The Bird King(19)

“Please don’t look so frightened,” she said. “Secrets don’t matter now—the war is over, or will be very soon. You caught me by surprise, that’s all. I don’t know what to think or whether I should be frightened.”

“We all learned to get used to it,” murmured Fatima. “To Hassan being Hassan. You might try that.”

Luz took her arm.

“So practical,” she said, following Fatima out of the room. “Not an ounce of romance in you.”

Fatima led Luz back to the harem without speaking. Either something terrible had happened or nothing had happened at all; she couldn’t decide. What Hassan did had never seemed strange to her. She couldn’t remember a time when he had not inhabited that room, scribbling away with his eternally darkened fingers. People in the palace understood him in their own particular ways: the sheikhs understood that his abilities were too valuable to be blasphemous, the servants that he was uncanny and a little high-strung. He was needed, and that made him familiar.

Yet Luz’s silence worried her. She was uncanny herself: Fatima felt as if she had known Luz for years, long enough to make such silences feel like intimacy, yet they had been together for less than a day. She had an odd impulse to kiss the woman walking next to her, to thank her for handling the shock so gracefully. Perhaps, after all, Luz was telling the truth: perhaps she was here to help. Perhaps Lady Aisha ought to have been kinder to her.

Fatima leaned over and brushed Luz’s cheek with her lips. Luz put her golden head against Fatima’s shoulder. The maidservant, Catalina, ample and sweating, appeared in the doorway of Luz’s room as they approached, observing their intertwined forms with an air of disapproval. The scent of boiling mutton perfumed the breeze and the sound of giddy laughter came from the courtyard; someone close by was playing a feast-day song on the lute. Fatima allowed herself to relax.

“You’ve been asked for, senora,” said Catalina to her mistress. “By the lady Nessma.”

“I’ll be there in a moment,” said Luz. She looked tired, as if the morning’s exertions were too much for her. “I think I want my coif—it’s so hot that I can barely stand to have my hair against my neck like this.”

“I’ll get it for you,” said Fatima, “if you tell me where to look.”

She was rewarded with a beaming smile.

“Thank you, sweeting,” said Luz. “It’s in my trunk—it should be near the top.” Twisting up her hair in one hand, she followed Catalina across the courtyard toward the sound of voices. Fatima ducked into the shuttered cool of her room. Catalina had unpacked Luz’s dresses—all black and plain, some with ornamental lace along the sleeves—and hung them in the wardrobe, tucking the leather trunk neatly into one corner of the room. Fatima knelt and opened it. There was a clever tray fitted into the top for smaller items: pins for hair and brooches for cloaks, a gold wedding band in need of polish. Her coif was folded up on one side. Fatima lifted it out and held it up to her face: it smelled of Luz’s hair. She folded it again and tucked it into her sleeve.

As Fatima closed the trunk, her eye fell on a square of paper with a red wax seal that had been concealed beneath the coif. It was emblazoned with a crest she didn’t recognize: a cross flanked by a leafy branch and a sword. Underneath it was written a phrase in Latin letters:


TRIBVINAL DEL SANTO OFICIO

Fatima sounded out the words beneath her breath. She could speak Sabir and Castilian well enough, but reading them was tedious. Lady Aisha was constantly imploring her to improve her comprehension, but since the Andalusian translation schools had long since rendered all the great Hellenic works into Arabic, Fatima had never seen the need. Now, in the grip of a powerful curiosity, she regretted it.

The serving woman was calling everyone to lunch. Fatima rose and left the room, wincing as the tiles underfoot went from cool to hot. She tiptoed across the courtyard in order not to scald herself. Lady Aisha and the other women were sitting in the common room beyond, leaning on cushions and rugs, a great brass platter of cooked meat and rice between them. Fatima felt her mouth water. She slipped in and sat down beside her mistress.

“How was she?” asked Lady Aisha in a low voice, handing Fatima a bowl of food.

“Fine,” said Fatima. “She was fine. Only—”

“What?”

“She knows about Hassan.”

Lady Aisha popped a piece of mutton into her mouth and chewed with noisy relish.

“That’s unfortunate,” she said. “But possibly inevitable. Did she speak to anyone else? A clerk, one of the secretaries?”

“No.”

“Good.” Lady Aisha wiped her mouth with a handkerchief. “We may be all right, then.”

Fatima scooped up a mouthful of rice with her fingers. It was redolent of sheep fat and sea salt. She licked each finger clean. She wanted to tell Lady Aisha that Luz had behaved well, that she had been nothing but eager and kind, but thought better of it.

“What’s a tribunal del santo oficio?” she asked instead. Lady Aisha froze with a piece of bread halfway to her mouth.

“Where did you hear that?” she demanded.

“I read it,” answered Fatima, startled. “It was on a letter in Luz’s trunk.”

Lady Aisha said nothing for several moments. She set down her bowl and began to clean her fingers.