Page 32 of A String of Silver Beads (The Moroccan Empire #1)

In the morning, he is gone, and I lie alone in the cold air of early dawn. The call to prayer goes out but I lie still, unmoving or heeding. My God has shown me no mercy, I cannot shape my mouth to praise His name.

I am bruised inside and out. There are shadows on every part of me, growing darker as the day grows lighter.

My thighs ache and my innermost parts are torn and bleeding.

Strands of my hair lie on the bed and my scalp hurts where they have been pulled out in a frenzy.

My bed is in disarray, and I lie half uncovered, too shaken to warm myself, too hurt to move, too ashamed to call for Adeola.

She comes without my calling, her small dark hands reaching out to my body before drawing back in fear.

She stands still for a moment and when she sees me look away and slow tears begin to trickle down my face she calls out to Ekon in her own tongue, commanding him to do many things.

I can hear him outside, bringing water, lighting the fire and making it blaze to heat the water, a pause and then his return from milking, the milk being heated with honey and herbs all to her instructions.

Occasionally he calls out a question and she answers, supplying him with further instructions or his large hand will appear through the flaps holding something she has asked for and she will take it swiftly and ask him for other things and the flaps close again, his hand disappearing at her behest.

I lie still while she strips the bed and brings warm water, washes me and bandages me where she can.

I wince as she rubs soothing salves on my bruises and scratches.

I groan when she makes me get up and stand for a moment so that she can make up my bed with clean sheets and soft blankets.

She moves quickly, and I sink back onto my bed and feel her strong arms lift my head and shoulders and place me back down gently onto the cushions, which cradle me.

All the while, when she is not calling to Ekon, she sings to me, little snatches of half-finished songs made for children.

Her gentle soothing kindness makes my tears fall faster.

She wipes them away and then brings the warm milk, sweetened with honey and spices, soft breads and little pieces of tender meat.

I do not want to eat, but she treats me like a child and like a child I obey and eat some mouthfuls until she is satisfied.

After that she brings the drink that makes me sleep, and I grasp the cup with both hands and drink eagerly, for I want to fall into darkness and escape those hours of the night that I have just endured.

***

After that night I no longer pray for Yusuf to join me.

My bruises slowly fade, and I am still afraid.

The gentleness I had known from our early days of marriage was there at first, but something in the drink Zaynab brought changed him.

His desire was insatiable, a raging fire within him that sought ever more extreme ways of being quenched.

My body was sorely tested by that one night, I do not think I can bear such treatment again.

Now I know why he visits Zaynab’s tent and never comes to mine.

Every night he is given that drink and spends the hours of darkness with her.

He is a strong man, or his body could not bear the strain and so Zaynab binds him to her, for she seems to have the strength to hold his fire in her hands and quench it.

Whether she is burnt by it herself I do not know or care.

She has stolen my husband, taken his tenderness and kindness and turned a gentle beast into a roaring lion that can be tamed only by those foolish enough to risk their lives.

I am too cowardly to risk mine, or my child’s.

That one night has brought life in my belly but another night like it might well take it away again.

So I turn inwards, stay out of sight, and Yusuf goes to Zaynab while life grows inside me.

I know that when I tell him he will be gentle with me, but I also know that if he is offered that drink again within my own tent, I must find some way to avoid him drinking it.

***

Time passes and yet I do not share my secret, for I want my baby to be strong within me before Zaynab knows of it, for I know she will be angry. If I give Yusuf a child when she has not yet done so I will be favoured, and I can see that Zaynab is not a woman who will accept such a state of affairs.

But Zaynab’s eyes are everywhere. She sees everything, she hears everything. She sees the day when I emerge from my tent in the morning and sway before Adeola grasps my elbow and takes me back inside. She hears when I retch. It takes only those two signs and Zaynab comes to see me.

“Sister!” she cries, entering my tent unasked and unwelcomed. “I have barely seen you these past weeks. You are not unwell? The camp life here is very harsh for a woman of refinement.”

I want to laugh. I, refined? I lived as a boy for sixteen years, traded all over the country, have always lived in a tent.

It is she who has lived her life before here as a queen of a rich merchant city, being pampered and perfumed, with many slaves and servants to do her bidding.

I say nothing, but Zaynab knows what she is about.

“I have decided to give you my own handmaiden Hela and take away those two you have, for evidently they are not taking good enough care of you,” she goes on happily. “My own servants are well trained and will make your life here so much more comfortable.”

I sit up. “I would prefer to keep my own,” I say, barely remembering to be polite in how I address her. “They are very loyal, and they have taken the greatest care of me.”

Zaynab waves her hand dismissively. “They are quite young,” she says.

“Slaves improve with good training, and I have trained many slaves. I have already brought you Hela and two slaves whom she will command. I have sent yours to my tent. I do this for your benefit, sister,” she adds kindly, taking my hands in hers.

I am trapped. Zaynab has completed the change without even allowing me to say goodbye to Adeola and Ekon, whose loyalty and kindness to me will now be rewarded with Zaynab’s no doubt harsh training.

I begin to weep, for I cannot see how my situation will ever improve.

It seems to me that I am at this woman’s mercy, alone and friendless.

Zaynab is not at all distressed by my tears. She sits and holds my hands gently and then calls for Hela.

She enters bringing a hot broth with small pieces of good lamb in it.

She hands this to Zaynab, who holds it to my lips in a kindly manner.

I taste it and it is good, if a little strong with parsley.

I can taste nothing in it that might do me harm, so I drink it and eat the pieces of lamb under Zaynab’s watchful gaze, then sit alone as she departs, all my fighting spirit gone.

She leaves me with Hela and two additional slaves.

One is a scrawny girl whom I soon discover is mute.

The other is a male slave, who has a permanent cough.

He is strong enough but lazy and insolent.

All three of them watch me whenever they are near, and I have no doubt that they are spying on me for Zaynab.

Hela cooks all my meals. Her food is good but always heavy with parsley. Despite my reprimands, she continues to add that herb to everything I eat in copious quantities.

***

I dislike Hela. Her face seems to have no expression to it, she watches me with her large dark eyes in a way I find disconcerting.

“What are you thinking?” I ask her one day, when she has stared at me too long, even for her.

“Whether you are happy,” she says.

“I would have thought everyone knows I am not,” I say, not bothering to lie.

“You could divorce Yusuf,” she says, as though suggesting I might take a stroll around the camp.

“Divorce him?” I repeat in horror.

“You will never be happy here,” she says.

“How dare you speak to me like that?” I ask her. “You are only a handmaiden.”

She says nothing but she does not drop her gaze, nor apologise.

I try to go about my work and ignore her but at last I turn back to her. If this is a time for honesty, then I will have honesty. “Why would you suggest I divorce my husband?” I ask.

“Some women can live with another wife,” she says. “Zaynab cannot.”

“Why?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Too long a story,” she says.

“Tell me it,” I challenge her, but she only shakes her head again.

“It would not help you,” she says. “You would be better off divorced.”

“I have no intention of divorcing Yusuf,” I tell her, but I am shaking.

***

I wake in pain. At first, half asleep, I think I have a bellyache, but then a horrible fear steals through me.

I put a hand on my belly and feel a cramp run through it, just as wetness trickles over my thighs and I know without doubt that if there had been a child in my womb, there is a child no longer.

I lie still, not through any vain hope that I might save my baby by so doing, but out of a great numbness.

This is the second child I have lost. Perhaps I am barren.

Perhaps I have not been granted my mother’s fertile womb.

Without a child I can never again hope for Yusuf’s tenderness, for Zaynab will always be on hand to make him take that drink to unleash his drugged lust on me.

No doubt, no matter how rough he is, eventually Zaynab will have a child in her womb.

Then I will be a barren and unloved wife, useless and fit only to be set aside.

I lie still until dawn, as the cramps eat at my belly and the blood flows down my thighs.

When I do not come out, Hela comes in and when she sees what is wrong, she brings washing water and clean blankets and clothes.

I let her wash and dress me, give me rags to staunch the flow, remake the bed.

Then I lie down and ask for food, for I feel weak.

She brings me a good stew of lamb with apricots. For once there is no parsley in it. I say as much.

She frowns and turns away. “No need for that now,” she says.

***

I turn her words over in my mind as I doze through much of that day, feeling the blood that should have been a child trickling out of me.

When the cool of evening comes, I leave my tent and walk through the camp, my plain robes and covered head shielding me from passers-by.

I head to the outskirts of the camp, where there is a stall, which I have seen before, selling fresh herbs.

It belongs to a Christian slave woman who grows many herbs in a small field near the camp, working the soil alone and carrying water to the plants each day.

Everyone in the camp uses her mint for tea and her other fresh herbs for cooking.

They say she knows all the properties of plants and that many can be used for healing as well as food.

She is of normal height but stands a little twisted and limps when she walks.

She is older than Zaynab, I suppose, although it is hard to tell.

Her face is scarred. Her skin is fair compared to mine, but her thick dark hair and deep brown eyes make her seem one of us, although I have heard that she comes from Al-Andalus, the land north of our own across the sea.

Her hair is tucked back oddly in a white cloth, not wrapped high up like our own, but perhaps that is how it is worn in her country.

She speaks our tongue well enough, but with an accent.

I ask her for parsley. She takes up a large bunch.

I shake my head. “More.”

She adds another bunch and then another before I nod.

A shadow falls over her face and she indicates the huge bunch I am now holding, ignoring my hand outstretched with payment. Her voice is clear although her accent is heavy. “Do not eat too much.”

I raise my eyebrows as my heart begins to thud. “Why not?” I ask, waiting for her to say what I know already, what I knew as soon as Hela spoke and yet what I cannot bear to believe until I am told it to my face.

“Parsley can take away life from within the womb,” she says simply.

I leave her standing at her stall, watching me as I walk away, the vivid green leaves fallen from my hand to be trampled into the dust by passers-by.