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discussion, instead taking herself off and coming back a while later with a small phial of purplish liquid. ‘Coat some meat in this and give it to the beast just after sundown. It’ll liven it up for a while.’
    â€˜Not too much, I hope.’
    â€˜Then it would be more of a fair struggle, wouldn’t it?’ Her eyes gleam. ‘Quite the spectacle. I do hope I’ve got the quantities right.’ She gives me a sly smile.
    I make to leave, then turn back. Should I mention the pattens? She will be furious at me for my stupidity, and anyway what can she do? None of the women are allowed to leave the palace and unless she can command her spirits to manifest themselves in flesh, even Zidana’s magic cannot retrieve them.
    She watches my indecision with a raised eyebrow. ‘Off you go, Nus-Nus, but remember the next favour will be mine.’
    I deliver the dose and instructions to the menagerie keeper, with a dire warning so that he is in no doubt that I will come looking for him if thewolf does not behave as expected that night, and head back to the Dar Kbira, running through the rest of my duties in my head, until I reach the dangerous impression that everything is just about under control. But as I stride through the long vine-covered walkway leading to the sultan’s pavilions, someone calls my name. I turn: it is Yaya, one of the guards posted on the main gate.
    â€˜There were some men here earlier.’ Sweat sheens his face: has he run after me just to tell me this? I sigh. There is always someone seeking a bribe, or an audience. ‘What did they want?’
    Yaya looks solemn. ‘They were making inquiries. There was a man murdered in the souq yesterday.’
    My heart stutters, and my insides go cold. ‘Murdered?’ I echo feebly. A drop of sweat bursts out of my hairline beneath my turban, rolls down my forehead, makes a track along my nose.
    Yaya watches me, his eyes bulging with curiosity. ‘They questioned all the guards about everyone’s comings and goings yesterday, and we said there were not many braving the rain …’
    â€˜But you told him you had seen me,’ I finish, feeling sick.
    â€˜Well, I had to,’ he says, as if lying was not an option.
    â€˜And?’
    He makes a face. ‘They wanted to talk to you. I said you were running errands for the sultan, helping him prepare for the inauguration, so they went away again.’
    Pent-up breath escapes me. ‘Well, that’s all right, then.’
    â€˜They’re coming back tomorrow.’
    I go hot, then cold. ‘But I shall also be very busy tomorrow.’
    â€˜I’m not on duty tomorrow.’ There is a note of selfish relief in his voice as he says this. Seeing my expression, he adds doubtfully, ‘But I’ll ask Hassan to turn them away.’
    â€˜Wonderful.’ I walk quickly away, cursing under my breath. The
qadi’s
men are not usually this persistent: they know the qadi’s jurisdiction stops short of the palace walls. Did someone see something that implicates me directly? Sidi Kabour must have been better connected than I had thought, so assiduously are they pursuing his murderer.
    As I perform my duties that evening, anxiety gnaws at my guts. I find myself asking, ‘Is this the last time I will lay out the sultan’s babouches? Is this the last good food I will taste?’
    The wolf goes to its death in a dignified fashion – heralded in by long Fassi trumpets and musicians all in white. It rears up and growls and snarls and gives every impression of being the wild beast it is supposed to signify, and Ismail quells it with less ease than I expected, given the state it was in that morning. I feel a pang of sorrow as he squeezes the life out of it, and when it slumps and he draws the ceremonial blade to cut off its head, I have to look away.

5
    First Gathering Day, RabÄ« al-Awwal Massouda, black Sudanese, daughter of