Sultan's Wife (42 page)

‘Shameful? I have done nothing wrong,' I bluster, thinking back over the past two hours with some mortification.

‘I saw her pour wine for you and you drain the glass!'

Ah, the wine. I had rather hoped he had not noticed. ‘I protested that I drank no alcohol, but she insisted and I did not wish to cause a scene.'

‘You are a disgrace to Islam and to your emperor!'

‘A disgrace, is he?' a voice booms, and we turn to find his majesty the English king bearing down upon us, face gleaming with perspiration, wig askew.

Ben Hadou at once bows low. ‘My humble apologies, sire.'

‘Why, what have you done?' King Charles claps him on the back and turns to me. ‘Your ambassador doesn't sound too happy with you, sir: been flirting with the ladies have you? Can't blame you for that! Heard about your little escapade in the park. Well, you must repeat the show – perhaps this time without the trouser incident – for I dearly love to see brave horsemanship.'

The Tinker assures him we would be most delighted to stage another fantasia and turns to accompany the king back into the duchess's dining room, but Charles sends us all off with a cheery good night: ‘Such lateness of the evening is a time only for rakes and card-sharps, and I am sure you are neither of those.' And so we are dismissed.

When I return to my room, it is to find Momo peering, white-faced, over the bed canopy. ‘A man came in,' he informs me shakily.

‘What man?' Dread clutches at my belly.

He describes Rafik perfectly, right down to his round-toed slippers.

‘Did he see you?'

Momo shakes his head. ‘I climbed up here. Amadou bit his hand and he said a lot of bad words and kicked out at him, but Amadou made a lot of noise, so he looked around for a bit and then he left.'

‘But how did he get in? The door was locked.'

‘He had a key.'

So Rafik must have befriended the servants here and got hold of a copy; the original was tucked into my sash. Relief that Momo is well and not discovered by my enemy is tempered by the fear that Rafik will return the next time I leave the lad unattended. Then another thought dawns on me. My bag …

I search frantically but it is, of course, gone. Along with all my money and that entrusted to me by the empress for the purpose of securing the elixir. And hidden in the lining, Alys's embroidered scroll. There is nothing for it: I must confront the man at once. The money, well, there is nothing I can do about that, but the scroll … I take the stairs two at a time, up to the garret where the rest of the embassy staff have been accommodated, and enter without announcement. They have moved the unfamiliar high wooden beds to the far end of the long room and, apart from three playing cards quietly in a corner, lie on the floor wrapped in their blankets and cloaks like giant grubs. A candle gutters, casting grotesque shadows.

‘Samir Rafik!'

My voice fills the low roof-space, until one by one the sleepers groan and stir. Rafik peers out of his cloak balefully and when he sees me gets at once to his feet. There is a knife at his waist: what honest man would sleep with a knife at the ready?

‘What do you want?'

‘I want what has been taken from me.'

Rafik turns to play the crowd. ‘What would I want with your balls, catamite?'

Some whistle and click their teeth; one man laughs out loud. He is in shadow, but I know the sound of that bray: Hamza, the renegade. I grit my teeth against the insult. ‘You came to my room and stole my bag, and in it are items given me by the Empress Zidana.'

His eyes narrow. ‘Are you calling me a thief?'

‘You are a thief. You were seen.'

‘And who is the liar who says this?'

‘Someone whose word I trust.'

He bends and flings his blanket aside. ‘As you can see, nothing here.' He turns again to the onlookers, makes an obscene gesture. ‘He dreams that I came to his room!'

Now the laughter is louder, and general. Hamza strolls across the room, his movement as deceptively lazy as a cat. ‘I think you had better apologize for disturbing our peace, and for calling Samir here a thief.'

I look contemptuously down on him, then slide my gaze past him to
Rafik. ‘You seem to have hurt yourself.' There is a piece of cloth wrapped around his right hand. ‘I believe the bandage hides a bite given you by my ape.'

Rafik curls his lip. ‘This? I got this in that travesty of a fantasia the other day, where you played the fool and brought shame on us all.'

‘Your hand wasn't bandaged yesterday. If it is not a bite, show me the wound.'

‘It is a clean lance-cut,' Hamza says. ‘I bound it for him myself.' He has his hand on the hilt of his dagger and is making sure that I see it.

So that is how it is, I think to myself. Without another word, I turn on my heel and walk quickly away, thinking, if they come after me now it will be two armed men against one still in his dinner robes, in a dark corridor, high up in the servants' quarters of a rambling foreign palace. It would perhaps have been wiser to have gone to ben Hadou and sought his authority for a search, but he has not forgiven me the debacle in the park; besides, having to explain the existence of such a large sum of money, let alone Alys's piece of embroidery, would be problematic. My heart beats fast all the way back to my room, but no one follows.

Even with a chair wedged between the armoire and the door, I hardly sleep at all.

The next day the Duchess of Portsmouth sends a page to invite us to take tea in her chambers. Ben Hadou sighs heavily. ‘It would be rude to disappoint her after her kindness last night, but I have promised the king that we will demonstrate our horsemanship to him.'

‘Surely it cannot take all day to take tea with the lady?'

Returning to my room to change, I show Momo how to wedge the chair up against the door and give him my dagger, which pleases him mightily. He flourishes it with great gusto, making feints and thrusts, till I catch him by the wrist. ‘This is serious, Mohammed. Rafik is a dangerous man, and he wishes us harm. Do not open the door, and if he tries to force his way in, stab him and run, do you hear me? Make as much noise as you can.'

He laughs. ‘Amadou and I will see him off. We are great warriors, aren't we, Amadou?' The little monkey bares his gums and capers. It is an unholy alliance the pair have formed.

I may have reckoned without the slow rituals of the English court. First, we are kept waiting for the best part of an hour, while the duchess rises, despite the fact that it is well past eleven; then, when we are shown in, we find her still
en déshabillé
, with three ladies curling her long light brown hair and applying Venetian ceruse, not only to whiten her face, but also her neck, arms and very considerable
décolletage
. I see such sights in the harem all the time; but ben Hadou becomes very still in that manner he has when concentrating very hard on not giving himself away and is clearly finding it difficult not to stare at her bosom. He gathers himself and bows very properly to the duchess, who seems unfazed to have two foreign men intrude
upon her intimate toilette, and introduces me as his deputy ambassador. She smiles graciously and extends her hand. ‘
So
delightful to meet you, Mr Nus-Nus: do call me Louise. I
am
sorry Eleanor monopolized you for the entirety of the dinner last night but I hope you will accept an apology on her behalf: she has not, I fear,
le bon ton
. Not her fault, of course: she was not bred to the court.'

Mr Nus-Nus. Given the English honorific, the name sounds more ridiculous than ever before, especially in such a pretty French accent. I bend over her hand, as I have seen others do, and brush one of the many rings with my lips.

‘I know I invited you for tea,' she smiles, ‘but I have taken the liberty of ordering coffee: I know you Moors love your coffee. It may not be as strong as you like it – I must plead my delicate constitution – but I fear otherwise my soul will be tainted by it.'

Her ladies shriek with laughter. Ben Hadou and I exchange a mystified glance, then settle in the chairs brought for us as the screen is brought around in front of our hostess, and, as we discuss the weather, how we find London, comparisons with the Meknes and Versailles courts, the styles of Moroccan ladies' dress and the like, we try not to be distracted by the unmistakable rustling of silks and the drawing of corset-strings. The coffee is weak and tasteless compared to what we drink at home: unlikely to taint anyone's soul. I can see from the way the Tinker's feet keep tapping that he is keen to be gone from this place of women. His answers become shorter as time wears on: the time for lunch will soon have come and gone.

At long last, she reappears, laced into a dress of figured yellow silk with billowing blue sleeves slashed to show the fine cambric beneath, against which the unnatural whiteness of her skin almost merges. Ben Hadou leaps to his feet and abruptly announces he must be away: an appointment with the king. As I make to leave as well, she cries, ‘Ah, to deprive me
so
utterly of
such
charming company would be
most
cruel!' I notice that the white ceruse has cracked where the corners of her mouth turn down. Ceruse is made from white lead, designated a poison even in Galen's time: why would any woman imperil her health in the quest for the arbitrary goal of beauty?

Louise's exclamation is probably little more than court politeness, but
the ambassador says at once, ‘Nus-Nus, you shall stay with the lady – we shall do very well without you,' and off he goes.

The duchess sniffs. ‘Well, I suppose I shall have to be content with the
deputy
ambassador, and not take the slight to heart.' Before I can muster a suitable response, she turns and calls out,
‘Jacob, viens!'
and a boy emerges from behind a fretted oriental screen, white teeth flashing in his dark face. Black curls have been cropped back hard against the unmistakable roundness of an African skull. He pulls a velvet doublet down over the white ruffles of his shirt and parades in front of her. ‘
Ça va, madame
?' He twirls around, sees me and almost falls over.

‘
Ici petit, laisses-moi voir
.' His mistress beckons him and he goes to her, though he keeps his gaze trained on me all the way as if I might beat him, or eat him, or worse. The duchess tugs the little doublet straight, pats it down, arranges the ruffles, lays an affectionate hand on his head. ‘
Très joli
. This is my boy, Jacob:
Jacob, ici Monsieur Nus-Nus, de la court du Maroc.'

Big eyes fix upon me. Then he says, in clear Senufo, ‘You look a lot like my uncle Ayew.'

While I am wondering at this, Louise snaps her fingers. ‘Les
bijoux, Marie
.'

One of her attendants fetches an elaborate jewel-box and the duchess upturns it in her lap, discarding diamonds and rubies the size of sparrow's eggs, gold chains and brooches, diadems and bracelets. She sorts through string after string of pearls, till she finds the precise necklace she seeks and fastens it around the boy's neck, then shows him his image in a tortoiseshell hand-mirror. Suddenly I find myself thinking of Momo, how he would relish the sight of all these bright baubles …

‘Do you have children of your own, sir?'

‘I have never married.'

‘That is not quite what I asked.
Mais quel dommage
. You would make handsome sons, I think. Like Jacob here.'

One of the women brings a yellow sash and there is much fuss over placing it correctly. They lead her away to a chair beside a window that overlooks the courtyard garden outside and arrange the folds of her dress. Keeping my eyes trained on the duchess, I ask Jacob where he is from. He
names the neighbouring village to my own, which is less of a surprise than it might be. ‘Your uncle was Ayew Diara?'

His nod stirs the air between us.

‘He was my good friend.' When we stood shoulder to shoulder we were the same height, the same build. People often mistook us for one another, from a distance at least: he liked to say he was better looking than me; certainly he was more sure of himself, especially with the girls. We went hunting together, shared our manhood ceremony; but he laughed at me for my love of music, and we grew apart.

‘He is a great warrior!' Jacob cries. ‘But he left the village and never returned.'

The lad must have been no more than Momo's age when Ayew and I were taken. He has a good memory. So do I, unfortunately: I remember how the enemy tribe who took us staked Ayew out in the full sun, having cut off his eyelids, his lips, nose, ears and penis. They left him his tongue, more's the pity. His cries followed us for a day.

‘A great warrior, yes. And how came you here?'

‘The tribe to the south wanted our land, so we fought them. They won. I survived in the ship of those they sold us to; my mother and brother did not.' His expression becomes closed.

Beaten and bought and sold, and by our own people too: the old, old story.

I watch as a painter comes marching in, followed by two assistants carrying easel and paints and canvas. He kisses Louise's hand, compliments her matchless beauty, walks back and forth between subject and half-finished painting, adjusting this and that, chattering in French. From a distance he sounds much like Amadou.

Suddenly he turns towards us. ‘Where is the blackamoor?'

Jacob slouches over to take his place at the lady's side. The artist complains: too much sleeve showing, the pearls all wrong. He takes the boy's head and roughly moves it into position as if Jacob is inanimate.
‘Prends ça et ne bouges pas!' A
great shell is placed in his hands, overflowing with loose pearls.

Jacob rolls his eyes. ‘I am a symbol of the bounty of the colonies.'

‘No more talking!'

I take this as my cue to depart, sweep a bow to the duchess, grin at Jacob and move towards the door. As I leave I snatch a look at the half-finished portrait. The artist has captured Jacob well enough, though for some reason he has omitted the boy's slave-brand; but the woman in the picture looks nothing like the duchess, being slimmer and blander of face. Thin and expressionless, is that what is regarded as desirable here? I shake my head, recalling Zidana's irrational terror at her diminishing shadow. Women are never content with their lot: if they are fat, they want to be thin, if thin, fat. I will never understand them.