The Jewel Of Medina (41 page)

“Very loose morals.” Saffiya pushed her way into our conversation. “See the women shake those tambourines? They shake other things, too, to entertain the men at court.”

The caravan halted. A man stepped forward and bowed to Muhammad. He wore no shirt or robe over his fair skin, only a wide hammered gold necklace and a fur sash. A gold belt encircled his waist over a white skirt that fell almost to his ankles. A gold band gripped his upper arm, and gold rings pierced his ears. Strangest of all,
kohl
lined the rims of his eyes and painted the corners nearly to his temples. Hafsa and Saffiya giggled, but I
shushed
them when he began to open his parchment scroll and read.

“In honor of your military victories and religious influence, the Muqawqis of Egypt, our governor, sends his homage and his praise, as well as gifts. Please accept this box filled with myrrh, frankincense, cardamom, cinnamon, and perfumes of crocus and lily.” The men lifted the lid and fragrances swirled like dreams about our heads, drawing murmurs from the crowd.

The messenger continued reciting his list of gifts: a mule and a saddle, ceremonial clothing of gold cloth, precious jewels, and two entertainers from the Muqawqis’ court.

The camels bearing the women knelt, and the men helped them dismount. The messenger stepped up to one of them, a dark-haired beauty
with blood-red lips and copper-green shading on her eyelids, and escorted her to Muhammad.

“Prophet, I present Sirin, favored courtesan to the Muqawqis, and his most excellent dancer.” She lowered herself to the ground, not quite touching the dirt with one knee. I half-expected her to lose her balance and sprawl in the street. Instead, Muhammad was the one who nearly fell over, as her ample bosom threatened to spill over her low-cut bodice. The back of Muhammad’s neck flushed a deep purple.

“He won’t keep her,” I said to Hafsa. “She’s too brazen.”

When the messenger presented the second courtesan, though, I felt my throat constrict. This woman’s hair was as golden as the sun, and tumbled in curls about her face and shoulders. Her eyes were a deep, fathomless blue, like no eyes I had ever seen.

“Maryam, Sirin’s younger sister and the court’s most gifted singer,” the messenger said. Shyly she lifted her gaze to Muhammad’s face. Her cheeks dimpled when she smiled, and when she greeted him, her voice sounded like falling water.

Hafsa
hmphed
. “Foreign and exotic, eyes the color of sky, hips and belly as round as pillows, and a voice like a nightingale’s. How are we to compare with her?”

“Muhammad would not marry a courtesan,” Umm Salama said—but even her normally calm voice had unraveled. “I heard him promise one of these women to Hassan ibn Thabit.”

“Are you suffering from sunstroke?” Raihana laughed. “Muhammad is not going to give her away.”

In truth, we were the ones Muhammad abandoned. His evening visits to my room grew more hurried and distracted than ever, and, judging from the sullenness tingeing my sister-wives’ eyes, I knew their nights with him weren’t going well, either. Umm Salama hardly spoke even to her children after her night with him. Zaynab did nothing but complain and criticize: My bread was too crusty, she hadn’t had a new gown in a year, the cushions in the oven tent were as hard as stones. After Hafsa’s night, Raihana made her usual snide remarks, and Hafsa threw a bowl at her head.

Meanwhile, the Christian concubine Maryam moved as blithely as a golden cloud through our stormy
harim
, singing as she prepared her
tharid
for Muhammad, which he praised as though it had come directly from Paradise.

Muhammad would have married her, but she refused. She said she didn’t want to give up her Christian religion, but I knew she enjoyed the freedom of moving through Medina unveiled. None of ibn Ubayy’s men pinched her or made lewd comments the way they’d done to us. Muhammad’s new power had everyone intimidated, even the Hypocrites.

“I don’t understand it,” Hafsa fumed as she drank galangal water with me and Saffiya in my apartment. “That woman has Muhammad transfixed. Is she a sorceress?”

Whatever she possessed, it was far more potent than magic. Spells and charms fade, but her hold on Muhammad grew stronger. Then one night he failed to visit my room, leaving me hugging myself with cold arms and begging al-Lah to plant a seed in me Himself, as he’d done for Jesus’ mother.

Jealousy clawed at me with sharp talons. I resisted, reminding myself that to gain Egypt’s friendship was an impressive coup. Quraysh would never invade us now, knowing that such a powerful country had pledged its aid. Yet did Muhammad have to spend all his time enjoying his gift?

A knock on my door interrupted my thoughts. Barirah brought word that Muhammad was meeting in the
majlis
. “He does not know when he will come to bed. He tells you not to wait up.”

Relief calmed my indignant heart. It wasn’t Maryam who kept Muhammad from me tonight, after all. I slipped on my robe and slid into the night, curiosity tugging me like an insistent hand. Hiding outside the
majlis
entrance, I heard my father’s agitated voice.

“Twenty Ghatafani men were herding their sheep near Mecca when they were attacked by a group of Qurayshi allies. Bedouins,” my father said. “Some Qurayshi were involved, so we assume Abu Sufyan gave his approval for the raid.”

The peace treaty, broken! My heart sank. This would certainly mean another war with Quraysh.

As if to confirm my fears, Ali spoke. “Let us amass the biggest army we can muster and march on Mecca,” he growled. “Treaties are nothing but words. Force is the only language Abu Sufyan understands.”

I slinked out of the mosque when their talk had dwindled, and almost
bumped into a grinning Saffiya. “I have news about Maryam,” she said. “News you’ll find very fascinating.”

“Maryam?” She had my attention now. “What news?”

“Take me to your room, and I’ll tell you everything,” she said. “But first, you have to tell me what you heard in the
majlis
.”

In my apartment, she shrugged to hear the talk of a Meccan invasion. And why should she care? A Jew, she had no ties to that city. Her secret, on the other hand, interested me greatly.

“Poor Maryam couldn’t bear our teasing for another day,” she said with a wink. “Muhammad has given her a house to live in outside the city.”

“Praise al-Lah,” I said. “Maybe now Muhammad will forget her.”

“She wouldn’t suffer much if he did,” Saffiya said. She lowered her voice as though the walls had ears. “I watched the men move her belongings into her new home today. When they left, a black-skinned man knocked on her door—and she let him in.”

“You are jesting,” I said.

Saffiya shook her head, smiling. “I waited to see how long he would stay. He never came out. As far as I know he’s in there now, doing who-knows-what with her.”

I gasped. This news, if true, was a terrible threat to Muhammad. His following was growing, but his status as a powerful leader was still new. A scandal could harm him beyond repair. If Maryam was entertaining another man, Muhammad needed to know.

The next evening I slipped through Medina with my wrapper pulled close and walked to the sheep pastures on the edge of town. With my pulse clipping my throat, I climbed into a tree on a rise overlooking Maryam’s house, a mud-brick house shaded with ghaza’a and acacia and pomegranate trees, and a yard of blooming lavender. After a short while, the door opened, and she and Muhammad stood in the doorway. I watched with burning eyes as Muhammad pulled her close for a passionate kiss. The tangle of her hair and the smudge of her lips made it clear how they’d spent the afternoon. He gave her a last, lingering gaze, then mounted his camel and rode toward town, his face as dreamy as a sleepwalker’s.

My face burned with resentment. No wonder Muhammad had no energy for his wives! A man of fifty-nine had only so much to give, and he was
bestowing it all on his concubine. As I dwelled on these thoughts, a large figure as dark as a shadow emerged from behind the house and approached Maryam’s door. She was already smiling when she opened it to him. Another moment, and he was inside.

In my apartment that night, I felt as though I might burst with the thrill of my discovery. But Muhammad’s scowl held my tongue for the time being.

“I am not pleased with the way you all have treated Maryam,” he said. “You have driven her out of the mosque with your jealousy.”

I snorted. “By al-Lah, when you hear my tale, you’ll wish we’d driven her all the way back to Egypt.” I told him what I’d seen, but he shook his head, glowering, and called for Ali.

“A’isha says a man is keeping company with Maryam,” Muhammad said as I hid behind my screen. “Hurry to her house and find out if this rumor is true. Be discreet. We do not want to frighten her visitor away before we learn the facts, nor do we want to insult Maryam if the tale proves false.”

“A big black man?” Ali’s tone was mocking. “Your imagination knows no bounds, A’isha.” I felt my face flame as he strutted out.

Muhammad was still frowning as he closed the door. “
Yaa
A’isha, why would you spy on Maryam? Why do you mistreat her?”

I stiffened. “I’d heard a nasty rumor about her and a blackamoor. I knew you wouldn’t want another scandal. What would all these kings and princes say about a leader who can’t control his own
harim
?”

“Is Maryam the one I cannot control?” He peered at me as though my face were a cryptic scroll. “I have asked you many times to set aside your jealousy, but you continue to challenge each new woman I bring into the
harim
.”

“I’ve been very gracious to share you with so many women.” I glared at him through my tears. “Especially since my chances of conceiving a child grow smaller with each new addition.”

He slapped his fist against his open palm. His eyes snapped. “Maryam has been tormented by all of you since the day she arrived. Your tauntings have driven her out of the
harim
, so that now she has to live in isolation. Why do you do this, A’isha? Do you not believe me when I say I love you best?”

“You have all my affection,” I said. “Why do I have to share yours with nine other women?”

“We have been through this many times. Maryam is a gift from the most powerful man in Egypt. He honors me—me!” His eyes shone. “The king of Yemen is sending me the most beautiful woman in his country to marry, the daughter of one of his important ministers. What should I reply to him? ‘No, thank you. A’isha does not like to share.’ What impression would that make on the Byzantine emperor?”

“So, you have your eye on Byzantium now,” I said. “They’re Christians, aren’t they? Do you think they’re going to cast aside their churches and statues and their prophet who rose from the dead?” His expression told me that was exactly what he hoped.

I wiped the water from my eyes. “Where is the Muhammad I used to know? Turning hearts to al-Lah was his only desire. Now your nights are filled with flesh and perfume, and you dream of ruling the world.”

“Turning hearts to God is still my desire!” he cried. “Every marriage I make, every concubine I accept, is for the good of the
umma
, for protection against our enemies. And my strategy is working. We have new converts every day, more souls saved from Hell fire. Egypt, Byzantium, Persia, Yemen: Someday soon all these nations will bow to al-Lah. It is for Him that I strive, and for the
umma
. If I thought only of myself, I could have lived on Khadijah’s fortune until the end of my days.”

“But that wouldn’t have been nearly as thrilling as sitting with the world at your feet,” I shot back. “And marrying only four wives, as you’ve allowed everyone else, wouldn’t be nearly as pleasurable as having ten in your
harim
.”

“Pleasurable? Trying to please ten jealous women? Do I look like I am enjoying myself?”

A rap on the door interrupted us. I moved behind my screen, and Ali stepped into the room with a grin splitting his face.

“Your smile tells me all I need to know,” Muhammad said, shooting me a dark look. “Obviously, the rumors are untrue.”

“No, they’re true enough,” Ali said. “Someone has been visiting Maryam, just as A’isha reported.” Satisfaction filled my throat with a chuckle—that died when Muhammad slumped onto a cushion, his eyes staring bleakly at the floor.

“
Yaa
Ali, why do you laugh?” he said, his voice as stiff as a corpse. “Do you mock me?”

“No, cousin. When you hear my tale, though, you will laugh, also.” He sat across from Muhammad and clapped a hand to his shoulder. “Your concubine has a visitor, and it isn’t a woman. But neither is it a man.”

His eyes brightened as he told of peering carefully into Maryam’s window, as Muhammad had directed. Inside—behold! A large black man combed her hair and sang with her.

“You should have heard them, Prophet. His voice was as sweet as any woman’s, and it mingled with hers as if they were two lovebirds singing a duet. She leaned into his arm and closed her eyes in ecstasy while they trilled away.”

Muhammad’s face grew darker with every word. I grew teary-eyed, sorry for causing him this pain, but also relieved to think that she would soon be gone and Muhammad would be free from scandal.

“Did you arrest him?” Muhammad said through gritted teeth. “By alLah, I will have his head this night.”

“I did. I burst into the house with my sword lifted.” Ali leapt to his feet and whipped out his sword with a
zing
. “I seized him by the throat, since he had no beard. You should have seen him cry!

“‘Save your tears for Judgment Day,’ I told him. ‘Al-Lah will not be generous with one who has stolen what belongs to the Prophet.’”

“You spoke truly, Ali,” Muhammad growled.

“Maryam was weeping, also. She told me he was her servant, but I said I did not want to hear her lies. Then the man spoke in his own tongue and pointed to his crotch.”

I sighed deeply and slumped to the floor, guessing how Ali’s tale would end. Muhammad wouldn’t send Maryam away, but he would be annoyed with me for spying on her. Once again, by trying to help him I had hurt myself. When would I learn to watch and wait instead of leaping to conclusions?