The Lioness of Morocco(18)

Sibylla was touched. “That was a wonderful thing to do, my love.”

Tom’s affectionate concern was not only for his little brother. He was always anxious about everyone’s well-being: his mother and father, Firyal, Nadira, and all the servants. He even asked his mother whether the beggars in the alleyways had food to eat and a bed to sleep in like he did.

Sibylla was grateful that her firstborn was growing up so healthy and kind. After his birth, she had been unable to nurse him, and Thomas had been raised on donkey milk fed to him drop by drop. Rouston had purchased a female donkey while Sibylla was still recovering in the caravanserai. He had also transported her and the newborn safely back to Mogador. Benjamin, expecting some ships from London, had been unable to stay with her. She herself had urged him to go, although she had been quietly disappointed that he had actually left her behind in the caravanserai. But if he hadn’t, she would never have discovered what a diverting travel companion André Rouston was. While she was lying on the stretcher—this time with her baby—being carried by four slaves, he rode next to her and chatted. So she learned that, after the Algerian War, he had traveled all over the Maghreb. His descriptions of his encounters with belligerent Berber tribes, sage Arab scholars, and Oriental princes living in unimaginable splendor were so lively that Sibylla felt like she’d been there herself. She particularly liked the story of how he had visited Moulay Idriss, Morocco’s holiest city in the northern part of the Atlas Mountains on the pilgrims’ route to Mecca, disguised as a Muslim.

“John!” Sibylla shouted, leaning over the bannister. “Be sure to thank your brother for sharing with you.”

“Thank you, Tom,” the little boy said with a full mouth. Then he extended his sticky hand. “More!”

Tom laughed mischievously. “Come and get it!” He ran off, John at his heels.

Sibylla watched them run around the old olive tree and then charge up to the sundial that Benjamin had bought two years ago to celebrate a particularly lucrative deal. To Sibylla’s great amazement, he had even dug a base for it himself. Her husband was not normally a big enthusiast of physical labor. Once the sundial had been assembled, polished, and set in the courtyard of their riad, he had planted the union   Jack in the ground next to it and invited the qaid for a viewing. Sibylla remembered how proudly he had shown off his valuable sundial. His sons saw it mostly as a jungle gym, much to Benjamin’s chagrin.

“You boys leave the sundial alone, do you hear me?” Sibylla called. Benjamin was not at home—the better business was, the less time he spent with his family—but she did not want to risk any trouble.

Fortunately, the boys could romp outside all year round. Even now, in early December, it was as mild as England in the springtime. The roses were in bloom in the riad’s courtyard, the flowers still exuded their intoxicating scent, and the little orange trees that Sibylla had had planted on both sides of the staircase bore succulent fruit. She thought it was wonderful to be able to forgo boots, muff, fur cap, and long coat. All she needed was a shawl around her shoulders. In turn, she gladly tolerated the sand and dust that the constant wind drove into the house.

She returned to her room. In her native England, the chimneys would be lit, but here in Morocco, all that was needed was a copper pan with a little coal. She took a small piece of scented resin from a bowl and threw it into the embers. The room filled with the scent of amber and nutmeg. Sibylla closed her eyes with pleasure. She loved her life here—unlike Benjamin, who even now regarded everything with suspicion.

She sat on the divan and took out the letter again. It was from her stepmother and had arrived on the mail boat the day before, together with various issues of the Times and a box filled with books. Mary was Sibylla’s most reliable connection to England. She kept her stepdaughter up-to-date on all the latest news in London. Currently, everyone was preparing for the social event of the century, the wedding of young Queen Victoria and the German Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Every week, Mary and Richard were invited to balls and receptions given in the couple’s honor, and Mary complained that her seamstress and milliner could not keep up with the design of all her trains, gowns, hats, and gloves. Also, she was concerned about Richard’s health. He had celebrated his fiftieth birthday the previous year, but suffered from dizziness, shortness of breath, and poor sleep. She was planning to take him to have the cure in Bath the next summer, she wrote, since the new rail connection had made it easier to reach.

Sibylla folded the letter and laid it on the table. Then she got up, moved the divan away from the wall, and removed a loose board from the back of the wooden frame. Hidden behind it was her secret compartment. She reached inside and pulled out a rectangular box made of rosewood and mother-of-pearl. There was a little lock on the front. This box was where she kept the money she made from her business transactions. First, the sixty benduqui that Rusa and Lalla Jasira had paid her for the English slippers. Once word had gotten out that His Sovereign Majesty’s wives dressed their feet in English babouches, the wives of important courtiers, qaids, and viziers wanted to be a part of the new fashion trend. Business grew without Sibylla’s having to pay too much attention to it, and the resolution she had made before Thomas’s birth to stop for the benefit of her marriage was quickly forgotten.

Rusa and Lalla Jasira brokered much of her business and received a small commission for their efforts. Sibylla used part of her proceeds to pay for the goods she exported to London. Thanks to Lalla Jasira, she had contacts to merchants who provided silk, brocade, and damask of the finest quality, materials much in demand in England. Although Benjamin complained when she took up cargo space on the boats, Sibylla enjoyed her trade too much to give it up. No one except Sibylla knew about the little box, not even Benjamin, who regarded her business as nothing more than silly dalliances on which she squandered her dowry.

Sibylla carried the box over to her desk, pulled a thin chain holding a small key from under her dress, unlocked the box, took out a leather-bound notebook, and opened it. Then she dipped her quill and wrote: December 5, 1839. Underneath, she recorded the expenses for five boxes of velvet shawls that had arrived that day in Mogador and that were meant to warm the shoulders of London ladies this raw English winter. The merchant had sworn that his wares came from Kashmir, and begged God to strike him with blindness if he had dared deliver inferior quality to the Engliziya.

Sibylla spread sand on the wet ink, closed the notebook, placed it back in the box, and locked it carefully. As she pushed the divan back to the wall, she could hear the coins jingling behind it and she smiled contentedly.

There was a knock at the door and Firyal entered, carrying a tray with a glass of warm almond milk and a plate of sesame sweets. She placed it on the flat table in front of the divan.

“There you are, my lady,” she said, looking uneasily at her feet. “Will there be anything else?”

“Thank you, Firyal, that will be all,” Sibylla replied warmly.

The servant quickly disappeared. Sibylla noticed that she was wearing a colorful new dress wrapped tight around her hips. Presumably, the material was a reward for the nights she spent in Benjamin’s bedroom.

Benjamin had taken the servant into his bed shortly after John’s birth, when he and Sibylla had moved into separate rooms. She had long noticed the lascivious way his eyes lingered on Firyal’s bottom or her ample breasts whenever she leaned over to pour his tea. At night, she had heard the telltale tapping of feet on the wooden planks and the soft opening and closing of doors. The following day, Firyal always avoided her. And yet Sibylla did not hold a grudge against her husband; quite the contrary, she was glad that Benjamin acted out his male desires with the servant. She had never appreciated the physical side of marriage, and she did not mind forgoing it. She had long ago abandoned the notion of finding romance with Benjamin.



“The Engliz can make horses fly! What’s next, a flying ship?” Qaid Hash-Hash shaded his eyes from the sun and squinted at the magnificent red animal. As the gangway was too narrow, the sailors had harnessed the horse to the pulleys of the main yard, and now the precious cargo was floating halfway between the Queen Charlotte’s deck and the dock. The spectacle was so remarkable that Benjamin, the qaid, and the harbormaster were surrounded by a fast-growing crowd of onlookers. Nuri bin Kalil translated because Benjamin, in contrast to his wife, had managed to learn almost no Arabic, despite having already spent more than three years in Morocco.

Benjamin answered with a hearty laugh. “What’s next, you ask? Why, a flying carpet, of course! No offense, Your Excellency, but since the sultan offers his guests only tottery mules for transportation, I had to arrange for a decent horse for myself!”

The governor studied the arrogant Englishman. A conspicuous sundial, carp from another part of the world, clothing tailored from the finest cloth, and now this magnificent stallion. He was deeply interested to know how the Englishman acquired the means for such luxuries.

I am going to set one of my informants on him, Hash-Hash decided as he enviously eyed the horse, which had by now been deposited on the quay. Benjamin proudly walked up to the animal and was about to take hold of the halter when a seagull swooped in close, spooking the horse and making it rear.