a place called al-Maghrib al-Aqsa.’

He smiled when he said this, savouring the words, and his white teeth flashed. He glanced at the boy and laughed at the look of complete incomprehension he found there.

‘I am not surprised to find you know nothing of this world below,’ he said. ‘One such as you …’ He looked up into the sky and raised his hands in an attitude of prayer. ‘One such as you who has all of the heavens to worry about!

‘In your tongue, al-Maghrib al-Aqsa, the land of my forefathers, might be translated as
the farthest west.
’

Again he looked at the boy’s face but found little that could be called understanding. At least he glimpsed curiosity, the root of intelligence, and he pressed ahead.

‘Some of your people – those who have had an education at least – might recognise the name Morocco,’ he said. ‘And so that is the name I will ask you to remember. Repeat it, please.’

John Grant cleared his throat, but said nothing.

‘Morocco,’ said Badr a second time.

‘Morocco,’ said John Grant, enjoying the feel of the word in spite of himself.

‘Good,’ said Badr. ‘And so now your education begins again.’

‘But your mother?’ asked John Grant.

‘I am coming to that, I promise,’ said Badr. ‘My father said our people came long ago from …?’

‘From Morocco.’

‘Quite so. Good. My people came from Morocco,
the farthest west
, but had made a new home for themselves far to the east. Perhaps my ancestors were merchants … perhaps they were sailors, or warriors. That much has been forgotten.

‘You should know that you live on the edge of the world, John Grant,’ said Badr. ‘There is much else to see – and I would show you. And you might learn that at the
centre
of the world there is a powerful pull – and people are drawn there from everywhere else. People like me, like you, all else besides. All in a muddle.’

‘And your mother?’ asked John Grant once more.

‘I lived with my mother and father, and my three little sisters, in a village in a land named Macedonia.’

‘Macedonia,’ said John Grant.

‘In Macedonia – yes, good,’ said Badr. ‘We were Christians – like you – but in a land within reach of another faith. A powerful and hungry faith.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked John Grant. ‘Hungry?’

‘Your people follow Jesus and his mother Mary,’ said Badr. ‘But there are other kinds of people in the world. My people were within reach of followers of another man, named Muhammad, who lived and died eight hundred years ago.

‘They are Muslims and they follow their Muhammad all the way to God and paradise.’

‘But you said they were hungry,’ said John Grant.

‘Hungry for land … and people,’ said Badr. ‘It is the custom of the followers of that faith – which is called Islam, which means
submission to God
– to steal the children of Christians and make Muslims of them, and also warriors to fight their battles for them.’

John Grant was listening in the same way he had once listened to his mother’s stories at bedtime.

‘Muslim warriors came to my village one day and took me – took me from my father’s arms,’ said Badr. ‘They took all the young boys of my village and tied us to a long rope and led us away from our lives of before.’

‘And they taught you to fight? Made you a warrior?’

‘They taught me everything. But they made me a Muslim first – made me promise on my life to follow only Muhammad. They gave me to another family and I was raised as their son.’

‘And you never went home?’

‘Not until I was a grown man – and a warrior. They called me a janissary then.’

‘Janissary?’

‘Which means
new soldier
. They called us janissaries and had us fight their wars.’

‘And when you went home?’

‘And when I went home, my village was gone. Just ruins.’

‘What about your mother … and your father … and your sisters?’

Badr shook his head.