Sultana's Legacy (9 page)

Fatima grasped his fingers. “You know him, as I do. His honor would never have permitted it. Father, your anger must be terrible. Your wrath is blameless. I wept when Faraj came to me from Tarif and told me what he had done. We quarreled and I accused him of abandoning your cause, when you have always been merciful to him. I knew you could never forgive him for this. Yet I ask.” She paused and knelt before him and clasped her hands together, “No, I beg for his life. Would you kill the beloved father of your own grandchildren? Would you leave me a widow?”

He shook his head. “Faraj has betrayed me again. I forgave him once before, but I cannot do so now.”

“What do you mean, Father?”

“Do you think me a fool, Fatima? I have always known of Faraj’s guilt in the death of the last Ashqilula governor of Malaka.”

When she gasped, he turned from her, his voice low. “No one else would have dared kill Abu Muhammad of Ashqilula. No other possessed a more damning reason for his death. Faraj let you plead for his life, when he knew his own guilt. I accepted the lie for your sake. I freed him and restored his family’s heritage. I did it for love of you. I could not bear your pain.”

The memory of her same accusations against Faraj only days before weighed upon Fatima now. She sagged on her knees and buried her face in her hands.

Her father grunted and pried her fingers away. He knelt with her on the grass. “Do not cry for him, daughter. He cared nothing for my feelings or your own. He is unworthy of your sorrow or my forgiveness.”

Fatima smiled through her tears. “I love him, Father, as my life. He is my life. My heart can bear the pain of his disloyalty. It cannot bear the loss of him. I must see him. Does he still live?”

When he did not immediately answer, she looked past him to where his guards stood. Two of them brandished curved daggers, splattered with blood.

Fatima rose and dashed past them, ignoring her father’s voice. “Wait!”

She turned in the direction she had seen his men come from, toward the
mashwar
. She pushed the door before her. It flew back against the stucco wall and rattled on its hinges.

She froze, a scream trapped inside her throat. A pool of blood drained from a crumpled corpse in the middle of the floor. Her father’s hand closed on her arm. She jerked away, startled by his touch. For a moment, she had forgotten him in the painful glare of death.

“Calm yourself, daughter. Your husband’s brother Muhammad came to Gharnatah last night. He warned me of Faraj’s treachery. He hoped I would reward him with Malaka. When I refused, he tried to attack Faraj. My guards killed him.”

Fatima turned from the sight. He gathered her in his arms.

She whispered, “Where have you taken my husband?”

“Faraj is in a cell at
al-Quasaba
.” When she drew back and looked at him, he continued, “He has committed treason. Not even you can save him. I am the Lawgiver. You shall accept my decree.”

“If you kill him, Father, I shall die.”

He kissed her brow and released her. “You think you cannot endure the pain. When the tragedy has faded, when you look to your children, you shall survive it. I know. I bore the treachery of your Ashqilula mother and her death. I accepted it. You shall discover the same courage within as I found it, after Aisha forsook me.”

He turned from her and walked to the throne room.

“You never loved her as I love him!” Fatima’s voice echoed.

Her father halted, glanced over his shoulder once and then continued without looking back.

Chapter 5

The Sultan

Princess Fatima

Gharnatah, Al-Andalus: Dhu al-Qa`da 693 AH (Granada, Andalusia: October AD 1294)

Later in the evening, Fatima sobbed into her hands. She sat on a turquoise cushion in the apartments of her father’s queen, the Sultana Shams ed-Duna. The heat of a metal brazier in the corner of the room did not cast aside the chill that pinched Fatima’s shoulders.

Shams ed-Duna patted her arm. “You must cease these tears. They cannot secure your husband’s release nor sway my husband.”

“Shams! How can you tell her that? It is cruel.” Nur al-Sabah, the Sultan’s favorite, hugged Fatima and kissed her hair.

Shams rolled her eyes. “Nur, you cannot deny that Prince Faraj was a fool and coward to do such a thing. He has betrayed our master, and the love and trust Fatima showed her husband. Where was Faraj’s love and concern for her feelings when he decided upon this foolish course?”

“Shams, hush! You are only making things worse.” Nur pried Fatima’s fingers away. “Look at me, please.”

As her blurred vision cleared, Fatima managed a weak smile for her father’s lover. She touched Nur’s golden curls, tumbling free from a gossamer purple veil. Tiny amethysts and diamonds glittered at the fringe of the material. Nur’s ice-blue eyes were perhaps as red-rimmed as Fatima’s own might be.

Fatima sighed. “Don’t be mad at Shams ed-Duna, Nur. She speaks the truth.”

“You see! Even she must admit it!” Shams slapped the low olivewood table at which they sat. Her dark eyes, the color of obsidian, glowed with a spark of fury at their centers.

“How could he do this to us and to our children?” Fatima shook her head. “How am I to tell them they may never see their father again?”

Nur sat back on her heels. “I shall speak to the Sultan and beg for your husband’s life. It is the only kindness I can offer you.”

Fatima grasped the concubine’s slender hand and raised it to her lips. “You offer so much more. You have been my friend of many years. To think, I once reviled you for claiming Father’s heart.”

Nur hugged her again. “That is long past, all forgiven. I have found three great treasures in my life in Al-Andalus. The love of your father. The friendship I have shared with you and Shams. The blessings of my children.”

The
kadin
looked to the corner where her long awaited son, a golden-haired little boy of only seven years played with a wooden sword. He whacked it against the stucco wall beside him, fighting some imaginary adversary. The Sultan had named him Nasr. Like all Nur’s children, Nasr had his mother’s coloring.

Nur called to him. “Nasr, it is soon time for prayers. Go to your nurse, Sabela, for your bath.”

“I don’t like prayers! I don’t like baths.” Her son took out his spite on the wall.

As Nur gave an exasperated sigh and shrugged, Fatima said, “If you do as your mother commands, I promise to teach you how to use a bow and arrow tomorrow.”

He pushed back the golden curls falling over his cherubic face and glared at her, every bit the prideful Nasrid prince like his elder brothers.

He muttered, “You don’t know how to fight. You’re a woman. Father says women should not fight.”

“They should not, little brother, but sometimes they must. When I was young, perhaps twice your age or a little older, our brother the Crown Prince Muhammad taught me to use the bow.”

Nasr’s pale blue eyes widened. He approached her. His wooden sword dangled between his chubby fingers. “Truly?”

His mother chuckled and reached for him. “A Sultana’s word speaks only truth. Little princes shouldn’t question it.”

He wriggled away from her embrace, his gaze still on Fatima. “
Ummi
says you’re my sister.”

“I am, Nasr. Your father is my father.”

“Why don’t you live here at
al-Qal’at Al-Hamra
?”

“I live with my husband and children at Malaka. I have a little son, Muhammad, who is two years older than you.”

He frowned at her. “I’m not little!” He stamped away toward the corner, before he stopped and turned around.

“Would your son want to play with me? I have only sisters and slaves. No one fights me. My sisters don’t know how and the slaves are afraid of me.”

Fatima chuckled, despite the lingering sadness in her heart. “The slaves should be afraid of you, since you are the Sultan’s son and a fine Nasrid prince.”

She could have sworn he puffed up his chest a little when she spoke.

“The next time I come to Gharnatah, Nasr, I shall bring my son Muhammad. You can practice lessons in the bow together.”

“Would you really teach me?”

“I have said so. Don’t you want to learn?”

He rocked back and forth on his bare heels, looking from her to his mother, with her indulgent smile. Fatima had missed his birth and much of the early years. This visit, even under such trying circumstances, might give her some time for her newest little brother.

Nasr said, “Well, yes, if Father lets me.
Ummi
, can I ask him?”

Nur shook her head. “Not until after you’ve completed your bath and said your prayers.”

He scampered from the room, his cries echoing throughout the harem. “Sabela! Sabela! It’s time for my bath.”

Nur giggled and kissed Fatima’s cheek. “I’ve never been able to coax him into the
hammam
with such ease. Thank you.”

Beside them, Shams said, “If only our husband could be persuaded so easily.”

Fatima sobered and nodded.

Shams added, “You may try, Nur, but you know the Sultan as well as I do. He cannot go back on his word. He has promised death to Prince Faraj. Nothing can sway him, not even the love he bears you.”

Nur reached across the table and laced her fingers with Shams’ darker ones. “I have to try. It may be the only hope Fatima has left. I shall speak with him, after we have dined. Can you join us, Fatima?”

Fatima shook her head. “I cannot eat at my father’s table and pretend to be happy in his presence, while my husband rots in his cell at
al-Quasaba
. Father’s decree has broken my heart. I shall never forgive him if he murders my husband.”

Her sister Alimah had warned her that she might feel this way about their father. She had refused to listen then, but she could not escape the reality of Faraj’s circumstances now.

Shams sighed and caressed her shoulder. “You gain nothing by further defiance. Dine with us and show your father the duty and loyalty he deserves as Sultan, as the sole parent who raised you in the days after your mother’s passing. That alone must still command some respect and love from you. Submit to his power and perhaps, you may yet win your husband’s freedom. Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful, demands the submission of all. Would you defy even the Will of God for your husband’s sake?”

***

 Within the hour after prayers, Fatima shared the evening meal with her father, Nur al-Sabah and Shams ed-Duna. The women sat on either side of her father, while Fatima took her place across the table from him. She shared in their food and conversation. Whenever her father glanced in her direction, she kept her face impassive. Yet every swallow of the roasted kid almost choked her.

As she reached for the bowl of warm flatbread and spooned the eggplant dip over a slice, she studied the rapport between him and his women. They were always kind and generous to each other. The Sultan’s wife and his favorite shared an easy companionship.

Yet, there was no great love between her father and his queen. There might never be, despite the son and three daughters she had given him. Only his passion for his
kadin
endured. Nur al-Sabah was the mother of eight of his children, Prince Nasr and his seven sisters.

Fatima shook her head. Her father should have married his favorite. Strange to think that in the past, she might have hated him for doing so. Now, Nur was her best friend, like Shams. As the women laughed at something her father told them, Fatima thanked God that her father’s house knew such peace.

The Sultan spooned some of the tart yogurt on a thick slice of cucumber and offered it to Nur al-Sabah, who caught it between her teeth. For all her forty-two years and eight children, her beauty remained, with the aid of pulp from the cucumber, or so she believed. Her eyes glistened with mirth while she kissed the Sultan’s fingertips. She held him enthralled as she had always done.

“Do you truly intend to build us a summer palace, my Sultan?” she asked. “Our Nasr’s imagination and wishes aside, I think it’s a wonderful idea, though I would not wish it built because of a child’s demands.”

He said, “Telling our son bedtime stories from the Persian poet Ziyad may have inspired the idea, but it is a good one, even if motivated by a seven-year-old. My summer palace shall be our escape. I have already spoken with the master mason about the project.”

He glanced at Fatima. “After public audience tomorrow morning, I shall show you the plans. I want to build living quarters, kitchens, stables, a mosque, and
hammam
.”

She nodded. “It would please me to know more, honored Father.” In truth, she could have cared less.

Beneath the table, Shams reached for her hand and squeezed it in appreciation. Nur al-Sabah winked at her. Fatima concentrated on the last remaining chunks of tender meat on her silver plate.

Shams said, “Don’t forget our Rabiah’s garden. Some place where she and the other children can play.”

The Sultan tilted his head to her. “You’re sweet to remind me of our daughter’s wish, wife.” He took her hand. “When we have finished our meal, I wish you to remain with me tonight.”

Shams’ gaze widened and she spared a doe-eyed look for Nur al-Sabah. “I would, my Sultan, but this night is already promised to the
kadin
. Surely, you have not forgotten?”

“I am not an old fool, wife.” The Sultan reached for Nur’s fingers too and kissed them. “I wish Nur al-Sabah to stay as well.”

Fatima gasped. It was not like her father to share his bed with his queen and favorite at the same time. A long established custom gave two nights a week in the Sultan’s bed to each woman. Her father could also choose among them or any concubine for his pleasure on the other three nights. When had he changed the practice?

 While she mulled her concerns, Shams beckoned her personal slave, Faisal, who had stood silent and unobtrusive in a corner. The black chief eunuch shuffled forward with his shaved head bowed. He knelt beside his mistress, who said, “Bring me the
habba souda
.”