What I’ve just written tonight…I didn’t know when I started this chapter with Juba (the shepherd, not the king he was named for) and Scribonius that it was going to involve a pair of Basque women, but nevertheless, here we are. This is unedited, by the way. I’m also still worried that Scribonius, a name that fell into my brain as being the name I needed to use, is something I’ve seen elsewhere and isn’t for me to use because it’s from some other work, but a search pulled up nothing, so Scribonius he is. If you’re wondering why a djinn would have a Roman name, there is a reason. It’s got logic in the story.
It was true that Roderic’s wife Arantxa was not best pleased when her husband returned bearing a bloody, hulking boar carcass and an only slightly less bloody and hulking Muslim stranger, but she was less vexed than her face suggested: her lower lip always jutted just enough to look like a pout, and her long narrow-jawed face always managed to look faintly displeased unless she was smiling broadly. She was somewhat mistrustful, and exasperated (so typical of this man of mine to do this, she thought, but not without affection). But she unbent quickly enough; the boar would be worth the work, and was freshly killed, and the boy was clearly country folk of a kind she recognized well enough. He was humble and polite, and had immediately set to helping her husband, despite his evident fatigue. When she directed them to wash up, he’d been the first to do so.
As he dried his face and hands on a rag, Arantxa saw her mother Erdutza peering at the boy as she shelled peas. Erdutza gestured at her daughter to come closer.
“What is it, Ama?”
“That boy has a iainko with him. You can’t see it?”
“Ama, hush. There are no iainkos. There is only God the Father and Son.”
“Oh, there is only God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit as Lord of all…but you are wrong if you think there are no more iainkos. And that boy has one with him.” The older woman frowned thoughtfully at the peapod in her hand. “It’s not a bad iainko, though. It protects him.”
“Ama…” Arantxa trailed off, knowing it would be fruitless to argue. Besides, under it all, her mother was right: there were still iainkos, no matter how good of a Christian one was. She squinted intently at the boy herself, knowing that sometimes she could see what her mother saw.
Then she saw it, like pale mist, squatting patiently on insubstantial haunches. She could not make out its form, just that it was there and was quite large.
Without taking her eyes off it, she asked her mother, “What does it look like to you? All I see is mist.”
“He is like a bull. That’s very good, very strong. An old iainko, then. He’s wearing trousers, though.”
“Trousers? Is that bad?”
Erdutza shrugged. “They used to wear clothing like our ancestors wore, or they wore nothing. Not trousers with flowers on them.”
The old woman nodded, as if in greeting, her eyes not moving from where the iainko crouched.
“Ama, did it…has it noticed us?”
“He has. He’s watching us as we watch him. Nothing to worry about, though. He is respectful, even if he’s wearing trousers.” She reached for another peapod.
At supper, Scribonius was content to remain outside of Juba’s head, squatting in a corner and observing. Juba found himself taking great comfort from being with these people; they reminded him of his own family. The food was simple but plentiful; Roderic’s wife Arantxa had made a portion of mutton for Juba. Everyone else feasted on fresh roasted pork. Juba tried hard not to think of where it had come from, as he knew he’d be once more seeing that look of resignation and acceptance of loss in the animal’s eyes if he even looked at the roast.
“You know, this is not at all a terrible or ignoble end for that boar, boy,” Scribonius remarked. “It’s a sacrifice, and what could be more noble and beloved by Allah than that? When you thought that the boar knew he was dying, you were correct. He did know. In that moment, he knew he was a sacrifice, and he accepted that. Like Ishmael. SubhanAllah.”
Juba considered this, and started to reply, remembering just in time that others could not hear or see the djinn, and that responding would not be wise. He nodded instead, glancing around the table. To his dismay, he saw that the old woman, the one with the same intense, downturned eyes as Roderic’s wife, was watching him. She turned to look at the corner where Scribonius squatted, then looked back at Juba before attending once more to her food.
“She can see and hear me, boy. She has a gift for it. Her daughter does too, but not as much. Have no fear of her, boy. She’s a fine woman.”
The old woman pursed her lips into a smile and nodded, but did not look up from her bowl.
“They’re Basques, these women, and Basques have always had more than their fair share of such gifts. It’s not for anyone to know why. Well, we know why, but it’s not really for you to understand.”
Juba once again had to bite his tongue to prevent himself from responding.
“That’s the other lesson I wanted to give you about the story of Musa and al-Khidr, boy…even the best of humans, the most perfect of humans, is still human. You lot are limited to only that which humans can know and understand, even if you want more. It’s really to your credit as a breed that you want to know more than you have the capacity for. Still, it can get exceedingly tiresome for the rest of us, badgering us with your questions as you do.”
The old woman snorted with laughter at that, turning it into the pretense of a cough when everyone else paused to look at her.
Maryam Payne, Writer & Editor 