Zulaykha was granted the lesser seal until sunset the next day.
Not as an honour or a mark of authority. Until sunset, Zulaykha would answer for everyone who died if the water was diverted again.
Boabdil sat in the small hall without music. Beyond the latticed windows, the Alhambra was too beautiful for a siege: white walls, dark greenery, a cold sky above the towers. But below, Granada no longer hummed with market bargaining, but with quarrels in the queues for water.
There was little talk of the price of bread now. In every courtyard people discussed where a full cistern might still remain, whom Yusuf had allowed to draw water at night, and at which sabil the guards beat anyone who came for a second cup.
Zulaykha stood before the emir with her sleeves still wet from the lower aljibe. Nura, Elias and Rafiq stood beside her. Íñigo was kept at a distance under the watch of two guards. They had stopped beating him after Gonzalo's letter, but not out of mercy: the prisoner was now being preserved for an exchange.
Yusuf placed a narrow copper plate on the low table. It bore the old mark of the water-masters: a bowl, three lines, a closed passage.
"The lesser seal of inspection," he said. "Until sunset tomorrow, Khalid's daughter may open one water course, inspect one aljibe and prove one deception. If she succeeds, the house of Khalid will be granted judgement at the fountain. If she fails, the contract with the prisoner will be declared a ruse, and her family will remain guilty."
Boabdil did not look at Zulaykha. He looked at the seal.
"The city wants water," he said.
"The city wants to know where the water went," Zulaykha replied.
Everyone in the hall fell silent.
Yusuf inclined his head slightly.
"Truth does not fill a jug."
"Neither does a lie. It only decides whose jug remains empty."
Nura coughed to hide a laugh. Elias looked away. Rafiq opened his mouth, thought better of speaking and hugged the empty jug more tightly to his chest.
At last Boabdil raised his eyes.
"Whom will you call as witnesses?"
Yusuf had clearly expected Zulaykha to call the guard, the senior masters or members of the court. Any of them would have suited him: some depended on his keys, others feared accusation, and the rest defended not the water but their right to control it.
Zulaykha said:
"Nura al-Banya. Elias ben Naftuli. And Rafiq, son of Samir, who was found dead in a ditch and declared a water thief."
Rafiq flinched at the sound of his father's name.
Yusuf looked at the boy more closely now.
"A child cannot serve as a witness."
"A child rises for water before any guard," Zulaykha said. "And hears better than the adults which pipe it runs through while they argue about honour."
Boabdil rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily.
"So be it."
Yusuf did not object, and placed the seal before Zulaykha far too readily. That meant the terms of the inspection already favoured him.
When she picked up the copper, it was cold. The mark pressed into her palm.
"Remember," Yusuf said. "From this moment on, you answer for everyone to whom you could have given water and did not."
Zulaykha was about to answer when a cry rose from the city below. Then several more people began to shout, and the echoes carried their voices between the walls.
Rafiq went pale.
"The Darro," he said.
Elias swore under his breath.
Another fight had broken out by the river.
They went out onto the gallery. The Darro itself could not be seen from there, only the narrow street descending towards the bridge. People were carrying waterskins, troughs and filthy coverlets. One man bore a child whose arms hung limp. Laundry water, blood, ash and sewage drained into the river beneath the walls. Carrion ended up there too. But when the mountain acequias ran dry, people went even to that water.
"That is why the upper city does not drink from the river," Elias said. "Darro water will only hasten death."
Yusuf stood behind Zulaykha.
"Do you hear them, daughter of Khalid? While you search for a lie, they drink filth."
She clenched the seal so tightly that its edge cut into her skin.
"Then we shall begin with the water course that was meant to bring them clean water."
Íñigo raised his head.
He was looking not at the seal, but at her palm.
"The same mark is burnt into the wood in our northern ditch," he said.
Everyone turned.
"Your ditch?" Yusuf asked calmly.
Íñigo did not look away.
"My father's ditch."
Yusuf could now declare anything they found a Castilian ruse. And the lesser seal forced Zulaykha to go to the northern ditch, where Gonzalo might have prepared a trap in advance.
In the hammam, Nura sent the attendants away before the guards had time to enter.
"The women's heat is harmful to weak men," she declared loudly enough to be heard beyond the door. "And if any of the guards wishes to argue, let him first bear three children and stand for an hour beside a full aljibe with a crowd at his back."
The guards remained outside.
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