Page 19 of Do Not Awaken Love (The Moroccan Empire #3)

I let go of the pot of water and slowly, slowly stand before him, his dark eyes staying steady on mine. We are very close; there is less than a hand’s breadth between us. I wait. To be grabbed, to be forced in some way.

But instead, he takes a step backwards, away from me, as though he, too, finds the closeness disconcerting, although his eyes do not leave mine. “You are a member of this household?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say. I do not say anything more. When it becomes clear that I am not about to speak again without prompting, he speaks.

“You are a slave?”

“Yes,” I say.

“How many others are here?”

I tell him. He nods.

“Gather them.”

I step away from him and walk slowly away, aware of having my back to him, of not knowing what he’s doing when I cannot see him. I make my way to the kitchen, and whisper to Maadah. Her face drains white. One by one, we gather together the other women and make our way back into the courtyard.

The Almoravid is standing where I left him, he has barely moved. We stand before him, leaving a fearful distance between us.

“Are you all women here?” he asks.

I nod.

“I am Yusuf bin Tashfin,” he says. “I will be your new master and you will be my new household.”

Nobody speaks. We stand in silence.

“Show me to a bedroom,” he says. “And bring me water and bread.”

Maadah finds her voice first. “I am the cook here. Shall I make a meal, Master?” she asks, her voice a little shaky.

He shakes his head. “Just water and bread,” he repeats.

She nods, and scuttles away, followed by the rest of the household, none of whom wish to lead this man, our new master, anywhere.

“You,” he says, addressing me.

“Yes, Master,” I say.

“A bedroom,” he says.

I turn my back on him and walk away, hear his footsteps behind me across the courtyard and up the stairs, trying not to tremble at the thought that, once we reach a bedroom, he may well choose to have his sport with me.

I wonder which room to take him to, but decide that, if he is our new master, then he must be taken to the master’s bedchamber.

I open the door, and step back, hoping he will not drag me in with him.

But he only walks through the doorway and looks around the room.

“Very well,” he says. “You may bring me the bread and water when it is ready.”

“Yes, Master,” I say, quickly shutting the door and running down the stairs to the relative safety of the kitchen. The other women are huddled there, their faces afraid.

Maadah’s hands shake when she passes me the tray to carry upstairs. “Be careful,” she says.

I nod and take the tray.

“He is their second in command,” breathes Aisha. “Why would he come alone?”

I stop halfway to the door. “What do you mean,” I ask, “their second-in-command?”

“Yusuf bin Tashfin,” she says, repeating the name he gave. “He is Abu Bakr’s second-in-command.”

“He can’t be,” I object. “Why would he not have men with him?” I think of our amir and his nobles, even our late Master, how they would go nowhere without an entourage of guards, lesser nobles, bodyguards, servants, slaves.

“Never mind that now,” hisses Maadah. “Take that food up to him.” The tray she has given me contains fresh-baked bread from this morning, cool water in a jug with a cup ready to fill, dates and slices of fresh orange, as well as little cakes.

“He didn’t ask for all this,” I say.

“If he is our new master,” says Maadah, “then it’s our business to please him. And the way to please a man is to fill his belly.”

I shake my head and hurry away from her, across the courtyard and back up the stairs, until I reach his door. I want to leave the tray here, do not want to face him again, but I know that I must. I tap gently on the door.

“Come,” I hear.

Tentatively, I open the door.

In the brief time I have been gone, he has managed to transform the room.

He has removed the silken drapes, the bright blankets, decorative objects.

The bed has been stripped bare, only a yellow blanket remains, the plainest of them all, woven in wool.

The rest of the room’s hangings and covers have been piled in a corner, as though they were rags for washing.

His sword has been left on the floor beside the bed, where he now lies, a dark figure in this light room.

“You may leave the food there,” he says, indicating the low table by the bed.

I do so. He looks at the tray, eyebrows raised. “You may tell the cook that when I ask for bread and water, I mean bread and water,” he says. He sounds amused. “There is no need to try and impress me,” he adds. “Only to obey me.”

I nod my head in silence. I stand, waiting for further orders, while he props himself up on one arm and pours himself a cup of water, which he drinks quickly, then fills again.

“You needn’t hover there,” he tells me. “I will call for you if I want something. I need to sleep.”

I move towards the door.

“Wait,” he says.

I stop.

“What is your name?” he asks.

I hesitate. “Kamra,” I say at last.

His eyes travel over me, from my crooked leg and the limp he has already seen, up to my face and the scars it bears. “Kamra? Where are you from?”

“Galicia,” I say.

He frowns. “Kamra is not a Galician name. What was your name before you were taken as a slave?”

I do not speak. Am I to give this man the name I was born with? Or the name I took as a nun? Neither seems right, neither seems suited to this world in which I find myself. “You may call me whatever you wish,” I say.

“Stubbornness is not usually a desirable trait in a slave,” he says. There is something teasing about his tone, as though he finds this conversation amusing. It raises my hackles.

“You may call me whatever you wish,” I say again.

He nods but still does not use any name. “You may go now,” he says.

Now a new life begins for all of us. We are relieved not to have been left destitute and certainly now we are protected, but we struggle to adapt to his ways, at first. Our new master eats bread and water, a little meat.

He sleeps like the dead, I can hear him softly snoring sometimes, if I pass by his bedchamber.

He has the house stripped bare of all superfluous decorations, telling me, when I ask what to do with them, to give them to the poor, the needy.

I stand, with my hands full of silks and precious trinkets and stare at him.

“There are no poor and needy in Aghmat?” he asks me, amused again.

“Every city has poor and needy people,” I say.

“Then seek them out,” he says and turns away, wrapping the yellow blanket about him and preparing to sleep.

Somehow, I become his personal servant. It is to me he gives his orders, barely speaking to the rest of the household.

It is I who have to repeat his commands to Maadah, who feels underused, to the other women, who regard me with uncertainty at first, as though I am making up the odd orders he gives.

Sometimes he does not even sleep in his bedchamber.

I find him in the courtyard, in the early hours, saying the dawn prayers.

He kneels amidst my plant pots, a rough mat on the tiled floor beneath him.

The first time I see him like this; I stand silently watching him.

It takes me a little while to think who he reminds me of and when I realise, I shake my head.

Surely, I am mistaken. He reminds me of the Mother Superior in the convent, so long ago, in my other life.

She had a way of praying that seemed truly holy, as though she could hear God’s voice speaking to her while she was on her knees, her eyes uplifted, her face filled with a kind of joy.

It seems strange to see the same joy in the face of a man, a Muslim, a heathen praying to a god who does not exist. The strangeness of it draws me somehow, and from then on when I see him at prayer, I pause to watch him, hidden in the shadows.

I do not think he sees me, until the morning when he addresses me as he stands.

“You do not pray?” he asks me, without turning his head towards me, near the kitchen doorway.

I am silent for a moment, before I realise that he has indeed seen me, and is speaking to me. “No,” I say.

“Why not?”

“I am a Christian,” I say stiffly.

“He turns to look at me more directly. “Even Christians pray,” he says.

“I pray in my room,” I say.

“You could convert,” he says.

I am so shocked I do not say anything, and he suddenly laughs out loud, the first time I’ve heard him do so. “I see your faith is more important to you than I thought,” he says. “I meant no disrespect.”

I say nothing.

“My apologies,” he says again, more seriously. “You are a woman of faith, then?”

“I am a nun,” I tell him.

He looks up, his hands busy making the mat into a neat roll. “You are a slave,” he reminds me.

“I am a nun,” I repeat. “I have not renounced my vows.”

“How did a nun end up as a slave in Aghmat?” he asks, stepping closer to me.

“The Norsemen took me,” I say.

“From a holy place?” he asks, frowning.

I shake my head. “I was on a journey,” I say.

“Alone?”

I shake my head. I am not about to describe what happened to me, to us, to this man.

He nods, grave now. “I am sorry,” he says simply, handing me the mat to be put away. Then he turns and leaves, the gate closing behind him.

Aisha has more news. I swear the girl is nothing but a gossip sometimes. Although I have to admit her gossip often brings us valuable information.

“We are to leave Aghmat,” she says.

“Leave?”

“Yes. The Almoravids want to build a new capital city. It is to be on the plain and they will call it Murakush , land of God.”

“But there’s nothing there,” objects Maadah. “Where are we to live?”

“Tents,” says Aisha.

“Tents?” echoes Maadah. “Don’t be ridiculous, girl.”

“Well, they don’t care, do they?” says Aisha. “Look at the Master, sleeping on the floor in the courtyard when he could be in a silken bed.”

“I’m not living in a tent, and that’s an end to it,” says Maadah.