Shadow of Death (Book 2 of Hanthalah)

Chapter 16

One day, strolling back to my family shack, my mind betrayed me.

My thoughts wandered to better days spent giggling, chasing a barefoot Martha on the beaches of the Mediterranean. Gentle winds pleasantly tugged at my sleeves and sent my absurdly long hair rippling behind me. Just the way Martha liked it.

Nights spent in the warmth of flesh and furs, with naught but a woman's tender touch to keep me company. The sensation of her hair sprawled over my face, pricking at the skin. The way my heart danced and my stomach fluttered whenever she laughed, gave me one of her trademark mischievous smirks or so much as looked my way with those enchanting sea colored eyes I became so enamored with.

You're the Devil, she'd said. Those were her final words to me.

The woman I'd dreamt for the better part of four years that would bear me a great brood of children as fair as her and strong as myself to extend my lineage and roam the earth bearing my name. All that had been extinguished in half a heartbeat, in a fit of rage, a rush of zeal. A flurry of brisk movements that culminated in steel piercing heart.

And twisting.

Fairer days spent in Alexandria would forever remain entrenched in my heart. But it was Yathrib where my affairs rested, and it was in Yathrib I sought to cultivate a proper reputation for myself, a role in this fledgling political order that saw the superpowers of the world trumped.

But the situation back home was dire and did not improve for quite some time. My mother...

Having her return was not how I had imagined it all these years. How long had it been? Nearly ten years. A lot must have happened in ten years. Whatever, it was, the woman who shared a home with me was one I did not recognize. The joy had been sucked out of her entirely.

I remember life had not been particularly pleasant even prior to our enslavement. But she had always maintained her warm demeanor. She always favored me with the kindliest of smiles, so flashing and radiant that she overshadowed the very sun. Her embrace, I remembered, was enough to cleanse me of worries during the bleakest of days.

Ten years later, lounged in my shack the shell of that woman.

Her eyes were sharper than ever, constantly on the alert, darting this way and that. Her demeanor was reserved, wary even.

She was becoming increasingly paranoid and senile. She would often accuse Zaynab of stealing from her or plotting to murder her son, 'Abd al-Rahman. Consequently, she became more protective of the boy, clinging to him at every given opportunity in an effort to shield the boy from us. The wary looks she gave me were not lost to me either. My own mother, doubting me for some reason. She shied away from my touch; she had not embraced me since the day 'Umar freed her.

Every time I looked deep in her dead, haunted eyes, tears would well in my own. Where was the warmth that dwelled within, the kindness that fueled me to extraordinary ambitions during my childhood?

She ate but little, reduced to a bony hag and a religious zealot, deeply entrenched in her Jewish faith, mounting a deep abhorrence to all gentiles. It was a blessing that she scarcely moved from the furs of her bed. Jews were not allowed to linger in Madinah for more than three days; the residents of the city were under the pretense that she was a Muslim woman. It needed to remain that way.

And it would. Mother showed no desire to set foot out of the household. Her lingering presence, fawning over 'Abd al-Rahman, keeping him close to chest lest we devour him apparently, roused the feral beast within me.