Sultan's Wife (12 page)

As soon as I see the rich silk of the back of his turban, I know my visitor. He turns and looks me up and down. ‘Ah, Nus-Nus, it pains my heart to see you so reduced. Obscurity comes quickly, does it not? One moment you are at the centre of all things with the blessed light of the sultan shining upon you; the next you find yourself in the outer darkness. It is chill there, is it not?'

‘Have you come to taunt me?'

The grand vizier smiles. ‘Come, come, Nus-Nus. Won't you beg for your life? You know I have the power to save you.'

I fold my arms. ‘I doubt my life is worth the bargain you would strike.'

‘You value yourself too low.' He puts out a hand and touches my thigh, his fingers kneading the big muscle there as if he will make bread with it.

I school myself to ignore it. What was it Zidana had said?
A little Senufo spirit
. I gather my resources and attempt to summon the lost warrior within.

His hand creeps closer to my groin, shielded by the long tunic and I know at once he chose the garment carefully and for this purpose. His fingers close on me through the thin fabric of the breeches, caressing.
I shall see you dead, I promise –
if by some miracle I should survive.

‘I would rather take my punishment than be your plaything.'

He smiles unpleasantly. ‘An innocent man prepared to die horribly for a crime he did not commit?'

‘What do you know of it?'

‘Enough to save your ungrateful black hide. Think about it, Nus-Nus. A place in my household, the best of everything: a life of luxury. That or a nail driven through the top of your head. It doesn't seem like much of a choice to me. But take your time. I shall ensure the qadi doesn't carry out the execution for a few days, to give you the space to consider your decision.'

‘What about my trial?'

‘What trial? The qadi has all he needs by way of proof of your guilt. Unless he decides to torture you for a fuller account of your visit to the herbman, of course. That would be most unpleasant, to go through the bastinado, the pincers and the rack, before ending up with a nail in the skull.'

‘As a member of the palace staff I can't be executed without a warrant signed by the sultan,' I say stiffly.

Abdelaziz snorts. ‘Did you not know, Nus-Nus, that I am in charge of such warrants?'

I hang my head, defeated.

‘Ismail has not even noticed your absence, my dear boy. Well, no, that is something of an exaggeration: he noticed when you were late appearing the first day you went missing and went roaring around, demanding your head. He beat his two body-slaves almost unconscious when they said they did not know where you were, and after that he never mentioned you again, no doubt thinking that in one of his fits of madness he had lopped off your head. Have you noticed this strange habit of his? Killing someone one day and pretending the next that nothing has happened? I remember when he beat Kaid Mehdi black and blue over his failure to quell some small rebellion in the Rif: the man lost an eye. The next time Ismail saw him he was wearing a patch over it, and Ismail took him by the arm and asked him most solicitously what had caused the loss of the eye. The poor man stammered out some lie about falling from a horse and the sultan heaped gifts upon him, no doubt to assuage his conscience. But guilt will out. They say he has bad dreams after such bouts, from time to time. Is it true?'

It is, but I don't answer.

‘No matter. My nephew Samir Rafik is taking care of him now.'

And with that dagger to my heart he leaves. When the guard comes to take me back to the cell, he winks at me, and, though I washed thoroughly a bare half hour ago, I feel dirty to the depths of my soul.

Early the next afternoon the guard calls me out again. What now? The grand vizier must think me feeble-minded indeed that a single night of reflection should sway me to his will.

‘They say the third time's the charm,' the guard mutters cryptically and, unlocking the door to the side-room, pushes me in.

I stare at Kaid Mohammed ben Hadou Ottur and he looks back, faintly amused. ‘You were expecting someone else?'

‘You are my third visitor in as many days, sidi.'

He barks out a laugh. ‘Zidana and Abdelaziz, I believe?' He has a reputation as an astute man and I suspect that he runs a battery of spies. ‘Get undressed.'

I have not heard he is a sodomite, but clever men learn to hide their vices in Ismail's palace. But when I start to undress, instead of staring frankly, he tosses me a bundle of clothes: a pair of cotton trousers and a plain wool djellaba. ‘Put the hood up,' he advises. ‘I'll explain as we walk.'

Walk?

Two minutes later, just like that, we are outside. I stand there with my head tipped back, blinking in the hot ochre light, suddenly overwhelmed by the blue of the sky; the eye-hurting green of the new fig leaves in a nearby courtyard. The last time I saw the tree, the leaves were in bud, their silken undersides barely visible against the silver bark.

‘What happened?' I ask, running to catch up with my liberator, who is moving away at speed towards the medina with his long, loping stride.

‘We have need of you. The sultan and I.'

My heart soars: not forgotten, after all! ‘I shall be for ever grateful to you for restoring me to the service of my lord …'

‘Do not be too quick to thank me, Nus-Nus. You will not like the reason for your release. There is a task for you to perform. It is, shall we say, unpleasant.'

I cannot imagine what can be so onerous. We pass a group of women comparing braids and beads at the haberdasher's stall. They watch us with interest, batting their eyelids over their veils.

‘And what of the … matter … of Sidi Kabour?'

The Tinker puts a finger to his mouth. ‘If you achieve this task, Sidi Kabour will never have existed.'

I frown. ‘But … but, his family –'

‘Everyone necessary will be paid. Reports will be burned. Learn some
discretion, Nus-Nus. If I tell you it is night while the sun shines, don your night robe and light a candle. Do as you are bid and no one will ever speak of this matter again.' He says something else, and I think I hear the name of the grand vizier, but now we are passing through the metal quarter, where men are sitting in the sunshine beating out giant copper bowls and couscous vessels so vast they must be destined for the palace kitchens, and the noise of their hammers drowns out his words.

Sometime later we emerge from the warren of alleyways into the Sahat al-Hedim – ‘The Place of Rubble', for all the building detritus that has been dumped here outside the palace walls. The first thing my lord Ismail did when he decided to make Meknes his capital – rather than nearby Fez (which, apart from being cramped and dank and stinking, is rife with dissidents,
marabouts
and Qur'anic scholars too ready to voice an unwanted opinion) or Marrakech (which is held by his rebel brother, and is always an untrustworthy place) – was to send in thousands of slaves to raze the old town to make way for his grand new design. That was five years ago, and although the first stage is nearing completion, chaos still reigns. He is a great man, Moulay Ismail, Emperor of Morocco, Father of the People, Emir of the Faithful, Overcoming of God. Yes, a great man; but he is no architect.

A mule train is being unladen on one side of the square, the animals tended to as they are disencumbered of their packs. Traders sit around them, dickering with their tally sticks and weights. A swallow dips and twists over their heads, as if flies were released when the goods-packs were opened. I see the flash of a red as dark as old blood on its throat as it swoops past, the forked plume of its tail, and then it is gone.

I do not recognize the guards on the gate, but they yield quickly enough at the sight of the man with me, and it strikes me how quickly the world has changed since I was incarcerated. As we walk at a fast clip through the marble corridors, I work up the courage to ask about my room. ‘In that place, the quiet and comfort of it was much on my mind. I know it is a small thing, below your notice, sidi …' I trail off, hopelessly.

‘Your quarters are your own again, Nus-Nus: your things I have
restored as best I was able. If I have overlooked something, forgive me. If you find anything missing, let me know and I will do my best to replace it for you.'

Such kindness is unexpected. Gratitude warms my heart; then I remember the onerous task. ‘So what is it you want me to do?'

He gives me a flat-lidded, enigmatic look. ‘I am led to believe you can converse most persuasively in this heathen tongue,' he says to me in perfect English.

I am unable to hide my surprise. ‘A previous master educated me in many things, amongst which was a passable fluency in English.' I pause. ‘But, sidi, how is it you speak it so well?'

‘English was the mother tongue of my mother,' he replies shortly, and looks aside.

That explains those curiously light eyes. I remember it is whispered that he had a European slave for a mother, but thought it malicious slander. If it is true, he must have had to work hard for Ismail's favour.

‘Is there something in English you wish translated?'

‘You could put it like that.'

As we approach the harem gates, he stops. ‘You may take your hood down now. Announce yourself to the guards. They know what to do.'

Strange. I watch him walk quickly away and wonder what linguistic problem can be so important as to have prompted him to rescue me from gaol and risk the wrath of the grand vizier. The guards on the gate usher me through, the boy sent to guide me drags me by the hand, past Zidana's pavilion to a building I have never visited – or even seen – before. ‘Wait here,' he tells me, and runs inside.

Leaning back against the sun-warmed plaster, I close my eyes and turn my face up to the sun. Somewhere, a peacock sounds its melancholy cry, but all I can think is: I am free! Every night, amid the stench and babble of that foul cell, I imagined the cold iron nail entering my skull, and now here I am with the sun on my face, and the backs of my eyelids glowing vermilion, breathing in the scents of neroli and musk.

My nose twitches. I know that scent … I open my eyes, but the sun's after-images confuse my vision. I blink, and find Zidana bearing down
upon me. A little black slave-girl runs panting alongside her, fanning her wildly with a fistful of ostrich feathers. I sneeze loudly, the fan having wafted dust into my nostrils.

‘Why, Nus-Nus, is this how you greet your sovereign? Down you go like the dog you are!'

I prostrate myself, since it seems expected. Why so formal? Zidana does not usually stand on such ceremony with me.

There is a cat in front of me: a sleek blue-grey thing with slanted amber eyes. It lowers its wedged-shaped head to regard me curiously. Then it turns and winds its body sinuously around a pair of legs behind it and I see that the fur on its back is spotted dark red, as if paint has been dripped on it. When it moves behind the legs I see a pair of feet clad in slippers embroidered with gold wire and studded with gems. I know the style: I buried the last pair he cast off in a plant pot in my courtyard, covered in Sidi Kabour's blood. I press my forehead into the tiles.

‘Has she capitulated?' Zidana's voice.

‘She is most wretchedly stubborn.'

‘I did warn you: she has a look in her eye.'

‘Perhaps it was that quality in her that drew me.'

‘I am surprised she has not yet said the
shahada –
'

The shahada – those few words an infidel must utter to renounce their own faith and become a Muslim in the sight of God. And suddenly I realize what it is the Tinker freed me to do. Something for which he had not the stomach …

‘I fear she may not have properly understood the situation.'

‘Clearly she has not understood the honour you do her.'

‘The honour I intend to do her.' I can hear the desire in his voice: it comes off him in waves.

‘Dear one, hold still –'

A pause.

‘Child, run and fetch me a cloth and rose water.'

I hear the little girl's feet slapping away on the tiles. No one bids me rise, so I stay where I am with my forehead pressing against the ground. The girl returns. A bowl is set down beside me. Medici porcelain, soft blue flowers
on a white ground. In the water it contains I see the reflection of Zidana reaching up tenderly to wipe her husband's face.

‘She has soiled you, the little infidel. There, that's better. Ah, a moment, there's some on your precious Afaf too.'

The cloth that is dipped in the bowl stains the water. I watch as the blood flowers like a red tide to the edge of the porcelain, the precise rusty hue of the stain on the swallow's breast.

‘What a foolish creature she is to make such a fuss over a few words,' Zidana is saying. ‘I am surprised that Sidi Qasem had not schooled her better.' She sounds complacent, as if to change one's faith is as simple as putting off an old robe. Easy enough for you, I think: you said the shahada and gave up your slave-name, but you never relinquished the old religion, just went on practising it under everyone's nose.

Suddenly I feel the weight of the sultan's gaze on me. Then a sharp tap on my shoulder releases me from the prostration. I scramble to my feet. ‘Majesty.'

Ismail stands there with the cat, Afaf, cradled in his arms. It sits placidly, perfectly relaxed. I do not
think
the sultan has ever tried to force the shahada on any of his beloved animals. ‘Ah, Nus-Nus, good.' A pause, as if he is seeking and failing to find a missing piece of information. ‘Good. I have been waiting for you.'

For three weeks, I think, but do not say.

Ismail looks me up and down. ‘Excellent choice of robe, black to hide any unpleasant stains, and to ward off the evil eye: good thinking, boy. She has remarkable eyes, this one; but I fear demons lurk within her.' He turns back towards the doorway and gestures for me to follow him.