‘Gallop, horse!’ he ordered, and lashed him across the bottom. The palm frond was lithe and whippy. It snapped loudly, and the little boy wailed with shock and pain. He started forward on hands and knees with Zayn bouncing on his back.
The other children fell in behind them, prancing, jeering and urging them on. When the boy faltered, they joined in the beating, some running to break sticks from the nearest shrubs. One flipped up the child’s robe and exposed his brown bottom, laced with angry stripes. They drove him twice around the lawns.
Tears were flooding down the victim’s face when at last he collapsed under Zayn’s weight and lay sobbing on the coarse grass. His knees were rubbed raw and bleeding. Zayn gave him a casual kick, then led the others away, leaving him to drag himself up and limp away.
‘He is a bully,’ Dorian said furiously. He could not think of the word in Arabic, so he spoke in English. Tahi shrugged.
‘The Koran says that the strong should protect the weak.’ Dorian lapsed back into Arabic.
Tahi advised him, ‘Do not tell Zayn al-Din that. He will not like it.’
‘I would like to take him for a ride,’ Dorian said furiously, ‘and see how much he likes it.’
Tahi made the sign to avert bad luck. ‘Do not even think the thought. Walk wide of Zayn al-Din,’ she warned. ‘He is a vindictive boy. Surely he will hate you for the favour the Prince has shown you. He can do us much harm. Even Kush is afraid of him, for one day he will be the Prince.’
Over the following days she went on explaining to Dorian the hierarchy of the harem. The Prince was allowed four wives, by the decree of the Prophet. However, he could divorce and remarry as he wished, and there was no limit to the number of concubines with whom he might indulge himself. Those wives he had divorced but who had borne him children still lived in the zenana.
Thus almost fifty women were congregated within these walls. Fifty beautiful, bored, frustrated women, with nothing to fill the long days but intrigue, feud and jealous scheming. It was a complex society, filled with innumerable currents and subtle nuances.
Kush reigned over them all, so his favour or disfavour was important to the happiness and well-being of the inmates. Then the four current wives, in order of seniority, were next in importance. After that, the Prince’s favourite of the moment, but she was usually some pretty child only just entered into womanhood and her star would soon wane. Then all the former wives and the concubines squabbled, fought and manoeuvred for position in the order of things. ‘It is important for you to understand these things, al-Amhara. Important for both of us. I have no standing at all, I am only a poor old nursemaid. I can do little to protect you, and nobody will miss me.’
‘Are you going somewhere?’ Dorian demanded, with alarm. He had grown so fond of her in the short time they had been together and the prospect of being abandoned yet again frightened him. ‘I will miss you.’
‘I’m not going anywhere, my little one,’ she assured him quickly, ‘but people die here in the zenana, especially little people of no consequence who give offence to those above them.’
‘Don’t worry. I will protect you,’ Dorian told her stoutly, and hugged her.
‘I feel safer in your care,’ she did not let him see her smile, ‘but we do not yet know your position. It seems that the Prince looks upon you with some favour, but we cannot yet be sure. Why does he allow Kush to imprison us and treat us like animals in a cage? Why does he not send for you? Has he forgotten you?’ She sighed and returned his embrace.
‘Perhaps he does not know how Kush treats us,’ Dorian suggested.
‘Perhaps,’ she agreed. ‘So we must wait. In the meantime we must be careful, al-Amhara, very careful.’
Time passed, and the excitement of their arrival was forgotten. No one peered at them through the grille any more, and the children led by Zayn al-Din became bored with chanting insults under the windows, and found other occupations more rewarding. Each day Dorian chafed more cruelly at this confinement.
When he heard the shrill cries and happy laughter of other children atplayin the gardens, and heard their running footsteps along the cloisters and across the courtyard outside his meagre quarters, he would rush to the window for a glimpse of them. This only aggravated his loneliness and sense of isolation. He felt as imprisoned as he had been in his cell on the island where al-Auf had chained him.
One morning as the pearly light of a new day filtered through the high window in his room, he lay naked on his sleeping mat, stripping the hard outer lining off a stick of sugar-cane with his teeth. He paused as someone began singing in the garden outside. It was a sweet, girlish voice, even though the words were repetitive and nonsensical, some nursery rhyme about palm dates and a hungry monkey. He lay and listened to it idly, chewing the sweet juice out of the cane and spitting out the pith.
Suddenly there came the shrill but unmistakable chatter of a monkey. The singer broke off the refrain and burst into peals of silvery laughter. Both sounds intrigued Dorian, who jumped up and went to the window. He peered out into the garden and saw a small girl sitting alone on the coping of the lotus pool below him. She had her back to him, but her hair hung down it, dark, almost iridescent black with a silver streak gleaming through the thick tresses. Dorian had never seen anything like it, and he was fascinated.
She wore an embroidered green shift, which left her brown arms bare, and a pair of baggy white cotton trousers. Her legs were doubled up under her and he could see that the soles of her small feet were dyed with henna to a bright ginger colour. She was holding up a sugared date, and a vervet monkey stood on its back legs and danced on the grass in front of her. Each time she gave a hand signal, the monkey chattered louder and spun in a circle. The girl laughed with delight. Finally she offered the sweetmeat, and called, ‘Come to me, Jinni!’ The monkey bounded up onto her shoulder and took the date from her fingers. It stuffed it into its pouch and began searching in the girl’s hair with skinny black fingers, as though for fleas. The girl stroked its fluffy white belly and began singing again.
Suddenly, the ape looked up and saw Dorian’s head in the window. It let out a squeak, shot off the girl’s shoulder and up the wall. Hanging on the sill it thrust its hand through the window grille, palm up like a beggar, trying to wheedle the stick of sugar-cane from him.
Dorian laughed at the creature, which bared its teeth, bobbed its head at him, and tried to snatch the sugar-cane from his hand, at the same time gibbering and pulling faces.
The girl swung around and looked up. ‘Make him do a trick,’ she called. ‘Don’t feed him until he does.’ Dorian saw that she also had a funny little monkey face, and huge eyes the colour of Devon honey when the heather on the moors was in bloom. ‘Do this with your hand.’ She demonstrated, and at the signal the monkey threw itself into an agile back somersault. ‘Make him do it three times.’ The girl clapped her hands. ‘Jinni must do it three times.’
On the third somersault Dorian offered him the sugarcane. The monkey snatched it, galloped across the lawn on all fours, tail held high, and shot to the top branches of one of the tamarind trees. He sat there chewing it with the sweet juices dripping from his lips.
‘I know who you are,’ the girl announced solemnly, looking up at Dorian with those huge eyes.
‘Who am I?’
‘You are al-Amhara, the infidel.’
Until now he had been indifferent to what they called him, but suddenly it displeased him. ‘My real name is Dorian, but you can call me Dorry. That’s what my brother calls me.’
‘Dowie.’ She tried it out, but had difficulty rolling the R. ‘It’s a strange name, but I shall call you Dowie.’
‘What is your name?’ he wanted to know.
‘Yasmini,’ she told him, ‘which means the flower of the jasmine.’ She jumped up and came closer, staring up at him with an awed and serious expression. ‘Your hair really is red. I thought they were making it up.’ She held her head on one side. ‘It is very pretty. I wish I co
uld touch it.’
‘Well, you cannot,’ he told her shortly, but she showed no offence at his tone.
‘I feel very sorry for you,’ she said.
‘Why should you?’ He was taken aback.
‘Because Zayn says you are an infidel, you will never be circumcised, and you can never enter the gardens of Paradise.’
‘We have our own heaven,’ Dorian told her loftily. He found discussion of his nether regions vaguely disconcerting.
‘Where is it?’ Yasmini wanted to know, and they fell into a long, involved discussion of the various merits of the two paradises. ‘Our paradise is called Jannat,’ she said. ‘Allah said, “I have prepared for my righteous servants what no eye has seen and no ear has heard, and what the mind of man has not conceived.”’
Dorian considered that in silence, and could think of no suitable retort – Jannat was difficult to beat – so he changed the subject to something of which he felt more certain.
‘In England my father has fifty horses. How many does your father have?’
After that Yasmini came every morning, bringing Jinni with her. She sat under Dorian’s window with the monkey on her shoulder and listened, her eyes glowing, as he tried to explain to her what ice was and how snow fell from the sky, why Englishmen had only one wife, and how some had hair the colour of the gold bangles on her ankles as well as flaming red like his, how the girls curled their golden hair with hot irons and the men shaved theirs off and wore wigs, the colour and style of the women’s dresses and the fact that they did not wear trousers like she did but went naked under their skirts.
‘That is very uncouth,’ she said primly. ‘And is it true, as Zayn says, that you even eat the flesh of pigs?’
‘The skin goes all crackly when it’s roasted,’ he said, to shock her. ‘It crunches in your teeth.’
She made her eyes wider still, and pretended to vomit. ‘That is truly disgusting. No wonder you cannot go to Paradise with us.’
‘We do not wash five times a day like your people do. Sometimes we don’t wash at all during the entire winter. It’s much too cold,’ he told her with relish.
‘Then you must smell as bad as the pigs you eat.’
She knew nothing of the world outside, but she was an expert on the affairs of the zenana. She told him that her mother was one of the divorced wives of the Prince, but that she had two brothers, so they were still in his favour. ‘If it were only me, it would be different, because I am only a girl and my father does not like daughters.’ She said it in a matter-of-fact tone, devoid of self-pity. ‘But my mother is of royal blood. She is the niece of the Great Mogul, so the emperor is my great-uncle,’ she told him proudly.
‘So you are a princess?’
‘Yes, but only a little one, and not very grand.’ Her candour was disarming. ‘Do you see the silver streak in my hair?’ She pirouetted to display it. ‘My mother has the same streak and my grandfather also. It is a mark of royalty.’
When she explained the relationship of the other children, Dorian listened with more attention than he had to Tahi.
‘Zayn al-Din is my half-brother, but I do not like him. He is fat and cruel.’ She considered Dorian thoughtfully. ‘Is it true that my father has adopted you?’
‘Yes, it is true.’
‘Then you are also my brother. I think I like you better than Zayn, even though you eat pig meat. Do you like me, al-Amhara? Zayn says I look like Jinni.’ She stroked the monkey on her shoulder. ‘Do you think I look like a monkey?’
‘I think you are very pretty,’ Dorian told her gallantly, and when she smiled it was true.
‘My mother says that my father, the Prince, has gone away to see my uncle, who is the Caliph in Muscat.’
‘When will he return?’ Dorian asked quickly. This must be the reason that he and Tahi had been neglected: the Prince was not here to protect them. ‘Will he come back soon?’
‘My mother says he may be gone a long time, perhaps a year or more.’ Yasmini put her head on one side to study his face. ‘If you are verily my brother, perhaps our father will take you riding and hawking with him when he comes back. I wish I were a boy so I could go with you,’ she said, and jumped up from where she sat on the edge of the lotus pond. ‘I must go now. Kush must not catch me here. He has forbidden any of us to talk to you. He will beat me if he finds me.’
‘Come again tomorrow,’ he said, trying not to make it sound like a plea.
‘Perhaps,’ she flung over her shoulder, as she raced away across the lawn with Jinni prancing around her flying bare feet.
When she was gone Dorian looked up at the sky, watched the gulls wheeling overhead, listened to the distant sound of the surf beating on the shore, and thought desperately about trying to escape. He imagined climbing out through the open roof of the kitchen, of clambering over the outer wall of the zenana and finding a small boat on the beach. But where would I go in it? he wondered, and the fantasy shrivelled and died. I will have to wait for Tom to come. He resigned himself once more to the inevitable.
One morning, Kush came rattling his keys and shouted, in his shrill squeaky voice, ‘Tahi, you are to prepare the boy to visit the holy mullah.’ He threw down an armful of clean clothing. ‘I will come back to fetch him after the midday prayers. Make certain that he is ready, or I will have you beaten until you bleed.’
The bullock cart was waiting at the gates and Dorian clambered on board, almost beside himself with excitement and the joy of being allowed out of his bleak prison. Tahi was not coming with him but she had been allowed to sun herself in the gardens during his absence.
Kush rode beside Dorian on the front seat of the cart, smiling and caressing him. ‘These robes suit you well. They are of the finest quality. See the embroidery on the collar. It is of silk! Prince Abd Muhammad al-Malik has a robe just like this. I chose it specially for you. See how I spoil you.’
The closer they came to the palace, the more agitated and conciliatory Kush became. ‘Have some of these sugared cinnamon cakes. They are my favourites. You will like them also. I want you to be happy, al-Amhara.’
When they came in sight of the white walls of the fort, Kush became more direct in his instruction. ‘If al-Allama, blessed be his sainted name, should ask how I have treated you, you must tell him that I have been like a father to you. That you have been given the first choice of the finest foods, the freshest fish and the choicest fruits for your kitchen.’
‘And that you have locked me in stinking hot rooms like a criminal?’ Dorian asked innocently.
‘That is not true. Perhaps I have been a little too concerned for your safety, that is all.’ Though he was smiling, his eyes were as cold as those of a cobra. ‘Do not try to make trouble for me, little infidel. I can be a better friend than an enemy – ask that fat old sow Tahi. She will tell you.’
They climbed down from the cart in the outer courtyard of the fort. Kush took his hand and led him into the labyrinth of the building. They climbed several staircases and at last came out on to a terrace, high above the harbour, which looked out across the waters of the channel to the mass of the African mainland.
Dorian looked about eagerly. It was a delight to see the sea again, and to have the salt-laden breeze of the monsoon in his face, cleaning his head of the stale smells of the zenana. He saw the mullah at once and made a bow of respect. touching his heart and his lips. Al-Allama greeted him and said, ‘May Allah keep you smiling, little one.’
There was another man sitting beside the mullah, cross-legged under the sun awning of split bamboo. He was sipping a small cup of thick black coffee, and a tall glass hookah stood close at hand.
‘Salaam aliekum, old father,’ Dorian said respectfully, and the man turned to look at him. Dorian’s heart leaped and his face lit with joy as he recognized him. He rushed forward to embrace him.
‘Ben Abram!’ He clung to the old doctor. ‘I thought I would never see you again. I thought you would still be with al-Auf on the island.’
Gently the old man fended off his embrace, and rearranged his ruffled beard. It was not seemly to allow the others to see the strength of the relationship he and the boy shared. ‘Let me look at you.’ He held Dorian away at arm’s length and studied his face. His expression changed. ‘You look pale. What has happened to you, my child?’ He swivelled round and looked up at Kush, who was hovering anxiously at the rear of the terrace. ‘You have been in charge of the boy. What have you done to him, eunuch?’ Outside the zenana Kush was only a house-slave – a castrated slave at that. Ben Abram made no effort to disguise his contempt.
‘I call on Allah and his saints to witness.’ Kush’s jowls quivered and a light sweat broke out on his chin. ‘I have cherished him. He has been well fed and cosseted as though he was the true son of my master.’
Ben Abram looked to Dorian for confirmation, knowing he would receive a direct answer. ‘He has locked me in a dingy little room since the day I arrived. He has fed us on pig swill, and I have not been allowed to speak to anyone but my nurse in all that time.’
Ben Abram stared at Kush coldly, and the eunuch fell to his knees. ‘It was on the orders of the Prince, your honour. He commanded me to keep the child from escaping.’
‘The Prince paid a lakh of rupees in gold for this child. He has formally declared him his adopted son,’ Ben Abram replied, in a soft voice filled with menace. ‘When His Royal Highness returns from Muscat I shall inform him in person how you have cared for his son.’
‘I only did my duty, merciful lord,’ Kush blubbered.
‘I know full well how you discharge that duty towards some of the children and women in your care, eunuch.’ Ben Abram paused significantly.