The Fourth Queen, page 3
Then he summons Malia, his Chief Midwife, to come squat down beside him with her record book. This she does with a surprising agility, for she's as wizened as last year's pippin and has presided over the gynecological affairs of the Harem for nigh on fifty years.
Now if you have ever wondered how it is that a man with a thousand wives can arrange to impregnate them all in a matter of a few years, then here is your answer. The canny crone Malia can calculate to the very day, if not the very hour, exactly which of the Emperor's heifers is worth humping if she is to be got with calf. And what is more, she keeps notes on the pedigree of his entire herd. For, strange though it might seem, it is deemed the highest honor to be able to boast that one's daughter is among the throng who flaunt their charms before the Emperor of a Thursday morning.
Thus the Harem gates are under regular siege as various minor chieftains present their offspring as offerings to His Majesty. Most are rejected without ceremony, as being too ugly or too scrawny for the Emperor's taste. But there are those few who gain entrance, regardless of their looks, because the Emperor wishes to do Business with their fathers. These Malia notes most particularly, for it would not do to insult an ally by inadvertently beheading a treasured granddaughter, or boiling the feet of a beloved niece without due cause. Hence the dual importance of the Crone's book in the business he was minded to conduct.
So, he sits down and claps for tea, and instructs Malia to parade all the childless women before him. They come running at once, perhaps three hundred of them; all sizes and colors, all twittering mightily. Whereupon he has Malia divide them into two groups: those hundred or so whose bubbles had not yet been pricked, and the remainder who had been amply pricked but who had failed to swell as a result. His eyes flicker idly over the first group, assessing their untried charms, while Malia points out the few it would be politic to retain.
Perhaps ten are selected by this process and the rest told to bundle up their belongings and report to the Treasury the next day—rather as you would return your unworn hats to the milliner if they failed to match your coats when you got them home. Such women have a high resale value, vous comprenez. They are unspoiled virgins, handpicked from the thousands that are presented at these gates every year, fattened on royal couscous and green butter, schooled for the bed by the most diligent madams in the realm. What merchant would sneer at such a prize?
Next turns he to the second group: those two hundred sweet creatures who have been thoroughly furrowed by his Plough, but whose soil has not yet burgeoned forth with its requisite crop of Royal Seedlings. These are sifted likewise through the fine mesh of Lust and political Pragmatics. This second sieving yields but three, leaving the rest to be wrapped in their veils and loaded like sacks of corn, each on a minuscule donkey, to be driven, as a spent caravan of concupiscence, slowly out through the palace gates.
My heart went with them, those sad young sows, abandoned to the pimps of this city, rendered cheap by the loss of their virginity. For though I have seen inside many a low brothel in my time, yet there is nothing in my memory to compare to the muddy hives where these cast-off queens will live out their lives, in cells no bigger than a closet, there to be stung and stung until they die.
Aye, truly, I would save them all, marry them all, if I could. For though I can contemplate a skewered brain or bisected testicle with insouciance, yet the sight of a woman scorned makes me fairly tremble with rage.
Chapter 5
“ARE YOU MAD?” BETTY TUGGED THE SLOPS BUCKETS out of Helen's hands. “That's how lassies lose babies. It pulls on your belly to lug those muckle things.”
Watching her stagger off toward the ladder, Helen sighed. What if she wanted to lose the baby? No, that was a sin. She pushed the thought to the back of her mind. Anyway, it was too late now. It was there now, stuck inside her like a limpet on a rock, gluing her to Betty forever.
Everything had been decided that sunny morning on the deck of the ship. They'd live together, the three of them, and raise the bairn between them. “I can pretend to folk we're married if you like,” Dougie's big mouth had twisted with eager embarrassment. “If you can't find another—I mean, so you don't have to—”
“Oh, it doesn't matter what folk think!” Betty had been brisk and brimming with smiles. “I'll go out skivvying or something, when he's really wee. Then, when he's not needing to suck anymore, I'll tend him so you can find a job. You're bonnier and you've more schooling than me, so you'll find something that'll pay better. Oh Helen, I can't wait to hold him in my arms!”
“What if it's a wee lassie?” For a while Helen had found herself smiling too, caught up in their excitement.
“So long's it calls me ‘auntie,' I don't care what it is. As soon as we land, we'll get a wee room, maybe a wee outhouse—”
Helen's smile faded. Like a wet cloth slapped across her face, the word “outhouse” had wiped away all the bonny scenes she'd been imagining. Of course, an outhouse would be the best she could hope for. All her schooling had been for nothing. She was a ruined wench in borrowed shoes. Betty and Dougie'd been raised in a sagging turf hovel. How could she expect anything better? And she cursed the tiny leech she was carrying, that was feeding on her future, that was going to swell and swell and show everyone what a willful slut she'd been.
At least Betty didn't expect her to go down to the steward anymore, that was something. And she still had a few of the sugared figs he'd given her last time, hidden away in her pocket. She sucked them secretly, one each night, tonguing off the sugar, feeling them soften in her mouth, then burst open in a rush of gritty seeds. They were her reminder: that she'd been picked out from the others, that she was bonnier; that she might still have a chance to escape.
And when the figs were finished, and there was nothing but sticky fluff in the bottom of her pocket, there was still the coin the gentleman had given her that first day.
She'd finger it secretly sometimes, trace the outline of the king's head on its surface. Or catch its old copper smell on her fingers. Then she'd think of them—the pale-haired woman and her brocade-coated husband—sitting in their cozy cabin, somewhere above her head. She was a fish in a mucky pool; the coin was a bright bait on a line.
She'd started watching the couple. She'd found a place to hide, a totie washroom the cabin boys used for drying the few rich passengers' clothes. She'd lurk there waiting for their door to open, peeping out to see the woman rustling away down the corridor in her hooped skirts. She played a game with herself, trying to guess which frock she'd be wearing, which way she'd dress her fine pale hair. Often she'd tiptoe right up to the door and press her ear against the polished wood, straining to hear the woman's breathy high voice, trying to imagine what she was doing.
She became desperate to see inside the little room, trying the door handle when they were at supper in the captain's quarters. She wanted to feel the empty slither of the woman's silk stockings; look at the sky through her salt-splashed window.
One day, sneaking down the passage as usual, she found her hiding place was already occupied. It was the smallest cabin boy, Davie, crouching by a tray on the floor, sobbing with his hands clamped over his mouth.
“What's the matter, Davie?” Her whisper made him start to his feet.
“Don't tell the cook, Miss,” he pleaded, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “He'll whup me if he knows I've been blubbing. But I'm that tired of running up an' down they ladders all day, an' being cussed and whupped. And now I can't recall what Mistress Baird asked for, and I just can't knock on her door again for I already knocked twice today for misremembering something.” And he started crying again, muffling his sobs in his sleeve.
Helen stooped and picked up the tray. “I'll see to this,” she said firmly. “You go off by yourself for a wee whiley.” And she turned and knocked on the cabin door before he could protest.
It was the woman who opened it. Close up she looked pointed and pinched, clutching a crocheted shawl around her narrow shoulders.
“Wee Davie's not feeling so good, so the cook asked me to serve you today. What was it you were wanting from the kitchen?”
Later, when Helen had made several trips to the kitchen, the woman said to call her Melissa. “It means ‘honey,'” she'd explained with a giggle. “Robert says it suits me, because I'm so sweet. But I don't feel very sweet today.” And she'd pouted her thin lips and started complaining about the food on the ship. “A lady simply can't digest the sort of fare they serve up to the captain. Our stomachs are too delicate. Be a dear and bring me a boiled egg, will you? There's not much they can do to spoil a boiled egg, is there?”
IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT BY THE TIME Helen finally climbed down the ladder into the big cabin that night. A wispy old woman was changing a baby on the floor beneath one of the lamps, folding the claggy rag in on itself and putting it in a bowl. Everyone else seemed to be asleep. Helen crept beneath the creaking hammocks to where hers was still looped against the wall.
“Where've you been?” Betty hissed, leaning out of her hammock. “I was that feared for you! I thought that fat steward must've locked you in his dungeon.”
Helen untied the knotted kerchief she was carrying. “Here, taste these,” she whispered. “They're called raisins. From France. Mistress Baird gave them to me. She's that fine lady with the rich folk upstairs. Her maid took sick the day before they got on the ship and they had to leave her in Greenock. So she says I'm to work for her instead.” Helen clambered up into her hammock and popped a pinch of the wrinkled fruits into her mouth.
She didn't tell Betty what else the woman had said. That if they suited each other, she could travel on to Boston with them. And she'd teach her to be a proper lady's maid, with her own room in the grand house they'd be building. Of course there wouldn't be anywhere for them to live to begin with. They'd have to stay in a hotel. But Helen wouldn't mind that, would she? It would only be for a few months. Helen hugged herself in the darkness, sucking sweet shreds of black fruit from her teeth.
ONCE SHE STARTED WORKING FOR MELISSA, Helen hardly ever saw Betty and Dougie. Before they were properly awake, she was down in the kitchen heating a pitcher of drinking water for the Bairds to wash in. Then she'd collect their chamber pot and find out what they wanted for their breakfast. Then it was to and fro with tea and porridge and eggs and dirty pots. And back to sweep their cabin and find out if any clothes needed tending. And so it went on all day—dirty pot, fresh water, trays of food, washing—until she took a jug of sweet port in to them last thing at night.
The steward had come looking for her on the second day, filling the low doorway of the kitchen, squinting in the light, with his belly hanging over his breeks. “Why've you been hiding from me?” he growled, pursing big sulky lips.
“I've not been hiding.” Helen had pushed airily past him with a loaded tray. “I've just been that busy.” She'd heard his voice fading as she threaded her way back to the Bairds' cabin, and a small flame of hope had licked at the base of her throat. A door had opened. She had a future. She wasn't tied to poor folk anymore.
Working for Melissa meant she could eat any food they didn't want, as well as the treats they gave her whenever they took a new box from their locker. Often she put some aside for Betty and Dougie, but sometimes she couldn't help just gobbling it all down herself, growing rounder and glossy-haired on her diet of cheese and chicken skin, dried apple rings and eggs.
The truth was, she was avoiding Betty. She didn't want to hear her jabbering on about what they'd do when they got to the Colonies. And she couldn't bear the endless blether about the baby. She didn't want to think about the baby. She hated the baby. She wanted to screw it up like a filthy rag and thrust it to the very back of her mind. Her future was with Melissa Baird now: with a frilled apron and little teaspoons, perhaps even a bed of her own with proper sheets and a copper warmer.
She began copying Melissa, whenever she was alone in their cabin. Stooping over the remains of their meals, she'd practice sipping cold tea without slurping, and holding a knife and fork in either hand to cut a piece of leftover mutton. She spent hours trying to work an embroidered fan, letting it dangle, then flicking it up and open in one movement the way Melissa did. All the time puzzling: what was it about Melissa that made her the kind of woman men took care of? The kind of woman someone like John Bayne might want for his wife?
There were her clothes, of course: all those bright colors and stiff layers. And her hair, set with papers and pinned up in curls around her face. She washed more often, too, and smelled of rose water as well as sweat. And she spoke differently, with the words sort of separate and finished, instead of chopped up and bunched together the way poor folk talked. All these things made her seem beautiful, but when you looked at her properly she was rather a weaselly sort of lass under all those frothy petticoats.
So how did she make all those fine men do what she wanted? Her husband, the captain, the ship's doctor, the parson—they all bowed and opened doors for her. Was she weak, was that it? Did the sun really make her feel faint? Helen watched her husband carrying her parasol when she strolled on the deck. Couldn't she carry it herself? She saw him striding proudly along, with Melissa's wan arm tucked under his elbow.
Helen looked at her own strong arms, nutmegged with freckles; at her sturdy legs and the hard soles of her feet. I'm like a horse, she thought with disgust: bred to work, to ride. Was that what John Bayne thought of her? Sweet Helen Gloag: good for a canter on a warm summer's night, and bonnier than most. But not to marry.
She squeezed her eyes shut at the thought of that night. She'd gone to him barefoot and stinking of sweat. And he'd done what any gentleman would have done, bedded her in his servants' quarters and left her there. Well, next time it would be different. In the Colonies she would be different. She'd go to Boston with Melissa as she'd promised. Then in a few years, she'd start tutoring gentlefolk's children and being introduced around. If all went well, she'd be married to a gentleman before she was twenty.
But first she had to get rid of the baby, cut the cord that bound her to Betty and Dougie. She resolved to start asking some of the older women; there must be someone on the ship who could help.
Chapter 6
June 6, 1769
I HAVE BEEN WRITING THIS TREATISE ON ROYAL Paper. I stole it from beneath the nose of the royal Alim. It was a crime which gave me particular pleasure, for the Alim's nose is no ordinary nose. No, his is the Sacred Nose of Morocco. His is the nose whose occupation it is to sniff out every whiff of sin in the Emperor's edicts. He is the Church's chief bloodhound (by Church, I mean that institution of washings and wailings within which these followers of Mohammed worship their God).
Sniff, sniff, goes the Alim, over this proposed new tax or that carefully revised law; sniff, sniff, riffling through his Q'ran's ponderous pages; sniff, sniff, while the Emperor stands respectfully by, gritting the Royal Teeth and clenching the Royal Fists; sniff, sniff, then—snuff!—out it goes, with a single stroke of his rasping quill. For in Morocco it is priests who ratify the laws, not kings.
This is a source of exceeding frustration for the Emperor, who is one of Morocco's more modern-minded monarchs (which means that he uses his enemies' heads to adorn the city gates, as opposed to having their bodies woven into bridges, as his grandfather, the Emperor Ishmael, used to do).
One of the Emperor's most cherished ambitions is to expand his trading with Europe, an ambition that forces him to wade through a veritable treacle of religious resistance. This is because trading flouts one of his Church's most cherished Taboos, namely intimacy with the despised Infidel. Indeed, to those that love money (and your Moor, it must be said, does love money), trading is more pleasurable than tupping. Thus to do business with an Unbeliever is far more sinful than merely beavering away betwixt his buttocks.
Now the Emperor could not be called a man of Conscience. Or rather, he finds it more comfortable to carry his Conscience outside his head, in the person of the royal Alim, preferring to find himself, as it were, beside himself. This convenient separation of the sin from the scruple is a trait I have observed in many True Believers, both here and in my homeland of Scotland. To such people, Conscience simply entails contriving one's vices in forms that circumvent the letter of one's religion's laws.
For the lucky folk of Morocco those laws amount to a mere handful, one being the removal of that piece of skin which protects the male Member from frostbite (which covering I suppose they have no need of in this sun-baked land, though I do wonder that their God should evince such an interest in so trivial a matter). Another is the requirement for Prayer, which your good Moor undertakes five times daily, prostrating himself in obedience to the wailing appeals of the red-hatted men who serve as bells in the belfries of their churches. Indeed, I have heard it said that once his sausage has been skinned and his prayers said, a Moor may rummage in life's frying pans in the sure knowledge that his Conscience will trouble him no further.
The Emperor is less fortunate than his subjects, however. He being sole ruler of this clammy kingdom, his Conscience is deemed to be the Conscience of the Nation, so much so that a flotilla of priestly skivvies is charged with the responsibility of keeping it free from stain. And their chief housekeeper is the aforesaid Alim, whose reward (apart from a personal Harem, crammed to bursting with the balloon-bosomed bunnies he favors) is to see the royal eyeballs bulge while he scrutinizes each line for the phrase that will consign the latest Royal Innovation to the Dusts of Oblivion.
It was under cover of one of these wrangles that I effected my sly plunder, flouncing off with a quire of clean paper under my arm. Of course, I could simply have asked the Emperor for paper directly, and he would no doubt have ordered reams of the best vellum to be deposited in my quarters, along with a veritable Porcupine of quills. But my Treatise would not, I think, survive the scrutiny of his Royal Eyes. Indeed, the Emperor's largesse would have been larger with Curiosity than Generosity and he would have plagued me day and night with questions about my Enterprise. And, as I am vowed to be truthful in these writings, and as the Emperor will therefore be portraitured here in all his blemished brutality, I think it prudent to keep these scratchings a secret.
