The Blue Door: Accidental Heretics, #0

Contents

The Blue Door

Al-Makkzan in Iberia

Pèire and Miquel Go to Sea

Miquel, Al-Makkzan’s grandson,

on the way to the Outremer

Bone-mend and Salt: A Preview

Tomás, Miquel’s son, in the Languedoc

About the Author

From Jugum Press

The Blue Door

In a later tale, told in Crux Lunata, Book 3 of the Accidental Heretics adventure series . . .

THE FORMERLY HANDSOME Tomás of Morella y Cyprus studied the caliph’s vizier, who claimed to be his cousin. My own great-grandfather al-Makkzan came from the Rodriguez clan.

He and his brother came from Morocco. They joined our clan through marriage. They were hired by a widow in Morella, on the Aragón frontier. Rashid ibn Abd al-Aziz spoke Catalan in formal tones, overcoming his Arabic accent. The brother—my great-grandfather Jamal—married into the clan and returned to serve the caliph in Jaén. Your ancestor, al-Makkzan, married that widow. His grandson Mikhail left for Cairo and Damascus after Morella was joined with Aragón.

Mikhail of Morella was my father.

And we are cousins, the vizier Rashid said.

•

This is al-Makkzan’s tale.

1

Silina

THE SUN BROKE OVER the top of the mountain as the men from the local villages lined up, quietly debating who had come first to meet the recruiter for the Veiled Ones. The dawn light burnished the highest peak so it glowed like beaten copper. Shadows fell away from the men, who also shone in the light while painting each other’s faces.

The caliph had sent a recruiter to the mountain villages again, seeking Berber men to help bring infidels to the true belief, to expand the glory of Dar al-Islam. Idren’s two brothers had come here, one village over from their own, to join. We need the silver! Meri said. We need the adventure! Juba crowed.

Idren, only there to watch over his younger brothers, let the dawn light wash over him. His two-times great-grandmother claimed that the old fire god lights your flame anew each morning. Whether or not you believe it. He didn’t believe, but Idren liked to greet the dawn.

Then dawn burned into midmorning. Idren passed time as if waiting in a hunting blind, sensing what lay around him. The smell of the rocks, the flickering of sunshine and shadow as the sun burned its way across the sky. His nose told him that two men from across the valley had caught a civet cat in a hare trap; his nose told him, but also, the story had already traversed the valley. The homes in this village hung terraced on the hillside, similar to Idren’s village, but not as beautiful. It would be unkind to say it aloud, but perhaps this village wasn’t as loved by its aunts and mothers as his own home was. And the people here dined on too much goat and cheese, which was why Juba had sternly told Meri that it was ridiculous to think of marrying into the women here.

Then it was midday, and still the men stood in wait for the Veiled Ones’ recruiter, the heat now melting the clay painted across their cheeks. Juba’s red slashes and Meri’s ochre crescents lasted better than most. All these men agreed that they must appear at their best, as if they were preparing for a serious hunt or a manhood ceremony. When Idren agree to only three white dots on his cheeks, his brothers laughed. Always so serious! One dot reminded everyone in the valley that Idren had killed a bear on his first hunt, and the second that he’d hunted and killed a leopard that preyed on his aunts’ goats. The third dot reminded his two brothers that once he’d had to rescue Meri from trouble that Juba had talked him into, taking too great a risk down where the desert encroached on their mountains. Juba had talked their youngest brother Meri into this new adventure.

While men muttered about the wait, Juba said aloud, So this caliph does business only after midday. Like the badger sniffing for a late supper where the panther killed a deer for breakfast.

Juba’s friends bent over laughing, even if it wasn’t that funny. Three were Ali, Umar, and Tariq from this village. True Berbers, those three men were much shorter and paler than Idren and his brothers. Like Juba, they were more eager for this day’s adventure than Idren felt the Veiled Ones were worth.

Meri hung close by Idren, smiling but not joining in Juba’s jests. When the morning grew too tedious, Meri played on the flute he’d made from a young calf’s long leg bone. He’d tied a leather string to the end of his flute and wore it around his neck. That morning, he played festival songs, even though the work of the day was serious.

Idren tried twice again in the course of the morning, but couldn’t convince his brothers to heed their aunts’ warnings and stay home. As the oldest man in the family, Idren had no choice but to stay home, so the village would have at least one wise hunter. And he didn’t want his brothers wandering so far from home.

Just before all the men roasted in the sun, the recruiter appeared, accompanied by four Berber men with spears and swords. They hobbled their horses, then lounged nearby while the recruiter preached a soul-stirring message, encouraging local men to come work for the caliph. Small, lithe, and far paler than Idren or his brothers, the recruiter had an indigo turban and a half-face tagelmust veil, a style no one in these mountains had adopted, because it hid everything but a man’s eyes. The recruiter held a leather purse over his head, first jingling it, then lowering it to reveal that it was full to its leather ties with silver coins.

This comes to your families the day you depart to bring infidels into Dar al-Islam. That can be today.

He spoke a Berber dialect in an odd, high voice, so his own people must live in the far eastern mountains, or perhaps the far desert regions where the Veiled Ones first stirred people’s passions. Even if he wasn’t from this part of the world, the recruiter’s speech stirred the local men from the lethargy that overtook them in the midday sun.

The recruiter seated himself on a carpet that one of his spear men unrolled for him under the shade of the village’s sole tree. The place he claimed under that tree was where that village’s old ones always sat, but perhaps the broken custom didn’t matter on this special day. The recruiter asked each man his name, and then wrote it on an animal skin and told the man to make a mark in the place where he pointed.

Then it came Juba’s turn. I’m Juba, the son of the milkmaid and Musa the hunter.

But the man couldn’t pronounce that name when he repeated it. Jamal ibn Musa. Pretty name for a pretty man.

Their little brother Meri laughed at the indignant look on Juba’s face. Juba had said his name clearly, as proud as ever that he carried an ancient king’s name. Instead, the man wrote another name and called Juba pretty. However, their youngest brother fared no better.

I’m called Meri, son of Musa the hunter.

The man looked up and down Meri’s thin frame. Truly, Amir ibn Musa? Are you old enough to travel without your father?

That’s when Idren knew in his bones that he couldn’t let his brothers go alone.

My brothers are with me. I’m Idren, son of Musa the hunter.

Idris ibn Musa, the man said, as if Idren had hissed his name through a mouthful of pebbles. The recruiter wrote on that scraped animal hide. Good of your father to give you the name of an ancient prophet. From before the Flood, when infidels worshipped fire. A perfect name for a man who will help bring infidels to know the true Laws.

But Idren didn’t want anything to do with infidels. His own aunts and uncles had struggled to keep away from the Veiled Ones’ righteous soldiers and teachers, hoping these new conquerors wouldn’t declare their village to be impious. Idren sought only to keep his brothers safe while they earned enough silver from that leather bag to pay taxes, so the Veiled Ones would leave their village alone.

The recruiter asked all the men to pray, in exactly the way the Veiled Ones demand. When done, he insisted the men prepare to leave that day, though it was long past the sensible early-morning hours best for a long walk in the mountains.

Juba and Meri had brought their travel packs, each wrapped tightly with a burnus, tunic, and shirt, plus their spears and bows tied in place. Idren needed to jog home for his hunting pack.

I’m so happy you’re coming. How did we talk you into this? Meri asked. He and Juba had followed his brother to the trail.

I lost the sound of our aunts’ voices when that man said your names wrong, Idren said.

Juba laughed. Where we’re going, our aunts can’t scold.

That’s not what I fear.

What then? Juba folded his arms. We’re off on an adventure, yet you have to be so serious.

Idren rubbed at his ear lobe, thinking. Then he pointed to the east. We’ve lost too many uncles who walked down that trail to work for the Veiled Ones.

We’re better than our father or uncles. We’ll come home. Juba tapped Idren’s chest, over his heart, where courage was said to live. We’re stronger. We care for our family more than other men. We shall find our way out and home again.

Do you agree? Idren challenged Meri, who’d do anything that Juba dared him to.

I just hope it’s a good time. Meri shrugged. And that we bring silver home to the village.

Yes, Idren agreed. To pay our taxes.

And for our bride prices, Meri said. We shall all be able to buy good wives.

Then both brothers looked guilty for a minute. A bride-price wouldn’t matter for Idren, since what every father in the valley wanted as a bride-price was for Idren to move to their village. His village needed him too much for Idren to leave. It would take a miracle for Idren to find a wife.

Juba forced a laugh. Bride prices? All Meri wants is a wife? I want a horse and my own house more than a wife.

Having a wife sounds good to me, the way our uncle describes it. Meri, the perpetual innocent, once more wandered into a joke for Juba to make.

Great-uncle, Juba said. Great-great-uncle, who only remembers his long-gone past. You want a wife so you can leave our village, because you believe what our mama says.

I never. Meri turned his back to Juba, his eyes pleading with Idren to intercede.

Like Meri, Idren didn’t want to believe what their mother repeated, that their father never came home because he’d found another wife, made another family. But no one knew any other story about their father’s fate.

No matter about old tales, Idren said. Juba is right. We’re stronger than our uncles. We’re better hunters, better fighters. We know how to do right in the world and come home.

• 

One of the smallest cousins, Tadefi, ducked behind the tall cedar in the village square. Idren snatched her up into his arms, swung her around.

Where are the aunts and mothers, sweetness?

They’ve gone to their secret place, she said. We are to hide until the Veiled Ones leave the valley.

Yet here you are in the middle of the square. Idren set her down, hands on his hips, adopting the stern stance of the old uncles, which he must be now. The little girl pointed up into the tree, where he shouldn’t have to glance up to know a nest of small cousins hid there, like he and his brothers did until the magic day when they were old enough to hunt.

The blue door to Idren’s house lay ajar. It was never left open unless a woman of the house stood under the crenellated archway, calling gossip across the way to neighbors.

Why is our door open? he asked as he boosted tiny Tadefi onto the lowest branch.

Because Silina insisted, she called back, scrambling up into the safety of the high boughs.

Idren opened the blue door wider and called his sister’s name. Then his aunts’ names. He stepped inside, his eyes straining in the dark after leaving the bright sun.

No sound but that vague hum he always heard inside the house, as if the stone-and-mud walls breathed, or a creature was caught there, silent while scratching out an existence in a corner of the hard-packed floor. Only in here, in a house his ancestors had built out of mountain’s rubble, did life smell different from the mountains that surrounded their tiny village. That day, it smelled of yesterday’s tagine, with lamb and lentils. It smelled like a safe place, where a child can always find shelter. However, Idren, full grown, no longer needed that kind of safety, yet it was only here, in this women’s world, where he could let down his guard, bask in the dark safety of the world behind the blue door.

Good morning, Idren. A voice hailed him from the corner. Is it done?

Yes, Grandmother. We have sold our services to the recruiting man. The older men say that you must always send an uncle for our pay each quarter. That way, you won’t be cheated.

Everyone in the village called Silina grandmother. His mother called Silina grandmother, but so did her mother’s mother, who was old as the mortar between the stones in the walls of their house. Perhaps Silina had always lived in that corner, swathed in indigo cotton, her blue-tattooed lips quivering just before she spoke, her words always the law, her insights never wrong. Perhaps Silina wasn’t his grandmother’s grandmother but was indeed one of the ancestors, forever living among them.

And you’re going too, Idren?

Juba can’t look after Meri properly.

Ah. She lapsed into silence or perhaps fell asleep.

They gave us new names, Idren said, softly so he wouldn’t wake her if she indeed slumbered.

Silina sighed, or the house itself groaned. Your mother insisted on giving you boys names from the old times. Though we knew that names matter to the Veiled Ones. Bad enough you have to go away. But it’s sad they also take away your name. Silina