Page 38 of None Such as She (The Moroccan Empire #2)

I ignore her. Heavy with my own child I hurry to her home and catch the sound of a child’s cry as I open the gate, although I cannot be certain where it comes from, whether Kella’s own home or somewhere else.

Inside the lanterns have not yet been lit, even though it is already dark.

I make my way partly by feel inside the house, where a dim light draws me upstairs to Kella’s rooms. My heart thuds, my weak legs ache at each step.

She lies alone, half-propped up on cushions, her face a little dazed. Her belly still protrudes, but not as it did before. At the sight of me in the doorway she startles and looks over my shoulder as though expecting someone else to join us. There is no baby.

“You have a son?” I ask. I cannot see a baby anywhere, I wonder whether one of her servants has taken it away, whether they knew I would come.

She does not answer, only stares up at me like a frightened animal.

“It is my own children who will follow Yusuf,” I tell her, and I hear my voice tremble even though I meant to sound fierce, meant to intimidate her.

“Why do you hate me so much, Zaynab?” she asks, tears falling down her face. “I am nothing compared to you, yet you hate me and pursue me. You seek to do me harm at every possible opportunity. I have done nothing to you.”

I look round the room again. I barely hear what she has said.

She knows nothing of my life, this silly girl who wanted the freedom of the trade routes and ran away from her family to follow Yusuf and his army as though she were some lovesick fool, without a thought for what her future might hold, for what kind of mission Yusuf was embarking on.

At her age I had already lost my first love and been thrown into the clutches of a monster.

“I am always second,” I hear myself murmur.

“You are a queen,” she whimpers. I want to laugh at her for thinking that being a queen must mean that I am happy, that my life must be good.

Only a child thinks like this. And still I cannot see the baby.

I think to search the house but then shake my head to myself.

If there is a baby, I will find it soon enough.

“Before or after it is born, while I still live each one of your children will die,” I threaten her and see her eyes widen. Now I know there is a child and it is alive. She cannot command her feelings well enough, they are visible all over her face.

“Get out,” she says, her voice shaking in fear, while her eyes flit behind me again.

***

She lies. She claims that the baby died and Yusuf weeps with her.

“She is lying,” I tell Hela. “That baby was alive when I went to her home.”

“Did you see it?”

“No,” I say.

“It might have died afterwards,” she says.

I look at her.

“Forget the child,” says Hela. “It is gone.”

“Gone where?” I ask her and she does not reply.

“Find it,” I tell her.

***

My own son must be destined for life as a warrior, for I gave instructions for the siege of Fes even as I birthed him, sending messages through gritted teeth to Yusuf with one servant and then another.

“The pain will be over soon,” Hela tries to soothe me.

“It is never over,” I say, panting. “It is one thing and then another, my whole life long.”

I think I will split in two.

“Scream,” says Hela, watching me.

My teeth are so tight together I think they will break, my jaw aches from my silence.

“Cry out, Zaynab,” she says. “You cannot hold the pain inside.”

But I do. I hold it until I am lost in darkness and when I awake there is a baby beside me.

“You have a son,” says Hela.

He is tiny. I look down at him in silence. A fierce joy runs through me, a love so violent I am afraid to touch him in case I crush him.

“Hold him,” says Hela.

I put out one hand and touch his face. At once he opens dark eyes and cries.

“Call a wet-nurse,” I say.

Hela frowns. “You can feed him yourself, Zaynab,” she says. “I will help you learn how.”

I shake my head. “I cannot,” I say. “I must attend council.”

***

My son is named Abu Tahir al-Mu’izz and Murakush erupts in festivities for him, celebrating an heir for Yusuf, a sign of Allah’s favour, surely.

Why, I have been married three times before and have never born a child, I am old for childbearing and yet as soon as I wedded Yusuf I have been proven fertile after all.

Abu Tahir is surrounded by nursemaids and an eager-to-please wetnurse, more servants and slaves are allocated to his service, whatever service a tiny baby has need of.

Hela shakes her head. “He only has need of a mother,” she says.

“He must have everything,” I tell her.

Council sits long hours and now the men begin to march North, joining the ever-growing garrison at Meknes, ready to take Fes.

I am regaining some strength, now that the nausea of the past nine months has left me.

I eat hungrily, seeking to cover up the too-obvious bones of my hands, my neck and shoulders.

When I look in a mirror I stand tall again, a women of power.

I cannot help but feel a little sorry for Kella.

She is nothing but a foolish girl who tried to take from me what was mine and now has lost everything.

Except that I catch sight of her one day and when I do I summon Hela.

“That is not a woman who has lost a child,” I say. “Look at her. She is well fed, she smiles, she goes about her life as though all were well and yet she claims to have lost her son, her third child.”

Hela says nothing.

“You will follow her, wherever she goes,” I say. “That child is not dead. Find it.” She makes to speak but I wave her away. “Find the child,” I say.

***

The two amirs of Fes are given one more warning but they do not show wisdom, only stubbornness. The siege is about to begin.

“Have you found the child?” I ask Hela.

She shakes her head.

“It is somewhere in this city,” I say. “I know it.”

“Kella has not been anywhere near a baby,” says Hela, holding Abu and half-singing to him. Her face lights up when she sees him.

I walk in the dark streets of the souk and ask for the merchants who will not flinch when I tell them what I need.

I send Kella a ring set with a tiny box that contains a perfume, the use of which will kill her.

If I cannot be certain of the babe, I will be certain of the mother.

I will not have a baby hidden from me and then revealed as an heir who can topple my own children.

I have the servant who delivers it to her claim it is a gift from Yusuf and she, the innocent, wears it with pride.

The siege begins.

Each day I await news. I sit in council or in my own rooms and I do not hear what goes on around me.

I think only of the ever-beating war drums, how their endless rhythm makes the enemy uneasy at first, before they grow unable to think clearly, their ears and minds filled with the constant sound before they have even been engaged in battle.

The soldiers and their families will look out from the walls of Fes and see an army the like of which has never been known before.

They will swallow and wonder what it will be like to fight such an army, whose tight formations are so unlike anything they have encountered in previous local skirmishes.

The siege goes on day after day and while the armies of the amirs begins to diminish, our own stays strong in numbers. Now the people of Fes will beg their amirs to reconsider, for their fathers, brothers and husbands leave the safety of the walls to fight and do not return.

The drums beat on, I hear them in my mind even though they are in Fes. They are my waking pulse, my sleeping breath. I sit on the walls of the city and look out across the plain, think of our army, imagine the dark mass of our soldiers, slowly advancing on the men of Fes, crushing them.

“Lady Kella is in your rooms,” a servant tells me.

I make my way to her, my feet swift. I am amazed she is still alive.

She looks drunk. Her eyes are unfocused, she moves her head this way and that as though she can hear something.

I sit above her on my bed, look down on her.

“What have you given me, Zaynab?” she asks, blinking at me as though she cannot see me clearly.

“I thought the perfume was from Yusuf, but now I know it was from you. It does strange things to me, I see visions of terrible things and I hear things I do not wish to hear. My feet stumble and I feel that I might fly like a great bird if I were only to leap from my window. I talk and talk, telling all that is in my heart, no matter who is listening. I feel light, and then the colours grow so bright they hurt my eyes until I grow afraid.” She talks too fast, then too slowly, too loud and then too soft as if she cannot hear her own voice, cannot control it.

“You are strong,” I say. “I thought it would kill you.”

She stares up at me. “Why do you hate me so much, Zaynab?” she asks, tears starting in her eyes.

I sigh. It is like speaking with a child. She cannot see beyond her own concerns. She is still speaking, not even waiting for an answer from me.

“I have not tried to fight you. I want only to help my husband succeed in his mission, to bear him children, to build a great country. Yet you treat me as your greatest enemy. What more can I give you? You have taken my husband. You have taken my children – one from my womb, one from my arms – ”

I gasp and slide down from the bed so that our faces are suddenly barely a hand’s breadth apart. My heart is pounding. I cannot believe she has let this slip.

“Taken?”

She tries to pull away from me, her eyes wide with the fear of what she has just revealed. “He is dead.”

I shake my head. “You said I took him. He is alive?”

She tries to lie. She begs again for me to soften towards her. Her voice is nothing but an annoyance to me, her innocence enraging. And at last she says something of interest. She rises, unsteady on her feet.