Page 29 of A String of Silver Beads (The Moroccan Empire #1)
Her clothes seem entirely plain, something a slave might be forced to wear, but I have travelled and traded.
I know fine silk when I see it. I also know how hard it is to make any cloth truly black, for the dyes are difficult to come by and it takes a lot of dye to make so much silk so black, like the darkness between the stars when the moon is gone.
Her robes, appearing so austere to the ignorant gaze, are in fact the finest silk that money can buy.
Only a great noblewoman with many riches has the gold coins necessary to have such a silk used for her everyday robes.
Her shoes are likewise slippers of black leather, again without adornment but the stitching of them and the quality of leather tells me in one glance everything I need to know.
When I traded, I would have paid the very highest price for such leather, and counted myself lucky to have found it at all.
I would have struggled to find a good enough craftsman to work it so finely and yet so simply, their only ornament being his skill.
We stand still for a moment, and then slowly, she smiles, and I know at once that the beauty I have seen until now is nothing. Zaynab could have had any man she desires, for when she smiles, she is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
“Sister.”
It is all she says, but in the dripping honey of her lips, I hear the scorpion’s sting quiver a warning.
I take a breath and extend my hands in greeting.
I know a great deal about Zaynab just from looking at her, and I know already that she holds more power in this camp than my husband.
How she has come by that power I am not sure, but I know she has it and that from this moment on my life is in her hands.
“Sister,” I say, and the word is like poison to me.
Zaynab’s smile widens, and she takes my hands in hers. They are smooth but strong, slender and well-made.
“I am so glad you have come,” she says, and I know she is lying. “It is hard being the only noblewoman here. But now I have you by my side, we will be sisters to one another.” She pauses. “Now that I, too, am Yusuf’s wife.”
I want to strike my husband’s name from her wide smiling lips. Instead, I force myself to ask what I so desperately need to know.
“Where is…” I stumble over the word, “ our husband?”
She waves Amalu away without so much as glancing at him.
“Ensure my sister’s belongings are brought safely to her,” she says, “and place her tent close to mine, that we may easily visit one another. Clear those tents away,” she adds, lifting her chin to indicate a group of tents on the other side of the square.
“She shall have that space, so that we may see each other as soon as we rise each day.”
She smiles at me again, a smile of great sweetness which takes no account of the families she has just displaced with that tiny gesture, who had a good position in the camp and will now be relegated to the outskirts, where people go to relieve themselves and the animals are kept.
Amalu hesitates but when he sees that I am silent he does as he is told. I stand before Zaynab in my travel-stained robes and wish that I could sleep and forget all of this, that I could wake to find that all this has been only a djinn tormenting me with evil dreams.
But Zaynab has other plans for me. “Yusuf is in a meeting with his officers. He will join us soon for the feast. We were married earlier but of course his mission must come before his new wife.” Her smile grows broader.
“I am so sorry you did not arrive this morning,” she adds, “for I would have wanted you by my side when I married Yusuf, and to have had your blessing. But I am glad you are here for the feast we will be holding tonight to celebrate the wedding. I will tell my handmaiden Hela to prepare you, for of course you are weary with your long travels.”
I try to object, but within moments she has swept me inside her tent and is calling for her slaves, leaving me alone for a moment.
***
The inside of her tent is like none I have ever seen.
It is very plain, with very few colours.
Almost everything is dark or sand coloured.
No bright dyes enliven the rugs that cover the floor.
Prayer mats are ostentatiously visible in one part of the tent.
There are two great chests in the other part, more suited, I guess, to her apartments in Aghmat than to a tent in the middle of a plain.
They are made of pale plain wood, with simple geometric carvings, and probably contain her clothes and personal possessions.
There are no instruments, no embroidery, no jewels on display.
Like her clothes, everything is of the finest quality, but very plain.
The only exception is her bed.
It is huge and stands in the centre of the tent, drawing the eye to it immediately, for in that cool, dark, plain interior it sparkles and glows like a jewel.
It is bigger than any bed I have ever seen and is made of a dark wood, almost black.
Every part of it that can be seen, even the legs, is carved.
There are fruits and flowers but also the figures of men and women.
I step a little closer and gasp. The figures are entwined with one another, showing acts of love in intricate detail, such that they would bring blushes to the cheeks of any woman and make the heart of any man beat faster.
Covering the bed are soft blankets, some woven so finely that they seem almost transparent.
These are of every colour from darkest red to palest yellow, decorated with silver discs in the manner of our people and with silken cushions to lean on.
It is a bed for sweet pleasures, for whispers and moans, a bed that promises a beautiful and fertile woman’s touch and nights of wild passion.
Any man looking at it would want nothing more than to lie on it and to hold Zaynab in his arms.
I stand alone for a moment in the darkness before the great bed. Then the entranceway is pulled back and Zaynab enters with an older woman, who directs two slave girls to place steaming copper basins of water on the floor to one side. Zaynab turns her smile on me again.
“I know you are tired, sister, and your tent will not be ready for some time. Allow Hela to prepare you for the feast tonight. I have sent a slave to fetch your clothes. I must go and oversee the preparations for the feast, but I will return very soon.” She sweeps from the tent leaving me no time to protest.
The slave girls leave. I hear Adeola’s voice outside and turn towards the entrance, but it seems she has been kept from me. One of Zaynab’s slave girls comes back in with fresh clothes for me and a casket containing my jewellery, then disappears again.
I feel a touch on my shoulder and turn to the older woman.
She has large dark eyes, somewhat hooded.
Her hair is hidden beneath a grey wrap, her clothes are also plain and dark.
She has a stocky frame and her hands are square, nothing like the long, elegant fingers of Zaynab.
I wait for her to address me, expecting her to use some term of respect, but instead she stands very close to me and stretches out one hand, which she lays on my bare forearm.
She does not move her hand, only keeps her eyes fixed on mine.
I shrug my arm away. “You are Zaynab’s handmaiden?” I say, not because I care but to remind her of her place.
“My name is Hela,” she says. Her voice is deeper than most women’s, her speech almost too slow, as though she is speaking from somewhere far away.
“I can look after myself,” I say, unwilling to be stripped naked by this woman who I do not know. “Or my slave Adeola can be sent for.”
She shakes her head. She is already unbuckling my fasteners.
My clothes slip to the floor. Too tired to stop her, I simply stand and allow Hela to undress me and wash me, comb my hair and then begin to dress me again.
When she has finished my jewellery feels so heavy around my arms and neck that I feel I cannot move.
I sit on the great bed, alone and silent, as though stunned by a blow.
I am too late to stop the marriage. My husband, as is his right, has taken another wife.
I am no longer his only jewel, for now his time must be split between Zaynab and I equally, according to the Holy Qur’an.
Tonight, on our first night together after two years, he will not come to my tent, for tonight is Zaynab’s wedding night, and he must favour her.
No man would do otherwise. Tonight, in a strange camp far from my home and family, I am about to attend a marriage feast for my husband and his new wife.
I will sleep alone in my tent while she welcomes him to this bed. I feel drained, unable to move.
Hela offers me tea. I sip it slowly, my shoulders slumped. I feel only a great sadness, a hopelessness I do not know how to rid myself of. Hela squats low in a corner of the tent, her dark eyes fixed on me in a way I find unsettling. I look away from her but am still conscious of being observed.
I am interrupted by Zaynab, who rejoins me in the tent.
I am conscious of how different we look, standing side by side.
I am smaller than her, perhaps ten years younger, dressed in colourful clothes and loaded down with beautiful jewellery.
By rights, I should draw the more favourable glances.
But Zaynab’s beauty, her imposing height and the extreme simplicity of her clothes draws the eye immediately, making me look almost foolish beside her, like a love-struck girl dressing to impress young men rather than the acknowledged wife of a great commander.
I feel uncomfortable in my clothes and make a gesture as though to remove some of my jewellery, but Zaynab puts out her long slim hand to stop me.
“I have a gift for you, sister, a gift of welcome. I had it made for you when I knew that you would soon join us here.”