Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange (Hardcover Classics) (7 page)

The king did not know what was going on as his mind had been affected and he had been unable to ride out thanks to his illness. He had signed over power to the chamberlain to distribute gifts in his name as though he was his father, and he knew no more than the common people about what was happening, and what information he received was wrong. The chamberlain said: ‘O king who rules over the length and breadth of the land, may I be allowed to speak?’ ‘Say what you want,’ the king told him, ‘and I shall listen and follow your council and advice.’ The chamberlain then said: ‘Things are going easily, and two-thirds of the people support the ruler, but any ruler who does not act decisively is no more than a servant. This is a big country with a large population amongst whom there are many mischief-makers, thieves and wrong-doers. If the damage that they do is not checked, no one will be left at ease and people will be robbed in broad daylight by armed force. Travellers who come and go will spread word that yours is an inferior country in which wives of respectable men can be seized at sword point.’ ‘What do you advise me to do, then?’ asked the king, and the chamberlain replied: ‘Cut off the hands of those who deserve it and hang those who deserve to be hanged, while those who owe a blood debt but have no legal opponents should be set free.’

He went on talking nonsense until the king turned to him, raised his hand and put it on his neck, saying: ‘I have no responsibility for this; it is you who will be held to account for what is done to the citizens, so act in a way that will ensure your salvation in the world to come when you stand before the Giver of life. I shall not be accountable for any crime committed by a
dhimmi
, a Christian or a Muslim, and it is you who will have to answer for them in the presence of God, Who knows all hidden secrets.’

When the chamberlain heard this he showed his teeth in a smile and rode off from the palace to his house, where he dismounted. He told himself that before putting Prince Kaukab to death he should kill a number of others and when it came to the point he should not execute him alone. He then told his officers to inspect the prisoners he was holding, and, when they did, the number came to six hundred. Of these he publicly freed one hundred and fifty to general commotion, as people called down blessings on him. On the following day he brought out a hundred and had their heads cut off, while he crucified thirty, leaving the citizens frightened to death. On the third day he executed another
hundred and on the fourth day he entered the dungeon himself and had the young Kaukab almost beaten to death. When the beating stopped Kaukab asked what he was going to do with him and he said: ‘I am going to put you to shame so that you can see for yourself your disgrace.’ ‘What did I do to you?’ asked Kaukab, and the chamberlain replied: ‘What dog are you to do anything to me? I want to see your mother suffer for your loss, as you and she were responsible for my being driven out and exiled from my own land. She took a hundred thousand dinars that were owed to me and spent a year casting stones at me.’ ‘Listen,’ said Kaukab, ‘I swear that I will give this back to you.’ ‘You worthless fellow,’ replied the chamberlain, ‘who can be safe from your schemes? But now it is clear that you are helpless.’

When Kaukab heard this he felt humiliated and was moved by fear to point to the debt that the chamberlain owed thanks to the favours done him by the king his father. ‘If your father stood on his head until he lost his senses, that would not make up for what I did with him and the kingdom that I gave him,’ replied the chamberlain. Kaukab told him: ‘What you do with me, Almighty God will continue to do with you in the next world, and while this world is transitory the next is everlasting.’ ‘Are you sitting there threatening me?’ exclaimed the chamberlain. ‘Take him away.’

He was taken out with his hands tied and a rope around his neck, but the watching crowd were so struck by his beauty that they wanted to free him from the chamberlain, and one of them raised a cry that the chamberlain should be stoned. He told himself that the crowd were going to rise against him and that even if the sultan and his troops were with someone whom they attacked, these would not be able to help him. So he gestured with his hand to hush them and removed the rope from Kaukab’s neck. He ordered that he be given a seat, and when this was done servants surrounded Kaukab, keeping him from the people. The chamberlain told one of them to cut off his hands and feet without cauterizing the wounds, so that he would die quickly and the crowd would not be able to save him.

The servant did as he was ordered, and the crowd raised a shout against the chamberlain, and had they been able to get to him they would have struck him down with the stones they were throwing. They did reach the young Kaukab and, using their kerchiefs, they cauterized his hands and feet, cutting up their own clothes to use as bandages. They brought sherbet and rose-water for him to drink, sprinkling some
over him and wiping his face before fetching a gown in which they placed him and carried him underneath the royal palace. The king’s sister, who was mentioned earlier, was sitting looking out from her balcony with his wife and when she saw the crowd hurrying below she told Sawab, the servant who had brought her up, to find out what was happening and why the crowd had collected. The servant went down and stood watching until he saw the young Kaukab being carried past, unrecognizable because of the loss of blood and his change of colour. At this sight the servant told the people to put him down as his mistress might take pity on him. Kaukab himself had lost consciousness and no longer looked like himself.

Sawab went up to the princess, Yaquta, and told her the story, at which she came down to look for herself, and when she saw the handsome shape of the man whom they had put down and his delicate beauties she felt pity for him in her heart, as God Almighty had intended. She went back and, after having taken her usual seat, she told Sawab to place Kaukab in the mosque opposite the palace and to lock the door in order to keep the people away from him. When he had done that she summoned him by name and on his arrival she said: ‘You know that you brought me up and when you washed me in the bath I uncovered my whole body for you and you carried me on your shoulder. Now there is something that I need from you.’ ‘If you tell me what you want, I shall do it for you,’ he said, and she told him: ‘I feel pity in my heart for this boy and I want you to bring him to me.’

Sawab waited until nightfall, when everyone was asleep, and he then opened the postern door, lowering a curtain over it. He went up to Kaukab and carried him over his shoulder up to the palace, where he stopped and locked the doors before putting him down in front of princess Yaquta. She put him in a chamber with a fine lattice window of iron looking out over the Jaihun, through which he could watch everything and see the emirs and the troops passing in front of him. The floor was carpeted, and he was given a raised seat. She told him that he could relax happily for he was the apple of her eye; because of the wrong that had been done to him she felt pity for him in her heart, and he had no further cause for fear. She introduced him to her housekeeper and put Sawab in charge of the palace so that he should not be with her. She continued to supply Kaukab with sherbet and spread
sultani
herbs over his wounds to ease the pain as God in His majesty had decreed that he should triumph over his enemies.

So much for him, but as for the chamberlain, he went that night with twenty servants to where Kaukab had been but, finding no trace of him, they remained in a state of perplexity. A number of people had seen him on his way, and they followed him and told him that Kaukab had been lucky and that, after being left there, he had been carried off. The chamberlain went back with his men in a state of deep, unremitting gloom that did not allow him to sleep.

As for Kaukab’s parents, his father sent messengers with letters to the city where the chamberlain was and where they questioned the general signs of mourning that they saw. The chamberlain made a display of sorrow and presented them with gifts and robes of honour. They then went back to the king but could not tell him what had happened to Kaukab. Sorrow for him continued, with many expressions of grief as well as a general feeling of gloom, while his parents raised their tearful laments to Almighty God.

Kaukab remained in hiding with Yaquta, who looked after him herself. She did not tell her mother, and the only person who knew the secret was the housekeeper, while ten times a day she would fetch Kaukab all kinds of good and tasty food. As for the chamberlain, he admitted to being perplexed about the affair but said that he did not think that Kaukab could be in the palace. He ordered a pretty ten-year-old girl to be brought to him as his attendants watched and he told her: ‘I intend to give you to the princess so that you can find out what she is doing and then tell this servant.’

He sent the servant with her together with a present of clothes, and the princess admired her when she arrived, telling herself that she could be entrusted with her heart’s secrets, while the servant was to stay outside the door. She expressed her gratitude to the chamberlain. Five years passed, during which she was impressed by the girl’s cultivated intelligence, her skill, her mastery of Arabic poetry and her fondness for the unusual. Taking her as a close companion, she told her about Kaukab and when a month later she was alone with the chamberlain’s servant she told him the story and he in turn passed it on to his master.

[lac.]
He found the king happy that his illness had been cured and told him that he had something to say to him that he wanted to tell him in secret as he could not speak before all those who were present in the court. When the king heard this he had the court cleared and then told the man to produce what he had to say, at which he began: ‘Know, great king, that there have been many strangers gathering in the city, and
cultured men have been talking. Were you to hear that your sister Yaquta had fallen in love with a man whom she kept in her palace, what would you say about it?’ ‘What are you saying?’ exclaimed the king, and the chamberlain went on: ‘You heard what I said, but don’t be hasty so that you can get what you want, fearful as this may be.’

A servant was standing by the king’s head and when he heard what had been said he went to the maid and told her what had happened. They were proposing to move Kaukab to another safe place when they were confronted by the king with the chamberlain looking on and the maids standing behind them. Looking at the servant, the chamberlain exclaimed: ‘Black dog, did you take it on yourself to tell them so that they could hide him somewhere else?’ He drew his sword and advanced on him before delivering a blow that struck off his head. This terrified the maid and her companions, and the king told the chamberlain that he could do what he wanted with them. He took them to his house and beat them so savagely that he tore away their flesh. He then returned to the king, who asked him what he had done. ‘I questioned them,’ he said, ‘and they told me that Yaquta had been made pregnant by her lover.’

The king struck one hand against the other and exclaimed: ‘There is no power and no might except with the Almighty God! By God, when my master hears this he will attack me and take my lands away from me, and what can I say to him?’ He repeated this angrily, saying that his master would be furious, and he then told the chamberlain to cut off Yaquta’s head. The chamberlain, however, told him that he would wait until midday on Saturday, when he alone would drown her and her lover in view of all the sailors, ‘so that they can talk of what you did and everyone who hears can call down blessings on you’. ‘Do what you want,’ said the king.

A proclamation was made, and news of what had happened spread amongst the people, amongst whom no one talked of anything else. Sawab heard of this and when Saturday came he went to his mother in a state of confusion and asked her: ‘Who told the chamberlain about this and how did it happen?’ ‘See what clever plan you can make,’ she told him, ‘and send word at night to the boat owners that they are not to leave any boats on the river.’ Sawab did this, and only one small boat was left out, in the bottom of which were two black sacks and two thin stone pillars that would take three men to lift.

He went in to stand in front of the king, whom he saw to be broken-hearted because of his sister
[sic]
Yaquta and unable to speak.
Just then in came the chamberlain, who was dragging her beside him by the hand. When Sawab saw her, looking as she did like the full moon, he shouted in front of the king to the chamberlain and, taking her from him, he struck her on the head with the palm of his hand and struck Kaukab with a blow to the face that almost blinded him. When the chamberlain saw what he had done to them he told him to take charge of them. ‘I shall do whatever you want,’ Sawab said, and he wrapped them up and took them out as the people watched before placing them in a small boat. There was unrest amongst the spectators, and the king stood up before going up to a balcony to look over the river, which stretched as far across as the eye could see.

Sawab and his porters took them, wrapped up as they were, and threw them into the boat, with the sacks in front of them. There was increasing disturbance as girls shrieked, and the king, shedding tears, went back to the city. Sawab took the boat below the city and moored it until nightfall, and at midnight he put out and sailed back below the royal palace. It was then that he removed Kaukab and Yaquta and produced a hiding place in which they stayed.

News reached the boy’s father of what had happened to his sister, and he said to her: ‘This is a good ruler, so come with me and let us enjoy going to see him, for I have heard him praised both as a good man and an effective leader.’ When she heard this, she said: ‘Your Majesty, how can I enjoy this? Sorrow has penetrated my inmost self of which my son is a part.’ ‘What you say is true,’ the king replied, ‘but we should have a brief respite from our sorrows or else we shall die, and after that the lands will face destruction.’ She did not disagree, and the king left the vizier in his place to look after his subjects while he himself moved off with his tents and his troops. No banners were unfurled and no drums beaten, while only one small bugle sounded, as there was only a small force with the king.