The Bird King(2)

Fatima sighed in irritation. She swung her legs over the edge of the balustrade and sat up, shaking the hem of her loose linen trousers to free the belled bracelets that lay in the hollows below her ankles.

Hassan chewed at a tuft of beard beneath his lower lip. His hair, another of his perversities, was reddish, the legacy of a Breton grandmother taken hostage in some war or other. Fatima was not sure he was handsome—his nose was too sharp, his eyes were too small, his complexion was too hectic, apt to turn red and blotchy on the frequent occasions when he was flustered. No, he was not handsome, yet he was the only man she had ever come across who did not desire her, and for that, she forgave him many things.

“Have you brought me anything?” he asked now, his voice boyish and pleading.

Fatima pointed to his worktable: in a handkerchief was a small, sticky pile of orange-scented sweets.

“Bless you,” said Hassan fervently. He picked up the handkerchief and began to shovel its contents into his mouth.

“Slow down,” said Fatima, laughing at the droplets of honey that clung to his beard. Hassan made a face at her.

“I forget you aren’t starving,” he said. “You live in the harem eating honey and playing the lute and mincing around in silk slippers all day, while the rest of us are chewing old shoe leather. You might at least have the grace to pretend to suffer. We’re under siege, after all. The sultan will be forced to accept terms from King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella at any moment.”

“Would you trade, then?” asked Fatima, her lip only a little curled. “I’ll happily do your job and starve if you’d like to do mine and eat well. You can listen to Lady Aisha insult people all morning, mend dresses all afternoon, and then—” Here her voice caught in her throat. Hassan studied her with one ruddy eyebrow raised.

“And then lie with the sultan all night? I’d trade you in a flash, Fa, in an absolute instant. My God! Those melancholy lips. What? Don’t you think he’s handsome?”

Fatima thought nothing. Her body felt suddenly heavy and sluggish, like some unfamiliar borrowed thing growing damp in the heat. She hung above it in the air, tethered to it only loosely, and wondered whether she would find the sultan as handsome as Hassan did if she had a choice in the matter.

“Fa? I’m sorry, my love. Don’t look like that. I didn’t mean to upset you. Fa—” Hassan pressed an anxious kiss into her palm.

Fatima took a breath.

“Choose a bird,” she said, changing the subject. It was the way all their conversations went now: the palace, rambling as it was, had grown cramped under siege, the air perpetually stale with the shut-up breath of a hundred half-starved mouths. Every conversation became an argument. It was safer to retreat into the games of their childhood, as they did more and more; into the stories of creatures that could fly away. Fatima returned to her patch of sun on the balustrade.

“A bird,” she repeated.

Hassan chewed for a moment before answering.

“Red-crested pochard,” he said triumphantly. Fatima laughed at him.

“That’s not a real bird,” she said. “You’re just being an idiot.”

“It is so a real bird! It’s a sort of duck, a waterbird. We used to have them on my mother’s land, near the lake. Hunters would come to trap them in the fall.” In the course of their game, they had long ago run through all the ordinary birds, and had since moved on to more exotic ones.

“Very well,” said Fatima. “The pochard, the pochard—since he has a bright crest, perhaps he was vain, and when the other birds sought him out to accompany them on their journey across the Dark Sea to the mountain of Qaf, he refused. Why should he leave his home, where everyone flattered him and he could spend all day preening? The people of Qaf might not appreciate his plumage as they ought to do. But the hoopoe—”

“Ah yes, the hoopoe is my favorite.”

“The hoopoe, who also had a lovely red crest, scolded the pochard for his shallowness.”

“And then?”

“I don’t know.” Fatima yawned. The effort of thinking too hard in bright sunlight had begun to tire her. “But surely something silly enough to be called a pochard wouldn’t survive such a long journey. Make me a new map. I want a view.”

“A view,” muttered Hassan. “You’ve got lovely views already. Look at this view! Look at the fork-tailed swallows flying low across the reflecting pool! At night, you can see a second field of stars in the water. Enjoy it now, Fa, for soon it’ll all belong to Castile.”

Fatima had never seen the Court of Myrtles at night, when being caught anywhere outside the harem or the sultan’s own rooms might have real consequences, but was in no mood for another argument.

“Will you make me a map or not?” she demanded.

“Yes, of course I will. A map. A view.” Hassan wiped his hands on his coat and sat down at his worktable, a low, scuffed oak plank balanced on two stacks of books. Fatima knelt beside him. She liked to look at his face while he worked, to see it transformed by the fervent, vacant light that possessed him as his maps took shape. His lips would part in an eager smile, like a child’s; there was a bliss about him when he worked and when he prayed that made Fatima wonder whether he knew what it felt like to have one’s faith in the goodness of things removed. Fatima herself had never knelt upon a prayer mat except grudgingly. Obedience was demanded of her all day and on many nights; when she was asked to pray, she had no more left in her. Hassan was different. His obedience was always rewarded; whatever force he called upon in his silent moments always answered him, and though the maidservants might giggle and the undersecretaries scowl when he passed, he did not appear to notice.