The Monsoon (76 page)

ush gathered up the women from the Prince’s household as they came ashore from the dhow.

There were two of the youngest concubines, heavily veiled, but slim and graceful under the layers of black robes. Their hands and feet were beautifully formed, dyed with henna, and decorated with precious rings of sapphire and emerald on fingers and toes. They giggled a great deal, which annoyed Dorian, and their maidservants were even worse noisy as a flock of starlings. He was pleased when they were shepherded by Kush into the first bullock cart.

Tahi led Dorian into the second. The bullocks were pure white, with a huge spread of horns and massive humps on their shoulders, like the drawings of camels Dorian had seen in the books of travel in the library at High Weald.

He wanted to run beside the cart, but Kush restrained him with a podgy hand on his shoulder. There were gold rings on each of the eunuch’s fingers, and the jewels set in them caught the bright tropical sunlight and sparked the eye.

“Ride beside me, little one he said, in a high, feminine voice, and when Dorian would have demurred Tahi Pinched his arm so hard it hurt. He interpreted this as a warning that Kush was a man, or, rather, a thing, of power and must be placated.

The procession of carts left the seashore, passed through the outskirts of the port and into the countryside.

They trundled down the narrow, dusty road into the interior of the verdant island. They rolled through groves of swaying coconut palms, and forests of wild fig trees.

Flocks of brightly coloured parrots and wild green pigeons swarmed in the branches, greedily devouring the ripening fruits. Dorian had never seen birds like these before. He followed their jewelled flight with exclamations of wonder Kush studied him carefully through bright black eyes almost buried in rolls of fat.

“Who taught you, a Frank, to speak the language of the Prophet?” he asked suddenly, and with a sigh Dorian gave him the response that had become worn and weary with repetition.

“Are you of Islam? Or is it true that you are an infidel.”

“I am a Christian,” Dorian said proudly.

Kush screwed up his fat face as though he had tasted a green persimmon.

“Then how is it that your hair is the same colour as that of the Prophet?” he demanded.

“Or is this a lie? what colour is your hair? Why do you hide it?” Dorian adjusted the drape of his head cloth

He was irked by the constant harping on this one subject. There was so much else of interest all around him. He wished the fat one would leave him alone to enjoy it all.

“Show me your hair,” Kush insisted, and reached for the head cloth

Dorian started to pull away, but Tahi spoke sharply and he allowed Kush to lift the cloth from his head. Kush gazed in amazement as Dorian’s thick, curling locks tumbled down to his shoulders and flared in the sunlight like a fire in tall grass. The other passengers riding in the back of the cart exclaimed and called on Allah to witness the wonder of it, and even the bullock drivers turned back and walked beside the high wheel to stare up at him. Hastily Dorian covered his head.

After a mile the track wound out of the forest and ahead rose the high, blank wall of the zenana. It was built of coral blocks and painted with burnt lime wash to a dazzling white. There were no windows, and the only opening was a gate, carved from teak and decorated with complicated designs of vines and foliage, obeying the Islamic stricture that forbids depictions of human forms or those of other living creatures.

The gates swung open as the little caravan of carts approached, and they proceeded through into the closed, forbidden world of the zenana. This was the home of women, and their offspring, and of the eunuchs who guarded them. Other than the Prince, no grown man might enter here at the peril of his very life.

The women and children had gathered just inside the gates to greet the procession of bullock carts. Many had not left these cloistered precincts since childhood. Any distraction delighted them. They chattered and shrieked with excitement and came close around the carts to inspect the occupants and to find any strange face among them.

“There he is!”

“It is true. He is a Frank!”

“Is his hair really red? Surely it cannot be.” Here, in the seclusion of the harem, the females could go unveiled. The Prince had the choice of any girl in his realm, and most were young and comely. Their skin colours ranged from purple black through all shades of brown, gold and amber to soft buttery yellow. Their children danced around them, caught up in the excitement. The babes in the nurses’ arms wailed in the uproar.

The women crowded forward to have a closer look at Dorian as he jumped down from the cart, then followed as Kush led them through a maze of courtyards and enclosed gardens. These were richly decorated with mosaic floors and elaborate archways. Sea shells had been inlaid in the plaster to form intricate designs. There were pools, filled with reeds and lotus plants. Gemlike fish glided beneath the water and dragonflies and bright kingfishers hovered over the surface.

Some of the elder children danced around Dorian, chanting and teasing him.

“Little white infidel!”

“Green devil-eyes.” Kush pretended to swipe at them with the long staff he carried but he was grinning, and made no real attempt to drive them away. Swiftly they passed from the splendid and beautiful area of the zenana into the more dilapidated part, in the back regions of the main complex of buildings.

It was clear that this was the least desirable section. The gardens were unkempt and the walls stained and unpainted. They passed several abandoned ruins, overgrown with tropical growth, and reached a dilapidated block. Kush took them to a small but sturdy door and ordered them to enter. They found themselves in a large living room, dark and not too clean. The walls were soot stained the floors dusty and covered with the droppings of gecko lizards and rats.

Kush closed the doors firmly behind them, and turned a massive key in the lock. Tahi shouted at him through the tiny grille in the door.

“Why are you locking us away?

We are not prisoners. We are not criminals.”

“The mighty -Prince Abd Muhammad alMalik has ordered that the child be prevented from escaping.”

“He cannot escape. There is no place for him to run to.

Kush ignored her protests and strode away, taking A most of the others with him. For a while some of the royal @ children mocked them through the grille, but they soon grew tired of this and drifted away.

When all was quiet Dorian and Tahi began to explore their quarters. Apart from the living room, there were sleeping chambers, and a little kitchen with an open hearth. Next to it was the washroom with a tiled floor sloped to an open drain. Beyond was the latrine with covered buckets.

The furnishings were sparse: sleeping mats of plaited reeds and sitting rugs of woven wool. There were cooking pots and water-jars in the kitchen, and naturally they would eat with their fingers in the Arabic fashion. There was a large ceramic rainwater cistern, which supplied fresh water.

Dorian looked up at the opening in the kitchen roof that allowed smoke to escape.

“I could easily climb out of there,” he boasted.

“If you do, Kush will thrash you with his staff,” Tahi told him, “so do not even think of it. Come and help me clean out this sty.” As they worked together, sweeping out the bare rooms with brooms of reeds then polishing the clay floors with half coconut shells, Tahi explained to him the rules of the zenana.

As a royal nursemaid since her husband had divorced her, Tahi had lived in the confines of the zenana, and she was an expert on the affairs of its restricted society. Over the days that followed she shared this knowledge with Dorian.

Prince Abd Muhammad atMalik was in his early thirties. His elder brother, the Caliph, for reasons of his own succession, had prevented him from marrying until he was almost twenty. Thus it was that his eldest son was only little older than Dorian. His name was Zayn al-Din and, like Dorian, he had not yet reached puberty; he still lived with his mother in the zenana.

“Remember his name,” Tahi instructed.

“As the eldest son, he is very important.” Then she went on to list the names of the other male children by the other wives and concubines, but there were so many that Dorian made no effort to memorize them. Tahi did not even bother to mention the girls, because they were of no importance.

in the weeks that followed it seemed that the Prince had forgotten about his redheaded slave-boy. They heard nothing more from outside the walls of the zenana. Every day, under Kush’s beady eye, slave@ women came to bring them their rations of rice, meat and fresh fish, and to carry away the rubbish from the kitchen and the buckets from the latrine. Apart from that, Dorian and Tahi were left to themselves.

There were grille windows in the main room of their quarters, which overlooked a section of the gardens. To relieve the boredom of their confinement, they spent much of their time watching the comings and goings of the other members of the zenana from this vantage-point.

Tahi was able to point out Zayn al-Din to Dorian. He was a large, plump child, taller than any of his siblings. He had a sallow caramel complexion, his mouth was pouting and petulant. The skin around his eyes was discoloured, as though it was bruised.

“Zayn has a taste for sweet things,” Tahi explained. There were livid patches of prickly heat on the inside of his elbows and knees. He walked splay legged to prevent his thighs rubbing together and the skin between them chafing.

Whenever Dorian saw him, Zayn was surrounded by a dozen or so of his siblings. One morning he watched as this pack pursued a smaller boy across the lawns, and f trapped him against the outer wall of the zenana. They dragged him to Zayn, who had not exerted himself in the chase, but came waddling up when it was over. Tahi was watching also and she told Dorian that the victim was the son of a lesser concubine of the Prince, and therefore fair game for the eldest son of the first wife.

Dorian, who knew all about the rights of the firstborn from his dealings with brother William, felt his sympathy go out to the little boy as he watched Zayn twisting his ears until he sank to his knees, weeping with fear.

“As punishment for what you have done, I make you my horse,” Zayn told him loudly, and forced him down on to all fours.

Then he bestrode him and lowered his full weight on to the other child’s back. He had a cane in his hand, made from a palm frond from which the leaves had been stripped.

“Gallop, horse!” he ordered, and lashed him across the bottom. The palm frond was lithe and whippy. It snapped loudly, and the little boy wailed with shock and pain. He started forward on hands and knees with Zayn bouncing on his back.

The other children fell in behind them, prancing, jeering and urging them on. When the boy faltered, they joined in the beating, some running to break sticks from the nearest shrubs. One flipped up the child’s robe and exposed his brown bottom, laced with angry stripes. They drove him twice around the lawns.

Tears were flooding down the victim’s face when at last he collapsed under Zayn’s weight and lay sobbing on the coarse grass. His knees were rubbed raw and bleeding.

Zayn gave him a casual kick, then led the others away, leaving him to drag himself up and limp away.

“He is a bully,” Dorian said furiously. He could not think of the word in Arabic, so he spoke in English. Tahi shrugged.

“The Koran says that the strong should protect the weak.” Dorian lapsed back into Arabic.

Tahi advised him, “Do not tell Zayn al-Din that. He will not like it.”

“I would like to take him for a ride, Dorian said furiously, “and see how much he likes it.” Tahi made the sign to avert bad luck.

“Do not even think the thought. Walk wide of Zayn al-Din” she warned.

“He is a vindictive boy. Surely he will hate you for the favour the Prince has shown you. He can do us much harm. Even Kush is afraid of him, for one day he will be the Prince.” Over the following days she went on explaining to Dorian the hierarchy of the harem. The Prince was allowed four wives, by the decree of the Prophet. However, he could divorce and remarry as he wished, and there was no limit to the number of concubines with whom he might indulge himself. Those wives he had divorced but who had borne him children still lived in the zenana.

Thus almost fifty women were congregated within these walls. Fifty beautiful, bored, frustrated women, with nothing to fill the long days but intrigue, feud and jealous scheming. It was a complex society, filled with innumerable currents and subtle nuances.

Kush reigned over them all, so his favour or disfavour was important to the happiness and wellbeing of the inmates. Then the four current wives, in order of seniority, were next in importance.

After that, the Prince’s favourite of the moment, but she was usually some pretty child only just entered into womanhood and her star would soon wane. Then all the former wives and the concubines squabbled, fought and manoeuvred for position in the order of things.

“It is important for you to understand these things, at-Amhara.

Important for both of us. I have no standing at all, I am only a poor old nursemaid.

I can do little to protect you, and nobody will miss me.”

“Are you going somewhere?” Dorian demanded, with alarm. He had grown so fond of her in the short time they had been together and the prospect of being abandoned yet again frightened him.

“I will miss you.”

“I’m not going anywhere, my little one,” she assured him quickly, “but people die here in the zenana, especially little people of no consequence who give offence to those above them.”

“Don’t worry. I will protect you,” Dorian told her stoutly, and hugged her.

I feel safer in your care,” she did not let him see her smile, “but we do not yet know your position. It seems that the Prince looks upon you with some favour, but we cannot yet be sure. Why does he allow Kush to imprison us and treat us like animals in a cage? Why does he not send for you? Has he forgotten you?” She sighed and returned his embrace.