John Masters (15 page)

When I joined Count Anseric in the center chamber I saw that the boys had served him, too, for he was very red of face and sat down most heavily upon the cushions. In that place there were marble pillars, and many spread cushions, and a pool of clear water, and mosaic figures dancing under the water. Now came a tall, thin, gray man in a Visigothic tunic, like Count Anseric's but more splendid, and this was Count Ilian himself. His eyes were deep-sunk and envenomed, his mouth wide and thin. He did not look at all forgiving.

We three Christians waited, not speaking, and suddenly a mighty blast of trumpets almost in our ears set us on our feet. The silk curtains shivered, and three Moors strode in, followed by David, the scribe. He in the center was a dark prince, with a forked beard and a cunning eye, dressed all in black, and he came on alone. Count Ilian muttered, "It is Musa-ibn-Nusayr, governor of Africa for the caliph."

The governor spoke sharply, pushing his hand flat toward the floor. I dropped to my knees, for his meaning was clear, and Count Anseric with me. Count Ilian hesitated, but at the governor's frown he too knelt. Then the governor smiled and embraced us all and introduced the other two Moors with him: Tarik, who was dark and wide and short and wore a green robe; and Abd-al-Malik, David's master, who was tall and young and fair and wore white and gold.

Musa spoke a few sentences, then turned upon his heel and left, all bowing again. David translated. "The governor of Africa bids you make speed with your talk as he must leave in the morning. Let no foolish splitting of hairs delay agreement."

The talking began. I had little to do, for David's Latin was better than mine, and beside Arabic he also spoke Visigothic. However, I listened diligently and learned that Count Ilian and Count Anseric meant to invite an army of five thousand Moors to help King Roderic make peace in Hispania. The counts would have to pretend to fight against the Moors at first, it was agreed, though I did not understand why. And if, as some said, the king was the prisoner of Arian heretics and other evil forces, then his army must be attacked, and Count Ulan would be regent until the king could be released. The wages of the Moors was soon agreed, this to be freedom to sack Asido and two other towns, together with ten thousand pieces of silver. This Tarik of the green robe was to be the general, with Abd-al-Malik under him. The counts swore to obey Tarik in all that pertained to waging war, and the Moors swore to return to Africa after they had been paid, whenever Count Ilian asked them.

In Hispania the Moors would land in the shelter of that Rock where I was shipwrecked. For the journey across the narrow sea they had four big boats. Each boat held one hundred soldiers and should be able to cross the strait once coming and once going each day. So it should take two weeks to transport the army to Hispania if the weather remained fair.

When we ended our talking, it was arranged that we should return to Torrox that very night, bearing with us Count Ilian and his family and also Abd-al-Malik, who would make arrangements on the very place for the arrival of the army.

Then the lords went away, and David and I worked together to prepare the agreement in four copies. When all was done, and we had read each aloud, that none might differ from another, we took the parchments to our masters, and our work was done.

I returned to my chamber and David with me. He lowered himself to the cushions, sitting cross-legged in a manner I never learned to follow, for it made my knees ache, also it is ill-suited to the damp floors of Wessex. David said we had some hours to pass, and since he had heard I did not care for other entertainment, we would do well to converse together. Time spent in acquiring knowledge is never wasted, he said. He asked me many questions about Torrox and about Count Theodomir—he seemed relieved when I told him I had seen the count leave with my own eyes—and about the Jews. When I said I had never met a Jew, he answered shortly, "You are talking to one. Did you expect us to have horns and a tail?"

I apologized for my ignorance, and he said, "Aethelred, I don't know why, but I like you. Listen to me. You are in danger. Now, slip out through yonder arch. Across the street there is a blue door. It is the synagogue. Enter there, cover your head, and pass the time in meditation until tomorrow, when I shall come for you. Count Anseric will think that you have run off with one of the boys. He will not worry, as long as you stay in Africa."

I said, "I do not understand."

David walked up and down several minutes. Then he spoke slowly to me. "Aethelred, only seven people know of the agreement just made: the governor, the two Muslim generals, the two counts, we two secretaries. Of those, we four Moors are obeying the command of our caliph. None of us stands in any danger should the agreement be revealed. Think you the same is true of the counts? Think you that their king, Roderic, knows of the agreement?"

I thought that David was trying to warn me, but though I was troubled, what could I do? I said, "Count Anseric sheltered me when I came in, near drowned, from the sea. I cannot desert him. As for the king, he is a prisoner of Arian heretics. The counts plan to free him from that thrall. It is so written."

David struck his clenched fists upon his temples and cried aloud in his own tongue and then said, "What must be, must be.... How do you like the Lady Hildoara? The scent of her doings carries across the straits even against the wind."

I told him of her summons to me and how I had saved her embarrassment, and he fell on the cushions and lay there a long time, struggling and gasping for breath. He rose at last, weeping, and said, "Farewell, Aethelred ... farewell." He embraced me and in a moment was gone.

The rowers thrust our vessel from the shore after dark that night. Abd-al-Malik stood silent in the stern, wrapped in a cloak. Count Anseric fell asleep at the mast. Count Ilian's lady sat in the waist of the vessel, her arm around their daughter, Florinda, she whom the king was said to have defiled. The wind blew hot from Africa, and clouds hid stars and moon. Faint light seemed to come from under the water.

I heard a tread behind me on the creaking deck and turned to see Count Ilian. He peered at me and said, "Ah, it is the Saxon...." He seemed then to speak to himself, as though forgetting that I was at his side. "What do they know, who have never left Europe?
I
have been to Damascus. I have spoken to the Caliph Walid. It is three thousand miles to Damascus, and all the way the banner of Islam waves over city and village, field and forest, desert and shore. And beyond Damascus, three thousand miles more. And all this in ninety years, since their Prophet launched them upon the world."

"A mighty people," I said wonderingly. "And of a surety, if anyone can restore King Roderic to the peaceful possession of his throne and his rights, they can."

The count muttered a prayer and left me. At dawn we landed by the ruined town and went at once to Torrox. Count Anseric announced a great feast, and all day the castle and village bustled with preparations. By the fourth hour after noon all was ready. Soon after, the feast began.

It was as though I slid from the top of a mountain, where it was cool and clear, ever faster down a slope, the air growing thicker, the light more lurid. At first musicians played, men and women bowed and spoke politely one to another and ate daintily. Soon the platters of lamb and fowl and boar, of fish and mussel and oyster, passed more quickly, and more quickly emptied the wine flagons. From music it passed to singing, and from that to shouting. The Lady Hildoara's robe was ill-fastened, so that unknowingly she displayed her breasts to the Moor, Abd-al-Malik. All around, men began to fondle women. By the time darkness came, scores of the Visigoths were lying on the floor in their own vomit. Others pulled servant wenches to their laps, threw up their skirts, and shamelessly stroked and entered upon their privy parts like rutting animals. Count Anseric, Lady Hildoara, and Abd-al-Malik were not to be seen, and soon I left, too, for the sights of that place were an abomination. But in the courtyard I stumbled upon Count Anseric engaged in vile concourse with a stable boy. Running in horror away from them toward my cell, I opened a wrong door by mistake and found Abd-al-Malik and Lady Hildoara, naked, watching a great wolfhound that was mounted upon a servant girl.

I ran out then, blind with terror, past the sentries, out of the courtyard, into the village, for God must surely be preparing his lightning against such people. A man stepped out of a dark doorway in front of me and held my arm. "It is the Saxon," he said. "God be praised!"

I stared. "Lord Theodomir! The Lord be praised, indeed! What I have seen..."

"I know," he said abruptly. "Their punishment will come. But you have been on a journey. I must know what passed. For the sake of our country, for our very Faith, Aethelred ... tell me!"

I collected my wits. "You must ask your brother, Count Anseric," I said humbly. "I am sworn to secrecy."

"They will kill me, fool!" he snapped. "Why do you think I creep around dark alleys under my own castle walls? In the name of our Saviour, tell me."

My heart was ready to burst, for Count Theodomir was a saint among men. But I was his brother's servant. I could not break faith. I wrenched free, and before he could recover from his surprise, I was gone.

I ran out of the village, ran across moonlit fields, I knew not where. Then a white light shone in the sky, and I ran toward that, believing it was a sign from Christ, until, coming at last close to it, I saw it was the Rock. Then I slowed to a walk, and the sand under my feet changed to sharp stones, and the moon hid itself. Careless of what might befall, I crawled under a great rock and curled up, shivering like a fevered animal. Sick and sore afraid I was, for in my marrow I felt the coming wrath of God. Ever more bright in the night I saw God, towering in almighty anger in the clouds, brightness about Him, to destroy this world and all of us upon it. Then I prayed, gabbling words without sense, until at last, being very tired, I seemed to see a woman, long-haired and naked but with no lewdness, who cried for help; but I could not help her, and after a while she left me, or I fell asleep, I know not which.

I awoke in the morning, feeling very weak. I began to think what I should do, for now I wanted nothing but to escape and go on to Rome. But before long Abd-al-Malik rode up with two Visigothic captains. I remained hidden until at the hour of noon I saw, half a. league distant, four ships coming toward the land. I watched them without thinking what they might portend. Then I saw that each was crowded with men, and I saw the flash of spears, and horses I saw and knew that these were the four ships of the Moors. It was a bright morning, the cloud gone from the Rock and the wind fresh and clean from the ocean beyond the pillars. Green banners covered in strange writing floated from the mastheads. I held my breath, for these were they who had come thousands of miles across deserts and rivers, all-conquering. Now they were treading the sea and would set foot in Europe here under the great Rock. Where would they stop?

I saw David ha-Cohen in the third vessel, and he seemed then the only true friend I had in the world. Heedless of all else, I jumped up and ran along the shore to meet the boats where they would come to land.

I was close as the bows ran up the sand. I saw General Tarik jump down and wade toward Abd-al-Malik, and behind him many soldiers splashed ashore, some with those strange apes on their shoulders, and then the horses were whipped so that they jumped into the sea and came with their teeth bared to the shore. As David came up the beach, a big leathern satchel over one shoulder and a sword slung by a baldric from the other, a dozen black Moors ran upon me, curved swords flashing, and I fainted.

I awoke cold and wet. David was casting sea water upon me. He cried, "I never thought to see
you
again, Aethelred! Was it luck, or are you not so innocent as you pretend?"

The vessels were still unloading men and baggage.

General Tarik, at the head of a score of horsemen, had just set off along the sand toward Torrox. The other Moors, mostly foot soldiers, had begun to carry stones, under Abd-al-Malik's direction, to make a wall.

I said, unhappily, "I want to go to Rome."

David said, "That is impossible, I fear, until what will come to pass here has come. You must stay with me. I have told my master that you surrendered to my mercy. You are therefore my slave, which puts my protection over you, for what it is worth.... Come, let us put up a shelter. We may be living many weeks on this Rock."

I knew nothing of war and listened with amazement, while we worked, as David explained to me the meaning of what I saw going on under my eyes but, to my ignorance, without purpose.

It was Abd-al-Malik's task to make a corner of this Rock where vessels could unload, secure against attack, so that the army coming from Africa could land whatever the Visigoths did, either the counts or King Roderic. The counts were supposed to pretend a resistance and then flee. General Tarik had gone to see that they kept their word.

The coming of the Moors was, therefore, simple treason by Count Ilian, helped by Count Anseric, to make himself king in Roderic's place. I wondered if Count Theodomir had been able to learn anything of this and if he had escaped to carry the word to the betrayed King Roderic. Yet Roderic had murdered Wittica and defiled the lady Florinda. The thought that they all pretended to share my Holy Faith shamed me.

So that evening, being the slave of David the Jew, who was servant to Abd-al-Malik the Infidel, I slept under a tent on the ground and drank fresh water and ate a fruit the Moors had brought, called "dates," and felt almost that I was cleansed from the sins of the Visigoths.

The days passed. Numerous citizens, many of them Jews, came from far and near to offer their thanks and help and to beg the Moors to advance with all speed. Abd-al-Malik's soldiers built their stone walls higher and dug a well and made a rough stone jetty into the bay. The vessels traveled back and forth from Africa, and now nearly all the soldiers who landed marched at once to join the general in Torrox. I went with him, as a slave, and saw his falcons strike down many of those redlegged partridges which abound on the Rock. At night we ate of the partridge, and they were very tender, but each time I saw one between Abd-al-Malik's fierce, bearded lips, I thought it was a little Christian.

After a month, I asked David why the Moors did not now march out upon the Visigoths, since all was ready. He said, "King Roderic is in the Pyrenees. Think you we are going to march all that way and fight six hundred miles from our boats? No, no, the king shall ride six hundred miles to us. The governor of Africa has promised to send us more men. When we fight, it will not be far from here."

Another month passed. As I had learned a few words of Visigothic before, now I learned a little Arabic, and, without meaning to, found myself laughing as they did, with a high-pitched loud sound, and David taught me to greet them properly, saying,
"la ilaha ill Allah, Muhammadur rasul Allah!"
which pleased them mightily. And David told me that though the Moors were strong, yet might the Christians win the day, for the Moors had a most fatal weakness. It was their feuds, he said, which they took everywhere with them and cherished above women, above gold. The governor of Africa, Musa, was of one party, Abd-al-Malik of another, and only common allegiance to the caliph made them speak to each other. But Musa and Abd-al-Malik were Arabs while Tarik was a Berber from this western Africa—and they despised each other. All this and much more David ha-Cohen explained to me while we walked and climbed together all over that great Rock, and discovered many caves, and came upon dens of wild pig and lynx, and saw wolves, and found a big fallen stone, marked by the hand of man but far from the shore.

At last word came that King Roderic had passed Hispalis with a host of 90,000 men. The trumpets sounded, and the army gathered by the ruined city, being now 12,000 men. I rode out by David's side, I on a small gray donkey and he on a fierce horse with wide nostrils and turned-up nose and long tail and red eyes. As we rode round the bay upon the traces of an ancient road, such as we have in Wessex and the Holy Abbot says were made by the Romans, I looked back at the silver Rock shining in the sun and wondered if I would ever see it again.

The banners over us were green and black and covered by that strange writing. Five times a day every man of the host, from the generals to the trumpeters, knelt down and prayed toward the east, striking their heads on the earth. Such devoutness I have never seen among Christians, saving a very few holy monks. But I was Christian, and we went to fight a Christian king, however deep in sin his people had fallen, and I was sore troubled in spirit.

We marched six days by forest and mountain and along the ocean shore. We marched among great trees whereof the bark may be cut off and is indeed that cork used for shoe soles. The boughs cast a pleasant shade, and bards of the host sang wild songs. At camp and on the march spies came to tell General Tarik of the Christians' movement and of fords and water and hidden food. In a thunderstorm of lightning and rain we came to a ridge, with a great marsh full of wild duck and wading birds to the right and to the left a wide, fast-flowing river which curved out of the marsh, passed round the ridge, and flowed by more marshland to the sea. Here General Tarik planted his standard, saying, "Here we conquer." To engage us King Roderic must pass the river, and the narrow ridge between the great marsh and the river would prevent him extending his host, much greater than ours, past our wings. And, as David muttered to me that first night, that place was as far as it was prudent for the Moors to go from the Rock, and their boats in shelter under it, until they had defeated King Roderic.

It was a purgatory to wait and hear every hour of the advance of King Roderic's host, and I dared not pray for fear the Moors would kill me. Nor did I know what I should pray for. On the second day in that place, which was the sixteenth day of July, the army of the Visigoths came down to the river from the north and began to cross. The Moorish horsemen rode out in readiness, but the Christians made camp and set up their standards.

"Tomorrow will be the battle," David said, "and victory will be ours. A spy has just brought word that Count Ulan commands the right wing of the Christians and Archbishop Oppas the left. They are both sworn to us."

While the soldiers began to whet their sword blades, I walked away down the river, oppressed by my thoughts. I came after a time to the beach, where the river flowed into the ocean hard by a sandy cape, with a hill behind. I lay down and slept, and dreams came, for I saw the sand covered with dead men and others rolling in the waves. I awoke with a cry, hearing my name called.

I got up and saw Count Theodomir across the river. "Aethelred," he said, "my brother Anseric is dead, choked in gluttony. You owe him nothing more. Come over the river, join us, and tell us all you know. Otherwise, I fear for the Cross in Hispania—aye, in all Europe, the world."

I went to the river and walked a little way in. Then I remembered that I was David's slave and he had saved my life. I stepped back.

"Aethelred ... we are
Christians!"
Theodomir called. Again I went into the water, a little farther this time. The current tugged at my legs to overthrow me, and suddenly I knew I could not go. I struggled back to the shore and hurried to the camp and the tent I shared with David. I did not speak but lay shivering on the ground, my eyes closed.