The Sultan's Wife

by Jane Johnson

  I pull the bird mask up for a moment to show my face, and a moment later a set of heavy iron keys come clattering at my feet. I let myself in to the cool, dark interior.

  ‘You look like a demon from a Hieronymus Bosch painting.’ Daniel appears at the turn in the stairs. He looks amused and alarmed in the same degree.

  Feeling faintly ridiculous, I remove the mask, and the merchant comes running down the steps and embraces me warmly. It is an odd feeling, to be enveloped so by another human being. I cannot remember the last time I was so embraced. For a long moment I stand there, unable to respond, not knowing what to do, then I hug him back.

  ‘I am very glad to see you, my boy. These are terrible times.’

  I ask after his household and he tells me he has released the servants so that they can be with their own families. His wife is upstairs, asleep, having been up all night tending to the birthing of a cousin’s child. ‘Some would say it was an evil omen to be born in a time of pestilence, but I say God has given us a sign that nothing is stronger than love, not even death.’

  To this, I can only nod. We take tea, which the merchant makes himself with the careful deliberation of one who has to concentrate hard over an unfamiliar task, and I explain my mission. Daniel’s regard is hooded, unreadable, as I tell him that Ismail requires a European doctor, one well versed in treating the afflicted in Rome, Paris or London.

  ‘The sultan wants what the sultan wants.’

  ‘And I must find it for him. Or face the consequences.’

  The merchant purses his lips, considering. After a long while he says, ‘Why do you do this, Nus-Nus?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Continue to work for Moulay Ismail. The man is, not to put too fine a point on it, mad.’ The back of my neck prickles with heat as if there may be spies in the wall behind me. When he sees I am unable to frame a response, Daniel smiles sadly. ‘It is treason to speak the truth, is that it?’ He leans forward, touches me lightly on the knee. Have I misjudged his interest in me all these years? There are men all over the city with wives and children and the outward show of respectability who keep a boy in the medina. ‘Nus-Nus, listen to me. I have seen plague cities before: I grew up in the Levant. Everyone fears it, and rightly so: but plague is like war – it creates many opportunities. Where there is plague, there is also greater freedom of movement, fluidity – even chaos. A man can disappear without much fear of pursuit.’ His blue eyes are intense. ‘Get out while you can. Leave Meknes, leave the mad sultan. You may be a eunuch, but you don’t have to be a slave. You’re an intelligent man, cultured, educated. You could easily find work elsewhere: I could help – I have contacts in Algiers, Venice, London, Cairo, Safed, Hebron: merchants like myself, traders and businessmen who would appreciate a man of your talents – you could make your way to any of these cities and make a new life for yourself. Ismail has far too much to concern him than the whereabouts of one runaway slave. Get out while you can, or you’ll regret it for ever.’

  All I can do is stare at him like an idiot. He is right, of course. And I have seen enough of the world of which he speaks, the fluid world of international trade in which questions about origin are seldom asked. I have often dreamed of escape from Ismail’s yoke, from Abdelaziz, Zidana, the horrid intrigues and vendettas of the court: but with a slave-bond in my ear and this colour of skin, without money, influence or friends, I knew I would not get far before someone took their opportunity to return me to my master and claim his favour. But now: now, in this time of chaos, perhaps I could make my escape, set myself up as an amanuensis, a translator, a go-between… I feel suddenly weightless, buoyant with possibility. And then my heart reminds me: I cannot go anywhere, without Alys.

  He reads my answer in my unguarded face. ‘You are too loyal.’

  ‘It is not loyalty, precisely, that keeps me here.’

  ‘Fear, then?’

  ‘Not that, either.’

  ‘Ah, then it is love.’

  I feel the heat rise in my face and struggle against it. ‘It is love,’ I concede at last.

  Daniel al-Ribati looks wistful. ‘Whoever it is who keeps you here should think themselves lucky to have such a stalwart heart at their command.’

  ‘She knows nothing of it: I have not spoken.’

  ‘Ah, Nus-Nus, love one-sided is a pathetic thing. At least speak your heart and see how she answers you. Maybe she will leave with you: and, if she will not, then you have your answer and should leave on your own.’

  ‘I wish it were so simple,’ I say fervently.

  ‘Love is always simple. It is the simplest thing in the world. It sweeps all before it, makes a straight, clear path.’

  I give him a wry smile. ‘How well I know it. It has made a straight, clear path through my heart.’

  ‘I hope she is worth it, Nus-Nus. You’re a good man.’

  ‘Am I good? Sometimes I am so filled with rage and fear, I think I am the world’s greatest sinner. As for being a man, well—’

  ‘It takes more than the cutting away of two small pieces of flesh to change that state.’ He presses his palms against his thighs, pushes himself to his feet. ‘Come, then, let us see if Doctor Friedrich is at home.’

  *

  We walk the maze of deserted streets. The merchant moves with determined vigour, arms pumping, robe swinging, his leather shoes slapping the cobbles. He keeps them on even when we pass the Great Mosque, which is illegal and would earn him a beating, were there guards around to punish him. But the city has been taken back by its true inhabitants, the feral animals and the populace: everyone else has either fled or perished. I follow Daniel, one loping stride to his two, the bird mask swinging from my hand, feeling a freer man than before, if only in my own head.

  In the back streets behind the central market, Daniel takes a right, then a left, and stops at a dusty, iron-studded door, its paint flaked away to a ghost of its original blue. He raps loudly and we wait. Silence stretches out and no one comes. My newfound optimism begins to ebb.

  The sound of footsteps approaching, noisy in the resounding quiet, makes us turn as one. A solitary figure rounds the corner. It is a tall man wearing a flat, round, black hat: no hood, tarboush or turban, thus no Moroccan.

  The merchant steps forward. ‘Friedrich?’

  The figure stops, then comes towards us quickly. ‘Daniel?’

  They grip arms, laugh and speak together for a while in German, not a language in which I can converse. At last they turn to me. ‘And this is Nus-Nus, court eunuch to Sultan Moulay Ismail.’

  I find myself eye to eye with the physician, a rare experience. Bear-like, he grips my hand and shakes it briskly, then nods towards the beaked mask. ‘That won’t do you any good,’ he laughs contemptuously.

  He unlocks the studded door and ushers us inside. Beyond dark corridors I glimpse a sunlit garden rampant with vegetation, and my heart yearns towards its light and birdsong, but the doctor leads us up to his study, a room stacked with books, scrolls, papers and all manner of paraphernalia. Doctor Friedrich subsides weakly into a big wooden chair and gestures for us to sit on two of the large crates in the centre of the room.

  ‘You are packing up?’ Daniel asks.

  ‘Time to move on. There’s no profit to be had from staying here: those who aren’t yet dead or dying are leaving in droves.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I hear the plague has yet to reach Marrakech.’

  ‘It can only be a matter of weeks away from the Red-Walled City,’ the merchant says. ‘And what lies beyond Marrakech? Only the mountain tribes, and then the wild men of the desert. Nus-Nus here has a proposal for you.’

  I explain my mission. Friedrich looks sceptical, and I cannot blame him. ‘Why the sudden need for a new physician? Has Salgado finally drunk himself into oblivion? Or has the plague claimed him?’

  Without elaborating on the cause, I say that Salgado has indeed expired. He shrugs. ‘It surprises me he’s lasted this long, to be h
onest: he was little more than a charlatan.’

  ‘Would you count yourself a better physician than Doctor Salgado?’ I ask.

  ‘That wouldn’t be too hard. His medicine stems from another age. There are extraordinary advances taking place elsewhere in the world: I try to keep up with them as best I can. In London there are remarkable discoveries afoot. I should like to go to see for myself what the members of their Royal Society are capable of. But at the moment buying passage out of Morocco’s plague ports comes at a prohibitive price, and I fear I lack the means to make my escape.’

  ‘The sultan would pay you very well for your services,’ I press.

  He steeples his fingers, rests his chin on them, and at last sighs. ‘I suppose I may as well die by the sword as by the plague.’

  *

  He packs a small bag: I will arrange for the rest of his things to be brought to the palace. Daniel walks as far as the Sahat al-Hedim with us and embraces us both warmly. He steps away from the physician to say to me, ‘Remember what I said, Nus-Nus. Come and see me if you change your mind and I will do what I can to help you. But do not leave it too long. If Sarah decides to join her sister in Tetouan, then I shall go with her.’

  ‘Go with God, Daniel.’

  ‘And you, Nus-Nus.’

  We watch him leave, then make our way across the deserted square towards the palace. My heart is pounding as if it has got ahead of itself, as if I am already on the run. Suddenly there seem to be possibilities, other roads my life may take. As we walk I say to the doctor, with attempted nonchalance, ‘In your life you must have amassed a great deal of medical knowledge of the human body…’ I hesitate, trying to frame the question.

  He stops and looks at me. His expression is unreadable. ‘Go on,’ he says slowly.

  I cannot meet his eyes. Suddenly, my shame at my own condition overwhelms me and I am unable to speak. We walk on in silence to the Bab al-Raïs. It is now or never: I steel myself and manage to get out, quite hoarsely, before we are within earshot of the guards, ‘Doctor, you know of remedies for every malady. Tell me, do you believe there is any cure for a eunuch?’

  He stops and gazes at me steadily, and there is such a depth of warmth and understanding in his regard that abruptly my eyes swim with tears. ‘You are asking for miracles, Nus-Nus,’ he says gently.

  *

  Ismail is delighted with the doctor, who tells everyone to dispense with the bird-beaked masks, and who has tales to tell from the world over. His reading of philosophers old and new gives the pair of them much to discuss and argue over, which provides ample distraction from the immediate horrors of the plague.

  While the sultan is thus distracted, I steel myself while the resolution is strong in me and stride towards the harem. At the gate Qarim stares at me hollow-eyed. He looks as if he has not slept in days, but I am in too great a hurry to stop and ask after his well-being, and when he makes to engage me in conversation, I nod impatiently and give him short answers and he waves me through in some resignation.

  It is fifth day, which I have quite forgotten. The women are beautifying themselves: even the plague cannot impede such a priority, though perhaps the atmosphere is a little more hectic than usual, their chatter louder, their cosmetic experiments bolder and more bizarre. I am relieved to find Alys alone, except for a servant, in her own apartments. When she sees me in the doorway her eyes shine: she beckons me in.

  Now is the time to ask her to come away with me, to hazard an escape. I cross the room, my question burning in my mouth: is this the moment when my life will branch into a new and wonderful future? But it is Alys who speaks first.

  ‘I think I may be with child.’

  My heart stops, then plummets, pierced by sudden pain, like a bird that has been flying in a serene blue sky and without warning is shot through by an arrow.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Her smile, downcast, is secret, smug. She is sure.

  ‘How long?’

  She splays three fingers against the rich blue silk of her robe. I stare at them, at the whiteness of her skin stark against the vivid fabric. Three months. For three months she has been carrying the seed of Ismail’s child within her and I did not know it. A succubus; the harbinger of the sultan’s New Model Army. I feel – what? Numbness, followed by a chill that spreads through me, as if my vitals are dying, inch by inch.

  Her hand rests protectively on her still-flat belly, and as she glances down I see her lips curve and she looks just like one of those prim Italian madonnas. For a moment I almost hate her. She is… happy. And I?

  With the greatest effort, I master myself. ‘Congratulations. The emperor will be delighted,’ I say, my tone formal. ‘I hope it will be a boy.’

  17

  The sultan is indeed delighted. He sends Alys extravagant gifts: a chiming clock for her apartments, a ewer of Egyptian rock crystal, a Syrian incense burner, a set of Iznik plates, silk robes, an antique comb inlaid with silver and mother-of-pearl. He pats her belly and kisses it: he abstains from mounting her. I have never seen this behaviour before with any of his other women, which makes it all the more painful to witness.

  I do not pass any of these intimate details back to Zidana, but still she quizzes me relentlessly. ‘How can she be pregnant?’

  I pretend I do not understand what lies behind the question.

  ‘If she has been drinking the tonics I send her, it would be impossible.’ She fixes me with a glare.

  ‘I am sure, Beneficent One, that she would never spurn any… tonic you sent her.’

  She tries a different tack. Places a hand on my arm. ‘You spend a good deal of time with the little Englishwoman: tell me, Nus-Nus, is the child truly Ismail’s?’

  I feel the heat of guilty thought rise in me. ‘You know as well as I that the sultan’s women are kept pristine at all times and that all blessed events are uniquely in the gift of the Sun and Moon of Morocco himself.’

  Her fingers tighten on my arm. ‘Are you quite sure of that, Nus-Nus? You’ve been looking very pleased with yourself lately. Have you found a sorcerer to reverse your condition?’ Leaning in closer. ‘Are you sure you have not had congress with her, a little love-play when she is lonely? You can tell me: I am discreet. I know it happens from time to time.’ She pauses. ‘Though there was that one Egyptian, do you remember, took her slave-boy to her bed when Ismail did not choose her, and suffered a hysterical swelling of her belly? She convinced herself she was with child; in the end I stuck a skewer in her belly and air rushed out till she was quite flat, do you remember? She died not long after, if I recall.’ She laughs uproariously.

  ‘The lady is entirely proper. She is proud to be carrying the emperor’s child,’ I say, feeling ill.

  There is a light in Zidana’s eye now, a light of conviction. She starts to pace, never letting go of my arm. ‘The woman is a sorceress. She has magicked up a djinn and offered it a home in her belly. It is sitting in there, biding its time. I know about these things: I have studied them. In my village a woman had a brood of ten stashed away in her cunt. They love blood, the djinns, especially the blood of a woman’s womb. They feed on it and grow strong, and it bewitches them, ties them to the giver, till they want no other sustenance. She had them all doing her bidding: making other women barren, men impotent; tying knots in the clothing of newlyweds so that they’d brawl with one another; killing asses, poisoning rivers. There was nothing she couldn’t do. That one had light eyes too, I tell you. It is a sign of their power.’ She lowers her voice. ‘I know what she is: you can tell her that. I am watching her every second of the day.’ She turns away, looks down, turns back to me. ‘You see?’ She points to the ground.

  I look where she is pointing. The stones may not have been swept and there is dust where her shadow lies, reddened by the falling sun. ‘What?’

  ‘There, there!’ She stabs the air with a finger. ‘My shadow: see how thin it is! She has bewitched it. She is not pregnant at all: she is stealing my size to augment
her own! She is trying to ruin my beauty, she wants to destroy me. She knows Ismail cannot abide a thin woman!’

  All I can do is gape. Do I point out that all shadows run thin at this hour, elongated by the angle of the sun? Or would that be unwise? I have never seen her so crazed. For a moment (a moment only) I feel sorry for her: a fellow feeling almost, both of us thwarted in our affections.

  *

  The sultan’s delight in Alys is short-lived as other concerns overtake him. The kaids report ever greater numbers of deaths in the city: they have devised a method for calculating such things using tally sticks and averages that delivers alarming results, and after the latest report he suddenly declares that he and a select number of his household will take up temporary residence in the mountains until the pestilence has abated.

  Initially, the idea sounds charming, an outing merely: an extended picnic – though his picnics can be elaborate affairs, involving a battalion of staff, gold and silver platters, tea samovars; herds of mules bringing chosen companions from the harem, hordes of musicians and baskets of Ismail’s beloved cats to share in the delights. Ismail himself prefers to arrive in a gilded carriage drawn by eight of his favourite courtesans. I remember when one of the cats was so bold as to chase and kill one of the royal rabbits; it then had the temerity to settle down to eat it, nose first, in front of the sultan, as if it were simply joining in the picnic. Ismail had the cat collared, whipped and dragged through the streets of the city for destroying royal property.

  It is announced that the sultan will require the attendance not only of his personal household, but also of two hundred chosen women from the harem, seven hundred guards and his standing army. Which means that the best part of thirty thousand men, women, children and eunuchs will be heading into the mountains between here and Marrakech.