‘Why?’ he almost shouted. Abbas asked him to lower his voice. ‘Why?’ he repeated more calmly. ‘The community frees slaves whenever it can. I myself contribute. Why not him? I heard they are asking a pittance. Did you know that? A pittance for a man who is a saint!’
‘Because he doesn’t want it. He wants young people to be freed. And this pittance they have quoted you would be if the bailiff sold him to another Christian. If they found out we were trying to liberate him, the price would not be the same. You know full well what happens: for every one of our brothers we pay far higher than the asking price.’
‘So what if it costs money? He has dedicated his whole life to working for us. If anyone deserves to be freed, it is Hamid.’
‘I agree with you,’ Abbas conceded, ‘but we have to respect his decision,’ he added before Hernando could start arguing, ‘and that is why money hasn’t been spent on him.’
‘But . . .’
‘Hamid knows what he’s doing. You’ve said it yourself, he’s a saint.’
Hernando left the forge without saying goodbye. He was not going to allow it! Some Christians, especially pious women, liberated their slaves if they were no longer useful. The brothel landlord was not one of them. That man would hold on to Hamid until somebody offered money for him, however little that was. The traffic in human beings was one of the most thriving and profitable businesses in Córdoba, and not only for the professional dealers, but for anyone who had a slave. Everyone traded in slaves and obtained rich rewards. But although he was lame, old and in pain, the person who acquired Hamid would surely not do so to keep him idle. They would force him to work in order to recover their investment, and possibly somewhere far away from Córdoba. No matter how much he insisted, the holy man did not deserve such a fate at the end of his days. Hernando himself did not deserve it either, he acknowledged in his innermost thoughts as he went to his rooms on the top floor. He needed Hamid! He needed to see him and talk to him, even though it was only once in a while. He needed his advice, and above all he needed to know he was always there to give it. He needed to enjoy in Hamid the father he had not had in his childhood.
He talked to Fátima and she listened carefully. When he had finished, she smiled and stroked his cheek.
‘Free him,’ she whispered. ‘Whatever it costs. You’re earning good money now. We’ll be all right.’
So he was, Hernando told himself as he crossed the Roman bridge towards the tower of Calahorra, absent-mindedly showing his special document to the bailiffs who controlled the traffic on the bridge. They had increased his salary to three ducats a month plus ten bushels of good wheat each year, although this was less than the Christian horse-breakers earned. Even Abbas, as a blacksmith, received a more generous salary. Fátima saved every bit of spare money, as if their prosperity could end at the most unexpected moment.
On holidays, the Campo de la Verdad filled with the inhabitants of Córdoba strolling along the banks of the river. They gazed at the line of three windmills standing on the Guadalquivir down-river from the Roman bridge. Or they sought the peace of the meadows opening out on the other side of the outlying suburbs. Given the influx of people, and in spite of it being Sunday, the horse and mule dealers had their animals on sale in case any of the citizens felt like buying.
Juan the muleteer walked with a stoop, which made him appear much shorter than he actually was. He smiled showing gums that were missing many of the black teeth he had had when Hernando had first known him.
‘The great Morisco horseman!’ the mule dealer greeted him. Hernando was stunned. ‘You’re surprised?’ Juan added, slapping him affectionately on the back. ‘I know about you. In fact, a lot of people know about you.’
That possibility had never occurred to Hernando. What else would people know about him?
‘It’s unusual for a Morisco lad to end up riding the King’s horses . . . and working in the cathedral. Some of the dealers you did business with use your name to attract buyers,’ explained Juan, winking at him. ‘“This horse was broken by Hernando, the Morisco rider of the royal stables!” they boast when people take an interest. I thought of saying that you had also ridden my mules, but I don’t know if it would work.’
They both laughed.
‘How are things, Juan?’
‘The Weary Virgin finally succumbed,’ he said in his ear, taking his arm in a friendly fashion. ‘She sank slowly and solemnly, as befitted a lady, but luckily she did so close to the shore and we could recover the barrels.’
‘You continued smuggling after—?’
‘Look, what a mule!’ Juan pointed one out, ignoring the question. Hernando examined the animal. It looked like a good beast: clean legs with good bones and a strong body. What defect could it hide? ‘Perhaps the royal stable wants to buy a good mule?’ joked the dealer.
‘Do you want to earn a couple of pennies?’ Hernando asked, remembering the proposal the mule dealer had once made him.
Hesitating, Juan raised his hand to his chin and once again revealed his wasted gums. ‘I’m getting old,’ he said. ‘I can’t run any more . . .’
‘Can’t you enjoy women either? What about that bordello in Barbary?’
‘You insult me, lad. Any self-respecting Spaniard would pay to end his days on top of a good female.’
*
Hernando would pay for the mule dealer’s pleasure. That was the deal they agreed over a jug of wine in a tavern near the cathedral. Juan was willing to collaborate, especially when Hernando explained why he was interested in the brothel’s crippled slave.
‘He’s my father,’ he said.
‘In that case, I’ll do it for free,’ Juan said, ‘but you deserve to pay for insulting my virility. There shouldn’t be even a whisper of doubt about that,’ he said sarcastically.
‘How do I know you haven’t tricked me and that in reality you’ve done nothing more than sleep like a baby in one of those women’s laps? I’ll not be there,’ Hernando answered, prolonging the joke.
‘My lad, if you hang about in Plaza del Potro near the fountain, even from a distance, above the noise you’ll hear the cries of pleasure . . .’
‘There are many women in the brothel, and many rooms. What if it’s not yours?’
‘My name, boy, you’ll hear how she screams my name.’
Hernando remembered him rowing back in the Weary Virgin, the skiff flooding with water and each stroke shorter and harder. He was short and thin even in those days, and yet they always reached the shore! He nodded, as if acknowledging Juan’s virility, before he went on.
‘The landlord mustn’t suspect you’re interested in . . . the slave. He wants to sell him and he’ll let him go for any price. Of course, he mustn’t find either that there are Moriscos behind the operation. And my father . . . my father shouldn’t know anything either.’ The muleteer frowned. ‘He doesn’t want us to waste our money on an old man,’ he explained, ‘but I can’t allow it. Do you understand?’
‘Yes. I understand. Leave it to me.’ Juan raised his wine glass. ‘To the good times!’ he toasted.
At nightfall the following Monday, Juan the muleteer entered the brothel. He showed them a bag with several gold crowns in it that Hernando had given him, bragging that today he had done the best deal of his life. The landlord congratulated him on his good fortune and laughed with him as he sang the praises of the women working in the rooms open along both sides of the alleyway. Some of the women were displaying themselves in the doorways, until the muleteer decided on a plump, dark-haired young girl. He disappeared with her inside the small one-storey house. There was just one room and the bed was pushed up against a couple of chairs and a sideboard with a washbasin on it.
For his part, Hernando made his excuses to Don Julián and returned to drift around among the people who always filled Plaza del Potro. He felt slightly nostalgic as he heard the shouting and merriment, the wagers and even when he saw the usual brawls.
For the past year or more there
had been more people than ever in the square and the surrounding streets. The usual vagabonds, gamblers, adventurers, soldiers without their officers or officers without their men, as well as all kinds of lowlifes, were drawn there, as if summoned by a beacon. The poor despairing wretches who spent the night in the city on their journey along the Camino de Las Ventas to the rich, sumptuous court in Madrid, where they hoped to obtain some sinecure or other; those heading for Seville hoping to embark for the Indies in search of their fortune; the vast number of undesirables that the viceroy of Valencia had unceremoniously expelled from his lands and who emigrated to Catalonia or Aragón, to Seville (where few more would now be able to survive) or to Córdoba: all of them flocked to Plaza del Potro.
And he, Hernando, had put himself in the hands of one of these characters.
‘Do you trust the muleteer?’ Fátima had asked as she gave him the fifteen ducats in gold coins, carefully hoarded in a bag next to the Koran in the large chest.
Did he? It had been several years since he had had any dealings with Juan.
‘Yes,’ he said, persuaded by the memories flooding into his mind. He trusted that scoundrel more than any of the Christians in Córdoba. Together they had lived through danger and uncertainty and many a close call. That bond was hard to break.
*
Juan enjoyed the pleasure that Ángela, the young dark-haired girl, gave him. Once satisfied he intentionally knocked a jug of wine over the bed sheets.
‘Change them!’ he bellowed, pretending to be drunk.
‘Haven’t you had enough?’ said the girl, surprised.
‘Girl, I’ll tell you when to stop. Aren’t I the one paying?’
Ángela threw on a cloak and went to the door. ‘Tomasa!’ she shouted, revealing a voice far harsher than the one she used with the clients. ‘Clean sheets!’
Hernando had explained to Juan about Tomasa, but what he had not told him was that Tomasa was a head taller than him and possibly double his weight. When that huge woman appeared in the doorway with the clean bedding, Juan was intimidated; he felt ridiculous clad only in his threadbare pants.
He had planned to threaten her until she called for Hernando’s father, whom he needed to be there for the second part of his plan. However, at the first sight of those strong forearms and the rolled-up sleeves, Juan had second thoughts. A slap in the face from Tomasa would hurt more than the kick of a mule.
The woman bent over to take off the dirty sheets and presented him with an enormous backside. It was now or never! If she finished making the bed . . .
For Hernando!
He clenched the few teeth he had left, reached out with both hands and dug his fingers into her buttocks.
‘Two women!’ he shouted as he did so. ‘Santiago!’ he howled as he clutched the woman’s hard backside.
Ángela burst out laughing. Tomasa turned and made to slap the muleteer, but Juan was ready for her and dodged out of the way. Then he leapt on top of her and buried his face in her huge breasts. He clung on like a tick, gripping Tomasa with his arms and legs although he could not wrap them completely around her immense frame. Ángela was still laughing, and Tomasa struggled in vain to free herself of the creature stuck to her body, its mouth searching between her breasts. Juan found one of her nipples and bit it.
The bite made Tomasa even more furious. She pushed him with such force that the muleteer slammed back against the wall. Tomasa tried to fasten together her ruined bodice that had been almost ripped apart by Juan’s brutal search for her nipple.
‘B . . . beautiful!’ exclaimed Juan, gasping for air as his breath had been knocked out of him.
Several women had gathered in the doorway, their laughter adding to Ángela’s. Red in the face, Tomasa looked from Juan to the women.
The muleteer made what he feared would be his last move in life, and went for Tomasa again, lustfully licking his top lip. She waited with knitted brow, trying to push up even further sleeves already about to burst their seams.
‘Enough! I knew this would happen sooner or later with a woman attending to the girls,’ came a voice from the door. Juan could not stifle the sigh of relief he let out on seeing the brothel landlord ‘Out!’ the man shouted at Tomasa. ‘Tell Francisco to come and make the bed.’
Alerted by the racket, Hamid was not slow to arrive. The other women had already gone when the old man limped into the room. Only Ángela was still there.
‘A Moor?’ shouted the muleteer, confronting Hamid. ‘How can you send a Moor to touch the sheets I’m going to lie on?’ he added, turning to Ángela. ‘Go and fetch the landlord.’
The girl obeyed and ran in search of him. Now came the hardest part, thought the muleteer. He only had fifteen ducats to buy the slave. He had not wanted to wipe the smile from Hernando’s face or the shine from his blue eyes as he entrusted him with the money that surely constituted his entire fortune, but Juan knew that slaves over fifty years old fetched thirty-two ducats in the market, despite how little work could be expected from men of that age. Hernando had told him the landlord was only asking a pittance, but how much was that going to be?
After the violent reception he had received from the muleteer, Hamid was surprised to see how the man was now quietly thinking, standing in front of him as if he didn’t exist. Hamid tried to get round to make the bed, but Juan stopped him.
‘Don’t do anything,’ he ordered. What did it matter now if the slave started to suspect what was going to happen and who was behind it all? ‘Stay where you are and keep quiet, understand?’
‘Why should I—?’ Hamid started to ask, but just then Ángela and the landlord returned to the room.
‘A Moor?’ Juan shouted again. ‘You’ve sent me a Moor!’ The muleteer jabbed Hamid in the chest with his finger. ‘And to top it all he has insulted me. He called me a Christian dog and a worshipper of idols!’
Hamid’s characteristic composure deserted him and he threw up his hands. ‘I didn’t . . .’ he tried to defend himself.
Juan slapped him. ‘Nobody calls me a Christian dog!’
‘Leave him alone,’ urged the landlord, stepping between them.
‘Whip him!’ demanded Juan. ‘I want to see you punish him. Whip him right now!’
How can I whip him? the landlord asked himself. Poor Francisco would not survive more than three lashes.
‘No,’ he objected.
‘In that case I shall go to the Inquisition,’ Juan threatened. ‘You have in your establishment a Moor who insults Christians and who blasphemes,’ he went on, starting to collect his clothes. ‘The Inquisition will punish him as he deserves!’
Hamid remained quiet behind the landlord, who watched as Juan dressed, grumbling under his breath all the while. If the muleteer denounced him to the Inquisition, Francisco would not survive two weeks in its prisons. He would never live to see the next auto-da-fé, and he would never recover a single penny for him.
‘Please,’ he begged Juan. ‘Don’t denounce him. He has never behaved like this before.’
‘I wouldn’t if you punished him. You are his owner. If this heretic slave was mine I—’
‘I’ll sell him to you!’ said the landlord, jumping at the chance.
‘Why would I want him? He is old . . . and crippled . . . and foulmouthed. What use is he to me?’
‘He has insulted you.’ The landlord tried to provoke him. ‘What satisfaction will you get if it is the Inquisition who punishes him? He will confess like all these cowards do, he will repent and they will simply sentence him to wear penitential garments. You can see how old he is.’
Juan pretended to be thinking this over.
‘If he was mine,’ he muttered to himself, ‘he would be cleaning up mule shit all day . . .’
‘Fifteen ducats,’ offered the bailiff.
‘You’re mad!’
Five ducats. Juan got Hamid for five ducats, and at this price he also got them to throw in the services of Ángela. He decided not to wait until the next morni
ng. With two clients of the brothel as witnesses he paid with the gold coins he carried in his bag and left the brothel with Hamid at his heels. Nevertheless he arranged to meet with the landlord at daybreak to sign the corresponding contract of sale.
Hernando was listening intently to the story of the five-year siege and subsequent capture of the city of Haarlem. A disabled soldier from the Flanders infantry regiment who had taken part in the campaign, and whom a pleased crowd was happy to buy drinks, related the tale between mouthfuls of wine. The almost blind soldier was seated at a table outside the inn, proudly wearing the rags in which he had fought under the command of Don Fadrique of Toledo, son of the Duke of Alba. He described the hardships of the siege of the fortified city, during which the infantry suffered many casualties, and told how the nobleman had considered abandoning the effort. Then Don Fadrique received a message from his father.
‘The Duke of Alba said’, the veteran recounted in a ringing voice, ‘that if he left the field without conquering the stronghold, he would not recognize him as a son. However, if he died in the siege, then he himself, although he was on his sick-bed, would personally replace him.’ The circle around the soldier was an oasis of silence amid the din that reverberated around the rest of Plaza del Potro. ‘He added that should they both fail, then his mother would leave Spain to fight and finish what her husband and son had neither the courage nor the endurance to do.’
Murmurs of approval and some applause rose from the audience around the veteran. He took advantage of it to down the remaining wine in his glass. He listened for the sound of it being filled again, and then threw himself into relating the final and bloody taking of the city. Hernando felt somebody pass behind and knock into him.
He turned and saw Hamid, who was limping, head down, behind the muleteer. In his hand he carried a bundle no bigger than the one Fátima had brought to her marriage. Juan had done it! A shiver ran through Hernando’s body as he watched them head slowly towards the top of the square.
‘On his father’s orders,’ the soldier exclaimed at that moment, ‘Don Fadrique executed more than two thousand five hundred Walloons, French and English . . .’