Виктория Холт - Spain for the Sovereigns

‘Nothing shall,’ said Ferdinand.

The most beautiful and the most prosperous province of Spain was Granada. It contained rich resources; there were minerals in its mountains; its Mediterranean ports were the most important in the whole of Spain; its pasture lands were well watered; and the industry of its people had made it rich.

The most beautiful city in Spain was the capital of the kingdom, Granada itself. Enclosed in walls with a thousand and thirty towers and seven portals, it appeared to be impregnable. The Moors were proud of their city and had reason to be. Its buildings were exquisite; its streets were narrow and the lofty houses were decorated with metal which shone in sun and starlight, giving the impression that they were jewelled.

The most handsome building in Granada – and in the whole of Spain – was the mighty Alhambra, fortress and palace, set on a hill. Not only was this enchanting to the eye, with its brilliant porticos and colonnades, not only did it, with its patios and baths, speak of luxury and extravagance, it was also useful and could house, should the need arise, an army of forty thousand.

Granada had been the centre of Moorish culture since 1228, when a chieftain of the tribe of Beni Hud had decided to make himself ruler of this fair city and had received rights of sovereignty from the Caliph of Baghdad, that he might reign under the titles of Amir ul Moslemin and Al Mutawakal (the Commando of the Moslems and the Protected of God).

There had been many to come after him, and their reigns had been turbulent; there were continual affrays with the Christian forces, and in 1464 a treaty was made with Henry IV in which it was arranged that Mohammed, the reigning King, should put Granada under the protection of Castile, and for this protection should pay to the kings of Castile an annual tribute of 12,000 gold ducats. It was this sum that the acquisitive Ferdinand had sought to bring to the Castilian coffers, for, when the affairs of Castile became anarchical during the latter years of the disastrous reign of Henry IV, the Moors had allowed the tribute to lapse, and the Castilians had not been in a position to enforce it.

Mohammed Ismail died in 1466, and when his son Muley Abul Hassan came to the throne the affairs of Granada were becoming almost as turbulent as those in the nearby province of Castile.

Even so, the Moors were a warlike people and determined to defend what they considered to be theirs. It was seven hundred years since the Arabs had conquered the Visigoths and settled in Spain. After seven hundred years the Moors felt that they could call Granada their own country.

Unfortunately for the Moorish population of Spain they faced defeat, not only because of the enemy without but on account of their troubles within.

There was treason in the very heart of the royal family.

* * *

From behind the hangings the Sultana Zoraya, the Star of the Morning, looked out onto the patio where the Sultan’s favourite slave sat trailing her fingers in the water. Zoraya was full of hatred.

The Greek was beautiful, with a strange beauty never seen before in the harem; and the Sultan visited her often.

Zoraya was not disturbed by this. Let the Sultan visit the Greek when he wished. Zoraya was no longer young, and she had lived long enough in the harem to know that the favour of Sultans passed quickly.

The great ambition of the Sultan’s wives should be to have a son, and Zoraya had her son, her Abu Abdallah, known as Boabdil.

Her fear was that the Greek’s son should be put above Boabdil; and that she would never allow. She would be ready to kill any who stood between her son and his inheritance, and she was determined that the next Sultan of Granada should be Boabdil.

It was for this reason that she watched the Greek; it was for this reason that she intrigued within the Alhambra itself – a difficult feat for a woman who, a wife of the Sultan, must live among women guarded by eunuchs.

But Zoraya was no humble Arab woman, and she did not believe in the superiority of the male.

She had been educated in her home in Martos, when she had been intended for a brilliant marriage, so it was surprising that she should have lived so many years of her life in a Sultan’s palace.

Yet it had not been a bad life. She would have no regrets once she had set Boabdil on the throne of Granada.

It was not difficult to arrange for messages to be passed from the harem to other parts of the palace. She who had been such a beautiful woman in her youth was now a forceful one. And Muley Abul Hassan was growing old and feeble. It was his brother, who was known by the name of El Zagal, the Valiant One, whom she feared.

Zoraya was proud. She had had her way often enough with the old Sultan. She had demanded special privileges from the moment when she had been brought before him in chains, and Muley Abul Hassan had denied her little in those days.

She was allowed to visit her son, Boabdil, though it should have been clear to the old Sultan that she sought to set a new Sultan in his place.

She despised Muley Abul Hassan as much as she feared his brother.

Now, as she watched the Greek slave, she asked herself what she had to fear. The Greek was beautiful, but Zoraya had more than beauty.

She thought of the day she had been brought to the Alhambra. She, the proud daughter of the proud governor of the town of Martos.

A strange day of heat and tension, a day which stood out in her life as one in which everything had changed, when she had stepped from one life to another – from one civilization to another. How many women were destined to live the life of a sheltered daughter of a Castilian nobleman and that of one of several wives in the harem of a Sultan!

But on that day Dona Isabella de Solis had become Zoraya, the Star of the Morning.

All through the day the battle had raged, and it was in the late afternoon when the Moors had stormed her father’s

residence. In a room in one of the towers, which could only be reached by a spiral staircase, she had cowered with her personal maid, listening to the shouts of the invaders, the death-cries of men, the screams of the women.

‘We cannot escape,’ she had said again and again. ‘How is it possible for us to escape? Will they not search every room, every corner?’

She was right. There was no escape. And when she heard footsteps on the spiral staircase she pushed her trembling maid behind her and confronted the intruder. He was a man of high rank in the Moorish army. He stood looking at her, his bloody scimitar in his hand, and he saw that she was beautiful. Her dignity – that ingrained Castilian quality – was not lost on her captor. He took her maid. She would be for him, but when he set the chains on the wrists of Dona Isabella de Solis, he said to her: ‘You are reserved for the Sultan himself.’

And so she was taken in chains to Granada, into the mighty fortress which was to be her home. And there, she stood before Muley Abul Hassan, as proud as a visiting queen.

This amused him. He had taken her to his harem. She should be one of his wives. It was clearly an honour due to a high-born lady of such dignity.

Then she became his Star of the Morning and she bore him Boabdil; and from that time she determined that the next Sultan of Granada should be her son.

She had no fear that this would not be so. But the Greek had come, and the Greek was full of wiles. She also had a son.

* * *

Boabdil stood before his mother. He had the face of a dreamer. He wished that life would run more peacefully.

‘Boabdil, my son,’ said Zoraya, ‘you seem unmoved. Do you not understand that that woman plots against us?’

‘She will not succeed, oh my mother,’ said Boabdil. ‘For I am the eldest son of my father.’

‘You do not know how women will fight for their children.’

Boabdil smiled at her. ‘But do I not see you, my mother, fighting for yours?’

‘I will find a means of removing her from the palace. We will trick her. We will lure her into a situation from which she cannot escape. She shall be slain in the manner of an unfaithful woman. Boabdil, where is your manhood? Why do you not wish to fight for what is yours?’

‘When Allah decides, I shall be Sultan of Granada, my mother. If Allah wished me to be Sultan at this time, he would make me so.’

‘You accept your fate. That is your Moorish blood, my son. My people take what they want.’

‘Yet it was they who were taken,’ said Boabdil gently.

‘You anger me,’ said Zoraya. She came closer to him: ‘Boabdil, my son, there are men in Granada who would take up arms for you if you set yourself in opposition to your father.’

‘You would ask me to take up arms against my father?’

‘There is your uncle, El Zagal, whose plan it is to take the crown from you. Your father is weak. But you would have your supporters. You do not ask me how I know this, but I will tell you. I have my spies in the streets. Messages are brought to me. I know what we could do.’

‘You endanger your life by such action, my mother.’

She stamped her foot and threw back her still handsome head. Boabdil looked at her with affection, admiration and exasperation. He had never known a woman like his mother.

She narrowed her eyes and whispered: ‘If I thought that any might succeed in taking the throne from you, I would put you at the head of an army . . . this very day.’