Page 9 of A String of Silver Beads (The Moroccan Empire #1)
The women’s skills are every bit as dull as I had feared.
What skill is there in the washing of sweaty greasy sheep’s wool in the little water available, hauled one laborious bucket at a time?
The dyeing, staining my hands a multitude of colours.
My arms ache with the endless carding, using the big wooden combs studded with metal spikes to make the wool soft and ready for spinning.
The spinning! Never-ending fruitless attempts to make the spindle twirl without stopping, one hand holding the distaff, the other frantically pulling at the wool, trying to produce a regular, even thread.
And after all that work, the tedium of weaving!
Back and forth, back and forth and the cloth growing barely at all.
Hours of work for no visible reward. What skills are these?
Where is the quick banter, the knowledgeable eye cast over goods, seeing the quality at a single glance, sweeping aside the unimaginative engravings, the shoddy dyes, the badly cut stones.
Reaching out for the sparkling gemstones, the soft bright leather, the fine clay pots and when the bartering is done, the pride of the war waged and won.
And the greater prizes. The shining bars of salt.
The gleam of gold. The rippling muscles under black skin.
These were my skills and now they are deemed worthless.
***
The days come and go. My mind feels slow and dull, its once fast-moving spirit searching across the dunes to find the trade routes and the caravan that has left me here.
I wonder about my mother. Did she wish to travel as well, or did she stay in the camp willingly?
Did she feel her spirit grow heavy with each child that kept her tied to the camp or did she enjoy this life? I cannot find the pleasure in it.
Sometimes when I sit gazing at the dunes, having escaped my aunt’s many chores for a moment, Amalu finds me, and we talk.
“Enough, enough!” he cries, as five children chase him across the dunes to where I am sitting. “I have no breath left!”
They fall on him as he reaches me, climb all over him while he laughs and succumbs to their insistence that he play the camel and allow them to ride on his back.
“I beg you to save me,” he gasps, and I cannot help laughing.
“I am afraid I cannot,” I say. “If you are a camel then you must endure your burden in life. Otherwise, I will have to sell you off for meat.”
“Alas, have pity on a poor exhausted camel,” he says, lying on the ground. The children thump him and yell that he must continue but he will not and at last they leave him be, tempted by rolling down the sand dunes towards the encampment.
“I think you are safe now,” I suggest.
He sits up with exaggerated caution, then re-adjusts his wrap, which has almost revealed most of his smiling face. “I am truly exhausted.”
“They are not even yours,” I tease. “What will you do when you have children of your own to contend with all day?”
“Ah well,” he says, easing himself onto one elbow at my feet. “I will have a wonderful wife who will save me from them.”
“Will you, indeed?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says confidently, his eyes on mine. “Now tell me what you are doing up here all alone.”
I shrug.
“Ah come now, Kella,” he says. “I know you miss the trading life. But are you so unhappy here?”
I smile a little. “Not when you make me laugh. But I do miss it.”
“Tell me about the trading life,” he says. “I would like to be a trader myself one day.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Tell me about the jewellers, the leatherworkers, the carvers,” he says. He has already learnt that I need little prompting. Just the names of the craftsmen will have me talking for hours.
I gaze across the dunes. “The jewellers have steady hands. They can tell so many stories on a tiny circlet of silver. They spend hours turning over gemstones to find the perfect matches of size and colour for a string of beads or a pair of earrings. You can ask them for magic amulets, and they will whisper prayers over jewels for fertility, for luck, for wealth. Some of them roll up tiny scraps of parchment containing verses of the Qur’an, prayers and blessings that will be kept close to the skin within a tiny box of silver. ”
Amalu nods, touching his own silver amulet, dangling from his neck.
I sit up a little straighter, gesture at my yellow leather slippers.
“The leatherworkers buy whole dyed hides from the tanneries and sit in the shade of their tents with all manner of colours spread out before them. The pure whites fetch the highest price. The mixtures used to make them can rip the skin off a man’s hands at the tanneries.
The yellows are dyed with the stamens of the crocus flower.
Aunt Tizemt only needs a tiny pinch of saffron for a meat stew, but a lot more is required for a full hide.
They cut out small pieces for shoes and use the bigger pieces for saddles. ”
I pause for a moment, thinking of the races in which I used to take part.
Amalu sees my face lose its brightness and interrupts my thoughts. “The carvers – you forget to tell me about them.”
I nod, distracted from my regretful thoughts by his enthusiasm. “The carvers work precious woods but also ivory. They make such wonders – the tiniest shapes, the most delicate markings. One false move and the work would be ruined.”
“No spoons and cups, then?”
I smile. “Those too and in far greater quantity. They are not treated with such care. I used to buy so many replacements just for our own family and everywhere we went we could always sell such goods.”
Amalu’s eyes are bright. “I will go to all the places you have been,” he says. “And see such things for myself.”
I want to say take me with you , but that would be too forward.
Already I know there are whispers about us in the camp, but although Amalu looks at me with loving eyes I am unsure of my own feelings.
Still, he is a friend to me, and I feel the need for someone who will let me speak of my trading days.
“Kella! Kella!”
I roll my eyes. “Aunt Tizemt is looking for me again.”
“I will hide you behind a bush,” offers Amalu mischievously. “And tell her you have run away.”
I shake my head. “Your life would not be worth living when she found you out,” I tell him and together we make our way back to the camp.
***
Back and forth, back and forth. Buckets from the well, thread on the loom, this grindstone, crushing the wild grains gathered one by one.
I refocus my eyes from the horizon and catch sight of Aunt Tizemt, who has paused in her weaving and is looking over her shoulder at me.
She smiles encouragingly. Waving her hand at the bowl of grains by my side that are yet to be ground, she begins a story.
“There were once some children lost in the desert. They were hungry and could find nothing to eat. They were surrounded by vile-tasting beetles, beautiful but poisonous oleander bushes, and sand. Sand everywhere, rocks and sand.”
I break in impatiently, rudely interrupting her story, which I have heard once too often.
“Then one small boy caught sight of a column of ants. Back and forth, they scurried, back and forth, each ant carrying but one grain on its back. The children took the grains of the sand from the ants, one by one, and so they were saved from starvation until they were found.” I gesture angrily towards the bowl of grains.
“You can tell all the stories you like, Aunt, but there is nothing interesting about the gathering or the grinding of grains. In the great souks I could buy my couscous ready ground and rolled by slaves. Street vendors made great basins of hot milk porridge to be eaten by those who had coins. I traded. I was quick, I knew the gemstones, the quality of skins. I chose the strongest slaves, the finest jewellery, the softest leather shoes. I spent my days seeing all there was to see, bartering for goods from all over the world. I felt the weight of cold gold in my hands and felt its softness against my teeth. I threw coins to the street vendors, and they served me fresh bread and roasted meats, cool drinks and sweets to please the tongue and eye. I did not stoop to collect one grain at a time, nor did my hands chafe with the distaff. My hands were tough because of the reins of my camel, the bundles of goods I lifted to the pack animals. I was better than this.”
Aunt Tizemt is unmoved by my outburst. She keeps weaving, her broad back firm and upright. She speaks without turning round. “You think you have seen everything the world can offer. I think you have not. You think too highly of yourself.”
“What have I not seen? I have seen more than you!”
I cannot goad her. She keeps her back turned and her voice is calm.