Sultana's Legacy (15 page)
She recalled his wide, reddened eyes and large pupils throughout the meal. His uncontrollable laughter accompanied by bizarre movements and thoughts on the morning she had learned of Faraj’s release.
“How would your father gain access to this?” Niranjan asked. “The cannabis plant does not grow in Al-Andalus.”
She rubbed her arms, despite the warmth of the room. “My brother brought it to him.”
Niranjan’s gasp echoed around the chamber.
She sank down on a red silk cushion against the wall. “He’s poisoning my father with this drug. He’s making him do things he would not otherwise do.”
“You cannot be certain your father’s actions result from the hashish alone.”
“What do you mean?”
“You mentioned the Sultan also ingests seeds of blessing. They’re corn cockle. Eat enough of them and even you would go mad. I remember the hashish eaters who stalked the streets of my birthplace. The drug creates a powerful need. If the Sultan is an addict, he may be beyond cure already.”
She frowned at Niranjan. “What do you expect me to do? Relinquish all hope and let this thing take over his mind and body? I tell you, I shall not! I cannot let him fall into darkness. Don’t you see? If my father is addicted to hashish, all his edicts are suspect. With Muhammad controlling him, the Sultan could agree to anything. Worse, if the
Diwan
learns the Sultan has lost control of his own mind, the ministers may decide he is unfit to rule and remove him.”
“Then your brother would rule in his stead.”
“Yes. I cannot allow it. I must stop Muhammad before he destroys our father and the Sultanate. Find out how my brother is supplying Father with hashish.”
Niranjan bowed his head. “It shall be done.”
***
Out into the moonless night and through murky, underground shadows, Fatima followed Niranjan westward beneath the palace complex. Her grandfather, the first Sultan Muhammad, had built most of the royal residences on the
Sabika
hill with subterranean walkways that aided an easy escape. No guards patrolled such hidden places. Only two persons controlled the keys that unlocked every portal, the Sultan and his Sultana’s trusted servant, the slave Faisal. The eunuch’s relations with Niranjan ensured Fatima would have access to the underground corridors and much-needed privacy for the task that awaited her.
She hugged the dank wall. Above them, sentries patrolled the grounds. Niranjan pulled her down a stone-covered path and to a doorway concealed behind dense shrubbery. He pulled her behind him into an underground chamber where a fetid pool gathered beneath an unused cistern.
Beside the murky water, a man knelt on the cold tile, blindfolded and gagged, with his hands tied in front of him. A boy at his side, a youth of perhaps no more than fifteen years old, wept at the sight of them. He could have been her Ismail, despite his ragged appearance, with his dark hair and large eyes. His hands were behind his back and tied via a short rope to the bonds that held his ankles together.
She circled the captives. The man angled his neck toward the sound of her shoes scraping the stone and mumbled something behind the gag. She removed her veils and untied the knot in his blindfold. The man struggled against her unfamiliar touch.
“If you relax, this can go very easily for you.”
His balding pate swiveled in her direction. His entire body stiffened. Tiny lines marred his forehead, beaded with perspiration. He had not expected a woman.
Still, he nodded. She came around him again. A bloodied gash cut deep under his right eye and the left one was nearly swollen shut, with blue-black marks surrounding it. When he met her stare, his black eyebrows flared.
Then his gaze swiveled to Niranjan near the exit. He wriggled against his bonds.
Fatima gripped his chin, her nails sinking into the flesh with enough force to make him wince behind the gag. “Look at me.”
He did as she commanded. Dark eyes bulged from their sockets and the muscles beneath his cheek twitched.
“He shall not hurt you again, unless I command it. If you make any sudden moves or cry out when I remove your gag, I’ll stab you between the ribs. Do you understand?”
His head bobbed vigorously. She released him and took Niranjan’s dagger from the leather sheath. She cut away the strip of cloth forced between his teeth.
“Please don’t kill me! I beg you.” The man’s voice was shrill, near hysterical.
Fatima kicked the man square in his mouth. Her boot heel smashed into his teeth. He reeled and slumped on his side. Blood and spittle oozed between his lips.
“Silence. You do not speak unless I demand it.”
She glanced at Niranjan. “Who is he?”
“Musa ibn Qaysi. The boy is his son, Ali.”
Fatima brought the dagger to the corner of Musa’s mouth. Bands of perspiration matted the remaining thin strands of his hair.
“You know who I am, don’t you?”
He shook his head. She swiped a slice of red from his lip to his chin. He squealed in shock and pain.
“You recognized me. You had recovered from the shock at finding yourself held captive on a woman’s orders. Then, you observed my face and noted the features. You have seen them before, in the face of Muhammad, Crown Prince of Gharnatah. I am his sister, Fatima, daughter of the Sultan Muhammad
al-Fakih
. You, Musa ibn Qaysi, shall tell me everything you have done to aid my brother against our father.”
His voice issued in a strangled cry. “I am a loyal citizen of Gharnatah. I honor the Sultan. I swear to you, I know nothing about the Sultan, nothing about the Crown Prince….”
“Hashish sellers have no honor!” She slashed another cut across his cheek, deeper than the first. His words ended on a maniacal scream. Crimson rivulets trailed down his face.
Niranjan stepped forward. “Please, my Sultana, someone may hear him, if you continue this. There are other ways to make him talk.”
He jerked his head toward the man’s son.
Fatima nodded. “So that we are clear as to what can happen to you, Musa, if you don’t tell me what I wish to know…Niranjan, hold the boy.”
The hashish seller yelped, as Niranjan seized his son by the nape. “Please don’t hurt him! He’s my only son. I have daughters, but he is the only one left to bear my name when I am gone. He helps me in my trade. He is harmless to anyone, blameless. I swear to you. I’ll do anything, everything that you ask. Don’t do it. Please make him withdraw, my Sultana. Tell him to let my son go! Surely, you have children of your own. You could not hurt an innocent boy. Don’t kill my son.”
Fatima waved Niranjan away. She clasped her hands together. “I promise you, Musa, I won’t kill your son if you tell me what I want to know. I give you my word as a Sultan’s daughter.”
The hashish seller sagged on his knees, tears flowing uncontrollably across his sunburned cheeks.
She said, “Now, let us begin again. Do you know my brother, the Crown Prince of Gharnatah?”
Musa sobbed, “Yes.”
“Why do you know him?”
“He buys my hashish at the
Qaysariyya
.”
“How long have you been selling hashish to Crown Prince Muhammad?”
“For six years now.”
Her heart thudded. Had her father endured the throes of his addiction for so long?
Myriad emotions coiled in her gut. She recognized the rage that roiled inside her and the fervent desire for vengeance that threatened to consume her. She could slice the man and boy’s throats without thinking twice. They deserved death after working with Muhammad to destroy the Sultan.
She had never murdered someone. She had considered it in the aftermath of her mother’s murder. A child’s foolish whim when the killer would have crushed her. Now she was a woman, stronger and wiser than in her youth, embittered by her brother’s betrayal of their father.
Could she take a life for her father’s sake? What would it feel like if she gave in to the impulse now? Niranjan had killed on her behalf, but never with such brutal tactics. In the aftermath of such acts, he seemed unaffected. Would it be the same for her?
She tapped Niranjan’s dagger against her thigh. He caught her eye and shook his head. “Your brother’s madness has already destroyed him. Keep the darkness at bay or surrender to his fate.”
Her jaw tightened, but she released a pent-up breath and returned her attention to Musa. “Did my brother tell you why he wanted the hashish?”
“No, at first I thought it was for him. Then I knew better.”
“Why?”
“He is not addicted. I know the actions of someone who smokes hashish. In six years, I have never seen him behave as one possessed by the drug.”
Fatima rubbed her fists at her throbbing temples. The wretched monster! Her brother had robbed their father of his life with something Muhammad was too clever to take himself.
She glared at the hashish seller. “I could kill you for what you have done.”
As Musa gulped air furiously, Niranjan said, “He is more help to us alive, my Sultana.”
From the folds of his robe, Niranjan withdrew a small cloth. With care, he untied the bundle and revealed tiny green leaves. He pinched a few and held them out in the center of his palm.
Fatima touched the dried leaves. One clung to her fingers. She brought it to her nose and inhaled the aromatic smell. “What is this?”
Niranjan replied, “It is a perennial herb, native to the land of the Genoese sailors who trade with our coastal cities. They call it oregano, which means ‘joy of the mountains’ in their language. In its dried state, oregano leaves can be mistaken for the greenish-black leaves of the cannabis plant.”
Niranjan looked down at the man, who trembled, before his potent gaze returned to hers. “Musa can mix the oregano in with the cannabis leaves and its flowers when he makes the hashish resin. It can dull the potency of the drug, if the right amount is added.”
“I want my father to stop! If we let this fool live….”
“If Musa dies, the Crown Prince shall find another supplier. Do you want him to do that? Do you want him concerned by the sudden disappearance of this man? Or would you rather he maintained the services of someone he believes is supplying him with the most potent form of hashish he can buy?”
She turned away, but Niranjan continued. “If we control Musa, we control the amount of the drug your father ingests. If the Sultan stops smoking now, after possibly years of an addiction, he shall rage in the throes of madness, as you have never seen. We may not be able to stop your brother, but we can slow the effects of what he is doing. Musa ibn Qaysi must live.”
She glared at him, before her shoulders slumped in defeat. “Very well, I shall not kill him, after all. We must ensure he does as commanded.”
Fatima reached for the boy, whose head hung limp. With a light caress across his chin, she tipped his narrow face up for her inspection.
“He could be my son, for all his dirt and grime.”
She smoothed a forelock of his dark hair away from his grit-covered face, smearing a black smudge across his brow. His large eyes blinked and watered. He shuddered softly. Tears coursed down his hairless cheek.
She glanced at the hashish seller. “Do you love your son?”
His eyes watered. “Yes! A father always loves his children!”
Fatima looked at Niranjan. “Restore his gag.”
While he attended to the hashish seller, who struggled against Niranjan until cuffed on the head, Fatima’s hand drifted down the tender column of his son’s throat. Beneath her fingers, life pulsed at the base.
Niranjan returned to her and stood just behind the boy.
Fatima asked, “Child, do you love your father?”
The boy nodded. His tear-stained face sunk, but she raised it again and met his swollen stare. She asked, “And you would do anything for the love of your father, wouldn’t you? No sacrifice would be too great?”
The hashish seller’s muffled screams behind his gag filled the tiny chamber. His son nodded again.
Fatima smiled and caressed his chin. “All children should love their fathers. I love mine. I would do anything for him.”
She circled the boy and Niranjan drew back. She touched the boy’s hands bound at his back. “These are the fingers that helped your father destroy mine.”
She nodded to her servant. “Cut off the child’s thumbs.”
The boy and his father yelped at the same time. The child struggled against Niranjan, whose iron grip shoved the boy forward. With his right knee planted in the middle of the child’s back, Niranjan grabbed the tender limbs at the tiny wrists.
Fatima’s gaze did not waver as tears and whimpers shuddered through the child. Niranjan grabbed the boy’s left hand and sliced through the bone. A spray of blood arced and sprinkled Fatima’s cheek. She touched and smeared the warm wetness against her skin. An agonized scream from the boy echoed in the darkened, musty chamber.
When Niranjan cut off the other thumb, it landed at the boy’s feet. The hashish seller’s son crumpled. His blood coated the grime-covered stone. His father also collapsed, his sobs disturbing the deathly quiet.
Fatima strolled toward him and knelt at his side. He had closed his eyes. Tears trickled beneath the lashes.
She whispered, “As I promised, Musa, I have not killed you or your son. Know that when I give an oath, you may rely upon its fulfillment. Your son has not suffered in vain. Nor do I permit his death. My servant shall see to his wounds and he shall live. Still, remember that your boy’s mutilation is the only warning you shall ever have from me.
“If you do not do as I have asked, if you betray me to the Crown Prince, my eunuch shall find you again. He shall kill your entire family, starting with your son. Your daughters shall die also, before you join them. My servant shall cut your children into such tiny pieces that none may recognize them beyond a heap of flesh and bones. Do not test the sincerity of my vow. You would not live with the regret for long.”
Bittersweet
Prince Faraj
Malaka, Al-Andalus: Safar 694 AH (Malaga, Andalusia: January AD 1295)