Great was the fear Shahrayar’s people had for him. It was whispered that he was dabbling in black magic, consulting strange and mystical signs. But when at last Shahrayar came down from the tower, the people knew a new fear—and this fear was for themselves.
For the king was as a stranger. Never had they looked upon his like before. The fact that in outward form and body he still resembled Shahrayar meant nothing. For his heart had altered so irretrievably that none could recognize it. And in this way … it had been turned to stone.
For all the days and nights he remained in the tower, Shahrayar had grappled with his wife’s final words. They had been as a curse upon him, eating away like a cancer in his soul. For after so great and unexpected a betrayal, Shahrayar could find no way to believe it was possible to find a woman who would see his heart truly and so come to know it, yet be unafraid to have her own heart seen and known.
For even though she had deceived him in all else, in this Shahrayar perceived that his wife had spoken truly: Treachery could hide where it was least expected, even in the heart of the one he loved and trusted most.
And, so, at the last, Shahrayar could find but one solution: He determined to set love and trust aside. In this way only could he be secure. And so he cast them from his heart. And as he did, he felt a pain so great that for many days and nights he lay senseless, as if dead, upon the tower floor. Then the day came when Shahrayar awoke and found the pain had left him. Now he felt nothing at all. He had become as the stones beneath him: Hard. Unyielding. Cold.
So he rose from the floor, and descended from the tower, and set about ruling his kingdom once more.
And now, at last, we come to Shahrazad.
Shahrayar’s first act upon descending from the tower was to send for the vizier. He stayed locked in chambers with him for many hours. At the end of this time, the vizier went forth and issued a proclamation in the king’s name. Copies were made and sent throughout the kingdom so that, even in the farthest reaches of his land, Shahrayar’s will might be known.
Now, I have told you that the vizier had served both Shahrayar and Shahrayar’s father before him. The days of the vizier’s youth were long over, yet never had he seemed old. His mind and body were still strong and vigorous. But as he stood upon the great steps of the palace, the vizier’s hand shook as it held the king’s proclamation. And those who heard him noted that his voice trembled as he read it aloud.
“Hear now the word of your king,” the vizier proclaimed. “Dire plots have been laid against him, as you all know. He could forswear the company of women forever. But, as he is both king and man, it is right and fitting that he have a wife. Learn, then, how your king will marry and yet shield himself from harm.
“Once a month, at the full of the moon, will King Shahrayar take a maiden for a wife. But, lest she plot against him as one before her has, she will be his wife for one night only. On the morning following the wedding night, she will lose her life. This course will King Shahrayar follow each month for as long as his reign lasts, save for this thing only:
“If a maiden will come forward to wed him of her own free will, she alone will know the direst consequence. All those who follow her will be only close confined. They may keep their lives, but give up the outside world forever.
“All this shall be as I have proclaimed, for it is the will of King Shahrayar.”
With this, the vizier finished speaking, rolled up the proclamation bearing the great seal of the king, and vanished back inside the walls of the palace. No sooner had he done so than the love Shahrayar’s people bore him began to turn to hate. For who among them would wish such a fate upon one of their daughters? How could they honor a king who exacted such a terrible price upon his subjects? The span of time it had taken the vizier to proclaim Shahrayar’s will: That was how long it took for his people to turn against him and his once well-ordered kingdom to begin a descent into chaos.
As the days to the full moon drew to a close and no maiden came forward, despair spread throughout the land like a thick and choking fog. People retreated inside their homes and barred their doors, even to those they loved the most. The camels of the great trade caravans became so cranky they refused to travel. Commerce and trade came to a halt—even in far away Samarkand. Shazaman sent an urgent message to his brother, urging him to bend his will to another course and set aside what now he must surely acknowledge as madness.
Shahrayar climbed his tower, tore the message into a thousand pieces, and scattered it like leaves from the tower walls.
Finally, the night before the full moon arrived. On that night, Shahrazad left her apartments, made her way to the rooms of her father, prostrated herself before him and said, “I would beg a boon of you, my father.”
Glad for the distraction, the vizier turned from his balcony where he had been watching the moon on its journey through the sky. Never had he known his daughter to ask an unreasonable thing. The truth was, she rarely asked for anything at all. So he crossed the room without hesitation, raised her to her feet, and answered, “Whatever your heart desires that I may grant is yours, my Shahrazad.”
“Do you swear this will be so even before you hear it?” asked Shahrazad.
Though she could not see it, the vizier cocked an eyebrow. Rarely was his eldest daughter so forceful. It was young Dinarzad, still a child, who made demands.
“I do so swear,” he told her.
“Then, hear me, Father,” said Shahrazad. “First know that above all things else, I love and honor you. What I shall ask of you will be a difficult thing for you to bear. The boon I would have is that you present me to the king as his bride-to-be tomorrow. I ask this of my own free will, and you must grant it, for so you did swear.”
Now, when the vizier heard his daughter’s request, great was his horror! Never in his wildest dreams would he have believed that Shahrazad would ask such a thing.
“Have you taken leave of your senses?!” he exclaimed. “Think what you ask!”
“My father,” Shahrazad answered steadily, “I have. Do you think I would ask such a thing lightly?”
The vizier began to pace around the room, his long robes swirling about him. So great was his distress that all signs of age left him, and he was as a young man once more.
“I wish you had not asked it at all! Aside from your mother’s death, my greatest pain has been that my own people did not embrace you and Maju in their hearts. Why sacrifice yourself to save them now?”
Shahrazad tilted her head to one side, listening until she heard her father’s pacing footsteps bring him once more near her Then she reached out and seized him by the arm.
“Be still, Father,” she said. “And be comforted. For this task, while it seems hopeless, is the one for which I was born.”
All of a sudden the vizier’s agitation left him. Once more, he felt old. Older than when he had seen Maju lowered into her grave. Older even than when he had read King Shahrayar’s proclamation to the people and seen fear replace love in their eyes.
“How can this be?” he asked. “I do not understand you, Shahrazad.”
Shahrazad heard the pain and weariness in her father’s voice. Her heart was struck with sorrow, though she did not let it weaken her resolve. She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm.
“Come, Father,” she said. “Guide me to a seat and then sit down beside me, and I will tell you of my last hours with Maju the Storyteller, whom we both loved.”
So the vizier did as Shahrazad asked, and Shahrazad revealed to him all that Maju had told her before she died.
“Do you not remember, my father, that it was foretold at her own birth that Maju would come to bear the greatest of all the drabardi, the storytellers?”
“I remember,” answered the vizier.
“I am Maju’s only child,” Shahrazad continued. “Therefore, I must be that storyteller.”
“How many stories can you tell,” her father interrupted swiftly, “if you die the day after tomorrow?”
He thought his argument was good. But to his amazement, Shahrazad simply smiled and said, “Come now, Father, where is your faith in me?”
“It is not a matter of my faith in you, but in Shahrayar,” the vizier replied. “I have searched for that faith for many days now, but, alas, I can find it no longer. I fear that it is gone.”
“Then it is fortunate that I look with different eyes than yours,” said Shahrazad. “Though they are blind, my eyes see things no other eyes can, for that is the true skill of the drabardi.”
“So your mother always told me,” admitted the vizier. “But what will you hope to see when you turn your eyes on Shahrayar?”
“That which must be seen, or all is lost—his heart.”
At his daughter’s words, the vizier rose abruptly. “Since the queen’s betrayal and his sojourn in the tower, Shahrayar’s heart is made of such stuff as I can hardly bear to think upon.”
“Yet someone must,” said Shahrazad. “For it is not merely Shahrayar, but also his kingdom which is sick at heart. Who is to say what will befall us all if the king’s heart goes unknown?”
“But it is he who should know it, as all men must,” protested the vizier.
“That is so,” agreed Shahrazad. “But did not you tell me the queen, his betrayer, died claiming he would know no peace until another should see his heart and know it, and have her own heart seen and known?”
“I did,” answered her father. “For so Shazaman told me.”
“Then think, Father!” urged Shahrazad. “What torment such words must have wrought in Shahrayar’s soul! Think what pain he must have endured to have cast from his heart the wise and just teachings of his father, whom he loved and honored above all. If Shahrayar no longer knows himself, then another must come to know him and lead him back to the place where he belongs.”
“Perhaps,” acknowledged the vizier reluctantly. “But I still don’t see why that someone has to be you.”
“Because it is for this that I was born,” said Shahrazad. “At my birth, Maju told my fortune in the way of her people: By my skill as a storyteller, the heart of a great nation will be lost or won. That is why my skill must be greater than any drabardi who has come before me—even that of Maju herself. For of whose heart does the prophecy speak, if not of Shahrayar’s?”
The vizier resumed his pacing. The fact that his daughter’s words made sense brought no comfort to him. That she had kept the knowledge of her fate to herself for so many years troubled him greatly. She was so young, yet she had borne the burden of her destiny for all these years, alone.
“No!” he burst out. “I’m sorry, Shahrazad. But my heart cannot allow you to do this. What does it matter if I am forsworn? I am old, and it’s plain I am of no use to Shahrayar. Nothing I could say would sway him from his terrible course. I’ll pack you and Dinarzad up, and we’ll move far away. Others have done so. Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because you know it would be wrong. No one can out-travel destiny, Father.”
“Maybe not,” the vizier snorted, “But to save you from throwing away your life, I can certainly try.”
“So you will not grant me the boon I ask,” Shahrazad asked after a short silence.
“No,” her father said, his voice as full of certainty as he could make it, “I’m sorry, Shahrazad, but I will not.”
“Then perhaps you will grant me a different one,” suggested Shahrazad, “Will you go to my rooms, to where Maju’s chest rests beneath my windows, open it, and bring me the length of cloth that you find?”
The vizier opened his mouth to deny this, too. Then he closed it. Standing perfectly still, he gazed into his daughter’s dark and sightless eyes. At what he saw there, the vizier realized that even if he argued with her all night and all through the following day, even if he was still arguing as the words of the marriage ceremony were actually being spoken, Shahrazad would never be turned aside from the course that she had chosen. Her will was set. She had made up her mind.
And the vizier realized too that she was much like her mother in this. And much like Shahrayar, also. And so the vizier came at last to the place he suddenly suspected his daughter had wished to lead him all along: He saw the truth of the way things were.
If anyone could come to know the heart of the king when even he had ceased to do so, it would be Shahrazad.
The vizier sighed. “Save your breath, my daughter,” he told Shahrazad. “Though my heart is filled with misgiving, I will grant this terrible thing that you require. Tomorrow night, just as the moon rises, I will take you to Shahrayar and present you as his bride. And may God have mercy upon us all.”
Shahrazad rose and threw her arms around him. “I pray that he may do so. Now, come, my father. Between now and then there is much I will make clear to you. But first I must speak with Dinarzad.”
“Dinarzad!” the vizier exclaimed, surprised. “What can she do? She is just a child.”
“Much, if she will do exactly as I ask,” Shahrazad answered. “Walk with me, and I will tell you all.”
Five
IN WHICH THE VIZIER TAKES A CHANCE
And so, at last the day came that King Shahrayar had appointed—the day when he would take a wife once more. On that day, he arose early, as was his custom. Though the truth was, there was hardly any purpose in his going to bed at all. Ever since the night his first queen had died by her own hand and, thus dying, had pronounced his doom, Shahrayar had hardly closed his eyes. The images he saw when he did so gave him no rest. No peace. In this, he was like his brother Shazaman had been before him.
For several hours Shahrayar went about his duties, as if this was simply a day like any other, trying to ignore the way his servants looked at him without looking—out of the corners of their eyes. But just as the sun reached its zenith, Shahrayar grew restless. He set his work aside. Gathering his robes around him, he roamed the halls of his great palace, paying no heed to the way courtiers scuttled swiftly out of the way. No attention to where he was going.
He passed through halls of stone as dark as midnight, and halls as white as a scorching noonday sky. Halls as green as the limbs of cedar trees. As golden as the sand that stretched around the palace for countless miles. But Shahrayar’s eyes saw none of these things, for they were focused inward on the landscape he had made within himself on the nights after his wife died.
At length, Shahrayar discovered that his ramblings had made him weary. He gazed about and found his wandering steps had taken him to a small courtyard. In one corner splashed a fountain. Drawing near, Shahrayar saw that the pool was tiled with stones so blue that looking down into the water was the same as looking up into the sky.
At the sight of this place he felt old memories burst into life within him the way flowers will appear at an oasis in springtime. So Shahrayar seated himself at the pool’s edge—in the shade of a pomegranate tree that arched out above the water. He leaned back, looking up into the branches, and trailed his fingers in the pool. The water was as clear and bright as the surface of a mirror, but not once did Shahrayar look into it. For it came to him as he sat that his own face had become a thing he had no wish to look upon.
And thus it was that the vizier found him.
When the vizier saw Shahrayar seated by the pool that Shahrazad had loved, a very long time ago it seemed now, he was surprised to feel his spirit lighten. Into his heart, which all night had grieved and was even now afraid for the fate which would befall his daughter should she fail in her endeavors, he felt a small, bright surge of hope. The first hope he had known since he had read Shahrayar’s proclamation and understood how far the young man he loved and honored had traveled away from his true self.
Perhaps, the vizier thought, all might yet be well. For perhaps the king and Shahrazad were bound together in ways he himself could not fathom, but could hope that his daughter might. So, with his fine kidskin slippers making no more than a whisper across the cobblestones, the vizier moved to King Shahrayar and bowed low.
For many moments, Shahrayar did not acknowledge the vizier in any way, instead continuing to sit gazing upward and trailing his fingers in the water. But at last, he withdrew his hand and dried it on his pant leg, caring nothing for the way the water stained the silk. He made a gesture for the vizier to rise.
“Well?” Shahrayar said softly.
At the sound of the king’s voice, the vizier felt a shiver ripple across the surface of his skin, the way a wind will make smooth water ridge and pucker. I am a fool to hope, he thought. How can there be hope when he sounds so cold?
“My lord, I bring great news,” he said, once more bowing low. “A maiden has come forward of her own free will and asks that you accept her as your bride.”
At this news, Shahrayar sat up straight. “Who is she? What is her name?” he demanded brusquely.
“She did not speak her name,” the vizier answered, glad that he could do so honestly. There was no reason for Shahrayar to know that the reason the maiden hadn’t spoken her name was that she had no need to—for the vizier knew it as well as his own.
“You would present me with a bride when you do not know her name?” Shahrayar asked, sarcasm dripping from his voice like honey from a knife.
The vizier knit his brow, as if in confusion, though his heart had begun to pound in fast, hard strokes. If Shahrayar learned his bride’s identity too soon, all would be lost. Thus the vizier had told Shahrazad as they made their plans the night before. And so they had decided how the vizier would speak upon this matter, and on his speaking, all their hopes might rise or fall.
“What difference does her name make, sire?” the vizier asked, his tone perplexed and querulous in the manner he and Shahrazad had agreed upon. “Will not one maiden serve your purpose as well as any other?”
Shahrayar shot to his feet, the color in his face high. Though the king’s expression was frightful, at the sight of it the vizier felt a surge of hope for a second time.
For until his queen’s betrayal, Shahrayar had always been as true in his dealings with women as he was with men. Never viewing them as interchangeable, but seeking always to see each for herself alone. And so the vizier found the king’s anger pleasing, for, in this, he seemed more like he had been before.
The Storyteller's Daughter Page 4
