The Mer- Lion (51 page)

To this, Ramlah and Aisha quickly agreed, and her personal guard, the
al Ikwan,
was established. Within months, it numbered more than three dozen, all speaking with their hands. The more intelligent of the group learned to signal with their eyes as well, and these, numbering less than twelve, formed an elite corps of bodyguards and officers.

Thus, without words, the group might stop and start and turn and move as one. The effect was frightening to those who watched it It was witchcraft to many of Aisha's people. Their fear became the force's most potent weapon. In this way were mute slaves transformed into silent masters.

Once he became a member of the group, no man left it except through death. So that the group remained small, the standards for admission grew ever more strict over the course of years. Aisha and Ah' and the elite ones attended every public detongueing, watching carefully and critically how each
muezzin
withstood the hot or cold torture, the tug of war, the long-handled cutter that more tore than cut a facile member from a gagging throat. Then, afterward, the two, uncle and niece, would compare the degree of barbarity of the detongueing with the courage shown. Only after both had agreed the slave to be worthy and the elite corps had concurred, would a slave
-muezzin
be chosen to join the group. As far as Aisha was concerned, Edwin Godwin could not have chosen a worse morning to wake the city with his false call to prayer. Today was audience day. Adding a detongueing to her schedule meant she would have to forego the slave auction. That might be just as well. The Moulay liked to choose for himself the replacements for his game-of-morn-ing-call. She dared not bid against him, not until the problem of her marriage had been solved. If angered, the Moulay was capricious enough to change his deranged mind and ship her off to Algiers to the Barbarossa. Aisha remembered, from one of those rare meetings when she had been forced to join her mother as she endeavored to persuade the Moulay not to accede to the corsair's request, how astutely and cruelly he had pointed out, "What difference could bursting a piece of skin make to that son-of-a-nobody? He would still be marrying a princess and taking his place alongside kings."

"You're right. That lack of a 'piece of skin' might be of real benefit to him," Ramlah agreed, cleverly turning the Moulay's observation against him and capitalizing on his fear of Barbarossa. "Once married to Aisha, the corsair could use it as a legitimate excuse to bring about your death. The crime? Incest
...
rape
...
child-ravishment
...
whatever he wills."

The Moulay hadn't thought of that. Turning white, he asked, "What else can I do?"

"Challenge him to come and win her.. .in competition with others."

"Competition?" The idea had appeal for him.

Even now, Aisha could hear her mother's purring voice expounding" their idea. "Think of it, mighty Moulay, hundreds of men fighting naked with strange weapons that tear and rip before killing, all for the honor of being allowed to wed your daughter."

"Suppose not many come. They might not like to die just for her hand."

Ramlah's inventiveness was up to the challenge. Silencing her daughter with a glance, she went on smoothly. "Then we'll fill out their ranks with slaves. In the nude, no one can tell a free man from a slave."

"Do they all have to die fighting?"

"Not all, some will die as you choose."

"I choose? How?"

"You shall do as the Roman emperors did. When one falls in defeat, you will give the signal for life or death," she promised. Sharing this city with her husband, she had been forced to learn how to appeal to the worst in his character—those attributes that had come to the surface on his release from the Prince's Cage and smothered what few good qualities he had once possessed. "Yes, mighty one, you shall decide how those defeated die."

She had captured his imagination. When he licked his full, lower Up nervously, the two women knew the day was theirs. Let him think on this for a while, and soon no power on earth could dissuade him. Ramlah's soft, soothing, subtle voice continued, describing in broad strokes—let his imagination fuT in the detail—their plan to restore the partially ruined Roman amphitheater of al Djem in the
South, and to hold the games there. Games in the Greek, Roman, Arabic, Berber, and other even more bloodthirsty traditions.

Aisha found her own nostrils flaring, her pulse racing and her throat growing dry as she listened to Ramlah's words. She was, after all, her father's daughter, although one looking at the two would have found it hard to believe. He was short, thick, gross, and swarthy; she was tall and almost boyishly thin, although beneath her Taureg robes were more curves than one might have supposed. Hidden too was her hair, that thick, silken mane of molten gold that was her glory. Her green brown eyes, wide-spaced, dark-fringed and almond-shaped, looked out from under proud, high-arched brows. Only the mouth with its full lower lip bespoke the passionate nature and near barbaric emotions that father and daughter shared—he giving vent to them, she holding diem in close rein. As Aisha recalled the skill of her mother's manipulation of the Moulay, the second and true call to prayer interrupted her thoughts. So similar were the two voices that uttered the calls, they might have come from the same throat. She hoped so. Then there would be no detongueing today. However, if that were the case, then this
muezzin
would be one to be aware of and to watch for when he, as all did, finally faced her father's pincers.

CHAPTER
22

Six days a week, Aisha joined her mother in the three-hour ritual of the three baths in the harem's ornate ones. The seventh day, Audience Day, a Thursday, she had less leisure, so she used instead the austere bath within her own quarters. This, like the larger one, was heated by the Pompeiian system with boilers of copper beneath the floor. Stepping out of her only apparel, a pair of high-heeled panttobles of velvet, she walked down the steps of her marble bath and into the hot, steamy, water.

When immersed, she held out one hand. Wordlessly, a eunuch knelt and handed Aisha the scroll listing the cases to be heard this day. Quickly, she surveyed them. On the surface, none seemed too complicated. If she brooked no delay nor interruption nor tirade, the audience should be over long before the slave auction began. That is, if she heard the cases herself. If the Moulay should appear, the audience could last all day or less than an hour. That man in his
majanna
might do anything.

Clearing her mind of all thoughts, she left the bath and surrendered her body to her slaves' ministrations. Her nails were buffed, her feet purnked, her hair washed and
v
combed dry, then her forelocks braided and strands of diamonds entwined, her brows plucked, her lashes brushed with kohl, and her hps stained with a flower petal.

Only after completing her toilet did she don drawers of white see-through silk, a shirt of the same, the sleeves reaching to the wrist, the bodice open to the waist. Over that a sleeveless waistcoat,

slit op the front, fell to the floor. Round and round the eunuch circled her, holding the wide embroidery-encrusted waist-wrap spread between his hands, to form her two-hand-high
kamarband.
Bracing herself by leaning on two eunuchs' shoulders, she stepped into her boots.

Critically, she surveyed herself within the polished silver of her mirror. Plain. Simple. Perfect. She would not change a detail. Lastiy, her eunuchs draped her in a white, woolen
burd
that hid all but her face, her hands, and her white kid boots. She was ready to appear in public. As she left her quarters, she was joined by Ali and six of the
al Ikwan.
The Amira Aisha did not appear in public without bodyguard.

Thursday audiences started an hour after sunrise, and, with only a brief break for lunch, lasted as long as there were cases to be heard. Those heard last often received short shrift from a
gadi
eager to see the long day end. Since any Tunisian could demand his case be heard, the naive started lining up outside the courtroom long before dawn, hoping to be first. The experienced paid their bribe to the right official and had their case scheduled early in the day—the list Aisha perused.

On this Thursday, as usual, the bribes were in, the docket was set, everything appeared routine—until the Moulay and his entourage arrived at the Dar al Bey with much clattering of horses' hooves. The Moulay himself never went on horseback, but rode in a huge sedan chair complete with protective fringed top and balanced on three poles. Six runners at a time alternated, changing on the move, to keep up the steady pace
...
somewhere between fast walk and trot. They edged the sedan chair up to the stool's level so that the Moulay, without undue effort, might simply step out. Making a litter from their crossed hands, two blackamoors seated and carried him up the stairs and into the palace, through the first court and the next.

Finally, without his feet once touching the floor, he entered the courtroom. Had people known that their deranged monarch would be the judge, far fewer of them would have chosen this day to present their cases. The Moulay's entrance created pandemonium as everyone at once attempted to go from sitting cross-legged on cushions to totally prostrate, face-flattened against the tile-covered floor.

As always, the Moulay found his subjects' discomfiture amusing. Let his subjects be properly humble when in the presence of their ruler. Viciously pinching his blackamoor mounts he started them toward the dais just as Aisha and her escort entered from the side door. Without a moment's hesitation, Ali and the
al Ikwan
prostrated themselves. Aisha too settled gracefully to her knees and bowed her head. Pleased by his daughter's proper attitude, he allowed his bearers to seat him upon the cushioned couch on the dais, then beckoned his daughter to her seat upon a cushion at his feet. Only then might his subjects resume their places around the perimeter of the room.

The people buzzed excitedly but in muted tones, then ceased as the wazier stepped forward:

"By the grace, of Allah, the court of
jalala al-malik,
the Moulay Hassan, is open to all. Come ye and seek ye the justice of the Moulay."

The court crier called the first case to order. The accusing party stepped forward, bowed and prostrated himself, then rose and gave brief testimony. When he strayed from a strict recitation of the facts, he was prodded with a pointed stick by a court official stationed behind him. At his second lapse, his case was dismissed. Next case.

Accusatory testimony given, the defendant stepped forward to tell his side. He was also allowed to rebut the testimony just given. No questions were asked of either party and no witness testified.

"Guilty. Call the next case." Such was the Moulay's manner of judging. The Amira fumed and seethed but said nothing.

About two hours into the session a strikingly beautiful woman awoke the Moulay from his doze when she begged the court, to force her husband to take another wife. Even the Moulay Hassan was taken aback; seldom did a man with one wife resist taking more wives.

"If the court please," she testified, "I am my husband's only wife. My days are spent performing household chores, my nights on giving him pleasure. I am with child for the fourth time in as many years. When I am not with child, I must submit to his needs even during those times when most wives are excused. I love my children and my husband, but I would share my responsibilities with another.

"I ask that the court order my husband to take another wife so that

we may divide household and conjugal duties between us especially when one of us is carrying his child. And," she concluded, "if he refuses to select a second wife himself, I request the right to select one for him."

There was a mild murmuring around the room as the woman returned to her little circle of friends and sat awkwardly down on her cushion. She was perhaps five months with child, proving her point and winning sympathy from the courtiers, if not the court.

A young man, the reluctant husband, stepped forward.
"Jalala al-malik,
I love her too much to share that love with another. I will buy extra servants for her. I will grant her nights off during her cleansing cycles. But do not," he pleaded, "force me to take a wife who could get no love from me whatsoever. It would not be fair to the woman, nor to me."

He was motioned back to his seat. The Moulay had made his decision, and out of his perversion came a judgment worthy of Solomon.

"Bachir Ali, you make a mockery out of marriage," the Moulay said in a stern voice. "You should have listened, as any good husband would, to your wife."

The audience tittered guardedly, for it was well known that Moulay Hassan ostensibly paid no attention whatsoever to his own wife.

"Since you did not ease her plight," the Moulay continued, "she is no longer yours. She will be married into a harem of many wives where, as she requests, her duties will be lessened. Her children will be cared for. Her lovemaking will be only occasional. As for you—your slate will be wiped clean. Before the sun sets tomorrow, find or buy two wives and do not make the mistake again of letting love blind you to your duty."