The Serpent's Daughter

by Suzanne Arruda

  Spit fire and save the matches. She’d left the bags of hashish and the gold coins in the village. Well, spilt milk and all that nonsense. No time to go back for them. She still had the leather bag and the charm the Little Owl had coughed up at the Azilah tunnels. She would use them to locate the bag maker and proceed from there. Jade debated having Mohan do the talking so she could continue her role as his sister, then decided against it. That amulet needed finding and he might be of more use inquiring at the silversmith’s or anyone else likely to buy old silver. Her biggest concern was her imperfect Arabic; however, disguised as a Berber woman, she could claim it wasn’t her first language. Just so long as I don’t run into a shopkeeper who speaks Tashelhit.

  “Mohan, if someone tried to sell the kahina’s amulet, where would he go?”

  Mohan rubbed his hand over his short beard. “Perhaps to a dealer of women’s adornments? Someone who sells to the wealthy princes in the city?” He answered as though he were uncertain, like a student who looks to the teacher to see if he has given the correct reply.

  “Do you know who they are? The dealers, not the princes.”

  Mohan shrugged. “In the souks.”

  She recalled she was originally supposed to meet someone to bargain for her mother’s freedom in the Square of the Dead. “Would someone like that be in the Jemaâ el-Fna?”

  Mohan shrugged again. “It is mostly storytellers, fortune tellers, and sellers of food there. Sometimes I sit there to sell my wife’s rugs. But I do not think the rich princes buy from there.”

  Jade had another thought. The amulet might have more value as a talisman than as women’s jewelry. “Is there anyone who sells charms in the souks who might have bought it?”

  “Charms for one cannot be used by another. They are made special for a person.”

  Jade didn’t press the issue, although she noted that Mohan didn’t really answer her question. She’d locate the charm dealers herself. “You know better than I what Elishat’s amulet looks like. Would you please ask about it in the souks?”

  “I cannot buy it, if I find it,” he protested.

  “Just let it be known that there is a lady who is looking for something like that; someone who will pay a good price. Tell them it is a Nazarene woman if you have to. Just don’t give my name. We will meet again at the eastern side of the Koutoubia mosque tower,” she said. “Meet me just after the muezzin calls for evening prayer.”

  Mohan grunted what appeared to be an affirmative reply and headed into the old city. Jade waited a moment to see that her mules were secured, fed, and watered; then she skirted the Medina walls around the east side and entered at the Bab Debbagh , the tanner’s gate, on the northeast edge. She assumed the leather workers would have shops close to their source of raw materials, but once she caught scent of the place, she realized she was wrong. No one would want to be close to this section of the city. Even the lepers chose the northwestern gate to haunt. This place reeked.

  Wet sheepskins, some still holding their fleece, some denuded, lay in piles waiting for processing. They contributed the least to the stench. The processing took care of the rest, cultivating a bad smell into one that could curdle milk still in the cow. One section of mud-brick vats contained an assortment of nasty brews for tanning the hides, while another held rancid dyes for staining the leather. Piles of bird excrement, vats of urine and fish oils, one of lard, and yet another of brains waited to be mixed into the tanning vats.

  Bad idea. Jade debated approaching the district from the other side, and decided it would take too much time. God favors the bold, she told herself. She covered her mouth and nose with her sleeve and plowed through, hoping to find someone who actually made bags at the other end of the district. How in the name of St. Peter’s bait bucket did they manage to actually work here? She wasn’t sure she could make it through without retching.

  Several groups of men paused momentarily and looked at her, but no one harassed her or questioned what she was doing there. She caught a few comments regarding foolish women and ignorant mountain people, but paid them no mind. If they thought she was merely a lost Berber woman passing through, so much the better. Finally she pushed past the worst of the odors, through the vegetable dye vats and corresponding mounds of tamarisk fruits and tree bark, and found herself in a small set of souks where men stacked and bundled the leather. As far as she could see, no one actually sewed the leather here.

  “Shkara?” she asked one man, using the word for a Berber man’s shoulder bag. When she received no reply, she held her own bag in front of him and tried the similar Arabic word. “Chkairas?”

  The craftsman shook his head and pointed to the stack of his red-dyed leather. “Ktab, books.” Apparently this leather all went to bind books. Jade went from leather worker to leather worker, always receiving the same reply or lack of one. Finally she came to the stall of a man who sat making babouches, leather slippers.

  “Chkairas?” she asked.

  The man, who looked to be in his sixties but might have been only thirty, squinted at Jade. She held up the leather bag around her neck. “Chkairas?” she repeated.

  “Souk Serrajine,” he said with a shrug, and pointed to the southwest.

  The saddlemakers’ district. Wonderful. I went through Dante’s third level of hell for nothing. She started to leave when the man stopped her.

  “Let me see,” he said, and held out a hand for the bag. Jade handed it over, keeping one hand on the leather strap in case. The old man studied the shape and the seams with an intensity due in part, Jade suspected, to failing vision. Finally he nodded as though he’d come to some decision. “Go to the shop of Wahab Taboor.”

  “Wahab Taboor made this bag? Are you certain?”

  “I know my own brother’s work,” he said.

  Jade thanked him with “May your work prosper” and navigated the blind alleys, twists, turns, and general haphazard layout of the old city to find the correct souk. At times, even keeping a mosque tower in view became impossible as the street narrowed and grew dark from an intermittent roof of reeds and palm branches.

  Periodically, the streets opened into more spacious avenues where Jade could get her bearings. Using her pocket watch, she lined up the hour hand with the sun, then picked the point halfway between noon and the hour hand. That was south. She set off again along a new maze where she jostled up against black-skinned slave women making purchases for their mistresses, Arab men, small boys, countless cats, and a few half-starved dogs that had the uncanny knack of lying down right in the middle of the road. Occasionally someone carrying a tray of food would trip over one of these poor brutes and then the dogs leaped into life, attacking whatever fell and bolting it down whole. Cries of “Balek! Look out!” rose so frequently from someone driving a donkey along that no one paid any heed to the donkey herder.

  Finally as the muezzin called for noon prayers, effectively clearing the streets, Jade found a relatively straight and broad avenue heading south and took it. She emerged in the Rhaba Kdima, or old square, a former slave market, now completely occupied by vendors hawking promises of health to the few remaining customers, most of them men.

  “I will make your potion,” called one man as he held up what looked like the horn of a rhinoceros.

  “My cure casts out demons,” shouted another, only to be shouted down by a third who promised greater virility to any man, no matter how old. “The Sultan’s stallions should want your prowess with my herbs.”

  Several women sat at some of the stalls, some as vendors, others as buyers while the shopkeeper diligently painted their hands with henna and traced their eyes with kohl. A movement near Jade’s left eye made her start, and she turned and stared into the bulging eyes of a caged chameleon.

  “I can cure your harm,” said a man standing beside the chameleon. “Do you lack children? Desire a son? Perhaps,” he said as he eyed Jade’s face and noticed her beauty, “you seek to charm some man?”

  “No,” said Jade. She start
ed to press on, then stopped. If this was the district of the healers and charm sellers, then maybe someone here might know about Elishat’s amulet. She turned back to the man. “I seek an amulet.”

  “I can make an amulet to protect you from harm from man and jinni,” he said. “It will take three days. Or I can make one to help capture a man’s heart. Also three days to make.”

  “No, I had a charm, a silver charm. It was taken.”

  “Ah,” he said, his gaping mouth exposing many gaps in his teeth. Apparently, thought Jade, the man’s charms had no protection against tooth decay. “You wish to curse the one who stole it?”

  “No. I want to find it.”

  “Very difficult,” said the man. “What did it look like?”

  “I will draw it for you. Do you have paper?”

  The man handed her a sheet of parchment, a quill pen, and a pot of ink. Jade sat on the low stool outside of his closetlike shop and sketched the amulet box. As if interested, the chameleon rotated one of his buglike eyes to watch. The other eyed an insect flying nearby. When Jade finished, she held up the paper.

  The man pondered the sketch for a few moments, muttering to himself and shaking his turbaned head. “That charm bears very ancient symbols,” he said finally. “I have never seen any like it.”

  “Someone stole it,” said Jade. “Would they be able to sell it here?” She gestured to the entire souk to mean any of the healers, not this man in particular.

  “No. To buy such a charm would be to risk everything if the charm is indeed powerful. And the charm loses its holiness if it is worn by one who is unclean. Amulets are made for each person, not for all. You are Berber?” he asked, studying Jade’s face and garb. She nodded. “Then someone of your tribe stole it?”

  Jade pondered the question for a moment before answering. Zoulikha said she wore the talisman only when she performed healings or officiated at a birth, marriage, or at the women’s gatherings. But she alone knew where she kept it hidden at the other times. So it seemed unlikely that it was taken by any outsider.

  Jade had initially thought it had simply dropped off a chain sometime, but Zoulikha had been adamant that was not the case. And even if it had fallen, if anyone in the village found it they would not touch it, but call for Zoulikha immediately. Unless, of course, they intended to sell it. Poverty often made the unthinkable very tempting, and many of the villagers brought crops, rugs, and pots down the mountain to sell for tea and sugar. Once again her thoughts strayed to Bachir and his need for money to court another wife.

  “Yes, but we do not know who,” admitted Jade. It was clear this man had nothing more to offer, so she took her leave. “I thank you and wish Allah’s blessings on you for your help.” She plucked off one of the few coins left on the second of the three bangle bracelets to offer to him for his trouble.

  The shopkeeper’s eyes bugged almost as large as the chameleon’s. “Ah,” he said, reaching for the silver coin. “You wish for me to make a charm to help you find the lost charm?”

  Jade shook her head. “La, shukran. Perhaps it will call to me,” she added, using the phrase that Zoulikha had given. She rose to leave.

  The man handled the money and seemed hesitant about keeping it as he had sold nothing to Jade. Finally his conscience got the better of him and he handed it back.

  Jade motioned with a flip of her hand that he should keep it. “For your trouble,” she said.

  “Charity is a virtue, lady, but to take charity when it is not needed . . .” He shrugged. “I can tell you this much in return. If the amulet is pleasing to look on, a foreign woman might buy it to wear. Ask the silversmiths who sell baubles to Nazarene women. They wear many shiny things and take pleasure in wearing old charms, too.”

  Jade pulled out the moon eclipsing the sun charm. “Would a Nazarene woman wear this?”

  The man pointed at the charm. “Yes. I have seen such a woman with that symbol. A young woman with hair like the soft blushing red of dawn. But she did not wear this on a chain. She wore the symbol on a bag.” He stooped and peered at Jade’s bag. “Much like yours. Perhaps you can find her at the leather workers’ souk.”

  “How can I find one Nazarene woman among so many in this city?” asked Jade, hoping for a more detailed description.

  The charm maker shook his head. “Not so many Nazarene in Marrakech. This one is very bold. She makes eyes at all the young men.”

  Jade asked for directions to the leather workers’ district, found she’d overshot the area, thanked the man again, and left. This time she headed due north, keeping her eyes peeled for a flirtatious young woman with reddish-blond hair—a woman who sounded a lot like Libby Tremaine.

  CHAPTER 19

  Jemaâ el-Fna translates to “the Square of the Dead,” and gets its name from the

  Sultan’s executions and displays of heads. Current residents must settle for more

  harmless entertainment. Come, listen to a storyteller weave a tale suitable for Arabian

  Nights, have your fortune told, or watch snake charmers mesmerize defanged,

  thick-bodied asps and undulating cobras. For a price, they might drape one

  around your neck. For even more, they might remove it.

  —The Traveler

  ROLLS AND WALLS OF GORGEOUS CARPETS woven in every conceivable color replaced the triangular herbal heaps, baskets of horn, and bug-eyed chameleons of the medicine dealers. They hung from makeshift scaffolding, rafters, and doors, some faded to gentler colors by the sun, others as vibrant as if straight from a dye vat. Since Jade appeared to the sellers as a Berber woman, one who made carpets herself, no one called to her to inspect the wares. In another time, she would have loved to. Everything from traditional Berber designs to exotic, kaleidoscopic patterns festooned the shops, hanging like flags. Red, the color of life, seemed most popular, if quantity was any guide, although autumn gold and deep indigo vied for second place.

  As she moved through the carpet souk, she noted one open area with a few benches in front of an old riad. A place to show and auction rugs? She wished she could take out her camera and photograph everything, but it hardly fit with her disguise. She hurried along. Her path veered west again, and Jade looked for the first street going even remotely north and south. She found one and turned right. Within a few hundred yards, she became surrounded by the shops of metalsmiths, all making and selling delicate baubles and trinkets in brass, copper, and silver.

  The metalsmiths. Jade looked around for Mohan, hoping to find him and see what he’d learned, but the crowds in this souk made it nearly impossible to identify any one person. Nearly a third of the men wore the shorter, calf-length djellabas and tight-fitting white skullcap that indicated traditional Berber garb. She toyed with inquiring herself, then decided against it. After all, it might seem suspicious with two people asking after the same amulet.

  Finally, beyond the jewelry makers’ district she found the Souk Serrajine, home to the saddle makers. The scent of leather here was much more pleasant than in the tannery district. Jade inhaled the aroma as she walked amid closet-sized stalls full of boots, saddles, and bridles. For a moment, it felt like the tack room in the barn at home. But her mission dictated action, not reminiscing. She wanted the people making bags. She found them just north of the saddles.

  Once again she went from stall to stall, this time asking for Wahab Taboor.

  “I am Wahab Taboor,” said a small man with one good eye. The other was hidden under a white rag tied behind his head.

  Jade held out the leather bag with the eclipse symbol stamped on it. She decided to take the offensive rather than simply ask if he had made it. “I have come about the bags.”

  Wahab took one look at the bag and threw his hands in the air. “First he sends a man of your peoples with his order. Many ‘if you please,’ and ‘Allah bless you.’ Then he sends an Arab with a saber to bully me to hurry. And now the Nazarene sends his slave woman to annoy me? You tell your master that it will take three,
maybe four more days to make these the way he wants. It would be faster if he did not want . . .” He hesitated and glanced about to see who was nearby. Then dropping his voice to a whisper he continued, “Certain objects sewn into the hidden side pouches.”

  So this man put the hashish inside. Interesting. It also distanced de Portillo from the drug. He could always claim that he did not know someone was using his pouches to smuggle hashish. Jade wondered if Wahab Taboor also slipped the gold into the bottom panel. Somehow she doubted it. All that gold would be a tremendous temptation.

  “Does it take longer to put the items in the bottom or in the sides?” she asked in a roundabout way of finding out about the hidden gold.

  Wahab cocked his head and peered at Jade with his one good eye. “This son of a jackal expects me to put something in the bottom, too? Is it not enough to make the bottom double thick with leather so it is stronger?”

  That answered that, thought Jade. He didn’t handle the gold. De Portillo or someone working for him made a slit in the seam and added the gold later. It wouldn’t take a very large slit, either, as the coins were only slightly larger than an American nickel.

  Jade wanted to ask who this Nazarene man was, but to do so would reveal that she wasn’t the man’s slave and had no business asking. Instead, she tried to find out how and where they’d be delivered. She needed to know if this man had relocated after her escape. “My master does not remember if he told you where to bring them this time.”

  “Bring them? Myself? Would he like for me to be the donkey that carries them, too?” Wahab spat on the ground. “Infidel, pig. Tell him that I do not leave my shop. I will send my worthless cousin with them to the same place as before, but it will cost him more. Fahd has a donkey’s rear for brains, but passing the house with the white hand on the door scared even those wits out of him.”

  “I will tell him,” said Jade. She started to go, hesitated, and turned back. “My master has heard that you have sold bags with that design to others, as well. It did not please him to hear this.”