Jacques went on eating. He felt guilty about it—Musa and the other Muslims were going hungry—but nothing was wrong with the food for him. Even Musa had said so. He was hungry now, and he thought the porridge tasted fine.
In tramped three guards with those muskets with the blades attached. "What's going on here?" one of them yelled in Arabic.
Musa stood up and bowed to him. "You will excuse me, please, sir, but this porridge has pork in it. It is haram—forbidden." He spoke respectfully. He knew he was a slave here. He knew how slaves were supposed to act. But he also knew he had a problem, one the guards and their superiors needed to hear about.
The guard who'd spoken before glared at him. "You can eat, or you can starve. Those are your choices. But you're going to have to work any which way."
Musa bowed again. "Thank you, sir. In that case, I will starve. When I am dead, God will welcome me into Paradise. I hope you have a care for your own soul." He sat down.
"You're a troublemaker! You'll be sorry. It's not like you can hide around here," the guard warned. He was bound to be right about that. Only three or four black men had traveled in the chamber. Still glaring, the guard spoke to all the Muslims: "You'd better watch yourselves. We don't have time for your foolishness. You'll all be sorry if you aren't careful."
"I hope you won't get into too much trouble on account of that," Jacques whispered to Musa as the guards stomped out.
"Let them do as they please," the older man said with a shrug. "God may have made me a slave. All right—His will be done in that as in all things. But God would not make me break His commandments. That has to be Satan."
"I suppose so." Jacques wondered what he would do if these people tried to make him break a rule set down by Jesus or Henri. Would he have the courage to stay stubborn? He hoped so, and knew he wasn't sure.
People inside the dining hall were still muttering back and forth when the guards returned. One of them pointed his musket at Musa. "Come with us," he snapped.
"I obey." Musa got to his feet. "What will you do with me?"
"You say you won't eat pork, eh?" The guard had a nasty grin on his face.
"That is right," Musa ibn Ibrahim said with great dignity.
"Well, we'll see." The guard's smile got nastier still. Jacques hadn't thought it could. "We're going to stick you in a cell. You can have all the water you want. But if you want food, you'll eat pork or nothing—and if you do starve, too bad for you." He gestured with the musket's muzzle. "Come on. Get moving."
"I come." Musa murmured something else, so softly that Jacques thought he was the only one to hear it: "Truly there is no God but God. Truly Muhammad is the Prophet of God." The black man took a couple of ordinary steps toward the guard. Then he lowered his head and rushed him.
It wasn't the worst bet in the world—or it wouldn't have been against a matchlock musket. The guard would have time for one startled shot. If he missed, Musa would be on him. If Musa could wrestle away the musket, he had at least a chance of smashing down the other two guards. Maybe the other Muslims would join him. Maybe this would turn into a full-scale uprising.
Khadija had said the guards' weapons could fire more than one bullet without reloading. Musa ibn Ibrahim might not have heard it. If he had, he might not have believed it or understood what it meant.
When the guard pulled the trigger, his musket made a sound like a giant ripping a sheet of canvas. Jacques had no idea how many bullets hit Musa ibn Ibrahim. They were enough to come close to cutting the black man in half. For a moment, there was a horrid pink mist as the bullets tore his insides out. Some of them went through him and hit other people. They screamed. He didn't. He fell and scrabbled at the floor with his hands for a little while. Then he died.
The iron smell of blood and the stink of his bowels filled the air. Smoke didn't. Jacques needed a moment to notice that. He didn't smell gunpowder, either. What sent the bullets flying, then?
Whatever it was, it was plenty to do the job and then some.
"Anybody else?" the guard asked. Except for the shrieks of the wounded, no one said a thing. The guard gestured with his musket again. "Anyone who's hurt, go on out. You'll be treated.
If you can't walk, somebody near will help you." He spoke in the other two languages that seemed to be used here, probably saying the same thing. Close to half a dozen people had been shot. Out they went—except for a woman who'd taken a bullet between the eyes.
After more shouted orders, two men dragged her out by the heels. Her blood made a long trail across the floor. When the men came back, the guards made them drag Musa's body out, too. Flies had already started landing in the gore pooled under him. Jacques usually thought Muslims were bound for hell. He hoped God would make an exception for the black man.
He looked down at his bowl of porridge. He was glad he'd eaten most of it, because he sure didn't want any more.
Was Khadija all right? He hadn't seen her limp away, but he knew that impossible burst of gunfire might have unnerved him. No, there she was. Her face was pale and drawn—no surprise, for most of the people in the dining hall were pale and drawn. Jacques probably was himself. Khadija nodded to him when their eyes met, but then quickly looked away.
At first, that offended Jacques. Then he realized she might be smarter than he was. They'd got into the transposition chamber together—and together with Musa ibn Ibrahim. She might not want to remind their new master that they were friends, and also that they'd known a slave who'd tried to rebel. Jacques had never been a slave before, but he could see that staying as close to invisible as you could was likely to be a good idea.
He could see that—once he'd thought about it for a while. Khadija must have seen it in the wink of an eye. Forget that maybe. She was smarter than he was.
One of the guards came back in. As usual, he gave his orders in three languages. Jacques could follow the Arabic: "Men are on the roadbuilding detail today. Women will work in the garden plot—except those on duty inside the manor. You know who you are. Any questions?"
Nobody said a word. If he'd told them to jump off the wall around the manor, most of them would have done it without a peep. Whatever happened when they hit the ground had to be better than facing one of those terrible muskets.
Roadbuilding. Jacques muttered to himself. That didn't sound easy, and it didn't sound like much fun. But he was young and strong and—except for the leg that pained him now and again—healthy. He could do the work. It wasn't as if the guard had said he was going to the mines. That was a mankilling job, one where you might as well rise up because you had nothing left to lose and nothing left to live for.
Out into the courtyard he went. He and the rest of the newly arrived slaves stuck together. They couldn't even talk with the ones who'd been there longer. They weren't friends, but they all spoke Arabic. That made them companions.
Another guard, a big, beefy fellow, took charge of them. "You will come with me," he barked. "You will do what I tell you. You have work you need to do, and you will do it. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, sir," Jacques and a few other slaves said.
"Do you understand me?" the guard roared.
"Yes, sir!" This time, everybody spoke up.
"That's more like it." The guard nodded. Jacques felt oddly reassured. The man didn't sound like a cruel master. He sounded like a sergeant drilling raw recruits. If he spoke French, Duke Raoul would have hired him in a heartbeat.
Under his lead, the road gang marched out of the manor. As soon as Jacques saw what lay outside, he knew Khadija told the truth. The chamber had taken the slaves somewhere new. He'd already partly realized things were different here. He hadn't heard city noises, and he hadn't smelled city smells. But seeing bare countryside, as if noisy, smelly, brawling Madrid had never existed, jolted him to the core.