Beck: a fairy tale

by Nina Clare

  She wore her darkest robe of midnight blue so she would fade into the shadows. Her heart was beating faster than the repetitive call of the tree crickets, louder than the shrill cries of the eagle owls. Fruit bats flitted about her as she picked her way across the earth behind the house, across the ground where the chickens scratched by day; past the shelter where the donkeys were shut in at night; past the stone room where the millet was stored. She came noiselessly to the chicken house and lifted the wooden latch to the door.

  She opened the door very carefully. She did not want to rouse the sleeping chickens on their perches. A few squawks sounded, but they were half-hearted ones. She opened her mouth to whisper Felix’s name, but gasped and recoiled at the stench that reached her nose.

  She had to repeat his name twice, for there came no reply out of the darkness except the crooning of hens. But the third time she whispered she heard a faint reply.

  She slipped inside and pulled the door shut. There was no light except the barest trickle of starlight seeping through gaps in the thatched roof and from around the door. She followed the sound of shuffling from one corner. She could just make out a dark form on the floor, and she put out her hand to it. “Felix, it is Shula-Jane.”

  Her hand was grasped in the dark. It was a limp grasp, the grasp of one who was weak in body and crushed in soul.

  “I brought food,” she whispered, mindful of the roosting hens.

  “Water?” he said in a dreadful voice.

  “Yes, water too,” she was grateful she had thought to bring a jug of water for him. Toufik must be keeping him deprived of even that necessity.

  “I am sorry I have not come before,” she said, feeling full of remorse at not anticipating the depth of his need. She listened in the dark to the noise of him slaking a desperate thirst.

  “You must not stay,” he whispered hoarsely. “You must not risk being found here.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he beat you?”

  There was silence. She knew that meant he had.

  “You must escape,” she said. “He will see you half dead before you reach the slave market.”

  “I cannot,” he groaned. “He has wounded my legs so that I cannot walk.”

  She drew a sharp breath. The man was a monster.

  “I will speak to my father,” she hissed in her anger. “He will not permit such violence.”

  “You cannot. You will be punished for coming to me. You must go, Shula-Jane, I could not bear to see you suffer because of me. Please go now. And thank you. Thank you, my friend.”

  Shula-Jane slipped away determined to speak to her father of Toufik’s brutality the next day, no matter what the consequences to herself.

  But the next day her father collapsed again at the palace.

  He was brought home on a litter carried by the king’s own servants, a canopy held above him to shield him from the sun. The palace physician followed and attended on him, administering tinctures and powders and speaking of the surgery he must carry out when the phase of the moon and the alignment of the stars was next propitious. Shula-Jane was glad when he left; she felt that he smelled of death to her, and not of healing.

  It was almost a whole day before her father opened his eyes and spoke.

  Shula-Jane could not take food and water to Felix that second night, for she could not leave her father’s bedside while she waited for him to awaken. But she also could not leave Felix lying there half dying of thirst, so she asked Zinga to go to him. She felt remorseful at putting her young maid at such risk, but Zinga went cheerfully and without fear, taking Keita with her, for she said that he would guard her spirit. Shula-Jane was flooded with relief when Zinga returned without being caught.

  The first words that Abu Sabri spoke when he returned to consciousness was to call out the name of his departed wife. “Jane, my Jane,” he called in a frail voice.

  Shula-Jane took his hand and leaned close to him. “Papa,” she said, “I am here.”

  “My Jane,” said Abu Sabri pitifully. “Is that you?” His eyelids flickered and struggled to open, he looked into Shula-Jane’s eyes, the blue eyes of her mother. “Is it you?” whispered Abu Sabri. “Have you have come to me to lead me home?”

  “Papa, it is I, your daughter.” She pressed his hand and kissed it.

  Her father’s eyes seemed to struggle to focus upon her, as though he were seeing something other than his daughter before him.

  “Jane,” he whispered, “is it you?” His eyes cleared a little. “No,” he said. “It is my Jane’s eyes.” He lifted a hand to touch his daughter’s light brown cheek with his dark brown hand. “But it is the face of my Shula-Jane.”

  “Yes, Papa. Mama has not come to lead you home yet. And forgive me, but I am so glad not to lose you as we lost her. Not yet.”

  “Shula-Jane, I must tell you something,” there was an urgency in his voice. He shut his eyes for a moment, seeming to be struggling for breath.

  “Rest, Papa. Tell me when you have rested.”

  “No, no, my time is coming quickly. I must tell you.”

  Shula-Jane could not hold back her tears at her father’s words; but she felt it also. She felt that his death was with them in the room, a presence that she could feel pressing on her spirit. A presence of something not of this world, not of this everyday life, something other. Not hostile, but insistent. Something that could not be refused.

  “My ebony chest,” said Abu Sabri, opening his eyes again. There was a new light of determination in them. “Open the lid. Do it now.”

  She got up, crossed the room and opened the lid to her father’s ebony chest.

  “There are scrolls inside,” she said. “Do you want them?”

  “No, no. Take out the scrolls. Press on the bottom of the chest. Press hard.”

  She obeyed. Nothing happened, but she pressed again with more pressure. A click sounded and a secret drawer was revealed in the base of the chest. A key lay in the drawer.

  “Take the key,” her father urged. “Open the ebony cabinet.”

  She moved to the cabinet, opened the door and unlocked the inner door with the key. A small leather sack sat inside.

  “Bring me the bag.”

  She set it down on the bed. It was not large, but it was weighty.

  “Open it.”

  She untied the cords at the neck of the sack and gasped at what lay inside. Uncut gemstones were heaped up within.

  “Diamonds?” she said in astonishment.

  “The best diamonds. All colours. I have invested in them all my years at the palace.” His voice weakened to almost a whisper, but it was full of urgency. “No one knows of these. They are for you, and for you alone. They are not for Toufik. He is my heir, he inherits the house and the land and the servants, but these, these are for you.”

  “But when I marry all that is mine becomes his,” she said.

  “No, no,” insisted her father. No-one knows of this, it is not in my will, I leave it only for you.”

  “I don’t understand, Papa.”

  “It is for your security, my daughter. I have seen a new look in Toufik’s eye since... since that day. I want to protect your future, my child. If Toufik’s jealousy gets the better of him he may act dishonourably, he may send you away. I will not have you cast off, left destitute. This is your inheritance and yours alone. They are worth this house and all the land and servants. Perhaps more. You will take and hide them.”

  His eyes closed again, and his breath came ragged and uneven. “Take them and hide them now. Quickly – before my sister returns.”

  Visitors

  Abu Sabri fell into a state in between waking and sleeping after he had given his daughter the diamonds. She stowed the leather pouch away in the bottom of her chest of robes, wrapping it in her mother’s. She kept vigil at her father’s bedside, being forced out by Emmi Rashida for short periods of time that she might eat and rest. But hunger and sleep seemed to have dese
rted her.

  There were just four more days until the next monthly slave market, and how Felix could be sold in the condition he was in she did not know. She had a gnawing fear within her that Toufik was going to let him die a slow death as punishment for his wounded pride, and not even attempt to sell him. Who would stop Toufik? Only her father, and he was slipping in and out of consciousness, unable to speak any more on the affairs of this world. And now the anxiety and grief for Felix was doubled by her anxiety and grief for her dying father. For it was clear to her that he was indeed dying. Emmi spoke of the physician’s draughts and the surgery he was talking of performing, but Shula-Jane knew there was no hope. She had seen the longing in her father’s eyes to leave his earthly body of weakness and pain and go to his beloved wife. In the few times he had come close enough to waking to speak a word, that word had been the name of her mother, “Jane”.

  Emmi Rashida tried to dismiss it as him calling for his daughter, for she would never acknowledge the wife of her brother whom she had considered her brother’s disgrace. But Shula-Jane knew that it was not for her he called. He called to be led home.

  It was early evening and Shula-Jane had been sent away from her father’s room to eat an evening meal. Zinga had brought her mistress a bowl of fufu and millet bread. Shula-Jane picked at it, but it had no taste for her, and her throat struggled to swallow it down. She told Zinga to take the food away and wrap it up to be taken to Felix after sunset. Then she wandered out into the gardens to while away the time until she could return to her father.

  She was sitting near the fish pool, close to the house entrance, but screened from the house by the mimosa bushes. She was so deep in her thoughts of Felix and her father that she did not hear the sound of approaching horses until they were close by on the entrance path. It was the sound of a horse snorting that roused her; she did not hear the sound of a horse very often, for most people rode donkeys or camels. It must be someone from the palace come to inquire of her father’s health.

  She heard voices. Two men, but they were not speaking in the native tongues of the kingdom, so they could not be from the palace. They were speaking in a language Shula-Jane had never heard before. Keita had lifted his head long before Shula-Jane had noticed the visitors. He did not growl, so she knew he sensed no danger.

  Zinga appeared, she had stowed away Shula-Jane’s uneaten supper, now she came looking for Bibi and her mistress.

  “Who is at the door of the house?” Shula-Jane asked her.

  Zinga stood on tiptoes and peeked over the bushes to see.

  “Two men. One black. One white. On horses. Look like princes.”

  Shula-Jane could not resist looking for herself, her curiosity aroused by such a description. She peeked through the shiny, dark green leaves and saw that it was just as Zinga had said. The white man was familiar looking. She frowned, trying to puzzle out why. He was speaking to the boy who had answered the door to them. Even the tone of his voice sounded familiar. The boy did not understand the white man’s language; the white man beckoned the tall, black man to come forward. The white man took the horses and the black man came near and spoke in a native tongue.

  “May we speak to the master of the house,” he was saying to the boy.

  Their clothes were unusual. They did not wear long flowing gowns, they wore garments that clothed each leg individually, with short gowns and a belt, and over their short gown a cloak. They wore strange hats, not the cloth scarves that were wound about the heads of the people of Buktu, but hats that sat close to their heads with a brim to cast their eyes in shadow.

  Toufik came to the door. Shula-Jane could not see him, but she heard his voice.

  “Yes?” he said gruffly.

  Her father would never greet travelling strangers with such indifference. Her father prided himself on showing hospitality to all. Toufik brought shame to the house of her father, she thought bitterly.

  She could not make out every word the man spoke to Toufik, she heard him say they were looking for someone. A young white man whom they believed had been sold here in the city of Tombutu. They were enquiring at all the houses in the city who were known to have slaves of that description.

  “No,” said Toufik curtly. “Not here.”

  “Do you know of any of your neighbours who have such a person?” she heard the man ask.

  “No,” said Toufik. “Good evening.”

  “There is a reward for his return,” the man was saying, “full recompense for his redemption, for he is a man of noble birth from the kingdom of Angliana.”

  “No,” said Toufik, his voice sounding angry. “I know of no such person.” And Shula-Jane heard the door shut in the face of the visitor.

  The white man holding the horses said something to the black man, he spoke in a weary and despondent tone, in a language she did not understand. But she did suddenly understand why the white man was familiar in both looks and voice – he looked and sounded like an older version of Felix.

  Her mind was racing; should she run after them, tell them the truth? She could not, for Toufik would have them forcibly removed. He was not bound under law to allow a slave to be redeemed by his kinsmen. Her father owned Felix, but her father was not conscious. If her father died his slaves belonged to Toufik.

  She had to get word to them somehow.

  “Come with me,” she said to Zinga. She ran back to the house, through the courtyard entrance to her own room and through the hallways to her father’s study room. Her hands were shaking and her heart was beating furiously.

  She took a sheet of papyrus paper that sat weighted down by a polished ball of agate stone. She searched for ink in the fretwork cupboard; with fumbling fingers she opened the jar and took up a brush. She could not write Anglianese as well as she spoke it, but if the white man were a relative of Felix then he would speak Anglianese. If he were not Felix’s kinsman, then he would not understand her message, and nor would anyone else if it were intercepted.

  Felix is here. Help him. Return between sunset and moonrise tonight. Wait at the bottom of the path to the house.

  The writing was shaky from her quivering hand. She blew on the ink to speed its drying, then she rolled it up and held it out to Zinga. “Go after those men and give them this – go down to the bottom of the garden and squeeze through the hedge so no one can see you from the house.”

  Zinga nodded and sped away.

  There were only two hours till the twilight time between sunset and moonrise. But those two hours felt like two long days to Shula-Jane. She felt tight and tense inside as though she were bound with cords and was being pulled in one direction and tied fast in another. She felt sick at the thought of Felix being caught escaping. The penalty for a runaway slave was very severe. But this was his only hope, for she was quite certain Toufik was not going to sell him, but keep him in torment until he died. And she was quite certain that when Toufik was her husband he would keep her in torment also, all the days of her life, to punish her.

  She sat beside her father’s bedside struggling to resist the desire to follow him into the other world. She knew it was sin to wish to die. So she struggled hard.

  Through the fretwork at the window of her father’s room she could see the colours of the sky changing. She saw orange, like fire-lilies, pink like cowrie shells, and gold, the colour of her mother’s favourite robe that lay folded around the leather bag in her chest. And then the first star, like one of the diamonds her father had given her. Finally, a deepening indigo, the colour that only the household of the king was permitted to wear. Royal blue. The sun had set. The moon would soon rise.

  She felt unreal, as though she were moving in a dream, but she must go – must meet the two strangers, if they were there. How she prayed that they were there, waiting for her.

  Just as she was about to step from the room her father made a sound. Not the calling out for his wife, but a strangled sound. She rushed back to him, but what could she do? She did not know how to help him – it was
as though he were struggling for breath.

  She ran to the arched doorway and called out for her Emmi. She shouted again and again, her voice growing frantic.

  Emmi Rashida appeared, it probably only took her moments to come, but it felt like such a long time.

  “What is it?” Emmi’s high-pitched voice cried.

  “He cannot breathe – help him!” cried Shula-Jane.

  Her father’s gasps were growing worse. His dark brown skin had a strange pallor to it, as though the life were draining from his body even as she watched.

  Emmi Rashida was calling for her son. Toufik appeared. He said nothing. He stood in the doorway watching the man who had taken him as his son from the day that he entered his Uncle’s house to live there. He said nothing. And when Abu Sabri gave his last gasp of breath, and then a deep sigh as though he were expelling his spirit from his body, Toufik made no move to comfort his wailing mother or his shocked and broken wife-to-be.

  “It is done,” were the only words he spoke, and they were to himself. He left the room and sent a boy to hire the mourning musicians.

  When Shula-Jane next looked up at the fretwork window in her father’s room she saw the rays of moonlight touching the acacia wood of the window frame, causing it to glow with a soft blue light.

  To tear herself away from her father was agony. But she had witnessed death. Now she must try and save life.

  She knew that even had the strangers come back to the house, they might not have waited for so long. She ran down the path to the entrance gates that led to the road. She could see by the moonlight that no one was there. She stood turning around in the road, willing them to step out of the shadows. But there was no one.