Sultan's Wife (38 page)

‘Apologies, sidi.' I bow my head but remain where I am.

‘Well, what do you want?'

‘I wondered why Abdelaziz's nephew, Samir Rafik, and the renegade Hamza have come with us?'

He raises a brow at the presumption of my question. ‘The sultan has
given them the task of bringing back the head of some infidel responsible for printing copies of the holy Qur'an translated into English. It seems that Rafik will stop at nothing to win back the favour lost by his uncle; as for Hamza – he'll do anything for a bit of gold. I told Ismail the printer was almost certainly dead and buried, given that the book was printed thirty years ago, but he was having none of it, and Rafik was keen to show his mettle, begged for the chance to prove his loyalty, vicious little quean.' He catches my eye. ‘Sorry, Nus-Nus, no offence meant.'

‘None taken.'

‘He's no friend to either you or me, so keep an eye on him.'

I laugh bitterly, but inwardly I groan. So it is my own fault that my enemy is on the ship, watching my every move. Had I but accepted the sultan's task … ‘Perhaps I should put him over the side, see how well he swims.'

Ben Hadou retches, spits some thin liquid into the bucket and sits back, wiping his mouth. ‘If it were that simple, it would already be done. Ismail felt guilty over the punishment meted out to the grand vizier and by showing his interest has been trying to make it up to the boy: he'll want a full report if anything happens to him. As it is, I'm probably going to have to make sure we have a suitable head to take back: the sultan doesn't stand for failure.'

‘Even if the printer's long gone?'

‘Even if we have to drag him back from Hell.' He manages a thin smile. ‘Perhaps we can tell Ismail we traded Rafik's soul for the printer's.'

As luck would have it, ben Hadou is not the only member of our embassy struck down by seasickness. When I have not seen him for four days of the voyage, I ask casually of the renegade Hamza the whereabouts of Samir Rafik. He stares coldly at me, then shrugs. ‘Haven't the faintest idea.'

As I make my way back down from the forecastle, I see Rafik, staggering across the main deck below, his legs at odds with the rhythm of the ship. He makes it to the side and hangs on to the gunwale, looking wan. I give him a cheery good day and settle myself beside him, making sure I am well to
windward. ‘Magnificent, isn't it, the mighty ocean?'

He shoots me a look filled with loathing and does not reply.

‘The way it runs and lurches like a living creature. Up and down, wave after wave …'

‘Shut up!'

‘And our little ship bobbing upon it like a cork in a bath, tossed and pitched, up and down. We are so tiny, and it is so vast. It's a wonder we survive, any of us.'

He closes his eyes, groans.

‘Seasickness is a bane, is it not? I could give you something for your nausea. I have a case of fine spices and condiments below. Cumin is said to be good, especially when mixed with mutton fat –'

‘Get away from me, you black bastard!' He bends over the rail and vomits a pathetic quantity of bile out into the thrashing tide.

‘Just trying to be helpful,' I say, making a good fist at sounding affronted.

The last three days of the voyage pass without incident. I spend much of my time telling quiet stories to Momo behind the locked door of our small cabin: his favourite is always Ali Baba and his thieves, and he makes me tell it again and again till I am quite sick of it. Our crossing has been blessed by fine weather and fair winds, which are rare for this time of year. I take this as a good omen and am beginning to feel almost sanguine about our venture.

When we sail towards the shadow of distant land my heart grips suddenly in my chest. England! The land of Alys's ancestry, of which Doctor Lewis had spoken so often. He had described the southern parts outside the city as a veritable garden, lush with flowers and greenery cut through by rivers and streams and bosky woods basking beneath a gentle sun, bathed by soft rain. A dream of England has filled my head these many years. I am eager to compare that dream with the reality. But the low-lying, largely featureless coastline along which we sail is uninspiring, its colours muted and dull. We drift past a great bank of shingle over which surf runs in rills, then turn our bow in towards a wide anchorage. The English sailors tell me this is the Downs, below the port-town of Deal. We put in at the dock amid a hundred
or more other vessels of all shapes and sizes – merchantmen, fishing boats, a few larger ships like our own – overlooked by a forbidding fortification bristling with gun emplacements.

The ship is unloaded by a band of raucous dockers, who run away at the sight of the ostriches and have to be whipped back to work by their foremen, a scene that reminds me of Meknes. I watch as Momo's box, which I have cleaned, reprovisioned and secured with a new lock, is put up on to a cart and remember how solemn he was last night when I explained to him that he would have to re-enter his prison. I could see he wanted to cry at the very thought, but was manfully holding back the tears. ‘It is just for a short time. And then we will be in London, and you will be safe.' Such an empty promise: the Lord should have struck me dead.

Sir James Leslie takes ben Hadou and his officers, including myself, to eat at an establishment close to the seafront. The meal begins with an altercation with an innkeeper who negligently offers us salted pig meat and is sent packing by a furious Sir James Leslie, who berates the man for his ignorance. ‘These good gentlemen are Mahometans, fool, and do not eat pork. Go bring them your best venison pasties and be quick about it!'

The innkeeper orders his serving girl to run to the kitchens, and then takes his displeasure out on his pot-boy, whom he treats as if he were his slave, though he wears no slave-bond and is as white as he is. The lad goes about us nervous and round-eyed, bearing a great pitcher with a foaming head, taking in the unfamiliar turbans and brown skins. When he gets to me his eyes get rounder still and he keeps his distance, pouring into my flagon at arm's length, as if he is afraid that although I do not eat pig, I may well eat him. I take a sip and find that the drink is a dark, bitter-tasting stuff. ‘Stop!' ben Hadou cries, having just taken a sip of the liquid himself: ‘If you are a good Muslim, you will take not a drop of this: it is alcohol, and forbidden.'

In response to this, the renegade Hamza downs his flagon with several loud gulps. ‘In this country it is considered ill mannered to turn your nose up at their beer.'

The Tinker gives him a long, flat-lidded stare. ‘You are a turncoat and an apostate: we do not expect the same level of good behaviour from such a
one.' He reminds the rest of the members of the embassy that we are to uphold the best values of Islam while we are in this country: that we are the examples by whom our sultan will be judged by these unenlightened infidels, and we must at all times behave with modesty, moderation and good manners. ‘You will not eat or drink the things that are forbidden by the Qur'an; you will keep a civil tongue, honour the name of Allah and lay no hands, nor even lascivious eyes, on the women.'

Several of the men exchange disappointed glances at this pronouncement.

Two days later we arrive at our destination. Night is falling and it is glacially cold. As we approach the wide River Thames, I can feel the hairs freezing in my nose. There is a brisk north wind blowing, and the grass over which we ride is crisp with frost: it is like being in the High Atlas in winter. We come in to London from the east through the marshes and, when we strike the main highway into the city, are passed by many horse-drawn carriages, the like of which I have never seen. All the Moroccans are staring about them in frank wonder as we pass beneath the archway of the Ald Gate between its two crenellated towers into the city proper. Ben Hadou catches us gawping and declares crisply, ‘The Bab al-Raïs is far superior in its craftsmanship: this gate is very plain and poorly made by comparison.'

We cross the great river over a long bridge lined by tall buildings that narrow the roadway to only ten feet or so, thus herding us all together and making the sounds of our horses' hooves and the rumble of the cartwheels loud in our ears, whilst affording only brief glimpses of the dark ribbon of water to either side. In the middle of the bridge there rises a fantastic structure replete with turrets and cupolas, its intricately carved façade gleaming with gilt. Upon sight of it, ben Hadou declares, ‘This must be the king's palace!'; at which the man riding beside me – a solid fellow in his middle years with as much grey as colour in his hair, who has told me his name is John Armitage, and that he is happy to be home after five years of being stationed in Tangier – guffaws and, raising his voice, explains it is just Nonsuch House, over a hundred years old, and no more than a fancy gatehouse, which effectively silences our ambassador.

The city into which we pass on the northern side of the bridge appears very alien to me, with its wide thoroughfares, and towering stonework grey-white beneath the rising moon: very different to the dark, dank, smoky hell Doctor Lewis had once described to me. And everywhere, this being, I gather, a Sunday and therefore the English holy day, there is the sonorous clang and peal of bells, a sound never to be found in any Muslim city, since Mohammed deemed bells to be the Devil's pipes. In general, London bears little relationship to my past experiences of European cities – Venice or Marseilles, with their winding canals and alleyways and smart merchants' houses; though here and there I catch a glimpse of Florence or Bologna in the porticoes and columns of the great buildings. But after a while it strikes me that there are similarities with our own Meknes here, for a great deal of demolition and building work appears to have been going on. I ask John Armitage the cause of so much activity.

‘There was a fire,' he explains. ‘Fifteen, sixteen years back. It destroyed whole swathes of the city – hundreds of streets and churches, thousands of homes. I remember how it was before, dark and teeming, rank with sewage and rats. They have worked wonders, Mr Wren and Mr Hooke, under his majesty's guidance.'

In comparison with the dark labyrinth of Fez and the busy passages of the Meknes medina, this is a very different world: spacious and unfussy. I find myself wondering what sort of king he must be, who rules over this great modern metropolis. Well, soon, I imagine, I shall find out.

We are quartered in the royal palace of White Hall, an immense maze of a building containing, we are told, nigh on two thousand rooms. While we await the formal reception with the English king, which is to occur the next day, ben Hadou bids us all to keep to our chambers in case we embarrass him by succumbing to foreign temptations or misbehaving ourselves in ignorance of the customs of the court here.

The view from our window is fascinating to Momo: he climbs up beside me on the chair with a compliant Amadou in his arms, and I point out to him the people and animals in the park beyond the Tilt Yard and the horse guards' exercise square. There are lots of people out there parading up and down amidst the pretty trees and flowerbeds, and all manner of beasts wandering the grassy meadow beside the lake – sheep and dogs, cows and goats.

‘Can we go and see them?' Momo pleads.

‘Soon,' I promise, and hope I do not lie.

I wash him using a bowl of fire-warmed water (last night I had foolishly asked a servant whether there was a hammam at the palace I might use, explaining that I wished to bathe, and was stared at in amazement. ‘There is a bath in the queen's chambers, but no other may use it. You might arrange a visit to the Streatham Spa or to Bagnigge Wells, I suppose; and the king in summer swims in the Thames, but …' He faltered, then bobbed his head, made an excuse and went running off down the corridor as if he had encountered a madman). Then I put Momo to bed, tuck the coverings around him and wait till he sleeps. Only then do I take out my leather satchel and check through the contents. Sewn into the lining for safekeeping is the
embroidered scroll made by the White Swan that I was given by little Mamass. Taking my dagger, I slip the point carefully through the stitching and remove it, then turn the roll of fabric over and over in my hands.

The temptation to keep on with my clever dagger and unpick the stitching that sews it closed is high: now that we are safe in London what harm could it do to peep inside? I can feel my fingers itching to cut through those neat silk locks; I am, I reason, a fair hand with a needle myself, and have with me the small repair kit I always carry – I can sew it up again after looking. The lady has, after all, entrusted me with her son: what secrets can there be between us? After long seconds of indecision, I chide myself that if Alys has not seen fit to vouchsafe its contents to me, I must attempt to deliver it unmolested, since the information within is not for my eyes. Others, I am sure, would not be so scrupulous. Now, where to hide it, as much from Amadou's wicked little fingers as from any other threat? I could carry it on my person, but that would mean changing my robe for one bearing a pocket, or tucking it next my skin or inside my shoe, which would seem a churlish and disrespectful way to treat an object destined for the king's hand. At last I slip it back inside the satchel and sew up the lining once more with long, careless stitches. Perhaps it is safest always to carry the bag with me.

To this end, I remove all those items which will weigh it down unnecessarily: spare clothing for Momo, my copy of the suras, a cake of French soap that ben Hadou had kindly given me and that I cannot bring myself to use, it is such a luxury, a spare headcloth, a rolled pair of linen breeches, some leather socks. A little bag of dates and nuts with which to keep Amadou quiet. In the bottom of the satchel, beneath my pouch of money and Momo's little stash of jewels, I come across the scrip of paper Daniel gave to me and look at it long and hard, deciphering the unfamiliar hand. Might I risk the ambassador's wrath by leaving the palace to seek out the man whose name and address are written here? Golden Square, a rich and royal address indeed, which must surely lie close by: how hard could it be? Even so, dread gnaws at me, and I tuck the scrip away again in the bag.