They journey on. Close now to their destination – crossing narrow passes cleaved through bare cliffs of russet rock, on each hilltop a Moorish fortress, eagle’s nests for soldiers’ eyes.
Inhospitable country, Sébastien grunts, urging his horse along a jagged path which is little more than broken steps in a ruinous staircase.
Wait, Khaldun chuckles. Wait till you come upon the Vega, cross her meadows of night-dark green, like soft down upon a youth’s cheek, drink from streams chiselled by the north wind’s hand, crystal in their cleanness.
Pablo smiles at the lyrical prose. Oh, it feels good to be amongst poets again!
A day from Granada, their guide says: We must bathe before entering the city. And they stop the night in Alhama de Granada where the thermal spring rises, the baths by the river gushing waters hot, pure and sweet to the taste.
Tired limbs soak in deep pools and are massaged by attendants in arched marble halls. Sébastien lies back against the pool’s edge, stares up into the star-shaped skylights of its domed ceiling and wonders if he need ever leave.
From far away Khaldun speaks, alerting him to the manners of court. You will find Granadans orthodox, and mostly generous and considerate of foreigners. They speak an elegant form of Arabic but I find it too full of proverbs and occasionally rather abstract. It may confound you somewhat.
Like Persians, he continues, they dress in fine silk, wool or cotton, striped in subtle shades, or in summer, simply white linen. After a time, you may find robes more suitable for your work. They are flowing, cooling, and enable various postures without discomfort.
Now, he says. It would not surprise me if the women of the court fascinate you. They are beautiful, and dress exquisitely – they are fond of girdles, sashes, garters and coifs which are worked in faceted gold and silver. Quite breathtaking, as are the precious stones that glisten amid their finery. You will find them graceful, elegant and svelte, their charms highlighted by perfect manners and discretion, delightful conversation.
But, he sighs, they are becoming too enamoured of their own selves, I believe, which is a regrettable course of action. Their adornments seem on the brink of fantasy at times, which tends to take the sensibility of the court’s menfolk with them.
Oh, Pablo groans. Let him make up his own mind. The man does have a head on his shoulders.
And a betrothed awaiting my return to Toledo, Sébastien grins.
A cloudless day, mountain breezes cool the sun’s heat. They pass through orchards of blossoming almond, cross carpets of gentian and lavender. Lunch is shared beside a stream in the shade of a poplar grove, and after sunset they arrive – up the Royal Pathway and in through the Puerta de la Justicia.
We will wait till morning to present you to the sultan, advises Khaldun. But let us go over the rituals of court again. How do you pay proper respects to our Lord al-Gani?
Prostrate myself.
Upon leaving?
Kiss the hem of his gown.
Mmmm?
Or the rings on his fingers if he offers me his hand.
And if you should be introduced to a Lady of the court? Remember, al-Gani has two sisters he holds in the highest esteem, several wives …
She will extend her hand, but it will remain covered by a veil.
So you – ?
Brush only the tips of her fingers …
Good, says Khaldun. Rest well. May God bless your dreams.
They are shown to their lodgings in a small palace in the medina a short distance from the royal apartments.
Sébastien takes a goblet of wine, looks about the salon, runs his fingers along the design woven to its walls, reading inscriptions without knowing a word, deciphering messages in baked clay rather than spoken tongue.
What do the colours mean, Ibrahim?
Blue is the sky, white is purity, black depth, yellow wealth. Green is Islam.
And the shapes?
His assistant smiles. Do not look too closely at the designs. They are simply variations on a theme, geometric shapes which represent stars, or heavens, or perhaps the doors to Paradise. Instead, partake of their ability to capture a sense of the infinite within this finite space. Drown your senses and behold the limitless possibilities of eternity’s landscape.
Ah, he says, reclining beside the brazier and letting understanding wash over him. Ah, he says again, and submerges.
The translator sits in an antechamber overlooking the palace gardens and the narrow alleys of the Albaicin city quarter below its walls. Awaiting his summons before the caliph, he is surrounded by Qur’anic inscriptions – even the cushion on which he rests is embroidered in holy script. Overwhelmed by a symphony of invocations to God, he nevertheless remarks an inner peace arising from this forest of verse.
A cushion so-embroidered rests limbs and mind both, says Ibrahim, as doors, heavy, leaden, studded with bronze, swing open in silence.
Khaldun beckons and leads them across the Patio of the Myrtles and around its long low pool.
Don Pedro will have a pond like this by the time you return, he comments.
But there is no time to admire the sunken gardens and painterly reflections in the face of the water. Their feet skim smooth marble as they hurry to their appointment, gliding the surface as if shunted forth by skiff, while the fountain’s low murmur accompanies their passage, conversing with itself between time-stretched horizons.
A morning like any other. Men pass through the court in white robes, bow welcome, speak in low tones. Leather slippers sound small percussive notes on a journey from source to destination. Above the arched patio, Laleima sits by her window on a verandah edged with wooden lace, eyes fixed on a pair unlike all others. A young man of blonde curls and light eyes, his companion darker, older, both dressed in the finery of a Christian court and in conversation with her friend, Khaldun. She watches as they enter the Hall of the Ambassadors and shed their slippers at the door. And imagines their delight to enter a universe of gleaming gold, brilliant colours, draped carpets and stained glass panels.
Sébastien stands, can do nothing more than stand, stare, senses brimful.
Prostrate yourself, Khaldun mutters, nudging him, and they all fall to their knees, arms outflung on the cool tiles.
Welcome Christian scribe, says a voice, and he lifts his head to find a silhouette, a robed shape topped by turbaned scroll, before him. I believe you have an interest in our palace of verse, the shadow says and extends a jewelled hand to help his guest to rise.
You like our style? al-Gani asks as they stroll the Hall. What is written in the Qur’an we take literally:
The life of this world is nothing but illusory enjoyment.
Nothing less does our Madinat al-Hamra promise, he laughs with arms spread wide. Look at the clear reflections of the heavens in the patio pools, he points. We excel at turning the known world, a finite space, upside down and inside out. Where is the real? That is our rhetorical puzzle. Decoration serves as both entertainment and contemplation. It frees the mind as much as any game, like watching waters flow or fires flame.
The caliph turns to the translator and smiles. You know, I never tire of the work of my artisans – the beauty revealed from carving ivory or marble, or creating a sculpture of gazelle or nightingale, the fine craftsmanship of our swords or the intricate details embedded in a purely functional astrolabe.
He lifts a copper water jug, its spout dragon-shaped, points to a basin inlaid in silver, raises his goblet of cooled rose-water.
See? he says. I need not drink. I can simply observe the pearly sheen and turquoise tints of the glass and in so doing ponder the vast universe of Allah’s ocean. Suddenly he grins and says: Khaldun calls us a decadent and doomed family, but if so-doomed then why not beautifully so?
Ha! laughs Khaldun. Spoken like a king.
al-Gani claps his new scholarly friend on the back and grants him free passage for his work.
Eleven
It beg
an on a day when first fruits started to ripen. She had been in the garden and, returning to the patio of orange trees, remarked the hard green balls tinged with first blush.
Rasool had been sent to fetch her. Master seeks your assistance in the matter of the Christian, he said. And following his lead, came through the Court of the Lions into the Royal Library.
You need me, Master?
al-Khatib smiled. Not I, but our Christian visitor, he said, nodding to where Sébastien sat at his parchment, puzzling over a text. His Mozarab has fallen ill and cannot assist with the translations. And I can spare none of my assistants. al-Gani is full of new plans – works on the hospital in the Albaicin must be overseen. Dar-al-Din is there. And Zamrak is busy composing verse for new walls to be plastered in the Barca.
I consulted your brother, he continued, and there was no objection to my proposal. We were both of the opinion you might enjoy a respite from your studies, and a chance to practise your Castilian with one other than Sara. Rasool will be with you to ensure decorum is maintained. And a small smile parted his usually pursed lips.
Laleima smiled in turn. I very much doubt I will be the envy of any of the harem. Christians do not seem to figure in their bedchamber fantasies. But, she shrugged, I am more than pleased to work with words, no matter who sits at my elbow. And walked over to where the translator sat cross-legged at his dais.
He blushed and flustered at her sudden presence and upon rising, upset his pen box. A trembling hand brushed her fingertips as he apologised for the inconvenience this must cause her.
I should have seen ahead to the possibility of illness or some other calamity and brought another skilled assistant along, he said, and began mopping up the ink spilled in his clumsy attempts to right recent wrongs.
Laleima smiled. There is nothing to be sorry for, she said. I am always pleased to learn new arts. Tell me your process and I will your Mozarab be.
He raised his eyes. Finally. Up and out of confusion and loss – the worry that this mission on which he, a mere apprentice to great masters, had been sent would fail and with it, his family’s standing at court. He raised his eyes to the young woman before him, who seemed to displace the very air with her serenity. Blushed again in the presence of this lemon curtain framing subtle repose and stammered:
Actually I am quite overwhelmed and do not know where to start. Whether I should stay with the work Ibrahim and I were undertaking, or begin something new. Your library is so vast, and the palace walls so filled with verse, I am at a loss to decide.
This library is not so great, she said. The sultan of Cordoba loved books so much he swelled his collection to more than 400,000 volumes.
She walked over to the chests which lined the walls. He even needed his own paper-making workshop to keep up with production and translation of texts! But, she sighed, that was many centuries ago when al-Andalus itself was vast. And opening the nearest chest, she ran her fingers across the leather spines of manuscripts therein, lost to reverie.
But the books? he asked, pulling her back.
Gone, she said. Destroyed on great bonfires set by your conquering forebears. I pity the learned whose books were destroyed as much as the ignorant who committed these crimes.
And so-said, she lifted a volume free of its brothers. What do you think? Would your king like to hear some tales from The Arabian Nights? We have a Syrian volume from the last century I could read to you?
So it began. On a day when first fruits started to ripen.
Oh, she says, another day. These stories were a wonder to me as a child. They came to us from India, the stories of Kalila and Dimna, two jackals who get into lots of mischief.
He turns his attention to the pictures which accompany the text. Wait, he says. Is this not the story of The Clever Mice? For although he cannot read the script, the illustrations are familiar.
Yes! The mice want to be rid of cats so they damage people’s property and pretend the cats are to blame.
He nods and says: The townsfolk are tricked by the masquerade and truly believe them responsible. I know this story!
So the people send the cats away, she continues.
And then the mice live peaceably, in safety, with no cats to trouble them ever-after, he concludes.
The End! they shout together.
Each time she moves she trills. This soft tinkling of bells a nightingale’s warble or a blackbird’s song composed of a melded percussion between garments, adornments, movements. So if she shifts on the cushion, her girdle sings, or if she points to a script high on the wall, her bracelet murmurs its delight, or if the soft shaking of her head is called for, as he corrects a couplet or description, it sets the silver discs of her veil into an octave of melody.
Ever a song accompanies her, and whether by the light of the sun or the waft of a candle, she sparkles, glows, reflecting the glory of her station with these selfsame adornments. Moons and stars of silver and gold speak from the jewels at her sleeve, elbow, throat, veil. Aura upon aura expressing their inner joy.
And he finds himself waking each morning eager to continue his work in a cocoon-cupped world of twin-tongued words.
The verses can be sung, she explains, as they take a rest from books to wrap themselves in the weft of the walls. They rise and fall beneath our fingers like notes from the mouth of a lute. And she draws her hand across a sweep of tilework and its vibrancy of laced stucco.
Her fingers trace the contours of script. I know every work on every wall in every niche of every hall in the palace, she says and, spinning round, announces: This is my favourite book in the library of our kingdom!
Here, she suggests, pointing to a niche. Let us begin with Zamrak’s verse about the Madinat.
Stop on the Sabika and take in that lofty Vega:
You’ll see that hill’s a noblewoman, unveiling herself to you.
Girdled with a river-sash, smiling flowers the jewels on her breast;
Narcissus-eyes, in full bloom, with dewdrop-tears in her eyes.
The Sabika proudly wears a crown, which the glittering stars
Might well envy if they wanted ornament:
The al-Hamra, may God keep and preserve it,
A ruby set atop the crown, and its glory.
He sits without writing. A frown crests his brow. Girdled with a river-sash? What does that mean?
It is the river Darro which flows through Granada and then out across the plain, the Vega, she explains, but still his pen hovers above the scroll.
Come, she says. It makes little sense if you know not of what he speaks. The translation will unfold more readily if I show you what he means.
They cross the patio, walk through to the Court of the Myrtles. We will climb to the top of the Comares Tower, she says over her shoulder. From there you will see the Sabika’s crown.
He follows. At first knowingly, observedly, but after a time as if in a trance. Is it the swish of her robes, the soft trill of bracelets, the burbling fountain or the sun reflected off the pool which blinds his sight to all save marble moonshine? She glides across its sheen, skates its plane in red-gold robes, her shadow reflected in the mirror of the pool, existing both here and there.
Come, she says again as they enter the Barca.
Men await audience with the sultan in the Hall of the Ambassadors, but they are a blur of dark shadows and low murmurs. She turns left to a small door opening in the wall, bows to a servant, whispers her request, and they begin the ascent of steep winding steps, a narrow passage, dim-lit. The scent of musk and jasmine must be his guide up a scrolled staircase which slowly unspools towards its fulsome height.
No need to speak – the tower’s battlements conquered. From the roof terrace the panorama enjoins the city below, the countryside beyond, cragged mountains, fertile valleys, a kingdom, in short, as far as the eye can see. Only the sound of the breeze up here, a light zephyr making merry the air. And a magic, a tingling at the edge of his soul –
A su
dden beating of wings. A hawk takes flight, startles him from reverie.
She laughs at his surprise and begins her lesson.
This hill, the last ridge of the Sierra Nevada, is called the Sabika. Our Madinat al-Hamra is the diadem, the crown of the hill, and our kingdom. Zamrak’s poem commends the beauty of nature as much as the architectural gem we have built. Ours is a red palace, a ruby set atop the crown.
He nods, coupling the poet’s words with the sight of her. A ruby set atop the crown.
We used to have a ruby, she says. But we gave it away to your king. I remember the weight of it in my child’s hand. It was Mother’s, she says. It was beautiful.
It still is. His voice a hoarse whisper.
They look, one to the other, words leaping, twirling, escaping on the breeze, translation not yet twinned in a dance through maps composed by others’ hands.
On another day, she says to him:
My master believes that an hour of learning is worth more than a year of prayer, and he begins his instructions in the madrasa by saying that nothing is more important than knowledge. Kings may be the rulers of people, my master says, but scholars are the rulers of kings.
Sébastien smiles. I will try to remember that when I return home.
She sees the wit in his remark but will not be distracted from task and says:
I have memorised the Qur’an, studied grammar and syntax, the hadiths, Qur’an commentary, rhetoric, the law and jurisprudence. Mathematics and basic medical treatises have I learned. My education now continues with Sufism, knowing Allah in my heart. It is the third branch of Islam, that of the mystics.
So I will share with you today the writings of the Sufi master Ibn Arabi, she tells him. He was Andalusi and educated in Sevilla before it fell to Castile. His doctrine is the Unity of Being, that God is transcendent, yet because all creation is a manifestation of God, it is identical with Him in essence. Like it is written in the hadith:
I was a hidden treasure and wanted to be known, thus I created the world that I might be known.
The translator’s response is little more than raised eyebrows and a grimace. Pedro is very pious in his faith, he says. I do not think he would wish to spend too much time with the writings of an alternate creed.