The Lioness of Morocco

by Julia Drosten

  The Berbers too were represented in the square. The riders sat proudly on their beautiful Arabian horses and got the lively animals to perform all kinds of tricks.

  Sibylla hoped that His Majesty would not keep them waiting too much longer and dabbed her forehead with a corner of her shawl. It was time by now for the noonday prayer and the sun was unrelenting.

  “I believe there is some movement at the gate,” said Mrs. Butler, the wife of the consul of Tétouan.

  The guards had finished their card game and stood at attention on both sides of the gate. The riders had taken their positions behind the perfectly straight lines of the Black Guards while the merchants eagerly waited at the other end of the square.

  “Come with me,” whispered Benjamin, who had suddenly appeared next to Sibylla. “Let’s not miss this moment.” He took her hand and led her to the front.

  As the massive wings of the gate opened, Sibylla held her breath. She had never before met a ruler face-to-face. She had seen King William IV in his box at the opera once, but that did not compare to this moment.

  A single rider on a magnificently decorated white stallion came through the gate with measured steps. A bodyguard walked close to the horse and was closely followed by a eunuch carrying a giant carmine sunshade.

  “That’s him,” Benjamin whispered. He had removed his hat, as had all the other gentlemen in their delegation, and his voice sounded solemn. “Toledano told me the parasol is his symbol.”

  Sibylla took a closer look at the man. He was middle-aged, not particularly tall, with round, bearded cheeks and a gentle-looking face. His horse seemed more spectacularly decorated than he himself, she thought as she looked at his simple white kaftan. He wore neither medals nor rings, no chains or other regalia. Were it not for the red umbrella, he might have been any random subject. But then she remembered the impaled skulls she had seen by the city gate and told herself that it would surely be a mistake to underestimate this man.

  “His Royal Majesty Moulay Abd al-Rahman bin Moulay Hicham bin Sidi Mohammed bin Moulay Abdallah bin Moulay Ismail, Imam of all Believers, Caliph of the Islamic Community and Sultan of Morocco of the Holy House of the Alaouites, who are descended from the Prophet’s daughter herself,” Consul Willshire intoned. He and his wife had fought their way to the front of the crowd to join Benjamin and Sibylla.

  “May God bless our ruler’s life,” the Black Guards shouted in unison. They took a deep bow and touched their right knees as a sign of their devotion.

  The sultan stopped in front of the delegation of merchants and it was only then that Sibylla caught a glimpse of the man riding a few feet behind him. At first, she took him for an Arab, not only because of the black hair visible under his turban but also the traditional kaftan and long pants he wore. Yet his suntanned, lean face was clean shaven, his features less aquiline, and his eyes less dark. He was also tall like a European. At least, his legs were a little too long for his petite Arabian mare.

  “Who is that man on the brown horse?” she whispered to Sara.

  The consul’s wife immediately knew who she meant. “That’s Monsieur Rouston. So he’s back at court,” she added wryly in her husband’s direction.

  “What do you mean?” Sibylla was curious to know. “Is he a foreign diplomat?”

  “Rather a French misfit,” Willshire said reflexively. He, like most Englishmen, had a strong dislike for the French. “Rouston used to be an officer with the Chasseurs d’Afrique and served in Algeria. However, the past few years, he has preferred to dwell in a mud hut with the Chiadma. Because he persuaded them to resolve their longstanding feud with the ruling family, the sultan holds him in the highest regard. Abd al-Rahman particularly seeks out Rouston’s advice when it comes to the reform of his army, which, between you and me, is in deplorable condition.”

  “Military advice from a Frenchman!” Benjamin huffed. “Apparently, the sultan has never heard of Abukir, let alone Waterloo, or he would know of the military superiority of us English.”

  Sibylla turned her gaze back to Rouston. She took him to be about thirty, a few years older than she. He sat calmly and confidently on his prancing mare while he looked into the crowd.

  What sort of man prefers to live in the desert with a Berber tribe rather than with his own kind behind city walls? she wondered. Was he married to one of their women? She shook the improper thoughts from her head.

  At that moment, Rouston looked her way and their eyes locked for several seconds. He smiled subtly and Sibylla’s heart leapt. She was startled. Never had she experienced anything of the sort—with Benjamin or any other man. What could have gotten into her? She was a married lady, after all, and a pregnant one at that! She quickly lowered her gaze and moved closer to Benjamin.

  Meanwhile, the sultan’s interpreter had translated his master’s greeting into all the languages of those present. “His Imperial Majesty Abd al-Rahman, Sovereign of all the Faithful, renews and reinforces the friendly alliance that his ancestors have built with the rulers of the European countries. His Imperial Majesty will do everything in his power to intensify and expand this alliance, with the help of God.”

  At a signal from His Majesty, the consuls general stepped up one by one and answered with well-chosen words. After Consul General Drummond-Hay had spoken, a eunuch and several slaves approached to collect the gifts for the sultan.

  “But I wanted to present the gun to His Majesty myself,” Benjamin protested. “This way I know neither that he really received it nor that he knows it is from me.”

  “You may rest assured that His Majesty is informed in detail about the provenance of all the gifts,” Consul Willshire told him.

  Yet Benjamin refused to hand it over. The delay caught the sultan’s attention and Drummond-Hay felt compelled to explain. A short exchange with the translator ensued.

  “His Imperial Majesty the Sultan permits the merchant Hopkins to hand over his gift to his favorite eunuch, Feradge!”

  Benjamin looked at Drummond-Hay uncertainly and the latter nodded emphatically. So he unwrapped the gun from its protective cloth. Before handing it to the eunuch, he held it up for the sultan to see. A murmur went through the lines of soldiers as the silver studs sparkled in the light. Even His Majesty seemed interested. Benjamin was satisfied. He was sure that the sultan would reward him for this valuable gift, maybe even with exclusive rights for the export of leather!

  Benjamin pondered how to make his request as the eunuch handed the gun to his master and the sultan examined the workmanship. He would speak of the amicable relations between their countries, of lucrative deals, rising exports, and rising profits.

  But he never got the chance.

  “His Imperial Majesty Sultan Abd al-Rahman thanks the merchant Hopkins for his valuable gift. It is only a merchant who disposes of extraordinary wealth who can make extraordinary gifts. His Majesty esteems this generosity highly. But His Majesty’s heart is saddened because his unfortunate people are suffering from hunger. Yet now, thanks to the generosity of the merchant Hopkins, His Majesty can aid his people by raising export taxes by a mere ten percent. Ten percent, the same as the churches of the infidels levy.”

  “What?” Benjamin gasped. “That’s the thanks I get? A ten-percent increase in tariffs?”

  “Hopkins, be still!” Consul Willshire took hold of Benjamin’s arm. “If you don’t play along, he’ll raise the tariffs even more!”

  Benjamin blanched. He had never felt so tricked. It was all he could do not to scream in anger at this greedy ruler of the Muslims.

  Just you wait, he thought, clenching his fists. He who laughs last laughs loudest! Whatever you take from me now, I’ll get back penny for penny later!

  “Come,” Sibylla whispered and took his clenched hand. “Let’s go back to the inn.”

  At that moment, the translator’s voice rang out once more. “His Majesty would like to know if the lady whose hair resembles that of a desert lioness is among his guests.”

  S
ibylla could not believe her ears. How could the sultan know the name the qaid’s wives had given her? What did this mean?

  She stepped forward hesitantly and bowed her head. She heard the sultan’s deep voice, which was always soft, whether assuring the merchants of his friendship or raising the tariffs for her husband.

  “His Imperial Majesty says, So this is the merchant’s wife with the lion’s hair who has sold English babouches to our wives. Our wives were very pleased and thank the lady with the lion’s hair.”

  A murmur went through the crowd. Sibylla raised her head in surprise. The sultan nodded gently and turned his horse. A few seconds later, the palace gates closed behind him.

  Benjamin glared at his wife. She had told him of her business deal with the slippers, but he had dismissed it as frivolous. But now his wife had been honored by the sultan in front of everyone while he had been humiliated—also in front of everyone.

  “Stop! Stop this instant!” Sibylla drove her mule between the man with the whip and the two slaves. The slave driver reined in his mount and stared at her furiously, his arm raised, ready to deliver the next blow. The two men struggled to their feet. Blood was streaming down their backs, and their skin was broken and covered in welts. It hadn’t even been two days, but the extravagance and ceremony of the scene at the gate seemed to Sibylla to have happened in another world.

  Their wrists were bound, and their necks were held inside two forked branches tied together at their throats and attached to each other at the end. Whenever one stumbled, the other was pulled to the ground with him.

  Sixty male slaves and twice as many women, some with children, accompanied the caravan that had set out from Marrakesh for Mogador one and a half days ago. The women were tied to each other with ropes only. Like the men, they were dressed in nothing more than loincloths, which barely covered their nakedness.

  When the caravan had made camp the previous evening, the slaves had begun to sing, sadly and plaintively and with such profound despair that Sibylla broke out in goose bumps. They seemed so broken, so haggard and exhausted. It filled her with impotent rage to look on as the drivers beat them and drove them on. The only thing that enraged her even more was the undisguised lust with which the male travelers, both European and Arab, gawked at the poor women. She yearned to go after them with her riding crop the way the slave drivers wielded their whips.

  The slave driver grudgingly lowered his whip, unwilling to strike the English lady. Sibylla, her heart racing with triumph and fear, turned her mule away.

  How can Toledano permit this? she wondered, for the slaves were his. He had purchased them in Marrakesh from a northbound caravan and marked them with his brand. Sibylla had been racking her brain as to how anyone could treat other human beings worse than pack camels.

  She jumped at the ugly curse flung by another slave driver swinging his whip above the heads of several women. Nadira, riding next to her mistress with her head hung low, flinched as well. Sibylla suspected she suffered not only at seeing her sub-Saharan compatriots humiliated so but was also reminded of her own history.

  “Where do they come from?” Sibylla asked her. “Do they belong to your tribe?”

  Nadira answered with a sad look. “These people are Igbo. I am Mandingo. But in our suffering, we are all brothers and sisters.”

  Igbo and Mandingo. Sibylla had never heard of either. Nor had she any idea where these people lived, or that they might be from many different places, different tribes. She realized how little she knew of the inhabitants of this continent.

  The slave driver again raised his whip to beat the two stumbling men, but he was seized by the arm by a rider galloping up from behind. The surprised man fell off his mule with a cry.

  “Arrête-toi! Stop it!” André Rouston bellowed and spun his brown mare in such a way that her hooves stamped on the ground mere inches from the frightened driver’s head. The man quickly rolled out of the way and sprang to his feet, but the Frenchman was next to him again in no time and grabbed his arm again. “Your slaves are your brothers—that is what the Prophet commanded! The next time I see you or one of your friends mistreating these people, I will tie you together like these poor devils!”

  The driver gave him a look filled with hate and tried to free himself. Disgusted, Rouston pushed him away so hard that he almost fell down again.

  Sibylla watched with bated breath. At last, someone had found the courage to fight for the captives!

  Rouston had joined their caravan in Marrakesh because he was on his way back to the Chiadma. Sibylla had not had the opportunity to speak with him herself since he rode a little apart most of the time.

  “Is there a problem?” Toledano asked. He had hurriedly trotted up on his donkey from the head of the caravan. One of the slave drivers must have alerted him.

  “Stop your men from mistreating these people!” the Frenchman snapped at him.

  “With all due respect, Señor Rouston, I acquired these Negroes legally and, if they are obstinate, they will be punished. Only then will they appreciate the power of their master.”

  He spoke in measured tones. Yet his attitude left no room for doubt that he resented the interference.

  “They’re not being obstinate, Señor Toledano, they’re exhausted!” Rouston shouted, but the merchant merely nodded politely and rode away.

  Meanwhile, Benjamin had ridden up to Sibylla. He was annoyed by the way his wife was admiring the Frenchman.

  “So your heroic representative of the grande nation is trying to introduce these Negroes to the concept of human rights, is he?” he remarked smugly.

  “No need to be so rude. You, after all, are in business with a slave trader,” Sibylla responded calmly.

  He glared at her. “And aren’t you rather sanctimonious for someone whose grandfather made a fortune from the slave trade? Besides, Toledano is one of the sultan’s merchants. It’s impossible to do any business around here without him. Unless, of course, one is selling shoes directly to the sultan’s harem.”

  “One might think you’re envious.”

  “Envious? How ridiculous. I’m just reminding you to mind your own business. The Negroes are Toledano’s. He has paid for them and can do with them as he wishes.”

  Before Sibylla could respond, Benjamin had pointedly guided his mule toward Toledano. She watched him ride away, her lips pressed together. Benjamin had been curt and irritated with her for the last several days. She had very much wanted to explore Marrakesh with him, but he had avoided her as though it were her fault the audience with the sultan had not gone as he had hoped. That same evening in their room in the inn, she had even told him how sorry she was, but he had cut her short and stormed out of the room.

  In a few weeks, we are going to be a family. But even this child does not seem to be bringing us closer to one another, Sibylla thought glumly.

  She knew Benjamin had come to Morocco full of ambition, anxious to impress his father-in-law and be rewarded with a management position back home. Yet one disappointment followed on the heels of another, first with Qaid Hash-Hash and now with the sultan.

  Perhaps she was not doing her duty to help her husband gain a foothold here? Sibylla sighed softly. She felt no real desire to support him. She much preferred to act autonomously, to learn about both business and local culture on her own. She had bought several bolts of silk cloth at the souk in Marrakesh, which she planned to offer to merchants in London. Benjamin knew nothing about this and, judging by their latest row, he was not going to be at all pleased once he found out.

  If I really want to heal the rift between my husband and me, I should stop trading, she thought. As difficult as it was, Sibylla resolved that this would be her last deal. She would soon become a mother and have no more time for business anyhow.

  Irritated, she shooed away some flies buzzing around her face and, at that moment, was racked by a piercing pain.

  “My lady? Are you all right?” In an instant, Nadira was by her side.

&nb
sp; “No!” she gasped, holding her abdomen. “Get my husband! Quickly!”

  Chapter Eight

  “Don’t be troubled, Señor Hopkins. Even the sultan himself—may the Almighty grant him eternal life—knows that one cannot skin an ox twice.” Riding next to Benjamin, Samuel Toledano studied him. “Believe me, there is good business to be done anywhere you want.”

  Benjamin looked morosely at the slaves stumbling along one after the other. “That is surely not the case with your Negroes,” he grumbled. “I don’t suppose that these rawboned characters here will fetch much.”

  Toledano bowed his head. “You are right, of course, Señor Hopkins. The proceeds are hardly worth the barley groats I have to feed them to fatten them up,” he lamented.

  Then he looked around and rode closer to Benjamin’s mule. “Over in America, the prices are still quite decent: seventy pounds for a healthy man and fifty for a woman. But unfortunately, you English have prohibited overseas sales.”

  “Seventy pounds!” Benjamin stopped his mule and looked at Toledano in disbelief. His father was grateful to make about twice that sum a year at his job as a bank teller.

  “I assure you, Señor Hopkins, and if you will allow me . . .” Toledano once again looked around in all directions.

  Nadira came up galloping.

  “Master, master!” Her face was distorted with worry. “Please come! The mistress is in great pain.”

  Sibylla screamed in anguish, dropping her reins and grasping her abdomen. Disoriented, her mule took off at an irregular trot. Sibylla groaned. Every step felt like a stab. She collapsed in the saddle and clung to the animal’s mane.

  “Sibylla, for heaven’s sake, don’t fall!” Sara Willshire guided her mule next to her friend’s and tried to take the reins, but the startled animal flung its head back and forth and made it impossible.