The Horse Healer (9 page)

XIII.

F
atima had prepared an exuberant and succulent dinner.

Diego and Galib were moved by the way Kabirma and Fatima were regaling them. It was obvious that Fatima and her father were making great efforts to make the albéitar and his assistant feel at ease and enjoy the evening. Fatima had spent hours in the kitchen preparing dishes and spices to offer their guests an assortment of culinary delicacies.

“My dear Fatima, whether you believe me or not, I assure you I've never tried a cake like yours.” Galib closed his eyes and savored it. “It's, it's … grand, subtle, but filling at the same time. … Excellent, in truth.”

“You're very kind, but I don't believe it's so good.” The girl, blushing slightly, tilted the tray to serve him a bit more.

“First you find me a dedicated helper and now you show your remarkable gifts in the kitchen.” He turned to the father. “Kabirma, your daughter is a jewel.”

“Fatima is like no other,” her father answered. “Her mother couldn't teach her anything; she died when Fatima was scarcely a girl, and yet she has inherited her touch in the kitchen.” He gave her a tender pinch on the cheek. “I have to admit that this plate may even be better than the ones I remember her mother making.”

“Don't talk so much and get to eating. It will get cold.”

The girl sat down at Diego's side. Though they hadn't seen each other again since the day they met, she was happy things had gone well for him and felt proud of having helped him in a moment of great desperation.

“To meet you that day was a stroke of luck,” Diego confessed.

“Now you seem like someone else, in truth. You were so famished and sad. And as soon as my father met you, he hurt you. So in those circumstances, I had no choice but to take pity on you.”

“I remember,” Kabirma said. “I confused you with a rogue.”

Diego ignored the comment and focused on the girl. Though they hadn't seen each other since their meeting, he liked Fatima a lot. She had a face covered in freckles and thin, expressive lips. Her deep, very dark eyes went well with her brown skin. Her body was thin, well formed, with attractive legs. With all those attributes, the girl could have anything she wanted, though she was not flirtatious, rather the opposite.

In her way, she was a little like Diego. Both had lost their mothers when they were young, they had both passed quickly from childhood to working, and they knew well the meaning of such words as
sacrifice
,
dedication
, and
sweat
.

Even if they hadn't seen each other in all that time, Diego saw Fatima as a loyal and open person whom he could talk to without fear. He regarded her as a friend.

Since he had begun to work for Galib, Diego had not gone back to Zocodover. He had so much work that he could hardly step away from the stables of his master except when he accompanied him on one of his visits.

The same was not true for Galib, whom Kabirma would call on at times to attest to the health of certain horses in transactions where a great deal of money was changing hands.

Kabirma, from Jerez, was undoubtedly the greatest trader of Arabian horses in all of Toledo, and he was known as such throughout Castile. No one looking for a good example of that breed could find one in any stall in the market except for his. All those who moved in his world respected him, and he attributed this to always working with the best breed at a reasonable price.

No one knew who brought him the horses. That was his greatest secret, since it was the source of a great deal of his success. But in just that regard he was having serious problems, or better yet, extremely grave problems. His best purveyor was falling short with alarming frequency and the most recent group of horses had been a complete disaster.

Together with the terrible shipment, to make the situation worse, he had received a letter in which his man in Al-Andalus explained that this would be the last consignment he could sell him, because he had lost his license to sell.

From that lot, Kabirma still had one stud horse that he'd been unable to sell due to the lamentable state of his hooves. It needed to have its hooves treated so that it could be put up for sale. At last, he thought of Galib, and an idea occurred to him. He called Fatima and asked her to organize a good dinner. He had business to take care of.

“These sweets are typical of Gadir.”

Fatima put a tray on the table and sat down again next to Diego. She had just watched him heal a horse next to Galib and was surprised by his skill.

Neither father nor daughter had dared to approach that stud horse on account of his fiery attitude. He had reared at them various times for just peeping in. And yet Diego had entered the stable without showing any qualms, though the animal, when it saw him, started salivating with fury. The boy got behind it and began to beat at its flanks, fearlessly following its steps. A little while later they heard him make soothing sounds with his mouth that calmed the animal down until it was more peaceful than a lamb. Thus Galib was able to take care of each one of its hooves, putting them between his legs and trimming off the deformations. Then he made some padding for the hooves from a few molds filled with clay and had Diego put on some temporary horseshoes. The next day they made the real ones.

Fatima offered them anise tea and more cakes, this time of honey and almond.

Galib and her father were discussing the need to improve the Norman and Breton breeds, the classic ones among warhorses, mixing them with the Arabians for greater agility in combat.

“The Breton, which the Christians use, is an enormous animal. But the Arabian is pure nobility, nerve, and agility. It's flexible, in contrast to the others.”

“If we cross them, we will inflame the veins of the Christian horses with the energy of those animals born among the dunes, under the punishing sun.” Galib loved that breed almost as much as he loved his job.

“The Christian cavalry is conceived to vanquish, to destroy everything it encounters in its path,” Kabirma argued. “If you reduce their weight and strength, they won't be able to support the armor or fulfill the work expected of them.”

“I know, but their enemies attack fast, with quick retreats and changing offensives that end up wrecking the classic attack technique of the Christians. The Christians' military strategists should begin to think about how to improve the qualities of their horses or else they will have trouble.”

Galib tries one of those almond cakes and moaned with pleasure from the touch of cinnamon and sesame that Fatima had given them. He was going to congratulate her, but Kabirma cut him short.

“If you were right, we would need a great number of studs.”

“Who better than you to engage in such an enterprise?”

“I have to confess something to you …” Kabirma stood and began to walk around his guest.

“Something's happened with you.” Galib was made nervous by the somber expression on his face.

“I remember once that you spoke to me of the Yeguada de Las Marismas and I need to know more about it.”

“I remember that, too, but I don't see what your interest is.”

“Well, I'll explain. But before that, I have to tell you a secret, and I beg you to be discreet.”

“Of course.”

“The truth is that I have a terrible problem with my supplier of Arabian horses. It seems he's fallen out of favor with the governors of Al-Andalus, and without them, he can't sell to me. Without him, I don't have material, and Toledo will not see a single example of that breed. That's how bad things are.”

“To travel there is madness,” Galib said, knowing what the man from Jerez was thinking. “The
yeguada
is a jewel for the caliph, a bequest from his ancestors, something incomparable. A caprice that he keeps his eye on and that nobody in their right mind would come close to, let alone steal a few from their number. … Besides, they would recognize me. Forget it, Kabirma, it's too dangerous.”

Everyone turned to him confusedly, except for Kabirma, who knew what he was talking about.

“I know a route that's almost untraveled. You wouldn't run any risk. Don't think of it as so dangerous. I tell you, it can be done,” the man from Jerez roundly affirmed.

Diego understood what they were talking about and thought that this could be the opportunity he had been waiting for.

“I could come with you! You can count on me.”

Fatima looked at each of them without knowing what they were talking about.

Galib scratched his beard and his gaze seemed to wander to some indeterminate place, very far from there.

“Not a day passes that I don't dream of seeing the Yeguada de Las Marismas again, in that land blessed by Allah; so beautiful that nothing else like it exists. Amid its marshes, as fertile as they are warm, you find the finest examples of Arabian horse that have ever existed. You can see them running there and feeding in complete freedom.”

It was the first time Diego had heard Galib talk with feeling about that place.

Suddenly, his mentor seemed to return from that daydream and turned back to them.

“More than two hundred years ago, the greatest of our greatest, our first caliph, Abd-ar-Rahman III, possessed the best herd of Arabian and Berber horses ever brought together. He housed them in a city that he had constructed solely from love for his wife Azahara; Medina Azahara, it is called. Decades later, Caliph Almanzor took it to the islands of Guadalquivir, a land that they called Al-Madain or Marismas. There they brought together three thousand females and more than a hundred studs. I know it well, as I was one of its last guards. I watched over it like the irreplaceable treasure that it was, protecting it and keeping it pure, for the future. But I had to abandon it when things worsened with the new rulers, the Almohads, and my political persecution began.”

“How many were there when you left?”

“Five thousand mares and two hundred stallions.”

“Let's go for those horses, in Allah's name,” Kabirma added with great determination.

Galib returned to the danger that such a trip would imply and tried to refuse, but both Diego and Kabirma insisted on doing it, perhaps the upcoming summer.

“They say that a new treaty between Castile and Al-Andalus will be signed next year. Perhaps then we won't meet with the same risks as now,” Kabirma said, trying to support the idea with the information he had.

Galib looked at their faces, half defeated against so much insistence, and in all of them he met with the same desire to embark on, see, and live that once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“We will see. … There's still almost a year.”

“Why do you love that breed of horses so much?”

Diego always took advantage of his journeys with Galib to get to know him better. His wisdom and his goodness enraptured him. He admired the man from whom he learned so much. He felt proud to be at his side, beside someone whom everyone listened to and asked for advice. That's why, when he found himself alone with Galib, he always tried to get the most out of him.

That night, back at Galib's house, after the dinner with Kabirma and Fatima, Diego tried to figure out what it was he saw in that breed.

“Among us, there exists a legend concerning how the Arabian breed was created. According to Ali ibn Abi Talib, the cousin of Muhammad and wife of his daughter Fatima, he heard it from the lips of the Prophet himself. It goes thus:

“When Allah wished to create a horse, he said to the south wind:

“‘From you I will produce a creature that will be the honor of my followers, the humiliation of my enemies, and my defense against those who attack me.'

“And the wind replied:

“‘Lord, do it according to your will.'

“Then he took a fistful of wind and created the horse, saying:

“‘Virtue will suffuse your mane and your haunches. You will be my favorite among all the animals because I have made you master and friend. I have conferred upon you the power to fly without wings, whether attacking or retreating. I will sit men upon your haunches and they shall pray, they shall honor me and sing alleluias to my name.

“‘Now, go! And live in the desert for forty days and forty nights. Sacrifice yourself! And learn to resist the temptation of water, bronze the color of your body and make lithe your muscles, because of wind you came and wind you shall be as you run.'”

Diego felt taken aback before such beauty and couldn't say a word, even less when Galib spoke again, making reference to his mare.

“Your beloved Sabba, wind of the east in my language, will carry you through lands you've never dreamed of. And from now on, I tell you, it will be horses that will guide your path. They shall make you great, Diego. I swear it. You shall do good with them, a great good indeed.”

XIV.

B
eauty should never be hidden.

That is what Diego thought when he found Benazir with a niqab that covered her face. Though he could hardly see her eyes through that narrow slit, when he watched her, he thought that even dressed like that she was lovely, and that black favored her.

Benazir and Diego walked through the backstreets of the city of Toledo. She had asked him to accompany her up to the workshop of a famous translator where she had to pick up a book for Galib.

Gerardo de Cremona, the owner, had just come into possession of the library of a powerful deceased Jew, and when he saw that treatise on botany, he thought immediately of the albéitar.

“Do you feel uncomfortable at my side?” Benazir asked Diego.

“I don't understand.”

“A Christian and a Muslim together. You will see how some would think ill of it. Galib didn't want us to leave together, but I don't think anything will happen.”

Her husband had prohibited her from going out into the street without him or Sajjad. But that afternoon, since no one else could leave, she had convinced him to let her leave with his assistant.

“Let them think. … I don't see anything strange about it,” Diego answered.

Benazir looked at him obliquely without talking. Sometimes she didn't know how to act with that boy. In reality, she didn't know how to act with anyone.

Since she arrived in Toledo Benazir was convinced that everything had gotten worse, or almost everything. She felt deeply deceived. She lived jailed inside that house, hardly seeing anyone, a second-class citizen in a Christian society that looked down on her and even insulted her. But she felt even worse when she remembered the years she had passed in Seville as the daughter of the ambassador. There she had enjoyed an exciting social life, full of parties and many other diversions, knowing herself to be one of the most attractive and desired women in the capital. But with her marriage she had thrown away a great deal of her expectations and dreams, and some were torn away completely.

She loved Galib but not like at the beginning. When she met him, he was a man with prestige, class, one of the most important officials in the caliph's court, and therefore respected by everyone. She had fallen in love with the man, but also with his position. And that was only half of what it had once been. In Seville, Benazir could breathe like a woman; in Toledo, she was being asphyxiated.

That is why when Diego appeared, something began to change inside her. The boy needed her. He came daily to her Arabic classes as if it was the most important task of the day. Diego fought against his misfortune without looking back and put his vitality and his enthusiasm at the service of learning. The boy's intelligence and inner beauty amazed Benazir and gave her days a new meaning.

She recognized her own free spirit in Diego, as well as his enviable youth. But she also admired the surprising ease with which he learned. In only four months of work, he had managed to read fairly fluently and to participate in a conversation; he had even dared a poem or two. But the most remarkable was his powerful memory. Diego was capable of remembering a text after reading it just once, however long it was. Benazir could not help but be stunned every time he did it, and even if those virtues were notable, the boy possessed another that was even more important for his learning—he was tenacious. When something was put before him, he didn't give up until he'd conquered it.

For the past few months, he had been obsessed with that journey to Las Marismas. Following that dinner with Kabirma, Diego constantly asked Galib if they would go there the following summer, but Galib didn't want to talk about it. He had a lot of work and too many worries. As much as it bothered him, Diego had to accept the situation and carry on with his daily tasks until he could try again later.

“You're very quiet.” Diego looked at Benazir sideways.

She excused herself with a smile but continued in silence. He tried to forget the disagreeable scene in the stables that had preceded her departure.

“Sajjad always be watching. Sajjad no like what he see. Madame not yours. … Not yours.”

“Be quiet and don't talk like that! The master will hear you. You're saying stupidities.”

“Sajjad not dumb. Madame pretty. No lie to Sajjad.”

It seemed the old stable keeper had nominated himself guardian and protector of Benazir's virtue, and though he wasn't wrong in his impressions, Diego was bothered by his ever more frequent warnings. Besides, he didn't understand how he had noticed, when he only saw her for his classes and Sajjad was prohibited from being in the house.

When they entered the Christian neighborhood inhabited by the Franks, where Cremona had his translation workshop, Diego noticed gestures of disapproval on the part of numerous passersby whenever they walked past them.

“They're looking at us cruelly.”

“It's not because of you,” Benazir responded. “They don't like my garments. My mere presence bothers them. Many of them are what you call Ultramontanes, natives of the Pyrenees, and they would like a crusade like the ones that liberated Jerusalem to expel us or to exterminate us all.”

When they entered an alley, a strong gust of wind blew against them, making walking difficult. Diego contemplated Benazir. The air pressed her dress into her body and revealed a lovely figure with generous contours. He felt guilty. How he wanted to run his hands over it. … And at the same time, he hated himself for it. He couldn't manage to express what was happening to him but he knew he shouldn't even be thinking of it. It wasn't right. Benazir was the wife of his master and, if Diego acted on his feelings, he would never be able to renew Galib's trust in him.

“Forget them, it's not worth it.” She spoke to him in Arabic.

“They owe you respect,” he replied, also in her language, with a defiant look. “And a man can't allow …”

Benazir pulled at him and sped up her step with the intention of getting away, proud at Diego's reaction. After they turned a corner, they took a narrow alley where the translator's workshop was located. A strong door was hidden in the center of a wall covered with marigolds and an enormous asparagus plant. To the left, a wooden shield indicated the owner.

They entered after calling twice at the door without receiving any reply. It seemed like any other shop, although slightly strange, since apart from having a large counter no one was waiting on anyone and there were no objects on the shelf.

They waited a moment, but not a soul appeared. There was just a door that seemed to lead to the interior. It was half closed. When they pushed it, it creaked resoundingly, and yet that didn't attract the interest of its owners either. Benazir peeked in and was astonished by what she saw. She stepped aside for Diego.

“Come in and see how marvelous …”

It was a rectangular room, not very large but with a special charm. A thick column of light fell from a high alabaster ceiling, coming to rest on two enormous tables that ran from one end to the other, leaving a narrow passage in the middle. Atop them reposed, tranquil, hundreds of beautiful books bound in fine cordovan leather. Their careful and sinuous Arabic script, embossed in gold on their covers and spines, shone beneath the reflection of the sun.

Looking more closely, Diego discovered among them the texts of such signal Muslim authors as Averroes and Abu Zakaria, whom Galib cited frequently. Others were unknown to him, like Aristotle, Heraclitus, or Hippocrates.

He ran a finger over their spines. Out of respect for their valuable contents, he didn't want to touch even one of those manuscripts, but he looked at all of them, one by one, until he reached the edge of the room, where another door awaited them, this one of exquisitely carved oak. When they came close, they heard a grave and raspy voice. It was pronouncing a long phrase in Latin.

Benazir opened it with purpose and entered into a smaller room. Inside there were three men who turned around immediately in curiosity.

“Is one of you Gerardo de Cremona?”

One, with abundant gray hair pulled back in a ponytail, weathered skin, and small, deep-set eyes, set down the book he had in his hands and smiled at her.

“So they call me. Gerardo de Cremona, translator. One of the many employed nowadays in this profession in Toledo.”

With him was an unkempt-looking friar and a person with a wrinkled face topped with an enormous yellow turban.

“How can we help you?”

“I am Benazir, the wife of the albéitar Galib, and this is his assistant, Diego.”

The face of the translator relaxed and he remembered the order.

“Ah! The albéitar Galib. Welcome. Come in, please. Make yourselves at home. I have your order in another room.”

Gerardo de Cremona turned to the door that led to the next room but realized he hadn't introduced them to the people he was with.

“How rude I am! Excuse me. I don't suppose you know my companions. Friar Benito, besides a Calatravan priest, is a great expert in the Latin language. He doesn't always work with us, only when his master charges him with some task.” The person referred to stood and made a kindly face. “Now we are working on a treatise of Avicenna,
The Book of Healing
. We will translate it from Arabic to Romanic and then into Latin.”

“Why wouldn't you do it directly into Latin?” Diego asked, interested by everything he saw and heard in the room.

“Arabic is a complex language. The vowels can sound different depending on how they are intoned, and their meaning changes as well. In our case, Habim bin Dussuf”—the person referred to bowed his head, the traditional form of salutation—“is responsible for reading the text in the original. He has two advantages; not only is it his own language, but he is a recognized theologian, and he thus knows the material well. While he reads the original, I make the translation into Romanic, your language, and Friar Benito translates that into Latin and writes it out.”

Habim turned toward a corner where he picked up a bronze jar and offered them a cup of tea.

“Though it may strike you as too long or laborious a process,” Gerardo de Cremona continued, “in practice, it isn't. Besides, it is more common nowadays to find someone who knows Arabic and Romanic, or Romanic and Latin. Very few people have mastered both Arabic and Latin. Do you understand?”

“What types of books do you translate?” Diego drank the tea, flavored with honey and scented with sandalwood, in one sip.

“It depends on the buyer. The church wants treatises of Muslim thought to better know who they're up against.” Friar Benito nodded, completely in agreement with this mission. “Even so, the books of medicine and science remain the most popular, both the writing by the Greek philosophers and those coming from noted Arabic doctors, philosophers, and scholars.”

He took up a thick volume from a shelf and caressed it as though he held a delicate treasure in his hands. Diego read the name Dioscorides on the cover.

“They come from all over Europe looking for them,” Cremona continued. “Ancient wisdom disappeared from the West when Rome lost her empire. It was only preserved in Byzantium. Many Arabic scholars compiled them for the libraries in Baghdad, Damascus, or Egypt where they were translated. Some of those treatises were copied and wound up in the most famous libraries of Al-Andalus, where they were studied and preserved as authentic jewels of knowledge. But seventy years ago, as a result of the Almohad invasion, many wise Jews and Arabs were so threatened by the religious and cultural extremism that they had to flee. Toledo was an ideal destination, and for that reason many of them settled among us, and this is how there came to be created what some now call the School of Translators, an immense group of illustrious men dedicated to translate that ancient wisdom from Arabic into Latin or Romanic. King Alfonso of Castile is the greatest promoter of this enterprise. He has brought many scholars to Toledo who are fleeing from the one-sided vision of the Almohads.”

“Who else buys your work?” Diego asked while he leafed through the book the man had treated so carefully.

“Our clients come from the most far-flung universities and cathedrals and they pay well. They normally look for the philosophical works of Arabic authors, like Avicenna, most recently, or of Jews like Maimonides of Córdoba.”

“In the other room, I saw a beautiful collection of books and I was interested in one in particular, but I don't know what its value could be.”

Galib had spoken to him numerous times of that treatise on the albéitar, the work of an anonymous author and the first written reference to the profession. Diego had found it on one of the tables.

“Boy, I regret to tell you that those books are far outside your reach. I hope I am not offending you. Do you understand?”

At that instant, Benazir made a discreet but portentous face. The translator understood and reacted immediately, inviting them to look at the books.

He stood between the two tables and ran his hands over their entire contents.

“Here you see my entire supply. They are all the books translated by my team and some in their original languages. When I sell one, I make a new copy, taking advantage of an identical copy I keep in another room. But tell me: Which were you interested in?”

Diego took it respectfully in his hands. At once he realized that however much it might interest him, it was possible that he could never pay for it in his entire life.

“This one.”

“
Treatise on the Albéitar's Art
,” the owner read its title out loud. “A book by an unknown author, who they say may have been a Castilian residing in Córdoba. Excellent choice, young man. It is believed to be the first book dealing with the illnesses of horses and their cures, very important for your future profession, of course.” He opened it and suddenly remembered something. “Sadly, I have to tell you that I don't have it translated.”