The Bird King(60)

“I was born in Granada,” she said finally. “And rose as high as a girl without rank could rise.”

“And your people?”

“My mother was sold as a captive.”

“Like this one’s grandmother?” Gwennec’s expression altered a little. “Then you’re not a Moor. We’re not enemies after all.”

“I didn’t know we were enemies before.”

“Well.” Gwennec sighed and followed her gaze upward. “There is a war, after all, and you did steal this boat.”

Fatima looked back at the monk. He faded into the unlit ship, his cloak an uneven blot slightly darker than the deck around them.

“Are you one of them?” she asked, uneasy again. “One of Luz’s people?”

“You mean the Holy Office?” Gwennec shook his head. “I haven’t even taken my perpetual vows yet. I’m just a novice. I was sent down because I’m all right with boats and I don’t speak enough Castilian to go bearing tales.” Here he laughed. “They’re regretting that decision now, I promise you! Oh to be back at Saint Padarn’s! I should be waking for lauds and singing the antiphons while the dew settles on the hay crop out in the big field, yet here I am.” He hummed under his breath in a voice that reminded Fatima of the sea itself, resonant and cold.

She stood and leaned against the railing, bending as far over the water below as she dared. It was nearly invisible now, more sound than substance: a rhythmic thud against the hull of the cog, a line of white foam where it broke over the prow. It had never occurred to Fatima that the stories she and Hassan told each other might also belong to someone else. Though Qaf was a myth, it must be real in the way she had envisioned it: the seat of a king who was good as she understood goodness. Now it was all thrown into doubt: other people longed for the same place, but in a different way, and in a hostile language. It seemed there was nothing that war could not touch.

“Fa.” Hassan reached out his arms for her. Fatima curled against his side and rested her head on his collarbone, ignoring the sharp pain that flickered between her eyes every time she blinked. Her body’s sole purpose now seemed to be to keep her awake and ready for whatever minor disaster came next. She shuddered and pressed her face into Hassan’s robe.

“I’m right, Fa,” he said in Arabic. “Don’t listen to this celibate Ulysses. My maps are never wrong. When I sat down to chart our way, I was drawing a path to the isle of the Bird King. I’m certain of it.”

Fatima reached out and slid the map from between Gwennec’s fingers. Holding it up to the sliver of moon, she counted the strange little inlets that punctured the perimeter of the island.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,” she said. “They’re cities, Hassan. Seven cities.”

Hassan took the map from her. She felt him shiver beneath her cheek. Then he laughed—a high laugh, like a madman’s—and clenched his hands as if to tear the map in half.

“No!” Fatima pulled it away from him with a wail and pressed it against her chest. Brother Gwennec twitched, startled, and again groped at his belt for a phantom weapon. Hassan’s face was ghostly and wild in the dark, his eyes like gray fragments of the invisible water. Fatima backed away from him on her knees.

“Don’t do that,” she begged. “Not to your own beautiful map. It’s like hurting yourself.”

Hassan shook his head violently. “It’s no use,” he said. “The monk is right. We should turn back. At least our fate is certain in that direction. We’re fools, and we’ve been fools since we left the Alhambra. I should never have let you come with me. You could be safe at home right now, well fed and warm, in bed with the sultan, everything as it was before, instead of sailing into nothing with me like a pair of children. Think of it—if you conceived tonight, you could be the mother of a king nine months from now. That’s a better fate than most. I should have left you behind.”

“You talk like a coward,” she spat. “It wasn’t your choice to make. It was mine. I chose to leave. I couldn’t let you die. You’re alive because of me, yet you talk about leaving me behind to breed heirs for a man who will be sultan of nothing as soon as he hands the keys of Granada to King Ferdinand.”

Hassan laughed again. Fatima would rather have come to physical blows. She would rather he struck her so she could strike him back: it would be over then, and the sting would fade, and the marks would remind them that they were capable of hurting each other. She sat back on her heels and hugged herself, the map crinkling and bending across her chest.

“I, I, I, me,” said Hassan. “It wasn’t me you wanted so desperately to save, it was yourself. You can’t bear to lose me because it would cause you pain. That’s not the same as wanting to save my life. You do nothing for its own sake, Fa, you never have. You do what serves you best, and damn anything or anyone who contradicts you.”

The words Fatima wanted to say would not come out. She stroked the map as if to comfort it, running her fingers along its crackling perimeter. She had never quite understood what was meant by heartbreak: when the sultan was cold to her or Lady Aisha was cruel, she would simply withdraw. What she felt now was something else, something so visceral that she found herself taking shallower breaths, until she was dizzy; Hassan, the person she knew and loved best, now sprawling wide-eyed against the rail before her, seemed as foreign as their kidnapped monk. Betrayal bloomed in her.