Crossed Bones (36 page)

At last, exhausted, she lay down and slept. When she woke again, the sun was low in the sky, and she was very hungry. She went to the window. Three women, including the two who had bathed her, were at work down in the courtyard. One swept the paving, another watered the pots of flowers, while the third scooped rose petals out of the fountain. When they saw her looking out, one of the women beckoned her down. Cat went to the door, turned the great iron ring set therein and found to her surprise that it opened.

She made her way down a winding staircase and through the narrow corridor, following the light until she emerged in the courtyard. The women paused, then all of them started to talk at once – none, unfortunately, in a language she could understand. At last they seemed to realize this. One touched her bunched fingers to her mouth and mimed chewing. Cat nodded. Yes, she was hungry.

They brought her fresh-baked bread and honey, a bowl of sticky dates and nut-studded cakes, a silver pot of sweet green tea. She ate and drank it all, and the women exclaimed and brought more until she protested and waved her hands. They sat with her and shared out the second pot into tiny delicate glasses. The tallest of the three was called Yasmina, the youngest Habiba and the plump one Hasna, they told her. They had difficulty pronouncing her own name, so she settled for Cat.

‘Where is the man who owns this house?’ she asked. She drew an invisible turban around her head, got up and mimed a man’s walk across the courtyard, until the women cried out with laughter. All she understood of their response was that he was away somewhere – one mimed a horse, or it might have been a boat; they would never make mummers, Cat thought. But he was a rich man, a merchant and a soldier, she ascertained at long last from their acted bargaining and swordplay; handsome too, according to Hasna, who blushed, though the others waved their hands in denial. Too solemn, Yasmina mimed, making her face grim and angry; too old, Habiba suggested, and too sad, pulling her mouth down in the universal expression of sorrow.

‘When will he come back?’

No one knew.

‘What am I to do here?’

They didn’t know that either. But the next day she opened her door and found outside a reed basket containing a roll of white linen, a dozen skeins of coloured silks and several fine needles of Spanish steel stuck through a book of red felt. So the raïs must have advertised her skills as an embroiderer, and her buyer had decided to test her ability. Perhaps her new master did not want her as a mere concubine after all.

Downstairs, she found Hasna and another woman waiting in the courtyard. Cat nodded to them.

‘Good day,’ said the other woman, bobbing her head.

Cat stared at her. ‘You’re English.’

‘Dutch, in actual fact, but I speak your language well enow that your master pay me to translate with you.’

Cat noticed now that she spoke with an odd lilt and clipped the words in an unfamiliar way. She held out her hand. ‘My name is Catherine Anne Tregenna. I was brought here as a captive from English shores.’

The other grinned, showing three gold teeth among the rest. ‘Oh, yes, that I know. I am called Leila Brink, brought here by my pig of a husband, God rest his soul.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry – ’

‘No need for sorry: none miss him, least of all I.’ Her eyes were merry enough amid the black kohl she had applied in the local style. ‘So, Catherine, what do you think of our city?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t understand your ways here. It is all too strange to take in. A… a man tried to kill me, on the slave blocks,’ Cat said. ‘He cast a dagger at me.’

Leila sighed. ‘Another attack. There are many fundamentalists here, to whom the presence of a living Christian is an eternal insult. Please do not judge us all by such mad creatures.’

That was a small relief at least. Then, ‘Can you tell me the name and nature of the man who has bought me?’ she asked. ‘I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting him.’

Leila gave her an odd look. ‘His name is Sidi Qasem bin Hamed bin Moussa Dib, a great benefactor and well-respected man, if somewhat grim of demeanour.’

‘They tell me he is a merchant and a soldier.’

‘That is right enow. He is a man with a good nose for a bargain and an eye to the main chance. He is also great patron of arts and such, not having wife and children to spend his fortune on. He will be a good master to you if you do what he wishes of you.’

‘Which is what?’

‘He says you are a master embroiderer.’

Cat coloured. ‘It was my aim in England to be such, but I never had the chance to train formally.’

‘I have some knowledge of the craft. My father was a guild master in Amsterdam; some of the finest work in Europe passed through his hands.’

Cat bit her lip. ‘What does he expect of me?’

‘Come, you will see.’

Cat hoisted her basket and followed the Dutchwoman and Hasna through dark corridors and up a set of stairs which wound around and about, until they emerged into a cool, bright workroom in which a dozen or more women and girls were gathered. A number of low wooden frames had been set at intervals throughout the room, and women sat at them cross-legged, fitting them with lengths of linen cloth. On a wide circular table had been arranged a bale of thick white linen, more coloured silks, a pair of shears, several rolls of paper and some thin sticks of charcoal. Everything was very ordered, and as quiet as a schoolroom.

She smiled at the women uncertainly and sat down by one of the unoccupied frames, shuffling to sit comfortably in this unaccustomed position. The frame before her was not much like the little round withy-wood frame she was used to at Kenegie, with its spring mechanism and small surface. This was larger and more primitive, but, as she bent her head to fit a length of linen to it, she saw that it was more than serviceable, even though sitting cross-legged at it felt strange. When she looked up again some moments later, it was to find the gaze of all the women upon her, assessing, expectant.

She looked to Leila, confused. ‘Are we waiting for the teacher to arrive?’

‘There is no teacher here but you,’ the Dutchwoman explained slowly. ‘These women know only to work the simplest of peasant designs. Sidi Qasem is determined that you shall widen their repertoire. You shall be a sort of
ma’allema
, a teacher – but only of embroidery. A true
ma’allema
would undertake some of their moral education too, though of course he would not expect that of you. He has other ambitions.’

‘Ambitions?’ Cat echoed, feeling all those dark, foreign eyes upon her.

‘The royal city of Fez makes a great fortune each year from the fine embroidery it exports to the world. There are three thousand houses of
tiraz
, official factories of embroidery, operating there. Very fine work, traditional – very beautiful. But every
tiraz
make same thing, over and over; is boring and loses novelty. He wants New Salé to show Old Fez that it can do better, combining European techniques with Moroccan craft. You will facilitate this new industry for us. These women are just a beginning: you will teach them, and they will become
ma’allema
too and pass what they have learned to others. If you succeed, you will be like guild master. Sidi Qasem will be rich, and so will you.’

Cat felt faint. In Cornwall she had railed against the limits set around her, like a great unscalable wall. With her work on the altar frontal she had felt as if she had climbed three or four rungs of a giant ladder that might eventually enable her to peer over that wall. Here, at a single bound, she found herself astride the summit, but instead of a golden vista below there loomed a great, yawning void.

‘What if I fail?’ she asked, and her mouth was dry.

Leila shrugged. ‘Is best not to fail.’

Cat touched her throat, where it felt as if her heart was trapped. What choice did she have? She must seize her fate and force down her fear. Perhaps she could achieve something extraordinary. Perhaps she could find the life she had always sought, even if it was on another continent, among strangers. She squared her shoulders. ‘We had better start with the fundamentals. If these ladies can show me the sort of stitches they use, we can begin with that. Then tomorrow each can bring an example of the work she has already done, or something she has in the family, so I may have a better idea of the styles of embroidery made here. But I also need to see the sort of thing that is made in… what was the name of the city, Fez?’

‘I am sure all that can be arranged. But a
ma’allema
does not sit on the floor among her students.’ Leila held out a hand and helped Cat to her feet. ‘You sit here.’ She indicated a carved chair set before the largest frame of all. ‘If you tell me what you need them to do, I will translate.’

Cat sat in the chair, which was low but wide, as if made for a much larger woman. Then she held up a hand. ‘My name is Catherine, I come from England, and I will be your teacher in embroidery. You will each tell me your name, and then we will start with some simple stitches.’

And so began her first lesson.

On that first day she took them through some of the more basic stitches and was relieved to find that not all were unknown to them, although they called them by different names. Damask stitch, flat stitch and a type of darning stitch they were familiar with. She showed them, in addition, cross stitch, chain stitch and a simple herringbone, which made them laugh: to them it looked more like a stalk of wheat than like a fish. They showed her, in turn, Fez stitch, a sort of reversible backstitch producing work that looked the same on both sides of the fabric. She shook her head. ‘It’s very fine, but for most purposes it is wasteful: it uses a lot more thread. I think if you use a flat stitch instead, you will find you can achieve a similar effect on the only side of the fabric which is seen; and it is quicker too.’ She demonstrated, but they pulled faces. Old habits die hard.

The next day each woman brought a piece of work from home. One brought a tunic decorated at neck, cuff and hem with a simple stylized design. It was neatly done, if unambitious. ‘Very nice,’ Cat said approvingly. ‘Will you ask her what the pattern is?’

When Leila translated this, the woman – nut-brown and lacking a number of teeth – laughed and clacked her tongue, and Cat suspected she had demonstrated her foreign ignorance by asking the question.

‘It is the tree-and-stork design,’ the Dutchwoman explained. ‘They have used it here for centuries. The stork is
baraka
, a good omen.’

Which was all very well, but what was a stork? Cat had no idea. Leila shrieked with laughter. ‘Later I show you – there is a nest on the minaret.’

So it was a bird, then. Cheeks flaming, Cat looked back at the design. A bird with a long beak, she surmised, but was not much consoled by this.

Another woman had brought some long embroidered bands of a dense, complex design, with tarnished silver thread running through it. ‘This is not local,’ the translator said. ‘It is very old and was a part of her great-grandmother’s trousseau, and the old woman came originally from Turkey, she says. But this other piece’ – she held up a simpler, monochrome band – ‘is a ceremonial one for a man and comes from the Rif.’

‘I like this very much,’ Cat said. ‘Much nicer than the Turkey piece.’ The design was bold and emblematic, strong and confident in execution, and clearly made by someone with long experience of working in these materials and with these motifs. She picked up the other again and examined the workmanship. The silver had not been stitched through the fabric, but lay across the surface, held in place at tiny intervals by a sturdy neutral thread. ‘Ah, this is couched – it saves the thread and makes sure the piece will not be stiff or buckled.’ She smiled. ‘Though I have never worked in silver, nor in gold either!’

‘You will,’ Leila promised. ‘Sidi Qasem has many plans and a great deal of money.’

There were the braids and trimmings known as
mjadli
, wall hangings, or
hyati
– and a
sau
, a pretty decorated bath veil used to tie up the hair when attending the hammam. All these were homely, attractive objects worked in single colours with rudimentary skill. Then Habiba shyly drew out of her burlap bag a length of dark velvet that was so at odds with everything else they had seen that the women as one gave a gasp of delight.

‘This is my
izar
,’ she said. ‘Or rather one of them. One half of a bridal curtain. For when I’m married.’ And she blushed while the women drew it reverently out of its folds and caressed the soft velvet, one even touching it to her cheek. They had to climb, three together, giggling and staggering, on to one of the divans in order to give it its full height, and now it was Cat’s turn to gasp.

The scope of the design was larger by far than any of the other examples the women had brought with them: someone had had remarkable ambitions. From a series of dense friezes alternating geometric patterns with stylized trees and plants there rose a recognizable minaret, which reached from the foot of the curtain full five feet to its apex, all the way down the right-hand side of the velvet.

‘This is truly remarkable,’ said Cat admiringly.

Habiba explained through the Dutchwoman that her mother and grandmother had made it together and that it was one of a pair. She had had to sneak this one out of the house, for the curtains were the most costly things the family owned, and her mother would have been angry that she should show it off so, and to strangers too; but you could tell by the way her eyes shone, Cat thought, how proud she was of it. The piece was having its effect on the other women too, for they exclaimed over it covetously, and Cat felt a sudden swelling of ambition inside her own breast. She could perform work like this – finer even, given the chance. She thought longingly of the altar frontal left behind under her bed at Kenegie, no doubt gathering cobwebs and mouse droppings, and for a moment she felt very sad that no one would see or praise her finest design.
I will outdo it
, she promised herself.
I will make something finer still
,
in this new world
.