Sultan's Wife by Jane Johnson Page B

service of a doctor, Scottish by origin, African by choice. In the few years he owned me, I learned to read and scribe in four languages; to tell the difference between mandrake and ginger root; to play a fair tune on the Spanish guitar and the oud. I knew both the Qur’an and the poetry of Rumi by heart (my master being a convert to Islam, saying jokingly that it was a more Christian religion than Christianity). I had conquered hearts from Timbuktu to Cairo, fromFlorence to Cadiz; I thought myself a grand fellow. My cousin Ayew would have said I had got above myself …
    Ah, it is painful to think of Ayew. His fate was worse even than mine.
    The doctor was a good master to me, more of a teacher than a master by the end, which came cruelly. We were in Gao, guests of the so-called king there (in truth no more than an ambitious chieftain, seeking to resurrect the great city from its sacked ruins), when half the household came down with some unusual sickness. Doctor Lewis succeeded in saving three of the king’s children and two of his wives before succumbing himself to the sweating and shaking, and finally the raving hallucinations. I tried to smuggle him out of the palace; and failed. He died and I was left friendless and prey to the monstrous ingratitude of that so-called king, who packed me off to the slave-market in case I too carried the seeds of the sickness. And there I was sold to a monster.
    Black John’s song comes to a close and the ladies ululate their approval. I detach myself from the shadows and enter the courtyard. There is Naima and Mina, pretty Khadija and Fouzia; and there is Fatima, the Hajib’s sister, toting her boy on her hip. As always, I am taken aback by how features shared by brother and sister can be so repulsive in the one and so seductive in the other. Fatima wears her extra flesh lushly at breast and hip, but despite her childbearing keeps an elegantly narrow waist. Where his mouth seems vast and slug-like, her lips are pillowy. The blackness of his eye seems as dead as that of a shark; but Fatima’s eyes are bright and wicked, promising all manner of bed-tricks. When she sees me they go wide with surprise; then she looks away quickly. Interesting, I think, and file away that look for future reference. I bow to Zidana. She gives me a smile that is one part sugar to two parts sheer malice. ‘Still alive, then, Nus-Nus? Clever boy.’
    I give her back a sharp look that says,
No thanks to you
, but all she does is grin wider. Then she claps her hands. ‘Go away, John, all of you. I need to talk to Nus-Nus.’
    â€˜I hope you appreciated the skill of the repair,’ she says when they are gone, and when I do not reply, she laughs. ‘It could have been a lot worse, you know. The other book I considered binding into those pretty covershad
pictures
. Most instructive and inventive pictures.’ She pauses. ‘Did he make you read to him from it?’
    I nod, seething.
    â€˜I wish I could have been there to see it. And did he nod wisely, Ismail, and mouth the words as you recited?’
    She knows her husband too well. ‘You could have had me killed.’
    â€˜Oh, Nus-Nus, you underestimate yourself.
I
don’t underestimate you: I knew you’d pass my little test. You’re a resourceful man. But it was a good joke all the same.’
    â€˜I have come to ask your aid in another matter.’ I explain the problem with the wolf, though I say nothing about Zidan’s torment of the beast. There is no point: she will not hear a word against him.
    â€˜If it were me, I’d have chosen a lion, not some mangy old wolf,’ she sniffs. ‘What does that say about us to outsiders?’
    â€˜That its fate will be the fate of any attacker who dares venture near?’ I hazard.
    â€˜More likely that we are like sheep in a fold.’
    â€˜The wolf is his symbol,’ I remind her, but she isn’t interested in pursuing the