Soon afterwards the guests began to leave. This time Hernando had no doubt: amidst the hustle and bustle of goodbyes, when his eyes fixed on Isabel, she held his gaze.
48
‘WHAT HAPPENED in Juviles?’
The cathedral chapter clerk was quick to ask this question once the formal introductions had been completed. He was ready to write down everything Hernando said in the small room next to the archive.
Early in the morning after the celebrations, while the rest of the house was still asleep – except for the judge, whom nothing or nobody could keep from his duties – Hernando had been obliged to answer the dean’s summons. He mounted Volador and, accompanied by a servant, crossed the Albaicín to Calle de San Juan. He went past the San Gregorio hermitage and from there into Calle de la Cárcel, which gave on to the cathedral. As in Córdoba, this was still being built: work on the chancel was complete, and the towers were being raised; however, unlike in Córdoba, the building in Granada was not on top of the old mosque, but alongside it. The large mosque and its minaret had been converted into the sacristy, which included several chapels and ecclesiastical offices. Hernando passed under the low ceilings of the Muslims’ place of prayer, staring up at the white stone columns ending in arches that supported the wooden roof beams and divided the mosque into five naves. From there a priest accompanied him to the chapter clerk’s office.
What should he say about Juviles? he wondered while the man, quill poised to write, waited for his reply. That his mother had stabbed the parish priest to death?
‘It is hard and truly painful for me’, said Hernando, trying to avoid the question, ‘to tell you about Juviles and the horror I was forced to witness there. My memories of it are very confused.’ The clerk raised his eyes and frowned. ‘Perhaps . . . perhaps it would be more practical if you allowed me to think it over, gather my thoughts, and then write them down and send them to you.’
‘Do you know how to write?’ asked the clerk, surprised.
‘Yes. In fact, it was the Juviles sacristan, Andrés, who taught me.’
What had become of Andrés? he wondered. He had heard nothing more of him since arriving in Córdoba.
‘I am sorry to have to tell you that he died recently,’ said the clerk, as if reading his mind. ‘We learnt he had gone to live in Córdoba, and searched for him so that he could testify, but to no avail.’
Hernando sighed with relief, but then started to shift uneasily on the hard, battered chair on which he was sitting at the clerk’s desk. Why not put an end to this farce? He was a Muslim! He believed in the one true God and in Muhammad’s prophetic mission. As he was thinking this over, the clerk closed the bundle of papers on his table.
‘I have a lot to do,’ he said. ‘You would save me valuable time if you told us what you have to say in writing.’
Time and effort, Hernando said to himself when the man stood up and shook his hand.
The sun was shining brightly, and Granada was bustling with activity. Hernando climbed back on Volador and considered dismissing the servant so that he could wander through the city. He could explore the silk-weavers’ quarter or find an inn where he could try and make sense of everything that was happening to him. The previous evening, when the house and garden had emptied of guests, he had prayed, thinking of Isabel. He remembered the warmth of her body and the touch of her hand. Why had she felt for his hand? The servant was awaiting his orders impatiently. And on top of that, Juviles. All of a sudden, Hernando tugged on his horse’s reins. He recalled the Christians in the village, naked and with their hands tied behind their backs, waiting in a line to be killed in a field, while the Moriscos, his mother among them, finished off the priest and his assistant. Many of those men had survived thanks to El Zaguer’s clemency, when he went against Barrax’s orders. What might they have said? They must all have witnessed Aisha’s cruelty, and her cries to heaven invoking Allah, the bloody dagger still in her hand after she had wreaked her vengeance. Had they linked her to him? Hernando’s mother had murdered Don Martín! Probably not, he reassured himself. The most they would have done was connect Aisha with Brahim, the village muleteer, rather than with a fourteen-year-old boy, although there was still the possibility . . .
‘Let’s go back to the house,’ he told the servant, spurring his horse on without waiting for him.
Hernando found Don Sancho having breakfast on his own. ‘Good morning,’ he greeted him.
‘I see you’re up early,’ the hidalgo replied. Sitting at the table, Hernando explained the dean’s summons and his prompt appearance in front of the clerk. Don Sancho listened while he ate. ‘Well, I have another summons for you. Last night I dined with Don Pedro de Granada Venegas,’ he said. Hernando frowned. What more did the Christians want from him? ‘Every so often,’ Don Sancho went on, ‘Don Pedro invites people to his house. This time he would like us to come.’
‘I am very busy,’ Hernando said. ‘You go.’
‘The invitation is for both of us. In fact, I think it is you that Don Pedro wants to meet,’ the hidalgo admitted. ‘These are important people,’ he insisted. ‘Don Pedro is the lord of Campotéjar and chief magistrate of the Generalife. His circumstances are somewhat similar to yours: his family are Muslims who converted to Christianity. Perhaps that is why he wants to meet you. His grandfather, a descendant of the Moorish princes, played a prominent role in the reconquest of Granada, and after that supported the Emperor. His father, Don Alonso, collaborated with King Philip II in the Alpujarra war so wholeheartedly it almost ruined him. To compensate for his losses the King has awarded him a modest pension of four hundred ducats. Many interesting people go to his gatherings. You cannot snub a Granada noble who is related to the grandest Spanish families: my cousin Don Alfonso would be insulted if he found out.’
‘If you’re threatening me with your cousin’s displeasure, you must really want me to go,’ Hernando replied sarcastically. ‘We’ll talk about it another time, Don Sancho,’ he said, putting an end to their conversation by standing up.
‘But—’
‘Some other time, Don Sancho, some other time . . .’ he insisted, already on his feet.
Hernando hesitated whether to leave the gardens or not, and in the end decided to take refuge in his bedroom. Isabel, Juviles, the cathedral chapter, and now this invitation to the house of a renegade Muslim noble who had collaborated with the Christians in the Alpujarra war. Everything had gone crazy! He needed to forget, to seek calm, and the best way to do that was to shut himself in and pray for the rest of the morning. He went past the door to Isabel’s bedroom just as her chambermaid was leaving the room after helping her to dress. The girl greeted him, and Hernando turned his head to respond. Through the half-open door he could see Isabel smoothing down the skirt of her black dress. The maid took a few moments to close the door, long enough for Isabel, who was leaning over in the centre of the room with the sunlight streaming in through the large window giving on to the balcony, to raise her head and fix her eyes on him.
‘Good morning,’ Hernando stammered to neither of the two women in particular. He could feel a hot flush spreading through his body.
The maid’s lips sketched a discreet smile as she bowed her head. Isabel had no chance to answer before the door shut completely. Hernando found he was breathing heavily when he reached his room, recalling the sensation of Isabel’s body pressed against his. Still flustered, he gazed around the room: the magnificent four-poster bed that had already been made; the inlaid clothes chest; the tapestries with biblical scenes all round the walls; the table with a washbasin to wash in, and the carefully folded linen towels next to it. And in the far wall the door leading to the same balcony that ran outside the judge’s bedroom and that of his wife, overlooking the Alhambra.
The Alhambra! ‘Unhappy he who lost such a thing’. Staring out at the fortress, Hernando recalled the phrase that the Emperor Charles was said to have uttered. Someone had explained to the King how Aisha, mother of Boabdil, the la
st Muslim King of Granada, condemned him for weeping as he abandoned the city to the Catholic monarchs: ‘You are right to cry like a woman for what you did not have the courage to defend like a man.’
‘The King’s mother was right to say what she did,’ it was said the Emperor replied, ‘because if I had been him, I would have preferred this Alhambra to be my tomb than to live without my kingdom in the Alpujarra.’
Fascinated by the palace’s red outline, Hernando was startled to see that Isabel had left her room and was leaning languidly over the low stone balustrade of the balcony on the second floor of the house, also contemplating the wonderful Nasrid fortress. Still inside his own room, Hernando gazed at Isabel’s blond hair gathered up in a net, her slender neck, and the voluptuous curves of her body.
Hernando took two steps out on to the balcony. When she heard the noise, Isabel turned towards him; her eyes were shining.
‘It’s hard to choose between two such beautiful sights,’ said Hernando, gesturing towards her and the Alhambra.
She straightened up, turned, and came towards him, hardly knowing where to look. They were so close they almost breathed as one. She reached out and brushed the fingers of his hand.
‘But you can only possess one of them,’ she whispered.
‘Isabel,’ sighed Hernando.
‘I have dreamt a thousand nights about that day we rode together,’ she said, moving his hand down towards her stomach. ‘A thousand nights I’ve shivered just as I did that day when your hand touched me.’
Isabel kissed him. A long, warm, sweet kiss that Hernando received with his eyes tight closed. When she drew her head back, Hernando pulled her into his room. He made sure that the door to the corridor was barred, and did the same with the one that gave on to the balcony.
They kissed again in the centre of the room. Hernando slid his hands down her back, struggling with the hooped skirt that prevented him feeling her body. Despite her passionate kisses and excited breathing, Isabel did not move her hands from his waist to hold him. Hernando tried to undo the fastenings of the bodice of her dress, but was too clumsy.
Isabel moved away from him and turned so that it would be easier for him to undo it.
As Hernando struggled with the hooks with trembling fingers, Isabel undid the detachable sleeves and threw them on the floor. Hernando finally managed to undo the fastenings of the top half of her bodice, which fell forward and freed her breasts from the pressure of the corset. He untied the laces round her waist, and Isabel finally stepped out of her uncomfortable skirts. Feeling for her breasts beneath her shift, Hernando removed her bodice. He started to kiss her neck. Isabel tried to pull back, but he squeezed her all the more tightly. Whispering in her ear, he slid his hand down towards her thighs; the hem of her voluminous chemise was gathered beneath her groin and buttocks, covering her most intimate parts. He clumsily untied the knots.
‘No . . .’ Isabel protested when she felt Hernando’s fingers probing the moistness between her legs. He paused, and she escaped from his grasp. Flushed and trembling, she murmured, ‘No,’ a second time.
Was he rushing her? Hernando wondered.
She stretched her hands out to his chest. To his surprise she did not start to undo his doublet, but instead kissed him, and then turned away towards the bed. She lay on it still in her shift, her legs bent and slightly apart.
Hernando stood at the foot of the bed, watching her breasts rise and fall in time with her rapid breathing.
‘Take me,’ she said, opening her legs a little further.
‘Take me’? Was that all? She was still dressed! He had not even seen her naked, or been able to caress or play with her until she was aroused, to get to know her body. He went over to the bed and lay alongside her. He made to lift the chemise to get a glimpse of the dark triangle veiled underneath, but Isabel sat up and caught hold of his hand.
‘Take me,’ she repeated, after kissing him passionately once more.
Hernando got to his feet and began to take his clothes off. She might not be able to . . . but he was. He continued until he was stark naked at the foot of the bed, his penis erect. Isabel turned her head, staring into space. She sighed as she opened her legs a little further. The chemise fell back to the top of her thighs.
Hernando looked at her. It was obvious she wanted him: she was sighing and moving nervously in the bed, waiting for him to enter her, and yet . . . this was the only position she knew! Sin! It was a sin to take pleasure in making love. An image suddenly flashed through his mind: Fátima, naked, tattooed with henna and covered in oil, moving until she found the most pleasurable position for both of them, writhing between his legs, directing his caresses without any sense of shame. Fátima! He heard Isabel groan and returned to reality. Christians! he said to himself, before plunging on top of her despite the barrier of the shift between them.
Isabel could not free herself from her prejudices as Hernando started to move slowly, rhythmically on top of her. She clasped him round his back, but still looked away, as if scared of meeting his eye. And her hands did not claw at him.
‘Enjoy it,’ he whispered in her ear.
Isabel bit her lips and closed her eyes. Hernando moved gently to and fro, trying to understand her stifled groans.
‘Free yourself!’ he urged her, as the light from the window enveloped their bodies.
‘Push,’ he begged her. ‘Feel me. Feel yourself. Feel your body. Let yourself go, my love. Enjoy it, for God’s sake!’ Hernando reached his climax still urging her to take pleasure in their love-making. He lay panting on her. He wondered whether Isabel would enjoy it more a second time. Would she . . .? The answer came when she wriggled from beneath him, as though to show she wanted to get away. Hernando rested his body on his hands, kissing her once more. There was no answering passion in her kiss. He got up off the bed and she did the same, still not looking at him.
‘There’s no reason for you to be ashamed,’ he said, trying to reassure her and reaching out to cup her chin. Isabel would have none of it, and ran out barefoot on to the balcony and back into her room.
Hernando clicked his tongue, then bent to pick up his clothes, strewn all round the foot of the bed. He had no doubt at all that Isabel desired him, he reflected as he put his shirt on, but feelings of guilt, sin and shame had overwhelmed her. ‘Woman is a fruit that only offers her perfume when rubbed in the hand,’ he remembered Fátima explaining to him in her soft voice, repeating the lessons she had learnt from the Muslim books about love. ‘Woman is like a basil plant, or like amber, which only gives off its scent when warmed. If you fail to arouse a woman with caresses and kisses, sucking her lips and drinking from her mouth, biting the inside of her thighs and squeezing her breasts, you will not find what you want in her bed: pleasure. Nor will her affection for you last if she does not reach ecstasy, if, when the moment comes, her vagina does not grip your penis.’ How shocking pious Christian women would find these lessons in love!
On the far side of the strait separating Spain from Barbary, stretched out in the semi-darkness of the palace Brahim had built for her in the centre of Tetuan, Fátima found it impossible to sleep. By her side she could hear the breathing of the man she most hated in the world. She could feel the touch of his skin, and could not prevent a shudder of horror running through her. As on every other night, Brahim had satisfied his desire with her; as on every other night, Fátima had pressed herself to him so that he could rub the stump of his arm between her breasts, easing the pain he still felt there. As on every other night, the groans from the Christians held captive in the underground jails of the city were like echoes of the thousand unanswered questions swirling round her brain. What could have become of Ibn Hamid? Why had he not come in search of her? Was he still alive?
Throughout the three years she had been in Brahim’s power, she had never lost hope that the man she loved would come and rescue her. As time went by, however, she realized that Aisha must have respected her silent plea. What could she have said
to her son to prevent him coming to find her? It could only have been one thing: that they were all dead. If not that . . . if she had said anything else, Ibn Hamid would have followed her and fought to win them back. She was certain of that! But even if Aisha had assured him that his family was dead, why had he not sought to take revenge on Brahim? In the still of the night, she heard once more the cries of the Marquis of Casabermeja’s men as they abducted her: In the name of Ubaid, Morisco outlaw, close your doors and windows if you don’t want to get hurt! Everyone in Córdoba must think it was Ubaid who had killed them, and if Aisha had said nothing . . . Ibn Hamid would not know anything about what had happened. That must be it! If not, he would have moved heaven and earth to avenge them. She was sure of it . . . Revenge! The same sentiment that, over a period of months when she finally became convinced Hernando was not coming to rescue her, she had managed to stifle in Brahim.
‘He’s nothing but a coward,’ Brahim had said repeatedly. ‘If he doesn’t come to Tetuan to rescue his family, I’ll send a party to kill him.’
Fátima was careful to avoid telling him that she thought Hernando was not going to come, that she herself had made a silent plea to Aisha not to tell him what had happened.
‘If you abandon your plans to kill him, I will give myself to you,’ she said one night after he had mounted her as though she were an animal. ‘You’ll be able to enjoy me like a real wife. I will give myself completely. If you don’t, I’ll kill myself.’