Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree Read Online Free Page A

that they nail their God to a piece of wood and call it father, mother and son, drowning their followers in a sea of falsehood. They have subjected and annihilated us through the force of their oppression. Ten thousand praises to you, O Allah, for I am sure you will deliver us from the rule of these dogs who in many towns come daily to pull us from our homes ...’
    How long she would have carried on in this vein is uncertain, but a young serving woman interrupted her.
    ‘Your food is getting cold, Ama.’
    The old woman rose to her feet slowly and with her slightly bent back followed the maid into the kitchen. Ama’s status among the servants was unambiguous. As the master’s wet-nurse who had been with the family since she was born, her authority in the servants’ quarters was unchallenged, but this did not solve all the problems of protocol. Apart from the venerable Dwarf, who boasted that he was the most skilled cuisinier in al-Andalus and who knew exactly how far he could go in discussing the family in the presence of Ama, the others steered away from sensitive subjects in her presence. It was not that Ama was a family spy. Sometimes she would let her tongue loosen and the servants would be amazed by her boldness, but despite these incidents her familiarity with the master and the sons made the rest of the household uneasy.
    In fact, if the truth be told, Ama was extremely critical of Yazid’s mother and the way she brought up her children. If she let her thoughts travel uncensored on this subject Ama finally ended up praying that the master would take a new wife. She regarded the lady of the manor as over-indulgent to her daughters, over-generous to the peasants who worked on the estate, over-lenient to the servants and their vices and indifferent to the practices of their faith.
    On occasion Ama went so far as to voice a moderate version of these thoughts to Umar bin Abdallah, stressing that it was precisely weaknesses of this order which had brought Islam to the sorry pass in which it now found itself in al-Andalus. Umar simply laughed and later repeated every word to his wife. Zubayda was equally entertained by the thought that the frailties of al-Andalusian Islam were symbolized in her person.
    The sounds of laughter emanating from the dining chamber tonight had nothing to do with Ama or her eccentricities. The jokes were a sure sign that the Dwarf’s menu for the evening had found favour with his employers. On an ordinary day the family ate modestly. There were usually no more than four separate dishes and a plate of sweetmeats, followed by fresh fruit. Tonight they had been presented with a heavily spiced and scented barbecue lamb; rabbits stewed in fermented grape-juice with red peppers and whole cloves of garlic; meat-balls stuffed with brown truffles which literally melted in the mouth; a harder variety of meat-balls fried in coriander oil and served with triangular pieces of chilli-paste fried in the same oil; a large container full of bones floating in a saffron-coloured sauce; a large dish of fried rice; miniature vol-au-vents and three different salads; asparagus, a mixture of thinly sliced onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, sprinkled with herbs and the juice of fresh lemons, chick-peas soaked in yoghurt and sprinkled with pepper.
    It had been Yazid trying to extract the marrow from a bone and blowing it by mistake on to his father’s beard that had caused the laughter. Hind clapped her hands and two serving women entered the room. Her mother it was who asked them to clear the table and distribute the large amount of left-over food amongst themselves.
    ‘And listen. Tell the Dwarf we will not try his sweetmeats or cheese-cakes tonight. Just serve the sugar-cane. Has it been dipped in rose-water? Hurry up. It’s late.’
    It was already too late for young Yazid, who had fallen asleep leaning on the floor-cushion. Ama, who had suspected this, walked into the room, put her finger on her lips to stress the