The Hand of Fatima

  *

  Hidden in the crowd, Aisha saw Hernando, but did not find the peace she sought. He was holding the shawl firmly in one hand as he took Azirat’s reins from the guard with the other. Aisha had seen him arrive; with every step her son took towards the stake she had felt a sharp stab of pain in the depths of her being. She tried to picture what was going on beside the body, and as if God had transmitted it to her, she broke down in tears at the exact moment when Hernando began stroking the shawl.

  ‘I’ll take care of you, son,’ she sobbed, as she watched him pass through the Colodro gate on foot, leading his horse.

  From that day on Hernando let her do it. His previous obsession gave way to melancholy and sadness. Why search for his family’s bodies after so many days? If they had been left in the mountains they would already have been devoured by wild animals. He had seen what happened during his rides in those woods: nothing was rejected; thousands of creatures were lying in wait, ready to pounce on the slightest mistake, the most insignificant chance for food. Even so, Hernando kept visiting the benches outside the convent of San Pablo.

  A few days after Ubaid’s body was found, Hernando received word from Don Diego requesting he return to his job: the mares were in Seville, but there were still colts in the stables.

  Aisha thought she sensed a change of attitude in her son when he returned home after attending to the animals and hope was reborn in her. But she could not have foreseen how wrong she was.

  42

  ‘YOU ARE to hand your horse over to the Count of Espiel,’ Don Diego López ordered Hernando as soon as he arrived at the stables one morning. ‘The King has given him the horse.’ Hernando jerked his head away as if trying to distance himself from the words, but nevertheless he had to hear the stable master out.

  ‘But . . . I . . . Azirat . . .’ His attempts at protest amounted to nothing more than nonsensical hand gestures.

  ‘I know you’ve worked this animal and I also know, in spite of his colour, he is one of the finest these stables have produced. I’ll allow you to choose another, even one that isn’t a reject, so long as it isn’t one destined for the King—’

  ‘I want this one! I want Azirat. He’s mine!’

  He immediately regretted his words. Don Diego tensed, frowned and paused for a few seconds before answering.

  ‘He’s not yours, nor will he ever be, and it matters little what you do or you might want. You knew the agreement when you chose to receive a horse as part-payment of your wages: it would always be at the King’s disposal. The count has succeeded in getting King Philip to honour him with this horse. He has apparently asked for it specifically. The King’s wishes have to be fulfilled.’

  ‘He’ll destroy him! He doesn’t know how to ride or to run bulls!’

  Don Diego was aware of that. Hernando himself had heard him say it, had seen him making fun of the fat Count of Espiel, who always lounged in the saddle as if in an armchair . . .

  ‘It’s not your place to judge how well a nobleman does or doesn’t ride,’ the royal stable master answered him sharply. ‘He has more honour in one of his boots and has rendered greater service to these realms than your entire community could ever offer. Watch your tongue.’

  The Morisco let his arms drop to his sides and he stood crestfallen before the horse. ‘Can I . . .?’ he stammered. What did he want? What did he want to ask? ‘Could I ride him one last time?’ Don Diego hesitated. ‘Perhaps . . . I may not deserve this favour, but I’d like to feel him beneath me one more time, excellency. It’s only one last ride. Sir, you’re a great rider. Sir, you know of my many and grievous recent misfortunes . . .’

  Changing the original name of a horse brings bad luck. How right Abbas had been, warning him of that! thought Hernando as he tightened the girth. The memory of the blacksmith troubled him. After what had happened in Lomo del Grullo they saw each other in the stables, but did not speak; they did not even greet each other. Hernando was unable to forgive him. He jumped on to Azirat, who shied nervously as his rider flung himself hard down in the saddle: he had Abbas in mind and was gripped by anger. Azirat knew it! Thanks to that sixth sense animals have, he knew something bad had happened; he could sense it at the first contact with his rider. He chewed incessantly on the bit, as if trying to communicate with his rider through his constant, unaccustomed fretting on the reins.

  Hernando patted Azirat’s neck and the horse responded by tossing his head and snorting, all under the watchful gaze of Don Diego, who was still standing in the large open square in front of the stables. He pressed the fingers of one hand over his mouth, with his thumb under his chin. Possibly he was reconsidering his decision. Hernando did not give him the chance to change his mind, and sped out of the stables, giving the stable master a quick nod as he passed.

  Now they were taking Azirat from him! What sin could he have committed? Why did God punish him so? In little over a year he had lost nearly all his loved ones: Hamid, Karim, Fátima and the children . . . As the Morisco lifted the sleeve of his tunic to his eyes, Azirat stepped out freely. Now it was his horse! Abbas, another of his friends . . . he had broken his promises!

  Now the Count of Espiel had managed to make the King give him Azirat. It had not been hard for the noble. From Seville, where he left the herd of royal mares to head for the salt marshes, he had sent his secretary to Portugal with a petition to the King, requesting of him the favour of presenting Espiel with the chestnut horse that caracoled and galloped so magnificently on the journey from Córdoba to Seville. The King was happy to grant the aristocrat’s request, particularly as all he wanted was a reject from his stables. Hernando remembered his first meeting with Espiel, when the noble had challenged a bull so clumsily that in the subsequent charge his horse had inevitably been gored. He had seen him run bulls on other occasions, always with similarly unfortunate results for his mount. Azirat felt his rider’s legs shaking and shied nervously. Hernando had also attended the tournament in the Plaza de la Corredera, where nobles engaged in various forms of mock warfare to the sound of kettledrums and trumpets. The other nobles displayed great valour in the simulated combat; using leather shields they deftly blocked and parried the theoretically inoffensive cane spears. The count on the other hand had problems from the very start of the display, as he soon let down the team of which he had been drawn to be part. He couldn’t throw his spear far enough without getting closer to the opposing side than the rules of chivalry and courtesy allowed, and the crowd were swift to boo his team.

  Why would the count have chosen Azirat if he was nothing more than a reject? Because of him? Because of what happened in that first bullfight? The count was a cruel and vengeful man. Hernando had heard as much from the same mouth that had admonished him that very morning, when he called the Count of Espiel’s riding ability into question. It had been about eight years earlier.

  ‘Have you heard the latest about the Count of Espiel?’ Don Diego had asked a group of nobles riding with him to try out the King’s horses. Hernando and the stable hands were accompanying them.

  ‘Tell us,’ one of the nobles urged him, smiling in anticipation.

  ‘Well, it turns out that a couple of weeks ago the doctor confined him to bed because of a recurrent fever. He was bored as he couldn’t ride or hunt, so he devised a way of doing it from his bed . . .’

  ‘Shooting arrows at the birds through the window?’ joked another noble.

  ‘Ha!’ exclaimed Don Diego, unable to keep the grin from his lips. ‘Every servant who does something wrong – and the count’s servants do a lot wrong! – has a cushion tied to their backside. Then the count makes them run and jump about the room until he, armed with his arrows in bed, manages to shoot them in the arse.’

  The group of riders burst out laughing. Even Hernando smiled, imagining the fat, sweaty count in his nightshirt, trying excitedly to aim his crossbow at a servant jumping over chairs and furniture with a cushion tied to his behind. However, he quickly wiped the smile off his f
ace when his eyes met those of José Velasco who, as Don Diego’s servant, fidgeted anxiously in the saddle.

  ‘They say,’ blurted out Don Diego between guffaws, ‘they say he has become the strictest steward in his own house, and he constantly . . .’ The stable master had to stop talking until he managed to compose himself, clutching his stomach. ‘. . . asks about the slaves’ and servants’ work and any possible mistakes they may have made, so that they can be released into his bedroom like hares.’

  ‘And the countess?’ one of them managed to say between hoots of laughter.

  ‘Huh! She’s beside herself!’ Don Diego was again bent double. ‘She’s changed the poor wretches’ silk cushions for harder cotton ones, so that she doesn’t end up without servants . . . or furnishings.’

  Howls of merriment broke out afresh among the riders.

  And that is the man who is going to ride my horse! thought Hernando, the nobles’ laughter still ringing in his ears after all this time.

  He urged Azirat on with a simple click of his tongue, and the horse began to gallop. It was a magnificent autumn day. He could escape! He could gallop until he reached . . . where? What about his mother? Now they only had each other. He had galloped steadily for half a league, heading nowhere in particular, when he felt Azirat tense: to his right was a pasture where fighting bulls grazed. As he had done so often in the past, the horse seemed to want to play with them.

  Hernando did not think twice. He shortened the reins, lowered his heels and gripped with his knees to give himself a securer seat in the saddle. He entered the pasture and for a good while he once again was in heaven. He shouted and laughed, caracoling in front of the bulls’ horns, even managing to touch them briefly as he swerved from side to side. Azirat was agile and fast, gentle on the bit, responsive as never before to his legs and movements. He was the best! Despite his red colouring, he was the finest horse out of the hundreds that had passed through the King’s stables. And this magnificent specimen was going to fall into the hands of the worst and most arrogant rider in all Andalusia!

  Then Azirat pulled up, facing an immense wicked-looking black bull. The two weighed each other up from a distance, the bull snorting defiantly and the horse pawing the ground.

  Hernando imagined he could hear the crowd in the Plaza de la Corredera whistling at and booing the Count of Espiel.

  The horse tossed his head and pawed the ground again, as if he himself was challenging his adversary. Hernando did not know what was going on; he could feel Azirat’s rapid breathing against his legs.

  Suddenly the bull charged furiously. Hernando pulled on the reins and pressed Azirat’s flanks, ready to turn his mount aside. The horse did not respond. In a flash the booing still echoing in Hernando’s head turned into applause and wild cheering. When he could see the black bull’s furious eyes, Hernando let the reins drop, leaving the horse to choose its own destiny. Azirat reared up on his back legs and offered his chest to the bull’s horns.

  The blow was mortal. Hernando was thrown several feet from Azirat’s back. Instead of venting its rage on the fallen horse, the bull trotted off proudly. Perhaps it did so because of the law governing the life of animals, honouring one of their own who had chosen not to run away from a challenge.

  Later José Velasco, whom Don Diego had ordered to follow and keep a discreet eye on the Morisco, would swear to anyone who cared to listen that it was the horse that had deliberately delivered itself to a certain death. It had confronted numerous bulls throughout the autumn morning and had outwitted them all with an elegance and artistry the like of which he had never seen before.

  However, José Velasco’s affirmation, dismissed as a fantasy by all those who took the trouble to listen, was not sufficient for Hernando to avoid the arrest and imprisonment that Don Diego, in accordance with the authority vested in him, immediately ordered. The Morisco had begged him to grant his wish, and now Don Diego’s good faith had been thrown back in his face. To the stable master’s disappointment was added his concern about the Count of Espiel’s predictable and undoubtedly violent response to the death of his horse.

  Hernando was literally carried, battered and bruised, from the pasture by José Velasco. ‘You’ve had the chance to prosper and you’ve wasted it,’ Don Diego told him in front of the stable hands, Abbas among them. ‘I can’t do anything for you. It’s up to the law and the Count of Espiel, owner of the horse you’ve killed before its time, to decide what to do with you.’

  But Hernando was not listening, and did not react to Don Diego’s words. Instead, he was lost in the magic of the moment when Azirat had exercised his free will and chosen his own destiny. He had never ridden a horse that had done anything like it!

  ‘Take him to jail,’ the stable master ordered his men. ‘I, Don Diego López de Haro, master of the horse to His Majesty Philip II, so order it.’

  Hernando turned his head towards the noble. Jail! Could Azirat have foreseen that? Perhaps he should have died too, he thought as he walked along the Campo Real, passing in front of the Christian monarchs’ fortress, home to the Inquisition. He was escorted by José Velasco and two other men. He had nothing to live for. Only his mother, he thought sadly. They headed for the street with the jail in it; Hernando limped along with José gripping his arm. José was still confused by what he had witnessed in the pasture and the rational explanations offered by those who had heard his account and refused to believe it. But he’d seen it! José and Hernando looked at each other and exchanged a rueful, collusive grimace. They went under the cathedral bridge and walked up Calle de los Arquillos in silence, the mosque to their right. People looked curiously at the little procession as it went by.

  Only God could have guided Azirat’s steps, the same as He did with all true believers, Hernando concluded. But if he himself had escaped unharmed, what was the purpose behind the horse’s sacrifice? For him to end up in jail at the behest of the man for whose cause Azirat had given his life? ‘The devil will never enter a tent where an Arab horse resides,’ wrote the Prophet, elevating the noble beasts to defenders of the believers. What was God trying to tell him through Azirat? The doubt caused Hernando to stop walking. José Velasco tugged at his arm. What divine message could be contained in the events of that morning? he continued to wonder.

  ‘Keep moving!’ one of the men ordered, shoving him in the back.

  It felt like one of the hardest blows he had ever received. Surely Azirat could not want him to end up imprisoned? But how could he save himself from jail? He would not be able to run more than a few steps, and the men were armed whereas he . . .

  ‘Get on with it!’ A second shove nearly threw him to the ground.

  José Velasco let go of his arm and looked at him oddly. ‘Hernando, don’t make it any harder,’ he implored.

  The Deanes gate, which gave on to the mosque garden, was only a few feet away. The Morisco stared at it.

  ‘Don’t try . . .’ the guard tried to warn him.

  But despite the pain he felt in his entire body, Hernando was already running towards the mosque.

  He made it through Deanes gate just as the three men leapt on him. They all fell inside the cathedral’s orange garden. Hernando fought and kicked to get them off him, but his muscles no longer responded. Surrounded by the people who happened to be in the garden, José Velasco managed to immobilize him. The other two, who were back on their feet by now, seized him by the wrists and ankles to carry him out of the garden, as if they were transporting a bale of hay.

  ‘Shout it!’ said one of the onlookers.

  Shout what . . .? thought Hernando.

  ‘Say it!’ another man urged him.

  What did he have to say?

  Don Diego’s men had already lifted him off the ground, and he hung there like a dead animal.

  ‘Sanctuary!’ he heard a woman’s voice shout.

  ‘Sanctuary!’ the Morisco cried out, suddenly remembering how often he had heard this plea when he had been working in the cathedra
l. ‘I claim sanctuary!’

  The men carrying him came to a halt just inside the Deanes gate. They hesitated for a moment, but then immediately rushed to get him out of the cathedral boundary.

  ‘What are you doing?’ A priest blocked their path. ‘Didn’t you hear this man claim sanctuary? Release him under pain of immediate excommunication!’ Hernando felt the pressure ease on his hands and feet.

  ‘This man—’ José Velasco tried to explain.

  ‘It is sacrilege to violate the immunity and right of asylum of a holy place,’ insisted the priest, interrupting him abruptly.

  The groom gestured to the men with him and they released Hernando, who fell at everyone’s feet.

  ‘You won’t be a fugitive in the cathedral for long,’ José Velasco spat, already fearful of the punishment his master would impose for having allowed the detainee to escape. ‘They’ll throw you out of here within thirty days.’

  ‘That is for the ecclesiastical judge to decide,’ the priest said. José and his men, who both looked as worried as he did, scowled but said nothing. ‘And you,’ he added to Hernando, ‘go and find the vicar to inform him under what circumstances you are claiming this right.’

  43

  WHILST HERNANDO tried painfully to get to his feet, some of the onlookers applauded the priest’s intervention. If he had been in pain before, after fighting with José and his companions and the tremendous blow to the kidneys when he fell to the ground, he was now almost unable to move. A man with curly fair hair and blue eyes like his own came to help him.

  ‘Silence!’ shouted the priest. ‘Anyone causing a commotion loses the right to asylum and will be thrown out of the temple.’

  The cheering stopped immediately, but the crowd continued to jeer at and make fun of the men from the royal stables who had been forced to concede to the demand for asylum as soon as the priest was far enough away not to hear – or at least they did when they judged he would not make the effort to return and admonish them. This turned out to be the case, as although the priest shook his head wearily at the sound of laughter breaking out behind him amidst the large group of delinquents and unfortunates who took refuge in the cathedral to escape secular justice, he did not even turn round.