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loneliness for knowledge. I would know what is thought by wise men and what is
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believed in other lands, far from here. I would open the dark and empty
avenues of my mind to the brightness of a new sun and populate it with ideas."
"Please get down. My house is yours."
He was old, but a man of fine bearing, his clothing worn but of quality. He
shook his head as I moved to remove the bridle and saddle. "A slave will care
for him, and it will be done at once. Please come in."
He led me along the gallery to a small room where there were rugs, cushions,
and a low table. In an alcove there was a tub, and water falling.
"Refresh yourself, and then we shall talk."
Alone in the shadowed room, I disrobed and bathed, then dusted my clothing.
As I settled my scimitar into place, I heard a girl singing, a fine, sweet,
haunting refrain. Pausing, I listened.
This was what made life: a moment of quiet, the water falling in the
fountain, the girl's voice ... a moment of captured beauty. He who is truly
wise will never permit such moments to escape.
Who was she? Did she sing for love or the longing for love?
It was not necessary that I know her, for she was romance, and romance is so
often in a garden, behind a wall, along a twilit street.
Opening the door, I stepped into the passage, and beyond the colonnade,
sunlight fell across a garden where hibiscus, rose, and jasmine grew. A few
minutes I stood there, letting the last of the tension flow from me.
The gate by which I had entered was closed, and it was barred from within.
10
OVER A PILAF my host explained that his name was ibn-Tuwais, and that he was
an Arab of the Quraysh, the tribe of the Prophet. He had been both a soldier
and an official of the caliph.
"I have known many Franks, and was for a time a prisoner inPalermo ."
"My father often spoke of the place."
"He is dead?"
"So it has been said, but perhaps the man lied, or was mistaken."
Many times stories are told merely to make the teller seem important, and how
many times had men said they had themselves seen things of which they had but
heard?
"What are your plans?"
"To remain here, to study, to learn, to listen for news. It has been said
that all news comes to Córdoba."
"My roof is yours. I have no son, and kismet has brought you to me. In the
meanwhile, I am not without sources of information. I shall seek news of your
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father. His was a name well known on the sea, and there will be stories."
"You must forgive me. I cannot share your home unless I am permitted to pay.
It is a custom among my people."
Tuwais bowed. "Once I might have taken offense, but I am a poor man. You see
a house of wealth, and so it was under the old caliphs, but the Berbers have
offered me no position.
"Your company will please me, for in my youth I made great talk with the
scholars ofBaghdad andDamascus . Moreover, I have a few books, some of them
very fine, very rare."
He arose. "An old man's advice? Speak little, listen much. In Córdoba there
is beauty and there is wisdom, but there is blood, also."
That night I read myself to sleep with theChronology of Ancient Nationsby
al-Biruni, reading also from theAlmagestof Ptolemy.
My thoughts turned to Aziza. Where was she? Did she fare well? Was she with
her friends? Her beauty was a memory that would not be forgotten.
During the days that followed, I read, walked in the streets to learn my way,
and listened to the spoken tongues, learning more of Arabic and something of
Berber.
It was now more than four hundred years since the Moors had conqueredSpain .
Their invasion ofFrance had been repelled by Charles Martel. The corrupt
empire of the Visigoths had collapsed before the first attack by a small band
of Moslems led by Tarik, a veteran soldier. The Visigoth Empire had been a
mixture of peoples and languages, many of them inherited from bygone years.
The Iberians, Phoenicians, and many others left their mark. The Phoenicians
were a Semitic people, settled in many places along the coast, opening trading
establishments and sending their ships into theAtlantic . Their ships and
those from Carthage, which had once been a Phoenician colony, sailed around
Africa, went to the Scilly Isles for tin, sailed the coasts of Brittany and
into the North Sea. As each mariner was jealous of his sources for raw
materials and trade goods, we shall probably never know the true extent of
their voyages.
The Greeks, the Romans, the Vandals, and the Goths had all invadedSpain , and
left their mark upon it. Invading armies then, as well as now, left behind
them an outbreak of pregnancy, destroying forever the myth of a pure race.
Never did I tire of roaming the streets, one of which, as Duban the soldier
had told me, was ten miles long and lighted from end to end. The banks of
theGuadalquivir were lined with houses of marble, with mosques and gardens.
Water was brought to the city through leaden pipes, so everywhere there were
fountains, flowers, trees, and vines.
It was said there were fifty thousand fine dwellings in Córdoba, and as many
lesser ones. There were seven hundred mosques where the faithful worshiped,
and nine hundred public baths. And this at a time when Christians forbade
bathing as a heathen custom, when monks and nuns boasted of their filthiness
as evidence of sanctity. One nun of the time boasted that at the age of sixty
she had washed no part of her body but her fingertips when going to take the
mass.
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There were thousands of shops, with streets devoted to workers in metal,
leather, and silk; it was said there were one hundred and thirty thousand
weavers working with silk or wool.
Upon a side street I discovered a lean, fierce man who taught the art of the
scimitar and dagger, and each day I went there to work with him. My long hours
at the oar as well as a boyhood of running, wrestling, and climbing rocks had
given me uncommon strength and agility. My teacher suggested another, a huge
wrestler fromIndia , a man of enormous skill, now growing old. He spoke Arabic
fluently, and between bouts we talked much of his native land and those that
intervened.
As black-haired as any Arab, my hair was curly and my skin only a little
lighter than most of theirs. Now I cultivated a black mustache and could
easily have passed for an Arab or Berber. In my new clothing, with my height,
I drew attention upon the streets where I spent my time, learning the ways of
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