The Sultan's Wife

by Jane Johnson

  It is a fetish-doll, made of some sort of black moulded clay, its eyes small white beads with a black dot painted in the centre, its mouth nothing but a hole, as if emitting a silent scream. It wears a replica of exactly what I am wearing now: my daily uniform of a white cotton robe with gold embroidery at the neck and sleeves; yellow babouches, a white turban; even the absence of the gold bangle I gave to Mohammed a few days ago has been noted.

  A reflexive shudder runs through me. Even though I have roamed the civilized streets and palaces of Europe, read the literature of a dozen other races, and given my soul to Allah, I cannot shake my Senufo beliefs, taught to me at my grandfather’s knee.

  Zidana lifts the doll’s robe: cruelly, at the forked intersection of its lean torso and long legs, is a small male member, and no balls. She runs an orange-hennaed fingernail caressingly up its belly to its breastbone. There the fingertip hovers, then presses and a little door in the fetish’s chest flies open to reveal…

  Bile rises in my throat. What I am seeing is simply not possible. Inside the fetish beats a tiny red flesh heart. Even as I watch, horribly fascinated, it pulses rhythmically, quickening as my pulse quickens.

  Zidana snaps the little door shut over this atrocity and smiles at me. ‘All I have to do is to remove that, and you will fall down dead. Do not ever touch my boy again.’

  She takes a sandalwood box, opens the carved lid, places my image inside. Before she can close it again, I glimpse other figures. One, unmistakable, has golden hair and is made of pale clay; beside it a small boy with blue beads for eyes…

  *

  I try to tell myself it is all nonsense: just Zidana’s way of terrorizing people – manipulation, rather than magic. That the dolls have no power except to scare, that the organ I have seen beating within my effigy was only an illusion; but a primal fear has its claws in me and will not let go. My dreams are unnerving, and I cannot shake them.

  My fears are not just for myself but also for Alys and Momo. I have always walked a perilously narrow path between the sultan and his First Wife, but I had thought matters settled between Zidana and the White Swan, if not amicably, then at least with some degree of acceptance. Now I see that is not the case. Zidana’s hatred runs deep, and is implacable. One way or another she will bide her time and see her rival – and her son’s rival dead, just as she did the grand vizier: by poison, by assassination, by intrigue. Or by vodoun, her ritual magic. I shudder.

  *

  An audience is held for Sir James Leslie, the English ambassador, in the Ambassadors’ Hall. The place is packed with dignitaries and functionaries in their most gorgeous dress; Ismail is attended on by a multitude of fan-waving servants. His current favourite cat – an elegantly striped madam he calls Eida – has draped herself across his lap, utterly at ease, and surveys us all coolly through sea-green eyes. I seat myself at the sultan’s feet with my writing desk and an official records book; but a moment later Samir Rafik appears, armed with a sheaf of paper and reeds, and positions himself on the other side. For a moment we glare at one another as if we would do each other to death with our pens, then I stare around at Ismail in outrage. He laughs at my expression and pats me on the head, as he might his pet cat. ‘Two scribes are sometimes better than one.’

  ‘But he cannot speak English, let alone write it!’ I exclaim, sounding even to my own ears like a petulant child. ‘What use is he in this task?’

  ‘For all I care, Samir may transcribe the songs of courting pigeons,’ Ismail laughs. ‘If the English ambassador believes me to be surrounded by learned scholars, he will tread more carefully, and his king will treat us with the respect we deserve.’

  Sir James Leslie is a tough-looking character, florid of face and stocky of body, dressed dully but properly in a blue justaucorps, ochre waistcoat and dark breeches. His wig, beneath a feathered hat, is dusty brown and reaches in untidy curls to the shoulders. He has not a ribbon in sight: a very different prospect to his feeble emissary. For some reason – or maybe because of the very contrast in appearance – Ismail takes an instant dislike to the man and beckons ben Hadou forward. ‘Tell him he must remove not only his hat but also his wig, while in the royal presence, as a mark of proper respect!’ The message is duly relayed. After a long and bad-tempered pause, the ambassador complies. Beneath the wig, Sir James’s skull is patchily covered in a grey fuzz; he looks both uncomfortable and furious, but masters himself, and the pair exchange greetings and the necessary pleasantries required of a state visit.

  Next, the ambassador’s gifts, which have finally arrived, are presented; though he might have been better to have come unencumbered, for Ismail is most unimpressed by them. After the long delay – over two months – he has been anticipating all manner of fineries, the height of English luxury and manufacture. But here are bales of brocade and silk that have been spoiled by their voyage – mould-spotted and water-marked. The English muskets the ambassador has brought explode on being fired, all of which makes Ismail furious and puts poor Sir James in a not- much-better mood. He berates his lieutenant for not checking the muskets properly before handing them over; from the helpless look on the lieutenants face I wonder if they thought Morocco such a backward place that modern weaponry was little known here (even though we have been bombarding the walls of their fortresses at Tangier with our cannon, and blowing up their culverts with our gunpowder for years now); or that the sultan was a play-king, rather than a warrior chieftain?

  Next to be inspected are half a dozen Galway horses brought for the sultan’s stable that have been selected for their fine bloodlines and the length and quality of their tails. At first glance they look handsome enough animals, and at least someone has taken the trouble to tend to them before they are presented, for their manes and tails have been combed, and their harness is polished. But they have not been tricked out in the gaudy accoutrements the sultan prefers; and anyway he is in a foul temper now, and at once declares them ‘nags, fit only for the knacker’s yard’.

  I do not know if the slight he felt from the inadequate gifts made him change the terms he was minded to offer, but Ismail is brusque with Sir James now. The ambassador is given the choice between a half-year peace and a two-year truce. The English colonists may trade, graze their livestock, forage and quarry stone; in return for which the Moroccans are to receive vast quantities of cloth (unstained), muskets (which fire without blowing up), shot, powder and cannon. He refuses absolutely Leslie’s insistence that the infidels be allowed to rebuild the old fortifications outside the town.

  Sir James shakes his head. The terms are impossible, being disadvantageous to the English. He reminds the sultan that Tangier was not acquired by aggression but as part of Queen Catherine’s dowry on her marriage to the English king.

  This serves to heat Ismail’s temper further: the Portuguese never had the right to the land in the first place, he tells the ambassador. It was never theirs to give away, along with their second-rate princess, to a pauper king.

  Sir James purses his lips, but does not rise to this bait. At an impasse on the subject of Tangier, he now turns to the matter of the number of English captives held by the sultan. Ismail takes him on a tour of the building works, Samir and me running along behind him with the rest of his huge entourage, trying to take notes as he strides from site to site, pointing out the many foreign workers, all of them (it seems) French, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Portuguese. Not an Englishman amongst them. The ambassador does not believe this of course: he points to one man, then another, and they are fetched down. ‘Say your name and country!’ they are instructed. One by one they answer: Jean-Marie from Brittany, Benoit out of Marseilles, David of Cadiz, Giovanni from Naples.

  ‘Where are the prisoners taken from Tangier?’ Sir James demands, exasperated. ‘Over two hundred members of the garrison have been taken captive.’

  Ismail spreads his hands apologetically. ‘Many have expired, I fear. From their battle wounds or other weaknesses. It seems the English are not as h
ardy as one might expect of such a warlike race. I gave those survivors I could spare to your messenger as a gesture of my goodwill and mercy.’

  Sir James continues with characteristic bluntness: ‘And there are at least fifteen hundred men taken from our merchant fleet and other vessels over the past few years. Scores of our ships have been seized, and their crews have disappeared without trace.’

  ‘The seas around your coasts are known to be extremely stormy.’ The sultan looks supremely uninterested. He is a good actor. I know full well where most of the English captives are: stashed away in the lightless matamore that runs beneath the Ambassadors’ Hall. It is Ismail’s idea of a joke. ‘Some others have accepted the true faith and are now living lives pleasing to Allah. They have taken good Muslim wives and are raising good Muslim children, as freed men in my realm.’

  He has one such renegade brought forth, who gives his original name as William Harvey of Hull. I recognize him, even in his Moroccan garb, as one of the captives who hurled insults at me from the palace walls on that fateful day on which Sidi Kabour was killed by the man in the red knit cap now standing three feet away from me. Harvey, without any shame, tells Sir James that he is content with his lot, that he has converted of his own free will, that he has married a beautiful black woman who is far more willing and cheerful than the wife he left at home, and that life here in Meknes is in a hundred ways better than his life as a member of his English majesty’s navy.

  You can see Sir James’s face darkening throughout this eulogy, but he keeps his temper and eventually Ismail admits to having just one hundred and thirty English slaves, of whom seventy were taken from Tangier; and another sixty who are part of his retinue, servants to his functionaries, currently being trained in the ways of the court.

  ‘Your majesty, I will offer fifty pieces of eight to redeem each of them.’ The sultan laughs in scorn. ‘Two hundred for each man is the redemption price; more for my courtiers’ slaves, if they choose to return.’

  ‘Two hundred pieces of eight? That is preposterous!’

  ‘I had thought England to be a rich country that valued its people highly.’

  ‘Sir, a man’s value is beyond price. But two hundred pieces of eight—’ Words fail the ambassador, who is now bright red in the face, and huffing.

  Ismail is all charm. ‘Think upon it more, dear sir. I shall send cakes and sherbets to your rooms so that you may refresh yourself and consider the matter with a cooler head.’

  *

  If Sir James had hoped to beard the sultan at that night’s banquet, he is to be sorely disappointed: Ismail rarely eats in public – to be seen indulging in such base human matters diminishes his status, he believes. But after my duties as the emperor’s food-taster I am sent to sit beside the ambassador to answer his questions about the court and generally to keep my ears and eyes open, especially with regard to ben Hadou, seated on Sir James’s other side, for whom Ismail has an equivocal regard. A week ago he threw a valuable Isnik pot at the Tinker’s head, shouting, ‘Out of my sight, dog, son of a Christian woman!’ The kaid ducked, the pot smashed, and it was I who had to clear up the shards. I forget what it was that put my master in such a temper – some days it does not take much – but the imputation that ben Hadou was the son of an infidel woman was fascinating to me. Perhaps it explains his ability with the English language. At any rate, he is seated on the ambassador’s right, while I sit on the less favoured left. Of Samir Rafik, I am happy to say, there is no sign.

  The table is spread most sumptuously: Malik has excelled himself. The centrepiece is an entire roasted sheep still on its spit, prepared with honey, coriander, almonds, pears and walnuts. In a dish of beaten silver there is a stew of goat’s meat in a sauce of fresh green coriander and cumin; on platters of gold, chickens roasted with saffron; a fragrant couscous of pigeon and chicken studded with almonds and raisins; hot pies of soft white goat’s cheese and dates; fritters and sweet pastries flavoured with cinnamon and dripping with honey; little almond cakes in the shape of a gazelle’s horns, and crescents filled with crushed pine kernels and pistachio nuts and perfumed with rose water. Earlier I have eaten just a handful or two of Ismail’s staple food – his favoured chickpea couscous – and so I am more than happy to apply myself to this feast with the rest: for a long time there is no sound but that of eating and praise, praise and eating.

  I wait until ben Hadou leaves the table to relieve himself, then say quietly to Sir James, ‘Please show no alarm at what I am about to tell you, sir: lives depend on our discretion.’

  The ambassador is no stage-player: he stares at me in surprise. I bend my head to my food, as if engrossed by the task of separating meat from bone. I have noticed they have given Sir James and his retinue some new-fangled eating implements, as if their two hands are not adequate. Still fiddling with the gristle, I say quietly, ‘There is an Englishwoman in the sultan’s harem. Her name is Alys Swann. Her people came to The Hague during your civil war, her father a staunch Royalist who fled for his life. Alys was taken captive by corsairs as she sailed from Holland on her way to be married to an English gentleman. The corsair divan made a gift of her to the sultan four years ago; she has been here ever since. She has made no effort to be redeemed: she says her widowed mother is elderly and near-penniless, and she has never met her fiancé.’

  I risk a glance and find I have his attention. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Her life is in danger here: can you help to get her out?’

  ‘To pay her redemption price, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He laughs. ‘Your sultan tried to charge me two hundred pieces of eight for a common slave: how much do you think he’d want for one of his harem-women?’

  A fortune, I know. But I persevere. ‘She is an English lady: is it not a shame to your country that she should be here?’

  He purses his lips. ‘Has she turned Turk?’

  Such a coarse phrase. ‘Sir, only by form of words; never in her heart. If she had not accepted Islam she would long since be dead.’

  ‘Then I can do nothing for her, whether she turned renegado by duress or not.’

  ‘If you do not help her, sir, I fear neither she nor her young son is likely to be alive before the year is out.’

  ‘Well, I cannot help that. She is a Mahometan now, as is her brat. You must look to your own.’

  ‘That is most unchristian of you. Sir.’

  His eyes turn to gimlets. ‘I am not used to having some bollockless nigger teach me manners!’

  I try not to let my anger show. Instead, I reach across the table to a bowl of sweetmeats and offer it to him with a smile. ‘Forgive me. I overstepped myself. Let me make amends: I am sure these will be to your taste, sir, they are a great delicacy.’

  Mollified, he spears one on his fork, cuts it in half and pops a piece into his mouth. ‘Mmm. Most delicious. What is it?’

  ‘Sheep’s testicles cooked in five-year-old grease,’ I tell him with some satisfaction, and watch him blanch and dab his thick lips. As ben Hadou returns, I excuse myself and take my leave.

  *

  The next day negotiations do not start well: the ambassador has left his hat behind in his quarters but has had the gall to bring his wig with him. Ismail makes no immediate comment about this deliberate insolence, but then spitefully declares that he cannot possibly do business with an infidel who does not even have the grace to remove his boots when in civilized company. The ambassador protests that Englishmen do not do business in their stockinged feet; but Ismail is adamant. And when the boots come off we can well understand why he wished to keep them on: Sir James’s stockings are in a parlous state of disrepair, having gone to holes at toe and heel. For the rest of the interview he is evidently greatly discomposed by this fact and keeps trying to hide his feet.

  The discussions about the future of Tangier look as if they will be fruitless, for Ismail is in a truculent mood. At last Sir James, seeing that he is losing all chance of eithe
r peace or treaty, concedes the terms; but on one proviso. ‘Sire, then I would ask you to send an ambassador of your own with me to England to meet King Charles and his advisers to discuss the matter further.’

  After some consideration, Ismail agrees to this, which surprises me. It seems to surprise the ambassador as well, who clearly thinks he may have won a point and decides to press his case about the English slaves. But on the subject of the redemption price, Ismail is immovable. ‘Two hundred pieces of eight for each man, or nothing.’

  Sir James sighs heavily. ‘And then there is the matter of the Englishwoman in your harem.’

  ‘Englishwoman?’ Ismail repeats, as if he is not sure he has heard aright.

  ‘An Alys Swann, I believe.’

  Sitting beside the sultan, taking notes, I bend my head and shut my eyes in despair. These Englishmen are so blunt! Do they not know it is hugely impolite to go straight at a delicate subject like this, like a bull charging through a rose garden? But Ismail appears much amused. ‘In my palace’s private quarters I have a thousand women, from every country in the world,’ he boasts. ‘There are women here from France, from Spain, from Italy, Greece and Turkey; ladies from Russia and China, from India and the coast of Newfoundland. From the jungles of Guinea and Brazil and the ports of Ireland and Iceland. And yet you would single out a lone Englishwoman?’

  ‘She is my compatriot and I am told that her father was a staunch supporter of our king’s late father. I am sure our sovereign would be most grateful to you if you would return her to us.’

  Ismail does not even blink. ‘Gratitude costs nothing. But the White Swan… ah, the White Swan is beyond price. But even were we to agree a sum (which of course will never happen, for she is most dear to me), the lady herself has converted to the true faith and would not wish to leave her little paradise here; nor indeed her child. Our son Mohammed stands in the line of succession in this, his country; he can go nowhere without my blessing.’