Sultana's Legacy (32 page)
“Yes,” she whispered. She grabbed his hips and wrapped her legs around them.
“Even make love with me?”
“Yes! It has been so long. Please.”
He grabbed her throat and shoved her head against the wall with a satiating thud. She panicked and struggled for each breath.
“Who’d have thought you would become a great whore in your old age?”
He released her and she slid down the wall. He crossed the room and opened the door. It flew back on its hinges and banged against the stucco wall.
He yelled into the dim light for a servant. One peered around the corner. “Yes, master, what is your desire?”
He looked over his shoulder at Fatima. “Summon the slave Abeer to my room. I need her tonight.”
Princess Fatima
Bleary-eyed, Fatima still sat on the floor adjacent the wall on. Light filtered through the closed lattice window. The ugly eunuch Bazu stood beside it, his gaze fixed on her. She closed her eyes and blotted out the sight of him. The sounds of camels and men issuing orders drifted to her from outside. Faraj prepared to leave Malaka.
The door to her gilded prison opened. Baraka entered.
“Isn’t it a splendid morning, my Sultana? The sun is shining, the sea birds circle overhead. The gardens smell of fragrant flowers and the sea spray…oh, but you wouldn’t know about any of that in your confinement.”
A smile fixed on Baraka’s angular face. She closed the door and leaned against it. She twirled a flower stem between her fingers.
Pain knifed through Fatima at the sight of Baraka. Fatima closed her eyes. “Get out! Leave me be!”
“I think not. You shall suffer me as I have suffered you all these years. So proud, so beautiful, a Sultana of Gharnatah. Look at you now! No wonder the master called that cow Abeer to his bed last night. You’re a disgrace.”
“Baraka, if you don’t shut your mouth, I’ll forget that you have been a dutiful governess to my children!”
The harridan crossed the floor and hovered over her. “You’ll do what? You don’t even have the courage or the good sense to get up off the floor. Look at you, cowering here, mewling like a wounded kitten. You! I have nothing to fear from you. Now, the Sultana Fatima, the one who threatened me with death for stealing her necklace, she was once a woman to fear. What has become of her?”
Fatima buried her face in her hands. “Why can’t you leave me alone?”
Baraka laughed and crouched in front of her. “I’ve waited a long time to see you brought low. Proud Sultana. You’re a fool, you know.”
Fatima raised her head and met the slave’s regard. “Is that so?”
“Yes, a fool to throw away your husband’s love, to risk it all by writing your treacherous plans on parchment, when you could have used a trusted messenger instead. I used to think your judgment was sound. Your husband is a fool, too. I told him so yesterday evening.”
When she gasped, Baraka laughed again. Fatima hated her even more for taking such pleasure in her poor circumstances.
“There were other ways to trick your husband, I know them. After your husband chose you over his slaves, I vowed I would not be alone. I took a lover and kept him for all the years we lived at Gharnatah. There have been others since, here at Malaka.”
“You’ve signed your own death warrant, Baraka.” Fatima glanced at the eunuch, Bazu, who stared at them. “He is no fool. Unlike everyone else, including my husband, I believe he and his brother understand Arabic perfectly well. They do not deign to speak it.”
Baraka leaned forward and cast a sloe-eyed glance at the man. “I do not worry for him. He is a man. Do you know there are two ways to make a eunuch? Some just have their testicles removed, instead of the penis and sacs. This one can still perform as a man. I have watched him in the
hammam
. His scars do not frighten me. If I wished, I could make him sigh with delight. He would forget all he has heard today. If I commanded it, he would crawl across the room on his belly, just to lick the spot where I have sat.”
The man swallowed and straightened his stance against the wall, confirming Fatima’s suspicions.
Baraka ran her pink tongue over her lower lip. With her painted face, gleaming hair and the hint of still youthful curves under the billowy, light robe, Fatima did not doubt her conviction.
She muttered, “Too bad you could not hold my husband with such tricks.”
The former concubine looked at her hennaed nails. “Love was the drug with which you took him from me. For a long time, I hated you. You gave him a life with purpose and children. You left me with nothing. You bewitched him.”
“Now, you are here to take pleasure in my downfall?”
“No. I have come to bring you this.” She extended her hand.
Fatima looked at the blossom she offered, with its white florets and the golden disc at its center. “Chamomile?”
“From your garden outside the kitchens.”
Fatima raised an eyebrow. “Did you think I needed something to aid my sleep?”
“Why should I care how you sleep? Before I came to live with your husband, I had another master. A Turk who had stolen me away from my home, ages ago. I learned much from him. In the harems of the Turks, the women believe that flowers have symbolic meaning.”
As Fatima took the flower and inhaled the aromatic smell, Baraka’s gaze held hers. “If you would like, I could teach you this language of flowers. Since you have nothing better to do in this place, you can pass your time in such instruction.”
“Why would you teach me the language of flowers?” Fatima asked, her peripheral gaze on the eunuch, who leaned forward. “Besides, who says Faraj shall permit you another visit?”
“Don’t worry about whether I can persuade your husband. He is only a man. It delights me to torment him and you. I know how much you enjoy your gardens in bloom. You cannot see the flowers from this place.”
Baraka got to her feet with the agility of a woman half her age. She looked at Bazu and licked her lips. He gasped and averted his eyes. Laughter escaped her in a throaty rumble.
She glanced at Fatima again. “Let me offer a measure of advice, if you would accept it. I doubt a Sultana of Gharnatah can bear sleeping on the floor for long nights. You would not want to risk ruining your delicate, pampered skin, would you?”
She rapped at the door. Amud threw it open. He stepped aside, but she leaned into him. His grip on the handle tightened. Baraka giggled at his reddened face.
Fatima called out, “Is there a meaning to the chamomile flower among the Turks?”
“Yes. It is for patience, my Sultana.”
The door slammed shut on Baraka’s back.
Fatima stood and waved her guard over to another corner. His lower lip jutted with resentment, but he moved.
She peered through the lattice window and held the flower up to her nose. She inhaled the scent again. For the first time in years, she knew some measure of comfort. If she remained patient, God would answer her prayers and bring peace and justice to Gharnatah.
She looked around the room, her prison. Once, it had been a place of joy and celebration of the love she and Faraj shared. She had squandered those memories in a quest for vengeance, a purpose that no longer needed her guidance. How could she ever regain the precious time she had lost, mired in cruelty and abandonment? How could her wounded heart ever heal?
The Language of Flowers
Prince Faraj
Malaka, Al-Andalus: Shawwal 708 AH (Malaga, Andalusia: March AD 1309)
During the last course of the evening meal, Faraj looked down the table at Baraka. “Almost each day for over nine months, you have visited Fatima and brought her flowers. Why?”
The spoon of yoghurt and sliced fig hovered just beyond her parted lips. “My visits cheer her, master.”
She smiled at him and swallowed the morsel. Her spoon dipped into the bowl again and she continued eating.
He glared at her. “You’ll understand if I find it hard to believe Fatima enjoys your visits.”
“They do not displease her. You do not know many things about the Sultana. Shall I tell you?”
His fist thumped on the cedar wood and sent a blue faïence vessel tumbling. “Don’t you dare think to inform me about my own wife!”
Pomegranate juice splashed the carpet. Saliha dragged Qabiha with her vacant stare back from the table. Saliha was always protective of her elder sister. She would leave the house with her in a year, when she married.
Faraj’s second son muttered something through thinly pressed lips, before he set down his spoon.
His father demanded, “Do you have something to say, Muhammad?”
“I am not hungry. May I be excused, Father?”
“You shall remain and repeat whatever you mumbled before! If you have something to say to me, then say it.”
Muhammad looked at Faraj with eyes like his mother’s own. They pierced to his father’s soul, as Fatima’s own would have.
“Saliha cries every night, Father. She thinks no one hears her. I do. Now that you have arranged her marriage, she worries for the future. If the love you and
Ummi
shared can end so easily, what hope can there be for happiness in any union? The discord has shattered our lives. You have the power to change these circumstances, Father, yet you do nothing.”
“It is your mother who has endangered all our lives with her lies.”
“I don’t care about that! You’re hurting and she is in pain, too. What can she do, who can she harm now, locked up in her room for years? If Aunt Baraka comforts her now, at least, it’s more than you’ve done.”
Faraj looked around the room at the faces of his youngest, unmarried daughters, his steward and treasurer. Almost all averted their eyes from his stare. Still, he suspected they shared the same sentiments. Only Baraka dared meet his regard with a smile.
Silence pervaded the room. The smell of the sea breeze filtered into the open-air courtyard and preceded Khalid’s appearance. His heavy black boots echoed on the marble.
“My prince, news from Gharnatah.”
Faraj took the missive he offered, broke the wax seal and scanned the page’s contents with widening eyes. He showed it to Khalid. “Can it be true?”
“It bears the seal of the
Diwan al-Insha
.”
Muhammad asked, “What’s happened, Father?”
“We’ll discuss it later.” At his son’s scowl, he softened his tone. “I promise to tell you, but I must see your mother first. Captain, come with me.”
Baraka’s smile widened, but Faraj did not question it.
Khalid followed him to Fatima’s chamber, where Amud stood beside the wall. At a gesture from Faraj, he opened the door and the men entered. When Faraj waved Amud’s brother Bazu away, the Tuareg bowed and left the room.
Fatima stood before the window. The mid-afternoon sun swathed her in golden light that penetrated the lattice. She wore a red silk robe, her hair in lustrous waves tumbling down her back. Streaks of gray threaded through her curls.
When she turned to Faraj, she held a yellow poppy blossom. Her countenance revealed nothing, yet in it, he recognized a glimmer of the wife he had known and loved for long. Something had changed inside her.
“Good-day, Faraj. You also, Khalid of al-Hakam. The peace of God be with you.”
“News has come from Gharnatah.” Faraj waved the parchment in her face. “Do you want to know the contents of this letter?”
“If you wish to tell me, then I am glad to hear it.”
He snorted at her demure tone. “The
Diwan al-Insha
summons all governors of the provinces to attend the coronation of the new Sultan of Gharnatah, Abu’l-Juyush Nasr, fourth of his line. According to this letter, the ministers have forced Sultan Muhammad the third to abdicate in favor of his younger brother. The Sultan has been ill for some time. The council believes his mind is affected. He has become an imbecile. He cannot rule. The council claims to have the support of the military. The new
Hajib
, Ali ibn al-Jayyab, signed this letter. I can only assume that Muhammad’s prime minister, Ibn al-Hakim, has been removed or is dead.”
An audible sigh escaped Fatima. “Then, it is over.”
“Yes. Nasr’s treachery is complete. Now tell me the truth, if you can still speak it. This news does not surprise you, does it? Before I came here, you knew what I would say.”
“Yes, husband, I did.”
Faraj dismissed Khalid and sank down on Fatima’s bed. “I await your explanation.”
Fatima sat beside him. “Baraka spoke to me this morning.”
She glanced at him. Her lower lip trembled. Did she fear what he thought of her meetings with Baraka? Bazu had reported through Khalid that the Genoese woman had come earlier and, after a trifling discussion about the weather, gave Fatima a flower, presumably the one she held now. “You may continue.”
She sniffed the petals. “Yellow poppy is the flower of victory and success among the Turks. Almost each day for a year, Baraka has brought me flowers with many meanings. Chamomile for patience. Blue violets for faithfulness and watchfulness. Even the rose leaf for hope. The flower always reflected the mood she hoped I might adopt. Her blossoms also served as warnings of danger or great tidings.”
“How did she know of the
Diwan
’s actions before I did?”
“She has a…an old friend in Gharnatah among the council members.”
“You mean one of her former lovers, of course.”
Though he did not ask a question, she nodded. “They are not lovers now, I assure you. I believe the man may remember her with some fondness.”
“My pride doesn’t suffer because of her betrayal. Her lovers - yes, I have always known of them, but they never concerned me. I should whip and sell Baraka for her defiance now. I told everyone you were to remain ignorant of anything that transpired beyond the walls of our home. What am I to do with you?”
She bowed her head. “You may do whatever you wish to me. I shall submit. Please do not hurt Baraka. She has been kind to me.”
