The Stone Lions (4 page)

In the town below, she could see the People
of the Book, the Christians, and wondered how they knew when to
pray. Ara loved hearing the muezzins sing out the call to prayer
five times each day: Fajr, at dawn; Zuhr, after the sun is highest
in the sky; Asr, afternoon; Maghrib after sunset and Isha, right
before midnight. It seemed odd that no voices called the Christians
to prayer.

“Father, are the Christians evil?”

He looked at her sharply. “What brought this
on?”

“Suleiman was worried about the Christians,
that’s all,” Ara hedged.

The sultan looked out across the
Vega
. “These are hard times. But there are good and bad
people in all religions. Christians, Jews, Muslims, no one group
has all of either. Right now, many Christians want us out of
Al-Andalusia—Spain, as they call it—and that makes it hard for us
to be friends.

“You remember Father John, the kind priest
you met. He’s a good man. There are those who are not as kind, and
we must be wary of them whether they are Christian or not. We are
fortunate to have the harem. No man can cause harm there, so our
loved ones are protected. It’s the law for Muslims. It’s a comfort
to me to know that my children, wives and grandmothers are
safe.”

But even with the safety of the harem, she
could see her father was uneasy.

“You have no reason to worry. Suleiman looks
after you, and the Alhambra is a very great fortress.” He bent down
to her level. “Is that what’s troubling you?”

“But why do they want us out of Al-Andalusia?
The Nazrids have ruled here for hundreds of years.”

“It’s true. We Muslims have been here a very
long time, almost seven hundred years,” he responded sadly, looking
across to the mountains. “But many of our cities and fortresses
have fallen. We have given much to our world, but Granada is the
last of the Muslim countries in all of Al-Andalusia.” His voice
dropped as if he were speaking to himself. “Our neighbors continue
to press into our borders.”

“Is that why you always look so worried?”

He stopped short, staring beyond her. “We are
in a time of change, and we must ride that change as best we can.”
A look of sorrow crossed his face before it was wiped away as if it
had never been there. “The Alhambra protects its own. It is a
wondrous fortress, as beautiful as a woman, and protected with
powerful magic. As long as we hold true to our honor, the palace
will stand,
inshallah
.”

He seemed to shake off his dark mood. “But
you shouldn’t trouble over such things. Keeping us strong and at
peace with the People of the Book is my job, not yours.” He patted
her shoulder, and then looked about as if something were
missing.

“But I want to help.”

“Ara, you’re a girl. You need to study the
lute, read poetry and grow into a lovely, learned woman, not stand
in my shoes.” He winced when she ducked her head at his obvious
annoyance. “Come, let us not disagree. Look at the gardens. Have
you ever seen such a beautiful sight?”

She looked out across the field. Beyond, at
the edge of the forest, a movement caught her eye. The wazir,
looking much like a bat with his brown caftan whipping around him,
stood huddled in conversation with two men. Not Muslims, Ara
decided, assessing their clothes and odd hats, perhaps soldiers
from Castile or Aragon. She thought again of the wazir’s bizarre
ritual at the Justice gate, still unable to make any sense of
it.

One of the foreign men saw them and pointed.
The wazir whirled and stared at his observers. Then, abruptly
dismissing the men, the sultan’s chief advisor strode toward Ara
and her father.

Ara, talking fast, asked, “Father, is there
something bad about frogs? I saw...”

He sighed, and she felt as if she watched him
change from her understanding father into the sultan. Doubt and
distrust showed in his eyes as he regarded the men across the way.
“Not now, child. There are those with whom I must speak. In a few
weeks, new tribute agreements must be signed. I must consult with
my advisers and negotiate the details. Let me get the guards to
walk you back to the palace.”

Chapter 6

The soft lilt of a tune woke Ara to the
morning light stretching across her room. Su’ah hummed quietly as
she arranged clothes on the shelf. Ara’s gold-embroidered, beet-red
vest and saffron-yellow pants that tied at the ankles lay next to
Layla’s gold-green caftan. A silver-inlaid tray filled with olives,
cheese, bread and steaming mint tea sat on the table near the
window. Ara could feel Layla curled next to her like a sleeping
cat.
Probably dreaming of dancing
, she
mused sleepily and, from the warmth of the bed, watched Su’ah
shuffle around the room.
Su’ah was old
, she
thought, observing her through morning eyes.
She
cared for my mother and Layla’s mother when they were babes, and
now she does the same for us
.

Both she and Layla had been born twelve
winters ago. Ara’s mother had died from childbed fever soon after.
Her father, it was said, had deeply mourned the passing of his
learned Egyptian wife. Su’ah had been given the care of her and,
later, that of her cousin when Layla’s mother, Maryam, had become
sick with grief over the loss of her sister. Layla’s father, the
sultan’s younger brother, had comforted his wife as best he could,
and finally, Maryam had regained her health, strengthened by the
love of her husband and her joy in her newborn child.

“You awake?” Su’ah slowly moved across the
room. Her slave tattoo was faded in the wrinkled creases of her
cheek. “After morning prayer, you two should head for the baths.
The day awaits. It is said that the Sufi scholar may come this
evening to speak. I hear that she is rested and working on some
mathemagical problem or such.”

Ara pushed off the wool covers and jumped out
of bed, stubbing her toe in the process. “How can two cousins be
less alike?” Su’ah exclaimed. “A tidy, obedient girl who dances on
air, and a reckless, too-curious child who cannot walk without
bumping into walls.”

Ara sat down and held the throbbing toe.
“Father says I learn quickly and have a scholar’s mind.”

“Ara is brave and smart and daring,” Layla
said, stretching slowly in bed. “She knows three languages and is
not afraid of anything.”

“She would do better to know one language and
learn to watch her tongue.” Su’ah turned to Ara. “The sultan is far
too lenient with you, child. You have almost the same training as a
boy. You need to get your head out of the clouds and down to our
own Allah-blessed earth. Suleiman is not the best person to be
educating a gently bred girl, much less a strong-headed one.”

Ara knew these arguments well. She remembered
when Su’ah had caught her learning to fight with a quarterstaff.
And then, of course, there was the time she had climbed to the top
of the Tower of the Children to better study the stars. At least
she hadn’t fallen far.

Layla gave Su’ah a disarming smile. “We are
fortunate to have both of you to watch over us. Allah is good.”

Su’ah sniffed. “It is fortunate, indeed, that
I
am with you, else you would run as wild
as gypsy children. Here, Ara, let me comb your hair. I’ll not have
it said that you are unkempt as well.”

Layla and Ara soaked in a large bath as, in
the dim light, steam from the hot water rose to escape through
star-shaped holes cut into the ceiling. Other women and children
bathed nearby. Some sat on stone benches, drying themselves. One of
the concubines’ toddlers was crying, indignant at having her face
scrubbed. Hasan and two other boys had been splashing water back
and forth but were stopped abruptly by a fierce look from an older
servant. A slave poured water over Dananir’s hair, while another
moved to gently knead perfumes and oils into her skin.

Layla stared at her fingers under the water.
“Ara, would you help me search for my ring? I know I had it
yesterday, but I can’t find it.”

“Your little gold ring with the amber stone?”
She dipped her head under the water for a final rinse. “Your mother
gave that to you for your eleventh birthday, didn’t she?”

“Yes, and her mother’s mother gave it to her
when she was a girl. I took it off to dance and put it on my
caftan, but it’s missing.”

“Perhaps it fell while you were dancing. We
could look in the Court of the Lions. And while we’re there, I can
look for more symmetries. Suleiman says that I must find examples
of the symmetry called vertical reflection before he will teach me
the next symmetry. I’ve already found one right here in the
baths.”

“Oh, show me,” Layla exclaimed, looking at
the many decorations covering the walls.

“See? There on the wall near where Dananir is
sitting.” Ara pointed. “The gold leaf that repeats over and over in
a line, see how each set of leaves are sort of reversed?”

Layla studied the design. “Yes, but how do
you know it is a vertical reflection symmetry?”

“Suleiman told me the design had to be in a
row, and that each pattern had to be exactly the same shape and
size.” Ara ticked off reasons with her fingers. “And you need to
pretend there is an imaginary line between them that they can flip
over. If you could flip each tile, it should match exactly on top
of the one next to it. Suleiman promised to teach me more as soon
as I find all three examples.”

“But how do you figure out where the line
is?”

“Suleiman said it is a vertical line.” Ara
held up her hand with fingers tightly pressed against one another.
“So, I look at a tile and pretend there’s a line that goes up and
down—straight down into the earth and up into the sky to Allah. I
try to see if the design on the tile can be split in half. If it
can, I fold the two parts together in my mind to see if the designs
match.”

They finished bathing and climbed out of the
waist-deep water, then slipped on their sandals set at the edge of
the pool. Hot water piped under the floor made the tiles too hot
for bare feet. Ara was careful to put her sandals on. She had
pretended she was a mystical firewalker once when she was six, only
to blister her feet and get a good scolding.

“Well,
I
don’t think
a woman should flaunt herself,” they heard Fatima remark primly
from around a corner. “Tahirah needs to be under her brother’s
control. A woman should be a thing of beauty, not have her nose
forever in books. Why, only yesterday, I heard the wazir say a
woman scholar was a disgrace to our people and a bad example to the
children. Worse, she’s a Sufi, with no regard for
our
ways.”

Ara scooted closer, sticking her head around
the corner and peering through the handle of a large urn
overflowing with flowering pomegranate branches.

Rabab chimed in. “There’s nothing wrong with
being a Sufi. They love Allah, as do all good Muslims. Only they
follow their hearts, not the words of any person.” She looked
around for agreement.

Maryam, Layla’s mother, spoke up, “A learned
mind is praise to Allah. He, in his wisdom, admires education.”

Rabab leapt in again. “Our wazir is still
angry because he was sent home in disgrace from the university.
You’d think he would have gotten over that by now—it’s been close
to two decades. The man is forever looking for someone to belittle.
But for his counsel, Suleiman would have been named head
translator. Look how he sulks because that Sufi woman is here.
Tahirah is a famous scholar, and Abd al-Rahmid’s a bitter, jealous
man.” Several women murmured in agreement.

Dananir spoke over them, “Suleiman is the
palace tutor because the sultan needed one he could trust to teach
his children. Anyone can translate a message.”

Never easily derailed from her subject, Rabab
plunged on again. “And then there was the fuss over Maryam—don’t
you remember, Fatima? The wazir petitioned the sultan for her in
marriage.”