Over dinner, while Benjamin told her more than she’d ever wanted to know about guns, Sibylla had put aside all her misgivings. She had persuaded herself that she would give in just this one time and go to André. Then she would carry the memory of these few hours forever in her heart. Maybe it was wrong. But just once in her life, she wanted to know what it felt like to be held by a man who truly desired her and whom she desired.
Having made her resolution, she felt a happiness and freedom she had not felt for a long time. She even began to take pleasure in the notion of doing something so profoundly forbidden to women. Adultery was said to be a sin for men as well, but just how little this mattered was evident by her husband’s indelicate behavior.
When she reached the children’s room, she stopped, and could not resist stepping inside. The candle revealed her darling boys sleeping soundly in their beds. Tom sighed and furrowed his brow in his sleep. She leaned over and stroked his head. Rosy-cheeked Johnny clutched the little donkey she had sewn him.
She was suddenly struck that one of her boys might wake up with a tummyache. That they might cry for their mother, who would be gone—off seeking her own pleasure. Benjamin would wake up and discover that she had left the house in the middle of the night.
What sort of uncaring mother was she? While her marriage was not worth the paper on which the license was printed, her children meant everything to her!
No, she could not go. She would have to forgo her own short-lived happiness with André Rouston, no matter how great the pain.
Chapter Twelve
Mogador, January 1840
“Should a fully loaded ship not sit deeper in the water, Philipps?” Qaid Hash-Hash furrowed his brow as he looked at the Queen Charlotte’s stern.
The harbormaster was also watching the great sailing ship, which was slowly being maneuvered through the narrow harbor exit, and nodded pensively. “I agree, Your Excellency, a fully loaded ship should sit much lower in the water.”
“Is there any danger of her running aground if she takes on all the freight in her capacity?” The qaid knew only too well that the harbor basin was sandy and in urgent need of being dredged. But, by God, who was going to bear the costs of such an undertaking? The sultan had already made it known that he could not spare a single dirham. That left the merchants, but they were terrible misers who sat on their money like brooding hens.
“That might indeed be a possibility at low tide, but right now it is high tide and she has sufficient water under her keel,” Philipps answered.
“Perhaps it’s the type of freight?” the governor pressed. “Ostrich feathers are light; elephant tusks take up a lot of room. That might explain the missing draft in a fully loaded ship.”
Still, the harbormaster shook his head. “She has mostly leather and barrels of palm oil, in addition to a few crates filled with spices on board.”
“Hmm.” The frustrated qaid scratched his black goatee. “Destination?”
“Baltimore, Your Excellency, in the United States of America.”
“You are certain of that?” The black raptor eyes focused on the harbormaster.
“Quite certain, Your Excellency. Is something wrong?” Philipps felt himself breaking into a sweat in spite of the cool December breeze. He quickly ran through the Queen Charlotte’s clearance process to rule out any mistake he might have made. Qaid Hash-Hash did not take kindly to mistakes of that nature. More than a few had found themselves in the fortress dungeon on the governor’s mere suspicion that he might have missed out on some duties or taxes.
The qaid beckoned the boy who was carrying his water pipe for him and took a long puff. As he slowly exhaled the smoke, he again considered the mighty West Indian sailing ship. The wind carried the sound of whistles and bellowed commands to his ears. Sailors were climbing the rigging and running back and forth on deck.
The qaid’s onboard spy had told him the ship was heading south. The governor puckered his lips in disdain when he thought of the man’s eagerness to talk when threatened with a few spoonfuls of molten lead in his stomach. And he had spilled another secret: the ship’s carpenter had received orders to add two steerage decks as soon as they reached the open seas.
Hash-Hash snapped his fingers and the boy quickly took the hookah pipe from him. “Philipps!”
The harbormaster started with fright. “Your Excellency?”
“Why would a ship sail southward if it should be sailing westward?”
Philipps frowned. “It could have to do with the wind or the ocean’s currents, but not here in Mogador, Your Excellency. All ships sail westward from here. So perhaps it is picking up more cargo in another harbor before crossing the Atlantic.”
The qaid’s nostrils twitched like those of a bloodhound that has picked up a scent. “What kind of cargo could a ship like the Queen Charlotte take on from the Saharan coast?”
“None,” Philipps replied without understanding. “There aren’t even any decent harbors down there. The Queen would have to head much farther south, say to Guinea or the Gold Coast, but down there the cargo is mostly slaves.”
Qaid Hash-Hash folded his hands behind his back and looked out to sea. The Queen Charlotte had left the narrow harbor exit behind her. Seagulls were circling above her masts. Her sails billowed in the wind as her pointed bow slowly headed south.
Finally, it all fits, the governor thought with satisfaction. The secret meetings that Hopkins and Toledano had been having with the Queen Charlotte’s captain, the half-loaded ship, and the riches that vulgar Englishman had amassed—the latest an odd bowl with gilded lion’s feet, which he called a “bathtub.”
Hopkins was obviously realizing profits for which he paid neither taxes nor duties. But it was not until now that Qaid Hash-Hash could be certain how he did it: slaves.
Not that the qaid objected to the slave trade as such. He might even have consented to having an infidel engage in it. But if this infidel thought he could smuggle all his proceeds past him and His Majesty Sultan Moulay Abd al-Rahman, he would soon learn otherwise. And to think that cursed Toledano, who had always enjoyed His Majesty’s protection, was in cahoots with the Englishman!
Hash-Hash trembled with excitement at the prospect of arresting the ostentatious Englishman and acquainting him with the most select instruments of torture. But then he reminded himself that Hopkins was a foreigner, an Engliz, the subject of a powerful queen who ruled half the world. If he mishandled one of her citizens, he might very well attract this queen’s wrath to Morocco and cause him to fall out of favor with His Majesty. After all, the sultan took great pains to stay in the good graces not only of the English queen but also the other rulers of Europe. Under no circumstances was Morocco going to suffer the same fate as Algeria, which was now nothing more than an unworthy vassal of the French!
No, the qaid sadly shook his head. He would have to leave the Englishman to the sultan. Oh, but the treacherous Toledano was his to deal with! He turned to the harbormaster, who remained at his side, awaiting further orders.
“Come to the palace this week to share some shisha with me,” he ordered. “I am very pleased by the loyalty you show His Most Gracious Majesty. You have always kept in mind that an infidel can never be greater than the true children of God.”