Page 44 of A String of Silver Beads (The Moroccan Empire #1)

I brush the dirt off my hands and step close to him. “I made a mistake a long time ago,” I say. “I mistook freedom for love.” Fumbling in my robe I pull out a tiny necklace, black and silver beads intertwined, tiny dangling strips of engraved silver.

Amalu’s eyes narrow. “That is a chachat ,” he says.

“It is the engagement necklace you gave me,” I say.

“You kept it?”

I nod. “Now I return it to you, Amalu.”

His face falls. “No need,” he says gruffly, pushing my hand away.

“I have not finished,” I say. “You always were impatient.”

He waits.

“I return it to you and ask whether you would offer it to me again,” I say. My voice wavers.

“I am not sure of your meaning,” says Amalu but I see his eyes and the hope that is within them.

“I would marry you,” I say. “If you will go away with me from this place.”

“Where to?”

“To trade together,” I say. “I would like to travel far to the north and east, beyond Al-Andalus, perhaps across the great trade routes to where silk comes from.”

“And what is stopping you?”

“You are,” I say. “I do not want to go alone. I want to go with you by my side.”

“Is it the trading or me you want?” he asks.

“Both,” I say honestly.

He laughs a little.

I hold up the tiny necklace again. “It is for you to say,” I tell him. “I made the wrong decision. Now I wish to set it right.”

“You are married,” he says.

I shake my head. “I did not marry for love,” I say. “I married for freedom.”

“And you have not found it?”

“I am imprisoned,” I say. “I would have been better off staying with Aunt Tizemt forever.”

He laughs and for a moment his eyes shine with unshed tears.

I wait while he looks down at the chachat in his hands.

Then slowly he raises his arms and puts it about my neck.

I step forward into the circle of his arms as he fastens it and when he is done, I lift my face to his and gently unwind the dusty wrap from his face.

Veiled, he looks a fierce warrior, unveiled I see a young man, most of his face pale except for the dark brown strip of the sun’s heat across his eyes and the scar that crosses his cheek. He looks at me, his whole face serious.

“You could kiss me,” I say. “I am your betrothed.”

He puts his hands on either side of my face and kisses me so gently I lean forward, wanting more of him, more.

***

He washes and puts on a clean robe. Food is brought to us by a stallholder as arranged.

We sit and feed one another as though we have not eaten for days, lips brushing against fingertips and slowly we begin to speak, not of anything of importance, only the goodness of the food and the colours of the petals all about us, the heat of the day and the cool water we drink.

When we have eaten, we wash and Amalu takes my hand in his.

“You are my betrothed?” he asks me.

“I am,” I say, and he leads me to his room.

***

I am unsure of how we will be together, but my robes fall to the floor, and I am not shy, it is as though Amalu and I have been in one another’s arms many times before.

He is tender to me, but our desire grows until our kisses and caresses are fierce and yet still full of love.

There is none of the fear I felt when Yusuf drank Zaynab’s brew.

Instead, we laugh even between passionate kisses, we hold each other tightly even while murmuring endearments, we collapse exhausted even while reaching out for one another again.

Afterwards we lie together, the room growing dark as we share the moments we had thought lost.

“I have a secret,” I say.

He waits.

“I have a child,” I begin. “A son. Yusuf’s son.”

Amalu props himself up on one elbow, frowning. “But they said… Where?”

“I gave out that he was dead,” I say. “But he is not. I gave him to the herb seller.”

“From Al-Andalus? The Christian slave woman?”

I nod.

“Why?”

“She was kind,” I say. “There was a calm about her. I saw her house; she is no common slave. And I had no-one else to turn to.”

“You should have told me. I would have taken him away. I would have taken both of you. He will come with us now.”

I shake my head. “He must stay here.”

Amalu stares at me. “You wish to leave your son behind?”

I feel tears well up. “No,” I say. “It breaks my heart.”

“Then bring him.”

“I cannot take him away from the only mother he has ever known,” I say, and the tears begin to fall. “I cannot do that. And besides, he is Yusuf’s son.”

“Yusuf does not even know he exists.”

“He will one day,” I say. “I left a sign for him. One day he will know that Ali is his son, and he will claim him as his own, as his heir. And then there will be peace.”

“Peace?”

“All this endless warfare,” I say. “It is not what we had planned.”

“We?”

I stroke his face. “Yusuf and I were united by a vision of what the Maghreb might one day be,” I say.

“Not by love. There was some tenderness between us, but what we saw together was a time when all the Maghreb would be united and peaceful. When trade could flourish, when great cities could spring up.”

He shakes his head. “You expect all this from a babe?”

“When he is grown to be a man and Yusuf makes him his heir,” I say, “he will bring peace and prosperity. There will be no more need for war.”

Amalu sighs. “There always seems to be a need for war,” he says. “I am tired of it.”

“We will go away,” I say. “You and I. We will travel the trade routes, we will go far to the north and the east, beyond the sea. It will be a great adventure. And we will be together.”

“And you will never see your son again?”

I press my head against his chest and let my tears fall. “I will trust in Allah to protect him,” I say and feel Amalu’s arms embrace me.

We doze for a little while and then Amalu stirs.

We light the lanterns, then drink cool water and eat some of the fruit I brought, feeding one another fresh orange dates and tiny red pomegranate seeds, their colours like gems scattered across our bed as we drop them and laugh at one another for our clumsiness.

I marvel at the lightness between us, the simplicity of happiness.

“Tell me a story,” he says idly.

“A story?”

“Yes. It is dusk and dusk is when the storytellers come to the squares and the people gather to hear a magical tale,” he says, biting into a late fig, its delicate pink insides and green-purple skins splitting under his hands.

I shake my head. Then I rise from the bed and stand before him entirely naked. I begin to clap my hands loudly.

He laughs. “What are you doing?”

I point to him. “I will dance for you if you will play for me.”

Amalu chuckles and makes himself more comfortable on the cushions. He takes up a little drum from the corner of the room and begins to beat out a slow rhythm. “Here is your music. Begin, oh most wondrous dancer.”

I stand still for a moment, the soft breeze caressing my body.

I let my feet begin to move, following the slow beat.

My hips undulate and I let my head fall back, my hair whispering from side to side across my back.

My hands come up my body, the fingers forming shapes as I dance, a smile growing on my face and on his.

I dance for a long time, the beat growing faster until I can no longer keep pace with it. I fall onto the bed, exhausted, sweat running down my body. Amalu laughs and pats away the drops with a blanket, then pulls me close to him and holds me in his arms again.

“Your turn,” I command.

He looks at me in feigned horror. “You want me to dance?”

I nod firmly. “Oh, yes.”

He mimics my movements until I am almost choking with laughter. When he returns to me, we laugh together until we subside into weak giggles.

“Sing to me,” I suggest.

“I sing like the vultures,” he says, making a raucous sound.

“You can tell me a story, then. You must find a way to amuse me after I have danced for you.”

“I thought you were amused a moment ago,” he says, poking at my belly until I wriggle away. “You could barely breathe for laughing.”

“Tell me a story,” I insist.

“As you command.”

I lie soft in his arms and lose myself in his warm voice.

“There was once a noble young man who loved a princess. She loved him in return, and they wished to marry, but her father, the leader of the tribe, was stubborn and thought no suitor was good enough for his daughter. Many men sought the princess’s hand, but her father turned them all away.

When the suitors attempted to visit the princess by night, her father, a fierce old warrior, devised an extraordinary system of twenty-one locks throughout his palace.

Each lock was made by a different locksmith so that there should be no one key that would open all the doors.

No one could now reach the princess in her rooms without opening the twenty-one doors and locks that led there. ”

I open my eyes and look up at Amalu. He smiles and gently closes my eyes again with one fingertip before continuing his story.

“The princess and her young lover were determined that they should be together, and the noble young man was also very clever, and so he went to a silver smith who was his friend and begged him to help them.

The smith thought for a long time, and at last he took the two syllables of the word for love: ‘ta’ and ‘ra’ and made a shape in poured silver which combined the male and female shapes and the two syllables of the word ‘love’, making a cross with a circle, a perfect symbol of love.

This he gave to the young man, who asked what it should be called.

The smith replied ‘ taneghelt’ , meaning melted liquid, for it was in this way that he had made the jewel.

The young man paid him well and thanked him profusely, then took the silver piece to the palace wherein his beloved lived.