Page 51 of A String of Silver Beads (The Moroccan Empire #1)

She does not raise her voice as she usually would, nor ask me if I need my ears stretching like a donkey to hear her better. She has succeeded in unrolling the mats and is taking her place on one of them.

I climb awkwardly out of bed, pull the robe over my sleep-warmed naked body which is now beginning to tremble in the cool night air, then kneel beside her. “It’s not dawn yet,” I say crossly. “The call to prayer won’t come for hours.”

Myriam ignores me and begins to pray. I follow along with little grace and much mumbling.

I stumble over words that ought to come smoothly, since I have been repeating them for many years and overbalance so that I knock my head too hard on the floor.

The prayers seem to go on forever, far longer than usual.

At last I see she intends to keep going all night and I stop, sitting back on my heels defiantly.

“I’m not praying anymore unless you tell me why we’re praying in the middle of the night.”

I think Myriam might ignore me, or yell at me. She does neither. She sits back on her heels and I see her face is streaked with tears. She sits still for a moment or two while the tears roll down her cheeks and then speaks, very low, as though afraid of being overheard. “Imen is ill.”

I frown. “She looked well last night when we went to bed.”

Myriam shakes her head. “She said she was indisposed.”

I shrug. “She always says that when we have guests.”

Myriam nods. “But she started to have pains. She thought it was the sickness again.”

“I thought that was only at the beginning. She hasn’t been sick for ages.”

“Yes. She should have told one of us. We would have known something was wrong. She did not know the sickness should not come now. She had pains like knives in her belly.” Myriam mumbles something else, which I don’t catch.

“What?”

Myriam speaks a little louder. “Blood.”

“Blood?” Even I know this is not a good sign.

Myriam nods again. “She started to bleed. Her maid got scared and called for help. The doctors are with her. Everyone is awake.”

I turn my face towards the door and strain my ears.

I have very good hearing, but if everyone is awake then the house seems unnaturally quiet – in the daytime you can barely hear a conversation for all the noise that goes on – clattering pots and pans, feet running up and down stairs, orders being shouted out.

Now there is only silence. I look back at Myriam, frowning. “I can’t hear anyone.”

“They are all praying,” she whispers, her face pale in the darkness.

I say nothing, but prostrate myself, the words suddenly coming to me, begging for His kindness, for His mercy, for any help He can offer to Imen as her crimson blood drains away in the darkness and my baby brother’s life is lost.

***

As the cold pale light grows the streets awake.

The dawn prayers are called and there is a brief lull before the bustle of the new day begins in earnest. Only our house is quiet.

In the coming days we will find ourselves mourning twice over; for my brother who did not even have a name and for Imen, whose gentle nature was not strong enough to withstand the agony that gripped her, nor the tide of blood, which swept her away as though she was dust in the road.

***

Many, many months pass before our house seems normal again.

My mother sits with us at all our meals again, and my father’s hair is a little more grey.

The rooms that were Imen’s are not used for anything, their doors are kept shut and the dust is allowed to settle around the spiders, who rebuild their webs and await any foolish flies who mistake Imen’s windows for a true entrance to our house.

The flowers Imen had planted around her windows fade and wither, for no-one comes to water them.

***

I miss Imen. I miss her love of good food and her sleep-ruffled hair.

I miss her perfumed robes in pale rippled colours, so different from my mother’s dark magnificence.

Most of all I miss her giggle, her embraces given without warning or reason, her delight in my father and his happiness with her.

He is quiet again now, and I have not seen him smile for a long time.

I sit in a cushioned alcove in our courtyard and rip leaves into small shreds, following their marked-out pathways. There is no-one now to share these mornings with and I am bored.

My father is leaving the house, going to one of his workshops. As he leaves he crosses the path of Hela, who is carrying breakfast to my mother. They see each other and pause, then speak in low voices.

I lean forward to hear them. I am curious, I rarely see them speak to one another. My mother issues all commands to Hela and Hela barely speaks when others are present. My father and she do not pass their time conversing with one another.

“I have spoken with her father.” I hear him say.

Hela shakes her head. It is a quick sharp movement, a direct refusal of whatever my father is proposing. A servant should not defy their master, my father would be within his rights to reprimand or even strike her. He does neither, only looks down at his hands.

“There will be only one,” says Hela. “You must resign yourself.”

“It is not only that,” he replies. “It is…” but he does not finish his sentence, he seems unable to find the words.

Hela holds up one hand, the other still balancing my mother’s breakfast, now going cold. “There will be no more new wives in this house,” she says, and turns, walking away from him into the house, towards my mother’s rooms.

My father stands still for a moment, looking down at the tiles of our courtyard. Then he makes his way out of the gates of our home, heading towards his workshops.

***

Sometimes I still go alone into the souks, but the street boys seem to have grown up all of a sudden.

Many now work hard every day, fetching and carrying heavy loads.

Some are apprenticed to their fathers or to a trade.

By evening they are too tired to come to the great reservoirs and play at servants and amirs, and so I sit alone in the middle of the vast expanse of water and gaze over the side of the pavilion at my rippled reflection.

My face is becoming more like my mother’s as time goes by, and I know that people say that I will be a great beauty like her.

I gaze at my face in the water and hope that I will still look like a street girl – with untamed hair and a wide smile.

But however often I look my hair grows ever faster and more silky, my eyes become wider and darker, my limbs longer and more graceful. I am becoming a woman.

***

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