The Sultan's Wife

by Jane Johnson

  When we return at last to the palace, the emperor is in a towering temper and everyone is doing their best to avoid him. Some of us, unfortunately, do not have this luxury. He storms about the place, shrieking. Guards are dispatched to the matamores to remove any images of Christian saints that may be interfering with our prayers or drawing Allah’s wrath down upon us. In the hammam, I manage to drop one of his slippers in a pool of water (there is, it seems, always enough water for the emperor’s frequent steam-baths) and stain its perfect lemon-yellow leather. He picks it up and belabours me with it most fiercely, raising welts on my neck and shoulders. I can only thank God he was not armed with anything more lethal.

  That evening I follow him as he walks the harem, to decide on a partner for the night ahead. There are some European captives just brought in by Sidi Qasem’s lieutenants, alongside a batch of new workers. He lingers over a pale-haired Russian, then turns sharply on his heel and goes straight to the White Swan’s quarters.

  Fourth 4th Day, Sajar logi

  Al ouez ahiad, horn Alys Swann. Converted English captive, mother of Emir Mohammed hen Ismail.

  It rains the next day.

  26

  Alys

  I remember the time when I thought I might just manage to endure my life here, those months almost three years ago when I was pregnant with my precious boy. I thought: I shall be a mother at last, and all will be wonderful. I thought it would transform everything in the world, having a baby. I was right about that; but not in any way I could have imagined.

  I look from the hood of my skull out of my eyes; I look around at the other women of the harem devoting themselves to their daily round of prayer and gossip, henna and preening, as if they are benign beings, harmless and charming. But I know better now. I have seen what lurks beneath the kohl and the clay, the silks and satins, the perfume and the unguents. Beneath, all is rotting and poisonous, in thrall to evil.

  And the name of that evil is Zidana.

  The harem belongs to her: it is her realm and she rules it by terror. If any other than I see this they do not acknowledge the fact. They sing and chatter and fawn upon her, gather like bees around this queen; but it is not honey that is produced in this hive but vitriol. Any who cross her become her enemy, and thus the enemy of all the other women here. They mock, they bully, they ignore; they play petty tricks and spread malicious rumours; they leave only the spoiled fruit and the stale bread from the daily deliveries; they spit in the tea urns and spill scalding water on you in the hammam.

  I am lucky, I suppose, that they dare do no more, though I am sure the bouts of sickness I have endured are no natural phenomena but have Zidana’s collection of herbs and powders at their root. But how can I prove it? And who would listen to my complaint even if I should make it? It seems to me that Ismail is almost as much in her thrall as any other here. It is hard to countenance that such a fearsome man should go in fear of any other, but I have seen him start when he hears her voice; I have seen the look in his eyes when she touches him. Is it by magic that she holds his attention? A belief in sorcery used to run counter to everything I believed as a good Christian woman, but it is hard not to believe in it in a world that is soaked to the bone with superstition.

  Magic imbues this country. It runs below the surface of things, like an underground river, bubbling up insidiously, rotting the foundations of life. People accept it as part of the everyday world: the women in the harem are forever appeasing demons, which they call djinns, leaving out food for them, using salt and kohl and iron to keep them away. They believe that Zidana can transport herself elsewhere in the blink of an eye, and Zidana encourages this belief. She boasts that she can transform herself into animals and birds, so that no one dares to plot against her for fear that she is eavesdropping upon them in the form of that lizard on the wall, that cat slinking by, that pigeon sitting overhead. It is true that she appears to know everything that is going on in all corners of this vast palace, but there is little mystery about this: Nus-Nus has told me she has spies everywhere, and pays them well.

  And so I am vigilant, for myself and particularly for Momo. Zidana’s sons stand well above him in the order of succession, but that does not stop her removing others out of sheer malice.

  Do I make any outward show of my suspicions? No, I smile sweetly; I wish them God’s peace. I look down at my hands knotted in my lap and they are the hands of an old woman: thin, veiny claws. I keep my nails long and sharp, in case they are the only weapon I have against my enemy. I read, and pray, and watch Momo like a hawk. It is not always easy: he is an active little boy, determined and big for his age. He soon kicked off his swaddling clothes and escaped his cot, and then our quarters. Turning my back for a moment, I would find him gone. I never knew a baby could crawl so fast! Sometimes I felt like attaching a string to him so that I could reel him back in from wherever mischief had taken him, and as soon as he started walking, and then of course running, it was so much worse. He is like a little djinn himself: he seems to vanish at will. Under supervision, he strides around like the emir he is, bearing his ring on its chain proudly, examining everything (though he has been sternly warned to eat nothing that does not come from my hand, or from Nus-Nus when he is with the sultan). Now that his hair has grown darker, Ismail likes him better, declares him a proper little Moroccan, despite his blue eyes. He likes to swoop down into the harem and gather him up on to his shoulders and bear him away.

  To Zidana’s evident annoyance, he heaps gifts upon Momo: my darling sports the gaudiest of costumes, which he adores, the brighter and shinier the better. He has retained his magpie’s eye: I am always finding him in possession of some new gewgaw or another and whenever I ask him whence they come he fixes me with a guileless blue regard and tells me, ‘From Dada.’ But twice now I have found this not to be true. The empress made great moan a week ago about a missing pearl pendant and beat her maids most severely for its loss. I find it tucked beneath Momo’s blankets; and that is not all. A great emerald-headed pin with a long, hollow shaft of silver is also hidden there, along with a bracelet of orange glass beads and cowrie shells, a miniature portrait of a dark-haired woman and a gold ring inscribed with the emperor’s seal identical to the one Momo wears all the time. But it is not his own ring, this hidden treasure, for that hangs around his neck; and then I remember how yesterday Zidan’s tantrum filled the harem courtyards with shouts and screams and Mamass telling me it was because he had lost something valuable. I cover the treasure-trove up with the blankets again. It seems I have been raising a talented sneak-thief.

  When Nus-Nus next comes to the harem, I send Mamass away on an errand, beckon him to me and show him, wordless, Momo’s little hoard.

  His eyebrows shoot up; then he bursts out laughing. ‘What a little Ali Baba you are harbouring!’

  ‘What should I do?’

  ‘Leave it with me,’ he says.

  He engages Momo with teasing compliments, but then exclaims that his garments – red satin trousers and a tunic of bright blue – are too dull for a true emir and require more decoration. At once the child runs away and returns some moments later laden with his treasures. One by one, Nus-Nus coaxes the stolen ones from him after discovering their provenance, and to make up for taking the jewels away, he gives my boy the great gold armband he wears. It is much too large for Momo’s arm and he spends a long while trying to find a way to wear it: too small to put his head through, too heavy to wear on a neck-chain. At last he decides to wear it on his thigh, where it sits most oddly, and off he goes to play in the courtyard, where I can see him.

  ‘He is a brigand!’ Nus-Nus declares, almost admiringly. He promises to return the items to their rightful owners: the ring is indeed Zidan’s, the miniature taken from the Venetian ambassador, as Momo was cradled in his father’s arms right next to the man; the cowrie-shell bracelet belongs to one of the other wives; the hollow emerald and silver pin to Zidana’s favourite eunuch, Black John. This last Nus-Nus handles gingerly, touchi
ng only the jewel at its head.

  ‘What is it?’

  He bites his lip, then explains as decorously as he can that not only does it embellish John’s turban, but that it has another, less decorative purpose. He will not meet my eye. I find myself colouring from neck to crown, can feel the hot flush of embarrassment rising like a tide.

  After a long, painful silence, he tucks the stolen treasures away in his robe, bids me farewell and walks quickly away. He is a kind man, Nus-Nus, and a good friend.

  As Momo takes his afternoon nap, I apply myself to the copy of the English Qur’an the corsair chief’s wife gave to me when first I arrived in this country to divert my mind towards a more worthy purpose. But, as ill luck would have it, I open upon the story of Yusuf, a handsome man who is sold as a slave to an official of the Egyptian court called Al-Aziz. The mistress of the house is so struck by Yusuf’s beauty that she falls in love with him and constantly bids him be with her, one day becoming so angry at his steadfast refusal that she locks seven doors to prevent his escape and pleads for him to come to her. They race together for the door and Yusuf reaches it first, and as he does she tears at the back of his shirt. There comes into my mind suddenly the sight of Nus-Nus toiling away at the camp in the mountains, shirtless, the sheen of sweat on his skin…

  Concentrate, Alys, I tell myself, fiercely. But the text does not help me: ‘With passion did she desire him, and he would have desired her, but for a sign from the Lord and he said, “I seek refuge in Allah! Truly, your husband is my master, who has made my stay agreeable so I will not betray him.”’

  I am pondering the uncomfortable parallels the tale presents when a shadow falls across me. So intent was I upon my thoughts that I am not alert to the arrival of a visitor. ‘Oh!’ I cry, and then, belatedly, throw myself down in prostration, for it is the emperor. The book tumbles from my lap on to the ground at his feet and he bends and picks it up. Through the hair that falls across my face, I glance upward and see him scan the text, face impassive; then the cover, turning it over in his hands. At last he tells me to rise and hands it back to me. ‘What is it, this book?’ he asks quietly.

  And so I tell him that it is a copy of the Qur’an, but translated into my own language and printed in England, for, although I have been doing my best to master the Arabic tongue, I still find it challenging to read. All the time I watch his face darken, flushing to a florid purple, then to a forbidding black. And still I cannot seem to help myself rambling on, and start explaining that in the Bible the same story is told, though there Yusuf is Joseph and Al-Aziz is named Potiphar…

  ‘Silence, woman!’ he roars, and I wonder what I have said to make him so angry. Was it that I admitted to finding Arabic a difficult language to learn, or that I cleaved to my own tongue despite being at his court? Or perhaps he does not like a woman to read or, I think suddenly, maybe he does not do so himself. I seem to recall Nus-Nus saying—

  ‘In English?’ he thunders. ‘The Holy Qur’an in English?’ He rips it from my hands, drops it on the ground and stamps on it, which shocks me mightily, for Mahometans treat their sacred book with infinite respect, washing their hands before even touching it.

  ‘I am sorry, I am so sorry!’ I wail.

  My cry must have woken my son, for suddenly there he is, watching in horror as his father rages and I weep. And then Momo bravely – foolishly – rushes at his father and beats at his legs with his little fists. ‘Leave Mama alone!’

  Ismail looks down. Then, almost casually, he swipes my boy away and Momo goes flying across the floor, fetching up against a small carved table on the other side of my salon. Then he picks up the offending book and walks away without a backward look.

  *

  Later that evening a huge basket is delivered to my apartment. Inside are toys and jewels, cakes and pastries, a tabby kitten with a silver collar, a little suit of clothes made from cloth of gold. And on the top, a richly embellished volume of the Qur’an. In Arabic.

  27

  First 2nd Day, Rabī al-Awwal 1091 AH

  I am returning from an errand for the empress when I round a corner in the harem and find Zidan straddled across Momo in an otherwise deserted courtyard, holding the child’s head under the water of the fountain. Momo is kicking furiously, but Zidan at nine years of age overmatches him effortlessly. So occupied is the little monster in his murderous task that he does not hear my approach; and such the surge of fury that comes over me that I am able to pick him up by the back of his neck and hold him off the ground by one hand. For a moment my own strength scares me – how easily I might squeeze the life out of him there and then; and how much I wish to – but it scares Zidan even more.

  Momo clambers out of the fountain and sits shivering on the tiled edge and I spy a terrible bruise on his forehead, which makes me even more furious. I shake Zidan as a lion might shake a puppy. ‘I will tell your father,’ I promise him fiercely. ‘And if you ever touch Mohammed again I will kill you myself.’ I put him down then and he just stares at me, eyes like ragged holes in his face, showing nothing but a void. Then he takes to his heels. I know exactly where he will go: straight to his mother. Well, that is something I will have to face later: for now I do not care. I put my arm around Momo’s shoulders, then examine the bruise, which is a rich dark colour, like an overripe banana.

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  He shakes his head resolutely. Momo is such a sturdy lad for his age that it is easy to forget he is only three. ‘You must never wander alone: the world is a dangerous place.’

  He nods solemnly. ‘It was only a game,’ he says at last.

  Such bravado! He has his mother’s pride. I feel my heart swell as if he were my own. ‘It was not a game, Momo, and we both know it. Now, I shall take you back to your mother and there you must stay.’

  ‘You won’t tell, will you?’

  ‘I will not tell your mother: it would worry her too much.’

  ‘No, I mean, you will not tell Dada?’

  ‘Why should I not?’

  ‘He will think me weak.’

  For a long moment I just stare at him. Such wisdom in such a small boy is so terrifying it takes me aback. ‘I cannot let Zidan escape unpunished for this.’

  ‘If you do not tell, I promise I will be careful.’

  ‘What, and if I do, you will not?’

  His bottom lip thrusts out: blue fire sparks in his eyes. We hold each other’s gaze and I think, this one will be quite a man, if he ever survives that long. At last, I promise.

  *

  The next day I am at the mosque with the sultan, helping him into his babouches after asr prayers, when a harem servant throws himself down in front of us, forehead to the floor.

  ‘The empress demands your presence,’ he gabbles.

  Ismail grabs the boy by the shoulder and hauls him upright. ‘She does what? No one demands anything of me!’ He glares, a fearsome sight.

  The child starts to cry and quite unexpectedly Ismail’s gaze softens. ‘For heaven’s sake, Ali, don’t be so feeble. Deliver your message properly.’

  Ali hesitates, then looks at me. ‘The Empress Zidana demands your presence,’ he says pointedly.

  The sultan raises his eyebrows at me. ‘Has she forgotten you work for me?’ The question is rhetorical: I keep silent. ‘Well, you’d better go and see what she wants. Go on. I’ll take Samir with me to inspect the works.’ Samir?

  A figure emerges from the shadows of the Shoe Hall. Above a robe of white silk he wears a knitted red skullcap, and the bones of his face are sharply defined. His beard is so dainty as to appear drawn on in kohl with a fine brush. He carries inks and pens, a sheaf of paper. The look he gives me is one of undisguised triumph. The last time I saw him he was accompanied by three other thugs, intent on murdering me, and I dismantled his shoulder and sent him on his way. With sudden savagery, I hope it pains him still.

  ‘Run along, Nus-Nus,’ he sneers. ‘I’ll take care of his majesty.’

  I want to ru
n at him, batter those sneering features to a pulp; but of course I do not. I drag my eyes from him, bow deeply to the sultan and walk quickly out of the hall and into the late-afternoon sun.

  All the way to the harem the question nags at me: how has the nephew of an executed traitor managed to worm his way back into the good graces of the sultan? And why is he here, my enemy? I cannot believe that revenge does not lie somewhere within his strategy, whatever it may be. I remember the falsified couching book, and how it has been set aright, and clench my fists against my sides.

  All this at least serves to steer my mind away from Zidana’s summons, the reason for which I know only too well. And indeed, when I am ushered into her presence, there is Zidan, red-eyed, at his mother’s knee. He must have been at the onions, I think: even a brat like Zidan cannot cry for twenty-eight hours straight. I make my obeisance, trying to appear as calm and solemn as possible: the emperor’s dignified servant.

  But Zidana is having none of it. She is flanked by the other royal wives – Umelez and Lalla Bilqis – and the three stare at me like a bank of judges, as if I have committed some heinous crime upon which they are to pass sentence. Then all semblance of formality is shattered as the empress erupts from her seat, eyes bulging, spittle flying from her mouth. She shakes a tiny black figure in my face. ‘See this? See this, Nus-Nus? This is your death!’