Sultan's Wife (29 page)

‘I thought you were never coming back.'

Her voice is as harsh as a crow's croak, and she does look like a crow, all black and hunched over. Overcome by compassion, I forget that at any moment someone might walk behind the tents and spy us, and reach out for her and pull her to me. I hold her tightly, taint and all, bury my face in the matted tarnish of her once-gold hair. As I do so, something moves between us, and then begins to wail. When I look down, I realize that Alys has strapped the baby across her chest. It waves its fists peremptorily, and its face screws up into a ball of noisy demand. As she moves away from me to suckle the babe, a sharp pain shoots through me. Everything has been for this: servitude, humiliation, captivity, apostasy; and now even madness. And yet the child itself is gloriously, selfishly unaware of its mother's sacrifice. It is a greedy beast: it seems to feed for ever, as if it would suck the last human morsel of her away, leaving nothing but a hollow shell of flesh behind. Perhaps Makarim is right: perhaps Alys has been taken by djinns …

I bow my head over the pan of soup that is cooking over the brazier – a thin-looking mixture of vegetables and chicken bones innocent of any discernible seasoning and apply myself to stirring this grey gruel while my mind churns. Striving for some small degree of normality, I say, ‘So, Alys, tell me: what have you called the baby?' I realize I have not even asked its sex.

She looks up, and her eyes are full of love: but not for me. ‘He is Momo, short for Mohammed; Mohammed James, one name for his new family, one for his old. Is he not beautiful?'

All I can see is a tumble of yellow hair and an intent red mouth. I make a non-committal sound; it is a boy, then. Ismail will be pleased. ‘Tell me what has happened that you are out here in this … condition,' I urge her. ‘Was it Zidana that drove you away?' My ruse with the Targui woman must have failed.

She laughs, the sound like a rusty hinge. ‘Zidana, ah, yes, it always comes back to her. But not only her: there has been an unholy conspiracy against me. You would not believe the things they have done …'

It is as if someone has unstoppered a leak in a bucket: the words pour out of her. She tells me, in a rush, how Momo was stolen from her, how she feared the baby would be killed. She tells me that for these last weeks she has lived in this terrible limbo – neither in the harem nor out of it – keeping herself out of everyone's view. At all times she has the child strapped to her: she sleeps fitfully, sitting upright, as I found her. ‘That way if they surprise me, they cannot easily separate us,' she explains, as if it is the most natural thing in the world. At night she has walked the camp when everyone else is asleep, and gathered scraps for the cookpot and linens for the child. All the while she tells me these things, as if they are sane and normal behaviour, I stare at her, aghast.

‘There was a time when I thought your ape would be the death of us,' she confides, ‘but if it were not for Amadou's scavenging skills I don't know what would have become of us. He is a fine little thief! Heaven alone knows where he has managed to find figs and oranges at this time of year.' She smiles and her face is transformed and I see in a sudden flash the Alys I left behind and my heart tears all the more.

‘I am back now.' I swallow. ‘And so is Ismail. No one will dare do anything to harm you or the child now. All shall be well.'

She stares at me. ‘I cannot stay here. You have to get us away! You and Ismail will go away again and then they will kill us.' Then she clutches my arm with such urgency I can feel her fingertips digging down to the bones. ‘Get us out of here, Nus-Nus, I beg you.'

Can it be done? Insane schemes tumble through my mind: darkening the giveaway golden hair of both mother and child with ashes and water, making myself a beard of sheepskin, bribing a guard or two (or five, or ten … 
but with what? I have no money) to get us into the soldiers' compound, and beyond, where the camp-followers lurk on the outskirts of the settlement. And from there, a mule, or two, and a long trek on back roads and through open country to Meknes to see if Daniel al-Ribati is still there and may help us leave the country … Almost I have persuaded myself that all this is possible, when I hear the high, brassy sound of Fassi trumpets blaring out, announcing the arrival of the sultan, and the chill of cowardice runs through my veins, extinguishing my hot thoughts. I turn my mind swiftly in a different direction.

‘Go quickly to the hammam,' I tell Alys. ‘Take your child and clean yourselves thoroughly. I will send someone to you, a trustworthy servant, with clean clothes for both of you. Then you must come out and present Momo to the sultan.'

Tears spark to her eyes; she begins to protest. I have to shake her. ‘It is the only way, I promise you.'

I dash back to the kitchens. ‘Malik, I must speak with you!'

He looks alarmed. ‘You can't bring that monkey in here!'

Amadou chatters excitedly: there is food
everywhere
. I keep hold of him so tightly he becomes infuriated and tries to bite me. ‘Malik, how old is your oldest girl?'

‘Mamass? Twelve, coming up thirteen.'

‘Perfect.' One-handed, I take off my belt-pouch and shake the contents on to the table. ‘It's yours. All of it. Or put it away for her marriage chest.' I explain my plan and he stares at me. I know exactly what he is thinking, but in the end he just gives me a look and sighs, then tucks the coins swiftly into his money-belt, rattles off some orders to his kitchen team, wipes his hands on his apron and strides away.

Twenty minutes later Amadou is safely tied to a tent post and Mamass is trotting along beside me, looking by turns apprehensive and excited. It is an honour to work in the harem, especially serving those who have given birth to the sultan's sons, but she does not know what to expect; however, she is a bright girl and has learned much from having a father in such a position at court. ‘Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut,' I warn her. ‘Always be
pleasant to the empress and her favourites; but if ever you sense a threat to the White Swan, come running for me as fast as you can.'

She peers at me, all eyes, over the top of the bundle of clothing her mother has given us: cotton, not silk, but as clean as snow, and nods solemnly, taking it all in.

I wait for them outside the hammam, trying to look as if I have business there. When Alys finally emerges, the breath rushes out of me: she looks like a goddess, all white and gold, the babe a cherub in her arms. We are just making our way towards the main pavilion when we meet the sultan's entourage coming the other way – hard to miss since it is preceded by four eunuch heralds bearing enormously long trumpets. The heralds and attendants (sweeping the ground before the sultan with gigantic ostrich feathers) part, and suddenly there is Ismail, with Zidana right beside him. Her eyes fix instantly, with chill fury, on Alys and Momo. She tugs her husband's arm. ‘There are some new girls I have had brought in for you, my lord, from the corsairs' latest trawl of the Mediterranean. One of them is from China, a pale slip of a thing, breasts like apples and hair of black silk, destined for the harem of the Great Turk himself. You will like her, she is very exotic; but fiery too. I have had to cut her fingernails …'

But Ismail has eyes only for the child in Alys's arms. He strides forward, with barely a glance at Alys herself, takes Momo from her and holds him up wonderingly. ‘My son?'

Zidana's face darkens murderously, but the child is in the sultan's arms now.

‘Don't be taken in, O light of the world: what you see is foul sorcery,' she says as he unswaddles it. ‘The child is a demon only pretending to be a boy. My women have seen the White Swan consorting with djinns, suckling them, lying with them, bargaining with them to gain the power to produce this illusion. Ask anyone: they have stolen her wits – she has been living amongst them in the filth and refuse of the camp. People hear her singing with them at twilight; she has been seen dancing with them naked. And the men! Always there are men sniffing around her. I have heard she leaves the harem secretly at night and spreads her legs for any man she takes a fancy to. She is a lewd creature, my love. With my own eyes I have seen
her lying with the Hajib –' She makes a signal and Makarim comes sliding past her and casts herself on the ground before the sultan.

‘My lord, it is true! I too saw this happen. I was the servant to the White Swan, but she sent me away when I tried to stop the grand vizier entering the tent. “Let him in, let him in!” she wheedled. And when I protested that it was not seemly, she struck me across the head in a great rage and drove me away, so I ran to find the empress and she came running to prevent such dishonour taking place in your majesty's harem, and so it was that she witnessed this evil scene!'

‘You see?' Zidana's eyes gleam with triumph: two enemies struck down with a single blow. ‘And there are others who can attest to the disgusting behaviour of this whore.' She bends to whisper something to Taroob, who bobs her head and runs.

Ismail's face is full of blood and flushing darker by the moment. He wraps the child hastily in its linen, pausing for a moment to examine the gold ring on the chain around its neck. ‘My lord,' I find myself saying suddenly. ‘You cannot believe this calumny?' My heart is beating wildly: and the sultan's visage darkens further. I can feel Zidana's gaze crawl over me: surely this will be my death warrant, by the hand of one or the other. But Alys is too bewildered to defend herself, and so I must speak for her. ‘The White Swan has given you a son, a truly beautiful son,' I press on. But the sultan is staring at Momo now as if he is indeed an alien being: an evil succubus; a tricksy djinn. And it is true: there is no great similarity between father and son. Blue eyes, yellow hair: it is as if Momo has thrown off his Moroccan heritage in favour of his mother's.

Ismail turns to me a face that appears hacked out of wood: mad and ravaged. I doubt he has heard a word I said. He surges past me to glare at Alys. They stand eye to eye: the sultan is not a tall man. ‘It is true?' he growls at her. ‘You and the grand vizier?' She stares at him, then down at the baby. She makes to take the child back, but Ismail holds it closer, so tight that it starts to cry. ‘Answer me!' He thrusts his face at her: spittle lands upon her chin.

Terror robs her of her wits. ‘He … he … I do not know …'

I catch her before she hits the ground.

*

The faint saves her; but nothing can save Abdelaziz. One after another, Zidana's paid witnesses step forward to add their testimony to hers and Makarim's, saying how they have seen the grand vizier entering the harem at all hours of the day and night, particularly when the muezzin has sounded and all godly men are at prayer; and always he went straight to the Englishwoman's tent. Even the ma'alema testifies angrily that she found him alone with Alys, since he had sent her servant away. ‘But no fault can be attributed to the lady, my lord: she did not encourage the grand vizier's visits and tolerated him only because he insisted he was your right hand.'

Ismail tells me to fetch Abdelaziz. He is controlled, stony. ‘Tell him nothing. I would not have him prepare a series of pretty lies.'

The grand vizier takes some finding: eventually I track him down to the hammam, steam swirling around him so that he looks like Ala'ad-Din's djinn emerging from its lamp. The hammam attendant, who has been soaping his back, takes one look at me and scuttles out. The Hajib blinks as I stand over him, wipes the sweat out of his eyes. ‘Well now,' he says, looking me up and down with a curious expression on his face. ‘Here you are, back from the wars, and in one piece, give or take. Remove your clothes, Nus-Nus, and bend over, there's a good boy.'

‘The sultan requests your presence.'

He purses his mouth, blows out a great huffing sigh. ‘That's a shame.' He heaves himself to his feet, shameless in his nakedness. ‘Surely whatever he wants can wait just a little while?'

‘Get dressed,' I say shortly. ‘I will wait for you outside.'

He takes an age to be dried and clothed. When I can bear it no longer, I storm back in, and of course find him gone. The hammam attendant lies in a pool of pale pink blood in the rapidly cooling chamber. There is no steam left in the place: it has escaped, along with the grand vizier, through a slit in the tent wall.

I fully expect to lose my head when I relay this news to Ismail, but he just smiles grimly. ‘Only the guilty run before they are even accused.' He sends riders out from the camp in all directions.

It is two days later when they bring him back, bruised and dishevelled. ‘He put up quite a fight.' The bukhari captain is almost admiring.

Two days is a long time in Ismail's memory: he could easily have forgotten all about his edict by now. But it seems his anger has been smouldering away steadily; or perhaps it is Zidana who has been stoking the fire, reminding him of her rival's many and various crimes. She presents herself today in a most oddly combative aspect, marrying the style of a Lobi warrior with … well, heaven knows what. She wears a leopardskin across her back, with its head resting upon her head and one of its great forearms draped over one shoulder, its paw tucked into her belt. She carries a sword at her hip and in her right hand is a great plumed lance. Her eyes are made up to look even more ferocious than usual. Clearly, her spies have got ahead of the riders bringing in the vizier to let her know the glad news and she has arrayed herself in this bizarre manner to crow over his downfall. Oblivious to the usual protocols, she now thumps the butt of the spear down perilously close to Abdelaziz, who covers his head with his hands and cries plaintively, ‘Forgive me, forgive me, O Great One!'

For a moment, Ismail looks upon him almost kindly. Then he kicks him so hard in the midriff that his whole body quakes. ‘You sack of filth! You abomination! You would dare to lay your foul hands on that which belongs to me, and only to me?'