Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree (35 page)

Umar’s horse was hamstrung and the fall concussed him. Soldiers dragged him to the captain. As the two men looked at each other, the captain’s eyes gleamed with hatred. Umar dispassionately studied his young conqueror.

‘You see before you the wrath of our Lord,’ said the captain.

‘Yes,’ replied Umar. ‘Our village emptied of its people. Women and children put to the sword. Our mosques given to the flames and our fields desolated. Men like you remind me of the fish in the sea who devour each other. These lands will never be prosperous again. The blood I see in your eyes will one day destroy your own side. There is only one Allah and he is Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.’

The captain did not reply. He looked at the soldiers on either side of his prisoner and nodded. They did not need further urging. Umar bin Abdallah was forced to his knees. Then the archers struck. Two arrows found their targets as Umar’s would-be-executioners were felled. The captain screamed: ‘Burn this place down.’ Then he ordered two other soldiers forward, but by this time Umar had caught up a sword from one of the fallen men and was fighting once again.

It took six men to recapture the chief of the Banu Hudayl. This time he was beheaded at once, and his head skewered on the point of a pike. After being paraded round the forecourt it was taken into the outer courtyard. Screams and wails burst forth, followed by cries of anger and the clash of blades.

An archer who had witnessed Umar’s death ran from the scene and informed Zubayda. Tears poured down her face. She took a sword and joined the defenders in the courtyard outside.

‘Come,’ she shouted at the other women, ‘we must not let them take us alive!’

The women, to the great astonishment of the Christians, displayed a boundless courage. These were not the weak and pampered creatures of the harem about whom they had been told so many fanciful stories. Once again it was the element of surprise which aided the women of al-Hudayl. They were responsible for decreasing the size of the captain’s army by at least a hundred men. Ultimately they succumbed, but with swords and daggers in their hands.

After two hours of fierce fighting, the killing was done. All of the defenders lay dead. Weavers and rhetoricians, true believers and false prophets, men and women, they had fought together and died in view of each other. Juan the carpenter, Ibn Hasd and the old sceptic al-Zindiq had refused Umar’s offer to hide in the granary. They too, for the first time in their lives, had wielded swords and perished in the massacre.

The captain was angry at having lost so many men. He gave the order for the house to be looted and burnt. For another hour the men, drunk on blood, celebrated their victory in an orgy of plunder. The children, who had been hidden in the baths, were decapitated or drowned, depending on the mood of the soldiers involved. Then they set the old house alight and returned to their camp.

Lingering with his two aides, the captain now dismounted and sat down in the garden, watching the house burn. He took off his boots and dangled his feet in the stream which bisected the garden.

‘How they loved the water!’

Beneath the ground, Yazid would wait no longer. It had been silent for a very long time. The Dwarf insisted that the boy must stay, but he was adamant.

‘You stay here, Dwarf,’ he whispered to the old man. ‘I will go and see what has happened and then come back. Please don’t come with me. Only one of us should go. I’ll scream if you disobey me.’

Still the Dwarf would not budge and Yazid, feigning exhaustion, pretended to settle down again. As the grip on his arm relaxed just a little, he broke loose. Before the Dwarf could stop him he had climbed up the ladder and forced up the cover enough to slip through. When he stood up, it was to see a litter of corpses and his house on fire. The sight unhinged him. He lost all his fear and began to run towards the courtyard, screaming the names of his parents.

The captain was startled by the noise. As the boy ran through the garden, the two aides seized him. Yazid kicked and flailed.

‘Let me go! I must see my father and mother.’

‘Go with him,’ the captain told his men. ‘Let him see for himself the power of our Church.’

When he saw his father’s head impaled on a pike, the boy fell on his knees and wept. They could go no further because the flames were overpowering, as was the stench of burning bodies. If they had not held him back, Yazid would have rushed through the flames to find his mother and perished in the fire. Instead they dragged him back to the captain, who was now ready to mount his horse.

‘Well boy?’ he asked in a jovial tone. ‘Now do you see what we do to infidels?’

Yazid stared at him, paralysed by inexpressible grief.

‘Have you lost your tongue, boy?’

‘I wish I had a dagger,’ said Yazid in a strangely distant voice. ‘For I would run it through your heart. I wish now that many centuries ago, we had treated you as you have treated us.’

The captain was impressed despite himself. He smiled at Yazid and looked thoughtfully at his colleagues. They were relieved at his reaction. They did not have the stomach to kill the boy.

‘You see?’ he said to them. ‘Did I not say earlier today that the hatred of the survivors is the poison that could destroy us?’

Yazid was not listening. His father’s head was talking to him.

‘Remember, my son, that we have always prided ourselves on how we treat the vanquished. Your great-grandfather used to invite knights he had defeated to stay in our house and feast with him. Never forget that if we become like them, nothing can save us.’

‘I will remember, Abu,’ said Yazid.

‘What did you say, boy?’ asked the captain.

‘Would you like to stay at our house and be my guest tonight?’

The captain gave his aides the signal they knew only too well. Normally they carried out his orders at once, but it was clear that the boy had lost his mind. It was like cold-blooded murder. They hesitated. The captain, enraged, drew his sword and plunged it into the boy’s heart. Yazid fell to the ground with crossed arms. He expired on the spot. There was a half-smile on his face as the blood, full of bubbles, gurgled out of his mouth.

The captain mounted his horse. Without a glance at his two lieutenants, he rode out of the gate.

Night came on. The sky which had seemed like a burning abyss a few hours ago was now dark blue. First two and then a pleiade of stars began to fill the sky. The fires had gone out and everything was dark, the way it must have been a thousand years before when the land grew wild and there were neither dwellings nor creatures to live in them.

The Dwarf, his eyes rigid with horror, was sitting on the ground with Yazid’s body in his arms, swaying gently to and fro. His tears were falling on the face of the dead child and mingling with his blood.

‘How did it come to pass that of all of them I alone am still alive?’

He repeated this phrase over and over again. He did not know how or when he fell asleep or when the cursed dawn announced a new day.

Since the moment Ibn Basit had told him that he had seen a force of several hundred Christian soldiers outside al-Hudayl, Zuhayr had almost killed his mare by riding without stop till he reached the approaches to the village. Deep lines marked his face, descending from the side of his eyes to the edge of his lips. His eyes, usually black and shining, seemed colourless and dull in their deep hollows. Two months of fighting had aged him a great deal. It was a clear night as Zuhayr galloped through the gorse, his thoughts not on his men, but on his family and his home.

‘Peace be upon you, Zuhayr bin Umar!’ cried a voice.

Zuhayr reined in his horse. It was a messenger-spy from Abu Zaid.

‘I am in a hurry, brother.’

‘I wanted to warn you before you reached al-Hudayl. There is nothing left, Zuhayr bin Umar. The Christians are in their cups and telling anyone in Gharnata who will listen to them. They are senseless tonight.’

‘Peace be upon you, my friend,’ said Zuhayr looking blankly into the distance. ‘I will go and see for myself.’

Within fifteen minutes he had reached al-Zindiq’s cave, half-hoping, half-praying that the old man would be there to calm his fears. It was deserted. Al-Zindiq’s manuscripts and paper were lying there, neatly tied into bundles, as if the old man were preparing to leave forever. Zuhayr rested for a few minutes and gave the horse some water. Then he rode on. He pulled in the horse as he rounded a spur of hillside and looked upward in the familiar direction. The pale light of dawn shone upon charred remains. He rode in a trance towards the house. The worst was true. When he saw the ruins from a distance, his first thought was of revenge. ‘I will seek them out and kill them one by one. I swear on my brother’s head before Allah that I will avenge this crime.’

As he rode into the courtyard he saw his father’s head mounted on a pike stuck firmly in the ground. Zuhayr jumped off the horse and removed the pike. Gently he looked his father in the face. He took the head to the stream and washed the blood off the hair and face. Then he took it to the graveyard and began to dig the earth with his bare hands. In his frenzy he did not notice a spade lying a few feet away. After he had buried his father, he walked back into the courtyard and saw, for the first time, the Dwarf swaying gently with Yazid in his arms. For a second Zuhayr’s heart leaped into his mouth. Was Yazid alive, after all? Then he saw his brother’s still face, bloody at the edges.

‘Dwarf! Dwarf! Are you alive? Wake up, man!’

Startled, the Dwarf opened his eyes. His arms were as stiff as Yazid’s body cradled within them. On seeing Zuhayr, the Dwarf began to wail. Zuhayr embraced the cook and gently took Yazid’s body from him. He kissed his dead brother’s cheeks.

‘I have buried my father’s head. Let us bathe Yazid and put him to rest.’

Gently, they undressed the body and bathed it in the stream. Then they lifted Yazid and took him to the family graveyard. It was when he was under the ground and after they had refilled the grave with freshly dug earth that Zuhayr, who had displayed superhuman calm, broke down and screamed. The unblocked anguish released the tears. It was as if rain had fallen on Yazid’s grave.

The two men embraced each other and sat down on the grassy knoll, near the new graves.

‘I want to know everything, Dwarf. Every single detail. Anything that you can recall I must know.’

‘If only I were dead and Yazid alive. Why should I be still alive?’

‘I am happy that anyone survives. Tell me what happened.’

The Dwarf began his account and did not pause till he reached the stage where he had let go of Yazid. Then he began to wail and pull out his hair. Zuhayr stroked his face.

‘I know, I know, but it is over.’

‘That is not the worst of it. He had left the cover slightly open and I heard them grab him and begin their questions. How proud you would have been if you had heard him reply to their captain, that prince of evil who was intent on murdering us all from the very beginning.’

After the Dwarf had finished his story, Zuhayr sat with his head between his hands for a long time.

‘Everything is finished here. They have eclipsed our moon forever. Let us go away. It is no longer safe.’

The Dwarf shook his head.

‘I was born in this village. My son fell here, defending your palace. I, too, wish to die here, and I feel that it will not be long. You are still young, but I have no desire to live any longer. Leave me alone and let me die in peace.’

‘Dwarf, I was born here as well. Too many have died here already. Why add to their number? Besides I have a task which only you can accomplish. I need you.’

‘While I am here, I am at your service.’

‘I will take you to the coast and put you on a boat destined for Tanja. From there, make your way to Fes and seek out Ibn Daud and my sister. I will write a letter to her and you can tell her whatever she wishes to know.’

At this the Dwarf began to weep once again.

‘Have pity on me, Zuhayr bin Umar. How can I face the Lady Hind? With which mouth should I say that I let her Yazid die? It is cruel to send me to her. Let me go to the Lady Kulthum in Ishbiliya. You should go to Fes and live there. They will not let you live on this peninsula.’

‘I know my sister Hind very well. More so than even she understands. It is only you she will want to hear, Dwarf. She will feel the need for someone from the house to remain at her side. Otherwise she will go insane. Will you not do this as a last favour for the Banu Hudayl?’

The Dwarf knew he was defeated.

‘My father said that there were a few bags of gold always kept in the vaults. We had better take them with us. I will use them to fight our wars, and you take one for the journey and to set yourself up in Fes.’

Once the five leather bags containing gold coins had been uncovered, Zuhayr saddled his horse and rounded up another for the Dwarf. He adjusted the stirrups to accommodate the man’s short legs. As they rode away from the house and left the village behind them, Zuhayr broke his silence.

‘Let us not stop and look at it again, Dwarf. Let us remember it as it used to be. Remember?’

The cook did not reply. He did not speak till they reached the coastal town of al-Gezira. They found a boat which was departing early the next morning and booked a passage on it for the Dwarf. After a brief search they found a comfortable funduq, which provided them with a room and two beds. As they went to bed, the Dwarf spoke for the first time since they had left the forecourt of the house in al-Hudayl.

‘I will never forget the fire or the groans and screams. Nor can I forget the look on the face of Yazid after the savages had killed him. That is why I cannot remember the more distant past.’

‘I know, but that is the only past I want to remember.’

Zuhayr began to write his letter to Hind. He gave her an account of his duel with Don Alonso and its tragic consequences. He described the destruction of the village and the house and he appealed to her never to return:

How lucky you were to find a man as worthy of you and as farsighted as Ibn Daud. I think he knew a long time ago that we would lose our battle against time. The old man who brings this to you is full of remorse for the crime of being alive. Look after him well.