Sultan's Wife (50 page)

We enter Meknes a week later, and find the palace and grounds in their usual disarray; indeed we get lost on our way to the imperial quarters, since a number of pavilions and courtyards have been demolished and rebuilt elsewhere to make way for a new set of barracks. After sending word of our return, we receive the message that the sultan will see us later, but is currently drilling the troops. Ben Hadou raises an eyebrow. ‘So, Nus-Nus, it seems we will have a few hours' grace before we make our report.' He looks me in the eye. ‘You have been an excellent deputy during this embassy: I shall be sure to make that clear to the emperor.' He holds my regard for a long moment, and in his expression I read a certain nervousness.

‘Be assured I shall speak of nothing that might reflect badly on our visit.'

He grins and claps me on the back, then walks quickly away. And at last I am free to visit the harem, on the pretext of an appointment with Zidana, to present to her a flask of the precious elixir she ordered from England. The harem quarters alone seem entirely unchanged, as if hardly a day has passed since I was last here, and I am assailed by a sudden terror that I will round a corner and find Alys in her courtyard, with Momo playing at her feet. But, though I scrutinize every pavilion and garden I pass, there is no sign of her, and after a while a cold dread begins to seize me.

I do find Zidana, however. She looks me up and down. ‘London agrees with you, Nus-Nus. I have never seen you looking so well.'

I cannot say the same for the empress. These seven months have not been kind to her: there are shadows beneath her eyes, the whites of which are yellowed and bloodshot, and she moves more slowly than she used to, the skull-headed staff appearing more of a necessity now than an adornment. She takes the flask of Primum Ens Melissae and sniffs it suspiciously. ‘All I can smell is lemon balm and alcohol,' she accuses.

‘The alchemist who perfected the recipe makes considerable claims for its efficacy.' I proceed to reiterate all that Nathaniel and Elias have told me of the stuff.

‘Makarim!' The maid slinks into view a moment later, looking curiously between me and her mistress. ‘Take some of this,' Zidana orders the girl, holding out the flask. Makarim goes pale. As well she might, knowing the sort of medicines that the empress usually dispenses. Her hand is shaking as she pours a measure of the golden fluid, and, though she hesitates, at last gulps it down, no doubt reasoning that the mere possibility of poisoning is a better prospect than having her head caved in by the staff. Zidana watches her swallow, her black eyes reduced to slits in the folds of her face. Of course, nothing happens, immediately or outwardly.

‘Did you take me for such a fool I would accept the first charlatan's potion you chanced upon? I should have your head for this, eunuch! And perhaps I shall. Now give me back the gold and jewels I vouchsafed to you as payment for my elixir and I will let you live. At least for another day.'

Ah. After an awkward pause, I promise I will return them to her the next day, though of course they are long spent.

‘Now!' she screeches.

‘I am afraid our baggage has yet to be unpacked from the mule-train,' I hazard, trying desperately to buy some time.

She whacks me with the staff, but luckily there is little strength behind the blow. ‘Do you think I am as much of an idiot as you? Who would leave gold and jewels behind in the mule-train? Go and fetch them at once! Makarim will go with you. If you are not back here by noon, I shall send the guards for you.'

We are both subdued, Makarim and I, as we leave by the iron gate and walk along palace corridors. I wonder briefly whether ben Hadou might lend me the money to pay Zidana; then decide that he probably would not. Who, then? My mind is a perfect blank. At last the silence is broken by Makarim, who asks, her face full of dread, ‘What is in the potion? Will I die?'

‘I expect so,' I say gravely.

She stops and stares at me, round-eyed. ‘It was poison?'

I almost laugh aloud at her terror. Let her think just that, I think, remembering her malicious plotting, the hurt she did Alys. I say nothing.

Makarim hugs herself and shivers. ‘There has been so much death already these past months.' Her face twists and tears fill her eyes. ‘Oh, I don't want to die …'

‘So much death?' A cold hand grips deep inside my chest. ‘What do you mean?'

‘The bloody flux: it has carried off so many.'

‘Alys?' My voice is so hoarse I can hardly get the word out.

She gives me a slit-eyed look, then nods. ‘Oh yes, she was one of the first.'

I go hot then cold and start to shake as if gripped by a fever. The blood beats so loudly in my ears I do not catch the rest of her sentence, but stagger back against the wall and slide down it, till I find myself sitting on the ground.

Makarim watches me curiously. ‘Are you unwell, Nus-Nus?' A small smile flickers across her lips: despite the possibility that death has spread his wings over her, she is enjoying this.

I have no words, just look at her dumbly, frozen to the spot despite the intense heat of the day. It seems there is nothing to be said; nothing to be done. Zidana will take my head, and it will not matter one whit. I have played my part. I have got Momo away to a new life, out of the perilous toils of this place. I bow my head.

You would think that nothing could impinge upon my hopelessness, but I cannot help but notice a trail of ants winding their way across the corridor, from a crack between the intricate zellij tiles on towards the distant courtyard, each bearing a grain of rice or a crumb of bread. I watch them marching on, tiny creatures carrying on their little lives despite being dwarfed by the monumental architecture of a mad sultan's dream. I watch them in a sort of trance, from which I am abruptly interrupted.

‘Nus-Nus: you have to come with me!'

It is Abid, the sultan's body-slave.

‘I have been looking everywhere for you,' he puffs, out of breath.

‘He cannot go anywhere,' Makarim pronounces, glaring at the boy. ‘He is on the business of the empress.'

Abid glares back. ‘Moulay Ismail demands his presence at once in the assembly rooms.'

And that is that: even Zidana dare not gainsay the emperor. Makarim pulls at my sleeve as I drag myself to my feet. ‘Was it poison? Tell me truly.'

I stare at her dumbly. Then I shake my head. ‘Quite the opposite.'

‘I will live?'

‘I am sure you will outlive us all.'

Restored, she at once recalls her task. ‘Quickly, then, give me the money now and I will take it back to Zidana and save both our skins.'

I stare at her as if she is mouthing gibberish. ‘I have no money. No jewels. I have nothing. If she must have my head as payment, then so be it. What do I care? You can go back and tell your mistress that.' Then I follow Abid down the corridor to my cabinet to collect my notes, and then on towards the assembly rooms.

A great group of ministers and qadis has been convened, including a new vizier: a spare, pockmarked man with an obsequious manner, he wears a
plain robe and no jewels, and appears to be Abdelaziz's opposite in every visible fashion. The sultan is seated in state, two servants wafting cool air over him with huge ostrich-feather fans. If he recognizes me when I rise from my prostration, he makes no sign of it: his eyes slide across me without interest. At his feet sits Aziz, reed pen poised over the paper on his lap-desk to take note of the proceedings. Ben Hadou enters a moment later and, having given my notes a cursory glance, launches into a very full account of our time in London. The first business of the day is of course the treaty; but Ismail waves an irritated hand at the ambassador as he begins to outline the terms agreed. ‘Circumstances have changed since you left to negotiate this matter, in case you had not heard. We have expelled the infidel from Mamora, so now we have another port at our command. The Spanish left behind some excellent cannon, so with those and the English guns you have brought back, as well as the excellent muskets and powder the English king has gifted us, I think we are in a somewhat stronger position to renegotiate terms. I shall insist King Charles sends me another ambassador.' And he rubs his hands in some glee at the prospect.

The dismay on ben Hadou's face would have been comical, had I the heart to find it so. Instead I watch without interest as he bows his head and rolls up my copious notes into a tight scroll, his movements suggesting he would like to tear them into pieces and throw them in his sovereign's face. But he is much too careful a man for such a gesture, the Tinker. When he raises his head again his expression is bland. He answers the sultan's questions about court life – about the king, his palace and estates – concisely, always careful to play down their magnificence. White Hall, he tells Ismail, is a labyrinth of passageways full of moth-eaten wall-hangings, spiders and their webs, linking great empty chambers in which Charles's meagre courtiers rattle around like seeds in a gourd. ‘Parts of the palace date back many centuries and newer sections have been added on over the years in an arbitrary fashion. It lacks the grandeur and epic proportions of your own great achievement here, your sublime majesty.'

Ismail is gratified to hear this: he leans forward. ‘And what of his wives?'

‘Under Christian law, sire, he may take only one, and Queen Catherine
is a mousy creature, with teeth like a buck rabbit's. Unlike a rabbit, unfortunately, she has failed to breed.'

‘Then who will succeed him? He is well over fifty now: he should be wasting no time in putting the Portuguese infanta aside and getting himself an heir on another!'

As ben Hadou explains the great difficulties surrounding the English succession, my attention wanders back to the White Swan. I wonder whether she was alone when she died, whether anyone could have saved her; whether Zidana helped her on her way. I wonder when, exactly, it happened. Was it when I was availing myself of a glass of good French wine at the Duchess of Portsmouth's table? Or perhaps when I walked in the rose garden about a month ago, and dreamed of sitting there with Alys, breathing in the fragrance of the flowers in the gentle English sun? Maybe she died of a broken heart not long after I took Momo away with me.

I torture myself with these thoughts, every so often catching a phrase here or there of ben Hadou's descriptions of the English court. Now, they are discussing the women …

‘Are they all as pale as the White Swan was?' the emperor asks with interest, and my heart clenches tight.

‘For the most part they are a dull lot,' the Tinker opines, ‘brown of hair and covered in paint and patches to cover their pox scars.'

This pleases the emperor mightily and he prompts his ambassador for more and more detail on the subject, especially of the king's mistresses.

‘You should ask Nus-Nus about those,' a voice says nastily. ‘He spent a great deal of time with the English king's whores.' My head shoots up. I turn to find Samir Rafik watching me, his lips curved into a scornful smile. ‘You see how he mourns them?'

The emperor is sitting forward on his divan, regarding me with a curious expression. ‘Nus-Nus, come here.'

I take a step forward, another.

‘Kneel.'

I do so, and Ismail reaches out a hand and touches my face. ‘You are weeping?'

I am? My hand rises to my cheek and comes away wet.

‘Why do you weep?'

I find I cannot answer.

‘Perhaps he weeps in shame!' Rafik says into the silence. ‘He and the Kaid ben Hadou took English concubines while we were in London, and when the Kaid Sharif and I complained at their debauchery, they sent us off into the countryside on some wild goose chase that would keep us out of their way while they carried on defiling the good name of Islam, of Morocco and of your sublime majesty's embassy.' And now he takes from beneath his robe a great scroll that he unrolls and proceeds to read, a long list of precise notes detailing every instance in which any member of the embassy has strayed from the straight path, and much invention besides, reserving always the worst lapses for his enemies: myself and ben Hadou.

Ismail's face has darkened ominously, but I find I simply do not care: and anyway most of the charges are plainly absurd. A wild peal of laughter escapes me, enraging the sultan still further. ‘You laugh?' he roars; and that just makes me laugh more. I can see ben Hadou gazing at me aghast: if it is not bad enough that Samir Rafik has made his desperate gambit before we even get to the chancy matter of the long-dead printer and what little is left of his bony old head, which he knows will not satisfy our bloodthirsty sultan, now his deputy has gone quite mad. He gives me an urgent stare, as if he can will me back to rationality, but it's too late for that now.

The sultan is on his feet. ‘Sharif!' he yells, and the kaid practically crawls forward. Ismail kicks him upright. ‘Is it true?' he screams. ‘Have these men brought shame on their religion, their country and on
ME?'

Sharif looks despairingly from the Tinker to me and back again, at a loss as to what to say that will not make matters worse. I become aware of the assembled ministers' rapt attention: they are like hyenas, waiting nervously for the lions to finish their business before nipping in for the scraps. Because as long as it's someone else's blood that is spilled, that means they're safe – for the time being.

Ismail thrusts his face into Sharif's. ‘Did they cut out your tongue in London?'

‘N-no, sublime majesty,' he stutters.

‘Well, answer the question, then. Did these men consort with women and betray the faith I placed in them?'

‘S-sire, your s-servant Nus-Nus is … is … a eunuch.'

Ismail regards him as if he is a cockroach. One that he is about to stamp on. Then he begins to wrestle his dagger out of its sheath, and the thing gets caught in his sash, which sends him into apoplexy. ‘I will kill you all, every one of you!' He gets the blade free at last, puts it to Sharif's scrawny throat. ‘Now tell me the truth!' Spittle flies, showering the kaid's upturned face.