The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories (20 page)

“No. It is the cross of the Christ that I wear here. I have always sworn it.”

“Wear it still,” Guthrum said. “Wear them both until you decide.”

All movement round the tables stilled, the very cupbearers and carvers stopping in their tracks to gape at the king. Alfred’s eyes, sweeping along the row of faces turned to his, fell suddenly on the anguished gaze of his chaplain Edbert.

In that moment he knew the future. If men were given the free choice Guthrum offered, then all the passion, the faith, the loyalty of Edbert and his like would be of no avail. The bitter, grasping selfishness of the archbishops, the popes, the Daniels, would cancel it every time. With his mind’s eye he saw the great minsters deserted, their stone carted away to use in barns and walls. He saw armies gathering on the white cliffs of England, armies of Saxons and Vikings united under the banners of Odin and Thor, ready to spread their faith to the Franks and the southerners. He saw the White Christ himself, a baby, crying forsaken on the last untended altar of Rome.

If he wavered now, Christianity would not stand.

In the tense silence Tobba leaned forward from his place behind King Alfred’s chair.

He took the chain in his hand and clasped it round his master’s neck. There was the tiniest sound in the silent room as metal touched metal.

Or was it the loudest sound any of them had ever heard?

<>

* * * *

Such a Deal

Esther M. Friesner

Hisdai ibn Ezra, noted merchant of Granada (retired), did his best to conceal his amusement when his servant entered and announced, “There - there is a vis - a visitor to see you,
sidi.
A - Castilian, he said to tell you.”

How you twist your face and stammer Mahmoud,
the old Jew thought.
You are jumpy as a flea-ridden monkey. This unexpected guest of mine has you at a loss, I see. Well, you are young yet, and it is no common thing for foreigners to frequent this house since I left the trader’s calling. I still recall what a hubbub we had when the Genoese navigator first arrived, and that was supposed to be a secret visit. Lord of Hosts, whatever has become of that one? And of Daud. . .

He banished the thought, dreading the despair it must bring him. Better to study Mahmoud’s confusion and hold back laughter instead of tears.

Mahmoud was obviously waiting for his master to summon guards, or send word to Sultan Muhammad’s palace of the infidel interloper’s presence. When Hisdai did neither - only turning another leaf in his
Maimonides
- the servant seemed to jig out of his skin.

The old Jew swallowed a chuckle.
You look as if you could do with a little reading from the “Guide for the Perplexed” yourself, boy. You did not expect this, did you? One of those cause-mad Christians in the house of a Jew who lives quite comfortably under the reign of an Islamic lord? Least of all when the armies of Ferdinand and Isabella are camped before our walls, laying siege to Granada. No, you have every right to wear that astonished expression. If only it were not so comical!

He sighed and set aside his book. “Are there any refreshments in this house worthy of so exalted a caller, Mahmoud? A little spiced wine? A handful of dates not too wizened? Some other delicacies that Cook may have secreted away from happier times, may the Lord bless him for the prudent ant he so wisely emulates?”

Mahmoud knit his brows, his bewilderment mounting visibly. “Come, lad!” Hisdai said, trying to hearten his servant into action. “There is no mystery here. For me to expect Cook to have secret stores of exotic titbits despite the passage of nearly a year and a half since the Christians have come before our gates - that is just my knowing Cook’s character.”

“Oh, it is not that,
sidi;
it is only ...” Mahmoud paused, his tongue caught in a snare set by his discretion.

“Only what?” Hisdai ibn Ezra could not restrain a mildly cynical smile. “Fear nothing; I have heard all the whispering my servants do about me for more years than you have been alive.” He stroked his silvery beard. “They call me master-merchant to my face, but behind my back I vow that more than one idle tongue wags that I have trafficked less with human clientele and more with
djinn
and
Iblis.
Is this not so?”

Very reluctantly Mahmoud nodded. Hisdai laughed. “Therefore, why stand amazed at our unheralded visitor? Give thanks that he merely comes from our enemies’ ranks and not from the fiery Pit itself!”

Mahmoud made it his business to say, “O
sidi,
I do not believe the tales. How can I, who behold you daily, give credence to such lies?”

Hisdai lifted one grey and shaggy brow. “Are you quite certain they
are
lies, Mahmoud?”

Like most new servants, Mahmoud took everything his master said at face value. “They must be lies, O
sidi.
For one thing, you do not even look like a wizard.”

The boy spoke truth, and Hisdai ibn Ezra knew it. If he flattered himself that he resembled the dark magicians of legend, any good mirror would disabuse him at once. He knew himself to be a small, crinkle-faced cricket-chirp of a man. White hairs - sparse beneath his turban, lush upon his chin -held constant argument with brown eyes of a youthful sparkle. Long hours of study of the driest and most petrified of scholarly subjects, which drifted off into longer hours of heavy-headed sleep, painted him old. Then he would wake and speak with such lively insight and interest of current affairs near and far that he left younger men panting to follow the lightning path of his wit and insight.

True that Paradox had long made her scruffy nest beneath the roof of the one-time merchant prince, but for a Castilian to come a-calling in these times -! That was too much for even the most seasoned of servants to bear without dashing away at once to auction off the news to his comrades’ eager ears.

Now that Mahmoud’s initial startlement had faded, Hisdai could see that he was avid to have his duty done and be whisking this tale with him to the kitchens, and so the old Jew gently urged him on his way, saying, “Go now, haste. It does not do to keep demons
or
Castilians waiting.”

Mahmoud departed. He returned not much later, followed by a gentleman whose decidedly simple European clothes were in startling contrast to the splendour of Hisdai ibn Ezra’s flowing Moorish robes.

“Pelayo Fernández de Santa Fe, O
sidi,”
Mahmoud announced, bowing. Hisdai recognized that the lad was a skilled enough servitor to lower his eyes to the very stones while still observing absolutely everything around him. This time, as others, that talent would provide Mahmoud with a most instructive spectacle.

Then Hisdai ibn Ezra gazed from the clothes before him to the face above and turned to a lump of ice as solid as any to be found on the summit of snow-capped Mulhacen. He felt the colour ebb from his face like a fleeing tide, felt for the first time the palsy of age cause his outstretched hands to tremble. The old man’s breath rushed into his lungs with an audible rasping, a sound too near the final deathbed croak for any servant who valued his pay to remain unmoved.

Yet when Mahmoud rushed forward, a wail of paid loyalty on his lips, the strength gushed back into Hisdai’s body. He stood straight as a poplar and sharply motioned Mahmoud away. “Unworthy servant, where are your manners? Our honoured guest will think himself to be still among his own barbarous people. Go, fetch scented water and soft towels! Bread and salt! My finest wine! Why are you gawking? You’ll gape less when one of King Ferdinand’s men drives a pike through your gizzard. Go, I say!”

Mahmoud did not wait for further instructions. He had more than enough meat for meditation, and the other servants would treat him royally for it. Any diversion not connected with the infernal siege was worth its weight in gold, especially to folk who lacked anything more precious than copper.

Hisdai ibn Ezra watched Mahmoud scamper off, listening until he judged his servant’s pattering footsteps had retreated a sufficient distance for his liking. Then and only then did he turn to give his visitor a proper welcome.

“You
idiot!”
He snatched the man’s hat from his hands and flung it out the window into the courtyard below.

The visitor flew after his hat, but wisely halted his own flight short of the abyss. Leaning over the tiled sill, he remarked, “I see that you’ve kept the false awning in place down there. I thought that since you retired, you wouldn’t need to maintain such emergency measures in case of dissatisfied royal customers.”

“I may not deal with Sultan Muhammad any more, nor need to provide for the possibility of - ahem! - expeditious departures, but only a fool dreams any peace is permanent,” Hisdai growled. “Most definitely not in these times.”

His guest was unmoved by the old man’s peevishness. He was still admiring Hisdai’s escape stratagem, with which he seemed to be disconcertingly familiar. “To be able to jump from this height and land safely - ! Ah, one day I must try it, just to see how it feels. Unfortunately my hat missed the awning and the cushions under it and landed right in the fishpond. Was that necessary? I was rather attached to that hat.”

“Would that your brain were as attached to the inside of your skull. Do you realize what you risked, coming here in the teeth of the siege like this?”

“Unless I misremember,” Hisdai’s guest drawled, “it was not ten months ago that I found you entertaining a certain Genoese in this very room. When I asked you how Master Columbus had managed to breach the siege, you only smiled and said, ‘I have my ways. One key opens many gates, if that key be made of gold.’” He winked at Hisdai. “For once, I recalled your wisdom and used it well, particularly now that I have more of your precious keys than any locksmith.”

“What is this blather of keys?” Hisdai snorted. “When Mahmoud informed me that there was a Castilian come calling - all Christians are Castilians to him - I expected to greet a common seaman bringing word from the admiral. That Genoese is no fool. He has more sense than to venture his neck for nothing!”

The young man murmured into his beard, “There you speak a greater truth than you know.”

His words went unheard. As suddenly as it had erupted, Hisdai’s burst of sour temper vanished altogether. He rushed to fling the silken wings of his sleeves around the “Castilian”.

“Ah, Daud! Daud, my son, it is I who am the fool! If you are back, what else matters? My Daud - shall I call you by that abominable Castilian name you bestowed upon yourself?”

Daud pretended to take umbrage. “I thought it a very good alias, and most handy for getting past the more officious of the Catholic Monarchs’ sentries. Stop a man named for Don Pelayo, he who began the reconquest of this land from the Moors? Most ill-omened at this juncture.” He shook his head solemnly. “Now that Ferdinand and Isabella are about to retake the last Iberian foothold of our Moorish rulers, that would be most ill-omened indeed.”

Hisdai beamed over his son’s resourcefulness. “Still the clever rogue, my pride! Blessed be the lord, the God of Israel, for bringing me to this season. My heart, my child, I never thought to see your face again.”

The young man laughed out of a face that was a less-wrinkled version of his sire’s. His beard was somewhat shorter, the hair on his head summer midnight to Hisdai’s winter dawn, but the eyes held the same fire.

“Indeed, my father, there were moments in the voyage when I myself questioned whether the next face I saw would be yours or Elijah’s!” He sighed. “May Heaven witness, our valiant admiral suffered celestial visions enough for us all. There must be truth in what they say, that madness is but a divinely given spark of genius that burns with the most peculiar flame. That man has a sufficiency of such embers to burn all
al-Andalus
to ashes.” Laughter departed his lips as he added, “As he may yet do.”

“What is this you say, my son?” Hisdai clapped his hands to his eldest’s shoulders. “Do you mean that the voyage was - a failure? The homeland we seek, the refuge for our people once these accursed Catholic Monarchs destroy Granada, is only another of the admiral’s insane fancies?”

Daud’s travel-tattered moustache twisted itself into a wry expression. “O my father if I hear
you
call the admiral mad, you’ll have me thinking there’s some truth to Mother’s allegations. Why else would you commend me to a madman’s care?”