Sultan's Wife (32 page)

The skies cloud over and for a while it looks as if God indeed favours the Meknassi Jewry; but then the sun breaks through once more and beats down as mercilessly as ever. There is a glut of meat in the market: in the villages outside Meknes the people are slaughtering their animals since there is no fodder with which to feed them. Some have left their homes and gone up into the mountains with what livestock remains to them, but many old folk have died of heatstroke.

Ismail has auguries cast, but the signs are hard to read. At last he declares that designated members of his court shall go out into the fields unshod, and in the oldest and grimiest garments we can lay hands on. Abid and I are sent into the poorest part of the city to buy dirty cast-offs, teeming with lice and ragged at hem and sleeve, the filthier the better. Old women selling off their husbands' clothing grab the proffered coins with fingers like talons and shut the door quickly before I can change my mind. Word soon goes round and soon I am surrounded by men gleefully stripping off their old robes in alleyways.

The next day we stand there in the morning sun, which is already burning hot even though it is just risen, having washed before first prayer, so at least our bodies are clean; but the clothes on our backs are rank and verminous, and the sultan's are the worst of all. He leads us out of the Bab al-Raïs, where the wolf's head gazes down upon us out of its empty white eye-sockets. I would swear those bony jaws are smiling to see its tormentor, Emir Zidan, reduced to scratching himself like a flea-ridden dog and crying to be allowed to stay home with his mama. But Ismail is determined: all the royal emirs have been made to come, even little Momo, just gone two, whom I have had to wrest from the arms of his wailing mother. Alys cannot bear to be parted from the child even for a short while; I think it must have been nearly losing him to Zidana's wicked plotting that has made her this way.

We cross the Sahat al-Hedim and people come out of their houses to stare at us – a ragged band, led by a ragged man. Do they even know he is their emperor? It seems unlikely: they have never seen Ismail without his gold-caparisoned horses, his ostrich-fan-wielding slave-boys; his bukhari armed to the teeth. But no one says a word. Something of the solemn nature of our pilgrimage seems to touch the onlookers. Some of them must have joined the procession: by the time we are outside the citadel walls and into the hills beyond, our numbers have swelled. We go from shrine to shrine offering prayers, and all the time the skies remain cloudless and the sun beats down mercilessly. We eat and drink nothing: it is hard upon the children, but of them all Momo is the most stoic.

When we return at last to the palace, the emperor is in a towering temper and everyone is doing their best to avoid him. Some of us, unfortunately, do not have this luxury. He storms about the place, shrieking. Guards are dispatched to the matamores to remove any images of Christian saints that may be interfering with our prayers or drawing Allah's wrath down upon us. In the hammam, I manage to drop one of his slippers in a pool of water (there is, it seems, always enough water for the emperor's frequent steam-baths) and stain its perfect lemon-yellow leather. He picks it up and belabours me with it most fiercely, raising welts on my neck and shoulders. I can only thank God he was not armed with anything more lethal.

That evening I follow him as he walks the harem, to decide on a partner for the night ahead. There are some European captives just brought in by Sidi Qasem's lieutenants, alongside a batch of new workers. He lingers over a pale-haired Russian, then turns sharply on his heel and goes straight to the White Swan's quarters.

Fourth 4th Day, Safar 1091

Al ouez abiad, born Alys Swann. Converted English captive, mother of Emir

Mohammed ben Ismail
.

It rains the next day.

I remember the time when I thought I might just manage to endure my life here, those months almost three years ago when I was pregnant with my precious boy. I thought: I shall be a mother at last, and all will be wonderful. I thought it would transform everything in the world, having a baby. I was right about that; but not in any way I could have imagined.

I look from the hood of my skull out of my eyes; I look around at the other women of the harem devoting themselves to their daily round of prayer and gossip, henna and preening, as if they are benign beings, harmless and charming. But I know better now. I have seen what lurks beneath the kohl and the clay, the silks and satins, the perfume and the unguents. Beneath, all is rotting and poisonous, in thrall to evil.

And the name of that evil is Zidana.

The harem belongs to her: it is her realm and she rules it by terror. If any other than I see this they do not acknowledge the fact. They sing and chatter and fawn upon her, gather like bees around this queen: but it is not honey that is produced in this hive but vitriol. Any who cross her become her enemy, and thus the enemy of all the other women here. They mock, they bully, they ignore; they play petty tricks and spread malicious rumours; they leave only the spoiled fruit and the stale bread from the daily deliveries; they spit in the tea urns and spill scalding water on you in the hammam.

I am lucky, I suppose, that they dare do no more, though I am sure the bouts of sickness I have endured are no natural phenomena but have Zidana's collection of herbs and powders at their root. But how can I prove it? And who would listen to my complaint even if I should make it? It seems to me
that Ismail is almost as much in her thrall as any other here. It is hard to countenance that such a fearsome man should go in fear of any other, but I have seen him start when he hears her voice; I have seen the look in his eyes when she touches him. Is it by magic that she holds his attention? A belief in sorcery used to run counter to everything I believed as a good Christian woman, but it is hard not to believe in it in a world that is soaked to the bone with superstition.

Magic imbues this country. It runs below the surface of things, like an underground river, bubbling up insidiously, rotting the foundations of life. People accept it as part of the everyday world: the women in the harem are forever appeasing demons, which they call djinns: leaving out food for them, using salt and kohl and iron to keep them away. They believe that Zidana can transport herself elsewhere in the blink of an eye, and Zidana encourages this belief. She boasts that she can transform herself into animals and birds, so that no one dares to plot against her for fear that she is eavesdropping upon them in the form of that lizard on the wall, that cat slinking by, that pigeon sitting overhead. It is true that she appears to know everything that is going on in all corners of this vast palace, but there is little mystery about this: Nus-Nus has told me she has spies everywhere, and pays them well.

And so I am vigilant, for myself and particularly for Momo. Zidana's sons stand well above him in the order of succession, but that does not stop her removing others out of sheer malice.

Do I make any outward show of my suspicions? No, I smile sweetly; I wish them God's peace. I look down at my hands knotted in my lap and they are the hands of an old woman: thin, veiny claws. I keep my nails long and sharp, in case they are the only weapon I have against my enemy. I read, and pray, and watch Momo like a hawk. It is not always easy: he is an active little boy, determined and big for his age. He soon kicked off his swaddling clothes and escaped his cot, and then our quarters. Turning my back for a moment, I would find him gone. I never knew a baby could crawl so fast! Sometimes I felt like attaching a string to him so that I could reel him back in from wherever mischief had taken him, and as soon as he started walking, and then of course running, it was so much worse. He is like a little
djinn himself: he seems to vanish at will. Under supervision, he strides around like the emir he is, bearing his ring on its chain proudly, examining everything (though he has been sternly warned to eat nothing that does not come from my hand, or from Nus-Nus when he is with the sultan). Now that his hair has grown darker, Ismail likes him better, declares him a proper little Moroccan, despite his blue eyes. He likes to swoop down into the harem and gather him up on to his shoulders and bear him away.

To Zidana's evident annoyance, he heaps gifts upon Momo: my darling sports the gaudiest of costumes, which he adores, the brighter and shinier the better. He has retained his magpie's eye: I am always finding him in possession of some new gewgaw or another and whenever I ask him whence they come he fixes me with a guileless blue regard and tells me, ‘From Dada.' But twice now I have found this not to be true. The empress made great moan a week ago about a missing pearl pendant and beat her maids most severely for its loss. I find it tucked beneath Momo's blankets; and that is not all. A great emerald-headed pin with a long, hollow shaft of silver is also hidden there, along with a bracelet of orange glass beads and cowrie shells, a miniature portrait of a dark-haired woman and a gold ring inscribed with the emperor's seal identical to the one Momo wears all the time. But it is not his own ring, this hidden treasure, for that hangs around his neck; and then I remember how yesterday Zidan's tantrum filled the harem courtyards with shouts and screams and Mamass telling me it was because he had lost something valuable. I cover the treasure-trove up with the blankets again. It seems I have been raising a talented sneak-thief.

When Nus-Nus next comes to the harem, I send Mamass away on an errand, beckon him to me and show him, wordless, Momo's little hoard.

His eyebrows shoot up; then he bursts out laughing. ‘What a little Ali Baba you are harbouring!'

‘What should I do?'

‘Leave it with me,' he says.

He engages Momo with teasing compliments, but then exclaims that his garments – red satin trousers and a tunic of bright blue – are too dull for a true emir and require more decoration. At once the child runs away and returns some moments later laden with his treasures. One by one, Nus-Nus
coaxes the stolen ones from him after discovering their provenance, and to make up for taking the jewels away, he gives my boy the great gold armband he wears. It is much too large for Momo's arm and he spends a long while trying to find a way to wear it: too small to put his head through, too heavy to wear on a neck-chain. At last he decides to wear it on his thigh, where it sits most oddly, and off he goes to play in the courtyard, where I can see him.

‘He is a brigand!' Nus-Nus declares, almost admiringly. He promises to return the items to their rightful owners: the ring is indeed Zidan's, the miniature taken from the Venetian ambassador, as Momo was cradled in his father's arms right next to the man; the cowrie-shell bracelet belongs to one of the other wives; the hollow emerald and silver pin to Zidana's favourite eunuch, Black John. This last Nus-Nus handles gingerly, touching only the jewel at its head.

‘What is it?'

He bites his lip, then explains as decorously as he can that not only does it embellish John's turban, but that it has another, less decorative purpose. He will not meet my eye. I find myself colouring from neck to crown, can feel the hot flush of embarrassment rising like a tide.

After a long, painful silence, he tucks the stolen treasures away in his robe, bids me farewell and walks quickly away. He is a kind man, Nus-Nus, and a good friend.

As Momo takes his afternoon nap, I apply myself to the copy of the English Qur'an the corsair chief's wife gave to me when first I arrived in this country to divert my mind towards a more worthy purpose. But, as ill luck would have it, I open upon the story of Yusuf, a handsome man who is sold as a slave to an official of the Egyptian court called Al-Aziz. The mistress of the house is so struck by Yusuf's beauty that she falls in love with him and constantly bids him lie with her, one day becoming so angry at his steadfast refusal that she locks seven doors to prevent his escape and pleads for him to come to her. They race together for the door and Yusuf reaches it first, and as he does she tears at the back of his shirt. There comes into my mind suddenly the sight of Nus-Nus toiling away at the camp in the mountains, shirtless, the sheen of sweat on his skin …

Concentrate, Alys, I tell myself, fiercely. But the text does not help me: ‘With passion did she desire him, and he would have desired her, but for a sign from the Lord and he said, “I seek refuge in Allah! Truly, your husband is my master, who has made my stay agreeable so I will not betray him.” '

I am pondering the uncomfortable parallels the tale presents when a shadow falls across me. So intent was I upon my thoughts that I am not alert to the arrival of a visitor. ‘Oh!' I cry, and then, belatedly, throw myself down in prostration, for it is the emperor. The book tumbles from my lap on to the ground at his feet and he bends and picks it up. Through the hair that falls across my face, I glance upward and see him scan the text, face impassive; then the cover, turning it over in his hands. At last he tells me to rise and hands it back to me. ‘What is it, this book?' he asks quietly.

And so I tell him that it is a copy of the Qur'an, but translated into my own language and printed in England, for, although I have been doing my best to master the Arabic tongue, I still find it challenging to read. All the time I watch his face darken, flushing to a florid purple, then to a forbidding black. And still I cannot seem to help myself rambling on, and start explaining that in the Bible the same story is told, though there Yusuf is Joseph and Al-Aziz is named Potiphar …

‘Silence, woman!' he roars, and I wonder what I have said to make him so angry. Was it that I admitted to finding Arabic a difficult language to learn, or that I cleaved to my own tongue despite being at his court? Or perhaps he does not like a woman to read or, I think suddenly, maybe he does not do so himself. I seem to recall Nus-Nus saying –

‘In English?' he thunders. ‘The Holy Qur'an in
English
?' He rips it from my hands, drops it on the ground and stamps on it, which shocks me mightily, for Mahometans treat their sacred book with infinite respect, washing their hands before even touching it.