Page 27 of Do Not Awaken Love (The Moroccan Empire #3)

Turn away thine eyes from me…

A lthough I try to keep away from the main market square, eventually I see Yusuf’s first wife for myself.

Aisha was right, she is very young, younger than myself and Zaynab.

She ought to outshine Zaynab, but she does not.

When I see her, her skin looks very pale and she seems either ill or very tired.

Or perhaps she is just unhappy, I think.

Perhaps the sight of Yusuf with another woman, this unexpected queen holding the position Kella might have thought to take, is too much for her.

She dresses in the bright colours that come from her tribe in the desert, but instead of illuminating her face, they only drain away its colour.

She looks small and pale, tired and meek.

I struggle to recognise the woman Yusuf described: an adventurer, someone bold enough to seek a life of freedom and to take it even when the odds were against her.

All I see is defeat, in the slump of her shoulders, in her dull skin, in her eyes which do not look up and about but down at her feet.

I tell myself that this is not my business, that how Yusuf chooses to manage the relationship between his first and second wife is not for me to either judge or even think about.

He does not visit me; he has left me to my own devices. I should leave him to his.

I keep the little house bare, austere, trying to emulate the life I once led.

I use the money I make selling herbs, not for fine robes or elaborate meals, for they are only worldly affectations.

Instead, I save them and buy writing implements.

Here, what I first mistook for a strange kind of parchment is something called paper, made from beating rags or waste fibres from plants.

It is thinner and finer than parchment and is in use everywhere, even by small traders.

I resolve to spend my time writing down all the remedies I can recall, how to make them and store them, their uses and counter uses.

I use my best script, I take a long time over each letter, each word.

There is little to fill my days with, I may as well do the best work I can.

I think that perhaps if I can remember all of the remedies I was taught, I will at least have made use of these days, created something that might be used by myself and others. I continue to grow herbs, to sell them.

“Are you well?” asks Aisha.

“Yes,” I say. I always say this, I do not tell her that I am lonely. I see less of her than I would like to, now that she has her own household and her first baby has been born, a son, on whom Imari dotes. I see Yusuf mostly at a distance. And as I have no one else in this city, so I remain lonely.

“Zaynab has given her handmaiden Hela to Kella, as a servant,” says Aisha.

“Why?” I cannot imagine why she would do this, it is clear that Hela is no mere servant to Zaynab. She is her personal healer, her confidante, why would she so easily hand her over to Kella?

Aisha shrugs. “Who knows?”

I walk through the market on a route that passes Kella’s tent.

I try to give the impression of looking elsewhere, but my eyes slide towards the sight of Hela standing outside the tent, cooking.

I have never seen her cook before, I am surprised to see her doing it.

Whatever she is making, it is heavily scented with parsley, I can smell it even at this distance.

I hope, for Kella’s sake, that she is not with child.

Parsley in such great quantities would not be beneficial to an early pregnancy.

But the thought of Kella being with child only makes me think of Yusuf lying with her, and I try to turn my thoughts elsewhere.

She is his wife, he may lie with her if he so chooses, although I am aware that the rumours say that he does not, as he should, split his time evenly between the two of them, but rather favours Zaynab.

I chastise myself for my interest in his affairs and turn my face away, focusing only on the purchases that I must make.

But my attempt at disinterest is about to be challenged.

The day is hotter than usual, and I am sweating. I wipe my forehead and under my eyes, my upper lip, then crouch down to take a drink of water from the pail I have beneath my stall.

“I need parsley.”

I stand and find Kella standing before me. Her bright clothing is making her face look even whiter than it is, she looks ill and also as though she has not been much outside. She stands, waiting.

I fumble with the herbs but collect myself and pick up a large bunch of parsley, which I hand to her.

She shakes her head. “More.”

I add another bunch and then another before she nods.

She holds out payment, but her hand is shaking.

I think of the rumours that she was with child.

I think of the food I saw Hela prepare, how I thought then that it contained too much parsley.

I look at her shaking hand and have a sudden intuition that she already knows, that she is not seeking to buy herbs from me but instead to have confirmed what she has already guessed. “Do not eat too much.”

She looks at me as though she has waited for these words. In coming here and buying the herbs she has asked me a question, which I am now answering. “Why not?” she asks, and her voice shakes just as her hands do.

I want to make her sit down, for I am afraid she will faint. But her waiting eyes are fixed on me, there is a fear in them that frightens me.

“Parsley can take away life from within the womb,” I say.

Her shaking hand falls, the coins she had brought as payment bouncing and striking the wooden surface of my stall even as she drops the parsley into the choking dust of the path.

I step forward but she is already walking away, her feet shuffling as though she cannot even lift them, such is the weight of the burden she carries, the knowledge I have just given her.

Something dark has been done to her, of this I am certain.

I can prove nothing. But if I had to seek out that darkness, I know that I would find it in the great dark tent that sits in the centre of this rising city.

I would find blackness seeping from Zaynab’s heart and through Hela’s hands.

I am fearful for Kella, even though I barely know her.

And I wonder if even Yusuf is safe by Zaynab’s side.

I have begun to add my own remedies to the fresh herbs I sell, little jars of ointments or packets of dried leaves. People tell me of their ailments, and I help them if I can, sometimes asking them to return another day so that I can bring what is needed.

It is early in the morning and I finish dealing with one customer, then see that Kella has returned to my stall. She chooses dried nettles and then looks at me doubtfully. I nod and add red clover and the leaves of raspberries.

“For a child,” I say, and she nods without replying, her eyes filling with tears.

I want to say more but I do not know her well enough, cannot warn her to be more careful, but then I suppose she knows this already.

I watch her walk away and say a small prayer for her.

Perhaps Our Lady will look kindly on this woman who seeks only to bear a child to her husband.

I hope that if she does so, her marriage with Yusuf will be strengthened and Zaynab’s power over him will be lessened.

I hope that if he is happy with these two wives I will be taught a lesson in humility, return to my own chaste life and think no more of him.

I hoe the field, water the plants, pick the herbs, sell them.

I write down my remedies, creating a stack of paper that grows day by day.

I pray. I eat. I sleep. My loneliness grows.

This pale imitation of the life I once led, that I am now trying to recreate, does not come with the same sense of contentment and peace that I had then, it has neither the community of my sisters around me nor the calm of knowing that my path lies bright before me, clear and well-trodden.

I feel adrift, uncertain of what I am doing, clinging to the remnants of a past that cannot be replicated here.

I ask for a carpenter to carve a wooden cross to hang on my wall and he does so, for money overrides faith, it seems. I hoped its presence on my bare wall would bring me comfort, but it feels more like a reminder that I am very far from home.

There is a knocking at my gate when darkness has already fallen and I open it cautiously, to see the face of the Jewess, Rebecca, her cheeks streaked with tears, her hands bloodied.

“What has happened?” I ask.

“I was attacked,” she says, in a half whisper, looking over her shoulder. “I was – I was violated.”

I pull her inside and tend to her, giving her the means to clean herself and then bandaging her hands. “How did this happen?”

“I fought them,” she says, looking down at her hands. “But they had a knife and all I did was cut myself.”

“Who was it?” I ask.

“I do not know,” she says. “It was dark, there were two men. They came upon me from behind, and even when I fought them, I could not see their faces well enough.” She is still trembling from the ordeal, wiping away tears as they continue to fall.

“I can give you something,” I say.

“What sort of thing?” she asks.

“To stop a child from growing in your womb,” I say.

She shakes her head. “I have cleaned myself,” she says, under her breath.

“Are you certain?” I ask. “It might be better if you took something.”

“No, thank you,” she says.