Shadow Spinner (23 page)

“Gracious mother,” the Sultan said. “You have done all of those things. For that, I will honor you forever. But now . . .” He looked about the room. “I need to hear one more story. From Shahrazad. Just the two of us, alone. So leave me now—all of you.”

“But what will you do about
them?”
the Khatun demanded, pointing at me, then the storyteller, then the eunuch.

The Sultan looked at us as if he had forgotten us completely. “Oh,” he said. “Well, they've all conspired to deceive me. Guards, take them to the dungeon. Lock them up.”

T
he guards herded us down a long, narrow flight of stairs to a hallway lined with wooden doors. About halfway down the hall, they unlocked one and shoved me into a dark cell. I heard the key grate in the lock, then footfalls, then the clunk of another door. At first I thought I was alone.

In the shaft of dusty sunlight that streamed in through a high, small window, I could see iron rings mounted on the stone walls. The floors were also of stone—rough and uneven, full of sand and dirt. It stank.

In a corner of the cell, the shadows clotted into a solid form: a woman rising slowly to her feet.

“Marjan? I thought you got away. Oh, my dear!”

Zaynab!

I ran to her; she held me in her arms. She smelled of feathers, a dusty, comfortable smell. “Did they hurt you?” I asked.

“Oh, it did hurt. But it's stopped hurting now.”

“Well, you can tell them anything they want to know. Just
tell
them, so they won't hurt you. I told the Sultan everything this morning. Except about Dunyazad. We can't tell about her.” I related what had happened since I had left the palace—how I found the storyteller and discovered that he was both the old vizier and Abu Muslem. How Farah had told me about my mother. How I'd left her and couldn't find the storyteller, so I'd come back and told my story to the Sultan.

“Did he believe you?” Zaynab asked. “Is he going to pardon Shahrazad?”

“I don't know. I thought so, for a moment. He said he's going to talk to her alone. But then he sent me and
the storyteller and the chief harem eunuch down here. Because we deceived him.”

“He said that?
Deceived?”

I nodded.

Zaynab closed her eyes, shaking her head.

“I hope I haven't. . . Oh, if I've sent her to her death—”

“Don't think that, my dear! You haven't! Of course you haven't.”

“When do you think we'll know?” I said. “About what will happen . . . after he talks to Shahrazad?”

Zaynab sighed. “I don't know. Maybe not till morning. That's when they used to announce a new wife. We'll hear the bells.”

“And if we hear nothing—”

“That will be good news.”

The day crawled past. We waited. Listened. A eunuch came, bringing food and sharbat, but he refused to answer our questions. Still, “Sharbat!” Zaynab said wonderingly. “This is the first I've had sharbat in this cell.”

I asked her some things I had been wondering about the storyteller. She told me that they had worked together when she was the governor of the messenger pigeons and he was vizier. They had not been friends, exactly, but there had been respect between them. After he had been banished, the vizier and Zaynab had corresponded several times by carrier pigeon until the Sultan replaced Zaynab for a short time with a man. “It ended there,” she said. “I never heard from him again. I never knew that he was Abu Muslem, until he told me in his messages after you delivered him the birds.”

“But he must have liked you,” I said, remembering
what the Sultan had said about romance. “Or he wouldn't have risked his life trying to rescue you.”

“Rescue?” She blinked at me, puzzled.

“You didn't know? He was in the room when I told the story. Bound and gagged, with the gold-clad eunuch.” Who must have been the inside helper, I thought.
Not
the soft-faced one. “They're down here, too, locked up.”

Zaynab looked sad and thoughtful. “Maybe he thought that if you and I were gone, there would be no one to tell what Shahrazad had done. Maybe he trusted that she would be clever enough to get herself out of trouble, as long as there were no witnesses.”

Or maybe he liked you,
I thought.

Late in the afternoon came the sounds we had been dreading. Bells.

I sat stricken, numb with dread.

“Wait,” Zaynab said. “Listen.”

In the distance, I heard the faint call of a crier. There was news.

“They don't usually have a crier for a new wife,” Zaynab said. “It might be something else.”

The crier's voice drew nearer, until—finally!—I could understand:

“His Royal Magnificence, Shahryar, wishes to invite all of his subjects to the celebration of his marriage to his beloved queen, Shahrazad.”

*  *  *  

Later, Zaynab and I wished that we had listened to the rest of the message. It had gone on, but we were so full of joy and dancing that we hadn't heard a word.

Celebration of his marriage.
They had never celebrated their marriage. Back then, nearly three years ago, the Sultan
had been marrying a new wife every night and there hadn't been time for celebration. But now . . . a belated celebration. That was good. It sounded . . . permanent.

I pictured in my mind what would happen when Shahrazad came to get us. We would kneel before her, but she would raise us up, embracing us, thanking us profusely. She would lead us in a jubilant procession to the Sultan, who would thank us gravely and present us with gold and jewels and robes of honor. Then we would be borne up on a litter and paraded through the streets, where people would smile and wave and pelt us with rose petals.

But Zaynab took a more sober view. She tried to comfort me, patting my hand and calling me
my dear
and telling me everything would be all right. But I could see that she was worried. Finally, I got her to tell me what she was thinking. “I'm afraid,” she said, “that the Sultan may not know what to do with us. You left the harem, and I helped. And we both had dealings with Abu Muslem. Shahrazad will try to help us—help
you,
anyway. But the Sultan is . . . stern. He may feel he has to make an example of us and your storyteller. To show that people can't get away with defying him.”

Over the following days and nights, many sounds drifted down to us in our cell: strains of flutes and drums and cymbals, joyful singing, bell ringings, and, more and more as time went by, the dull roar of many voices.

Zaynab told me that in all her days at the palace she had never heard of a celebration as grand as this one seemed to be. “There are
so
many voices,” she said. “And the music never stops.”

I began to think she was right about the Sultan. I tried
to move my thoughts from the fear of what would become of us and put them on Shahrazad. I imagined her at the celebration. I pictured the Sultan . . .
cherishing
her. My visions of her appearing at our cell door began to fade.

I fought off the sneaky, disloyal thought that she might have . . . forgotten us.

And so on the seventh day, when I woke from a nap and saw . . . an
apparition
standing at the door, I thought at first that I must be dreaming. This creature was garbed in a dazzling robe of scarlet brocade embroidered with gold, and shrouded in a gauzy silky veil. In the light that slanted in through the high window, I could see that her hands were dyed with intricate henna patterns, like a bride.

“Put on your veils,” she was saying, “and come with me!

I stared at her openmouthed, then turned to find Zaynab staring as shamelessly as I.

“Don't sit around gaping, Marjan.
Hurry!”
the apparition said.

And then I knew who she was.

Dunyazad.

“What—” I began.

“We've got to get you out of here. It's all planned. It's not safe for you here anymore, after what happened to Soraya. So—”

“Soraya?” My mind was moving slowly. I had waited so long for this moment that I hardly believed in it anymore. “What happened to Soraya?” I asked.

“Oh—You don't know anything, do you?”

“We heard the crier say that the Sultan was going to celebrate his marriage to Shahrazad. But. . . but
you
. . . all
dressed up to marry . . .” A sudden, horrible thought occurred to me. “She's not,” I said. “He didn't—”

“My sister's fine,” Dunyazad said. “Put on your veils! I'll tell you all about it on the way.”

Zaynab and I threw on our veils and followed Dunyazad out the door and into the narrow hallway. At the end of the hall, near the stairs, I saw the storyteller and the eunuch, waiting.

Dunyazad spoke to us as we hurried toward them. “The Sultan is celebrating his marriage to my sister, as you heard. He begged her forgiveness and said he'll never stop blaming himself for the past as long as he lives. He promised to honor her above all other women, and she doesn't have to tell stories anymore unless she wants to. And . . .” She paused. “And his brother is marrying me.”

I stopped, stared. The Sultan's brother . . . who had been killing his wives every night, too . . . Dunyazad was going to
marry
him?

“Come
along,
Marjan!” Dunyazad took my hand, pulled me beside her. The storyteller and the eunuch started up the stairs; Dunyazad followed, with me and Zaynab close behind.

“Soraya was found drowned in the baths,” Dunyazad said. “The Khatun says it must have been an accident, but everyone else thinks the Khatun had someone kill her. That's why Shahrazad didn't want you released from the dungeon. To protect you from . . .
accidents,
until we could get you safely away.”

Soraya . . . drowned? It hit me in the pit of my stomach. And . . .
away.
Where was
away?
I couldn't take in everything she had told me. There was too much of it. It had come too fast.

When we came out at the top of the stairs, Dunyazad led us down a deserted hallway The music and voices swelled louder.

“The Sultan has invited all his subjects—high and low—to partake in the feasting, as a sign of reconciliation between him and them,” Dunyazad went on. “For the grief he's caused them. For their daughters. And to celebrate his vow never to do what he did again. People are arriving from all parts of the kingdom.”

“So . . .
you
are getting married today?” I asked.

Dunyazad nodded. “Its a celebration for Shahrazad and the Sultan, and the formal marriage for his brother and me.”

“But . . . how did you get away? You're the bride. They'll miss you.”

Dunyazad grinned, dimpling. “I slipped away. You know I can do that. But I have to be back soon.”

Now we turned into a hallway filled with people—women and eunuchs carrying roasted meats and viands and sweetmeats this way and that. I hesitated. “But they'll see us.”

“It's all right,” Dunyazad said, moving into the hallway. The women hastily veiled themselves when they caught sight of the storyteller. I half expected someone to stop us. But instead, they made way for us. For Dunyazad. Then they knelt, kissed the ground at her feet. She was a queen now. Or would be very soon. We picked our way among the prostrate bodies, moving toward the kitchen.

“It's all arranged,” Dunyazad was saying. “Shahrazad and I planned it, and the Sultan and his brother agreed. Still,” she added in a whisper, “we have to get you out quickly, because the Khatun could make trouble.”

“What's
arranged?” I asked. “Where are we going?”

Dunyazad stopped at the outer kitchen door, gave each of us a small, heavy brocade bag. “These are gifts from my sister and me. Though we can never repay all of you for what you've done. There's a caravan outside. The driver will take you to my husbands old palace in Samarkand. The Sultan has made my father viceroy there—he will be in command. He'll need a reliable vizier,” she said, nodding at the storyteller. She turned to the eunuch. “And a head eunuch for the harem.” She smiled at Zaynab. “And a governor of messenger pigeons. And, Marjan,” she added, “I'm thinking Zaynab will need a helper. Someone to learn the art, take over for her when she's too old. And they'll also need a good storyteller in the harem. Now, go! The caravan's just outside the door. Everyone's waiting.”

The storyteller, the eunuch, and Zaynab slipped out the door, but I didn't move. “Would you do something for me?” I asked. “Send someone to give this to Uncle Eli where I lived before I came here? And tell him . . . tell him to tell Auntie Chava . . . what's become of me?”