Sultan's Wife (6 page)

I find the grand vizier taking his second breakfast in his own private pavilion within the Dar Kbira. Silver trays heaped with cold meats, olives, bread, cheese and fancy pastries cover the low tables, while Abdelaziz reclines amongst a pile of silken cushions, attended by a pair of near-naked slave-boys who can't be older than twelve or thirteen, despite their burgeoning muscles and gleaming ebony skin. The vizier's quarters are more resplendent even than the sultan's own. The walls glitter with powdered gold looted from the palaces of the kings of the Songhai Empire, and gold and lapis glow in the starburst patterns up in the cupola. I wonder how his quarters can be finished to such a lavish standard when the rest of the palace is still a building site. Then I remind myself who holds the keys to the Treasury …

‘Nus-Nus – how lovely to see you in my humble chambers: come, sit with me. Help yourself – these almond pastries are superb.' He waves a beringed hand at me, then pats the cushions beside him, giving me a basilisk stare.

I bow. ‘The sultan requests your presence.'

‘Surely it can wait until I have finished my breakfast.'

I say nothing. We both know that Ismail does not ‘request'.

Abdelaziz makes a face, then grabs a handful of the pastries and crams them into his mouth. A little avalanche of honeyed crumbs cascades over his beard as he chews untidily. Then he gets grumbling to his feet and slaps away the hands of the Nubian boy as he makes to brush his robes. ‘Presumptuous whelp! I shall whip you when I return.' The words are uttered caressingly, but his gaze is flinty.

I see the boy turn puzzled eyes to him and realize he is new, and does not yet have much Arabic. The other lad understands well enough. He looks afraid, as well he might: thin white scars cover his arm and shoulder. He pulls the other boy away, and as we leave I hear him chattering to the other in their native tongue, catching a phrase here and there. ‘He is cruel … he likes to hurt, to see pain. Don't give him excuse …'

Something twists inside me. I remember those blank, dark eyes watching my own pain, revelling in it.

‘So, Nus-Nus' – the grand vizier breaks into my thoughts as we make our way down the arcaded corridor – ‘have you given any more thought to my offer?'

To survive in this place I have learned to adopt my ‘second face', like the kponyungu mask I wore so long ago in the Poro rituals of our tribe. And I tell myself,
I am not myself: I am another
. The mask smiles. ‘I am flattered, sidi, but I fear it would not sit well with his sublime majesty.'

‘His “sublime” majesty need never know.' His tone mocks me.

‘The sultan sees everything.'

Abdelaziz snorts. ‘You mean, his spies do. Spies like the Tinker.' He makes a dismissive gesture, as if brushing away a fly.

The Tinker: he means the Kaid ben Hadou, Al-Attar. No love lost there. We are nearing the imperial quarters now and I have no wish for Ismail to overhear any part of this conversation. Neither, it seems, does the grand vizier, for he catches me by the upper arm and digs in his fingers, instinctively finding the most painful pressure points. I stare him down coolly, summoning my second face.
I am not myself
.

‘Do not make an enemy of me, Nus-Nus. It really would not be wise.'

He is already my enemy. I make a bow. ‘I am your humble servant, my lord; but first of all I am his sublime majesty's servant.'

‘Ismail is a dog in a manger.'

There is a saying I have heard amongst slaves:
what happens in the desert stays in the desert
. We try our best to remake our lives and regain our self-respect. But how can I ever forget what Abdelaziz did to me? My hands curl themselves into claws at my sides.

‘No one need ever know.' The basilisk smile.

‘Know what?'

Ismail walks quietly: he likes to take people unawares and when he is safe within his private quarters he often goes about alone, and shoeless. The Hajib and I swiftly prostrate ourselves. Down there, on the ground, the fragrant scent of freshly cut wood swirls around my nose like incense.

‘Oh, get up, man.' Ismail prods the vizier with his bare foot. ‘I have something to show you. A rare treasure.'

Oh, great heaven: the book. I almost forgot it. My god, if Abdelaziz sees what lies between its covers he will recognize the deception at once and, being subtle enough to keep the information to himself while it suits him, will hold my fate in his hands to use as he pleases. Death could not come fast enough …

Think of something
, my brain goads me,
anything to distract him!
But my mind is a perfect blank.

Ismail takes up the book and I see Abdelaziz's eyes gleam as he takes in the rich binding. He holds his hands out avariciously. The sultan stares at them. Then he brings the Safavid Qur'an down with a resounding thud on the vizier's head. I can make out the imprint of the embellished binding pressed as perfectly into the fine cotton of his turban as a seal into hot wax. The Hajib groans and clutches his head.

‘You dare to come to me covered in the filth of your feeding!' Ismail rages. ‘There is honey all over your fingers and pastry in your beard! Have you no respect, for me or for the Holy Qur'an?' And he thumps the book down again and again and again, until the vizier is a cowering heap on the floor.

‘Mercy; have mercy on me, majesty. Nus-Nus told me to come at speed and I thought it a matter of urgency …'

The next blow is less violent; and the one after that glances off the vizier's shoulder as if Ismail has lost interest. The sultan steps away, examining the book for damage, but it is a sturdy object, and whoever has repaired it has made a good job of it. ‘Go away. Pay the bookseller whatever he asks.' He passes the Qur'an to me. ‘Place it on the topmost shelf, Nus-Nus: it is defiled now.'

How truly he speaks, did he but know it!

Fetching the wooden library stairs, I fit the Safavid Qur'an between two other ancient volumes on the highest shelf and hope Ismail will never change his mind and wish to take it down again.

I turn to find Ismail kneeling on the floor with his arm around the Hajib's shoulders. ‘Get up, man. What are you doing down there? You need not genuflect to me: we are like brothers, you and I, are we not?'

Abdelaziz staggers to his feet. His eyes look glazed and there is blood on his cheek. I watch in horrified fascination as the sultan takes the end of his sash and wipes it tenderly away. ‘There, that is better, is it not?'

‘Yes, O Great One.' The vizier manages a wobbly smile.

Ismail turns to me. ‘Have you been to look at the wolf yet?'

Damnation. In the midst of my other woes I had forgotten about the wolf. ‘I will go now, majesty.'

The wolf looks more dead than alive. There is a large and bloody swelling on the poll of its head. Two children are standing by the cage, the eldest with a stick in its fist. Both have shaven heads but one long braid on the crown, by which the angels may catch them if they fall. No angels are ever likely to attend these children, though. The massive gold ring each wears proclaims him to be one of Ismail's many little emirs who roam unchallenged and undisciplined about the court. And I know all too well which they are: Zidan, the empress's eldest, six years old and rotten to the core; the other barely more than a toddler, Ahmed the Golden, a small monster-in-training.

I sigh. ‘Well, now, Zidan, what are you doing here?'

The older child regards me with defiant black eyes. ‘Nothing. Anyway, if I want to play with the wolf I can. Father said so.'

‘I am sure your father did not give you permission to batter the poor thing to death.'

He sneers. ‘I only gave him a little tap.'

Ahmed laughs delightedly. ‘A big tap!'

‘No need to pretend innocence with me, Zidan: remember how I found you last week.' I give him a meaningful look. Last week I found him by the stables with an older boy, a slave, cutting out a cat's claws by the root. The
slave looked sick: the cat had raked Zidan and he had obviously been ordered to hold her down while the little demon wielded his dagger. I had berated them both roundly and whacked the slave-boy over the head, harder than I'd meant, since I'd wished to administer the blow to Zidan, but dared not. Like his mother, he bears a grudge; like his father, he enjoys the power to deprive a man of limb or life. The cat died anyway. I buried it myself.

‘If you tell I will have you killed.' He taps the stick against his leg. It leaves bloody smears on his
qamis
. ‘I might have you killed anyway, Half-and-Half.'

‘Your father prizes his cats, and the Qur'an says that those who torment them will themselves be tormented in Hell,' I remind him.

‘It does not say anything about wolves,' he says, baring his teeth at me. They are already rotting, from the sweets he cons out of everyone.

Thankfully, the menagerie keeper comes out now. He looks cowed, as well he might. Able to vent my spleen, I yell at him. ‘What the hell happened to it?'

He shrugs. ‘It went for Prince Zidan when I was putting it in the cage. It seemed it would tear out his throat, but the little emir was most brave.'

Patently a lie: the wretched creature looks as if it would have had problems even gnawing the throat of a chicken and the child had evidently been battering it through the bars. Zidan crows with laughter and runs off, towing his little brother after him, confident that he is inviolate.

I glare at the menagerie keeper. ‘If it is not walking and snarling by midnight you will wish it had ripped
your
throat out.' There is no point scolding him about Zidan: we both know this. I crouch to examine the beast. It really is a sorry-looking specimen, bedraggled and bitten about the legs and haunches by the dogs that brought it down. It regards me with not an iota of interest, neither raising a hackle nor even wrinkling its muzzle, as if all it waits for now is death. My heart contracts in sympathy.

‘Can it even walk?' I stand up again.

‘It's stronger than it looks,' the keeper says defensively.

‘Get it out and let me see it walk.'

He gives me a look. How dare a jumped-up Guinea slave speak to him, a
pale-skinned Arab, so? Contempt and loathing go hand in hand: I suspect I know which way it would go if he had to choose between killing me or the wolf.

Grudgingly he does as I ask, entering the cage with his stick at the ready, but the wolf does not even stir as he fastens the chain around its neck, and he has to drag it out like a sack of turnips, as if it has lost the use of its legs. Even so, the four wild asses of which the sultan is so fond take one look at it, bray shrilly and bolt for the far side of the enclosure, where they disturb the ostriches, which in turn set up a raucous noise. Still the wolf crouches, its nose all but touching the ground.

‘This is no good. Is it the only one the hunters brought in?'

‘It was the sultan himself who ran it down,' the man says sullenly.

‘It'll have to be in better fettle than this for the ceremony. You know the sultan will have your head and mine if the beast is not to his satisfaction and he is made to look foolish.'

The keeper looks pensive. Then he says, ‘Can't you ask the witch for something that'll do the trick?'

I stare at him. Does the whole palace know my business? I do not credit his question with an answer, but walk quickly away.

It is Zidana to whom I go now, availing myself of a basket of oranges on the way, knowing I require some sort of excuse for entering the harem without prior arrangement. The guards on the gate are not fooled: there are treefuls of oranges everywhere, even in the harem gardens, like mine still green. They search the basket suspiciously and I stand by, shuffling my feet, till they are done. I notice that Qarim's eyes are red and swollen. Word has reached him of Bilal's death, then – whispers racing through the labyrinth of passages. ‘I am sorry about your brother,' I offer quietly.

He nods. It is not done to talk about the demise of those who fall foul of Ismail. They simply cease to exist. ‘Let the man through, they're only oranges,' he instructs his fellow guards. Qarim puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘Watch yourself, Nus-Nus,' he says in that high, light voice that is so at odds with his stature. ‘No one is safe in this place.'

As I approach the inner courts of Zidana's palace, the mellow strains of
an
oud
reach me. The oud is a beautiful instrument, the forerunner of the European lute, and I love to play it when I can. It has a sighing, plangent quality, particularly apt for love songs and melancholic airs. I learned to play tolerably well: now hearing the oud strummed with such feeling, I feel my fingers itch to join in. Then a voice rises in harmony with the dark melody and I stop where I am, in the shadows of the vine-covered arcade, to listen.

I peer out into the courtyard, to see Black John, Zidana's favourite eunuch, hunched over the pretty oud like an ape over a stolen fruit, his huge fingers moving nimbly as he takes the ballad to a minor key. The song is French, I believe, and did not speak of dusky maidens or black eyes in its original. We all have to shift for ourselves in our changed circumstances, to adapt or die, and John has prospered by his skills. When he starts in on the next verse, which tells how the lover must stand aside and watch his beloved wed another, since he has not the wherewithal to marry her himself (a reference in the original to money rather than diminished bodily capability), I find, quite unaccountably given the blandness of the lyrics, that tears are stinging my eyes.