Page 7 of None Such as She (The Moroccan Empire #2)

Tonight my father has decided that for a change he will have an evening that does not feature a fawning suitor for my hand.

He declares he is weary of the same conversations night after night.

Myriam is happy, for she can go and visit her friends and not spend the evening beautifying me.

Tonight my father has a customer for carpets.

His name is Yusuf bin Ali, the chief of the Wurika and Aylana tribes, whose boundaries are close to the great city of Aghmat, very far to the South West. There he lives in a ksar, one of the fortified cities of the desert-dwellers.

It is for his own home that he comes to buy carpets, but my father is keen to strike up a good trade with him, for it is known that he travels much and is a friend of many important men, including the amir of Aghmat and so if he should like my father’s carpets it may well be that my father can expect patronage from the amir also.

I beg leave from the table. I, too, am weary of the grand banquets.

I would like to be left alone, especially as this Yusuf has no interest in me – he has come to see carpets, not seek a bride.

My father grants me permission to be absent.

The servants can bring food to my rooms when I am hungry and I will have an evening to do as I please, an evening when I will not be stared at.

I dress in my favourite robe, originally a stiff bright yellow silk for formal occasions, which over time has worn to a pale glow, soft and comfortable.

I leave it loose. To be without jewels and heavy constricting belts is a relief.

My hair falls free, untied and uncovered.

My feet are bare. I lie on my bed playing with my cat, who enjoys sitting on me if I lie obediently still while she closes her eyes in happiness, gently kneading my stomach.

Unlike other cats she remembers to sheath her claws and so the experience is a pleasant one and my robe is not pierced.

I tickle her ears and sing to her, which is difficult when lying on your back with a heavy cat on your belly, but I try anyway and she purrs in sleepy contentment.

I awake in darkness and realise I must have slept for many hours.

I had not realised how tired I was, nor how pleasant it is to sleep with a light stomach, albeit one topped with a heavy cat, rather than an uncomfortably full one.

But now I am hungry and the house is quiet.

The dinner must have finished some time ago and our guest will have gone away satisfied with his bartering and our generous table.

Now everyone is asleep. If I creep quietly downstairs I will disturb no-one.

In the kitchen there will be leftovers – fresh bread, olives, figs and butter.

There may even be meat. My stomach grumbles.

I set the cat aside. She keep her eyes shut and growls, annoyed at my having the audacity to move when she is still deep in slumber.

I open the heavy wooden door of my room and make my way down the stairs.

In the kitchen I find everything I could wish for and prepare a plate of good food, my stomach making happy gurgles as it senses the smells around me.

I dip into a large jar for fresh cool water and then decide to eat in our courtyard rather than upstairs.

The night air is still warm and our courtyard is always a pleasant place, full of pale scented flowers in the darkness.

My eyes have grown used to the night and I make my way to a low bench set into an alcove in the wall.

I place the plate beside me, then eat hungrily.

It feels good to sit here all alone and eat with real hunger rather than a false dainty refinement.

My fingers get oily and I lick them clean and then continue to eat.

“What an appetite you have.” The voice is a man’s, low and amused.

I would scream but my mouth is full of bread and meat. I gulp and my throat hurts as the half-chewed food is forced down. I peer into the darkness. A shadow moves slightly in the alcove opposite me in the courtyard.

“If you come near me I will scream,” I say. My voice trembles. I do not sound very threatening.

I hear a chuckle. I relax a little since the speaker has not yet moved from their bench. I consider running upstairs, but this would mean running past the man and I do not have the courage. I shrink back into the alcove.

“I would not dream of coming near the daughter of the house without her express permission.”

“How do you know I am the daughter of the house?”

“Your robes sound like silk. You just helped yourself to food in the kitchens. If you were a servant girl you would be whipped if you were caught. Besides, a servant girl would not threaten a guest.”

My shoulders drop with relief. I make my own deduction. “You are Yusuf bin Ali, my father’s visitor.”

I hear a slow, soft clap. “Very good.”

“I thought you were only here for dinner.”

“It got late. Your father is a kind host. He invited me to stay the night.”

“On a bench in our courtyard?”

He laughs again. I am beginning to like his laughter, it is slow, as though he has all night to laugh.

I do not often hear such laughter in our house.

Besides, he is my father’s guest, so he is not going to attack me after all.

I am safe. “I bought many carpets. I think your father thought I was worth a room at least.”

“Why are you not in it, then?”

“Too hot. I wanted some fresh night air as the day cooled.”

We sit in silence for a while, on our opposite sides of the courtyard. When he speaks again I realise I have been waiting for him to do so. I like the way he speaks, unhurried, how I can hear his smile even in the dark. “Why did you not attend dinner?”

“I wanted a night without a banquet.”

“Do you have so many fine meals then?”

“Yes.”

“Always customers for your father’s carpets?”

“No.”

“What then?”

I am unwilling to tell him. It sounds like boasting. I mumble my words.

“What did you say?”

“Suitors.”

“Suitors? Who for?”

“Me, of course,” I say, a little indignantly. I did not want to boast but neither do I like his tone of surprise.

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Surely not.”

“Why not?” I am put out, he sounds as though he thought I was merely a child to be entertained.

The shadows move. I hear him walk towards me.

I should leave, of course, should not let a strange man approach me in the darkness, even if he is my father’s guest, but I am curious.

Why does he not believe I am sixteen? He comes closer and I move to one end of my bench.

He comes close enough to be facing me were I standing and then stops, a tall form stood over me.

I can smell him, a warm scent, of smoke and camels, a masculine smell tempered with a fleeting sweet perfume, something like orange blossoms. His robes seem to be dark.

His face is mostly covered with a thick veil wrapped round his head, in the manner of tribesmen from the South.

I can hear my own heart beating and my breathing seems very loud.

I try to quiet it by breathing very lightly.

“You’re very quiet,” he says.

I breathe out more heavily, relieved that he cannot hear me breathing after all.

“Why are you sighing?” he asks.

I stop breathing altogether.

He sits down alongside me on the bench, although he is at the far end. If I were to reach out my hand I would just be able to touch him.

I tuck my hands into the sleeves of my robes and start to breathe again, but very quietly.

“So, these suitors,” he says. He sounds as if he would like to laugh, as though he is talking to a child about a make-believe friend.

I feel myself stiffen with pride. “What about them?”

“Who are they?”

I will ensure he is impressed. He cannot fail to be. My suitors are the talk of Kairouan. “Amirs, mostly.”

I hear him barely suppress a snort of laughter. “Really.”

“Yes, really. Lots of them. They come practically every night, from all over the Maghreb. Asking for my hand.” I know that I sound like a boastful child.

“How nice for you.”

“Not really,” I admit reluctantly.

“No? Why ever not? Lots of rich important men begging for your hand in marriage? I would have thought that was what every girl wanted.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

I struggle to explain. “They look at me… I have to dress up… they don’t talk like…”

“Don’t talk like what?”

“Like – like you.” My face burns, I did not mean to say that at all. My toes clench.

His voice is softer, curious. He leans forward a little, trying to make out my features in the darkness. “Like me? How do I talk, then?”

“Properly.”

“Properly?”

I squirm. But I have to explain now or he will think I am a mad babbling fool.

Once I explain he will understand and I will not look like a fool.

“You just – talk to me. Like a person. Like people who know me well. The suitors don’t.

They sit there and eat for hours, they talk to my father about boring things and sometimes they say polite things to my mother.

They look at me as if I was a sweet cake but they don’t talk to me. Just words that don’t mean anything.”

“Like what?”

“Like how gracious and beautiful I am.”

He leans back, chuckling. “I’m sure you are.”

I struggle on with my explanation. “No – not even as if they meant it. Just things you say, all formal and like a story. You know, ‘the lady Zaynab, whose form is most lovely unto the eye and whose beauty must make the very birds of the air fly closer that they might see her better…’ that sort of thing. They don’t mean it.

They just say it because you have to when you’re asking for a girl’s hand in marriage. ”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

He laughs out loud. “I shall remember that when I am next looking for a wife.”