The Horse Healer (34 page)

Diego thought on it with all his good faith, but it remained incomprehensible. No pact of loyalty could require another person's death. He never would understand it.

He stroked Sabba; he could see she was nervous. She seemed to have been affected by the general agitation of all present, men and animals, during the anxious wait. He spoke to her softly, whispering sounds that he knew would calm her down, while Don Álvaro observed him.

When the mare shook her head three times, snorting and grunting three more, Diego imitated her. It seemed as if they shared their own language, different from all others.

Once more Don Álvaro felt admiration for Diego. The boy possessed a brilliant mind, he was responsible and discreet, also humble, but above any other consideration, what most impressed him was the peculiar rapport he had with the horses.

“Horse and horseman,” Don Álvaro added, “a beautiful relationship, even more so in wartime. Do you know how you measure a horse's ability for war?”

“I do not.”

“The Greeks recommended that the warhorse have three qualities: good color, a big heart, and powerful legs to respond properly to the hard labor. I would add one more: that they have good lineage, like their masters.” He stroked his horse, sorrel with a lovely profile and tall stature.

“And in the relation you just mentioned, what does the horseman need to give the horse?”

“A lot. He must reinforce its generous character. He must correct its bad habits, and protect it from illnesses, which, naturally, he has to know.”

“According to what you've said, there is a color that will make a horse into a dignified companion to its master. Are there other colors that make them poor ones?”

Don Álvaro was going to answer when a long trumpet blast sounded out. All looked at Abu Zayd and Don Diego López de Haro, awaiting the signal.

The white banner of the governor rose up amid the cavalry and flapped frantically. When they saw it, a few horsemen galloped quickly toward the streambed, followed by the rest of the cavalry of the lord of Biscay. The main part of the Valencian army hung back in reserve. Don Álvaro looked for the highest point on the hill to be able to see the battle lines in their entirety.

Diego went to his side and watched, impressed by the first clash with the Aragonese troops. First the swords sounded, then hundreds of arrows whistled, fired from bows and crossbows. The first men fell to the ground while the horses trotted furiously; some fallen men asked for help, others walked on as if doomed, missing an arm, bearing horrible wounds. He saw one with a mace stuck in his back, trying to extract it without success. Diego gave thanks to God for saving him from that slaughter.

The Castilians, sheltered by the advantage of surprise, had descended down the only usable slope. The first line of them had attacked the Aragonese and the second was on the point of doing so. Each row consisted of twenty-five men on horseback and three reinforcements. Behind them, the infantrymen followed.

At one moment in the struggle, the Aragonese believed they had managed to stop the attacks by breaking their order and surrounding them.

“They just committed a fatal error,” Don Álvaro thought out loud while he observed the movements of the various groups.

He looked for the standard bearers of Abu Zayd's troops and found them waving their banner up and down excitedly. That signal called forth another three hundred furious horsemen, bearing down, toward the thick of the Aragonese troops. Suddenly they saw themselves trapped between two forces: on the inside, the Castilians, now greater in number, and on the outside, the Saracens, who were attacking them without mercy.

From there the blood began to stain the steel, the bodies, everything. … It even reached the manes of the horses, and the earth welcomed innumerable broken and dead bodies onto its surface.

Don Álvaro pointed to one side of the struggle, where King Pedro II was fighting.

“Watch what happens now. …”

They saw Don Diego de Haro come close to the position where the Aragonese king stood. Luck had changed quickly, and the life of the king was in serious danger. Don Álvaro was sure of what his father-in-law would do.

“You're going to be witness to a remarkable rescue. Watch. …”

They saw the lord of Biscay with a dozen knights take on the Valencian troops. Once beside the king, they dismounted and began to fight hand to hand at his side, protecting him with their lives. Abu Zayd's warriors, stunned, fought back with greater fury. One touched Don Diego with his weapon but was then pierced by the sword of the king of Aragon.

“Now! Now or never!” Don Álvaro exclaimed.

And then they saw the king mount a horse, along with two other knights, among them his ensign García Romeu, Diego's old acquaintance. Two Castilians opened an escape route, and they all fled at top speed.

“Imagine the anger of Abu Zayd …” Diego commented.

“A knight who takes pride in himself would never permit a king to die at the hands of an infidel. That is what we call loyalty. Today, Pedro II of Aragon has been defeated, but who knows whether tomorrow he might not be fighting at our side.”

The battle over, Diego and Don Álvaro met back with Don Diego López de Haro. He was wounded, but his face reflected the joy of victory, the satisfaction of a duty well performed.

When he saw him, Diego felt deep pain. While he watched the rescue, he had been thinking of his own situation. He was already an albéitar and was gaining a good reputation, and to that extent, he had obeyed his father's command. But he still wasn't truly at peace. His sisters were still present in his conscience.

He squeezed the neck of his mare and stroked her forehead, and in a low voice, he shared what he felt just then.

“One day I promised it, and you were the only one there. I will free them, however I can, together we will do it. …”

VIII.

E
stela was disgusted with her life, with her destiny.

Every night, for months now, she would go to the caliph's chambers to sleep in his bed. She hated him.

He would look at her, smell her perfume, feel her close to him in the cool sheets, but he never touched her.

Al-Nasir was utterly in love, lost in her, and wounded by her indifference.

“Estela … if you knew the pain my heart feels …” He looked in her eyes, in that blue sea, and as always he found them empty, almost frozen.

She sighed. She looked for answers in his as well, for why he had permitted the brutal execution of her sister Blanca. Four months after the terrible occurrence, she hadn't forgotten. She didn't want to.

“I know very well what it is to have pain in your heart; you have given me so much.”

Al-Nasir was getting tired of it.

He had humiliated himself too many times asking for forgiveness, though he didn't feel guilty for what he'd done. He was sickened by her scarce gratitude when he had saved her life from the hands of the vizier.

He rose up from the cushioned bed where he was resting and exhaled furiously. He kicked a table with a tray of fruit and it went off flying through the air.

Estela was nervous. He was tense and out of control. He threw a sideboard full of porcelain to the floor and then shattered an enormous glass pitcher. He closed his fists and clenched his teeth, full of rage. He tore his tunic in half and came toward her. She huddled, frightened, thinking he was going to hit her.

“What do I have to do to make you love me?” He spoke so close to her she could feel his hot breath. Estela didn't dare to move. “Ask me for whatever you want. I will give you anything. Do you want to be the queen of this city, or maybe you prefer my kingdom? Jewels, precious garments? Everything will be yours, everything. Just love me one day, one night …”

Estela stood up, raising her chest and chin in a gesture of insolence.

“What I truly want you will never give me.”

“Prove it.”

“My freedom!” she exclaimed, full of despair.

“Is that all you want?”

“No, not only that. I also want to see you dead one day.” Now she looked straight at him, not showing an ounce of fear.

“Quiet!” he exclaimed in despair. “For the sake of blessed Allah, what must I do with you? What further proof must I give you? I have respected you since that tragedy. I haven't touched you again. I treat you delicately, and after all that, I receive nothing but hate from you, a deep, savage hate.” He walked decisively to a wall where weapons hung. He took down two golden daggers.

“Do you want to see me dead?” He turned back to her. “That is what you want, right?” He handed her the sharpened steel and opened his tunic, showing his chest. “Do it, then, but with your own hands! Fulfill your desire!”

Estela gripped the daggers' pommels, entranced by the blue shimmer of the blades. She pointed one at his stomach and the other at his heart. She looked at his skin and imagined it open and wounded, bleeding until he met his death.

She inhaled a large mouthful of air, but it didn't reach her lungs. Tension squeezed her chest. Suddenly she didn't know if that was truly what she should do. She hated that man, more than anything in the world, but if she killed him, she would be as terrible as he was. She would be a murderer.

“Do it!” the caliph screamed.

Estela looked into his eyes. She could do it, but she didn't want to. She threw the two daggers to the floor and wept. Al-Nasir did not know what to do, though he only wanted to embrace her. If she hadn't attacked him, she must feel something for him, something better than just hate. Whether she didn't do it because she felt a glimmer of compassion or a lack of bravery, he didn't care. Estela had taken his life in her hands and she hadn't disposed of it. He loved her more than ever.

He brought a finger to her cheek to wipe free a tear, and the mere contact with her skin was like a paradise. He followed the trail of another to her lips and brushed it away slowly and sensually.

“I want you. …” He pulled a long tress away from her forehead and stroked it between two fingers.

Estela gave him a serious look, tired of him and his insistence.

“Look for another who will enjoy you. You will never have me, and though you think you have rights over my body, it will never be yours.”

“I don't understand why I have to take this. You know what? I'm tired of you, your pride, your cruelty!”

He shouted for his personal guard.

“Shut her up in the dungeon tonight!” al-Nasir screamed, beside himself.

The two guardians picked her up from the floor and asked the caliph what punishment he wished for her.

“Whip her in the square tomorrow, first thing, beneath the minaret. That is my will. … Twenty-five lashes. … No, better fifty. And then leave her chained there for three days, so all may see her.”

He went to the window and felt the cool of the night on his burning face. Then he looked for his Koran, the most beautiful of all books of poetry. He wrote something on a leaf of parchment, folded it, and slipped it between the pages. He always did this when something important occurred.

“Wait!” the caliph exclaimed when they were already leaving his chambers.

Al-Nasir approached Estela and looked into her eyes.

“If now you ask me for forgiveness, you can avoid this martyrdom. This is your last opportunity. What is your answer?”

“You may wound my body, stain my skin with blood, but you will never have my heart,” she answered without fear.

When he heard that, al-Nasir felt a wound tear open in his heart, worse than if she had stabbed him with the daggers. He had never loved another woman so much, and now nothing could avoid his wrath.

“Get her out of here!”

The next morning, after the first prayers, Estela was dragged to the base of the minaret and tied to a wooden pillar. Five imposing Imesebelen protected her from the public that had begun to gather around her.

One of them was Tijmud. He saw how her legs shook and he was saddened. They bent on their own, beyond the girl's will, and then, when she was about to fall, they would straighten and hold her up a bit longer. Her elbows, arms, all her body was shivering from the terror she seemed to feel.

Estela had decided not to scream and to bear any blow, however hard. She thought of her sisters and decided to sacrifice herself willingly.

“Don't hurt her. She's good. …” A sweet and childlike voice attracted her attention.

She raised her head and saw a girl of around eight years old with a clear, sincere gaze. The girl extended her small hand offering her little strength, her support, as if she could help. Her father, seeing the gesture, reprimanded her, saying that Estela was a heretic, a filthy Christian. The girl's eyes welled with tears. Her innocence moved Estela before she lost sight of her, just when the vizier appeared.

“Are you Estela de Malagón?” he shouted.

“I am,” her thin voice responded.

“Very well, then we will get started as soon as we can.” She heard a murmur of satisfaction from the public. The man turned to the soldiers and signaled Tijmud.

“You shall begin.” He passed him the whip.

The guard took the leather and looked at the woman in her tribulation. They had trained him to kill in defense of the caliph, and his pulse had never quickened when he had been given the opportunity, but this was different. The girl was defenseless, and besides, he knew her.

Nonetheless, he understood his obligation and readied to obey the order.

“Begin, and be firm.” The vizier tore Estela's tunic in half. “This is the wish of your caliph, whom you owe everything to, even your very life.”

Tijmud breathed deep and flicked the whip twice through the air before bringing it down on the girl. A tense silence accompanied the first blow. As the leather cracked over the girl, there was heard a light murmur of pain. The people applauded his action, anxious to see blood. The second lash tore her skin, opening a wound from the base of her neck to the middle of her back.

The vizier ordered him to stop and turned to the prisoner. He grabbed her hair and twisted it, making her look at her observers.

“Look at their faces, whore. See how they enjoy it?”

She didn't answer. She felt the wound in her back and the ache of exposed flesh, but she still felt she could bear it.

“Go on,” he said again to Tijmud, “and show no mercy. Find her ribs, and give it all your might.”

Tijmud tensed the muscles in his arm and gave her a series of ten lashes without any rest in between. As if it was a knife, the whip opened her flesh, lacerating her, violating the silky texture of her skin. She screamed during the last few, incapable of resisting that terrible pain further. Her back was on fire.

Tijmud cleaned the blood from his hands and approached her to see how she was. Secretly, he spoke into her ear.

“I hate doing this,” he whispered. “Forgive me.”

Estela looked into his eyes and forgave him between her cries of anguish. There was no need to say it; he saw it, he knew it, and he felt an unknown and unrecognizable feeling. It was like a strange impulse that seemed to push him to protect her from more pain. He still had thirteen lashes left to give. He had never felt anything like it. He thought it must be what others called pity, a feeling he didn't know. He cleaned the tip of the leather, somewhat confused, before he went on. His hands failed him. … The vizier shouted in his ear to continue, insulted him, even grabbed one of his hands, cocking it back so he would strike the girl.

Estela filled her lungs with air and squeezed the muscles in her back to receive the final lashes. As the number went up, the public began to get nervous. Some women protested that the penalty was too harsh, others shouted for them to stop the butchery, but the vizier paid attention to none of them. He had precise orders from the caliph and he was determined to carry them out.

Estela, frightened, awaited the whistling sound that preceded the stinging of the whip, but she began to think of other things. She remembered her life in Malagón and her thoughts fled in pursuit of the family's inn. There she saw her siblings, back when they were still happy, and she thought of Diego. What would have happened to him?

A terrible pain shook her thoughts when the whip came around her ribs, and its tip, hard and cutting, scratched one of her breasts.

She clenched her jaws and awaited the arrival of the next lash, looking at Tijmud. She saw compassion toward her in his eyes, and she began to think of him.

Ever since the wicked execution of Blanca, that Imesebelen, guardian of Princess Najla, had approached her a number of times. Though they had hardly spoken, she saw something special in him from the beginning, different from the rest of those wicked guards. And then she saw herself fleeing again, with Blanca, through the streets of the city, in that same square. She remembered a man with a flute, and at his side a basket of serpents, he was playing a beautiful melody when she was captured.

Then she suddenly felt very tired, and only wanted to sleep.

She stopped hearing the blows on her skin and began to feel her head, heavy, very heavy, and let it fall.

The vizier, clearly angered, tried to see if she was just faking, and approached to observe her. He ordered Tijmud to stop once he was sure. He waited a moment for her to regain awareness and then sent for a bucket of water to revive her. He himself threw it over her head, but to no effect.

“Who cares?” he decided. “Finish with the lashes she has coming to her, and then leave her there; maybe the sun will heal her wounds.”

Unable to go on, Tijmud passed the whip to another Imesebelen. The new man gave Estela a blow that resounded through the whole of the plaza. Immediately it aroused cries of protest among the people. Some began to insult the guards; others threw fruit and stones, accusing them of being cowards.

That soldier, impervious to what was happening around him, continued hurling the leather once, twice, five more times, until suddenly Estela awoke and opened her eyes in fright. When he saw her, the vizier stopped the whip with his own hands and watched what she was doing.

She clenched her fists, shouted in pain, stood up from the floor with great difficulty, and screamed. She did it with such desperation that it penetrated the consciences of all who were there. Najla heard her from inside the palace. She was with her brother. Both looked at each other horrified, aware of who it was coming from.

“One day you killed my best friend, Blanca. Are you going to let them do the same to her?”

Al-Nasir covered his ears to flee from his own torment, but Estela screamed again, much stronger than before, until the entire city could hear her.

From the place of punishment, Estela looked proudly at the vizier, and far from begging him for clemency, she spit on the floor with contempt, having heard the multitude clamoring for him to take pity on her.

Some of the women who screeched, now emboldened, picked up stones and began to hurl them at the torturers. The vizier took charge and raised his voice so that he could be heard.

“In the name of Allah, the benevolent, the merciful, listen to me …” He raised his hands in the air and repeated the same thing three times until he managed to get complete silence. “As you know, our law commands that we publicly flog those who fornicate, who commit adultery, and accuse others of lying.” He walked around Estela and placed his hands on her back, staining them with blood. Then he showed it to everyone. “I assure you the blood of this woman was not spilled in vain. You must know that you have here an infidel, a Christian, a deviant who has dared to offend our glorious caliph. Her sin must be punished, and that is what has been done. But I have just seen you pray to Allah for her, begging for mercy, perhaps. And I want you to know Allah has heard you. And in obedience to his will”—he raised his voice higher—“the beating will be suspended.”