They stood in the walled courtyard of Cordoba's great mosque – the Court of the Orange Trees, Moraima called it. It was crowded with the faithful, who washed in the fountains before entering the mosque.
Robert peered nervously through a narrow door into an interior of shadows and columns. 'Are you sure about this? This is a mosque – I'm a Christian-'
'But Jesus is revered in our theology. He was a great prophet. Of course a Christian may enter a mosque.'
'Besides, the mosque is the greatest religious glory of all al-Andalus,' said a boy, approaching them. 'You must see it before you come to conquer us, Christian.'
And a second boy said, 'Just don't go shouting out "Jesus Christ the King" in the Mihrab and you'll be fine.'
These two were about Moraima's age, perhaps a year or two older than Robert. They were slim, dark, dressed in brightly coloured clothes. Healthy, loose-limbed, they were not especially handsome, but they seemed intelligent, good-humoured, confident. Even their Latin was fluent. And they had the air of wealth, of easy riches. Before them Robert felt dull, cloddish, like a lump of earth.
'These are my friends,' Moraima said. 'Ghalib. Hisham.' Robert wouldn't have remembered which was which, save that Ghalib wore a bright red turban. They were sons of courtiers who served Ibn Tufayl, she said.
'I didn't know we'd have company,' Robert said, and he struggled to keep the disappointment out of his voice.
The boys noticed, and they grinned. But what had he expected? Of course Moraima had friends here; of course she had a life of her own, that had nothing to do with him.
Moraima said, 'Oh, come on, Robert. I thought you'd like to meet new people. And they've been eager to meet you. Hisham is studying philosophy, and Ghalib's training to be an astronomer, like his father.'
Ghalib said the word slowly and heavily. 'Astronomer. I don't suppose you have many of those in England, do you?'
'You'd better write it down for him,' said Hisham. 'Oh, I forgot. You don't read in England either, do you? So what do you do, English Robert?'
Ghalib said, 'There are only two jobs in England. Farmers and whores.'
Robert said tightly, 'Watch your mouth, pretty boy. My mother was English.'
'So what kind of plough did she drive?'
Moraima stood between them hastily. 'That's enough. You're like children – like all men! Come on. Let's go into the mosque, and be respectful with it.'
So Robert entered the great mosque, with Moraima at his side, the stone floor cold under his bare feet, and the two boys sniggering at his back.
But in the mosque's calm spaces, he soon forgot all about the boys.
It was like walking into a forest of slim pillars, linked by arches as delicate as the fronds of palm trees. Moraima said there were more than a thousand pillars in this one building. There were people walking everywhere, respectful, barefoot. Not a priest, or rather an imam, to be seen. The building was full of light, coming from windows and arched doorways, a light turned golden by reflection from the stone. Every way he looked the lines of pillars led his gaze away, deeper and deeper, until he saw walls adorned with inscriptions in beautiful Kufic script, words he could not read but which exhorted the faithful to raise their hearts to Allah.
He was grateful when Moraima's hand slipped into his, for he felt he would soon be lost.
'What are you thinking?' Moraima asked softly.
'That it's beautiful,' he said. 'And that I don't understand it. Of course I could say the same about you.'
She ignored the clumsy compliment. 'It isn't so hard. There is a central axis leading to the Mihrab. That points the way to Mecca; there the imam calls the faithful to Friday prayer. But you may pray wherever you like. The priests don't get in the way here. My father says it's a "different geometry of worship" from the Christian.'
'This is nothing like a Christian church.'
'Well, no. Christians build their churches as Romans once built their basilicas. That's what my father says. The first emirs of al-Andalus started with nothing. They borrowed ideas – the round arches of the Romans, for instance. They even reused what the Romans and the Goths had left behind.' And she showed him how many of the columns, of jasper and marble, were subtly different, in their proportions, their capitals; they were Roman and Gothic relics.
'The arches are meant to look like the branches of palms,' Moraima said. 'It is an oasis in stone.'
'Yet it's centuries since your people came from the desert.'
'Yes. We were thrown down here and changed. Isn't it funny? Now we are not African any more, but not European – just us, something different in the world…'
They walked further, and Robert learned to read the history of al-Andalus in the slim columns of stone.
At first the Muslim conquerors had been in a minority, a few hundred thousand in a Christian population of millions. But that proportion grew quickly, thanks to massive immigration across the straits from Africa. And though tolerance of religion was practised, Islam was the religion of the state, and conversion was a useful step on the road to power. Ibn Hafsun's family had been one Gothic dynasty who had abandoned the cross for the crescent. And as the numbers of Muslim worshippers in Cordoba grew, so the great mosque was extended several times to accommodate them – most recently by al-Mansur, the overreaching vizier who had brought the calamity of the fitnah upon al-Andalus.
They walked still deeper into the mosque. In places there were multiple arches, arches built on top of others like children standing on each others' shoulders, all exquisitely carved. And the Mihrab, another arch adorned with gold leaf, was like a gateway to paradise. Its materials were a gift to al-Andalus from Constantinople, said Moraima.
Lost in the mosque's cool spaces, Robert realised he hadn't been aware of the two boys, Ghalib and Hisham, for some time.
'Oh, they got bored long ago,' said Moraima when he mentioned them. 'Come. Let's get some air.'
X
When Sihtric was done with the vizier, he had suggested to Orm that the two of them should take a ride, further out into the country.
Orm mounted his horse suspiciously. 'Where are we going?'
'You'll see. Go ahead, boy… So, what of Robert? He seems drawn by the Moorish world.'
'He's his mother's son, may God help him. He's a confused young man – more confused than he knows. But it's the fact that he's drawn to your daughter that concerns me more. No good will come of it,' muttered Orm.
'He's his father's son too. You were just as young and foolish once, Orm.'
'Yes,' Orm snapped. 'And it led to tragedy.'
Sihtric said testily, 'But if we ban them from seeing each other they will just ignore us. We'll have to find a way of coping with things as they unfold.'
'So what do we do in the meantime?'
'I suggest we pursue the business for which you came all this way.' He grinned. 'I think you are going to enjoy this.'
They topped a small rise, and Sihtric reined in his horse. He pointed. 'There. What do you see, among those olive trees?'
Orm stared. There was much activity going on in the olive grove. The centre of it seemed to be a kind of machine that nestled among the trees, a long cart that rested on three sets of widely spaced wheels. A large wooden crescent-shape dominated one end, and its upper surface was meshed by ropes and gleaming metal. The whole was obscured by a kind of scaffolding, through which a boy clambered, fixing ropes.
The machine was the product of a kind of open-air workshop, Orm saw now. Men and boys moved between furnaces, lathes, piles of timber, and tables heaped with gleaming metal components, and scholars came and went between rows of tents among the olive trees.
'Quite a sight,' he said, non-committal.
'It is, isn't it? What are we building, do you think?'
Orm shrugged. 'Some kind of wagon?'
'Come, Orm, stretch your limited imagination. Just look at it. Never mind the scale: tell me what you see.'