Secret of the Sands

by Sara Sheridan

  Three or four times she’s seen British officers, their faces pink in Muscat’s unholy climate, sweating their way round the souk, looking for souvenirs, their shadows long on the sandy ground. This day, this very day, she sees one – the first in over a year. He is a tall man in an immaculate uniform with the braid and buttons of a lieutenant. The paleness of his skin is quite shocking.

  From London and no toff, she thinks, catching his accent as she passes him, sprawled leisurely on the cushions of a carpet stall. He has kind eyes though. Blue like the sea and the sky, she thinks. And he is drinking it in.

  What fool wouldn’t? Muscat is like a mind-altering drug. A stroll in its streets is like getting drunk for the first time. This fellow has an air of pleasing intelligence and looks as if he’s enjoying the to-and-fro nature of the merchant who is offering his goods. The white man has a quiet determin ation though he remains relaxed. He’s enjoying himself. You could trust him, yes, he is trustworthy. The Pearl considers a moment. She wonders what would happen if she leant over and simply said a few words. It wouldn’t take much.

  ‘My name is Fanny O’Donnell. I was shipwrecked, kidnapped and sold many years ago. Send word for me to my sisters and brothers. They’ll know them still on His Lordship’s estate. And here I am living like a princess, so don’t pity me for one second, Lieutenant.’

  Surely he would say, ‘Madame, you must let me be of assistance.’ She sniggers; his voice is so English. Still, Farida keeps her silence, loitering by a stall selling tatty scraps of cloth, watching. He seems a strange creature to her now, even if he is one of her own, and of course, she knows full well she’ll say nothing, for it would certainly cause a scandal, if not (heaven forbid) a political incident. Dear God, she doesn’t want them to take her back. No, far better they all think she is dead, she muses sadly. It is only her sister she misses, in truth. The youngest one: Annmarie. Lord knows where she is now – the little dote.

  Farida turns, pretending to examine some fabric on a stall as Wellsted stands to leave. The salesman lights a rock of frankincense and lets the officer perfume his clothes before he steps back into the sunshine. He does not take notice of the lady in her burquah, hovering in the shade watching him as he walks away.

  Winding back towards the compound, sneaking carefully back to Mickey’s very fine, gilded cage, Farida breathes especially deeply. She luxuriates in the uneven paving stones and the dusty kerbside – the array of imperfections that make the world real and the kick of her ankle as she strides in whichever direction she wants. Last of all, she passes the old, blind man, half-naked from sheer need, who sits a few doors up from the mosque, begging the charity of his fellows. She always brings him something – a slice of cake, a tiny speck of frankincense or a silk scarf. Farida has no money, she has not had any money for years. Still, she presses the gift into his hands and he blesses her as she hurries on her way back to the shaded elegance of her chamber. It is only like this that she can guard against her life becoming too smooth, too easy. She’ll think about it this evening – all of it. She’ll think of it for days.

  Muscat is the best city on earth, she smiles to herself, the even slope of the steps rising beneath her signalling her homecoming. I’ll never be cold or hungry again.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Zena stations herself by the window for most of the day while the slaves come and go. Outside, the same characters go about their business and she comes to pace herself by their familiar movements. She has never seen the master on the street but he most likely travels in a palanquin. Yes, she can see him in her mind’s eye, lying behind sheer curtains, being carried to his appointments and social engagements – the mysterious business of what a man does during the day.

  She realises quickly that the house only a block along belongs to one of the slavers. It is odd to watch the men who stole her come and go from a distance. Even though she knows she is obscured by the carved shutter or the curtains, depending on which she chooses to employ, at first she feels that they can see her nonetheless. She endows Kasim and Ibn Mohammed with the all-seeing eyes of godlike beings, and her heart beats a little faster each time she catches a glimpse of them. Beyond the fear, she feels frustration. These are the men who killed her uncle in cold blood and they ride out in Muscat like any other, unpunished for their actions. Slavery is legal – but murder?

  The unfairness rankles. Zena has begun to long for her freedom. Even being allowed to walk in the street seems an impossible liberty. It is for this reason that she takes particular interest in the women who pass by her window.

  Generally they are wearing the burquah but each is still distinguishable if Zena looks closely. A flash of ankle or wrist can be most revealing. Deportment is also important – some walk tall while others, hidden from the world, slouch along. Most have shoes – sandals, in fact – and these are much more individual than the long, black robes that obscure most of the detail of their wearer’s appearance.

  These women choose their own shoes, Zena thinks.

  She takes pleasure in noting that this one is barefoot and therefore very poor, and that another has finely plaited leather shoes with a small heel or wears an elegant silver ankle chain. Once she thinks she catches sight of a flash of milky skin as one lady swings past with a gait that can only be described as musical. It must, Zena considers, be a trick of the light, for the woman’s skin seemed almost to glow it was so pale.

  One day she is attended by an old sidi. The slave has been sent to shape her nails. She crouches over Zena’s hands like a fortune-teller, smoothing the edges with a strip of pumice and painting on a dark, thick oil to make the cuticle malleable. They are alone in the room. Zena continues to watch the street over the old woman’s head. When the sidi speaks it is unexpected.

  ‘You want to go out, my lady?’ she rasps. The woman’s voice sounds as rough as the pumice, as if she has been sucked dry.

  Zena laughs. The comment is an exciting diversion. ‘It would be nice to go out,’ she admits. ‘Do you ever leave the house?’

  The woman lifts her head. Her eyes are the colour of butter, the irises like hazelnuts. ‘I have not been outside for forty years,’ she admits. ‘I was brought here when I was your age.’

  Zena pauses, trying to form the question as diplomatically as possible. ‘You belong to your master, like I do?’

  The old woman laughs. ‘No. No. I am a sidi. And the master here prefers his own women. Your master’s father, that is. I have always been a house slave. I think at first they were afraid I might run away, so I was not permitted to go to the market. And then, after a while, it simply became that I did not leave.’

  Zena leans in and takes her eyes off the street. She’s glad that her position in the household is easily distinguishable from the old lady’s. She does not want to end her days bent over a young woman’s hand, making the fingers attractive enough for her master’s pleasure.

  ‘Forty years,’ Zena marvels, considering it. ‘Did you never want to run away?’

  The woman shakes her head. ‘No. No. They behead you for running away and they are bound to catch you. Where is there to go? My brother ran.’ The woman’s voice falters. ‘We were taken together. They caught him. They chopped off his legs at the knee and left him to bleed to death in the marketplace. In front of everyone. They have no pity, the masters, if you disobey. They told me it took him a long time to die.’

  Zena feels sick. She has been considering just this matter, though has come to the same conclusion. There is nowhere to run to and she looks so distinctive that she is bound to be caught and returned. It makes sense that the punishment for insubordination is heavy but she had not realised that it was death. She lays her hand on the woman’s shoulder in pity.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says.

  The woman’s eyes betray her surprise that the pretty habshi has sympathy for what happened. No one has had sympathy in all the years she’s been here.

  Later, Zena sits below the sill, her eyes peeking over the ri
m. The street is less crowded now for the sun is high. It seems unbelievable to her that she might never leave this house again – that this place with all its comfort will become the confines of her world. It does not feel it’s possible. She is daydreaming about what it would be like to leave, if only for a few minutes, when a hundred yards down the road a man rounds the corner. Zena sits up. He stands out immediately for he is the strangest creature the girl has ever seen. His skin is pure white, his eyes, she peers in wonder, are blue, and he wears a fitted jacket and trousers with golden buttons and braid embroidery. Unlike the jubbah, which mostly masks the shape of the body it clothes, this uniform shows the man’s strong limbs and thick torso. He walks with a purpose that is quite impressive, and then stops at the market stall on the corner and inspects the pastries that are on display. He is, Zena thinks, interested in food, for he makes his choices carefully and the stallholder packs up the pastries, bowing and smiling all the while.

  Zena finds that her heart is beating fast. Without thinking, she grabs a small, brass-framed mirror from the side table and, like a schoolgirl, deflects a sunbeam across the street, aiming for the fellow’s face. At first, she misses but manages to make the buttons on his jacket gleam. Then, slowly, she diverts the beam upwards. As he turns into the light, she makes out the tone of his eyes – can they really be so blue? She has never seen such a thing. She squints to make out his face. He is laughing. She smiles; he knows it is a joke. His eyes are searching for the source of the light but he is not angry, only curious and amused. Zena takes this in before, in a panic, she dives under the ledge, giggling and hugging the mirror to her chest. She waits for a few seconds, counting to ten, and then carefully peers above the sill once more, hoping he will still be there.

  The officer has turned and is haggling briefly with the stallholder. Then he pays. The baker bows, making his thanks, and Zena thinks that the white man has most likely paid too much for his pastries. She can tell by the smug expression on the stallholder’s face. Then, as the stranger turns in the direction of the dock, the sound of the call to prayer seeps across the city from one minaret to another. When he walks, he looks powerful, she thinks. That’s the word. Zena raises the mirror and follows his muscular figure down the hill with a trail of light on his heels. It’s the closest she will come to going out and for now it will do.

  I mustn’t be childish and ungrateful, she thinks. The master’s house, after all, is comfortable and she is well treated and safe. She shudders at the thought of the poor sidi’s brother. Things, she realises could be far, far worse.

  Chapter Twenty

  After three days docked in Muscat, the midships of the Palinurus smell like a hops house and Ormsby, with too little to do, has entered a cycle of drinking himself to a stupor, playing cards with his fellows and passing out in his tiny hammock, day after day. The other midshipmen have made a half-hearted attempt at surveying the twin forts of Al Jalali and Al Mirani as well as drawing maps of the walled city and its three fine gates. This is solely for the practice of it, for Muscat, unlike the interior of Oman, is freely open to Europeans, or as open as an Arab city can possibly be, and all salient points of its defence system and architecture are already in the hands of the Navy’s high command. Still, Haines oversees the boys’ efforts and suggests improvements, for one day, who knows, they may be called upon to provide maps of somewhere that no white man has ever been before. Preparation for such an eventuality is everything – an Englishman is always at the ready.

  The crew, meanwhile, are fully employed; the carpenters have planed down the rough edges and hammered everything back into place and now the unskilled men are painting the new wood. The deck is swabbed so clean you could eat off it. Most importantly, the craggy steward, Jardine, has bought enough spices (ostensibly for the captain’s table) so that if he ever again has to eat mutton for three months straight he can, at the very least, marinade the filthy stuff and make a curry. He has a wide repertoire of recipes suitable for this eventuality, gleaned from the sweet-faced, dark-skinned little bibi with whom he has an arrangement back in Bombay at the port on the island of Colaba – he only wishes he had had his spice box with him when they hit the supply problems at Makkah. He won’t let that happen again.

  At three in the afternoon, his papers in order, Haines bursts tight-lipped onto the deck and makes an inspection of the rigging and the repairs. In particularly poor humour, he picks at details and orders several perfectly satisfactory jobs to be attempted again, for he has been presented with a quandary this afternoon – a summons from the palace delivered by a blue-robed messenger bearing the royal seal. The soultan wishes the pleasure of his company that evening, and the company of his senior officers. For choice Haines would take the midshipmen, but of course he has to take Wellsted if he takes anyone, and he does not want to attend the palace alone. In the shady recesses of his mind, just beyond his reach, the captain knows he is being mean-spirited but the truth is that once he is launched upon a certain course he finds it difficult to veer from it and the fire in his belly about Wellsted’s behaviour over the manuscript is burning as brightly as ever.

  ‘This rope,’ the captain comments, kicking a carefully tidied coil on deck, ‘is a disgrace. Do it again.’

  The men fall to it in the heat and Haines stands watching them. He feels no better. As Wellsted marches along the dock towards the Palinurus, the captain easily spots him from a distance. When he comes up the gangplank smartly, Haines is waiting at the top.

  ‘Been ashore then, Wellsted?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well, I will be requiring you this evening, Lieutenant. The senior officers of this vessel are to present themselves in the service of the sultan, when the sun goes down. Dress uniform, of course.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Wellsted salutes.

  ‘Where the devil did you get to, anyway?’

  ‘I went to the souk, sir,’ Wellsted says.

  He likes the market in Muscat. It’s cosmopolitan. The soultan is liberal – come one, come all, if you’ve something to sell – the streets of Muttrah welcome everyone. Wellsted is unaware he has this very day been spotted by both Farida and Zena. He has spent most of the afternoon smoking a shisha pipe with a rug merchant from Constantinople. The fellow has taken an ornate old Portuguese house up from the waterfront and plies his wares there in some style. They discussed the habit of Muslim rug makers in making sure there is always one thread out of place in their work, for perfection is the province of Allah alone and to do otherwise is blasphemy. More importantly, the man swears blind that he saw French ships off the Somali coast not two months before – far further south than the British might like.

  ‘The souk?’ Haines’ tone is derisory. ‘A spot of shopping, is it?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘If you’re thinking you might use your allocated space on this trip, it is out of the question.’

  Officers are entitled to request hold space for their personal profit. It is one of the perks of an Indian Navy commission – though Wellsted has never used his. He has his eye on a far greater prize than a few guineas. He is after respectability. After all, trade is the very thing he wants to get away from.

  ‘No, sir. Not that.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I just went to see it, sir. I find it interesting. While I was there, I heard the French were nearby a couple of months ago. Three ships headed westwards and then south down the African coastline off Mogadishu. I thought you should know.’

  Haines thinks he must mention this in his dispatches. The directors of the East India Company naturally spend a good deal of their time anticipating what the French may or may not do. Haines wouldn’t like to say why the French might be off the coast of Somalia – their territories in Africa are predominantly to the north and west and even going to the Seychelles or Reunion, the French Navy usually follows the line of their protectorates and head around the Cape rather than sailing south from Egypt. The most likely explanation is that the buggers ha
ve been slaving. One way or another, he’ll be damned if he is going to congratulate Wellsted on procuring this information – the chap is only doing his duty after all. He dismisses his lieutenant haughtily as if he is an errant midshipman who has been up to no good.

  ‘I see. Well, off with you, then. Come for me when the muezzins are making their song this evening. Be ready.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Below decks in his cramped cabin, Wellsted opens his trunk and pulls out his dress uniform. He has not worn it since Bombay but it is clean and only needs an airing or at least as good an airing as he can manage. The cabin is baking and, coming in from outside, he notices the long-seasoned wood still smells fresh from the forest when it gets hot and the pine resin’s musky aroma is roused. He hangs the blue jacket with its gold brocade alongside his dress breeches on the back of the door. Then he decides to get one of the boys to polish his boots. First though, he picks one of the pastries he bought and savours the almond paste and honey stuffing. The Arabs bake well, he thinks. Then, licking his fingers clean, he shaves in the bucket of cold saltwater. The brine stings his skin. When he is done with the cutthroat he stows it carefully and passes a brush through his hair. It will be interesting to see inside the palace though the truth is that the lieutenant invariably feels out of place in fine surroundings. He comes far more into his own in the dockside taverns or striking up a conversation with a man who has something to sell. He heartily prefers life in a caravan, camping under the stars, to the brief periods he has spent in ambassadors’ residences and at the disposal of the aristocracy even if, ultimately, that is where the plan he is set upon is heading.

  ‘Polish these will you, Hughes?’ he pokes his head into the hallway and catches the ship’s boy as he is passing. ‘I am off to the palace tonight.’

  The boy’s eyes light up as he grasps the officer’s footwear. ‘Yes, sir,’ he says, and hovers a moment.