Sultana (33 page)

Fatima said, “Truly, I don’t mind. She is very beautiful. She does not look like Father. Only his children with my mother resemble him.”

The
kadin
sat nearby with her daughter on her lap. “I believe, Sultana Fatima, this is the first time you have acknowledged my daughter.”

Fatima nodded. “She’s a sister to me, Zaynab too. At first, I resented them. How could I feel that way about any child? Especially, my own sisters.”

She turned to Nur al-Sabah. “May I hold her?”

The
kadin
placed Fayha in Fatima’s lap. The child gingerly pressed her fingertips to Fatima’s nose and then her lips. Fatima playfully nipped at her chubby fingers and her little sister chortled, showing two budding upper teeth. Then Fayha poked at Fatima’s eye. Nur al-Sabah snatched her away. “Naughty girl!”

Pools of tears welled up in the child’s eyes. Nur al-Sabah summoned her body slave, who took a whimpering Fayha away. Fatima swiped at her eyes.

The
kadin
said, “I’m sorry, my Sultana.”

Fatima sniffled and patted Nur al-Sabah’s left hand. “Please, she’s just a child, she didn’t know better. You are very lucky to have her and her sister.”

Nur al-Sabah slid her fingers from under her grasp and covered Fatima’s hand instead. “Motherhood is a great joy, my Sultana. One day you shall come to know it. Believe, for God hears and answers all prayers.”

 A tear trickled down Fatima’s cheek. “What if His answer is no?” 

Fatima and Faraj returned to their house in the late evening. While he bathed, Amoda prepared her for bed. A shawl around her shoulders, Fatima walked to her bedroom window, overlooking the garden. She flung the lattice open.

Behind her, Faraj said, “Beloved, please close that window. The torches die down too early in the wind.”

His arms slipped around her waist, his fingers interlaced with hers, pressed against her empty belly. “Your hands are icy. Come to bed and let me warm you tonight.”

When she turned around, the smile on his lips faded. “Beloved, what troubles you?”

“We cannot remain married any longer.”

He paled and stared without blinking.

She pushed at him. “Did you hear me? I want our marriage dissolved. It is finished.”

His arms dropped to his side.

“I love you too much to consign you to a childless union with me.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Our marital contract states if you take another wife, I can divorce you and reclaim my dowry. You should not suffer because of me. If you tell Father you’re divorcing me because I am barren, you can keep the dowry and find a wife to give you the sons and daughters you want.”

He gripped her arms and shook her. “What are you saying? You think I would let you go because of your foolish fears?”

“You refuse to accept the truth. I cannot give you children and if I cannot do so, my heart shall break along with yours. Who would know you lived if you have no sons, no children to inherit? I won’t condemn you to that fate.”

He released her, panting with exertion. “So, you would leave me instead?”

She took his hand. “No, I give you a chance at happiness.”

He pulled away. “Who says I am unhappy? That is your claim! In your usual manner, you make a decision that affects both our lives and expect me to follow it. Well, I won’t, not this time.”

“I won’t change my mind. I want a divorce!”

His dark eyes bored into hers. “You must be mad to think I would ever let you go!”

He crossed the room. The bedroom door slammed shut behind him.

She sank on the carpet and buried her head in her hands.

Chapter 25

A Great Divide

Prince Faraj

Gharnatah, al-Andalus: Muharram 677 AH (Granada, Andalusia: May AD 1278)

Faraj avoided Fatima until the next evening, when the moon rode high in the moonlit heavens. Jasmine flowers scented the air as the sentries called the hour of midnight. He returned to his house, carrying a rolled parchment bearing the Sultan’s seal, the red wax thick like congealed blood.

The Castillan navy had attacked the port city of al-Jazirah al-Khadra. The
Shaykh al-Ghuzat
Umar defended the city and needed reinforcements. The Sultan gave Faraj command of three cavalry detachments. The men were to ride at dawn and re-take the port.

Marzuq greeted him at the door. Weary, he decided to forgo the
hammam
and went to his bedchamber. He plodded across the darkened room. In the bed, he rolled on his side.

“Faraj, what happened? You’ve been gone all day.”

Fatima’s voice filled the chamber. Her hand alighted on his arm. “I feared you would not come to me again. I waited for you.”

Groaning, he rolled away. “If you wish to speak the same nonsense, I refuse to listen to more foolishness.”

When she sighed, he continued. “Go back to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“No, tell me what’s happened. I know you were…upset with me last night. Then, Marzuq said my father called you to his side this morning. Please, talk to me.”

Sighing, he swung his legs to the floor. When he told her of his orders, she moaned as if in pain. “Must we be apart again?”

He sucked in a breath at her familiar touch. “You ask that when you wanted a divorce just last night?”

She sobbed. “I’m afraid.”

He shook his head, wishing himself immune to her moods. “You must not fear, Fatima. I shall be safe. Umar defends the citadel along the beachhead against the Castillan siege. With reinforcements, al-Jazirah al-Khadra shall hold.”

Her head drooped on his shoulder, her fingers threading in the wiry wisps of hair on his chest.

He closed his eyes and inhaled the fragrant jasmine that infused her hair. “You should go to your chamber.”

“Don’t send me away now, not when we need each other. I only want to be with you tonight.” Her fingers curled at his waistband.

“You think making love can solve the problems between us?”

“Faraj, please do not do this. Don’t turn from me now.”

“Me, reject you?” His reply echoed in the darkness of the room. “You come to me demanding a divorce last night and now, accuse me of rejecting you? You have hurt me more deeply than anyone could. Still, my love for you burns brighter than the sun. You cannot stay here tonight, you should not have come.”

“Would you ride out in anger, not knowing when we shall see each other again?”

He turned and hauled her up against him, shaking her. Her anguished cry stopped him. “I love you, Faraj. I have only ever loved you. Can’t you see that I’d do anything for love of you, even leave you, so you might have your heart’s desire?”

“You are my heart’s desire!”

He kissed her wildly, a need to punish her spurring him on. She encouraged his savagery. When his teeth nipped at her jaw line, her moans reverberated through the room. When he pinned her beneath him, she welcomed him. Her limbs held him prisoner and her nails raked his back and arms, demanding. Their joining was a fiery death, both of them consumed.

In the morning, he went to the
hammam
. He winced when the fragrant water stung tiny cuts on his arms and back. Fatima had drawn blood in her passion. When he returned to the chamber, she was awake and helped him with his garments. He kissed the hands that had tortured and wounded him the night before, while she stared in silence.

He whispered, “Too often we’ve stood upon this point already. I leave you to wonder what shall become of me. Keep the peace of my house. Know that I love you and believe that I shall return to you, always.”

Fatima nodded and embraced him, her soft sobs muffled in his padded tunic. He kissed her with all the love inside his heart and let her go. He did not look back, lest courage fail him.

Princess Fatima

Gharnatah, al-Andalus: Safar 677 AH (Granada, Andalusia: July AD 1278)

Fatima endured seven weeks of bitter silence, during which she received no word from Faraj. Her father shared the daily dispatches on the reclamation of the port at al-Jazirah al-Khadra and the defense against the Castillans. Still, no word arrived of her husband’s fate. She retreated into a shell of suffering, filled with self-recrimination. The remembrance of his final words offered little comfort in the emptiness of her bedchamber at night.

On the first cool day of the summer, Sultana Shams ed-Duna insisted she accompany her and the
kadin
Nur al-Sabah to the
souk
of Gharnatah. Her stepmother refused Fatima’s initial rebuff.

After prayers, the trio, in the company of Niranjan, the palace guard and some servants, took the route down the Sabika hill and across the bridge of the Hadarro River. The
Qaysariyya
marketplace spread across the dun-brown plain at the south of the city, extending from the foot of the Sabika hill to the red brick walls of Gharnatah. Jewish and Christian merchants plied their trade alongside their Moorish counterparts, the local goldsmiths, armories, shoemakers, blacksmiths and textile makers.

The Sultan’s guards jostled everyone and made a clear path for the women. Fatima shrank from the resentful gazes of those displaced by the guards’ rough handling. She kept close to Shams ed-Duna and Nur al-Sabah, who doggedly haggled with the market sellers, while their slaves idled alongside the narrow streets and alleyways. Merchants offered slaves from faraway lands, bartering away their lives as easily as the silk, leather goods, brocades, ivory and olive oil sold in the
souk
.

The stench of piss and offal in the streets vied with ambergris, musk and incense from a nearby stall. Fatima gripped her stomach, as a wave of dizziness overcame her.

The
kadin
frowned at her. “Are you unwell?”

“I hadn’t expected it to be so crowded, or smell so bad.”

“Look, it’s a symbol of the
Nauar
.” Shams pointed to a burnished copper wheel dangling from a tent post under a faded, blue awning. “I have not seen one since I left Fés el-Bali.”

Nur al-Sabah peered over her shoulder. “Hmm, the Gypsies. Is it true they foretell the future?”

Fatima shook her head. “What nonsense they must teach in Christian households. The
Nauar
speak only in riddles to confuse and delude the mind.”

Shams asked, “How can you be so certain? Have you ever been to one?”

Fatima replied, “I wouldn’t dare. Sorcery and divination is the work of the court astrologer. Ask him anything you would like. I’m sure Father wouldn’t object.”

Then, a heavily veiled woman followed by two eunuchs exited the shop. One of the slaves pressed two silver
dirhams
into the olive brown hand of a little girl with bulging, black eyes. She took the coins and disappeared into the tent. The other eunuch handed his mistress a silken kerchief. She dabbed at the corners of her eyes, before bustling through the marketplace, her slaves following.

“I’d like to go in.” Nur al-Sabah cupped the roundness of her belly jutting beneath the green silk robe. “The court astrologer has promised another girl, but I know the Sultan wants a son. Perhaps the
Nauar
might know for certain.”

Fatima sniffed at this and looked away. She did not resent Nur al-Sabah’s desire anymore. Still, her father did not need more sons. He already had her brother Muhammad and now Shams ed-Duna’s boy.

Shams ed-Duna tugged at her hand. “What harm could there be if you came with us, Fatima?”

She pulled away. “I forbid it!”

Shams ed-Duna chuckled and Nur al-Sabah rolled her eyes.

Fatima gritted her teeth together and then expelled a sighing breath. “Very well, I’ll indulge you both in this foolishness. Come, let us see this fraud.”

They crossed the street, avoiding refuse and excrement, while a cadre of the guards and their servants surrounded the stall. Niranjan held aside the low curtain hanging over the entryway. Fatima glanced at him briefly, but he averted his eyes from her. She entered first and asked the little girl with black eyes for the fortune-teller. She led them behind a cloth curtain and gestured to the lone seat at a table.

Behind it, a shriveled figure with lips drawn tight over her teeth peered at them in silence. A ring of seashells, all oddly shaped, dotted the edge of the table, with one black pebble in the center. Fatima grinned at this poor mockery of mystic symbolism, but Shams ed-Duna urged her forward.

The gypsy woman bowed her head. “Peace be with you.”

Fatima asked, “And with you. Are you the one who speaks of the future?”

“Do you wish to know the future, noble one?”

Ignoring Nur al-Sabah’s gasp, Fatima leaned forward. “Why do you call me ‘noble one’ when you do not know me?”

“It is what you are.” The woman turned to the girl hovering at her side. Whispering in some language other than Arabic, she waved the girl away. The child soon returned with a cup of fragrant tisane, which the woman offered to Fatima. “It cannot harm you.”

Fatima glared at her companions, both of whom nodded. She drank the brew, bitter to the tongue at first, but sweeter as she continued. She finished and handed the cup to the woman, who said, “If you could swirl the cup, noble one?”

Fatima ground her teeth together, but complied. She set the vessel down with an abrupt clank. A few of the leaves clung to the sides and bottom. Her gaze fixed on the woman who nodded. “We must wait for the leaves to settle.”

When Fatima groaned, Shams pressed a hand against her arm. “Be patient.”

After an interim, the gypsy asked, “What is it that you wish to know, noble one?”

Fatima countered, “Tell me what you see.”

The woman stared into the cup and after a brief interval, she pronounced, “The future of Gharnatah lies within you.”

Fatima smiled at her companions. “You see? An answer, if I can call it such, without any meaning. Just as I expected.” She stood and looked down her nose at the gypsy. “Can your leaves tell you anything about me?”