Page 7 of A String of Silver Beads (The Moroccan Empire #1)

T he water in my goatskin bag is unpleasantly warm and tastes of goat. We have been travelling since dawn today but now the sun’s heat is beginning to seep into us. We should stop and seek shade, but we are very close to the camp now, so we press on.

My eyes are fixed on my father’s silent back, up ahead of me.

His camel, the colour of dried dates, is particularly good at mirroring her master’s moods and at this moment she is walking with her head held very high and a majestically haughty look to her slowly swaying hindquarters.

Neither of them wants to listen to my repeated pleas to turn back.

I drink again, grimacing.

***

The camp seems smaller than my memories of it. It’s been a few years since our last visit.

The children playing at the top of the dunes spot us from a distance and run to escort us with whoops of excitement and endless questions.

My younger brothers smile at them and lift a few of the smaller ones up to join them on their saddles.

These lucky ones cling on tightly and make faces at their lowly comrades.

As we approach the camp’s mud walls the men and women come to greet us with wide smiles as soon as they recognise us, exclaiming over how much older we are, pretending mock-horror over my man’s robes.

Aunt Tizemt is waiting, hands on her hips, trying to hide a smile. “I suppose this is one of your brief visits, brother?”

My father grins as he jumps down from his camel. “Sister, you will love me more than ever. My daughter is coming to live with you at long last. I do listen to you, you see?” They embrace. When my father steps aside Aunt Tizemt is engulfed beneath a mass of blue robes as my brothers reach her.

When she emerges, ruffled but smiling, she makes her way to me. I’m still mounted on my camel. I set my jaw. I have been forced to come here; I will not pretend good humour.

Aunt Tizemt looks around as though confused. “My brother said he had a daughter, but I see he is mistaken – he has a sixth son! What do men know, eh?” She smiles and holds up a hand to me. “Take that look off your face, anyone would think you liked being a man!”

I ignore her hand. “I do.”

“And you don’t want to come and live with your Aunt Tizemt? When she is a poor old thing with all her own children married off and her husband dead so many years and no-one left to keep her company?”

“I want to trade. I’m a good trader.” I lift my chin and look upwards to keep my tears from falling.

My aunt lowers her offered hand. Her voice has lost its humour. “You think a woman’s skills are not as important? Not as hard to learn?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No need. Your voice said it.” Aunt Tizemt turns and walks away. No backward glances or coaxing. My aunt is a fearsome woman.

My father comes towards me. I stiffen, waiting for the order to dismount, but instead he stands in front of Thiyya and strokes her nose without looking at me, as though thinking.

Thiyya is impatient. The other camels are free of their burdens, why is she made to stand here in the heat with a slumped, angry rider who keeps pulling sharply at the reins if she stretches out her nose towards the other camels, who are being fed and watered?

She drops briskly to her knees, nearly causing me to fall off at the sudden and unexpected movement, thrown fully forwards and then back.

Despite my angry urgings, Thiyya sits, uncaring, on the ground and rises again only when I dismount, muttering rude words under my breath and threatening her with a dire fate involving tasty herbs, rock salt and a very hot fire.

My father is trying not to laugh which only makes me angrier. I stand, head down, wanting to walk away but knowing that I am already in enough trouble.

At last, I feel his hand on my arm. “Come and sit with me in the shade,” he says.

I follow him reluctantly to the first tent which the slaves have managed to erect. There is fresh water and I drink it greedily, relishing its clean taste, devoid of goat.

When I look up my father is holding out a small pouch of soft yellow leather. “Open it.”

It’s heavy for its size. I pull open the leather strings that hold it shut and cautiously tip the contents into my hand.

It’s a necklace. A simple thread of small black beads, with a pendant almost the size of my palm made up of five silver rectangles, with pointed ends, which between them create a deep V-shape at the base of the pendant.

Each silver strip is intricately engraved with tiny symbols.

I look up, confused, to find that my father is slowly unwrapping the veil round his face. He sighs comfortably as the cool air takes away some of the heat in his cheeks, stained blue in places from the indigo dye of his robes. He closes his eyes and leans back on the cushions for a few moments.

When he opens his eyes again, he gives me a weary smile. “There was once a trading caravan in the Tenere desert, between Bilma and Agadez. In the blinding heat and on an unfamiliar trade route, they lost their way.”

I frown. “Father –”

“They wandered in the desert, growing ever more tired and thirsty. They were close to death, even their camels’ knees trembling with the heat, when suddenly before them appeared a young woman of great beauty, wearing a magnificent necklace with many engravings.”

I sit back on the cushions opposite him, unsure where this story is going. This does not seem like an appropriate time and place to be telling old tales.

My father smiles and continues. “The beautiful young woman showed them to a well nearby. The men hurried to drink and then gave water to their camels. When they were sated, they turned to thank the woman, but she had disappeared. When they reached Agadez, the men told their amazing story of how they had been saved from certain death by a beautiful young woman. An old jeweller, hearing their story, set to and made a necklace that matched the men’s description of the young woman’s ornament.

Upon it he carved symbols of stars and dunes, trails and tents.

He called it ‘ celebra ’. This necklace carries memories of the trade routes through the desert and night travel guided only by the stars above. ”

I sit in silence, a cold certainty in my belly, and wait for what I know is coming.

“The necklace is yours. You are a beautiful girl, and it is a fine piece of jewellery. But I chose it because it speaks of the trade routes – it will be a memory for you of all the days you have spent in the caravan. The trading, the desert, the goods we have bought and sold, the nights following the trails of the stars. You cannot continue on the trade routes with your brothers and me. I have been foolish and kept you too long by my side because I love you dearly.” He pauses.

“And for your mother’s memory,” he adds with a sigh.

“But now it is time for you to stay here in the main camp. You will live with your Aunt Tizemt for a time. You will learn new skills from her. You will become a woman, as you should, instead of playing at being a man. Your time on the trade routes is ended.”

I look down at the heavy silver pendant and feel the first tears falling, hot and shameful on my cheeks. I try to speak, clutching the celebra tightly in my hand as though about to throw it back at him, but manage only a swallowed sob, an ugly gulping noise that makes my tears fall faster.

My father rises slowly to his feet and silently puts his arms about me. My muffled voice produces more gulped noises, intended as flat refusals. He waits. When my sobs begin to slow, he speaks, and his voice is kind but firm.

“Your Aunt Tizemt is a very kind woman – for all her loud voice and louder opinions. She will teach you many, many new things, and you will come to enjoy them and be proud of all you will have to show your brothers and me when we come to see you. And perhaps you would like to marry soon.” He pauses to allow me to attempt another muffled refusal.

“I am sure you will have more choice than you will know what to do with. And I am also sure that you will choose wisely, for having lived for so long with men you know what we are like better than any woman.” I can hear him smile.

“So, may I see your face again? If it is not too red and ugly after all that crying?”

***

My father’s caravan stays only three days, enough time to share stories and gifts, for saddles and tents to be mended and all the goods to be sorted and re-loaded correctly. My father agrees to leave Thiyya with me, but only after I wept at the thought of losing her.

“No racing,” he reminds me. “Thiyya will have to get used to a different life, just as you will.”

Thiyya snorts in disgust when she is used to collect water, but I cannot let her travel far away from me.

***

The slaves gather round to bid me farewell.

Some of them have known me since I was a little girl and they stroke my face and murmur endearments.

Adeola weeps and Ekon stands silent, his sad face echoing my own, but he puts out one large hand and pats my shoulder before my father approaches and the slaves move away, ready to mount.

“We will visit, daughter. We will return in a few months, have no fear.”

I stand before him, silent and pale, unable and unwilling to speak.

“Now then.” My father’s voice becomes overly brisk. “Where are all those sons of mine? Come and bid farewell to your sister.”

They are upon me in moments, a swirl of blue robes and five sets of arms hugging me from all directions.

Jokes, laughter, my cheeks pinched and my shoulders pulled this way and that before suddenly, they are all on their camels.

I stand alone, cold without their surrounding bodies, their smiling faces now far away on the camels high above me.

I manage a trembling smile, my cheeks stretching unnaturally, then I wave and wave and wave.

***