Shadow Spinner (19 page)

“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—Well, 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.”

L
ater, 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 nodded.

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.

Up on the roof, a eunuch was shouting, pointing down at me.

An answering shout on the street. Someone was coming.

I tried to sweep the coins back into the sack, but my hands were clumsy and stiff. I looked back and saw two helmeted men sprinting toward me. Palace guards. I clutched my veil and ran, too numbed by fear to mourn for my lost fortune or count my injuries. Voices, coming near. I cut into a narrow alley and pressed myself into an alcove by a gate. My heart hammered in my chest; my breath came in ragged gasps. In the street beyond the alley, I saw them running past. I listened until the footfalls grew faint, then fled down the alley.

Now I awoke again to the pain. My left elbow throbbed, my hands and knees burned, my good foot tingled from the impact, and my bad foot had shooting pains.

No matter.
Run.

If I had been near Auntie Chava and Uncle Eli's house, I would have known which alleys went through to other streets and which ones ended in walls. I would have known shortcuts and back ways to get from here to there. But this part of the city was strange to me. I knew from where the sky grew light that I had come down the eastern face of the palace. And I remembered that the bazaar lay to the south.

So if I went far enough south—to the left—I would come to it. From there, I could find the storytellers house.

Voices. I ducked into another alley, pressed myself into a niche in the wall until the voices had passed. Then I was off again.

From time to time, I heard them, the voices. When they sounded near, I swerved into doorways or niches or alleys. Once, I tripped over a beggar sleeping in the street; he twitched and moaned. Another time, I saw three men lurking on a street corner. I stopped, backed away silently, cut into the nearest alley, and
ran.
I didn't know which to fear most—the palace guards or the thieves and cutthroats who prowled the streets at night.