The Blessing Stone (54 page)

“Another story,” he said again, this time a little crossly.

Katharina looked at Adriana, who was staring at their peculiar guest. During her short life among the Kosh, she had learned to keep quiet around strangers and not draw attention to herself.

Seeing that the peculiar little man would not leave until he had heard a story, Katharina decided on “Little Red Cap,” which was short, and hoped he would then go.

But when she was done and the hunstman had killed the wolf, the old man clapped his hands and laughed with toothless gums, urging her to tell another. Katharina protested that her child was sleepy. He became cranky. When she said he was welcome to come back tomorrow, he began to shout and suddenly guards with spears materialized from out of nowhere.

Katharina shot to her feet, Adriana in her arms, and backed away from the gold-tipped spears. While the old man carried on so incoherently that Katharina could not grasp what he was saying, another person suddenly appeared as if from thin air, making Katharina wonder if they had been searching for the old man.

It was the woman from the garden, whom the chamberlain had called Supreme Sister, now draped in a silk robe embroidered with such dazzling flowers that Katharina thought they could attract bees. “Why are you still here and why are you distressing my brother?” the woman demanded.

“We had no where to go—”

She snapped orders to the guards, who took a step forward.

“Please, Lady,” Katharina said. “Let us stay for just a little while. My child is not well.”

“That is not my concern,” the woman barked.

“But it is! I was brought here by the Kosh. They sold me to you.”

“Yes, but we can’t use you. So you have to go.”

“I cannot go! My child is not well!”

The almond eyes flickered toward Adriana. “What is wrong with her?”

“We were not fed properly by the Kosh. They gave us scraps their dogs would not eat. She did not have enough food when she was a baby. I need to make her well again.”

“The Kosh are pigs,” the woman spat in Kosh. “Still, you must go.”

“But I can work to earn our keep,” Katharina said quickly, desperate. “I can embroider. I do very good needlework.”

“Bah! Got plenty of women doing embroidery. I do it myself, and better than you I would say.” As the Supreme Sister started to leave, she was stayed by the old man, who tugged at her sleeve and whispered something in her ear. She turned and narrowed her eyes at Katharina. “My brother says you tell stories. What stories?”

Katharina was instantly defensive. Were stories a criminal offense in this place? “I was only telling children’s stories, fairy tales, I meant no harm.”

“Tell me one.”

What manner of people were these, that they were afraid of stories? “But they are only fairy tales. They are harmless, Lady.”

“I want to hear,” and to Katharina’s surprise, the woman crossed her legs and sat on the floor the way the old man had done.

She tried to think of the most harmless tale she knew, in case her stories caused some unintended offense that would have her and Adriana thrown into a dungeon. She settled upon “Rapunzel” and instantly she had a rapt audience comprised of her own daughter, the old man, his sister, and the guards who all leaned close to listen. And when she came to the end and told how Rapunzel had foiled the witch, everyone laughed and clapped with glee, from Adriana to the fiercest of the guards.

The woman’s attitude immediately changed. “That was a good story,” she said, her round face radiating a smile. “Tell another.”

“But, Lady, my child is tired and weak, and we are exhausted.”

“Another story, then you go to sleep.”

By the time Katharina got halfway through “The Tortoise and the Hare,” Adriana was slumbering in her arms. But her peculiar audience was as alert and rapt as ever, barely breathing or blinking as they hung upon every word she uttered. And when she reached the end, they all laughed and cheered for the tortoise.

Katharina marveled at the reaction of these people to simple tales that she had thought were universal. At home, one could only tell these stories to the youngest children, who had never heard them, for otherwise the audience grew bored and demanded something new. Had Zhandu’s self-imposed isolation from the rest of the world resulted in a dearth of new stories, she wondered, and as they had grown bored with their own, they hungered for new myths and legends as other races might crave gold and wine?

Supreme Sister rose to her feet. “You can stay. You will tell us stories.”

Katharina’s mind raced with hope. “May we have a room of our own?”

“For as long as you have stories to tell us.”

“And food for my child?”

The woman squinted, then wrinkled her nose, then said, “She is puny. Needs fattening. Tell us fine stories and you will have a fine apartment and fine clothes and fine food.” She laughed at her own play on words. “My brother is very happy,” she said, patting the old man on the arm. “He will see that you are happy in return.”

But when Supreme Sister added, “You will live with us forever,” Katharina’s relief turned to panic. “But I must get to Jerusalem.”

“Eh? Where is that?”

Katharina was momentarily speechless. Everyone in the world had heard of Jerusalem. “It is a city,” she began, but was cut off by an impatient gesture.

“After all the stories are done, you can leave.”

“I will need money for the journey.”

The woman shrugged. “We have plenty of money. Tell stories, go away rich.”

In this way did Katharina learn that she had been telling stories to Heavenly Ruler, king of Zhandu, and Summer Rose, his sister.

The first night of storytelling, when she and Adriana were escorted to the royal apartments, Katharina received a shock. Instead of just the king and his sister, she found herself facing an audience of several hundred.

She was not daunted. To tell a tale to one child or to three hundred adults was the same thing: catch their interest, give them a hero, keep them in breathless anticipation, and then reward them with a satisfying ending. While she spun her tales, scribes sat at ornately carved desks with scrolls and pens and inks, and recorded Katharina’s stories in the intricate calligraphy of Zhandu. These would be copied, she was told, and distributed throughout the kingdom for other storytellers to read to the most farflung citizens.

She told Heavenly Ruler and his court tales from the forests of her homeland—“The Frog Prince,” “Snow White,” and “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.” When the German folk tales ran out, she recounted the lives of Jesus and the saints, and then stories of Muhammad she had heard in Constantinople. The favorites were yarns filled with wondrous beings such as talking frogs, dancing donkeys, horses that flew, and ogres that crouched beneath bridges to catch passersby unaware. And miracles and curses aplenty. Each night she delighted the growing audience, and each day she was rewarded with the promised gold coin, abundant food, and the freedom of the city. In this way did Katharina learn that people were the same all over, be they peasants on a farm in Germany, or wizards in an ancient mountain kingdom, for the people of Zhandu laughed when mice outwitted cats, cried when beautiful heroines died, and cheered when handsome heroes were victorious. They gasped in horror when the wicked queen believed she was eating the heart of Snow White; they cried, “Look out!” when Little Red Cap met the wolf in the woods; they shivered when Katharina described the great dark forests where evil frogs and ogres lived; they jeered at the poor-sport fox who said the grapes must be sour; and they clapped when the heroic Siegfried won the magic treasure away from the Nieblungs. But their favorite story of all was the one of the girl whose dying mother told her to go in search of her father, and the girl encountered many adventures and mishaps along the way, and when Katharina did not end the story, and they all asked, “Did the girl find her father?” and she told them that it was
her
story, they clapped and said it was the best of all.

For the first time since the encampment by the emerald stream, Katharina knew happiness. Zhandu was a fabulous spectacle of snowy mountain peaks and mossy valleys, golden domes and ivory spires. Everything had a delightful sounding name: the Jade Gate, the Palace of Celestial Happiness, the Hall of Joyful Contemplations. The few visitors who did come from the outside world were taken to stand before the Mirror of Hidden Truths, and a sorcerer—he was the
Wu,
which in their ancestral tongue meant “wizard”—examined the reflection to judge the person’s honesty. Every night an army of chefs created miracles out of food: towers of spun sugar, marzipan molded into flowers and animals, multicolored cakes that melted on the tongue. Rare and costly fish eggs, brought by strenuous stages from the far north, were arranged on delicate breads and biscuits. Wine was chilled in snow brought down from the mountains.

When Katharina had first arrived with the Kosh, she had marveled at the wealth of ermines the Kosh had received for her, and she had wondered if the people of Zhandu were so wealthy that they didn’t care about money. But now she learned that there was nothing the outside world could offer: the people of Zhandu enjoyed trees that bore fruit and nuts year round; acres of grain and vegetables; wild game in plenty; a whole forest of honey-giving beehives; and fresh, healthful water bubbling from perennial springs. Few outsiders were allowed in, even fewer were invited to trade. Emissaries rode out, inspected offerings, and more often than not came back empty-handed. Zhandu had all the silks, jewels, rich foods, wine, and creature comforts that it could want.

Except for stories. For the first time in generations, an outsider had brought something new.

Katharina and her daughter were given fabulous rooms with huge beds with silken coverlets, new clothes and jewels, all the food they could eat, and the freedom of the city—as long as they were back at the palace each night for Heavenly Ruler’s story. They adopted the ways and customs of Zhandu. And Katharina discovered the secret of the women’s unbelievable hairdos: headdresses fashioned from very thin jade were first secured to the scalp, and then the long hair was combed over the frame, with curls and braids added so that no jade showed, making it look as if the hair stood by itself this way, all fixed in place with long ivory sticks that resembled knitting needles. The foreign mother and daughter wore long silk robes and slippers with curved-up toes, and every night, after the storytelling, Katharina counted their slowly growing pile of money against the day they would leave and resume their journey.

As they adjusted to life in this remarkable kingdom, Adriana’s nightmares began to recede: memories of seeing a man set on fire for the sport of it, having to fight with dogs for food, of being snatched away from her mother as a form of punishment. She also began to grow strong and healthy. The court physician looked at the child and said she had a weakness of the blood due to undernourishment while in the womb, and so he had prescribed a special Zhandu tea that, along with the water, which Summer Rose said was magical, and the air, which was pure being at so high an altitude, had wonderful healing powers.

But the physician cautioned that it would be dangerous for the girl to leave, for her health was supported by Zhandu and it would fail once she was away from the healthful influences of this place. Katharina took this advice to heart, especially as, after a life fraught with danger, when many times Katharina had not thought her daughter would survive, she saw that here in Zhandu her child was safe and secure at last. Adriana knew stability and a home for the first time, such as Katharina had once known years ago, with Isabella Bauer in Badendorf. Did Katharina have the right to take this away from her?

And so every night, after Adriana was asleep and the palace was quiet, Katharina sat by a lamp and stared at the painting of St. Amelia and the blue crystal. Jerusalem seemed so far away as to be almost nonexistent, and it had now been almost twenty-five years since her father had left his baby in the care of a penniless seamstress. Was he still alive?

When they had been there a year and Katharina was counting her gold coins and wondering if they had enough to leave Zhandu, Summer Rose came to her and said, “Come with me.”

Katharina automatically reached for Adriana’s hand, but Summer Rose said, “Leave the child. It will frighten her.”

But Katharina never went anywhere without her daughter, and so Adriana was taken along an unfamiliar corridor into a part of the palace Katharina had never visited before. Here, at a locked and guarded door, Summer Rose paused and said gravely, “He will alarm you at first, but he will not hurt you.”

“Who am I to meet, Lady?”

“He is my son, the crown prince of Zhandu.”

Katharina was shocked. She had never heard mention of a prince, or any heirs to the throne. She was further surprised to find herself ushered through two more locked and guarded doors, and then into the most remarkable chamber she had ever seen.

Not a single window pierced the walls; not a single shaft of sunlight penetrated. Instead, a hundred lamps hung from the high ceilings, and flames blazed in sconces along the walls. The enormous room was capped by a high dome that had been painted blue with white clouds; the floor was dominated by a pond that rippled with goldfish, and even a magnificent white heron waded among the reeds. Trees grew in huge pots, and shrubs and all varieties of flowers flourished around the pond, giving the impression of being outdoors although there was no real sky overhead. Patches of grass grew here and there, and flagstone paths had been laid. Following Summer Rose, they came upon a delightful pavilion just like those in the gardens outside, and it was brightly lit with lamps. Katharina could not believe her eyes: gazelles grazed among the shrubs, and a bird flew overhead, startling her. It was as if, for some unfathomable reason, the outdoors had been brought inside.

“Be calm,” Summer Rose said. “He frightens people at first. But I assure you he is harmless.”

Katharina wondered if this was a kind of prison where the crown prince was kept, away from sunlight and the eyes of his subjects, and she wondered what his crime had been. She tightened her grip on Adriana’s hand and belatedly questioned her decision to bring her.