‘All of it happened after you had left us in disgrace, Zahra,’ Miguel moaned in a soft voice. ‘If you had stayed everything might have been different. You took truth and generosity with you. We were left with fear and sorrow and malice. Your absence disfigured us all. I think our father really died of grief. He missed you more than he would ever admit. Almost half a century has now passed and I have not been able to talk about any of this with even a single human being. This failing heart of mine was preparing to unburden itself to you. On the day I was ready to talk, you, my sister, went and died. Peace be upon you.’
As he rose and looked one more time at the piece of earth that covered his dead sister, a familiar voice disturbed his solitude and startled him.
‘I did talk to her, Your Excellency!’
‘Ibn Zaydun!’
‘I was weeping on the other side of the grave. You did not see me.’
The two men embraced. Al-Zindiq told Miguel of how he had finally been rejected by Zahra; how the pride of the Hudayl clan had at long last reclaimed its prodigal daughter; how the real kernel had been thoroughly camouflaged; how, in the weeks before her death, she had actually suffered at the memory of their love; how she had come to feel that the worst of her injuries had been self-inflicted, and how she had begun to regret the break with Ibn Farid and her family, for which she accepted sole responsibility.
‘I always knew,’ Miguel commented, ‘that our father was the most important thing in her life.’
The happiness Miguel felt on hearing this news was as great as the sadness it had caused al-Zindiq. Bishop and sceptic, for a moment they remained motionless, facing each other. They had once belonged to the same sunken civilization, but the universe which each inhabited had been separated by an invisible sea. The woman who had tried to bridge the gap between their two worlds, and had been punished for her pains, lay buried a few yards from where they stood.
The fact that, during her last days on this earth, she had, in her heart, returned to the family, consoled her brother. For al-Zindiq, sad, embittered al-Zindiq, it was but another example of the deep-rooted divisions in al-Andalus, which had torn the children of the Prophet asunder. They had failed to build a lasting monument to their early achievements.
‘All that is left,’ al-Zindiq whispered to himself, ‘is for us to be inquisitioned. Yes! And to the very marrow of our sorry bones!’
Miguel heard, but kept silent.
As the two men returned to the house, one to join his family, the other to have breakfast in the kitchen, Zuhayr was on his way to Gharnata. He was riding at a fair pace, but his thoughts were on those whom he had left behind. The parting with his young brother had upset him the most. Yazid, as if guided by a mysterious instinct, had felt that he would not see his older brother ever again. He had hugged Zuhayr tight and wept, pleading with him not to go to Gharnata and certain death. The sight, witnessed by the entire household, had brought tears to the eyes of all, including the Dwarf, which had surprised Yazid and helped to distract him from the principal cause of his distress.
‘I will remember this red soil forever,’ thought Zuhayr, stroking Khalid’s mane as he rode away from the village. When he reached the top of a hill, he reined in the horse and turned round to look at al-Hudayl. The whitewashed houses were glistening in the light, and beyond them were the thick stone walls of the house where he had been born.
‘I will remember you forever: in the winter sun like today, in the spring when the fragrance of the blossoms makes our sap rise to the surface, and in the heat of the summer when the gentle sound of a single drop of water soothes the mind and cools the senses. Then, a few drops of rain to settle the dust, followed by the scent of jasmine.
‘I will remember the taste of the water from the mountain springs which flow through our house, the deep yellow of the wild flowers which crown the gorse, the heady mountain air filtered through the pines and the majesty of the palms as they dance to the breezes from heaven, the spicy breath of thyme, the fragrance of the wood fires in winter. And how on a clear summer’s day the blue sky is suddenly overpowered by darkness and little Yazid, clutching a piece of glass which belonged to our great-grandfather, waits patiently on the terrace outside the old tower for the stars to become visible once again. There he stands observing the universe till our mother or Ama drags him downstairs to bed.
‘All this,’ Zuhayr told himself, ‘will always be the passionate heart of my life.’
He pulled on the reins and, turning his back on al-Hudayl, gently pressed his heels on the horse’s belly, causing the animal to gallop towards the road which led to the gates of Gharnata.
Zuhayr had been brought up on a thousand and one tales of chivalry and knighthood. The example of Ibn Farid, whose sword he was carrying, weighed heavily on his young shoulders. He knew those days were over, but the romance of a last battle, of riding out into the unknown, taking the enemy by surprise and, who knows, perhaps even winning a victory, was deeply embedded in his psyche. It was this which had inspired his impulsive behaviour.
But, as he often told himself and his friends, his actions were not exclusively inspired by fantasies associated with the past or dreams of glory for the future. Zuhayr may not have been the most astute of Umar and Zubayda’s children, but he was, undoubtedly, the most sentimental.
When he had been half Yazid’s age news had come to the village of the destruction and capture of al-Hama by the Christians. Al-Hama, the city of baths, where he used to be taken to see his cousins once every six months. For them the baths and the hot-water springs were part of everyday life. For Zuhayr a visit to the famous springs, where the Sultan of Gharnata himself used to bathe, was a very special treat. They had all died. All the men, women and children had been massacred, and their bodies thrown to the dogs outside the city gates.
The Castilians had waded in blood and, if their own chroniclers were to be believed, they relished the experience. The entire kingdom of Gharnata, including many Christian monks, had been mortified by the scale of the massacre. A loud wail had been heard rising from the village as the citizens had rushed to the mosque to offer prayers for the dead and swear vengeance. All Zuhayr could think of that day was the cousins with whom he had played so often. The thought of two boys his own age and their three older sisters being killed without mercy had filled him with pain and hatred. His father’s sombre face as he announced the news: ‘They have destroyed our beautiful al-Hama. Ferdinand and Isabella now hold the key to Gharnata. It won’t be long before they take our city.’
Zuhayr had entered the deepest recesses of his memory and had begun to hear the old voices. Ibn Hasd was describing the reaction in Gharnata as news of the carnage in al-Hama reached the palace. Zuhayr pictured the old Sultan Abul Hassan. He had only seen him once, when he was two or three, but he could never forget that weather-beaten, scarred face and the trim white beard. It was this old man whose courageous but crazed attack and capture of the frontier town of Zahara had provoked the Christian response against al-Hama. He had rushed with his soldiers to save the town, but it was too late. The Christian knights had forced him to retreat. The Sultan had sent town-criers all over Gharnata, preceded by drummers and players of tambourines, whose loud but sombre music had alerted the citizens that a statement from the palace was on its way. People had crowded the streets, but the town-crier had uttered only one sentence: