Queen Exilona passed a happy life as the bride of the Gothic monarch, but
many were the vicissitudes which lay before her, for the Arab conquest was
near at hand and its effects could not but bear heavily upon her destiny.
After the defeat and death of Roderic a considerable number of noble Goths
sought shelter in the city of Merida, among them the widowed queen.
Thither came Musa with a large army and besieged the city. It was strongly
and bravely defended, and the gallant garrison only yielded when famine
came to the aid of their foes.
A deputation from the city sought the Arab camp and was conducted to the
splendid pavilion of Musa, whom the deputies found to be an old man with
long white beard and streaming white hair. He received them kindly,
praised them for their valor, and offered them favorable terms. They
returned the next day to complete the conditions. On this day the
Mohammedan fast of Ramadhan ended, and the Arabs, who had worn their
meanest garb, were now in their richest attire, and joy had everywhere
succeeded penitent gloom. As for Musa, he seemed transformed. The meanly
dressed and hoary ancient of the previous visit now appeared a man in the
prime of life, his beard dark-red in hue, and his robes rich with gold and
jewels. The Goths, to whom the art of dyeing the hair was unknown, looked
on the transformation as a miracle.
"We have seen," they said on their return, "their king, who was an old
man, become a young one. We have to do with a nation of prophets who can
change their appearance at will and transform themselves into any shape
they like. Our advice is that we should grant Musa his demands, for men
like these we cannot resist."
The stratagem of the Arab was successful, the gates were opened, and
Merida became a captive city. The people were left their private wealth
and were free to come and go as they would, with the exception of some of
their noblest, who were to be held as hostages. Among these was the
widowed Queen Exilona.
She was still young and beautiful. By paying tribute she was allowed to
live unmolested, and in this way she passed to the second phase of her
romantic career. Arab fancy has surrounded her history with many
surprising incidents, and Lope de Vega, the Spanish dramatist, has made
her the heroine of a romantic play, but her actual history is so full of
interest that we need not draw contributions from fable or invention.
When Musa went to Syria at the command of the caliph he left his son
Abdul-Aziz as emir or governor of Spain. The new emir was a young,
handsome, and gallant man. He had won fame in Africa, and gained new
repute for wisdom and courage in Spain. The Moorish princess who had
become a Gothic queen was now a hostage in his hands, and her charms moved
his susceptible heart. His persuasive tongue and attractive person were
not without their effect upon the fair captive, who a second time lost her
heart to her captor, and agreed once more to become a bride. Her first
husband had been the king of Gothic Spain. Her second was the ruler of
Moorish Spain. She declined to yield her Christian creed, but she became
his wife and the queen of his heart, called by him Ummi-Assam, a name of
endearment common in Arab households.
Exilona was ambitious, and sought to induce her new husband to assume the
style of a king. She made him a crown of gold and precious stones which
her soft persuasion induced him to wear. She bowed in his presence as if
to a royal potentate, and to oblige the nobles to do the same she induced
him to have the door-way of his audience chamber made so low that no one
could enter it without making an involuntary bow. She even tried to
convert him to Christianity, and built a low door to her oratory, so that
any one entering would seem to bow to the cross.
These arts of the queen proved fatal to the prince whom she desired to
exalt, for this and other stories were told to the caliph, who was seeking
some excuse to proceed against the sons of Musa, whose ruin he had sworn.
It was told him that Abdul-Aziz was seeking to make Spain independent and
was bowing before strange gods. Soliman asked no more, but sent the order
for his death.
It was to friends of the emir that the fatal mandate was sent. They loved
the mild Abdul, but they were true sons of Islam, and did not dare to
question the order of the Commander of the Faithful. The emir was then at
a villa near Seville, whither he was accustomed to withdraw from the cares
of state to the society of his beloved wife. Near by he had built a
mosque, and here, on the morning of his death, he entered and began to
read the Koran.
A noise at the door disturbed him, and in a moment a throng burst into the
building. At their head was Habib, his trusted friend, who rushed upon him
and struck him with a dagger. The emir was unhurt, and sought to escape,
but the others were quickly upon him, and in a moment his body was rent
with dagger strokes and he had fallen dead. His head was at once cut off,
embalmed, and sent to the caliph. The cruel use made of it we have told.
A wild commotion followed when the people learned of this murder, but it
was soon quelled. The power of the caliph was yet too strong to be
questioned, even in far-off Spain. What became of Exilona we do not know.
Some say that she was slain with her husband; some that she survived him
and died in privacy. However it be, her life was one of singular romance.
As for the kindly and unfortunate emir, his memory was long fondly
cherished in Spain, and his name still exists in the title of a valley in
the suburbs of Antequera, which was named Abdelaxis in his honor.