by Jane Johnson
Her life was not at all what she had expected it to be in this foreign place. It was simple, but not austere; occasionally hard, but never cruel. Although much time was given over to the daily prayers, at least as much was taken by the preparation and serving of tea throughout the day, when the women would break from their work and sit about gossiping in a way that would not have been allowed at Kenegie. Bathing at the hammam was a revelation, and had gone from being a trial to be dreaded to a pleasure to be savored. Food was never purely filling and functional but inventively spiced and elegantly arranged—as much of a joy to the eye as to the tongue, as Habiba chided her, half in charade, half in words, when she threw her vegetables willy-nilly into a tajine. Hasna showed her how to prepare her own kohl from a stone with a soft blue metallic sheen like the flash of a magpie’s wing that they had bought together in the souq; how to grind it to powder and make a paste; how to fill the pretty bottle with the fine rod of silver attached to its stopper and apply it just so, without making your eyes water so that it fell in runnels down your cheek.
As her facility with the language improved, so did her knowledge of her situation. The man to whom the women referred as the Sidi Qasem bin Hamed bin Moussa Dib was indeed the same man she had known as Al-Andalusi, the captain of the corsair vessel, but the women seemed to regard him not with fear but with respect and affection. He was a great benefactor, a merchant and a righteous man, they told her. That he traded in foreign slaves, including herself, seemed to them entirely normal, as if he traded in horses or prize camels, and after a while even Cat found that her own parameters were shifting. In fact, it was hard to think herself a slave, or even truly a servant, for her master was rarely present, and the few chores she had other than the overseeing of the embroidery workshop were hardly onerous. She also had more time to herself than she had enjoyed in Cornwall, and she found to her surprise that rather than this chafing at her, she looked forward to the serenity of sweeping the courtyard or tending to its flowers, even though no one had asked her to, and discovered in herself a still, quiet center she had never suspected to exist.
ONE DAY, AFTER Catherine had passed almost seven months in the house of her new master, the raïs appeared unheralded and found her sitting in the courtyard with her eyes closed, her broom at her feet, her face upturned to the sky.
“You look like rose,” he said softly, “with its petals drinking in the sun.”
Her eyes flew open in shock. She stood up, caught her foot on the broom, and almost fell. The corsair caught her neatly and sat her down again. “Thank you, Sidi Qasem,” she muttered, discomforted.
“Just Qasem is enough.”
“Qasem.” It sounded strange to call him this. She had never called Sir Arthur Harris merely Arthur; the very idea was absurd.
“Why you smile?”
“I was thinking of my last master.”
“Was he like me?”
That made her smile wider. Sir Arthur, stolid, bewhiskered, and English to the bone—it was hard to imagine two men less alike. “Not in any particular!”
It seemed he was not sure how to take this judgment, for now he changed the subject. “Do you like my courtyard?”
“It is very beautiful, and very … serene.”
“I do not know this word ‘serene.’”
“Quiet, tranquil—a good place to sit and think.”
Now his face was transformed, the hard planes softening, the frown lines on his forehead smoothing out. “Is a chahar bagh,” he explained, “a quartered garden, made in image of celestial garden, the eternal paradise. Human life began in the Garden, and we go back to the Garden when we die. This represents our journey”—he indicated the channels of water running from the central fountain— “for like water we are always moving, seeking happiness and knowledge and faith. In the Qu’ran it say that four rivers ran in the Garden of Eden: rivers of water, milk, honey, and wine. But as you see, here in my little earthly paradise, hidden from rest of the world, I must be content with water alone. And when I am here, I am content.”
He reached up and picked a rose from the bush that climbed the trellis of the arcade. “Such perfection. God is beauty and He loves beauty. Today is perhaps the very day for which He designed this bloom. Its petals are not touched by insect or rot; they not yet start to wither. Its scent is scent of Heaven. But tomorrow it start to decay. Better I pick today and cast petals in fountain which is source of its life, so it be remembered in most perfect form.”
He held the rose against Cat’s cheek for a moment so that she smelled its aroma and felt its velvet texture brush her skin, and although no part of him had touched her, she felt something alive and fiery in her nerves as if lightning for a moment connected the pair of them and she could not breathe. Then the raïs crushed the flower in his hand so that its scent filled the air, and walked to the fountain to scatter the petals in its pool.
Cat closed her eyes. When she opened them again, he was gone.
AFTER THAT WHENEVER she walked in the courtyard she felt his shade there, as if he was watching her from behind the pillars of the arcaded walk, or from the shadows of the pavilion. Sometimes she thought she caught a movement high in the gallery above, but there was never a soul there when she ran to investigate, only the little buntings singing in the jasmine, their ruddy feathers bright against the white blossom.
The women worked hard under her tutelage, excited by their developing skills, and when she was with them and involved in the pattern-making and the stitching, Cat thought of nothing else: Her mind was given over to simplicity and exactitude, to counting stitches and the careful balance of colors. Too many and the work was garish, too few and it overly resembled the monochrome embroidery of Fez, or the old-fashioned blackwork with which she had been so familiar in England. Now, on the many feast days celebrated in this country, all the women wore something that they had made for themselves—a braided belt, a decorated veil or head scarf, kaftans gorgeous with embellishment. Word spread and soon there were many women calling at the door, wishing to take lessons with the foreign embroiderer so that they, too, could wear beautiful clothes they could never otherwise afford.
Leila shook her head. “It is all very well, this pretty sewing of clothing, but it is not the type of work that will bring great riches to your master or to the rest of us.”
Cat looked at her oddly. “What do you mean?”
The Dutchwoman colored. Then she shrugged. “You may as well know. The Sidi Qasem has established a merchant company here and has been so kind as to include me in their number. We will share the profits equally and each of us will pay one fifth of our share into a common fund for the good of the community. So you see, a child’s robe or a bath veil here and there is not going to profit the common good.”
Or your own pocket, Cat thought sourly, but held her tongue. “What should we make, then?” she asked.
Leila pulled a list from the pocket of her robe. “Horse trappings and saddlecloths, ceremonial robes, ceremonial hangings, all using plenty of gold and silver thread, tassels and braiding—”
“Rich things for rich men.”
The Dutchwoman’s lips flattened into a line. “If you like. But the more money we take thus from the rich, the more is returned into the common fund and the more you will be remembered in the prayers of the people here.”
Cat stared at her. “Why should they pray for me?”
“You are infidel, and worse, kafir: You will go to the sixth level of Hell when you die and be forced to eat the thorny fruit of the zaqqum tree, which will intensify your torment while you writhe in eternal flame. The women pray that you will make the shahada and join them in their worship.”
“The shahada?”
“It is very simple. All you need do is say, ‘There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet,’ and from that moment forth you are accepted into Islam.”
“That is all?”
Leila leaned toward her eagerly, taking her by the arm. “That is all, and t
hen you are one of us. It is very easy, and would make … everyone very happy.”
“I cannot see what worth there would be in such a cheap conversion,” Cat said stiffly.
The Dutchwoman smiled slyly. “A Muslim cannot be a slave. It would win you your freedom. And it is well known that a Muslim man can take to wife only a Muslim woman.” She paused, measuring her words for effect. “I hear that the Sidi Qasem’s cousin Khadija has commissioned a wedding veil.”
Cat met her questing eye squarely. “Good for her.”
“Though, of course, sexual relations with a female slave are still permitted to a Muslim man even when he has taken a wife of his own kind.”
Cat tore the list from the other woman’s hand. “I have work to do. I cannot stand around here gossiping in such a salacious manner.” Her face burned.
For the rest of the day she made error after error in her stitching, and the women shook their heads and clucked their tongues and watched her out of the corners of their eyes. Was she sick? Certainly her color was high. Perhaps she is in love, Hasna suggested wickedly, and they all laughed.
HOW NELL CHIGWINE would chide her for her Jezebel ways, Cat thought as she applied the last touch of her daily kohl and regarded herself in the mirror in her chamber, seeing how her eyes were dramatically outlined to make the blue of them even more arresting, how the silver earrings tinkled in her ears, the sumptuous embroidery at her throat and cuffs enhancing an already striking scarlet kaftan. A scarlet dress for a scarlet woman …
Then she remembered that Nell was dead, and how she had died, and felt ashamed.
Today was an important day. The Sidi Qasem was bringing a group of merchants to the house to discuss his new business venture. All the previous day they had cleaned the best salon, sprinkling its cushions with rosewater, beating the carpets, polishing the brass and the wood. More important, they had put the finishing touches on a dozen new pieces of work that he might show as samples. The past two months had been filled with stitching and couching with gold and silver thread to produce a number of fine samples for the consortium to show in Meknes and Fez, in Larache and Safi—even as far as Marrakech—from which to gather commissions. To this end they had turned out a fabulous set of trappings for a horse—a saddlecloth fringed with gold tassels and edged with a gorgeous design, a spectacular embroidered saddlecover to be stitched onto the leather, a girth and headpiece replete with gold. In addition to these, there were the usual ceremonial items of clothing, marriage curtains and veils, belts, braid, and bed-hangings. The raïs had been more involved than usual, visiting often to give advice on the cut and quality of the saddlecloths and harness, and as she worked, Cat remembered with the clarity of a true dream the afternoon she had seen him waiting on this side of the Bou Regreg, still and silent, with his finely appareled mount all in scarlet and gold.
Now she waited, on the pretext of hanging out the linens on the roof terrace, for a glimpse of him. She did not wait long. Within minutes a group of men had appeared at the bottom of the hill beneath the house, all robed and swathed against the wind in cloaks and turbans. Her eye was drawn unerringly to the tallest of them, even at this slow pace his gait more of a stalk than a stroll. As they approached, he looked up and met her eye—a lodestone to a magnet—and she ducked her head, frightened by the way her heart fluttered behind her ribs.
Later it was she who brought the great silver teapot, the tea glasses, and the almond biscuits they had baked that morning into the salon where the men lounged, smoking and talking loudly. His regard, so dark and hooded, traveled over her and she watched his eyes widen and knew she had had her effect. She bowed and left with all modesty, looking to neither right nor left, but that evening she waited for his knock at her door and was not disappointed.
“It seems you are going to make me a great deal of money,” he announced, leaning against the doorjamb.
Cat put aside the book she had been studying and looked up. His pupils were dilated from the herb smoke he had taken with his guests. He dangled his prayer beads from one hand, swinging the cord up and catching them in his palm so that the little polished stones clicked against one another.
“The saddlecloth?” she asked, pleased. “Or the wedding tunics?”
He smiled. “Hossein Malouda has offered me small fortune. For you.”
She paled. “For me?”
“He say samples remarkable but that creator of them most remarkable of all. You certainly presented yourself as richly as your work.”
A pulse began to beat at her temple. She had made a foolish error, hoping to win his approval alone. And somehow in all of this she had forgotten that she was a chattel still, a thing to be bought and sold. “And what did you say?”
He flicked the prayer beads up and down again, then curled them in his hand and sequestered them in his robe. “I have not yet give him my answer.”
‘Why not?” It came out too fast, too anxious. She could feel her neck flushing, the blood beating in her face.
“Because I have not yet decide what to do with you. He is not only one to have offered good price for you.”
“Someone else has tried to buy me from you?”
“Someone came seeking to offer for you some months ago. Unfortunately, he not come direct to me but found the Sidi al-Ayyachi instead.”
“Unfortunately?”
“The Sidi decide to make different kind of deal with him.” “You all seem to think you can buy and sell me like … like a camel!”
He laughed then. “Ah, Cat’rin, in your scarlet robe and your silver: I have never seen a camel so fine. Although …” He rubbed his chin. “There was one I remember, with great dark eyes and a temper which struck fear into heart of any rider, she spit or bite at least provocation. You remind me of that camel. But she was tamed in the end.”
Cat glared at him. “You will never tame me. I am not an animal to be broken to your will, or that of any man.”
Red light from the setting sun glinted in his eye so that for a moment he looked as demonic as the djinn the women spoke of. Then he stepped backward out of the door and the red light slid away. As he walked out onto the balcony, he said softly, “And that is why I love you, Cat’rin Anne Tregenna.”
But a breeze caught his words and carried them into the twilight sky.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING she and Leila visited the souq to find the woman who made the tasseled braids they needed to trim the headpiece for a horse. Cat enjoyed these excursions considerably. It gave her the chance to view the world in which she now lived, to revel in its sights and scents and pretend that she was a free woman with money in her pocket to spend as she would. In her djellaba and veil she was paid no more attention than the next robed woman, except when someone had reason to glance at her pale hands, or into her blue eyes. Then they dipped their heads with a smile, though some gave her a stony look, and others refused to touch her. “Some of the older ones think we’re cursed,” Leila said. “Cursed with skin the color of a pig’s. They think we’re tainted, touched by the Devil. But you have blue eyes, and that’s a lucky color. Maybe that’ll save you in the end.” She did not explain what she meant by this.
They found the braid-maker at the back of her little stall near the heart of the medina, hunched over her tatting, which was not at all of the quality Cat had expected or been promised. They came away without a deal and without the necessary braid: Cat was not in the best of humors. The stall had been hot and airless and now she had a headache, so they took a shortcut to the fountain outside the little white koubba of one of the local saints and Cat sat there in the harsh sunlight mopping her face and hands with the end of her wetted veil. She was beginning to feel better when there was a loud cry and the sound of a whip whistled through the air again and again. In the road ahead a coffle of fettered prisoners was in disarray, with one man on his knees in the dirt and the overseer thrashing at his head and shoulders in a fury.
Cat was so intent on the fallen man that it was several moments befor
e she noticed the captive next to him. She screwed her eyes against the sun. It could not be …
She leapt to her feet, headache forgotten, but now a crowd had gathered to watch the fallen Christian being beaten and it was hard to confirm what she thought she had seen. Cat launched herself into the crowd, pushing and shoving with the rest, until someone grabbed her arm and dragged her back.
“What do you think you are doing?”
She had always thought that Leila accompanied her as a translator and guide, but now she realized she had been naive: The Dutchwoman was there as her guard.
Cat fought her arm free. “I know that man—the tall one, there—” But now the overseer had the fallen man on his feet again and the string of captives was on the move once more, offering Cat a glimpse of backs striped with weals and ribs showing through the skin like those of starved donkeys. Then they were gone. She stood there with her hands to her mouth as the crowd dispersed. She must be going mad. She had thought—just for a moment—that she had seen her cousin. But that was impossible, for Robert Bolitho was two thousand miles away in Cornwall.
