Sultan's Wife (10 page)

‘The Emperor of Morocco wants
me
as a courtesan?' The idea is quite absurd.

‘You are pretty enough, with your pale hair and skin, so you will be presented to him as such: what he does with you after that is his own affair.' She smiles sweetly, as if it is quite normal to be sitting here like this, discussing such matters. ‘Come now, Alys, it is not so bad. Foreigners may paint the sultan as a monster, but he is a man like any other. As a woman in his harem you will live a comfortable life, and will probably have to lie with him only a handful of times in your life. Maybe even once only.'

I cannot hide my outrage any longer. ‘Once is one time too many!'

‘It is hard to accept, I know, this loss of choice and will. I was luckier than you, though I too was taken captive by the corsairs.'

‘If you were also taken by pirates I would expect a little more charity from you.'

‘They are corsairs, Alys, not pirates. There may seem little difference to you, but within this culture these men are heroes, not criminals. They do what they do not for their own personal gain but for the benefit of the community.'

I gesture at the sumptuous room. ‘So your beautiful house does not count as “personal gain”, then?'

She bridles. ‘I understand that it is hard to be robbed of what you think of as your freedom; but answer me truly, Alys, are women ever truly free?
In England, and I imagine in Holland too, we are bought and sold, parcelled off in marriage to consolidate a family business here, political aspirations there, to shore up a failing country estate, or simply to get us off our family's hands. It must have come as something of a shock – I quite understand – to be taken at sea as you were and find yourself amongst people whom you regard as heathen. I know that it can be very frightening. I was taken prisoner during the raid on a church in Penzance in 1625 and sold on the slave blocks here in Salé. I thought my life was ending, but it had only just begun. The man who bought me took me to wife, and it has been the happiest of marriages. You will say that I have been lucky, but I say to you, Alys, that these people are much the same as all other people: some are God-fearing and respectful, even kind; while others are wicked and hateful. All we can do is to hope for the best –'

‘And prepare for the worst.' I finish for her, annoyed by her proselytizing.

She spreads her hands. ‘It may all turn out far better than you fear. But it is good to be pragmatic and to accept the situation that presents itself with the best grace you can muster; and that way you may preserve yourself and minimize the … difficulties.'

‘I will not convert.'

‘You must make your choices according to your conscience. But, Alys, it is what you keep in your heart that matters. Do not be stubborn, I beg you. For your own sake.'

For a moment, the air hangs heavy with intimations of violence, then there is a rustle of cloth behind me and in an instant the sharp planes of her face are gentled and a blush suffuses her skin, as if someone has lit a lantern inside her. From behind me comes a man's voice, deep and vibrant, and the master of the house comes into view and stands there looking down at me.

He is old and gaunt, with a dark face and close-cropped, snow-white beard. His eyes blaze, shrewd and fierce, under the brim of his intricately wound headcloth as he looks me up and down. I am taken aback when he addresses me in English. ‘Good day, Alys Swann. My captain has a tendency to exaggerate, but I see that for once his description has not done the subject justice.'

Made bold by disbelief, I look back steadily. ‘Lovely enough to be forced into servitude as a harlot to some monstrous sultan, or so I am told.'

His eyes gleam. ‘It strikes me that you are a woman of some conviction. Conviction and beauty are two qualities to be prized, but when combined, it is like harnessing a wild stallion and a mule to the same single carriage: the result can be … dangerous.'

‘For the coachman or the passengers?'

‘For all concerned. But especially for you. Alys Swann, it would be a shame indeed to see such spirit broken and such beauty marred.'

‘They would torture me into converting?'

‘The emperor will not lie with an infidel.'

‘Perhaps it is best to put me on the blocks and sell me to the highest bidder.'

He folds himself with surprising grace and suppleness to sit before me cross-legged so that he can look me in the eye. ‘The emperor is always the highest bidder, Alys Swann; even if the price he pays is not monetary. You will not understand this, I know, but believe me when I say that I dare not sell you elsewhere. Moulay Ismail would hear of it and have my head. Young women of such striking appearance are too rare a commodity in our markets not to draw attention.'

‘Then keep me here as a servant,' I challenge.

‘It is not possible. I am sorry, but we must pass you on. You are a prize fit for an emperor, and for the emperor we shall prepare you.'

Three days later, Lalla Zahra comes to my room bearing a bundle of silks. She lays them down on the rug and sorts them into brightly coloured piles. Then she holds up one of the items against me. ‘This will suit you.'

It is a plain silk robe in a glowing green-blue, with wide sleeves and frogged buttons running down the front. It is unlike any piece of clothing I have ever worn. Pragmatic concerns, constrained finances and the strictures of a climate that encouraged worsteds and wools have prevented me from ever wearing anything so impractical. I itch to wear it; and yet I fight the urge. ‘I doubt it,' I say, folding my arms.

‘Try it on.'

We stand there for a long moment, staring at one another. Then she smiles. ‘I understand your reluctance, Alys. I am not made of stone. But events have their inevitable path and it is impossible to go back from here. Let us make the best of it, and of you.'

I strip to my chemise and she drops the robe over my head and upraised arms. The silk feels like water against my hot skin, and too flimsy for decency.

‘This goes over the top of it.' She offers another filmy garment, a sort of outer coat of embroidery on a ground of gold net. It is extremely finely worked. I find my traitor hands reaching for it as if they have a will of their own.

She shakes out my hair around my shoulders, then leads me to a mirror, and I stare at my unfamiliar reflection. The transformation wakes an almost physical pain. If I had looked like this, would Laurent have walked away as easily as he did?

Laurent was an itinerant artist: Holland is full of them these days. They say it is the easiest country to make a living in, if you have a little skill with
paint and brush. After the war with Spain finally came to an end and trade flourished, every Dutch merchant suddenly wanted to show off his wealth, to surround himself not only with the beautiful, real objects that bolstered his faith in the new reality, but with representations of those objects too. Depictions of flowers and fruits, town scenes, portraits: a house was not a home unless its walls boasted a dozen framed images of the world inside and out. Holland hung its soul from a hook for all to see. Laurent had tried to make a living as a painter in his native France, but the French are snobs about such things and Laurent had made no name for himself. Although he had some skill, he was by no means an outstanding draughtsman; but in The Hague he made a good living. He was handsome; that was one reason why. Merchants' wives and daughters encouraged his attentions. Black hair, dark eyes, sculpted bones: he was as unlike the broad, blond, ruddy-complexioned men of the town as could be. I never considered myself a romantic ninny whose head could be turned by a striking face or a flowery compliment, but when I met Laurent it was as if my heart had plunged off a cliff and the rest of me had followed an instant later.

He came to the door, seeking a commission: seeing a solidly built, well-presented merchant's house he no doubt expected a solidly built, well-presented merchant to open the door to him, but when I explained the lack I saw his face fall before he recovered himself and started to make his apologies. It was that moment of perceived disappointment that was my downfall: for in that moment I fell in love. A perverse decision, indeed: to yearn after something you can never have. He had clearly shown me in that unguarded moment his true estimation of me: that I was neither rich enough nor lovely enough to interest him as either subject or object of his skills.

Although we had acres of empty wall on which to display a painting, the last thing we could afford was a commission. But I commissioned him anyway. Judith overheard our conversation. She was right behind me when I turned back into the house after standing there watching the Frenchman loping away down the street with a swagger that made my insides flutter.

‘We can't afford it,' she said. ‘You know we can't.'

I was her employer and she just a servant, but when you bake bread
together at sun-up each morning, these inequalities rather get knuckled in with the dough. I was used to her speaking her mind and rarely rebuked her for it.

‘He's dangerous,' she went on. ‘You can see it in the way he walks. Go after him: tell him you've changed your mind.'

I knew she was right, but I made her be quiet: having an external conscience is never a comfortable thing.

He came the next day, and the next and the next for three whole blissful weeks, and I sat on a chair in the kitchen garden for him. ‘The light will be better there for you,' I said; meaning, there's not a stick of furniture in the house, and you will guess my motives.

He set up his easel amongst the bean-poles and trod on my seedlings, but I never complained. It was intoxicating, having my portrait painted. He was used to dealing with uneasy subjects and had a way of flattering that made me go limp and complaisant. Being inexperienced, I took each compliment at face value. I hugged them to me (in place of him) in my narrow bed each night: to have such a handsome man examining my face minutely, even though I was paying him for the privilege, was a heady experience for an unmarried 24-year-old who had never considered herself worth looking at. Each touch of the brush on the canvas felt like a caress; and with each brushstroke I felt myself grow more beautiful. I dreamed of the life he and I would have together, the children I would bear him. And suddenly I wanted his children with a passion. I had never thought of having a child until that time: but after, the idea gripped me like a sickness.

Did I think I was exerting some sort of silent spell over him during those quiet hours? The more deeply I fell in love with him, the more sure I became that my feelings were reciprocated – by the tilt of his head, the set of his lips, by the way he stayed to take a glass of sugared lemon water or one of the little cakes I took such care to prepare for him each day.

He refused to show me the work while it was in progress, but by the time he completed the commission I had convinced myself of what I would see captured by his clever hands, in the immortal oils he squeezed out so lasciviously on to his palette. So at last when he revealed the finished painting I thought he was playing a trick on me, had substituted for mine another
woman's portrait. This woman was plain and dull-looking, in her sensibly high-necked dress and her starched white cap and collar … Her eyes, screwed up against the light in the kitchen garden, were lost in folds of white flesh; her nose was beak-like, her lips set in a firm line. She looked a severe Puritan virgin, rather than like the daughter of an English royalist who was dying for a French artist to tear off her clothes and ravish her amongst the broad beans and radishes.

I choked down my disappointment, paid him and bade him farewell. He had spent four hours every day for three weeks in my company: he took the money and was gone within five minutes, not looking back once. I never saw him again.

I took a long, hard look at that portrait. Then I burned it. I carry the painting within me as my image of who I am … and it is certainly not the woman staring back at me from Lalla Zahra's mirror. This is the woman Laurent should have painted, this exotic minx, with her glowing skin and bright, loose hair, whose eyes shine with the same turquoise lights as the silk. This woman might have captivated him as I had so longed to do.

I give my reflection a wry smile: just as well, I think, that I did not.

Lalla Zahra misreads my expression for one of self-satisfaction. ‘You see, Alys, you will make a fine courtesan. The kaftan becomes you.'

She does not understand at all when I tear it off and throw it back at her and burst into tears. It is the first time I have cried since being taken captive.

The kaftan is only the beginning. I am taken to a place they call a hammam, a type of communal bath. There, I am stripped and marched into a very hot chamber filled with steam. It is hard to see for all the vapour, but when it clears I find large numbers of local women walking about stark naked with no more shame than Eve before she bit the apple. Some sit; others squat, displaying clefts as hairless as a child's. All of them chatter away in their strange language, and their cries and laughter echo off the close stone walls. If I close my eyes, I can believe I have entered a colony of apes.

This easy nakedness shocks me, for in the streets the women cover themselves from head to toe in swathed attire that offers nothing to even the most prurient imagination. I will have to reassess the people I find myself
amongst. If the gentler sex can be so brazen, what must the men be like, and how would they treat a woman like me?

The maids wash my hair and scrub my skin and I give up trying to fight them off, until, that is, I am taken into an anteroom and made to lie spread-eagled on a block of stone. The strip of chemise with which I have covered my loins is unceremoniously torn away, and for the next half an hour I have to close my eyes and think myself back in the tranquil courtyard at Lalla Zahra's house, for the indignities I suffer are quite unspeakable.