Page 28 of None Such as She (The Moroccan Empire #2)

I wave my hand impatiently. “Black, for all I care,” I say.

“I do not care about the colour, I care about the size. It must be large, taller than a man inside, do you understand? I am sick of being bent over double, all this crouching and stooping. It is uncomfortable. It will be a long time before I have a building in which my own airy rooms can be built. I refuse to be bent over like an old crone from now until then.”

He nods and begins to walk away.

“And make it quickly!” I call after him. “My back is already aching!”

He laughs and promises that if it be Allah’s will I may stand tall again very soon, very soon.

He is a man of his word. The tent is ready within ten days and it is gigantic.

There are others more ornate but mine is the largest in the camp, as big as the council tent.

It is a rich black all over, made with black cloth and skins and when I step inside I can not only stand at my full height but also lift my arms above my head.

I am delighted. Abu Bakr laughs at me for my lavishness but I am happy.

Hela is happy too. She makes up a bed for me and has my belongings brought to me.

Meanwhile she takes over my old tent, which stands by the side of the new one and makes it her own, full of her chests of secrets.

The next day I wave aside all the usual demands on my time – the questions, demands, worries of hundreds of people who come daily. I appoint Hela in my place and watch in amusement as the crowd that always comes to ask me for decisions is changed into a crowd of those who seek her healing.

She looks over her shoulder at me as I walk away. “Where are you going?”

“To watch the men training,”

She turns back to the crowd, her hands already reaching for cures among her chests.

I speak with the foreman and he takes it upon himself to escort me to the first part of the walls to have been built, the part that looks out onto the training grounds.

The men continue with the trenches and fortifying walls elsewhere, but at this part they are already built.

There is much to-ing and fro-ing to find me something I can climb.

One way or another, with many hands guiding me and the foreman holding his breath in terror at the thought of me falling and hurting myself, I am lifted up to the top of the wall, where I can sit, for the walls are broad enough for two large men to sit on, let alone my slender frame.

I dismiss the foreman then and he backs away with many worries on his brow.

I tell him I will call for him when I need to come back down.

He nods but continues to worry and cast glances my way as he directs his men’s work.

Now that I am comfortably installed on the wall I can look out across the training ground.

Now I see what I did not see when they came to Aghmat, when I was taken by darkness.

Here I sit on the fortified walls of a city, looking out to a conquering army.

I have grown used by now to think of Abu Bakr, of Yusuf, of the army, as my army, my people, my plans for conquering.

Now I look out and I see what others will soon see – a conquering army, the enemy, a fearful onslaught of weapons and men.

At first I struggle to form shapes within the sight before my eyes.

Too many men to count – thousands had come to Aghmat but now there are tens of thousands.

Camels and horses weave between the men, so that sometimes I almost see one being with a camel’s body and a man’s head, or the legs of a man with the head of a horse.

Before they had used mostly camels, more suited to the desert and the mountains.

Now horses arrive every day, for on the hard earth their hooves are swifter.

All must be trained, just as the men must be.

Many of the animals are fierce, fighting animals, not the docile slow beasts used for carrying women and goods.

There is biting and kicking, neighs and grunts which the men must both temper and avoid.

Their weapons are everywhere. Within the camp I am used to seeing daggers on every belt, but here there are longer daggers, javelins, swords. There are shields that no common man could even lift, let alone fight behind. The hardened layers of skins shine in the light.

The men themselves I am better used to seeing around the camp.

Seeing them all at once I am struck by their variety.

They are of every size – the thin wiry short men, the tall loping men, the ones built like the very walls on which I am sitting.

The ones who seem made of fat but whose size belies their strength.

They are of many colours also. There are those so black that I can barely make out their features at this distance, those whose skin is honey-gold – they might have been even paler in their own lands but here the sun has made them its own.

There are men who are so scarred by battles they might once have been of any hue.

All glisten with sweat and all bear scars.

Now I begin to see individual shapes – where one man fights another, the better to learn their skills for the battlefield.

My eyes move from one fighting pair to another.

Sometimes they fight in larger groups. They fight with a strange mix of care and ferocity.

They must truly fight if they are to be better fighters but they cannot harm one another for to do so gives greater strength to their enemies.

A shout goes up and is repeated. The men move at once and the shapes shift before me from little groups into tight, closed ranks.

The foot soldiers are at the front, the mounted men behind – horses first, then camels, rising from the height of a man to twice that height.

Seen like this the army is huge and terrifying.

Too many men to conceive of defeating, so closely packed together that they look like one giant creature risen from dark dreams and made real.

They stand, immobile.

Then the drums begin. The beat is slow, the sound so deep it reverberates in my belly.

I have heard it before, of course, but always when I was within the camp, with the chatter and noise of people and life around me, muffling its sound and making it nothing more than a distant thunderous rumble, which could be safely ignored.

Sitting high on this wall the sound comes straight to me, strikes against me over and over again.

The men begin to move, but no gaps appear between them.

They are moving as one beast, forward, sideways, backwards.

I know because I have heard that in battle they will not retreat, only advance, step after step, as slowly as is needed.

In training, though, they must learn their part in this whole and to do so they must move in any direction without losing their connection, without allowing any gaps between them that could be exploited by the enemy.

In the sun’s light their weapons shine and the drums add to the heat.

The sound continues to beat within me. I feel myself growing dizzy and sick with it.

I want to climb down from the wall but I am transfixed by the sight and though I feel ill I cannot look away, cannot raise my voice and call to the foreman who would be more than glad to see me return to the safety of my tent.

Then I see Yusuf. I had already spotted Abu Bakr earlier and smiled to myself to see him, sweating and grim faced, dealing strong blows to his sparring partner’s sword.

Persistent, serious, doggedly carrying out the moves needed to keep his arm strong and his lungs powerful.

I saw him step back to watch the men as they made their formations, eyes squinting in the harsh light, seeking to spot any weaknesses, calling out to his lieutenants when he spotted mistakes or changes to be made.

Yusuf sits within the cavalry, close to the ramparts where I sit. His horse is huge and black, a fine animal that snorts and paws the ground. It would kick those surrounding it and gallop away were it not held tightly back by strong hands that know how to manage such a beast.

I have never seen him like this. His eyes are filled with a strange light.

He is like a man seeing a vision before him, looking neither to left nor right but only ahead, no matter where the mass of men shifts to.

Once I spot him I cannot look elsewhere, for the other men’s faces are tired, or stern, or bloodthirsty, but Yusuf’s is none of these.

Now I know what Aisha meant when she said I should watch Yusuf, that he goes to war as though he can see Allah’s hand urging him on.

Suddenly the drums stop. The formation shifts, then dissolves into its component parts.

I blink and look about me in a daze. The foreman comes hurrying over.

I allow him to help me down and return to the camp where I wave aside all food or drink and stumble onto my bed to sleep.

My head pounds with the rhythm of the drums and only sleep can quiet it.

***

I cannot help myself. Every day, now, I go to the wall and call for the foreman to lift me up.

Every day I watch while the men fight and train their horses.

I wait for the moment when the beat of the drums begins, when I feel sick and dizzy yet cannot tear my eyes away.

It is like a drug to me. I look always to Yusuf’s face, for that light in his eyes which draws me.

In council, later, I stare at him, searching for that light, wanting to see it close to, but it is not there as he talks, listens, agrees, disagrees.

He catches me staring and as ever, glowers back at me.