Page 15 of Do Not Awaken Love (The Moroccan Empire #3)

And here at last are all the remedies which I have been lacking.

Cumin and fennel seeds, cinnamon and ginger, pepper and rose.

There is Java pepper and black hellebore, fenugreek and fern.

I find dried hops and fresh sage, caperberries and dill.

There is mallow and mustard, poppy and plantain, as well as thistle.

I touch wormwood and clover, henbane and horseradish.

Aisha laughs. I look at her and she indicates my own face and makes a face indicating extreme happiness, a ludicrous grin.

I cannot help but laugh a little, knowing full well that she caught me smiling at the sight of these ingredients, so well-known to me.

I touch one or two of the ingredients and raise my eyebrows at her, asking permission to buy them.

I do not know what Maadah has told her, what I am allowed.

But Aisha nods at everything I touch, she waves her hands to indicate more, that I must not be stinted.

Maadah is being generous, now that she knows that I have healing skills, she seems determined to make use of them.

I return to the house with one tiny packet after another spilling from my basket and Maadah smiles, well pleased.

I beg some little jars from her and set up a shelf within the kitchen in which to store my remedies and ingredients.

Seeing what I am doing she even clears a second shelf when it becomes obvious that my collection will not fit on one shelf alone.

I grow so busy with my remedies that I half begin to think myself at home.

I do not just treat the household, for Maadah begins to spread word of my skills further afield, her friends and neighbours arriving at our gate and being shown to me, my name being called as soon as they appear.

They are grateful to me, these slaves and other servants, they bring me little gifts when they are cured, perhaps a little bunch of dates still on the branch, a fistful of olives, such gifts as one slave can offer to another.

When a woman brings a new-born child who seems to have difficulty breathing, and I cure it, she returns to ask for my name, that she may give the child the same.

It is a girl, and Aisha, understanding the woman, tells her the name by which I am known, Kamra.

The woman is happy with the name and goes away clutching her baby daughter to her.

I do not forget my prayers. Even though I live among these people, learn their language and eat their food, even though I have accepted a name in their own tongue, still I keep to my own prayers.

I try to find a quiet place in which to pray each day, I try to follow, as best I can, the correct prayers for the right part of the day.

And I turn my face away when the servants of the household pray in turn, preferring not to see their heathen practice.

I look away from their devotions and continue to work even as I see them put away their work and obey the call to prayer that rings out across the rooftops of Aghmat five times each day.

It would be all too easy to feel the need to be one of them, to convert so as to be accepted.

It is not a temptation I intend to give into.

For their part, they watch me pray at first with curiosity and later with disinterest, as they grow used to it.

The Master does not visit often. He travels various trade routes, making connections, seeking out those rich enough to need his gold.

And perhaps he travels so that he may visit more than one slave market, so that he may look for those women who are strange, different, who give him the thrill of the new.

When he does return home, our household is on high alert.

We women shrink back from his presence, afraid that his time away will have tarnished us with new, will have reminded him of our difference and what he sought in us.

We scurry to do as we are bid, we hurry to please him in any other way than the purpose for which we were bought.

The house is immaculate, each room is luxurious and perfectly clean, we serve meals full of exotic and exquisitely made delicacies, for which we scour the market even as he scours markets for other pleasures.

We arrange for dancing girls, for musicians, for jugglers and other such entertainers, in the hopes that they will draw his attention away from us.

No matter what happens, when he is in the house, his attention must be drawn away from us.

It is an unspoken pact between us, each woman protecting the others in any way she can.

When he is in residence, his sons also visit, and they, too must be warded off.

They have straying hands, each of us has felt their fingers on our arm, our legs, our behind, caressing and poking, pinching or lightly slapping.

Each of us knows not to stand too close, to move gracefully away, to offer something else to keep their prying hands busy: a hot drink, sweetmeats, fresh fruits, anything but ourselves.

When their father is gone, the sons do not seem to visit us, for which I am grateful.

No doubt they have their own households to torment.

I wonder what their wives make of them, these men who seek elsewhere.

Perhaps they are grateful to be left alone.

And of course, the inevitable day comes, when a new girl is delivered to this household.

There is no mistaking what she has been chosen for, her skin is a warm golden colour, but it is the bulk of her that draws the eye.

The flesh of her body ripples when she moves, her breasts are larger than any woman I have ever seen, her vast behind balancing them perfectly.

Her triple chins set off a rounded face with high fat cheeks tinged with pink and large black eyes, a rosebud mouth too small for the rest of her.

She arrives, as I did, with a commotion in the street, the heavy battering of our gate and when it is opened there she is, sat atop a camel, eyes wide and frightened.

She is pulled down from the camel’s saddle and lands ungracefully, clutching the beast as though it is her only friend.

It probably has been, for the past few days.

Aisha exchanges glances with me and I nod, I understand what she is here for.

She stumbles forwards, shuffling ungracefully as she seeks to regain her balance after so long astride the camel’s swaying gait.

She does not fight so is not locked away in the room downstairs.

She does not jump from the open window as I did.

We wash and dress her, she sleeps obediently where we tell her to, and when the Master arrives, a few days later, we can see from her face and the slump of her shoulders that she knows full well what is to come.

She submits. In silence, for we hear no screams. The Master, it seems, is pleased enough with her, for he gives her a necklace and when he leaves, orders that she be sold on, he is tired of her now, she is no longer a novelty.

But it seems she is not that easy to sell and so she re-joins us, returns to our house of women and tells us her name, Nilah, bringing our total to seven.

And we, this household, await the next woman to arrive, the next novelty that has caught our master’s eye.

There is a slave girl in Aghmat whom I have seen once or twice, for she is easy to spot in a crowd.

Her hair is the colour of saffron, her skin extraordinarily pale, her eyes are blue like cornflowers.

I am quite certain that once, however long ago, she made up part of our household.

I wonder if this is my new destiny. If I am to live in a household of strange sisters, welcoming one novice after another to be fed to our Master and then discarded, as I lost Catalina whom I should have delivered safely home to the convent.

I wonder if I will ever forget Catalina, if I will ever see her again to beg her forgiveness.

I avoid the Master’s straying hands several times and as the seasons change, I begin almost to feel myself safe.

There is a festival once a year here, where birds of prey are displayed and then some are set free.

The Master is away and so I stand with the other women in the crowd and watch the birds as their leather anklets are unclipped or cut loose and they are thrown forwards into the sky, the way they circle above their masters before realising that they are free, that they need not return to the commands they have been trained to but instead may return to the forests and deserts whence they came, to seek out their long-lost mates and their favourite hunting grounds.

They test the air and feel the wind turn their wings towards freedom, away from the minarets and rooftops that have so long held them captive.

We watch as they leave the city’s sky, turning from large to small, then disappearing altogether from sight. I hear Nilah sigh to herself.

“Let’s go home,” I say.

Aisha clutches my arm. “Do you not want to see Zaynab?”

“Who is Zaynab?” I ask.

She widens her eyes at my ignorance. “The queen of Aghmat,” she tells me. “She is the most beautiful woman in the world, so they say.”

I shrug.

“Come with me,” she says. “The procession of the nobles will pass by the main street on their way back to the palace and we will see her.”

“Haven’t you seen her before, if she is the queen?” I ask. I have little interest in seeing the procession, nor a woman who is no doubt vain as well as being a heathen.

“She does not often go out in public,” says Aisha, still tugging at me. “Come on!”

I follow, dragging my feet, hoping that we will miss the procession after all. But when we reach the main street there are big crowds lining the road on both sides, eager to see King Luqut as well as Queen Zaynab.

“She had a vision,” breathes Aisha.

“Who?”

“Zaynab. She said she would marry the man who would rule all of the Maghreb.”

“Is that why Luqut wanted to marry her?” I ask.

“Yes. He made her divorce her first husband so he could have her for himself.”

I am appalled. “He took her from her lawful husband?”

“Yes,” says Aisha, with all the gusto of one telling a fantastical tale.

“She was only a girl and married to a man she loved, but because of her vision, Luqut took her for himself. They say she screamed when she was told. But now she is the queen of Aghmat and Luqut says that with her by his side there can be no doubt that her vision will come true.”

I am about to ask more questions but there are shouts and cheers from our right and Aisha grips my arm, pulling me forward so that we will see better. Already we can see the fine horses of the royal guards who are leading the procession. Behind them, I can see two riders, a man and a woman.

“There they are!” whispers Aisha in excitement.

The two riders come abreast of us and I see an older man, broad of shoulder, his face turning this way and that to acknowledge the crowd with a confident smile, a man certain of acclaim.

Closer to us is the queen, Zaynab. The procession slows, as guards ahead clear the crowds out of the way and so I see her for longer than I might otherwise have done.

She is far younger than her husband, she is probably a few years younger than I am.

Her face does not turn this way and that.

Instead, she looks straight ahead, her eyes unwavering, as though she were a statue.

She is certainly beautiful, and I note the absurd lavishness of her clothing and jewels, rich silks tumbling all around her, ropes of gemstones and heavy gold weighing her down.

But I have to concede that perhaps to suppose her vain may be a mistake.

She does not look as though she is revelling in her beauty, in the opulence of her clothing and heavy gold headdress.

She looks unhappy. It makes me sad to look at her.

I wonder whether we share the same pain, this queen and I, a slave.

Torn from our vows, she from her husband, I from God’s own son, forced to live another life at another’s whim.

“I have had enough,” I say to Aisha, and I turn for home, away from Queen Zaynab’s sad face.