Shadow Spinner

by Susan Fletcher

  Soraya held up the comb to the light. Auntie Chavas comb. I almost snatched it back. But then Soraya nodded, picked up the waterskin, and left. The key grated again in the lock.

  Surely there could be no harm in what I’d done. Even if she couldn’t be trusted.

  For the first time since they had locked me up, I felt a loosening of the doom that gripped me. A lightening of spirit. Hope.

  * * *

  The day passed slowly. The first of my new candles burned down to a stump; I lighted a second. The moazzen called for prayers at noon and then again at sunset. Each time, I prayed—fervently. Since I couldn’t get to water, I had to make dry ablutions, touching the dust on the floor of my room. I was thirsty again, and hungry. My ribs hurt every time I moved, and my whole face ached.

  I watched the beetles crawling on the floor, making patterns in the dust. I watched the spiders mending their webs and swaddling unlucky flies. The feeling of doom came back, stronger than before. Would the Khatun keep me in here forever? Would she starve me? Torture me? Would I die here, in this room?

  My life—what was left of it—seemed to shrink and harden, like the dry, brittle husk of a rosebud starved for water.

  * * *

  The next morning, sometime after the call for daybreak prayers, I was awakened again by the sound of a key in the lock. As I watched, the door slowly creaked open.

  It took a moment for me to make out her features in the glow of my shrinking candle.

  Shahrazad.

  “Lady!” I exclaimed, then kissed the floor before her. Pain tore at me, but I didn’t care.

  “Shh, Marjan! Sit up now—don’t kiss that dirty floor.”

  “You shouldn’t be here!” I whispered. “The Khatun, she—”

  “Don’t worry. I have a little time. She sleeps late and—oh, Marjan, look at you!” She knelt down beside me—not worrying about getting her skirts dirty—and fingered the skin around my eye. “Does it hurt?”

  I shrugged. “A little.”

  She opened the bundle she was carrying. Three oranges rolled out; a heap of flatbread and dates and almonds nestled in the cloth. My mouth began to water; hunger reared up within me and raged.

  “Eat,” Shahrazad said. “This is not the time for politeness. You’re probably starved.”

  Greedily, I reached for a piece of bread. I had to use all the restraint I possessed to keep myself from stuffing the whole thing into my mouth at once. Then I peeled an orange and, putting one section at a time in my mouth, blissfully sucked out the sweet juice.

  Shahrazad had brought candles, too, I saw. Five more. And a little pot of salve. This she promptly opened and began to spread the cooling paste beneath my eye. “Now your ribs. Let me see them. Soraya told Dunyazad that you’d been kicked.”

  “No, Lady, you shouldn’t be doing this. I’m your servant, I can—”

  “You want me to command you? Is that it? Very well, I command you: Let me see your ribs.”

  I lifted my gown. In the faint, flickering light I could see that they were bruised—all purple and black. Shahrazad drew in a soft gasp. “Oh, Marjan, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault for bringing you here.”

  “No, Lady—don’t say that! It’s not your fault at all. You’re saving everyone; you—”

  “Shh, Marjan. Just let me do this.” Shahrazad began slathering on the salve. “Have they fed you at all?” she asked.

  “Soraya sneaked some food to me yesterday. That surprised me.”

  Shahrazad laughed bitterly. “She approached my sister, told her what had become of you, and lent her the key. It seems Soraya doesn’t want my job after all.”

  “She’s afraid,” I said. “The Khatun . . . she thinks you’ve taken a lover. She said she’d think that about any of the Sultans wives. And so Soraya understood that any wife of the Sultan is . . .”

  “Expendable?” Shahrazad said.

  I nodded.

  “She just realized this?”

  “I think . . . she thought she could do what you’re doing. I think she envied you.”

  Shahrazad unrolled a long, clean strip of cloth and began wrapping it around my ribs. “Well, things are going better for me, Marjan—thanks to you. The Sultan loves the story. And we’re working on something . . . some way to get you out. My sister has another of her plans.” She laughed—not bitterly this time. “Its a good one though,” she said. “I don’t want to tell you too much because it’s—”

  “Dangerous to know?” I asked.

  “Yes.” Shahrazad made a snug knot in the cloth; I smoothed my skirts down around me. “We think we know who your storyteller is,” she said, “but I can’t tell you that, either. For now . . . there are some gaps in the storytellers tale. My sister forgot a few parts and I thought maybe you would remember.”

  “I’ll try,” I said.

  She asked me about Queen Labs magic rituals and how long Badar Basim stayed with her and how Queen Lab’s mother summoned the jinn. I told her what I remembered.

  “Your memory is good,” she said.

  “No it isn’t! I could never remember all the stories you know! Even though I worked for years training my memory—trying to be like you. That’s why I started telling stories. Because—” I stopped, feeling suddenly shy. Shahrazad looked at me questioningly; I had to go on. “I admire you so much,” I whispered.

  Shahrazad bit her lip. I could see that her eyes were glistening. “Marjan,” she said. She took one of my hands, enfolded it in hers. “This may be the last time I will ever see you. That’s the other reason I had to come—to say good-bye. Someone will come to fetch you—someone you will know you can trust. They’ll give you back your comb.” She sighed, squeezed my hand. “I’ll miss you, my friend. I can never thank you enough for what you’ve done. I wish I could repay you as it’s done in the old tales—with a caravan of mules laden with sacks of gold and silver.” She smiled. “But I’ll arrange something . . . You won’t lack for money. And I’ll do everything in my power to get you out of here . . . to a safe place.”

  My heart was so full, it seemed to swell up into my throat so I could hardly speak. To say good-bye to Shahrazad . . . and to everything I knew. A safe place. It would have to be a strange place, one that I’d never been to.

  “But what about you?” I asked. “What if the Khatun turns the Sultan against you?”

  “I don’t think she will, Marjan. As long as I keep on with the stories.”

  “But what if you run out of stories again?”

  “I won’t. Father will be returning very soon. He’s traveling in a caravan with Shahryar’s brother, who is coming here to visit. We got word from a courier that they’re just a few days away. Before he left, Father promised to bring me many more books with tales from different lands.”

  But, How will you live? I wanted to ask her. How can you live with a husband you despise, a husband who is a murderer, and will murder you for the slightest slip?

  “If only the Sultan would just say you could livel” I said. “You’ve borne him three sons. That should be enough!”

  “Shh!” Shahrazad said. “He’s wounded, Marjan. He’s not ready.”

  I stared at her. He was wounded! What about all the women he’d killed? What about all the lives he’d wrecked? He was wounded!

  “He is wounded, Marjan. His nightmares wake him up; he cries out in his sleep like a frightened child. Part of the reason he likes my stories is they take his mind off his own woes.”

  “His sins, you mean,” I said, then was shocked that I had dared say it. But it was true.

  Shahrazad looked at me for a long moment. Then, “That, too,” she said. “He is steeped in sin. And he knows it. But he did it out of hurt. He loved his wife, and she betrayed him, and he never wanted to hurt that much again. He’s like a wounded little boy who lashes out, and there’s no one to teach him how to behave. And he can’t overcome his pride to admit that what he did was wrong, and I’m afraid that if I force the issue now, he’ll—We
ll, I dare not. One day, I hope. But not yet.”

  Something was dawning on me, something so strange and terrible that I had never even dreamed of it before. “You love him,” I said, and I could hear the accusation in my voice.

  Shahrazad looked away; the shadows cast a veil over her eyes. When she turned back, her gaze was level. “I’m not ashamed of loving him,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with loving someone. It’s hating—that’s what’s wrong.”

  Chapter 19

  The Secret Token

  LESSONS FOR LIFE AND STORYTELLING

  Often, in the old tales, the humblest creatures turn out to be more powerful than you ever would expect. A ewe will outwit a jackal, for instance. Or a mouse will save a lions life.

  This is not just a storyteller’s trick to make things interesting. Sometimes it really does happen.

  Later, after Shahrazad had left, I thought about what she had told me.

  The Sultan had nightmares, she had said. He called out in his sleep like a frightened child. I tried to picture that—the Sultan crying out in his sleep like a child.

  But I couldn’t feel sorry for him. What was there for him to fear, save for himself and his own dark deeds?

  Some things that people did were unforgivable. When they murdered innocent women and threatened to kill you if you weren’t entertaining enough. When they imprisoned you by magic in a shape not your own and tried to starve you. When they maimed you so that people would pity you for the rest of your life and no one would marry you.

  You couldn’t forgive those things. Shouldn’t.

  I thought about Shahrazad lying with the Sultan every night. With a monster. I had always admired her bravery, outwitting him in his own den. Saving her own life that way—and the lives of countless others. I had never thought. . . that she might love him.

  How could she love him? How could she ever love him?

  The room felt empty, now that she was gone. Even emptier than it had been before. My life felt empty. I would never see her again.

  I peeled my last orange and tried to block out everything except the pleasure of eating it. But my fears and sorrows and resentments kept tumbling around in my mind. My own future was as unseeable as whatever lay beyond the walls of this room. I longed to go back to Uncle Eli and Auntie Chava. But that was impossible. The Khatun could find me there and hurt me. Hurt them.

  If only I could believe that I had truly saved Shahrazad—or at least that she was better off now than before I had come. But I had put her in greater danger than ever by arousing the Khatun’s suspicions. And, though I had given her a few nights of stories, she would still have to find more. In time, she would go through all the new ones her father was bringing. Then what?

  Maybe, I thought, the Khatun would kill me after all. Then what would my short life have amounted to? I knelt down and prayed to Allah to save Shahrazad, to save me, to teach me how to live.

  * * *

  Abruptly, I awoke. A sound at the door. A rattling. I scrabbled about to collect the orange peels and candles and stuff them into my sash—ignoring the pangs in my ribs. Then I scooted back to crouch in the far corner of the room.

  More rattling. It was the Khatun—I knew it. Or one of her creatures. Shahrazad had not said when her mysterious friend would come to rescue me, and now the Khatun had made her move first!

  Still more rattling. It didn’t sound like a key. It didn’t scrape as the key had, when Soraya and Shahrazad had come.

  Now the door swung silently open. At first, I could see no one in the doorway, no one at all. Is this how the assassins came? Silently? Invisibly? So you never knew until too late?

  Then a voice—a small, timid voice.

  “Marjan?”

  I saw her then, in the weak light of the candle.

  “Mitra?” I asked.

  She rushed into the room. “Oh, Marjan, I was so scared. Dunyazad taught me how to pick a lock with a midak—they wouldn’t give me a key because it would get someone else in trouble. But then it wouldn’t open, and when it did, I couldn’t tell if it was you or someone else, it’s so dark in here, and—Your eye! Marjan, your eye!”

  I had forgotten about my eye, but now that I remembered, it ached.

  “Shh!” I said. “Mitra, are you the one they sent to get me out?”

  “Oh, here. I forgot.” She fumbled with something and then held out my comb. “It’s the secret token. So you know you can trust me.”

  Stifling a smile, I took the comb and slipped it into my hair.

  “And here. This, too,” she said. She handed me a long veil.

  I threw it on and, stopping to peer both ways, followed her into the hallway and shut the door softly behind.

  It was dark, so dark I could barely see Mitra. I groped with my feet down the stairs, clutched the cool metal railing with one hand. Quietly! I told myself. Don’t let your foot clunk. But now, a pale mist of silver moonlight sifted down around us, growing brighter as we moved into a courtyard.

  We skirted the shadowy edge of it and ducked into another dark hallway. So far, no sign of life. I had gone but a few steps into the hall when my foot thunked into a heavy planter and I let out a sharp moan of pain.

  A voice: “Who’s there?”

  “Hurry!” Mitra whispered. We rounded a corner into another hallway; Mitra ducked behind a curtain. I followed—just in time.

  The pad of bare feet in the hallway. “Who’s there? Show yourself!” A eunuch’s voice; I couldn’t tell whose. I stood huddling with Mitra, barely breathing, as the footsteps came closer, then moved slowly away.

  “The kitchen stairway’s over there,” Mitra whispered. I couldn’t see her, but she took my wrist and pointed it in the direction she meant. “Dunyazad said I’m supposed to tell you, ’Go to Zaynab.’ And I’m supposed to say that she will always be grateful.”

  I hugged Mitra. “I will always be grateful to you,” I said.

  Now I heard more eunuchs’ voices from a distance. I opened the curtain a crack, saw no one, then hurried down the dark hallway to the stairs. Just as I reached them, I heard voices coming near. I tiptoed up past the first bend, then stopped so as to make no noise.

  “Maybe it was just someone who couldn’t sleep,” one of the voices was saying.

  “I think there were two. I called for them to show themselves, but they wouldn’t.”

  A sigh. “We’d better find them. I’ll look—you check on the crippled girl. If she escapes, heads will roll.”

  I waited until I couldn’t hear them anymore, then crept up the curved staircase and started across the roof toward the welcoming glow in Zaynab’s pavilion. Above, a thousand bright stars pricked the sky; the moon had sunk low in the west. Dawn was not far off. Now Zaynab appeared in the doorway, haloed in light. She made for the edge of the terrace, gesturing for me to come.

  I moved quickly across the roof to a gap in the railing near the winch, where Zaynab now waited. A few pigeons, slumbering on the railing, fluttered and looked at us curiously. On the floor beside the winch sat a huge raffia basket with two handles. “Get in, my dear!” Zaynab whispered. “I’ll lower you to the street. Then go straight to the storyteller’s house.”

  “Do you know him?” I asked.

  She hesitated. “I think I knew him once—a long time ago. Now, into the basket. Hurry!”

  It was shallow, flimsy looking. The ground seemed far below. I stepped into the basket and sat down inside. I wouldn’t think about how frail it was, or how high off the ground. I wouldn’t think about the winch, that it was made to carry baskets full of pigeons—not people. I wouldn’t think about the streets—how perilous they were at night for a girl all alone. Those things didn’t matter. Nothing mattered—except getting away.

  Zaynab handed me a rolled-up piece of paper and a small, heavy sack. “The coins are for you,” she said. “From Shahrazad. The message is from me . . . to your storyteller.”

  “You . . . wrote it?” I asked.

  Zaynab nod
ded.

  Somehow, I had never imagined that she could write! I tucked paper and coins into my sash. Zaynab drew the basket handles together and slipped them through the hook at the end of the rope. “Allah keep all hateful things from you!” she said. Then she scooted the basket—with me in it—over the side of the roof.

  Falling. My stomach lurched up into my throat. The winch screeched; a shoal of startled pigeons, cooing and flapping, took flight. Then the rope caught with a jerk and dangled me an arm’s length below the edge of the roof.

  I could see Zaynab’s head and shoulders pumping as she turned the crank. The winch creaked ominously; the basket began to go down. I gazed up into Zaynab’s face—memorizing it—until she disappeared behind the lip of the roof.

  The rope twisted and squeaked, turning me to face the dark palace walls, then the city, then the walls again. I wrapped my veil close around me. The first blush of daylight softened the eastern horizon, limning the faint outlines of domes and minarets. Away in the distance, the dark green hills hunched against the sky. A feather floated past; I watched it rock down into the shadowed street that rose up to meet me.

  A shout from above. A scream. The basket plunged toward the ground—my stomach leaped up again—then the basket jerked to a swaying halt. When I looked up, I saw a eunuch peering down over the edge of the roof.

  More shouting. The basket began to rise. I looked down at the street. I could jump from here—maybe—but I would have to do it now. I scooted to one end of the basket, flattening my body so that I could slip beneath the handles, then hung both feet over the edge. The basket tipped and I was sliding, sliding out. At the last moment I panicked and tried to grab hold of the handles, but my hand slipped.

  I fell.

  My feet hit the ground so hard, they stung. My knees buckled, slammed against stone. I toppled forward, banging an elbow, scraping my hands. Pain gripped my rib cage; for a moment I couldn’t breathe. The sack burst open and coins were ringing on the cobblestones, rolling in all directions.