The Last Spring was not opened with a lever.
Amina's fourth line explained the knots in Khalid's rope: seven handspans, three breaths, one brace. It must not be broken. The water had to be released through the small drains.
In the lower listening passage, Khalid sat by the wall where Nura had found a slit for voices. They had not brought him out to join the others, but he could guide them by sound.
"The sabil first," he said.
Rafiq lay on his stomach beside the poor quarter's sabil, holding the stone in both hands. Children had once used this drain in their games; now it became the Spring's first outlet. At first the water barely seeped through, then began to run in a steady thread into a clay bowl.
Two women from the old queue where Zulaykha had first defended Khalid's name in public stood by the sabil. One held a child, the other an empty bowl. They kept silent so as not to draw the guards too soon.
When the first drop fell into the bowl, the woman did not drink. She offered the water to Rafiq for inspection.
"Witness," she said.
The boy nodded gravely.
"No further," Rafiq reminded himself, as Zulaykha had taught him.
The water continued to trickle quietly into the bowl.
"Now the hammam," Khalid said.
Nura turned the women's key only far enough to crack the sluice open. Water ran along the warm service channel into the lower chamber, where Elias was laying the sick on dry cloths.
A feverish girl opened her eyes.
"Rain?"
"No," Nura said. "Better. Water you do not have to catch in your mouth from a roof."
Elias would not let them drink at once. He arranged the bowls in a row as a physician sets out vials and told them to wait until the white sediment settled at the bottom.
"Even this water must be strained," he said.
Nura snorted:
"That is why no one likes you. You are right at the most inconvenient times."
"Now the aljibe," Khalid said.
Zulaykha stood without the seal at the old sluice. Beside her Fatima held a lamp. That morning she had demanded that the enemy's children be made to know their fear; now she was helping Zulaykha save those same children.
"I have not become kind," Fatima said.
"I did not ask you to."
"I want my children to live until morning."
"Then hold the light."
Fatima held it.
Zulaykha turned the sluice for three breaths and held it steady on the fourth. The water did not strike into the ditch, but ran along the side channels towards the small drains.
The main course of the Spring was still closed by the outer brace beyond the wall, where Gonzalo's men were digging. From within the city, the water could be released only through the small channels. To open the full flow, both sides would have to act at once.
"Do not let it into the Darro," Elias called from the dark passage. "The river is filthier than a sewer now."
Zulaykha remembered the boy by the turbid Darro, his arms hanging lifelessly. Now the city had a chance to give the children clean water instead of driving them to the river.
"A small course is easy to close," Fatima said, still holding the light. "One guard, one stone, one order."
Khalid heard her through the wall.
"One is, yes. Not all at once. That is why the old masters built the city not like a throat but like a hand. One finger is easily broken, but five hold the bowl."
Zulaykha looked at her empty palm.
Yusuf had the palace keys, and Gonzalo had the measurements of the outer ditch. But neither knew the whole system of small drains, and so neither could bring it under his command with a single order.
Behind the wall, Khalid counted the drops.
"A little further."
Zulaykha turned it.
"Stop."
She stopped.
Far beyond the wall, Íñigo must already be standing before Gonzalo. At the Lion Fountain, Yusuf was surely preparing the hearing with the forged tablet. And Marwan was carrying the stolen tile to him.
But the water was already spreading through the city.
It ran towards the sabil, the hammam, the lower aljibe, the dry branch of the northern acequia and the small crack by the Lion Fountain, where the first trickle had appeared on the day of the contract.
"Once the water reaches the fountain, they will no longer be able to postpone the judgement," Khalid said.
Zulaykha closed her eyes. Instead of one powerful flow, she heard water in several small channels at once. It was enough to carry the water to the fountain and disprove Yusuf's words.
At that moment, in the northern camp, Íñigo raised his head before his father.
"I do not need mercy," he told Gonzalo. "I need witnesses."
Gonzalo looked at him with something close to curiosity.
"For your execution?"
"For the water."
"You still think the water will clear you?"
Beneath the ground, Íñigo heard not the roar of the flood his father had expected, but the quiet sound of water in the small channels. So Granada had not directed the flow into the ditch.
"No," he said. "I think it does not belong to you."
Behind Gonzalo, the shovels suddenly fell silent.
One of the ditch diggers ran up from the northern pit, covered in white dust and visibly frightened.
"Señor. The branch has subsided."
Gonzalo did not turn his head.
"Speak plainly."
"There is no pressure. The water has gone into the small veins. If we break the brace now, there will not be enough water to flood the ditch. The supports will only sink, and the rest of the flow will pass into the city channels."
Gonzalo looked at the white truce ribbon by the embassy entrance. The surrender negotiations were still under way, and witnesses were being allowed passage into the city. Now he would have to prove his right to the water at the Lion Fountain.
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