Sultan's Wife (25 page)

It is telling that it is with his First Wife that he passes his last night in camp. I enter the details in the couching book before first prayer the next day.

Before the sun is fully risen, Ismail takes his leave of a bleary-eyed Abdelaziz. ‘My dearest friend, take good care of the women of my harem, of my wives and sons. If anything evil befalls them I shall have you dragged behind mules!'

The grand vizier's eyes become round with horror; then the emperor roars with laughter.

‘You are so easy to tease, Abdou.'

We ride out after breaking our fast: seven thousand cavalry and fifteen thousand foot, and cross the Melwiya at the ford, the horses' hot breath creating a fog that wreaths around us, so that when I look back towards the camp, I can see nothing but what appears to be an army of phantoms, moving between worlds.

I did not sleep that first night for thinking of that kiss, soaring at one moment to the heights of elation, the next to the depths of anguish. Torment endlessly succeeded delight; days later, I am none the wiser for all the thought I have given the subject, though unfamiliarity with keeping my seat on a horse has trained my mind to more practical concerns. Now, exhausted by a long day in the saddle, I sleep better than I have in years, despite the freezing temperatures and hard ground on which I lie. Conditions in the mountains are challenging: I have never experienced such cold. It freezes the hairs in my nostrils, the tears in my eyes, the urine I piss into gullies. I learn to breathe shallowly, to avoid the sensation of knives inside my chest. The sultan forces us on mercilessly, driven by his overriding desire to crush the uprising. When it becomes clear that the baggage-wagons are slowing us down, he ruthlessly jettisons beds, tables, braziers – anything that cannot easily be packed and carried on a mule. He tolerates the same conditions, sleeps on a cloak on the ground and eats the same dull fare as the rest of us. I am beginning to learn a grudging respect for Ismail as a man who bears hardship more easily than the toughest of his soldiers. Until now I have thought of him as a despot, a voluptuary, a divine madman who merely exercised his power in order to indulge his pleasures and obsessions. Now I begin to see glimpses of the man behind the title, the man who started his life as the younger son of a minor warlord a long way from the centre of power and plotted, schemed and fought his way to a throne that he has defended with grit and determination against all claimants and enemies; the man who is determined to
unite the kingdom, extend its boundaries, found a dynasty and leave a magnificent legacy behind him. I also see ever more clearly the religious fervour that drives him: even when Ramadan begins he observes the fast and enforces it on the whole of his army. Although by sundown our unfed bodies shiver as if afflicted with ague, and many fall rather than dismount from their horses, Ismail shows no sign of discomfort or distress, and always ensures the mounts are well tended before he allows himself to rest.

When one of the kaids foolishly suggests that since we are
musaafir
, travellers, which legitimately entitles us to postpone our fast until after the campaign, Ismail masters his great desire to behead the man and merely demotes him to mule-tender at the rear of the column. ‘We are on a holy mission to defend God's kingdom!' he storms. ‘Who needs bread when his will fortifies us?'

No one dares to remind him that jihadists are also spared the fast.

And so we march on with empty stomachs through crystal-bright days, the horses picking their way through snow so white it blinds the eyes. At night, a million stars wheel overhead and the cries of jackals shiver through the air, haunting our dreams.

We come down out of the mountains just after sunset, having seen no living soul but a couple of ragged herders in all the weeks of journey, and approach a small settlement nestling in the hollow of a valley. Smoke is rising from an open fire: an entire sheep is turning on a spit. As we approach, an elderly man in tattered robes and a grubby head-wrap throws himself on the ground in prostration before the sultan's horse.

‘
Marhaban
, my lord! Heaven's gates are opened, Hell's gates are closed, Shaitan is safely chained and the djinns are locked away. I beg you, break your fast with your poor subjects.'

This pleases Ismail mightily and he happily hunkers down in an unkingly manner on the shabby rush mats that have been set around the fire, shares a meal with the villagers and avails himself of the virgin they offer for his bed that night. I do not have the couching book with me, as a result of the grand vizier's sarcasm, and no one can tell me how to spell the girl's name: for none of these people read or write. They repeat the sounds for
me until I can make a fair approximation, and I inscribe it with a sharpened reed and ink I mix from ash and water on a piece of linen. That night all I can think of is Alys. I pray that she is well, and wonder if I will survive the battle to come when we ride into the Tafilalt tomorrow.

What have I done? I try not to think of it, but some devil is in me: memories of that lewd kiss I bestowed upon my poor friend, which drove him from me in shame and confusion, keep returning, hotter than ever. I remember too the sight of his naked torso on that terrible day when the sultan went mad, a sculpture in obsidian. I must be possessed by some evil spirit, a spirit that is growing fatter and stronger by the day in my belly. Surely I will give birth to a monster.

I try to pray, but feel a hypocrite to offer up Christian prayers when I am an apostate. My turmoil drives me to seek out the
ma'alema
, who comes to offer religious instruction to the women of the harem, alongside her more practical duties of overseeing their embroidery skills. We left Meknes in such a hurry that this latter has not overtasked her, for, ousted by sacks of henna, paints, jewellery, sweetmeats and bales of satin, our embroidery frames and silks were left behind at court and no one has felt the loss sufficiently to send slaves back to fetch them.

I have a little Arabic now, but still it is not easy to make myself understood. When I show her the translated Qur'an given me by the English renegade Catherine Tregenna and try to explain what it is I would like – some instruction in their holy book – she throws it away from her as if it were poisonous, spits on her hands and then wipes them on the skirt of her robe. After this, she goes bustling off, muttering to herself, and I feel sure I have offended her beyond repair, but a while later she is back with a little volume most beautifully bound in green and gold morocco. This she opens, from the back, and, moving her finger from right to left, traces the symbols
inscribed therein while she chants. The sound is rhythmic, repetitive, hypnotic; even the monkey is soothed by it. He lies quietly, curled up at my feet, watching us with unblinking eyes. Nus-Nus has taught me some Arabic, and I recognize words from the women's prayers. I follow the sounds and learn them by heart and repeat them over and over like a talking bird, and sometimes the ma'alema makes a little gesture with her hands to help my understanding. Thus I discover that Al-Fatiha means ‘opening', which she mimes by placing her hands together, then letting them fall open at the hinge; and that in their faith there are many names for God. The ma'alema is delighted with me. She pats my hands and chatters at me and struts around with newfound pride. It seems I have become her best pupil, a testament to her skill and powers of persuasion.

Zidana comes stamping past swathed in blankets and furs and, seeing the ma'alema sitting with me and a Qur'an open on my knees, bestows black looks upon both of us. Amadou takes one look at her and creeps beneath my skirts.

One of the other courtesans is, like me, nearing her time, her pregnancy perhaps a week or two in advance of my own. She is a young black woman with protuberant eyes as soft and watery as those of my mother's pug-dogs. On the day that her labour pains begin the other women lave her solicitously and renew the henna on her nails, and the palms and soles of her hands and feet. After this, she is toted about like a gigantic baby, fed by hand, carried to the latrine and back, and finally to the makeshift hammam, where the paste is washed away, leaving behind a violent orange design, with which she seems inordinately pleased. Kohl is applied around her eyes; even her lips are coloured. These are, I have ascertained, superstitious gestures designed to keep evil influences at bay. Apparently the spirits they call djinns are apt to take advantage at times of weakness and may assay entry into the body. I find myself wondering where else the henna has been applied.

Well, it seems that the henna has not worked its protective magic and that the djinns have had a feast day, for the poor girl's child was stillborn.
Lamentations fill the day, the women all wailing and shuttling their tongues. The bereaved mother tears her clothing and rends her face with her nails and will not let the child be taken for burial, even holding on to its tiny ankles as they try to drag it away. It is a most heart-rending sight. Afterwards, I sit with her a little while, stroking her hands and murmuring consolations, but the sight of my ripe belly brings yet more tears, and at last I take my leave, feeling dread settle upon me at the thought of my own imminent ordeal.

This is no place for birthing children. Even with the braziers burning you can feel the cold outside. It seeps in between the warp and weft of the fabric of the tents, through door flaps that never quite close, up through the ground, the reed mats and oriental carpets that overlay them. And yet sometimes I imagine slipping out into the night, crossing the river at the ford and heaving myself up into the mountains to give birth all alone in a cave, like a wild animal.

The taking of the Tafilalt was achieved without even a blade drawn. It appears the villagers who feasted us so well for the two days we spent with them were well paid to delay us, allowing Al-Harrani and Moulay al-Saghir to flee north towards Tlemcen. We enter the city of Sijilmassa to a great show of celebration by the inhabitants, who no doubt only days before had supported the rebel cause. Every householder brings the carpets out of their homes and lays them down on the streets for the sultan to ride over. Of course, we do not have the luxury of shitbags (gold-embroidered or otherwise) with us on this campaign; I fear the good wives of Sijilmassa are liable to have much work to do before their carpets can be rehabilitated.

The rebels have created their own barbaric, magpie splendour in this place. Evidently they have been receiving foreign backing for their insurrection, for amongst the items they have left behind in their haste are rich carpets from Turkey and Isfahan, new French furniture gaudily dressed in gold leaf and English cannon that make Ismail's eyes gleam. A succession of local chieftains comes grovelling, laden with tribute and outpourings of loyalty, pledging their lives, their swords, their sons and daughters, most of whom are exceedingly unattractive. Ismail is delighted. As Ramadan comes to an end and we celebrate with a great feast, he indulges his weeks of abstinence by taking two or three of the girls to his bed each night, as if determined to repopulate his homeland single-handed.

The ‘courtiers' who have stayed in Sijilmassa are a motley group: ruffians and ne'er-do-wells, chancers and speculators from a dozen different
tribes and nationalities. There are two men who claim to be princes of the Asante; renegades from Portugal and Holland; and merchants from Egypt and Ethiopia who immediately start trying to peddle their wares to the new arrivals. Ismail has their goods confiscated and paws through them dismissively. ‘Here,' he says, throwing to ben Hadou a little gold casket of frankincense. Any other man would be well pleased with such a rich trinket, but the Tinker's smile is wry: he is not a great user of perfumes. The doctor gets their odd collection of dried beetles and scorpions, used in some charlatanry or other: I learn later than he has cast them in the privy and, from the cry that issues from the little room, given the next user quite a fright. Ismail gives to me a silver box, ornately decorated, for which I thank him profusely. When I open it, I find it contains some sort of fragrant dried leaf that smells woody and sweet and peppery, a little like nutmeg. Later that night, whilst the sultan is sleeping off his latest conquest, the Asante princes befriend me, bringing with them clay pipes and a pouch of dried leaves they call tobacco, which my master the doctor used to smoke. They suggest we mix some of the herb, which they refer to as
kif
, with the tobacco, to make it ‘sweeter'. I shrug. ‘If you like.' I tried a pipe of tobacco once and did not much care for it. But it is true: the herb does improve the experience, and soon the three of us are chattering away like old companions, swathed in clouds of sweet-smelling smoke, laughing at each other's stories, which become progressively disconnected and bizarre. After a while, a fierce hunger overtakes me and I go off to the kitchens to find something for us to eat.

I am just on my way back with a trayful of cakes and almond biscuits (which are delicious: I could not resist a handful even as I loaded the tray) when I am accosted in the corridor by a girl with heavily kohled eyes and a startling smile. An unveiled Ait Khabbashi nomad. She runs the tip of her tongue over her lips as she stands in my path, like a cat about to eat a bird.

‘Hello.'

She is exotic in her heavy triangular silver earrings and collars of cowrie-shell that glitter in the light of the sconces. She puts a hand on my arm and, looking at me rather than at the tray, says, ‘That looks good enough to eat.'

I remember my manners and offer her a cake. She laughs. ‘I did not mean
that.' Her hand brushes deliberately against my robe and comes to rest on my groin. Instead of being shocked, I find myself laughing. I am still laughing when she pulls my head down towards her and kisses me languorously. When we separate she says, ‘I have been watching you all day. Have you not noticed me?'