Hammer of Witches by Shana Mlawski Read Free Book Online Page A

easy, is it, Uncle? ‘Who are your closest relatives?’ I said, ‘Diego and Serena Infante.’ Or was I wrong about those names?”
    “Bali.”
    “So I have a question of my own, Diego! Question one: Who the hell are you ?!”
    By this point the room was cartwheeling around me, so I sank back, drained, against my pillow. With calm hands Diego brought my quilt over my torso.
    “Bali, there’s a story about this. And believe me, this is one you’re going to want to pay attention to. All right?”
    I took a breath and smelled the remains of Serena’s stew in the kitchen, the vinegar on Diego’s hands. Those were real, still. I was real. So I nodded at my uncle, and he began his story.
    “A long time ago — well, not that long ago — I lived in Constantinople, in the East. Back then the city was much like Palos once was. It was a Christian city, but many Jewish families lived there too. Even some Muslims lived there — or Moors, as you call them. Not everyone got along all the time, certainly, but it was a good place to grow up, and full of history.
    “Then when I was about your age a group of Moors known as the Ottomans laid siege to my homeland. The siege lasted for nearly two months, a terrible time. No food was allowed in from the countryside. Many people died of disease and starvation, including most of my family.
    “At the end of May, the Ottomans began their final assault. Our armies were small, and though I was just a boy, I was sent to the front lines. The Pope had sent aid in the form of soldiers from across Europe, but it was not enough to defeat the Ottomans. The city fell to the Moors. I was left without a family, without a home. With nothing.”
    I considered the story. It was the same one my uncle used to tell me when I was a child. But back then it had been a tale of adventure and excitement, of swashbuckling heroes and daring escapes. “This story was different when you used to tell it,” I murmured.
    “Yes, I admit I may have . . . embellished things slightly. But one part about those old stories was true. During the war I met a young man not much older than myself, a foreigner who had answered the Vatican’s call to protect Constantinople. And although he, like the Ottomans, was born and raised a Muslim, to him the conflict wasn’t about religion. It was about what was right and what was wrong.”
    I remembered the story. “You’re talking about Amir al-Katib. He saved your life.”
    “And gave me a new one. When the war was over, he said, ‘You will come with me to Castile, my brother, to my home in Palos de la Frontera.’ I didn’t have any reason not to, so I did. It didn’t take long for me to make a new life here. I began speaking Castilian, and I apprenticed myself with a bookmaker. Before long I met your aunt and we married. The two of us were very happy.
    “The same couldn’t be said for al-Katib. The man was a traveler. The people of Castile sometimes call the Moors the mudejares, ‘the ones who stayed.’ But it was against Amir’s nature to stay in one place for long. He would disappear from Palos for years at a time, only to return like a lost dog. Your Aunt Serena had a solution to the problem. ‘You need to get married!’ she’d say. She’d actually grab the books from his hands and throw them out the window. ‘You’re not going to find a wife in there!’ You know your aunt has never been scared of anyone, warrior or not.
    “Just when we were beginning to think it was hopeless, al-Katib met a woman. It was amazing to see this warrior’s heart slain by such a creature. They were fiercely in love, but it had to be secret, as were many loves at the time, for she was Christian and he a Moor. They soon had a child, and I have never seen a man — and a warrior, no less — dote so on an infant. But it was a child of his old age, so I supposed I could not fault him.
    “Back then many secret marriages were performed, and few were persecuted for such