The Serpent's Daughter (24 page)

She tried to focus now on her mother instead of her past sorrow. All she could see of that morning was the tired sadness on her mother’s face. That’s when it dawned on her.
Mother sacrificed her own freedom so that I’d have a chance to fit in.

Inez saw that their world was changing, that the free Western spirit was giving way to city rules. Young Western ladies wanting to make their way had to do so by conforming to society and going to finishing school. It was an idea that Jade had balked at as much as a colt did a saddle. And while Jade had learned to play the role, she had bucked every chance she got, up to the day she enlisted in the ambulance unit.

The revelation shook Jade. Her tears were for Inez and the opportunities they’d lost together. All those years Jade had been trying to emulate the woman she’d watch dance in Spain, and all that time that woman was molding herself into a stranger. To give herself a moment to adjust, Jade tried to converse with Mohan. It wasn’t an easy task riding behind him.

“It is good of Bachir to teach you and your family French.”

Mohan shrugged. “I do not care to learn, but it is good for Lallah. It will help her to marry well. I stay with them during lessons because it is not right to leave Yamna alone with another man.”

“Will Bachir tend your barley field for you while you are away?”

To Jade’s surprise, Mohan shook his head so that the lock of hair hanging from behind his right ear shook violently. “My sister’s husband will do it. I do not trust Bachir. He is the son of a one-eyed donkey and nine men. May his brain fly and his bladder be weakened.” Mohan spat to the side to seal his curse. “He watches Yamna and has betrayed his people.”

Inez bolted up from her sleeping mat, aware that something was amiss but not sure what. When she saw how bright the day was, she knew she’d overslept.
Someone slipped something into that almond milk on purpose
. Her glance fell on the note beside her shoes. Inez snatched it up and read.

Jade is gone!
Immediately, Inez ran from the
kasbah,
looking for Zoulikha. She spotted Yamna first, sitting outside of her house, turning a hand stone to grind grain into flour for the day’s bread. Lallah played at her feet with her spinning shuttle.

Inez had no time for the charming scene. She stormed up to Yamna and demanded in English, “Where is Jade?”

Yamna might not have understood the first part of the question, but she definitely understood “Jade” and the imperious tone of Inez’s voice. She rose gracefully, scooped up Lallah, and motioned for Inez to follow. She led her to Zoulikha, who was ministering to a woman suffering from morning sickness.

Inez paced in front of the doorway, waiting for the old woman to finish her task. The instant Zoulikha stepped over the threshold, Inez said one word. “Jade!” She punctuated it by stabbing her index finger to the ground next to her. She wanted her daughter here, now.

Zoulikha motioned for Yamna and Lallah to return home and shook her head. “Jade,” she said as a softer echo of Inez’s demand, and pointed to the north. “Marrakech.” Then she followed it with “Inez,” and gestured politely to the village. The meaning was clear. Jade had gone back to Marrakech and she was to remain here like so much excess baggage. Not while she had anything to say about it.

Inez stormed off through the village to one of the unoccupied houses where she’d first seen her donkey stabled. The little beast was still there, placidly chewing on some straw. His soft ears went straight up, and he paused in midchew when Inez grabbed a small saddle blanket and tossed it over his back. She looked in vain for one of the little leather saddles and decided she didn’t need it.
I rode bareback as a girl. I can do it again
.

By now, Zoulikha had caught up with her, Bachir following fast in her wake. Inez barged past them, dragging behind her the sad little donkey, braying piteously at having his breakfast rudely interrupted.

“
La la
, no, no,” they called in Arabic.

Inez ignored them, hiked up her now sullied and ruined green dress to nearly indecent heights, and proceeded to swing a leg over the beast. Once atop the donkey, she pointed to herself, then north, making her meaning very clear. She intended to follow Jade and she intended to go now.

Zoulikha’s old shoulders sagged in defeat. She nodded but came close enough to block the way. “You need food,” she said in Arabic, pointing to her mouth, “and water.” She imitated drinking. “And Bachir.” She pointed to the man next to her.

Inez considered her chances on her own, decided they weren’t very good, and agreed. “Food and water,” she said, repeating their words. “And Bachir.”

Mohan wouldn’t elaborate on his statement, leaving Jade to rethink all the past events. Bachir, a Berber from the Atlas, just happened to know how to find the Azilah tunnels. He entered those haunted tunnels, ostensibly to protect her with salt, but that just happened to coincide with the dead man’s removal. Bachir also just happened to find out where her mother was hidden, and he brought her to his village rather than to the church. He also admitted that he needed more money to pay a bride price.

Zoulikha said that some of the women had reported their dowry bracelets were missing. Could Bachir have stolen those bracelets and the
kahina
’s amulet to sell? What was it he said when she’d asked him about remarrying? There was no
un
married woman that he wanted. Was he trying to acquire Yamna?

Zoulikha had said something else, about initially seeing her missing amulet in the fortress of the valley’s
kaid
. Bachir had married into that family. Could he have stolen the amulet? There were too many coincidences and twists to sustain credibility. Might he be playing both sides? He clearly had access to Zoulikha’s house. If he stole the talisman, he may have offered to help the
kahina
just to cover his own tracks and to inhibit Jade’s help. But Mohan must have seen through it all. Now he risked himself for his daughter’s legacy.

They wended their way down the mountain trail, fording streams swelling with snow melt, and made it to a spring near the mountain base as night fell. Mohan started a fire and boiled water for the inevitable mint tea while Jade distributed bread and cheese. She took some comfort in knowing that her mother was safe with Zoulikha now. She trusted the old woman.

Late morning had stretched into late afternoon before Bachir could assemble the necessary supplies for their trip. Inez watched, wishing she could do something, feeling helpless in her inability to communicate. She settled for doing the one thing she knew how to do: care for their mounts. Besides two little donkeys for riding, there was the third mule Jade had purchased to use as a pack animal. Inez rubbed them down using an old woven bag in lieu of a cloth. Then she wheedled a knife from Bachir and set about cleaning their hooves. She noted with approval that Jade’s mule had sound legs. The girl did know horseflesh.

Cleaning the animals helped a little. At least it made the time crawl less slowly. It didn’t do much to lessen her anxiety, though. It was that horrid dream that did it. She saw Jade in shackles with other men and women, then dragged away to the ends of the earth.
Holy Mother. It’s all this talk of symbols and charms. It’s gotten to me, as well.
But something in the back of her mind told her that her daughter was walking into danger. Just as Jade had saved her, it was her turn to save Jade. She felt for the Roman coins they’d found in the leather pouch. Inez had kept them in a little leather bag she’d borrowed from Yamna. It was all the money Inez possessed right now and it might be needed. She tossed a blanket over the donkey’s back, and called for Bachir.

CHAPTER 18

—The Traveler

JADE WOKE UP STIFF, sore, and sleepy Wednesday morning. She attributed the stiffness to crossing the icy Oued Issil and the long walk those last twelve miles across the flat and rocky wasteland.
Stupid mule
. If Mohan’s beast hadn’t taken it into his stubborn head to investigate what looked like something edible at camp last night, he wouldn’t have gotten that rock in his hoof. And if Mohan had checked his animal’s feet to begin with rather than waiting until the poor beast started going lame, the rock wouldn’t have cut in so far. Jade had taken it out and cleansed the wound as best she could with their limited water supply, but they’d ended up walking the last part of the journey and had lost valuable time, arriving in Marrakech after the gates had closed.

The soreness? Well, that was another issue. Apparently Mohan’s mule didn’t like having his hooves checked, which probably went a long way to explaining why the man had neglected doing it. At least the beast’s teeth were good, if Jade’s shoulder bite was any indication.

And the sleepiness? She chalked that up to camping out near the palm gardens. The area was filled with other people who’d either arrived too late to find a caravansary—a hostelry for both man and beast—inside the city or who preferred the outdoors to a crowded building. Jade and Mohan had ended up near a cluster of grunting, grumbling, ill-tempered, smelly camels and their equally noisy owners who snored all night long. She’d slept through quieter nights in a French farm cellar three miles from the front lines.

Jade might have done something about the situation herself, but by then she was supposed to be a Berber woman traveling in the company of her brother. She’d paused by a clump of ruined huts near the mountain’s base and removed her boots and overskirt, rolled up her trouser legs, and donned a Berber headdress, the
handira
, and slippers. She’d put her boots in one of the panniers. With the aid of the henna tattoos, she’d transformed herself from an Anglo to one of the Imazighen. With the disguise came the required behavior to make it work, and that meant putting up with all the singing, chattering, and snoring around her.

After a necessary visit to the nearest private palm and a quick breakfast of bread, cheese, and dried apricots, Jade turned her attention to the business at hand. Chances were her adversaries were still holed up in the same house as before. But outside of de Portillo, Jade didn’t have any idea who else was in Lilith’s employ, if, in fact, she was the brains behind the operation.

In Tangier, de Portillo had claimed he was a leather merchant coming to Marrakech to buy goods. Marrakech and Fes were the two principal places where this coveted red leather was made, and since those leather bags bearing Lilith’s seal were found in Marrakech, they were probably crafted there, as well. Jade estimated she had seen nearly one hundred bags in that room. Making so many would have taken longer than the time de Portillo had been here. After all, he couldn’t have arrived in Marrakech much before she did. So if she could locate the leather worker who’d made the bags, she might be able to find out who the initial client was. That might tell her who else was working with the Spaniard. Then perhaps she could go to the French authorities. Surely they would listen, especially when she showed them the hashish.

Spit fire and save the matches
. She’d left the bags of hashish and the gold coins in the village. Well, spilt milk and all that nonsense. No time to go back for them. She still had the leather bag and the charm the Little Owl had coughed up at the Azilah tunnels. She would use them to locate the bag maker and proceed from there. Jade debated having Mohan do the talking so she could continue her role as his sister, then decided against it. That amulet needed finding and he might be of more use inquiring at the silversmith’s or anyone else likely to buy old silver. Her biggest concern was her imperfect Arabic; however, disguised as a Berber woman, she could claim it wasn’t her first language.
Just so long as I don’t run into a shopkeeper who speaks Tashelhit
.

“Mohan, if someone tried to sell the
kahina
’s amulet, where would he go?”

Mohan rubbed his hand over his short beard. “Perhaps to a dealer of women’s adornments? Someone who sells to the wealthy princes in the city?” He answered as though he were uncertain, like a student who looks to the teacher to see if he has given the correct reply.

“Do you know who they are? The dealers, not the princes.”

Mohan shrugged. “In the souks.”

She recalled she was originally supposed to meet someone to bargain for her mother’s freedom in the Square of the Dead. “Would someone like that be in the
Jemaâ el-Fna
?”

Mohan shrugged again. “It is mostly storytellers, fortune tellers, and sellers of food there. Sometimes I sit there to sell my wife’s rugs. But I do not think the rich princes buy from there.”

Jade had another thought. The amulet might have more value as a talisman than as women’s jewelry. “Is there anyone who sells charms in the souks who might have bought it?”

“Charms for one cannot be used by another. They are made special for a person.”

Jade didn’t press the issue, although she noted that Mohan didn’t really answer her question. She’d locate the charm dealers herself. “You know better than I what Elishat’s amulet looks like. Would you please ask about it in the souks?”

“I cannot buy it, if I find it,” he protested.

“Just let it be known that there is a lady who is looking for something like that; someone who will pay a good price. Tell them it is a Nazarene woman if you have to. Just don’t give my name. We will meet again at the eastern side of the Koutoubia mosque tower,” she said. “Meet me just after the muezzin calls for evening prayer.”

Mohan grunted what appeared to be an affirmative reply and headed into the old city. Jade waited a moment to see that her mules were secured, fed, and watered; then she skirted the
Medina
walls around the east side and entered at the
Bab Debbagh
, the tanner’s gate, on the northeast edge. She assumed the leather workers would have shops close to their source of raw materials, but once she caught scent of the place, she realized she was wrong. No one would want to be close to this section of the city. Even the lepers chose the northwestern gate to haunt. This place reeked.