Page 29 of Do Not Awaken Love (The Moroccan Empire #3)

A month passes and Aisha is brought to bed with a child, a baby girl whom she and Imari welcome into the world with joy.

I visit her, exclaim over the baby, stroke her little face and hold her hand in mine, but Aisha’s new arrival means that I see her even less as she has two little ones now and she does not realise how much I have retreated from life here.

I miss her, but I think it is as well that she does not see me as I am now, for she would only try to change my mind, and I can think of no other way in which to continue my life here, except to mimic that which came before.

Let the months pass, I think, let time pass as quickly as possible.

Let the seasons change from one into another, let this new life become the only life I can imagine.

I am at prayer when a dark-skinned slave woman finds me.

“Healer,” she says, indicating me.

I nod and wait.

“Need help,” she says. “My mistress.”

“What is wrong with her?” I ask.

“Baby,” says the woman.

“She is in labour?” I ask.

She nods.

“What is your name?” I ask.

“Adeola,” she says.

I gather a few things and follow her. When I see the shuttered house she has brought me to I step back, shaking my head. It is Kella’s house.

“Please,” says the slave.

I shake my head again. “I cannot serve this woman.” I say. “You must tell your master, her husband.”

But Adeola looks alarmed at this idea. “No!” she says quickly. “Secret.”

I think that it is no secret that Kella is with child, it is common knowledge.

But she is in labour too soon, and she is Yusuf’s wife, this is a woman who should have the very best physicians attending her.

But then I think of Kella’s visits to my stall, the green parsley she let fall into the dust when I told her the damage it could do, had already done, to her.

I swallow and gesture to the slave woman to lead me into the house.

Inside it is very dark, for all the windows are shuttered, and there seems to be only one other servant, a male slave, dark-skinned like Adeola.

She tells me he is named Ekon. By the way she greets him and touches his arm they are, perhaps, a couple.

They hurry me to a bedroom, where I find Kella on her knees, panting and clutching at her covers as a wave of pain overwhelms her.

I stare at her, shocked. Yusuf’s wife, left alone to bear a child come too early? How is this possible?

“Why do you not have a midwife with you?” I ask.

“There is no-one I trust,” she says, gasping at the pain. “Zaynab…” she does not finish the sentence, but I nod. Her words confirm my thoughts, I do not need to hear more. I kneel beside her, pull open my little bag of remedies.

“What is your name?” she asks.

I hesitate. “Isabella,” I say at last. She will have heard my hesitation, will know that I am in some way lying, but it is the only name I feel able to give her.

And anyway, for now I have more important things to worry about.

“Your child comes too soon.” I say, without even examining her.

Everyone in the camp knows that Zaynab’s child will be born first and Zaynab is not yet at her full term.

But Kella shakes her head, awash in another wave of pain.

I give her my hands to hold, which she grips tightly. As the pain dies away, she sighs in relief.

“Not early?”

She shakes her head again.

“Zaynab…” I begin.

She continues shaking her head.

I nod to myself. “So.” Zaynab has lied, then, I think, perhaps saw that Kella was with child and claimed the same.

I wonder whether she is truly with child now, or only pretending, still.

Or whether her handmaiden Hela has done something, used her skills and whatever powers she has to bring about a child for her mistress.

I do not question Kella further. I examine her carefully. Certainly, her belly is very large and she seems well enough in herself.

She looks up at me hopefully. “I think it will be born very soon,” she says. “I have been in pain for a long time.”

I try not to smile. I have attended births over the years, both for noblewomen who wanted to be attended by the sisters of the convent to feel adequately protected at a difficult birth and occasionally for the local peasant women, although most of them gave birth with little fuss and ceremony.

First babies are always the hardest and come the slowest. Kella does not know this, of course.

But it is best to be honest. “You have not yet felt pain,” I say simply.

“And your baby will not be born for a long time yet.”

She stares at me in horror.

I try to make Kella comfortable as the hours pass.

She is healthy, the baby is well placed.

There is little I can do but allow her to grip my hands when the pain comes, to offer her sips of tea that will help her body to open up, made from the dried leaves of the raspberry plant.

Adeola fans her as the heat of the day grows and Ekon brings cool water and food, though she is not hungry.

I force her to walk about the room, for this will help the baby to come.

At last I examine her and see that she is ready, that the baby will come soon.

I dismiss Ekon and help Kella onto her knees, Adeola helping to hold her up.

I place my hands ready and feel a hard skull pressed against my fingertips, urge her to push again and feel the sudden movement of the child’s head as it emerges, followed by the whole body, a slippery rush and a small cry.

I look at Kella’s exhausted face as she falls back on her bed.

“A son,” I tell her, cutting the cord that lies between them with a sharp knife and tying it tightly. I give the child to her, her fingers slipping on his wet skin, her face lit up with awe at him.

Adeola and I busy ourselves with cleaning the bed and the room. I massage Kella’s belly to release the afterbirth, which comes away whole, filling me with relief.

Kella is laughing out loud, full of joy at her son and I cannot help but smile.

I take him from her briefly, to wrap him warmly while Adeola washes Kella and covers her.

The baby nuzzles at me and I touch his silken skin, look down on him.

His face is all Yusuf’s; it is like seeing him as a babe and a great tenderness rises in me.

I give the boy back to Kella. A baby is a sweet thing, I think to myself, a gift of God, though I know that it is the dark eyes and wide eyebrows that have touched my heart, the rounded earlobes of his father that I should not even have noticed.

I will pray later, I think, to give thanks for this child’s safe arrival but also to ask forgiveness for the desire I felt to hold him a little longer.

I call for Ekon to bring food and water and to make a strong golden broth that the local women drink after their births, to which I have added garlic, thyme and mint to warm Kella.

Adeola insists on bringing two raw eggs, a common food for new mothers here, although I warn her that these are too cold in nature and harmful to the intestine, but she is stubborn and places them on a dish anyway.

I sigh and think that I will tell Kella not to eat them.

I show her how to feed the child and he learns quickly, impatient to be fed.

“You shall be called Ali,” I hear Kella say in a half-whisper, touching his dark tufts of hair. “As your father wished. You are his first son, and you will be much loved.”

I wonder what Zaynab will say when she sees this child, but Adeola suddenly pushes past me, gives Kella the broth and takes the child from her. He lets out a grumbling snort, but she is already indicating that Kella must drink the broth.

“The eggs,” I begin but Adeola pulls me hard by the hand to another room. I follow her, wondering at her behaviour but even as we reach the room, I see a figure at the end of the corridor, entering Kella’s bedchamber. Zaynab. I would know her walk anywhere.

“Leave now,” says Adeola in a hissed whisper.

“The baby?” I ask.

She nods, clutching him to her, pushes me towards the door.

I look up and down the corridor but Zaynab must still be with Kella.

I wonder what she will say, what she will do when she realises that Kella has birthed a child but cannot see it anywhere.

I think for a moment that I could take the baby with me but then I think it is better if I simply slip away.

I must not meddle between Yusuf’s wives.

I find a way to leave the house without passing Kella’s room and hurry through the darkening streets.

I am certain that no-one has seen me, and I know that both Kella and the baby are well.

I have done my duty. Even so, when I reach my own home, I find myself praying for the child’s safety.

I am already in bed when I hear a soft knocking at the gate. I ignore it, thinking it may be meant for my neighbours, it is such a quiet sound. But the sound comes again. I throw a robe over my head and make my way to the gate

“Who is there?” I ask. There is no answer.

I pull the gate open a little and see Kella standing in the dark street, alone, clutching what can only be her baby to her.

I stare at her. “Is the baby ill?” I ask and then, stupidly, “Do you bleed?” although if she were bleeding, she would never have made it to my home.

She shakes her head. “May I enter?” she asks, not answering me.

I step back so that she can move past me into the courtyard.

I look behind her, almost expecting armed guards, but there is no one there.

I close the gate and follow her into my tiny home.

She is standing in the centre of the room, looking about her.

I am aware of how bare, how plain, the room must seem to her, how strange, with its cross on the wall and my stack of paper, the calligraphy of another land.

“Kella?”

She turns to face me, frowning.

“Why are you here?” I ask.