The Damiano Series (86 page)

“Disgraced!” she repeated, frowning solemnly and dabbling one pretty toe in the water.

“Rashiid, my husband, of course, is not like that. Not exactly like that. He is almost human. But all THAT, you know, is not very much fun.” Ama's eyes roved uncertainly from a bronze-backed carp to Raphael's attentive face. “Is it?”

Raphael laid the ud in his lap. He did not pretend to misunderstand her. “I do not know,” he replied seriously. “About men with women.” Ama snickered.

“Of course you don't.”

Her slave's expression did not lighten. “But as life comes from Allah, every part of it must have some beauty in it.”

Ama gave a tiny sniff. “Don't talk like a book!”

Then, in the next moment, a spark appeared in her brown eyes.

Assuring herself that the garden court was empty except for Raphael and herself, she said, “Let me sit on your lap.”

Dutifully the slave put his instrument aside, and little Ama snuggled up to him. Raphael stroked her as one would stroke a cat, and suddenly, for no perceivable reason, he laughed out loud.

Justly he could call himself Rashiid ben Rashiid, for he was a self-made man, come far from his father's mule stud. He had left Granada early, having a dislike for livestock and mules in particular, and made his money in lower Egypt, coming home with a regular income and a new name. Once home he bought a house and planted orange trees (whose fruit was forbidden by law to the infidel) everywhere. But Rashiid had not completely buried Paolo, son of Pablo. For one thing Pablo himself still lived, and for another it was much more profitable to do business with the
giaour
—the Christians. They were less likely to complain to the Hajib when affairs went badly. Therefore the household of Rashiid lived by compromise.

There was a featureless white wall with tile eaves peeping over, which in size suggested a building of Moorish type—facing inward over its central court—and palatial dimension. This was an illusion, however, for most of what was visible from the street was the wall of the enclosed garden, decked out to look like house frontage, with arches, doorways, and little stone steps. The house itself, while sizable, sat huddled in one corner of the lot, revealing its peasant origins in every squat line.

To make up for the limits of the house proper, the garden was scattered with little round and thatched outbuildings which resembled mushrooms springing from the irrigated soil. These, though necessary, looked terribly native.

There were no separate women's quarters, because there was no room for such, and also because Granada (being half Christian) tended to be lax in the observance of the Islamic proprieties. But because Rashiid ben Rashiid did not want to be known as lax in observance, it was necessary for his wives to pretend occasionally that they were not about when they WERE about. For this purpose were maintained certain hidey-holes in various parts of the house to which they could escape in the event of orthodox visitors.

These provisions made life a bit difficult for Fatima and Ama, not to mention the Spanish maids. But the two Islamic women consoled themselves with the knowledge that though they were married to a convert, the very inconvenience they were put to proved that they themselves were still persons of quality.

Djoura (though possessing proprieties of an entirely different nature), put the closets into similar use. She would retire to them and pretend she was not there, especially when she heard Ama's piping, querulous call. There was one retreat at the end of one of the inside walls of the house which she preferred, for it had a rough, dimpled window through which she could see everything within the walls, from the bondsmen's barrack (very small) to the stable which housed Rashiid's one horse: an immaculately kept Egyptian gray which he never rode. Between these two outposts lay the garden itself, where the orange trees bloomed and perfumed vines twined around the fish pond. This little body of water was perfectly round and sat like a pockmark in the dusty skin of the garden. It had no natural source and had to be topped off daily with water brought in on donkeys (never mules).

It was there that Djoura's eyes were bent, as her chin rested on the thumb side of her fist, which pressed in turn on the clay windowsill. The coins above her forehead rustled like leaves in the day's airs. The white muslin costume which had become Djoura so well had somehow disappeared from the wash, and she was back to wearing her traditional fusty black. With stony, set face she watched Raphael dandle his little mistress on his lap.

Ama was an irritation: a spoiled little fluttering thing and a stumbling block toward certain long-range goals. It was part Djoura's intention to gain a reputation for trust and biddability, and to that end she acted her role before Rashiid very effectively.

Her very contempt for the man—pompous, damp, and fleshy as he was—lent her zest for the part, and the knowledge that he desired her lent her confidence. Yet Rashiid's lust was a danger, too, which Djoura did not underestimate. He was in all ways disgusting.

Ama—curious and willful as she was—could not be dismissed with the same sniff and a sneer. The little woman was ubiquitous, and enough like the black Berber in mind that she could not be readily cozened. Djoura could not feel contempt for Ama. But she could hate her. And she could be jealous.

Look at the little chicken, bouncing on Pinkie's knee—bold as a child on an aged donkey. Wouldn't she get a big surprise if she could see the fellow without his trousers. If she kept behaving so shamelessly, she might get a surprise some day: every man had his limits.

Even Pinkie. Djoura bit her Up, for Pinkie worried her more than Ama did: more than anything else did in this place of rich food and sloth. Ever since she realized that the fellow was no more a half-wit than a eunuch, her concern for him had grown heavier and heavier.

More and more she doubted he was a Berber at all, despite his knowledge of both tongue and music. He sang other songs besides the desert chants, with what seemed to Djoura equal facility: songs in Spanish and songs in languages of which the woman knew not even the name. And the placidity with which he had sunk into this life of captivity was dreadful. What Berber could seem so content wearing the iron collar?

Djoura had never asked Pinkie directly where he had been born or who his people were; first, because it was rare she found the time and privacy for such conversation, and secondly, because she didn't like such questions herself. When the woman closed her eyes at night she would still often see her father's mare scrabbling up the mountain trail toward camp, dragging his headless body by one stirrup. Behind the horse had come the riders of the Bedouin Arif Yusuf, following the bloody trace through the sand.

And then Djoura would be visited by an image of her mother, with veil thrown back, swinging a grass scythe in deadly circles around her head, wearing an arrow through her cheek like an ornament.

A man born a slave had shame in his past. A man enslaved had defeat. It was never good to ask. Yet as Djoura watched Fatima (fat, harmless Fatima, whom even Djoura could not dislike) come puffing out of the middle door of the main house, gesticulating and babbling to Ama in Spanish, she knew she would have to make more certain of Pinkie—since they were going to escape together.

Evidently the first wife didn't like Ama's antics any more than Djoura did, for the two of them were at it now, their shrill, staccato words falling like a shower of stones on the garden.

And here was Pinkie, sent off to the house with a flea in his ear. Now was both time and opportunity. “Hsst! Pinkie!” she called out the window.

He approached, his odd, narrow-featured (to Djoura) face looking as mild as if no one had ever raised her voice to him in his life. “Get in here,” she hissed, backing from the rough clay opening.

“Through the window?” the blond asked, and in reply Djoura snatched his hand and pulled him over the sill. He rose from the floor, looking only slightly surprised.

“I didn't want anyone to see us together,” she explained. “Enough talk goes on already, you can believe!”

Then her voice roughened and she pointed her index finger at him. “You listen to me, Pinkie, when I tell you to leave that nasty little thing alone, if you value your future.”

His eyebrows (and even Djoura had to admit that Pinkie had fine eyebrows) shot up. “Ama? Do you mean…”

“I mean the baby girl who calls herself my mistress, Pinkie. If Rashiid (Allah shrivel his big belly) finds out there's nothing but a pair of cotton trousers between his favorite wife and a man's… whatever… you'll soon be no more than you claim to be!”

His blue eyes shifted uncertainly. “Djoura, what do you mean by what I ‘claim to be'?”

Djoura struck her palm against her forehead. “I think you're simple after all, Pinkie. A boy, is what you seem to be!”

“A boy?” he echoed, looking down at his long legs and well knit body.

“A permanent boy. A eunuch,” Djoura hissed with ferocity.

Understanding awoke for Raphael. “They think I'm a eunuch? Why? Nobody asked me. Nobody even looked.”

She blinked. “Woodenhead! I made sure they didn't! I spent the last week standing in between you and discovery. You can bet I told that oily Hakiim you'd lost your bollucks! Made fun of you for it, too. And I didn't stop flirting with this hog-boweled Rashiid until we were out onto the street.”

“Why?” he pressed, as mildly as ever.

Djoura sat herself down on the only stool in the room. “First of all,” she pronounced very slowly. “Those two dealt in boys— eunuchs. If you hadn't been one before, you would have been as soon as they found out. And even if they didn't for some reason, no one would buy you entire unless they wanted to put you in a mine somewhere, or out in a field with iron burning your neck and wrist.

“No one. NO ONE would have bought you and I together had they known you were entire!”

Two small lines of worry appeared between Raphael's eyes. “But Rashiid has bought me already. If he thinks I am a eunuch, he is wrong, and perhaps I should tell him so.”

Djoura hushed him and looked wildly around. “Never! You must never tell anyone or let them know. Not if you want to escape the knife!”

“That is very awkward,” Raphael said simply. He laced his fingers over his knee and sat with his back against the wall. “It is like a he.”

“Hah!” She swallowed a laugh. “Nothing is a lie, if it helps a Berber win back her freedom!”

“It will help you win back your freedom if I let them believe I am a eunuch?”

She nodded decisively. “And yours too.”

A look of pain and fatigue touched his fair features and he looked away from her face. In that moment Djoura became satisfied that Raphael, too, remembered freedom. “But he does not believe me,” whispered Djoura to herself. “He does not believe I can arrange it.” For a moment her own doubts knocked. But the Berber stiffened her jaw, and her ebony hand reached out and touched his.

“Pinkie,” she said gently. “You must trust me. I am your only friend.”

Raphael looked quickly up. His hand reached down to the hem of his trousers and he felt something that had been inserted between the stitches. “You ARE my dear friend, Djoura, but I have another.”

The woman snorted. “Who's the other, then. Ama?”

Raphael's face lit softly. He held a pebble in his hand. “No. I meant someone I have known a while. His name is Damiano.”

This was new. Djoura blinked at the news before replying, “And where is Damiano? Where was he, that he was not there to help you when all the sense was beaten out of you and you were sold to a crab louse like Perfecto? I don't call that much of a friend who—”

For the first time, Raphael interrupted Djoura. “He does not live anywhere. He is with Allah. And yet he is a great help to me.

“He gave me this.” Raphael proffered the pebble reluctantly, as though afraid she would dash it out of his hand.

Djoura, examining the thing in the half-light which came in through the irregular window, recognized it as the pebble Pinkie had refused to take out of his mouth that first morning in the hills, and had carried all that day locked in his battered hand.

Carefully, she gave it back to him. “Not much of a gift,” she said gruffly, but despite her words she was touched. She let out her breath in what was intended to be a snort, but turned out a rather wistful sigh.

“Who whipped you like that, Pinkie? Your old master?”

He shook his head. “It was my brother who commanded it done. We are old enemies.” And after a moment's quiet reflection, Raphael added, “I don't think it is over between us: my brother and I.”

“Ah?” This was interesting. It opened up new images of Pinkie. Poor men had less reason to attack their brothers than did great ones. If he were not such a good musician, Djoura might suspect her pale friend of being wellborn. “Your brother betrayed you? Then you had no master, before?”

Raphael's smile was private and gentle. It called out an answering one from her. “None save Allah.”

Djoura giggled and placed her head close to his. “‘There IS no master save Allah…' We understand that, you and I!”

“So!” The deep voice from the doorway startled them both. “You would teach our boy the
sa'lad:
the statement of faith?”

It was Rashiid himself, and he did not look particularly happy at the words he had half heard. He glowered down at Raphael's head. “Ama tells me your name is actually not Pinkie but Raphael.”

The blond rose smoothly. “Yes, that is true.”

Djoura blinked in surprise. Having once decided to call her charge Pinkie, it had never occurred to her to ask if he had another name.

Rashiid did not like the response. He felt patronized, and obscurely threatened. In fact, there was something about Raphael that had begun to bother Rashiid: the unclean smoothness of his cheek, perhaps, or the fact that his pretty face stood at man's height and stared at him with mannish directness. Rashiid—or rather Paolo, son of Pablo—was not used to eunuchs, and he did not like standing too close to this ambiguous creature. But it was up to Rashiid to set an example here, in the presence of the girl, so his hand flicked out. “You say, ‘Yes, MASTER. It is true, MASTER.'“