Page 15 of A String of Silver Beads (The Moroccan Empire #1)

I stand, legs shaking. I sway for a moment and then walk slowly towards my tent.

They are leaving. The excitement that has surrounded their visit will go, everything will return to how it was: the daily monotony of rolling couscous, spinning, weaving and whatever other tasks and skills Aunt Tizemt can conjure up.

I can hardly bear the thought of it. While Yusuf and his army will travel across the whole of the Maghreb, creating new cities and forging a new empire, I will stay here forever, eventually married to a man who will expect me to be happy caring for his children and no more. My eyes well up at the idea.

“Kella?”

Amalu is standing outside the tent.

“Go away,” I say sharply.

“What is wrong?”

I face him. “Will you take me on the trade routes with you?”

“What?”

“Answer me.”

He frowns. “Kella –”

I push past him, closing the tent flaps behind me.

“Kella!” calls Amalu outside.

“Leave me be!” I shout back. I fall on the bed fully clothed and lie still and silent, unable to cry or move.

I am listless the next day. Aunt Tizemt chides me several times for foolish mistakes. I burn the milk porridge and refuse point-blank to serve the men, leaving the task to my aunt while I sit carding and spinning wool. She is appalled at the poor quality of my spinning.

“Anyone looking at that would think it was the first day that you had picked up a tuft of wool! What sort of poor rug will that make?” She tuts and walks away, muttering about young girls and their flighty, sulky ways.

I pay no attention to her comments. Yusuf has just walked past me.

I leave my spinning to one side and follow him.

He walks a little way outside the camp and then kneels to say his prayers.

From behind one of the outer tents, I catch a glimpse of his face as he lifts it up to the heavens.

His expression is not fierce nor solemn, but calm and full of trust in God.

As he prostrates himself his body is graceful and pliant, not sternly upright as he holds himself the rest of the time.

He seems at ease with Allah – he offers his prayers as a small child might offer a humble gift to a loving parent, confident in a kindly response.

It is a different side to him. I thought Amalu might relent and take me with him when he becomes a trader, if I married him, but he has refused more than once.

Now my thoughts turn towards Yusuf. I wonder if I could marry such a man, if he would have me.

If I married him, I think, I could travel with him, however dangerous the journey or the battles I would not be afraid.

I would be in the army’s camp and taste freedom again.

Would my father give permission for such a marriage?

How could I draw Yusuf’s attention to me as a possible bride?

But he is engaged in a holy war, he is hardly about to stop and get married while his army amasses.

I duck out of sight as he stands and return to the darkness of my aunt’s tent, where I fling myself down on the bed and weep in rage and despair.

After a while, when my cushions are wet with tears, I turn onto my back and stare up at the ceiling.

As I do so my hair, which has tumbled out of my headdress, catches in something that has been under my head while I wept.

I had not felt it then, for it was only small and my feelings are too overwhelming.

But now this thing, whatever it is, is tangled up in my locks of hair.

With some mutterings under my breath and much fumbling, I eventually untangle it and sit up to look at it.

I drop it immediately and must bend to pick it up from the rugs on the floor. I hold it up again. It is a very simple necklace, alternating tiny black beads with beads in the form of hollow silver tubes. At regular intervals there dangle small silver triangles, each with delicate engravings.

My first instinct was correct. It is a chachat , an engagement necklace.

I let it drop into my lap and then fall back on the bed, the tears slowly coming again.

A chachat . It is from Amalu, of course.

He must have sneaked into the tent when no-one was looking and laid it here on my bed so that I would find it.

He asked me to be his bride, and I never answered him, what with the excitement of my father returning and then all the preparations for the last few days, attending to our unexpected guests.

Despite my snapping at him he smiled at me more than once and gestured helplessly at all the work we are all burdened with.

There has been no time to talk. But now our guests are about to leave, and the camp will grow quiet.

Amalu must think the time is right to broach the subject again.

I sigh heavily and roll onto my side, one arm lifted to dangle the chachat in front of me.

It is pretty. Amalu is a good man. He is friendly, caring and my own age.

He will not let me trade alongside him, but there is no man who will let me do that.

Why am I foolishly supposing that I might find one?

Certainly, pinning my hopes on an older man who may well be about to get killed is even more foolish than begging Amalu to take me trading.

Slowly I sit up and move my hair to one side, then fasten the necklace round my neck. Amalu is a good match for me. My family will be happy. I will go and find him and tell him.

***

But Amalu is nowhere to be found. Keeping the necklace hidden until I can speak with him, I walk all over the camp but cannot see him anywhere.

Meanwhile Abu Bakr’s men are amassing, ready to leave.

I steadfastly ignore them, turning away from the crowd of men, horses and camels, saddles being lifted into place and harnesses tightened.

There are perhaps one hundred men in all.

My chance to leave has gone. Yusuf would have to stay in the camp a great deal longer if I were to somehow woo him.

Not that I have any idea how to do such a thing and anyway, he is devoted to his mission. He is not interested in a woman.

Not a woman.

I run.

My two youngest brothers are nowhere to be seen. No doubt they are bidding farewell to the soldiers. I know they have asked my father more than once if they may join the army, but he has refused. He needs their skills on the trade routes, and he is afraid for their safety. Their tent is empty.

I do not waste time by undressing. I take one of my brother’s blue robes and pull it on as quickly as possible.

My hair wrap must come off, for it is too bulky to hide beneath a face veil.

I hide it in a large chest. I fasten a belt, take a dagger and my youngest brother’s sword, pull at my veil to be certain that my face cannot be seen.

If Yusuf bin Tashfin is not interested in taking a wife, then I will join his army.

Many young men of our camp and others of our tribe have joined him in the past few days. I will not be noticed.

Thiyya watches me as I saddle one of our sand-coloured camels.

“I am sorry,” I tell her. “You are too noticeable. My father will take one look and know who is riding you.”

She huffs and turns her face away when I try to stroke her, insulted.

“I will send for you one day,” I tell her, a lump in my throat. “I cannot stay here.”

I join the crowd of men and make sure to keep my distance from my father and brothers, whom I can see a little way off.

Instead, I mount the camel and join those who are ready to depart.

I watch as Abu Bakr and Yusuf bid farewell to my father and other important men and bless the people of the camp for their help and support.

Once they mount their horses the signal to move comes quickly.

I make sure to be away from the officers, taking up a position within the crowd where I will ride side by side with the men who accompanied Yusuf here and will not know the young men of my camp.

I do not speak to those around me and look only ahead, my veil tight around my eyes, my heart hammering in my chest.

We travel through the night to avoid the heat of the day and as the moon rises my heartbeats slow a little.

We are moving ever further from the camp.

It is many days’ journey to the main army encampment and once we arrive there will be many hundreds, even thousands, of men, making it far easier to take my place among them unnoticed.

For now, I must only stay quiet and be noticed as little as possible.

We will travel by night, sleep by day, thus aiding my disguise.

I am a little afraid of what will happen when I am expected to train to fight and then join an army.

But the thrill of being on a camel again, riding freely towards adventure is too great a pull.

With every pace away from the camp my spirits rise.

Beneath my veil my mouth is stretched in a grin.

There are no tents. The men wrap themselves in blankets and sleep on the sand under some scraggly trees, hoping to benefit from a little shade when the sun rises.

My blanket smells of my brothers and suddenly I am afraid.

I should have left them a message so that they know I am safe, for they will be searching for me if I am not seen tomorrow morning at the very latest. They may even have spotted my absence in the evening.

How keen-eyed will my brothers be, how quickly will my father see what has been taken and understand what I have done?

They will come after me for sure. But I am too tired.

The dawn will be here soon, and I must sleep; it will be harder to do so once the sun rises and we will ride on come the cool of the early evening.

***

I wake with a start as the man near me pokes me with his foot.