Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree (29 page)

‘May Allah protect you all today,’ said the old man as he replaced the cover and returned the courtyard to normal.

Within a few minutes, they were at the old market. Zuhayr had feared that the exit to the tunnel might be impossible to lift because of the crowds, but fate favoured them. The cover was raised without any hindrance. As seven men emerged from underneath the floor on to the roofed entrance to the marker, a group of bewildered citizens watched in amazement. The men were followed by a disembodied weapon: Zuhayr had handed his sword through the hole to Ibn Basit, who had preceded him. Now he lifted himself up, replacing the stone immediately so that in the general confusion its exact location would be forgotten.

It was a scene that none of them would forget. They saw the backs of tens of thousands of men, women and children who had assembled near the Bab al-Ramla in a spirit of vengeance. This is where they had stood in 1492 and watched in disbelief as the crescent was hurled down from the battlements of the al-Hamra, accompanied by the deafening noise of bells interspersed with Christian hymns. This is where they had stood in silence last year while Cisneros, the man they called ‘Satan’s priest,’ had burnt their books. And it was in this square only a month later that drunken Christian soldiers had tipped the turbans off the heads of two venerable Imams.

The Moors of Gharnata were not a hard or stubborn people, but they had been ceded to the Christians without being permitted to resist, and this had made them very bitter. Their anger, repressed for over eight years, had come out into the open. They were in a mood to attempt even the most desperate measures. They would have stormed the al-Hamra, torn Ximenes limb from limb, burnt down churches and castrated any monk they could lay their hands on. This made them dangerous. Not to the enemy, but to themselves. Deprived by their last ruler of the chance to resist the Christian armies, they felt that it was time they reasserted themselves.

It is sometimes argued, usually by those who fear the multitude, that any gathering which exceeds a dozen people becomes a willing prey to any demagogue capable of firing its passions, and thus it is capable only of irrationality. Such a view is designed to ignore the underlying causes which have brought together so many people and with so many diverse interests. All rivalries, political and commercial, had been set aside; all blood-feuds had been cancelled; a truce had been declared between the warring theological factions within the house of al-Andalusian Islam; the congregation was united against the Christian occupiers. What had begun as a gesture of solidarity with a widow’s right to protect her children had turned into a semi-insurrection.

Ibn Wahab, the proud and thoughtless executioner of the royal bailiff, stood on a hastily constructed wooden platform, his head in the clouds. He was dreaming of the al-Hamra and the posture in which he would sit when he received ambassadors from Isabella, pleading for peace. Unhappily his first attempt at oratory had been a miserable failure. He had been constantly interrupted.

‘Why are you mumbling?’

‘What are you saying?’

‘Talk louder!’

‘Who do you think you are addressing? Your beardless chin?’

Angered by this lack of respect, Ibn Wahab had raised his voice in the fashion of the preachers. He had spoken for almost thirty minutes in a language so flowery and ornate, so crowded with metaphors and so full of references to famous victories stretching from Dimashk to the Maghreb that even those most sympathetic to him amongst the audience were heard remarking that the speaker was like an empty vessel, noisy, but devoid of content.

The only concrete measure he had proposed was the immediate execution of the soldiers and the display of their heads on poles. The response had been muted, which caused a
qadi
to enquire if there was anybody else who wished to speak.

‘Yes!’ roared Zuhayr. He lifted the sword above his head and, with erect shoulders and an uplifted face, he moved towards the platform. His comrades followed him and the crowd, partially bemused by the oddity of the procession, made way. Many recognized him as a scion of the Banu Hudayl. The
qadi
asked Ibn Wahab to step down and Zuhayr was lifted on to the platform by a host of willing hands. He had never spoken before at a public gathering, let alone one of this size, and he was shaking like an autumn leaf.

‘In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Beneficent.’ Zuhayr began in the most traditional fashion possible. He did not dwell for long on the glories of their religion, nor did he mention the past. He spoke simply of the tragedy that had befallen them and the even greater tragedy that lay ahead. He found himself using phrases which sounded oddly familiar. They were. He had picked them up from al-Zindiq and Abu Zaid. He concluded with an unpopular appeal.

‘Even as I speak to you, the soldier who witnessed the execution is at the al-Hamra, describing every detail. But put yourself in his place. He is racked by fear. To make himself sound brave, he exaggerates everything. Soon the Captain-General will bring his soldiers down the hill to demand the release of these men whom we have made our prisoners. Unlike my brother Ibn Wahab I do not believe that we should kill them. I would suggest that we let them go. If we do not, the Christians will kill ten of us for each soldier. I ask you: is their death worth the destruction of a single believer? To release them now would be a sign of our strength, not weakness. Once we have let them go we should elect from amongst ourselves a delegation which will speak on our behalf. I have many other things to say, but I will hold my tongue till you pronounce your judgement on the fate of these soldiers. I do not wish to speak any more in their presence.’

To his amazement, Zuhayr’s remarks were greeted with applause and much nodding of heads. When the
qadi
asked the assembly whether the soldiers should be freed or killed the response was overwhelmingly in favour of their release. Zuhayr and his friends did not wait for instructions. They rushed to where the men were being held prisoner. Zuhayr unsheathed his sword and cut the rope which bound them. Then he marched them to the edge of the crowd and pointed with his sword in the direction of the al-Hamra and sent them on their way. The incredulous soldiers nodded in silent gratitude and ran away as fast as their legs could take them.

In the palace, just as Zuhayr had told them, the soldier who had been permitted to leave earlier, assuming that his comrades would by now have been decapitated, had embellished his own role in the episode. The Archbishop heard every word in silence, then rose without uttering a word, indicated to the soldier that he should follow him and walked to the rooms occupied by the Count of Tendilla. He was received without delay and the soldier found himself reciting his tale of woe once again.

‘Your Excellency will no doubt agree,’ began Ximenes, ‘that unless we respond with firmness to this rebellion, all the victories achieved by our King and Queen in this city will be under threat.’

‘My dear Archbishop,’ responded the Count in a deceptively friendly tone, ‘I wish there were more like you in the holy orders of our Church, so loyal to the throne and so devoted to increasing the property and thereby the weight and standing of the Church.

‘However, I wish to make something plain. I do not agree with your assessment. This wretched man is lying to justify falling on his knees before the killers of Barrionuevo. Not for one minute will I accept that our military position is threatened by this mob. I would have thought that, if anything, it was Your Grace’s offensive on behalf of the Holy Spirit which was under threat.’

Ximenes was enraged by the remark, especially since it was uttered in the presence of a soldier who would repeat it to his friends: within hours the news would be all over the city. He curbed his anger till he had, with an imperious gesture of the right hand, dismissed the soldier from their presence.

‘Your Excellency does not seem to appreciate that until these people are subdued and made to respect the Church, they will never be loyal to the crown!’

‘For a loyal subject of the Queen, Your Grace appears to be ignorant of the agreements we signed with the Sultan at the time of his surrender. This is not the first occasion when I have had to remind you of the solemn pledges that were given to the Moors. They were to be permitted the right to worship their God and believe in their Prophet without any hindrance. They could speak their own language, marry each other and bury their dead as they had done for centuries. It is you, my dear Archbishop, who have provoked this uprising. You have reduced them to a miserable condition, and you only feign surprise when they resist. They are not animals, man! They are flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood.

‘I sometimes ask myself how the same Mother Church could have produced two such different children as the Dominicans and the Franciscans. Cain and Abel? Tell me something, Friar Cisneros. When you were being trained in that monastery near Toledo, what did they give you to drink?’

Cisneros understood that the anger of the Captain-General was caused by his knowledge that a military response was indispensable to restore order. He had triumphed. He decided to humour the Count.

‘I am amazed that a great military leader like Your Excellency should have time to study the different religious orders born out of our Mother Church. Not Cain and Abel, Excellency. Never that. Treat them, if it pleases you, as the two loving sons of a widowed mother. The first son is tough and disciplined, defends his mother against the unwelcome attentions of all unwanted suitors. The other, equally loving, is, however, lax and easygoing; he leaves the door of his house wide open and does not care who enters or departs. The mother needs them both and loves them equally, but ask yourself this, Excellency, who protects her the best?’

Don Inigo was vexed by the Archbishop’s spuriously friendly, patronizing tone. His touchy sense of pride was offended. A religious upstart attempting to become familiar with a Mendoza? How dare Cisneros behave in this fashion? He gave the prelate a contemptuous look.

‘Your Grace of course has a great deal of experience with widowed mothers and their two sons. Was it not in pursuit of one such widow and her two unfortunate boys that you sent the royal bailiff to his death today?’

The Archbishop realizing that anything he said today would be rebuffed, rose and took his leave. The Count’s fists unclenched. He clapped loudly. When two attendants appeared he barked out a series of orders.

‘Prepare my armour and my horse. Tell Don Alonso I will need three hundred soldiers to accompany me to the Bibarrambla. I wish to leave before the next hour is struck.’

In the city the mood had changed a great deal. The release of the soldiers had given the people a feeling of immense self-confidence. They felt morally superior to their enemies. Nothing appeared frightening any more. Vendors of food and drink had made their appearance. The bakers had shut their shops and pastry stalls had been hastily assembled in the Bab al-Ramla. Food and sweetmeats were being freely distributed. Children were improvising simple songs and dancing. The tension had evaporated. Zuhayr knew it was only a temporary respite. Fear had momentarily retired below the surface. It had been replaced by a festival-like atmosphere, but it was only an hour ago that he had heard the beating of hearts.

Zuhayr was the hero of the day. Older citizens had been regaling him with stories of the exploits of his great-grandfather, most of which he had heard before, while others he knew could not possibly be true. He was nodding amiably at the white beards and smiling, but no longer listening. His thoughts were in the al-Hamra, and there they would have remained had not a familiar voice disturbed his reverie.

‘You are thinking, are you not, that some great misfortune is about to befall us here?’

‘Al-Zindiq!’ Zuhayr shouted as he embraced his old friend. ‘You look so different. How can you have changed so much in the space of two weeks? Zahra’s death?’

‘Time feasts and drinks on an ageing man, Zuhayr al-Fahl. One day, when you have passed the age of seventy, you too will realize this fact.’

‘If I live that long,’ muttered Zuhayr in a more introspective mood. He was delighted to see al-Zindiq, and not simply because he could poach a few more ideas from him. He was pleased that al-Zindiq had seen him at the height of his powers, receiving the accolades of the Gharnatinos. But the old sceptic’s inner makeup remained unchanged.

‘My young friend,’ he told Zuhayr in a voice full of affection, ‘our lives are lived underneath an arch which extends from our birth to the grave. It is old age and death which explain the allure of youth. And its disdain for the future.’

‘Yes,’ said Zuhayr as he began to grasp where all this was heading, ‘but the breach between old age and youth is not as final as you are suggesting.’

‘How so?’

‘Remember a man who had just approached his sixtieth year, a rare enough event in our peninsula. He was walking on the outskirts of al-Hudayl and saw three boys, all of them fifty years or more younger than him, perched on a branch near the top of a tree. One of the boys shouted some insult or other comparing his shaven head to the posterior of some animal. Experience dictated that the old man ignore the remark and walk away, but instead, to the great amazement of the boys, he clambered straight up the tree and took them by surprise. The boy who had insulted him became his lifelong friend.’

Al-Zindiq chuckled.

‘I climbed the tree precisely to teach you that nothing should ever be taken for granted.’

‘Exactly so. I learnt the lesson well.’

‘In that case, my friend, make sure that you do not lead these people into a trap. The girl who survived the massacre at al-Hama still cannot bear the sight of rain. She imagines that it is red.’

‘Zuhayr bin Umar, Ibn Basit, Ibn Wahab. A meeting of The Forty is taking place inside the silk market now!’

Zuhayr thanked al-Zindiq for his advice and hurriedly took his leave. He walked to the spacious room of a silk trader which had been made available to them. The old man could not help but notice the alteration in his young friend’s gait. His natural tendency would have been to run to the meeting place, but he had walked away in carefully measured steps while his demeanour had assumed an air of self-importance. Al-Zindiq smiled and shook his head. It was as if he had seen the ghost of Ibn Farid.