The Lioness of Morocco

by Julia Drosten

  Hash-Hash trembled with excitement at the prospect of arresting the ostentatious Englishman and acquainting him with the most select instruments of torture. But then he reminded himself that Hopkins was a foreigner, an Engliz, the subject of a powerful queen who ruled half the world. If he mishandled one of her citizens, he might very well attract this queen’s wrath to Morocco and cause him to fall out of favor with His Majesty. After all, the sultan took great pains to stay in the good graces not only of the English queen but also the other rulers of Europe. Under no circumstances was Morocco going to suffer the same fate as Algeria, which was now nothing more than an unworthy vassal of the French!

  No, the qaid sadly shook his head. He would have to leave the Englishman to the sultan. Oh, but the treacherous Toledano was his to deal with! He turned to the harbormaster, who remained at his side, awaiting further orders.

  “Come to the palace this week to share some shisha with me,” he ordered. “I am very pleased by the loyalty you show His Most Gracious Majesty. You have always kept in mind that an infidel can never be greater than the true children of God.”

  André Rouston leaned down to the Arab boy and handed him a basket full of sweet-smelling oranges. “You are to give this to the English lady, not the cook or any of the servants, you understand?”

  “Yes, sir!” The boy looked at him innocently.

  “And what are you going to say to the lady when you give her the oranges?”

  “At the time for noon prayers, she is to come to the place of which the faransawi has told her,” the boy repeated.

  Rouston smiled. “Very good!” He opened the leather pouch attached to his belt, took out a few coins, and gave them to the boy.

  “I’ll wait here. When you come back and you tell me that you have spoken to the lady, you’ll get another reward.”

  At midday, Rouston had already waited for two hours for Sibylla. When the Arab boy returned and proudly reported he had done just as the faransawi asked, André had hurried from the French consulate, where he stayed whenever he was in Mogador, to the little church. He was aware that he was early, but perhaps Sibylla would be early as well, and she might leave if she did not find him!

  He had placed a small rug with just enough room for two people on the elevated stones beneath the steeple. He sat down on it and gazed at the golden ribbons of light that slipped through holes in the roof.

  It really is quite ludicrous, he thought, shaking his head. I am thirty-three years old. I have seen far more of the world than most and I have known plenty of women. And here I am, excited as I was at fourteen when the innkeeper’s daughter allowed me to reach under her bodice when we were hiding behind the shed.

  His eyes roamed the interior of the small church. The last priest had left when the Portuguese had to abandon their trading post in the middle of the sixteenth century. The structure had been falling into ruin ever since. There was no more holy-water basin by the entrance for the faithful to dip their fingertips into, no more benches on the cracked stone slabs to allow the prayerful to kneel, the glass windows were broken, cobwebs hung suspended from the walls, and pigeons were nesting in the corners. Pirates, seeking refuge along the coast, had stolen the organ pipes and bells for scrap, leaving the steeple to the bats. It was peaceful here. André heard the wind whistling in the drafty corners, the cooing of the pigeons, and the scuttling of mouse feet. Were it not for the headless statues of Portuguese patron saints Anthony and Isabel, dressed in the habit of the Franciscans, no one would have guessed this ruin had once been a church.

  He wondered why Sibylla had failed to come that night four weeks earlier. Someone or something must have prevented her. Her husband, perhaps, who had chosen that particular night to share her bed? It was almost unbearable for André to imagine Benjamin holding and loving Sibylla. Or perhaps she had not wanted to meet him at all—an idea he liked even less. Perhaps she’d lost her nerve? But a woman like Sibylla did not lose her nerve. She did what she thought was right.

  That night, when he had waited for her in vain, he had resolved to leave Mogador until the fall when it was time to sell the date harvest. Perhaps by then his feelings for this married woman would have cooled.

  However, the days had passed, he had not left, and now he found himself sitting in the ruins of this old church, praying to the heavens that Sibylla would not strand him there a second time. Next to him sat a basket with red wine, dark and thick as syrup, truffle pâté, and ham that tasted of the oak forests of his childhood home—delicacies he had bought from the French consul’s cook. He wished to spoil the one woman who captivated him more than any other.

  But where was Sibylla? He tried to gauge the time of day. It had been at least half an hour since the muezzin had called midday prayers. I’ll wait another half an hour, he decided desperately. If she had not come by then, he would never again impose on her.

  He froze. The door latch clicked, the rusty hinges squeaked, and a figure squeezed through the gap. Sunlight flooded into the church for a moment and he made out a woman’s backlit silhouette. Then the door fell shut.

  “André?”

  “Sibylla!” He stood up and went to her. A pigeon flapped its wings and disappeared through one of the holes in the roof. All at once, they were in each other’s arms.

  “Tu es là!” he whispered. “Mon Dieu, how I have waited for you!” He took her face in both hands and kissed her, and his happiness knew no bounds when she threw her arms around him and kissed him back.

  “Pardon,” he uttered once they had finally released one another. “I couldn’t help myself.”

  She shook her head and placed her fingers on his lips. “Thank you for the oranges,” she whispered.

  “Did anyone follow you? Your husband perhaps?” He anxiously looked to the door.

  “Benjamin has been on a business trip to Fez and Marrakesh for weeks. There were a few merchants in the alley outside. They were looking for the Portuguese consulate. I hope they did not recognize me.”

  He reached out and pulled the shawl off Sibylla’s hair. As always, she was dressed like the local women: an embroidered, silver-gray damask tunic and a loose-fitting pair of pants, the chalwar. Her tousled hair made for a charming contrast. Never before had a woman cast such a spell on him!

  André cleared his throat. “If anyone recognized you, it was because of your blue eyes. But they would lose their minds as soon as you looked at them, just like I did.”

  She did not know what to say. Benjamin seldom paid her compliments. Did André really find her so beautiful, even seductive?

  He took her palm and covered it with kisses. “I am so glad!” he repeated. Then he led her to the stone pedestal. She looked around curiously.

  “All these years in Mogador and I never knew this church existed.”

  “Hardly anyone does. And that is why we will be completely undisturbed,” he assured her.

  “Goodness!” she exclaimed as she noticed the rug and the basket. “What have you done?”

  He just laughed and, in one fell swoop, swept her into his arms.

  “Ooh!” She wrapped her arms around his neck and beamed as he carried her to the dais and gently lowered her onto the rug. He pulled the wine bottle and corkscrew from the basket.

  “What shall we drink to?” he asked as he filled two glasses.

  She took hers and held it up to a beam of light so that its contents sparkled like garnets. “I’ll drink to having met you,” she answered quietly and looked into his eyes.

  The sunlight had all but disappeared behind the westwork of the church, and still they found it impossible to part.

  Sibylla sat on the rug, André’s head in her lap, playing with his black curls. They had partaken of the contents of the basket and kissed each other endlessly. André had not tried to urge Sibylla any further, and for that she was grateful. She would gladly have surrendered to him because the wine had made her cheerful and relaxed. But at the same time, she was anxious. Whenever Benjamin had shared
her bed, the process had been so pedestrian, even painful. What if the same thing happened with André? That would destroy everything between them. But instead, André had inquired in great detail about her life, how she had grown up. She told him how secure and sheltered her life in London had been.

  “I had a good life and yet I was never satisfied. I never understood why my younger brother had all sorts of freedom while all I ever heard was what a young lady could and could not do. I wanted to travel the world and see and touch for myself all the things I only knew from books. That’s why I encouraged Benjamin to take the position in Morocco and insisted that I be allowed to come with him. One day, I will be able to say that I lived in a world straight out of One Thousand and One Nights. That is something not even many men can claim.”

  “You could write a book about it—the true and extraordinary adventures of an English merchant’s wife in Morocco,” André suggested with a smile.

  She tousled his hair. “Don’t you make fun of me!”

  “I am quite serious!”

  “So you think I could write something like Lady Montagu, whose husband was ambassador to the Ottoman court in the last century?” Sibylla asked, thrilled at the notion.

  “I am not familiar with Madame Montagu’s writing, but bien sûr, why not? You have seen and experienced a lot . . .”

  He kissed each of her fingertips. She leaned over and, with her lips, caressed his hairline, temples, ears, and neck. He groaned, pulled her to him with both arms, and hungrily pressed his mouth on her soft, warm lips. When he finally released her, he shook his head and smiled as though surprised.

  “I still remember marveling at how you stood before the sultan in Marrakesh and had the courage to return his gaze. I would never have thought that we would one day be this close.”

  Sibylla sat up and smoothed her hair. The intensity of his kisses and her own hunger for them had her completely befuddled. Her doubts returned.

  “The governor’s favorite concubine was standing next to me on the rooftop when you were shooting on the beach. She immediately knew that you meant something to me. Was it imprudent of us to meet here?”

  He sighed. A small dark shadow fell over their carefree afternoon. “True, in the eyes of society and the church, what we are doing is wrong. But I, for one, would like to proclaim before the whole world that you are mine.” And now he could no longer restrain himself from asking, “Do you love your husband?”

  Sibylla uttered a brief laugh. She leaned over André and he could feel her sweet, warm breath on his lips. “André Rouston, you are jealous and that makes me happy,” she whispered.

  He wrapped one arm around her waist and pulled her even closer. “Why don’t you answer my question?”

  Love, she had long ago realized, had had nothing to do with Benjamin’s and her decision to marry.

  “At first, I thought we might become partners,” she explained after a long pause. “Particularly here in this country, where there are so few foreigners. But the more time passes, the more estranged I become from Benjamin. I don’t understand it myself.”

  She pulled off a piece of the flatbread André had brought. “But enough about me. Tell me something about yourself. What sort of a man are you?”

  He propped himself up on one elbow and drank the last drop of wine in his glass. The taste evoked long-forgotten memories of France.

  “I did not have such a sheltered upbringing as you,” he began, struggling for words. “Life in France during the Restoration was not easy for a poor farm boy. Say what you will about Napoleon, but under him, commoners had a chance. After he was gone, the Bourbons turned back the clock. In my home, we were short of everything: food, clothing, leather for shoes and boots, warm coats. And this despite the fact that my parents were emancipated farmers. Our family has owned a small farm in the Lot area for seven generations. And still, we never had enough to eat, especially if the harvest was poor. I worked like a horse ever since I can remember, but without black truffles, we would have gone hungry during many winters. My father knew the secret spots in the forest where they grow. Truffles meant for us what saffron means for the Chiadma: money for a rainy day.”

  By now, the church was almost completely dark. André could see only the outline of Sibylla’s empathetic face. Now that he’d started telling his story, it was as though he could not stop.

  “I am one of nine children,” he continued. “I still shared a straw mattress with two of my brothers when I already was old enough to attend village dances with the girls. I didn’t miss any chance to drink and that made me eager to fight. I was as strong as a young ox and just as moody. I probably was not easy to get along with at that time. I realize now that I was desperately unhappy. What did I have to look forward to? Life as a farmhand, because only the eldest son would inherit—”

  “But you left,” Sibylla said softly. “You took charge of your life.”

  He laughed. “It certainly did not look that way at first! At sixteen, I fled. I had sold one of father’s truffles and felt rich and bold. I made it to La Rochelle and was going to sign on as a sailor and conquer the world . . . Sibylla, I fear I am boring you.” He felt for her hand in the dark.

  “Not at all, André. Please tell me more!”

  She knew it was time for her to go home. The children were surely waiting. But she could not tear herself away from André and his soft, dark voice, which made his past come alive as though she had experienced it herself.

  “And so you were hired on a ship?” She picked up his story.

  He cleared his throat. It was such a dark chapter of his life, a year of which he was not the least bit proud. Still, he did not want to withhold anything from Sibylla. He wanted her to know everything and decide for herself whether she truly wanted him.

  “I was abducted,” he said. “Carried onto a ship and forced to be a sailor.”

  “That’s slavery!” Sibylla exclaimed. “But you didn’t become a slave, did you?”

  “In a way, I did, yes. I was a stupid country boy, and one with money in his pocket. I drank myself into a stupor in the first harbor bar I found. There was a man who saw to it that my glass always had rum in it. The next thing I remember was waking up on the high seas and the mate holding a piece of paper in my face that said that I had been hired as a sailor.”

  “What a dirty trick!” Sibylla snorted.

  André nodded. It was all true except for one particularly embarrassing detail. He had been snared not in a bar but in a brothel. He had gone with a prostitute who had taken all his money and promptly turned him over to a press gang for a bounty.

  “At first, I was not that upset,” he continued. “I had wanted to go to sea anyhow. But then I realized that I was working for a slave trader.”

  “How despicable!”

  He had no idea whether her words referred to the slave trade or him. “Sibylla, know that I would never have done this work willingly. What I saw on that ship, how those poor devils were treated . . . I’ll never be able to forget that! And to my great shame, I must admit that I participated, if only to avoid the cat-o’-nine-tails myself. Do you despise me now?”

  He felt for her hand.

  Sibylla thought about her grandfather’s own dirty business. “God shall grant them repentance so that they may know the truth—isn’t that what the Bible says?” She squeezed André’s hand.

  “I would gladly give my arm if I could erase that time,” he professed. “When we berthed in La Rochelle one year later, I fled without even waiting to be paid.”

  “And what did you do next?”

  “I had three options: a career as a harbor gangster, to enter into service as a farmhand for my brother, or to enlist in the military. I chose the military and that turned out to be a good decision. For the first time in my life, I met people who did not regard me as a scoundrel. I gradually climbed up to the higher ranks that were ordinarily reserved for the aristocracy. In 1830, I was transferred to Algeria and fought against Abd el-Kader the
re. After my discharge, I came to Morocco and here . . .”

  “Is where our paths crossed,” Sibylla finished thoughtfully. “It’s late, André, I really must get home.”

  He stood up. “I’ll accompany you.”

  While he rolled up the rug and placed it on his shoulder, she packed the empty wine bottle and the rest of their picnic into the basket.

  “How I wish we didn’t have to part,” she said with a sigh when they reached the church door.

  “Will you meet me here again?” he asked, his heart beating fast.

  She wrapped her shawl around her head so that her hair was completely covered. “Of course, I want to. But it doesn’t feel right to sneak around in this old ruin.”

  “We have no other choice at the moment,” André replied, unsmiling. He opened his arms and pulled her close. “Let us leave the future up to fate. Inshallah, as the Arabs say.”

  She looked at him and nodded solemnly. “Inshallah. God willing.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Get away from here, you good-for-nothing. What are you doing in front of my house?” Benjamin guided his stallion directly at the beggar crouching in front of the wall. The man ducked to the side, uttering a frightened cry.

  Benjamin laughed and made his riding crop slice through the air. “There, see how able-bodied you still are?”

  The man cowered against the wall and pulled the hood of his moth-eaten cloak over his face.

  “All right now, I don’t want to be too harsh; business in Fez and Marrakesh was good, after all.” He reached into his jacket pocket, threw down a handful of coins, and watched with a shake of his head as the man scratched the coins out of the dust.

  “That’s just how you Muslims are: a bunch of idlers. You’d rather beg than work!”

  He swung one leg over his horse’s back, slipped out of the saddle, and tossed the reins to the servant who had accompanied him on the journey. “Take the animals to the stable and take good care of them. Put a blanket on my stallion so he doesn’t catch cold. If you forget, I’ll hold you personally responsible.”