Page 30 of None Such as She (The Moroccan Empire #2)

I t is still dark when I awake. The call to prayer will come soon but for now all is silent. I sit for a few moments, drinking water that has been chilled by the night. Then I begin.

It is not long before Hela enters my tent. Her ears have always been sharp, you cannot stir, even in a tent ten paces from hers, without she will hear you. She stands just inside the doorway and observes me without speaking.

I ignore her. I am rifling through my great carved chests, throwing clothes and bed linen onto the floor.

Down go my colourful silk robes, my intricately embroidered slippers, my shining veils, which are used to tie up my hair.

I take whole chests; those studded with bright gems, and set them to one side, decanting their contents into plainer copies. I talk over my shoulder to Hela.

“After prayers you will find me the best carpenter and the best woodcarver in the camp. I want the best tailor of robes. I want the finest leatherworker. If the best are still tarrying in Aghmat you will send for them. Tell the traders when they come that I want fabrics, leathers and woods in black. It must be the finest, mind, none of their cheap stuff that washes to grey in three dips of water. Pure black. The traders of jewels you may turn away, for I want none of their merchandise. You are to take all of this – ” I gesture at the piles of goods on the floor “ – and give it to whomever has need of it.”

I turn. Hela is standing over me in silence.

“Well?”

She speaks slowly, as though to an idiot. “He has to marry you whatever you are like. There is no need to change.”

I come close to her so that she can see how my eyes shine in the thin light and feel my fevered breath on her cheek. “He is obliged to marry me. He is not obliged to desire me. Look at what happened with Abu Bakr.”

She does not blink. Nothing intimidates her. “You think by moulding yourself to his image he will desire you?”

“He kissed me last night.”

Hela nods as though this is not a surprise. “Exactly. So he desires you as you are now.”

I shake my head. “I provoked him by speaking of lying together. He is a man. He is lonely here without a wife, without a woman. He is as good as my husband already, it might have been lust for any woman, not for me.”

Hela’s eyes roll. “And what are you moulding yourself into? What shape are you taking on now?”

I have lain awake for hours and even in my dreams I have fashioned this image.

I pace back and forth within the tent as I speak – so great is my desire to make this a reality I cannot even keep still.

“I will be everything he can desire. In council I will be his strategist. In the camp I will rule as his queen. Before his holy men I will be the most pious woman in the Maghreb. In our tent I will be the most desirable woman he has ever held.”

“And what of his first wife?”

I shrug. “What is she to me? Or to him? If she was so precious to him he should have sent for her as quickly as Abu Bakr sent for Aisha.”

Hela is picking up silks off the floor. “Why are you throwing these away?”

I kneel beside her to make the work faster, grabbing at items and stuffing them into one of the cast-off chests closest to the door of the tent.

“He wears plain dark robes and despises the riches of this world? So will I. Everything I wear will be black. I will have no embroidery, no bright gems.”

Hela keeps packing in the silks. She pauses over a slipper, turning it this way and that.

“Does he know that black silk is more costly than pink silk? Does he know that for leather slippers to be truly black they will have to come from a master leatherworker? You may dress all in black but your clothes will cost four-fold what they cost now.”

I laugh and rest my head against her shoulder.

“He is a man, Hela. What does he know of such things? If he wishes to see a pious woman who disdains finery then that is what he will see. And besides,” I lower my voice, “when he holds me he must touch silk, not rough wool. He is still a man, for all his pious fervour.”

She shakes her head and gathers up armfuls of my cast-off clothes. I see them later around the camp, worn by those women who can pay for such rich garments, worn by a queen.

“You are trying too hard to be loved,” she says with sorrow.

“I have no choice,” I retort. “He has sent for his first wife now, even if he left it late. I saw the escort leave the other day.”

Hela turns back in the doorway. “The one who lost a baby to a camel kick?”

“Why, how many other wives does he have?”

She sighs at my bad temper. “Only one. She is probably old and barren, Zaynab,” she says gently. “You will shine beside her.”

“Like I did beside Aisha?”

She shrugs. “That was bad luck. A rare love.”

I concentrate on what I am doing, taking out all my jewellery and piling it in a heap. I hold back nothing. “She will not arrive for many months. It is unlikely she will arrive before the wedding.”

Hela smiles as she leaves me. “Then if you can draw him to you, your wedding night will be as you wish it to be, Zaynab,” she says and ducks out of the tent.

I sit back on my heels and survey my changing tent. It is growing more sombre by the hour.

“If I can draw him to me,” I murmur. “If.”

Three months are long when you are burning up for a man’s embrace but they are short when you must stoke a tiny spark within him until it is a raging fire. There is much I must do.

***

By now the camp is entirely mine to rule as I see fit.

Now I order those things that will begin to make a city of it in due course.

The walls move on apace, outside them I ensure that the first shoots of palm trees are nourished and kept safe from hungry animals.

One day they will grow above our heads, providing shade and sweet fruits, for now, they must be protected.

I designate an area to be set aside for a souk, for by now the traders would far rather come to us than to dwindling Aghmat.

As the souk grows so grows our access to what we will need in the future – spices for better foods, incense for sweeter smells about us.

I order fresh herbs to be grown and a slave woman takes on that job.

I see her sometimes, a twisted figure of a woman limping back and forth watering her small green charges.

As they grow she begins to sell them and soon trade at her stall is brisk.

I am glad of it, for fresh foods have been lacking and dried dates with coarse grains and camel’s milk are a poor diet.

It is only now that we begin to eat more fresh meat as the flocks grow in the fertile plains, that we can use fresh herbs and taste the cleansing bitterness of green leaves rather than endless stored grains.

The people of the camp are grateful. They know they owe this change to me and I gain greater respect for it.

They stop grumbling about this new life as they can see a new city beginning to take shape.

It may still take many years but people will do much with a vision in their minds.

A few still grumble that I have too much power but they are mostly men and their wives will hear none of it.

They fear me a little, as all servants fear their masters, but they can see that I am right in my commands and so they are carried out to the letter.

There are strange looks at first for my new robes, but those who are ignorant think I am thus unadorned because to keep rich bright silks clean in this place is almost impossible, no matter how many servants and slaves you have at your disposal.

Those who are pious see in me a new piety, a bending of my will to my husband-to-be’s choice of garments and they nod approvingly.

Only those who know fabrics and leathers smile when they see what I am wearing, for they know that no matter how unadorned I might be the clothes and slippers I wear now are those of a queen, as they have always been.

Any fool with a few coins can buy cheap shining silks in a myriad of colours.

Only a queen knows the value of quality and has the heavy gold coins to pay for it.

In the council I see Yusuf’s quick glance when I enter council in my new garb and his softened gaze.

I know he never liked my opulent attire and when I continue to wear the same simple style day after day I see him look upon me with more favour.

Gone are the disdainful stares when I would arrive with some fresh outrage of vivid silk held tight to my body with entwined belts of silver and gold.

Now I am hidden under soft folds of black silk, which promises but does not deliver my true from.

My hair falls loose and straight without shining silver veils or clasps to tame it, mostly it is only lightly covered with a black veil.

Its softness brushes more than once against Yusuf’s hand or arm in council and he does not draw back.