by Tom Holland
And so it continued for the length of a year. To Haroun all this time seemed a single day, for he found himself ever more in love with the girl, nor had he ever known such passion before. Yet still he treated her with every tenderness, as though she were a blessing sent to him from Heaven, not to be touched and taken by force but cherished like a flame that might otherwise be snuffed out. She, though, remained as silent as ever through all these months; nor, when darkness fell, would she even stay beside Haroun, but would gaze from a window at the stars of the night, for it appeared that the sight of them could never weary her.
Then it happened one evening that Haroun discovered her standing on the roof of his house, staring across the city towards the western desert, where the moonlight fell silver on the ripples of the sand. So lovely did she seem, and yet so touched by regret, that Haroun thought his heart would break for love. ‘O my heart’s desire,’ he cried, ‘you are dearer to me than my very life! If you will never love me in return, then let me know, so that I may at least give up hope. Otherwise, my lady, speak to me, for I would surrender my very chance of Paradise for you!’
And when the girl heard this, she smiled suddenly and turned to Haroun, stroking his cheeks with her slender fingers, before kissing him softly. Then she led him to his room, and tended him gently as she made him lie down on his bed. There she did what no woman had ever done before, and laid herself upon him, but Haroun did not complain, nor seek to alter his position; for even as she ministered to him, he felt himself lost in a flame of rapture such as the Faithful are promised shall be theirs after death. And then, when all was done and she had anointed the length of his body with her kisses, she gazed into his face and smiled once again.
‘O most kind and generous of men,’ she said, ‘may you be granted long life and your every wish.’
Haroun gazed up at her in wonder, for her voice was as enchanting as the beauty of her face, and yet he knew that he had heard it once before within his dream. ‘O my heart’s delight,’ he asked her, ‘tell me what you are, and where you come from, for you seem like a miracle sent to me from Heaven.’
‘O my lord,’ she answered, rising from his bed, ‘I will tell you who I am. My name is Leila, and I am the princess of a strange and distant land.’ She crossed to the window, where she pointed to the stars. ‘Once I dwelt upon the breath of the air, for my people, you should know, rule the wide realm of the skies.’
‘That is a great wonder!’ exclaimed Haroun, as he crossed to join her and gazed up at the stars. ‘But how is it possible for your people to live there without plunging to their deaths?’
‘O my master,’ she answered, ‘we can live in the sky just as you can live on land. All things are possible to those who know how.’
‘Truly,’ Haroun mused, ‘the greatness and power of Allah have no limits! But why did you not tell me this immediately? For you know how I have loved you, and yet for a year you did not speak.’
At this a single tear welled and hung upon her lashes. ‘Forgive me,’ she answered, brushing it away, ‘but I am a slave and an exile in a foreign land.’
Haroun embraced her, and kissed her on the brow. ‘You are not a slave, but the mistress of this house.’
She smiled as he said this, and reached up to kiss him. ‘Do you think I would have stayed here a single hour,’ she asked, ‘if you had failed to care for me with such tenderness and love? And now, O best of men, you have been granted your reward, for you should know that since this evening I have been carrying your child.’
‘O my lady, O my love,’ cried Haroun in joy, ‘let Allah be praised! For now I see how my dream spoke the truth, granting me a blessing which I had never thought to see.’ But then he paused, and reached to take Leila by her hand. ‘But how can I know, if you come from the stars, that you will not attempt to return there again?’
Leila smiled sadly. ‘I have strayed so far from the realms of my own people that I doubt I will ever be able to return.’
‘Then you will remain in my house, and live as my wife?’
She turned to meet his stare. For a moment Haroun felt a shiver of dread, for the blackness of Leila’s eyes seemed suddenly very cold, inky like the night-time skies from which she came. ‘Upon a single condition,’ she whispered at last.
‘To say it is to command me.’
Still the depths of her stare remained like ice, until her ruby lips curved into a slow and tender smile. ‘That you continue to love me more than all the world.’
He laughed. ‘That is an easy enough condition, then!’
But even as he said this, and reached to embrace her, she pressed herself against him and clasped him by his cheeks. ‘Swear it,’ she hissed. ‘For I tell you again -- should you ever love anything more than you love me, then at that same moment, O my husband, I will leave.’
So tightly she gripped him that Haroun felt a sudden spurt of blood from the gouging of her nails. For a moment the pain discomforted him, and he thought to himself what a mystery it was, that a girl so silent for the length of a year should now seem so violent and urgent in her passions. But then he gazed into her face again, and at once all his doubts and hesitations died away, and he raised a silent prayer of thanks for such a blessing. ‘I swear it,’ he whispered, ‘I will always love you. For now’ -- he kissed her -- ‘for now, and evermore.’
So it was that Haroun lived with Leila, his beloved, in great contentment, and when nine months were past he became the father of a child, a little girl; and he gave to his daughter the name of Haidee. And from the first day of her life she was full of joy and grace, and Haroun, who had despaired of ever becoming a father, welcomed her just as a man lost in the desert, watching the vultures start to gather above his head, might welcome his first, unexpected glimpse of water - for there is nothing more precious than a blessing unforeseen.
So several years passed, and Haidee grew in beauty and charm, and she became ever more the jewel at the heart of Haroun’s life. He thought that his happiness would be without end -- for even as his joy in Haidee grew, so also did the pleasure that he took in his wife. Leila’s freshness, unlike that of the rose, seemed immune to the tide and the passage of the seasons; so much so that at last Haroun, baffled by the mystery, asked her to explain her enduring bloom. But she smiled and shook her head, and would only answer, with a glance towards the stars, how there might be islands even in the ceaseless flow of time. When Haroun tried to press her, however, she grew silent and would say nothing more; and he noticed, from that time on, how she withdrew herself from him. Her stare grew colder too, and he would sometimes observe, as he sat with their child, that she would be watching him from a distance - her eyes half-hooded, but sparkling bright like jewels. At other times she would vanish altogether, and Haroun would find her at length as he had often done before, during the year when she had spoken not a word, standing upon a balcony and gazing out into the night.
Then it happened one evening, when Leila had been absent for a couple of days, that Haroun was called to his neighbour’s house where a servant had fallen sick with an unknown disease. Haroun was not surprised to hear this, for Cairo at the time was vile with the stench and heat of summer. The southern winds were blowing sand through the streets, maddening the dogs and drying the filth into poisonous dust, and Haroun knew all too well how strange pestilences, bred upon the sleepless, burning air, could spread across the city with the deadliest of ease. But the moment he arrived at his neighbour’s house and was shown where the invalid lay delirious and pale, Haroun knew that he had seen the illness once before. He knelt beside the servant and pulled back a sheet. Across the man’s sweating chest there stretched a still-bleeding scar.
Haroun did his best to ease the wretch’s suffering, but he knew that he had nothing which would serve as an antidote. He did not stay long, and when he returned home he sought out his wife. He found her in her private quarters, rocking a sleeping Haidee in her arms.
‘What was the secret,’ he asked her, ‘of th
e potion I prepared on that first day when I met you?’
Leila met his stare unblinkingly. ‘I do not know what you mean.’
‘You know full well.’ Haroun crossed to his wife. He felt his anger boiling up inside him, and he opened his mouth again to demand that she tell him the secret.
But Leila stilled his fury with a single smile. ‘Tell me, O my dearest,’ she asked, easing Haidee’s head from her lap, ‘do you not remember your oath?’ She rose to her feet and clasped him tightly, so that he felt himself enfolded in the tresses of her hair. Then she reached up on her toes to whisper in his ear: ‘Do you not love me more than all the world?’
She kissed him, and as she did so Haroun felt the final embers of his anger fade away, and he thought once again, as he met her parted lips, how he had no greater blessing and joy in his life. ‘More than all the world,’ he whispered. ‘More than Paradise itself And so he pressed her no further; and all his fears and doubts were laid to rest upon her kisses. And that same night, his pleasure with his wife was very great.
But the next day, when he called upon his neighbour, it was to find that the servant’s condition had grown worse. As Haroun bent down to inspect him he was shocked to discover, still damp upon the man’s chest, a second violent scar.
Again Haroun sought to comfort the wretch as well as he was able, but he had little success; and so once more he returned in perturbation to his wife. As before, he found her with Haidee asleep upon her lap.
‘Where were you,’ he demanded, ‘last night?’
She smiled up at him. ‘Do you really need to be reminded, O my love?’
‘But afterwards, I slept so deeply and so well that it was as though I had been drugged with mandragora. Where were you then? Asleep by my side -- or abroad, O my Wife, upon the poisonous winds of the night?’
And again he felt his rage boiling up within him; but again Leila stilled it with a single smile, and she reached up to embrace him and fold him in her arms. And again, she kissed him and whispered in his ear, ‘Do you not love me more than all the world?’
And again Haroun was silenced; and he said nothing more.
But the next day the same events occurred, save that this time, when Haroun called upon his neighbour, it was to discover the servant lying dead upon the floor; and indeed the corpse already seemed a skeleton, for its flesh had been picked away from its bones. And when Haroun saw this, he shuddered and offered up a prayer to Allah; and then he hurried from the house and returned to his wife.
He found her as he had done the past two days, sitting with Haidee asleep upon her lap. Haroun gazed at them in silence a moment, and as he did so, he could feel his dread start to fade before the bright flame of his love. But he clenched his fists tightly, then crossed to Leila and sat down by her side.
He gazed into her face, into the fathomless beauty of her black, silk-lashed eyes. ‘What are you,’ he whispered, ‘what nature of thing?’
‘Why,’ she smiled back, ‘your wife, O my love.’
But Haroun shook his head. ‘Do not lie to me. You have said that you come from a kingdom in the skies, and I believed you’ - he shrugged - ‘for I have seen and heard many strange things in my life. But I believe you no longer.’
‘Then what’ - she smiled more faintly - ‘do you think that I can be?’
Haroun shuddered, both with terror and with the force of his desire. ‘I fear,’ he whispered softly, ‘that you are one of those Jinn who were flung down from Heaven, and who have never bowed their heads before Allah. And if that should truly be the case’ -- he glanced down at his daughter, and softly stroked her cheek - ‘then I dread to think what your purposes may be.’
‘No purpose,’ Leila whispered back, ‘save to love you, as I told you, until you cease to love me.’
Both gazed in silence at the other. Then at last Haroun moaned, and shook his head. ‘How can I believe you?’ he whispered. ‘For Leila, O my beloved -- how I long to believe!’
Her ruby smile faded. ‘Let me give you this,’ she murmured after a lengthy pause. So saying, she slipped a golden ring from her finger; she kissed it briefly, then passed it across to him.
Haroun inspected it in puzzlement. The ring was not plain but decorated with an image of the disk of the sun, beneath which were the outlines of two figures on their knees. ‘What is this thing?’ he asked.
‘It possesses this magic, O my dearest,’ Leila replied, ‘that whosoever wears it shall always be guarded by the power of my love.’
Then she reached up to embrace him. Haroun sought to brush her aside and rise to his feet, but even though he struggled, his efforts were very faint. He felt her perfumed breath fall softly upon his cheek; and then he moaned, and sat back, and reached for her kiss.
Leila smiled once again. After a lengthy while, she broke from his lips and whispered in his ear, ‘Do you not love me more than all the world?’
Haroun gazed for a moment upon the image on the ring. ‘More than life itself he whispered at last. He slipped on the ring. ‘Allah have mercy -- more than life itself
From that time on, when people came to him with the news of a strange sickness, marked by an oozing scar upon the chest, Haroun would tell them that he could do nothing to help. Such news, that the famous physician was powerless to combat the mysterious disease, only added to the terror which it was beginning to inspire, for rumours, like the garbage on the wind, were gusting and swirling through the streets of the city. Some claimed that the sickness was not a sickness at all, but the mark of the anger of a terrible jinni who came upon the breezes, and whose lips brought death. Some claimed to have seen a black figure, shrouded behind a veil, by the beds of those who would then fall sick; some claimed to have seen the black veil fall and glimpsed, just for a moment, glittering eyes, deep and very lovely but deathly like poison. There was a Jew who had lately sickened and died, and his wife said that she had seen a figure upon his chest the very night he had fallen ill. ‘Lilith,’ she had wailed, ‘Lilith is come!’ Now the same cry had spread far beyond the Jewish quarter, and there was not a household in Cairo which had not learned to dread the nights.
Throughout the spell of this panic, however, Haroun still kept away from the sick, nor did he answer the appeals of those who sought him out. Instead, he kept himself immured with his wife and his daughter, playing with Haidee and reading books with her, and seeking to teach her all that he could, so that she would be instilled with his own sense of wonder at the world. And each evening, Leila would come to him and fold her arms about his neck, and then she would whisper in his ear, ‘Do you not love me more than all the world?’ And always he would answer, ‘Yes’; and each night, after an ecstasy of pleasure, he would sink into deep and dreamless slumber.
Then it happened one evening, as Haroun was sitting with Haidee, that his servant announced a messenger arrived from the Caliph, and when Haroun looked up, he saw it was Masoud. You must come at once,’ the blackamoor said. ‘The Princess Sitt al-Mulq has fallen sick, and the Commander of the Faithful is frantic with despair.’
‘What are the symptoms of the Princess’s fever?’
‘She is very pale, with terrible dreams -- and across her breast is a bleeding scar.’
Haroun felt a tightening across his chest. ‘I cannot help her.’
‘The Caliph commands it.’
‘Yet as I have said -- I cannot help.’
The blackamoor glanced at Haidee. ‘It is never wise,’ he whispered, ‘to refuse the Caliph’s wishes. If you know what is best for you and for those you love’ - he paused to bare his teeth in a hideous grin -- ‘then you will come with me at once.’
Haroun sat still a moment more, oppressed by dread and uncertainty, then kissed his daughter upon her brow and rose to accompany Masoud to the Palace. When he arrived there, he found the Caliph by the bedside of the Princess Sitt al-Mulq. A single glance was sufficient to confirm his worst fears, but nevertheless, although he knew it would serve little purpose, he did his bes
t to ease the Princess’s pain.
Despite his efforts, however, she continued to moan and the Caliph, watching her, suddenly thrust Haroun aside and clasped her tightly in his arms. ‘Why do you not heal her?’ he cried out, stroking the side of her breast with his fingers and gazing down in horror at the bleeding scar. ‘I am helpless, O Prince.’
‘You cannot be! You are the wisest physician in the whole of Cairo!’
‘I can give her this potion, which may help her to sleep.’
‘Do it,’ the Caliph ordered. ‘And the next day, come without fail, and bring with you a cure. Or else, O Physician . . .’ - he drew his knife -- ‘or else . . .’
Haroun returned to his house with a heavy heart. Leila was nowhere to be seen, nor did she reappear all that long night. Haroun passed it instead in watch upon his daughter, and when Masoud arrived the next morning he gazed upon Haidee as though he might never see her face again. But Masoud grinned horribly and, crossing to the girl, picked her up and placed her on his shoulders. Haroun sought to protest, but Masoud shook his head. And so father and daughter went together to the Palace.
Once arrived in the Princess’s sick-room, Haroun saw at once that her condition had worsened. A second scar had appeared across her breast, and she was waving her arms as though to ward away a phantom. The Caliph, sitting beside her, gazed up at Haroun with hatred in his eyes. ‘Why has my sister not recovered?’ he hissed. You swore she would be cured.’
