As the months passed, Ali’s indifference gnawed at her. Everything in her family upbringing, everything in her society, told her that if a man did not love his wife, it was the wife’s fault. Perhaps she was being punished for her feelings for another man. Yet as sinful as that was, everyone knew of women who had such feelings—and more than feelings—whose husbands, nevertheless, worshiped them. No, it must be a deeper failing, some fundamental unattractiveness in her. “Good marriages are made by good wives”: was it Aunt Najla who was always reciting that old saying?

She began to be obsessed with becoming pregnant again. Things had been so much better when she was carrying Karim, and just after his birth. Surely, Ali wanted more children; all men did. Yet, how was she to conceive? He came to her so rarely now, and when he did, the act often ended in his failure, accompanied by recriminations against her. Only cruelty seemed to sustain his desire, but even when little tortures of her helped him to a finish, it was usually in a way that was unnatural and painful, and that could never give her a child.

But wasn’t that her fault, too—that he did not find her desirable enough to satisfy him in normal ways?

Was he seeing other women, draining his passion with them? And if he were, again whose fault was that? A man had needs. If his wife were not enough for him, the common wisdom was clear as to who was to blame.

Common wisdom had remedies to offer as well, and one night Amira found herself thinking about them. Charms. Potions. There were women—often Egyptians—who sold them. But that was out of the question. If a prince’s wife were seen at the door of such a woman, the story would be on every tongue in the palace within hours. She couldn’t send a servant, either; they all worked for the Rashads, and only incidentally for her. Perhaps she could go home for a while, ask Bahia or Um Salih.

But was that necessary? Not every love spell was a deep secret. Jihan—an Egyptian, after all—had told her dozens of them. For instance, there was green wheat and pigeon meat cooked with nutmeg. A priapic, guaranteed to turn a man’s member as rigid as iron. And everyone knew that a few drops of a woman’s menstrual blood, mixed in the man’s food, would enslave him to her forever. Maybe combine the two? But how could anyone possibly induce Ali to eat green wheat and pigeon meat?