The two faced each other, the mule between them. Hernando, his back covered in a sweat that was colder than the mountain air, tried desperately to keep his arms and body steady as he threatened the Narila mule-driver with the heavy candelabra. To their right lay a bottomless ravine. Ubaid glanced down at it: one blow with that candelabra . . .
‘Just you dare!’ Hernando shrieked nervously at him.
Ubaid weighed up the situation, then stuck his knife back in his belt.
‘I thought you were being pursued by Christians,’ he said cynically, before turning his back and striding off.
Hernando did not even watch him go. The candelabra was suddenly so heavy he had to struggle to get it back in the saddlebag. He was trembling even more now than he had done when he confronted Ubaid. He could scarcely control his hands. He leant against La Vieja’s hindquarters and gratefully patted her haunch. Then he slowly continued on his way, making sure that the mule went round every bend ahead of him.
It was late evening on Saint Stephen’s Day by the time that, accompanied by a gaggle of young children, they climbed the steep slope up to the castle at Juviles. Hernando was still keeping a watchful eye on Ubaid, who was at the front of the mule teams. As they approached the castle, they could hear music and smell the food being cooked inside. When their fathers, husbands or sons had joined the revolt, the women, children and old people from Cádiar had taken refuge here, together with many more from all over the Alpujarra. Inside the fortification, some of whose nine defensive towers still rose high above the plain, dozens of stalls and shacks made from branches and cloth tarpaulins made it seem like a colourful fair. Camp fires had been lit in the spaces between the stalls; animals, children and old people were all packed in together, while the womenfolk in their bright Morisco robes were all busy cooking. The cheerful noise and the cooking smells helped Hernando relax: the food was nothing like the stews and soups the Christians made from their vegetables and pork; here everything was cooked in oil. They were warmly received by everyone as they went by. One woman offered him a sweet made of almonds and honey; another a fried dumpling; and a third a pastry with preserves dusted in flour. There were groups of musicians playing pipes and tabors, drums, dulzainas and rebecs. Hernando took a bite of the pastry, and his mouth was filled with the flavours of sugar, starch, amber, red coral and pearls, deer’s heart and orange-blossom water. Soon afterwards, floating on the air among the women, the singing and the dancing, he could make out the aroma of lamb, hare and venison, as well as the herbs and spices they were being cooked in: coriander, mint, thyme, as well as cinnamon, aniseed, dill and a thousand others. The mules threaded their way laboriously through the crowds to the far side of the castle yard, next to the ruins of the former citadel where the booty seized in Cádiar was being stored. The Morisco women threw themselves on the new female Christian prisoners, stripping them of their few possessions before setting them to work.
With the help of the men Brahim had ordered to guard the booty, Hernando and Ubaid began to unload the mules and store the valuables. They watched each other warily as they did so. They were busy transporting the spoils into the citadel when they heard the noise of singing and dancing gradually die away. Hamid’s voice could clearly be heard, calling everyone to prayer from the bell tower at Juviles, now transformed into a minaret. There were two wells inside the castle, providing clean, pure water from the mountains. The two men performed their ablutions and said their prayers, and then went back to the unloading: inside the citadel was a considerable treasure of all the valuables, jewellery and money seized from the Christians.
Hernando gazed at all the piled-up gold and silver. He was so absorbed he did not realize Ubaid was close behind him. After the night prayer, the gloom in the citadel was pierced only by the light from a pair of burning torches. The din in the courtyard had started up again. Brahim was talking to the guards at the entrance to the citadel.
Ubaid jostled Hernando as he passed by. ‘Next time, you won’t be so lucky,’ he growled.
Next time! Hernando said to himself. The man was a thief and a murderer! They were alone together. He looked at Ubaid, and thought for a few moments. What if . . .?
‘You dog!’ Hernando insulted him.
The mule-driver turned in surprise, to find Hernando flinging himself on him. Ubaid knocked him away with a powerful blow. Hernando stumbled more than necessary and landed on the Morisco spoils, right on top of a small cross with gold and pearls that he had spied shortly before. Their scuffle attracted the attention of Brahim and the soldiers.
‘What . . .?’ Brahim started to say, striding into the citadel. ‘What are you doing with our booty?’
‘I fell. I tripped over,’ Hernando stammered, shaking out his clothes as he concealed the cross in his right hand.
Ubaid was looking on in bewilderment. Why had the boy suddenly attacked him like that?
‘Clumsy oaf,’ Hernando’s stepfather rebuked him, coming over to the heap of treasure to make sure nothing was broken.
‘I’m going down to Juviles,’ Hernando told him abruptly.
‘You’re staying here . . .’ Brahim objected.
‘What do you mean?’ Hernando raised his voice and flung his arms out. He had stuffed the cross in his belt, and concealed it behind a smock he had grabbed from the pile of Christian clothing from Alcútar. ‘Come and see!’
He marched out of the citadel and went over to the teams of mules. Confused, Brahim followed close behind.
‘This one has a shoe loose.’ Hernando lifted the front leg of one of the mules and shook the iron shoe. ‘That one over there is starting to get a sore on its back.’ In order to reach the animal, Hernando slid in between Ubaid’s mules. ‘No, not that one,’ he said from in among the animals.
He stood on tiptoe, arms by his sides, as if looking for which animal was the injured one. As he did so, he slid the cross into the saddlebag of one of Ubaid’s mules.
‘That one, yes, that’s the one.’ He went over to the mule and lifted her bags. His hands were trembling and sweaty, but the wound he had spotted earlier was clear for his stepfather to see. ‘And this one here must have something wrong with her mouth, because she refuses to eat,’ he lied. ‘My tools and medicines are down in the village.’
Brahim glanced at the animals. ‘All right,’ he agreed after considering them for a few moments. ‘You can go down to Juviles, but be ready to come back at once if I say so.’
Hernando smiled at Ubaid, who was standing with the guards in the citadel doorway. The muleteer glowered at him, and narrowed his eyes when he saw the youth smile. He raised a warning forefinger in Hernando’s direction, and then disappeared off among the stalls, where the Morisco women were starting to serve food. Brahim made to follow him.
‘Aren’t you going to check?’ his stepson said, holding him back.
‘Check what?’
‘I don’t want any problems over the booty,’ Hernando interrupted him, looking solemn. ‘If anything were missing . . .’
‘I would kill you.’ Brahim leant towards the boy, his eyes screwed up into two narrow lines.
‘Exactly.’ Hernando had to struggle to keep a tremor out of his voice. ‘These are the spoils our people have won. The proof of our victory. I don’t want any problems, so check my mules!’
Brahim did so. He made sure all the saddlebags were empty, examined the harnesses, and even made Hernando take off the smock so that he could search him before he allowed him out of the castle.
Once he was free, and was leading his mule team through the maze of stalls, Hernando looked back: Brahim was busy checking Ubaid’s animals.
‘Get on with you!’ he urged his mules.
By the time Hernando and his team reached Juviles it was completely dark. The sound of their hoofs broke the village silence. Some of the women came to their windows, wanting to ask for news of the uprising, but when they saw it was the young Nazarene leading the mules, they ducked back inside. Aisha was waiting at
her door; as usual, La Vieja had gone on ahead. Hernando encouraged the other mules to carry on to the stable, and halted in front of his mother. The flickering light of a candle inside the house played on his mother’s face. Hernando suddenly remembered the sight of her huge breasts swaying in the church to her ululating cries, but then the image was replaced with one of her begging Hamid to come to his aid.
‘Where’s your father?’ she asked.
‘He’s stayed at the castle.’
Aisha said no more, but opened her arms wide. Smiling, Hernando stepped forward to receive her embrace.
‘Thank you, Mother,’ he whispered.
As he hugged her, he suddenly realized how tired he was: his legs were almost giving way under him, and all his muscles felt weak. Aisha held him more tightly and began to sing a lullaby, rocking him gently back and forth. How often he had heard that song as a child! But then . . . then Brahim’s children had come along, and he . . .
A lantern flickered up by the last houses of the village. Aisha turned nervously towards it. ‘Have you eaten?’ she asked, trying to push Hernando away from her. He resisted. He preferred the warmth of her embrace to any food. ‘Come on!’ she insisted. ‘I’ll make you something.’
She strode purposefully back inside the house. Hernando stood where he was for a few moments longer, still drinking in the perfume of her clothes and a body he had so few opportunities to cling to.
‘Stir yourself!’ his mother hissed from inside the house. ‘There’s lots to do, and it’s late.’
Hernando unharnessed the mules and filled their trough with barley. Aisha soon came out with egg, breadcrumbs and orange juice. Mules and master ate together in silence. Sitting next to him and softly stroking his hair, his mother listened to the story of all that had happened to him since he had left Juviles. When he told her, voice choked with emotion, how Gonzalico had died, she kissed him on the top of his head.
‘He had his chance,’ she said, trying to console him. ‘You gave it him. This is a war; a war against the Christians. We will all suffer because of it, I am sure of that.’
Hernando finished eating and his mother went back inside. He inspected the mules: now they had eaten their fill, they all stood resting, their heads and ears drooping. For a minute he closed his eyes as well, overwhelmed by tiredness. Almost at once, though, he got to his feet: Brahim could call him at any moment. He shod the mule that needed it. The sound of hammering echoed across riverbeds and gullies as he hammered the soft iron on the anvil and beat the shoe back into the four-pointed shape the Berbers favoured. Brahim insisted on continuing the Arab tradition, and refused to use the semicircular ones the Christians preferred. This was something about which Hernando agreed with him: the overlap of the shoes gave the mules a better grip on steep slopes. Once he had repaired the shoe, he cut the hoof around it: something the Christians would not do either. When he had finished, he checked all the other mules’ hooves, and then turned his attention to the sores he had pointed out up at the castle. He had asked his mother to build up the fire before going to bed. He went into the house, ignoring his four half-brothers and -sisters, who were stretched out on the floor of the room that was both kitchen and dining room. They would soon be sleeping upstairs again, like his mother and Brahim. That would be after the almost two thousand silkworm cocoons clinging to the rows of mulberry leaves hanging from the walls had spun their thread; for now, the worms had to be left to eat quietly, and his stepbrothers and -sisters had been obliged to give up their bedrooms. Hernando heated some water and warmed up a mixture of honey and euphorbia, leaving it on the fire while he returned to the stable to soften the mule’s back with the water. He returned to his mixture, and added salt in a cloth. When he thought the remedy was ready, he applied it to the wound. That mule would not be able to work for several days, however unhappy Brahim was about it. He surveyed the animals, satisfied with his work. He filled his lungs with the freezing night air, and then looked up at the outline of the mountain ranges around Juviles: they were all deep in shadow apart from the hill where the castle stood, which was lit by the camp fires still burning inside the yard. I wonder what happened to Ubaid? thought Hernando as he returned to the stable to sleep for what little remained of the night.
8
THE NEXT morning, Hernando was up at dawn. He washed and answered Hamid’s call to prayers. He bowed twice and recited the first chapter of the Koran, then the prayer, before he sat on the ground leaning on his right side to continue the blessing and finish with the call to peace. His brothers and sisters, only half awake, tried to copy him, stammering prayers they did not properly know. He applied some more lotion to the injured mule’s back and headed for Hamid’s shack. He had so much to tell him! So many questions to ask! The Juviles Christians were still locked in the church on bread and water; Hamid still insisted they be converted to Islam. When Hernando passed by the church, he found a crowd of women, children and old men talking noisily outside. He joined a group gathered around the remains of the church bell.
‘Hamid knows our laws very well,’ one of the old men was saying.
‘It has been many years since a Muslim was judged according to our own justice. In Ugíjar—’
‘In Ugíjar we have never known any justice!’ the first man protested.
A murmur of assent ran through the group. Hernando looked at the villagers, the old men, children and women who had played no part in the uprising, but now were starting to head off up towards the castle. Aisha was one of them.
‘What’s going on, Mother?’ Hernando asked when he caught up with her.
‘Your father has summoned Hamid to the castle,’ Aisha said, striding on. ‘They are going to try a muleteer from Narila who stole a cross.’
‘What will they do to him?’
‘Some say they will flog him. Others that his right hand will be cut off, and others still that he will be put to death. I don’t know, my son. Whatever happens, he deserves what he gets,’ said his mother, still striding along. ‘Your stepfather has often mentioned him: he stole from the goods he transported. He has had many problems and complaints from Moriscos, but the mayor of Ugíjar always defended him. The shame of it! It’s one thing to steal from Christians, quite another from your own people! It’s said he was a friend of . . .’
Hernando’s attention drifted away from his mother. He was recalling the argument Brahim had had with El Partal, and the way Ubaid had looked at his stepfather when he refused to greet him. Brahim was capable of many things, but he would never steal from a Muslim! Aisha had gone on ahead; she was talking and gesticulating with the other women, who were all as stirred up as she was.
Hernando did not follow them. He had no wish to be present at the trial. He was sure the Narila muleteer would publicly try to place the blame on him.
‘I have to look after the mules,’ he said as a group of the village children ran past him. A shudder ran through him. Put him to death . . .! Then again, why not? Wasn’t that what Ubaid had tried to do to him? If it hadn’t been for La Vieja . . . and hadn’t he threatened him again? And Gonzalico? He had wreaked a cruel revenge on the little boy, even if he had been no more savage than the other Moriscos.
Hernando chased away these thoughts. It was for Hamid to decide: he was bound to choose an appropriate punishment.
The trial began immediately after the noon prayer and lasted all afternoon. Not only did Ubaid deny having stolen the cross, but he also questioned Hamid’s right to judge him.
‘It’s true I am not a qualified legal person,’ said the old man, holding up the cross found in the mule’s bags. ‘And after all these years perhaps I am not a scholar either. Would you prefer someone else to judge you?’
The muleteer saw some of the men surrounding Hamid lift their hands to their daggers and swords and step towards him: he immediately said he would recognize the old scholar’s authority. Ubaid could find no one willing to speak in his favour. No one gave positive responses to Hamid’s opening quest
ions: ‘Do you testify that the person known as Ubaid, a muleteer from Narila, is an upright man of whom nothing bad can be said, and that he carries out his faith and his purifications as he should, and is a true follower of Muhammad, just in his dealings with others?’
Instead, everybody there spoke of the many problems the muleteer had caused in his dealings with his brothers in faith. Two women even came forward on their own account and, as if to support their menfolk’s accusations, said they had seen Ubaid committing adultery the previous night.
Hamid paid no attention to the charges a desperate Ubaid made against Hernando. He sentenced him to have his right hand chopped off for theft. However, since the accusation of adultery had not been proven by four witnesses, he also ordered that the two women who had given testimony to this effect receive eighty lashes as stipulated under Muslim law.
Before carrying out the sentence on the muleteer, Brahim turned his attention to the two women. He had found a slender rod, and when Hamid led them before him, looked at the wise man enquiringly.
Hamid asked if they were pregnant. When they both shook their heads, he said to Brahim: ‘Go gently with the lashes, restrain yourself. That is what the law requires.’
The two women gave sighs of relief.
‘Take their smocks and tunics off, but do not strip them naked. Don’t tie their hands or feet either . . . unless they try to run away.’
Brahim did his best to follow Hamid’s counsel. Even so, eighty strokes with the rod brought thin bloody lines to the women’s undershirts, and the blood soon covered their backs.
That evening at dusk, in front of hundreds of Moriscos gathered in the castle courtyard, Brahim took out his scimitar and chopped off the Narila muleteer’s right hand with one blow. Ubaid’s arm was placed outstretched on the stump of a tree that served as a chopping-block, and he shut his eyes to avoid seeing the blow. When his hand was cut off, and a tourniquet applied, Ubaid did not utter a sound. It was only when his arm was thrust into a cauldron full of vinegar and crushed salt that he howled with pain.