Page 25 of A String of Silver Beads (The Moroccan Empire #1)

I look around me through a haze of tears.

The garrison camp is now smaller than my own.

A wave of disappointment sweeps over me.

I could have stayed at home. I could have been with Aunt Tizemt, who for all her roars is a kitten underneath.

We could have spent the days together as equals rather than teacher and pupil.

We could have cooked and woven together, sharing recipes and patterns, stories, jokes and gossip.

I could have learnt skills from Tanemghurt, for she was always willing to teach, and understood the healing powers of plants.

I would have been surrounded by my own people, my own kin.

I wonder whether I should take my slaves and head back there now, but it is a long journey, and Yusuf’s men have been ordered to protect me here.

My mind offers up ever darker thoughts for me to consider. What if Yusuf is already tired of me and has chosen in his kindness not to humiliate me by divorcing me but simply to hide me away here?

As my spirits drop, I feel a warm, calloused hand on my shoulder. Ekon is standing behind me, with Adeola at his side.

“We are here,” he says, and my tears fall at his kindness.

When Yusuf first left, I hoped that he had left my womb filled again, for I know that he wants a son, and I also wish for a child of his; a part of him to keep by me until we can meet again.

I have happy moments when I imagine him sending for me, and my longed-for arrival carrying his own son.

I close my eyes and see his smile and his surprise, imagine our loving joy at being together again and our pride in the first of our many children.

I want a child that he can love and raise, who will take his name and follow in his footsteps.

But the moon grows bright and then dark, and I must resign myself to my fate – I will not be a mother until I see Yusuf again.

There are two women in the camp whose bellies swell as the months pass by and I watch them with a fascinated envy.

***

Time passes quickly when every day is the same.

Sometimes I cannot believe how long it has been since I last saw Yusuf.

At first, I am certain I will be sent for at any moment, but as the months pass my excitement becomes dull acceptance.

It takes time but slowly we begin to settle into a daily routine.

I take the opportunity to practice new styles of weaving from Adeola, which I enjoy.

I share my own designs with her. We cook together and she learns from me as I do from her.

Sometimes the other wives and slave women join us, and we make enough to feed all the camp, we eat together and have some sense of kinship, for we are all bound to this place until we are told otherwise.

Here there is much easier access to water than at my own camp.

When the rains come, we even go into the rocky outcrops at the foot of the mountains and bath in the ice-cold water that falls over the rocks.

It sweeps away the dirt and leaves us gasping with cold but our hearts racing with life.

There are a few tiny villages close to us, but they regard the camp with fear, having seen the size of the army that set out from here.

They avoid us where possible, only occasionally trading with us, knowing we will buy what spare food they can grow.

***

The first news we hear about the army is that they have crossed the High Atlas.

We hear little more than this, but I know that it will have been hard.

So many men, so many animals, difficult and rocky roads in the mountains, the planning of battles yet to come whilst perhaps being attacked by local tribes who oppose their plans.

It is a long time before we hear of their progress again. I have nights when I toss and turn as though tormented by a thousand djinns. I know that unless they have some decisive victories and secure cities of importance, they will struggle and may well be wiped out.

I pray often and when I do my very heart is in my words and thoughts as I long to hear more news and to hear that Yusuf is safe.

My days are mostly passed weaving, for I am skilled at this now and my work will one day adorn a new home.

I sew tiny disks of silver onto my work and watch it glitter in the sunlight.

When I am not weaving, I talk with Adeola, or we sometimes play games together such as chess, moving our carved pieces across the board even as the army must be moving onwards.

One baby and then another is born and although I hold them and exclaim over their soft hair and tiny hands, although I gift blankets to their mothers that I have woven myself, I cannot help but wish that I, too, had a child.

At last, we hear that they have captured Taroundannt in the south and, having left good men to hold it, are now heading north, towards the rich merchant city of Aghmat.

That city’s wealth could provide them with the riches they will need to feed so many men and animals and send a message to all that these are not men to be trifled with.

But the last time the Almoravid army attempted this it failed and was wiped out.

We will not be sent for until Yusuf is certain he has a secure stronghold.

Reluctantly, the men begin to make simple stone houses to protect us come the winter, for we cannot be sure that we will be sent for before then and here, so close to the mountains, the weather will be harsh.

I sit with Adeola. All my thoughts are on Aghmat and the army slowly approaching it. I can talk of nothing else, even when I try my words return to the same place.

“It is a trading city. I was there in the old days with my brothers and father. It is a city full of rich merchants and they will not wish to see it taken and sacked, all their profits going to some conquering army on a holy mission. They will pay for mercenaries to fight them if they think it will save their livelihoods.”

She keeps her silence and lets me talk, nodding from time to time but not seeking to ally my fears, for she knows they are real.

I think back to the gossip I heard in my trading days as we passed through that city.

“The Amir of Aghmat is Luqut al-Maghrawi. He is a great fighter and the richest man in all Aghmat, which must make him one of the richest men in all the land. His queen is a woman called Zaynab, daughter of a merchant from Kairouan. They say there is none so beautiful. She told Luqut he would be a very great man, for it was foretold that she would marry the man who would rule all the Maghreb.” My voice trails off as I consider the implications of this prophecy.

If the prophecy is true and Zaynab is married to the Amir of Aghmat, then he would be the man to rule all the country.

Adeola sees where my thoughts were taking me and interrupts them. “Not everyone sees truly,” she says gently. “Many prophecies are not understood. We cannot know our fates until they are revealed.”

I bow my head but cannot control myself. “They say she is a sorceress! She could use magic against them in some way, to protect her own city and her husband the Amir!”

Adeola shakes her head and leaves me to my own turbulent and dark imaginings, which torment me by day and leave me sleepless at night.

As time goes by, I grow to know every constellation of stars as though they were the creases of my own hand.

I spend many nights wrapped in blankets sitting outside my tent at night when the camp is asleep, gazing upwards and praying for the army’s success and Yusuf’s safety.

***

When the news comes, I am jubilant, but we are all shocked at the magnitude of their success.

Aghmat lies in ruins. The city has been taken and summarily sacked; all its riches plundered to support the holy army which has swept across it like the wrath of Allah and left it in tatters.

A once rich city now humbled. The Amir is dead, his beautiful queen Zaynab has been taken in marriage by Abu Bakr.

I try but cannot image the sturdy, earthy and friendly old Abu Bakr married to a beautiful young sorceress.

The decision has been taken to leave Aghmat in its ruined state and found a new city, which will be the base for the army as they carry out their holy war throughout the rest of the country and beyond.

Abu Bakr has chosen a place, a little more to the North of Aghmat, close to the Wadi Tensift, providing them with ample water resources close by.

Many men and animals will need a lot of water, and the thick snows of the Atlas Mountains will provide the foundling city with water forever.

Now the army will set up camp, a rough garrison, while the men regroup, and their leaders make new plans.

Abu Bakr will take his new wife with him, forcing her to leave the comforts of her luxurious palace to live in a tent amongst soldiers and beasts.

I wonder about her. How must she feel now? Her husband and king is dead; she is now little better than a captured slave, to be taken to the bed of the Commander of a conquering army. She will have to lie in the arms of the man who has killed her husband. I feel sorry for her.

“No need to feel sorry for Queen Zaynab,” says the man who brings us more news not long after. “She is a witch, that woman. Beautiful, but dangerous. They say she talks with djinns and can see visions.”

“But still,” I protest. “Her husband has been killed, and she is taken as a wife by the man who killed him. She has lost her love, her power…”

He laughs. “Queen Zaynab lost no time in making herself agreeable, I can assure you. She claimed that the prophecy that she would marry the man who would rule all the country is coming true at last, that Abu Bakr is the man foretold, that she was meant for him from the very beginning, no matter that she was married to Luqut and another before him. She offered him all her wealth to aid his holy war.”