Epic Historial Collection (114 page)

“Josef and Raya will need a house,” Raschid said suddenly. “If you were to build it, other work would follow.”

Jack was startled. One thing he had not thought of building was houses. “Do you think they want me to build their house?” he said.

“They might.”

There was another long silence, during which Jack contemplated life as a housebuilder for wealthy merchants in Toledo.

Eventually Raschid seemed to come awake. He sat upright and opened his eyes wide. “I like you, Jack,” he said. “You're an honest man, and you're worth talking to, which is more than can be said for most people I've met. I hope we will always be friends.”

“So do I,” said Jack, somewhat surprised by this unprompted tribute.

“I'm a Christian, so I don't keep my women locked away, as some of my Muslim brothers do. On the other hand, I'm Arab; which means I don't give them quite the…forgive me, the license, that other women are used to. I allow them to meet and talk with male guests at the house. I even allow friendships to develop. But at the point where friendship begins to ripen into something more—as happens so naturally among young people—then I expect the man to make a formal move. Anything else would be an insult.”

“Of course,” Jack said.

“I knew you'd understand.” Raschid stood up and put an affectionate hand on Jack's shoulder. “I've never been blessed with a son; but if I had, I think he would have been like you.”

On impulse, Jack said: “But darker, I hope.”

Raschid looked blank for a moment, then he roared with laughter, startling the other guests around the courtyard. “Yes!” he said merrily. “Darker!” And he went into the house, still guffawing.

The older guests began to take their leave. Jack sat by himself, thinking over what had been said to him, as the afternoon cooled. He was being offered a deal, there was no question of that. If he married Aysha, Raschid would launch him as housebuilder to the wealthy of Toledo. There was also a warning: if he did not intend to marry her, he should stay away. The people of Spain had more elaborate manners than the English, but they could make their meaning plain when necessary.

When Jack reflected on his situation he sometimes found it incredible. Is this me? he thought. Is this Jack Jackson, bastard son of a man who was hanged, brought up in the forest, apprentice mason, escaped monk? Am I really being offered the beautiful daughter of a wealthy Arab merchant, plus a guaranteed living as a builder, in this balmy city? It sounds too good to be true. I even like the girl!

The sun was going down, and the courtyard was in shadow. There were only two people left in the arcade—himself and Josef. He was just wondering whether this situation could have been contrived when Raya and Aysha appeared, proving that it had. Despite the theoretical strictness about physical contact between girls and young men, their mother knew exactly what was happening, and Raschid probably did too. They would give the sweethearts a few moments of solitude; then, before they had time to do anything serious, the mother would come out into the courtyard, pretending to be outraged, and order the girls back inside.

On the other side of the courtyard Raya and Josef immediately started kissing. Jack stood up as Aysha approached him. She was wearing a floor-length white dress of Egyptian cotton, a fabric Jack had never seen before he came to Spain. Softer than wool and finer than linen, it clung to Aysha's limbs as she moved, and its white color seemed to glow in the twilight. It made her brown eyes look almost black. She stood close to him, grinning impishly. “What did he say to you?” she said.

Jack guessed she meant her father. “He offered to set me up as a housebuilder.”

“What a dowry!” she said scornfully. “I can't believe it! At least he might have offered you money.”

She had no patience with traditional Saracen indirection, Jack observed wryly. He found her frankness refreshing. “I don't think I want to build houses,” he said.

She suddenly became solemn. “Do you like me?”

“You know I do.”

She took a step forward, lifted her face, closed her eyes, stood on tiptoe and kissed him. She smelled of musk and ambergris. She opened her mouth, and her tongue darted between his lips playfully. His arms went around her almost involuntarily. He rested his hands on her waist. The cotton was very light: it was almost like touching her bare skin. She took his hand and raised it to her breast. Her body was lean and taut, and her breast was shallow, like a small, firm mound, with a tiny hard nipple at its tip. Her chest moved up and down as she became aroused. Jack was shocked to feel her hand moving between his legs. He squeezed her nipple between his fingertips. She gasped, and broke away from him, panting. He dropped his hands.

“Did I hurt you?” he whispered.

“No!” she said.

He thought of Aliena, and felt guilty; then he realized how foolish that was. Why should he feel that he was betraying a woman who had
married
another man?

Aysha looked at him for a moment. It was almost dark, but he could see that her face was suffused with desire. She lifted his hand and put it back on her breast. “Do it again, but harder,” she said urgently.

He found her nipple and leaned forward to kiss her, but she pulled her head back and watched his face while he caressed her. He squeezed her nipple gently, then, obediently, pinched it hard. She arched her back so that her flat breasts protruded and her nipples made small hard puckers in the fabric of her dress. Jack bent his head to her breast. His lips closed around her nipple through the cotton. Then, on impulse, he took it between his teeth and bit down. He heard her sharp intake of breath.

He felt a shudder pass through her. She lifted his head from her breast and pressed herself against him. He bent his face to hers. She kissed him frantically, as if she wanted to cover his face with her mouth, and pulled his body to hers, making small panicky sounds in the back of her throat. Jack was aroused, bewildered and even a little scared: he had never known anything like this. He thought she was about to reach a climax. Then they were interrupted.

Her mother's voice came from the doorway. “Raya! Aysha! Come inside at once!”

Aysha looked up at him, panting. After a moment she kissed him again, hard, pressing her lips against his until she bruised him. She broke away. “I love you,” she hissed. Then she ran into the house.

Jack watched her go. Raya followed her at a more sedate pace. Their mother flashed a disapproving look at him and Josef and then went in after the girls, shutting the door decisively behind her. Jack stood staring at the closed door, wondering what to make of it all.

Josef crossed the courtyard and interrupted his reverie. “Such beautiful girls—both of them!” he said with a conspiratorial wink.

Jack nodded absently and moved toward the gate. Josef went with him. As they passed under the arch, a servant materialized out of the shadows and closed the gate behind them.

Josef said: “The trouble with being engaged is that it leaves you with an ache between the legs.” Jack made no reply. Josef said: “I might go down to Fatima's to get it eased.” Fatima's was the whorehouse. Despite its Saracen name, nearly all the girls were light-skinned, and the few Arab whores were very high-priced. “Do you want to come?” Josef said.

“No,” Jack replied. “I've got a different kind of ache. Good night.” He walked quickly away. Josef was not his favorite companion at the best of times and tonight Jack found himself in an unforgiving mood.

The night air cooled as he headed back toward the college where he had a hard bed in the dormitory. He felt he was at a turning point. He was being offered a life of ease and prosperity, and all he had to do was forget Aliena and abandon his aspiration to build the most beautiful cathedral in the world.

That night he dreamed that Aysha came to him, her naked body slippery with scented oil, and she rubbed herself against him but would not let him make love to her.

When he woke up in the morning he had made his decision.

 

The servants would not let Aliena into the house of Raschid Alharoun. She probably looked like a beggar, she thought as she stood outside the gate, in her dusty tunic and worn boots, with her baby in her arms. “Tell Raschid Alharoun that I am seeking his friend Jack Fitzjack from England,” she said in French, wondering if the dark-skinned servants could understand a single word. After a muttered consultation in some Saracen tongue, one of the servants, a tall man with coaly skin and hair like the fleece of a black sheep, went into the house.

Aliena fidgeted restlessly while the other servants stared at her openly. She had not learned patience, even on this interminable pilgrimage. After her disappointment at Compostela she had followed the road into the interior of Spain, to Salamanca. No one there remembered a redhaired young man interested in cathedrals and jongleurs, but a kindly monk told her that there was a community of English scholars at Toledo. It seemed a faint hope, but Toledo was not much farther down the dusty road, so she pressed on.

Another tantalizing disappointment had been waiting for her here. Yes, Jack had been here—what a stroke of luck!—but alas, he had already left. She was catching up with him: she was now only a month behind him. But, once again, nobody knew where he had gone.

In Compostela she had been able to guess that he must have gone south, because she had come from the east, and there was sea to the north and west. Here, unfortunately, there were more possibilities. He might have gone northeast, back toward France; west to Portugal; or south to Granada; and from the Spanish coast he might have taken ship for Rome, Tunis, Alexandria or Beirut.

Aliena had decided to give up the search if she did not get a strong indication of which way he had gone when he left here. She was bone-weary and a long way from home. She had very little energy or determination left, and she could not face going farther with no more than a faint hope of success. She was ready to turn around and go back to England, and try to forget about Jack forever.

Another servant came out of the white house. This one was dressed in more costly clothes and spoke French. He looked at Aliena warily but addressed her politely. “You are a friend of Mr. Jack?”

“Yes, an old friend from England. I would like to speak with Raschid Alharoun.”

The servant glanced at the baby.

Aliena said: “I'm a relative of Jack's.” It was not untrue: she was the estranged wife of Jack's stepbrother, and that was a relationship.

The servant opened the gate wider and said: “Please come with me.”

Aliena stepped inside gratefully. If she had been turned away here it would have been the end of the road.

She followed the servant across a pleasant courtyard, past a splashing fountain. She wondered what had drawn Jack to the home of this wealthy merchant. It seemed an unlikely friendship. Had Jack recited verse narratives in these shady arcades?

They went into the house. It was a palatial home, with high, cool rooms, floors of stone and marble, and elaborately carved furniture with rich upholstery. They went through two archways and a wooden door, and then Aliena had the feeling they might have entered the women's quarters. The servant held up his hand for her to wait, then coughed gently.

A moment later a tall Saracen woman in a black robe glided into the room, holding a corner of her garment up in front of her mouth in a pose that was insulting in any language. She looked at Aliena and said in French: “Who are you?”

Aliena drew herself up to her full height. “I am the Lady Aliena, daughter of the late earl of Shiring,” she said as haughtily as she could. “I take it I have the pleasure of addressing the wife of Raschid the pepper seller.” She could play this game as well as anyone.

“What do you want here?”

“I came to see Raschid.”

“He doesn't receive women.”

Aliena realized she had no hope of gaining this woman's cooperation. However, she had nowhere else to go, so she kept trying. “He may receive a friend of Jack's,” she persisted.

“Is Jack your husband?”

“No.” Aliena hesitated. “He's my brother-in-law.”

The woman looked skeptical. Like most people, she probably assumed that Jack had impregnated Aliena, then abandoned her, and Aliena was pursuing him with the object of forcing him to marry her and support the child.

The woman half turned and called out something in a language Aliena did not understand. A moment later three young women came into the room. It was obvious from their looks that they were her daughters. She spoke to them in the same language, and they all stared at Aliena. There followed a rapid conversation in which the syllable
Jack
recurred often.

Aliena felt humiliated. She was tempted to turn on her heel and walk out; but that would mean giving up her search altogether. These awful people were her last hope. She raised her voice, interrupting their conversation, and said: “Where is Jack?” She intended to be forceful but to her dismay her voice just sounded plaintive.

The daughters fell silent.

The mother said: “We don't know where he is.”