Sultan's Wife (33 page)

‘I am sorry, I am so sorry!' I wail.

My cry must have woken my son, for suddenly there he is, watching in horror as his father rages and I weep. And then Momo bravely – foolishly – rushes at his father and beats at his legs with his little fists. ‘Leave Mama alone!'

Ismail looks down. Then, almost casually, he swipes my boy away and
Momo goes flying across the floor, fetching up against a small carved table on the other side of my salon. Then he picks up the offending book and walks away without a backward look.

Later that evening a huge basket is delivered to my apartment. Inside are toys and jewels, cakes and pastries, a tabby kitten with a silver collar, a little suit of clothes made from cloth of gold. And on the top, a richly embellished volume of the Qur'an. In Arabic.

I am returning from an errand for the empress when I round a corner in the harem and find Zidan straddled across Momo in an otherwise deserted courtyard, holding the child's head under the water of the fountain. Momo is kicking furiously, but Zidan at nine years of age overmatches him effortlessly. So occupied is the little monster in his murderous task that he does not hear my approach; and such the surge of fury that comes over me that I am able to pick him up by the back of his neck and hold him off the ground by one hand. For a moment my own strength scares me – how easily I might squeeze the life out of him there and then; and how much I wish to – but it scares Zidan even more.

Momo clambers out of the fountain and sits shivering on the tiled edge and I spy a terrible bruise on his forehead, which makes me even more furious. I shake Zidan as a lion might shake a puppy. ‘I will tell your father,' I promise him fiercely. ‘And if you ever touch Mohammed again I will kill you myself.' I put him down then and he just stares at me, eyes like ragged holes in his face, showing nothing but a void. Then he takes to his heels. I know exactly where he will go: straight to his mother. Well, that is something I will have to face later: for now I do not care. I put my arm around Momo's shoulders, then examine the bruise, which is a rich dark colour, like an overripe banana.

‘Does it hurt?'

He shakes his head resolutely. Momo is such a sturdy lad for his age that it is easy to forget he is only three. ‘You must never wander alone: the world is a dangerous place.'

He nods solemnly. ‘It was only a game,' he says at last.

Such bravado! He has his mother's pride. I feel my heart swell as if he were my own. ‘It was not a game, Momo, and we both know it. Now, I shall take you back to your mother and there you must stay.'

‘You won't tell, will you?'

‘I will not tell your mother: it would worry her too much.'

‘No, I mean, you will not tell Dada?'

‘Why should I not?'

‘He will think me weak.'

For a long moment I just stare at him. Such wisdom in such a small boy is so terrifying it takes you aback. ‘I cannot let Zidan escape unpunished for this.'

‘If you do not tell, I promise I will be careful.'

‘What, and if I do, you will not?'

His bottom lip thrusts out: blue fire sparks in his eyes. We hold each other's gaze and I think, this one will be quite a man, if he ever survives that long. At last, I promise.

The next day I am at the mosque with the sultan, helping him into his babouches after asr prayers, when a harem servant throws himself down in front of us, forehead to the floor.

‘The empress demands your presence,' he gabbles.

Ismail grabs the boy by the shoulder and hauls him upright. ‘She does what? No one
demands
anything of me!' He glares, a fearsome sight.

The child starts to cry and quite unexpectedly Ismail's gaze softens. ‘For heaven's sake, Ali, don't be so feeble. Deliver your message properly.'

Ali hesitates, then looks at me. ‘The Empress Zidana demands
your
presence,' he says pointedly.

The sultan raises his eyebrows at me. ‘Has she forgotten you work for me?' The question is rhetorical: I keep silent. ‘Well, you'd better go and see what she wants. Go on. I'll take Samir with me to inspect the works.'

Samir?

A figure emerges from the shadows of the Shoe Hall. Above a robe of white silk he wears a knitted red skullcap, and the bones of his face are
sharply defined. His beard is so dainty as to appear drawn on in kohl with a fine brush. He carries inks and pens, a sheaf of paper. The look he gives me is one of undisguised triumph. The last time I saw him he was accompanied by three other thugs, intent on murdering me, and I dismantled his shoulder and sent him on his way. With sudden savagery, I hope it pains him still.

‘Run along, Nus-Nus,' he sneers. ‘I'll take care of his majesty.'

I want to run at him, batter those sneering features to a pulp; but of course I do not. I drag my eyes from him, bow deeply to the sultan and walk quickly out of the hall and into the late-afternoon sun.

All the way to the harem the question nags at me: how has the nephew of an executed traitor managed to worm his way back into the good graces of the sultan? And why is he here, my enemy? I cannot believe that revenge does not lie somewhere within his strategy, whatever it may be. I remember the falsified couching book, and how it has been set aright, and clench my fists against my sides.

All this at least serves to steer my mind away from Zidana's summons, the reason for which I know only too well. And indeed, when I am ushered into her presence, there is Zidan, red-eyed, at his mother's knee. He must have been at the onions, I think: even a brat like Zidan cannot cry for twenty-eight hours straight. I make my obeisance, trying to appear as calm and solemn as possible: the emperor's dignified servant.

But Zidana is having none of it. She is flanked by the other royal wives – Umelez and Lalla Bilqis – and the three stare at me like a bank of judges, as if I have committed some heinous crime upon which they are to pass sentence. Then all semblance of formality is shattered as the empress erupts from her seat, eyes bulging, spittle flying from her mouth. She shakes a tiny black figure in my face. ‘See this? See this, Nus-Nus? This is your death!'

It is a fetish-doll, made of some sort of black moulded clay, its eyes small white beads with a black dot painted in the centre, its mouth nothing but a hole, as if emitting a silent scream. It wears a replica of exactly what I am wearing now: my daily uniform of a white cotton robe with gold embroidery at the neck and sleeves; yellow babouches, a white turban; even the absence of the gold bangle I gave to Mohammed a few days ago has been noted.

A reflexive shudder runs through me. Even though I have roamed the civilized streets and palaces of Europe, read the literature of a dozen other races, and given my soul to Allah, I cannot shake my Senufo beliefs, taught to me at my grandfather's knee.

Zidana lifts the doll's robe: cruelly, at the forked intersection of its lean torso and long legs, is a small male member, and no balls. She runs an orange-hennaed fingernail caressingly up its belly to its breastbone. There the fingertip hovers, then presses and a little door in the fetish's chest flies open to reveal …

Bile rises in my throat. What I am seeing is simply not possible. Inside the fetish beats a tiny red flesh heart. Even as I watch, horribly fascinated, it pulses rhythmically, quickening as my pulse quickens.

Zidana snaps the little door shut over this atrocity and smiles at me. ‘All I have to do is to remove that, and you will fall down dead. Do not ever touch my boy again.'

She takes a sandalwood box, opens the carved lid, places my image inside. Before she can close it again, I glimpse other figures. One, unmistakable, has golden hair and is made of pale clay; beside it a small boy with blue beads for eyes …

I try to tell myself it is all nonsense: just Zidana's way of terrorizing people manipulation, rather than magic. That the dolls have no power except to scare, that the organ I have seen beating within my effigy was only an illusion; but a primal fear has its claws in me and will not let go. My dreams are unnerving, and I cannot shake them.

My fears are not just for myself but also for Alys and Momo. I have always walked a perilously narrow path between the sultan and his First Wife, but I had thought matters settled between Zidana and the White Swan, if not amicably, then at least with some degree of acceptance. Now I see that is not the case. Zidana's hatred runs deep, and is implacable. One way or another she will bide her time and see her rival – and her son's rival – dead, just as she did the grand vizier: by poison, by assassination, by intrigue. Or by
vodoun
, her ritual magic. I shudder.

*

An audience is held for Sir James Leslie, the English ambassador, in the Ambassadors' Hall. The place is packed with dignitaries and functionaries in their most gorgeous dress; Ismail is attended on by a multitude of fan-waving servants. His current favourite cat – an elegantly striped madam he calls Eïda – has draped herself across his lap, utterly at ease, and surveys us all coolly through sea-green eyes. I seat myself at the sultan's feet with my writing desk and an official records book; but a moment later Samir Rafik appears, armed with a sheaf of paper and reeds, and positions himself on the other side. For a moment we glare at one another as if we would do each other to death with our pens, then I stare around at Ismail in outrage. He laughs at my expression and pats me on the head, as he might his pet cat. ‘Two scribes are sometimes better than one.'

‘But he cannot speak English, let alone write it!' I exclaim, sounding even to my own ears like a petulant child. ‘What use is he in this task?'

‘For all I care, Samir may transcribe the songs of courting pigeons,' Ismail laughs. ‘If the English ambassador believes me to be surrounded by learned scholars, he will tread more carefully, and his king will treat us with the respect we deserve.'

Sir James Leslie is a tough-looking character, florid of face and stocky of body, dressed dully but properly in a blue justaucorps, ochre waistcoat and dark breeches. His wig, beneath a feathered hat, is dusty brown and reaches in untidy curls to the shoulders. He has not a ribbon in sight: a very different prospect to his feeble emissary. For some reason – or maybe because of the very contrast in appearance – Ismail takes an instant dislike to the man and beckons ben Hadou forward. ‘Tell him he must remove not only his hat but also his wig, while in the royal presence, as a mark of proper respect!' The message is duly relayed. After a long and bad-tempered pause, the ambassador complies. Beneath the wig, Sir James's skull is patchily covered in a grey fuzz; he looks both uncomfortable and furious, but masters himself, and the pair exchange greetings and the necessary pleasantries required of a state visit.

Next, the ambassador's gifts, which have finally arrived, are presented; though he might have been better to have come unencumbered, for Ismail is most unimpressed by them. After the long delay – over two months – he has been anticipating all manner of fineries, the height of English luxury and
manufacture. But here are bales of brocade and silk that have been spoiled by their voyage – mould-spotted and water-marked. The English muskets the ambassador has brought explode on being fired, all of which makes Ismail furious and puts poor Sir James in a not much better mood. He berates his lieutenant for not checking the muskets properly before handing them over: from the helpless look on the lieutenant's face I wonder if they thought Morocco such a backward place that modern weaponry was little known here (even though we have been bombarding the walls of their fortresses at Tangier with our cannon, and blowing up their culverts with our gunpowder for years now); or that the sultan was a play-king, rather than a warrior chieftain?

Next to be inspected are half a dozen Galway horses brought for the sultan's stable that have been selected for their fine bloodlines and the length and quality of their tails. At first glance they look handsome enough animals, and at least someone has taken the trouble to tend to them before they are presented, for their manes and tails have been combed, and their harness is polished. But they have not been tricked out in the gaudy accoutrements the sultan prefers; and anyway he is in a foul temper now, and at once declares them ‘nags, fit only for the knacker's yard'.

I do not know if the slight he felt from the inadequate gifts made him change the terms he was minded to offer, but Ismail is brusque with Sir James now. The ambassador is given the choice between a half-year peace and a two-year truce. The English colonists may trade, graze their livestock, forage and quarry stone; in return for which the Moroccans are to receive vast quantities of cloth (unstained); muskets (which fire without blowing up); shot, powder and cannon. He refuses absolutely Leslie's insistence that the infidels be allowed to rebuild the old fortifications outside the town.

Sir James shakes his head. The terms are impossible, being disadvantageous to the English. He reminds the sultan that Tangier was not acquired by aggression but as part of Queen Catherine's dowry on her marriage to the English king.

This serves to heat Ismail's temper further: the Portuguese never had the right to the land in the first place, he tells the ambassador. It was never theirs to give away, along with their second-rate princess, to a pauper king.

Sir James purses his lips, but does not rise to this bait. At an impasse on
the subject of Tangier, he now turns to the matter of the number of English captives held by the sultan. Ismail takes him on a tour of the building works, Samir and me running along behind him with the rest of his huge entourage, trying to take notes as he strides from site to site, pointing out the many foreign workers, all of them (it seems) French, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Portuguese. Not an Englishman amongst them. The ambassador does not believe this of course: he points to one man, then another, and they are fetched down. ‘Say your name and country!' they are instructed. One by one they answer: Jean-Marie from Brittany; Benoit out of Marseilles; David of Cadiz; Giovanni from Naples.