The Magic Fountain by Christopher Leeson © 1999
An Untold Tale of Scheherazade
Verses from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
 |
| A fountain girl and her master |
Part I
"The worldly hope men set their hearts upon
Turns ashes -- or it
prospers; and anon,
Like snow upon the desert's
dusty face
Lighting a little hour or two
-- is gone."
Prologue
"I am the maid Scheherazade, teller of tales. Many are the wonders of the East, but in all the lands of the Faithful, what story is more marvelous than that of Prince Ali and the Magic Fountain?
"Many years ago, a good emir by the name of Haroon held court in the royal city of Damascus. Allah the Bountiful blessed this noble-hearted monarch with a son and a daughter -- Ali, strong, and honest, and Ayeesha, exquisite of form and possessing eyes which might captivate even the djinn of the desert.
"Ali, obedient and dutiful, agreed to marry the beautiful princess Badiat, the daughter of the sultan of Edessa. But his sister Ayeesha, alas, was headstrong and refused all of her many suitors. Though the emir was kindly and patient, it rended his heart that he had reached his elderly years and as yet had no grandchild to dandle in his arms.
"Upon the day that the caravan of Princess Badiat arrived in Damascus, the common people of Damascus thronged the streets joyfully. But, alas, of all the emir's subjects, one of them alone did not rejoice.
"For many years, the Emir Haroon had been well-advised by Rasheed, his high-minded vizier. Unfortunately, after Rasheed was taken to Paradise, his clever son, Lord Achmed, was elevated to his sire's place. Though Achmed was a man of wit, accomplishment, and charm, he nursed a wicked heart and a secret ambition. This ambition, sad to say, was to tumble down the ancient dynasty of Haroon and mount the gilded throne in Ali's stead. To take the coveted scepter by means of guile, the crafty vizier realized that he must first eliminate his youthful rival.
"To achieve this evil end, Lord Achmed plotted long and hard. Finally, with the help of his devious and unscrupulous magician, Yusuf, he at long last hit upon a cruel scheme. And from this conspiracy of scoundrels comes our tale . . . ."
"The moving finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it."
Chapter One
Yusuf the wizard climbed breathlessly to the topmost prison cell in Achmed's palace.
Notwithstanding his years and his heavy burden, he at last reached the highest landing of
the tower. The bewhiskered jailor offered a reverent greeting: "Sire, may Allah
shower His blessings upon your gray head."
The wizard looked past him, at the prison door. "Is the Crusader dog prepared?"
"He has been bound, wise mullah."
"Good. Speak not a word of what you may discover after I depart, Guard. This is the business of the lofty lords, and it would be sad if loose talk cost an honest man his head!"
"Yes, Great One!" the man nodded emphatically.
"Unlock the door, and then return to the guard room until I call you back."
The jailor did as told and the fleshy wizard waddled wearily into the cell. There, he set his burden, a bucket of water, down upon the straw-strewn floor and straightened himself.
He looked about the dim interior with frowning, ferret eyes. The cell, he observed, was not the worst that Achmed, the cruel vizier, owned. It possessed a cot, table, stool, basin, and a window letting in the morning light. Many a noble captive of war had been held for ransom in that selfsame tower. These days, as the Crusader armies struggled with the Sons of the Faithful the length and breadth of the Holy Land, it was occasionally used so again.
Chains rattled and Yusuf turned to regard the Frankish knight fettered to the wall. This was a tow-headed young man with light-colored stubble on firm cheeks. The sorcerer judged him to be well-born, but Achmed had eschewed the demand for ransom. Instead, if this morning's experiment proved successful, the scion of distant France would simply vanish from the face of the earth.
The noble son muttered an oath against his visitor, though he had no inkling of the stranger's intentions. Yusuf ignored the indecipherable insult while he took a small vial from his scrip. This he unstopped and poured its clear liquid contents into the bucket of well-water. Very carefully then, lest some of the polluted mix slosh upon his legs, the portly conjurer picked up the pail, placed one hand under its bottom rim, and slowly brought it back for a mighty cast. . . .
Lord Achmed was a connoisseur of many things, women not least of all. He had taken no wife, for his ambitions required a lady of royal rank and none were to be had. Nonetheless, many an odalisque filled his harem, such as the blonde girl at his side, his most recent acquisition.
"You are the most lovely woman I have ever crushed to my chest," he told the concubine. "What is your name?
The girl looked up nervously. "Sheba, Master. Have you forgotten?"
He gave a short, sharp laugh. "Saucy one! I have a hundred slave girls and dancers, so how may I remember every single one of them by name?! Yet, I believe that I shall recollect your name after this, little Sheba. Tell me -- do you dance?"
"No, my lord," Sheba replied with a shake of her head. "I am only a peasant girl."
Achmed touched her cheek. "Nay, be not so humble. Allah often prepares a fate for mortals which confounds the circumstances of their birth. You were born to dwell in the homes of the mighty and sleep on silken sheets, not to ravage your peerless skin toiling under the remorseless sun."
Sheba looked away in sorrow. "I would gladly give up house and complexion alike, if I might only return home! My aged parents need me. The tax collectors seized me when my father could not pay all he owed. Help us, Lord!"
"What am I to do, foolish one? Taxes must be paid or the kingdom will fall. Besides, now that I have seen you, should I deny myself your beauty? 'Tis a pity that you cannot dance, but I will have you trained! As long as you please me, sweet Sheba, you shall have a place here in my harem."
"As master wishes," the girl replied sadly.
The handsome official ran his manicured fingers through her spun-gold hair. "Your coloration beguiles me. You are Circassian?"
"Yes, mighty Lord," she nodded. "My mother was the Circassian concubine of a wealthy merchant. My father, a Circassian also, served in Emir Haroon's army. One day he saw my mother-to-be drawing water from the public fountain. He was so taken with her grace that he went to her master and purchased her for a wife."
Achmed grinned appreciatively. "If your mother was as beautiful as you are today, it is easy to understand how a man might offer her marriage and respectability."
"I do not know, sire," Sheba demurred.
At that moment Achmed's chief steward, Mongi, entered the lord's hall and prostrated himself upon the porcelain tiles.
"What is it, slave? Why do you disturb us at such a time?"
"The magician Yusuf waits without, O Master. Shall I send him away?"
Lines of anticipation etched the vizier's crafty features. "No; bring him to me. But first, take these anemone blossoms away with you. What may be said hereafter is not for innocent ears like theirs."
The steward rose, glanced to the cluster of women, and clapped his hands. The concubines and dancing girls scrambled to their feet and followed after him like so many ducklings. Achmed stood up and straightened his robes. A moment later he heard the pad of heavy feet advancing in satin slippers.
"Achmed, Hawk of the Desert, Keeper of the Sword, Lord of --"
"Spare me, Yusuf," Achmed said. "I have no objection to flattery, except when it is like yours -- perfunctory and insincere. Give me the man who knows how to flatter from the heart, flatter with unswerving love and admiration, and I will make him great in this land."
"I have happy news, Mighty One," pressed the wizard.
Achmed arched his eyebrows. "Was your -- experiment -- successful?"
The older man drew an empty flask from his brocade robe. "Very much so. The effect was all that we could have hoped for!"
"You tested it upon the Crusader?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Come! I must see the wretch!"
A quarter-hour later, as they left the Crusader's cell, Achmed rubbed his hands with glee. "It is incredible! Better far than simple assassination! Unfortunately, it may be impossible for you to get close to Ali. He is well-guarded and he does not trust you -- with good reason, I may add."
Yusuf grinned proudly. "I have traveled far and have acquired many amazing items of magic, Lord. One of my finest is a magic jewel which makes the holder invisible to the human eye. Ali will never know that I am near."
Achmed scowled. "You have such a marvel and you have not told me?!"
"I have only lately purchased it in Persia," the old man wheedled.
Achmed shrugged. "Then go swiftly, fool! Do your job well, and I shall make you as wealthy as a lord!"
Yusuf bowed and backed away. "I live to obey, Munificent Patron!"
Left alone, Achmed returned to the cell to take a last look at the prisoner. Then, with cruel satisfaction, he closed the heavy door and turned the key in the lock.
On their way to the emir's palace, Ali and his life-long friend Lord Hassan took the shortcut through the gardens. Their conversation was suddenly cut short by a rope of silken sheets dropping down from above. They looked up at the summit of the garden wall.
"A thief!" muttered Hassan, gripping his sword hilt.
But Ali's sharp ears picked out the sound of feminine breathing overhead. "No -- it is a flight from the seraglio! Hush!"
The young men concealed themselves behind the hedge to observe. A moment later, as a girl in harem garments climbed agilely to the ground, they pounced. Her kohled eyes turned wildly upon the prince as he lay hold of her.
"Ayeesha!" Ali shouted in recognition. "What are you doing away from the women's quarters?"
"Unhand me!" she demanded. "I would see the caravan of Princess Badiat parade through the town. Everyone else is free to do so, except us prisoners of the harem!"
"If you would be so adventurous," Ali admonished, "at least be not so shameless. Cover your face!"
She raised her chin defiantly and met his stern eyes. "Cover your own, Brother! Is my face more shameful than yours?"
Hassan averted his gaze, for no decent man permitted himself to look at a princess' unveiled visage. "Ah, perhaps I should leave you two alone?" he suggested.
Ali answered without looking back. "Yes, it is well that you do, Hassan. Join me at the hawk cages after I make my daily call upon the emir, my father."
When Hassan had vanished around the corner, he felt more at liberty to discuss his sister's misdeed. "Ayeesha, explain yourself!"
She folded her sleek arms peevishly. "I am tired of being cooped up and treated like a child! If you were me, would you not feel the same?"
He shook his head in exasperation. "It is your own fault that your life is idle and unfulfilling, Sister. Had you taken a husband, as Father has wanted, you would now be the mistress of your own home."
She threw up her hands. "Marriage would change nothing, except the face of my jailer."
He took her shoulders and brought her around to face him. "He would be no jailer! He would be thy lover and thy mate. He would treasure thee above all the gold of the earth."
"And imprison me, too, just like the gold of the earth. I wish I were a peasant woman. Such as they can at least walk from their home to the market place. Better still, I would be a dancing girl out among song and laughter."
"You are blessed to be the daughter of the mightiest ruler in Syria. Why canst thou not be grateful that Allah has blessed thee?"
"Because it's not fair, Ali! You simply do not understand. Being a princess is nothing like being a prince. You have everything and I have nothing."
"You are wrong, little wren," he demurred, stroking his sister's cheek. "Why do you think that I am more free than you?"
"You are! You are father's favorite, and his heir."
He sighed. "Would that I had an older brother to be both! Being heir and favorite means that I must fulfill our father's onerous expectations. And what is my reward? Why should I crave to be emir?"
"Thy fame shall live forever, Ali. You shall make all men obey thee!"
He grinned ironically. "Yes, all emirs are remembered. Some are remembered only for being sots or fools. Even a good monarch must do many things for which he ought to be ashamed. How would it serve my honor to levy high taxes upon people who already had little enough, or order a thief's hand lopped off? Or send young men to die in battle -- perhaps one of them a son of thine?
Ayeesha laughed in exasperation. "You would have me a mother already? Have you not forgotten to wed me first?"
Ali's glance was full of regret. "I have long-hoped that you would marry my friend Hassan. The two of you got along so well when we were children together."
Her expression hardened. "We are no longer children, Ali, and much has changed. Hassan is your friend, not mine. He is a noble-hearted and comely man, no doubt, but I feel no magic when I look into his face. He is almost as much my brother as you are!"
"I feel the same," confessed Ali. "He is like the brother I have never had. But Hassan is not truly your brother and he would make a fine husband."
"Then marry him yourself!"
He grasped her more firmly. "Ayeesha! Thy tongue is as sharp as an adder's tooth! Wit ill-becomes a woman's hopes for happy matrimony! I pity the man who finally takes thee to wife!"
"Fine, brother! Then let me marry no one at all -- least of all Hassan."
"Why least of all?" Ali asked disappointedly.
"Because Hassan would indeed take me -- but only to please you. He loves me no more than I love him. Think, Ali! He never speaks of me when alone in your company -- does he?"
Ali tried to remember such an occasion, but was stumped. "Not in so many words --"
"Good!"
"What do you mean `good?' You need a husband and Hassan would be the best man in all Syria. Delay no longer, little quail. People already call a maid a spinster at the age of eighteen!"
"Why put such grief upon me, Ali? Are you my brother or my father?"
"Father and son think alike."
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| Ayeesha and Ali |
"More the pity!" Ayeesha scoffed as she wriggled out of his grasp.
At that moment two matrons from the harem hurried up to the royal pair and bowed to the prince.
"Praise be, Prince Ali," said the older of the two servants.
"May Allah be with you, grandmothers."
The second matron now turned toward Ayeesha, saying: "Princess, please return with us before you provoke a scandal!"
"Why a scandal? Liberty is no one's scandal. The animals are less than I, or so they say, but yet they are more free."
"The horses, mules, and cattle are not free," Ali reminded her.
She hung her head. "'Tis true. All who are conquered are not free!"
The prince placed his hand upon his sister's shoulder. "You are not conquered, white dove. You are loved more than you know."
She shook him off irritably. "Would that Allah gave me another kind of love, and let you make do with mine -- then you may tell me whether you like it or not!"
"Do not say such wicked things, Princess," the older matron chided. "Sometime Allah hears foolish utterances and makes them come to pass -- to teach us the price of folly. Now, come along, dear one."
Ayeesha looked appealing toward Ali, but he only shook his head.
"There is nothing to do for it. You must go back," he told her.
"The parade --!"
"I will not see it either."
"Why? She is your bride!"
"She is only another burden that I, as prince, must bear. You will surely meet the princess Badiat even before I do. She will be housed in the women's quarters."
"Imprisoned, you mean!"
"Your words, not mine," he replied with a patient smile.
Ayeesha returned a doleful glance, then allowed the attendants to guide her away. Ali watched them go with a shake of his head.
Two hours later, Ali released his hawk, which began circling at a great height over its master's head. Below, the prince's party advanced through the brush with dogs to flush the game. As the desert quails whirred from the thickets, the raptor saw the birds and dived in for the kill. Having made a clean strike, the well-trained creature returned to its master bearing its prize.
"'Tis but a pale form of hunting," mused Ali to Hassan as he tugged the game bird from his pet's claws. "It is the hawk which does all the work."
His friend shrugged. "Yet I cannot help but admire these birds."
"Why?"
"Look how your falcon overcomes its own nature, which is to feast upon its own kill. Instead, it leaves it for his master to profit by."
"Training is all," Ali mused absently, not much interested in the subject. "I myself am being rigorously prepared to be my father's successor."
Hassan looked up. "But that is not against your true nature, surely."
"Of course it is not," he replied tonelessly. Then, not wanting to betray his sullen mood, he forced a bit of cheer into his baritone. "Hawks are tame sport! Give me a boar spear and a bit of danger any day."
"As you say, but boars are few and far away," Hassan reminded him.
"That is true," he sighed, and changed the subject. "I hope you took no offense at Ayeesha."
His friend smiled broadly. "How can one be offended by a girl who makes him laugh so hard?"
"Yes, that one delights even as she infuriates," the heir of Damascus nodded.
Hassan slapped his comrade upon the shoulder. "How do you feel, Ali -- you who are soon to be the groom of the most sought-after princess in all Syria? What did the old woman who examined her last year say?"
Ali shrugged. "She said that the princess is beautiful, and that Allah has favored me. She is, however, older than most brides -- already she is Ayeesha's age."
"That is old!" Hassan said with a sympathetic grimace.
"Her sire has been trying to arrange this marriage for over three years, but my father long pretended to be considering other prospects, simply to drive the dowry up."
"Your father was always a practical man."
Ali shook his head. "Once Father's price was met, I would have had to marry her even if she had had the aspect of a crocodile! I will not even be permitted to see her face until after the ceremony."
"That is the way with us of high rank. Nonetheless, it is good to be wed. A man needs sons. If I could only find a highborn lady who is as lovely as that concubine in the tent of Mufti the Bedouin --"
The emir's son laughed. "Now there was a vision of loveliness!" he concurred. "The best of his harem."
"I will have a better seraglio someday," Hassan said with a chuckle. "Then I, master of all I survey, will permit my wives and concubines to ply my naked body with caresses and mount me one after another. And the winner shall be she who first draws forth my vital juices."
"And what will the winner win?" Ali inquired .
Undaunted, Hassan replied: "She who wins this contest should receive a precious jewel into her hand, while the losers get nothing but a thwack upon their beautiful behinds with the girl-whip. After that, I think, each of them shall take care to be more amorous the next time. It is a privilege for a girl to be summoned to her master's pillows, after all."
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| The dream harem |
"I would do even better," Ali averred, not to be out-done.
"How better?"
The prince raised his finger like a pedagogue giving a lesson. "Each member of my harem should be picked for possessing one particular adeptness or charm. One girl should possess the most satiny, delicious calves in all the East. Another should own the most perfect thighs; and still another would have hands which are the softest of all -- and she would use them to induce me to valorous deeds of manhood."
Hassan nodded, thoroughly enjoying his comrade's flight of fantasy. "I think you speak not of any mortal harem, but the garden of the houris in Paradise."
"Women are like hawks. If trained, they may perform marvels. I have heard of how whip-masters employed by slavers can take the rudest country maid and, in a few weeks time, make her perform like a houri. -- But I have not finished describing my harem."
"Then do go on!"
"Still another slave girl shall be possessed of the most perfect large, firm, and round breasts. She will kneel before me and cup those soft melons of flesh against my zubb and, moving back and forth, create the illusion that I am probing her maidenly kus."
"I am most interested in that thigh-slave you mentioned," Hassan admitted whimsically.
Ali grinned, knowing that beautiful legs on a woman pleased his friend more than any other feminine charm. "My thigh-slave will clench my excited scepter between her satiny columns until it is incited to heroic performance. The calf-slave shall, of course, do likewise with her own special charms."
"Breasts, legs, calves. Do you never receive Mouth Magic in this harem of yours?"
"Every day!" Ali exclaimed. "I should naturally appoint a sucking-slave, one whose soft, rosy lips will nibble, lick, and breathe warmly upon me. But best of all, she will engorge the entire head of my rutting serpent, exciting it with her tongue, until she draws forth its full venom."
Ali went on, waxing fancifully about a toe-slave skilled in tickling him with her toes alone, and a derriere-slave, who must offer up her satiny globes to his mighty sword-of-pleasure. And this latter maid, the prince emphasized, would be chosen also for her sharpness of speech and defiant temper. This stipulation surprised Hassan and his look moved Ali to explain that it is ever the proud and querulous girl which a man takes special pleasure in switching. A shrew tamed, he said, was ever to be prized above any dull, passive girl. And if the shrew also has a beautiful bottom to receive his stinging discipline, then her master is rendered twice happy.
Hassan cocked one eye. "They are all slaves in your harem, I see; will you have no wife?"
Ali shrugged. "Every monarch must have four wives, and so shall I! Badiat will be the first of these, of course, as her father will have purchased that rank for her. God willing, I would keep the four of them pregnant all the time."
"What is the pleasure in that?" Hassan queried with a frown. "The pride of a large family?"
The prince shook his head. "The pleasure is that I would then need to see each of them only twice a year: Once when I plant my seed, and once more when I inspect the harvest."
Hassan continued to smile, but he was sensing sourness under his friend's extravagant foolery. Ali was not a sour man by nature, but he had tended to sourness oftentimes these late days, even in his humor.
"Well," Hassan said with a frown, "I must consult the captain of the horse. Now that I am made a bey of the royal troop I can but spare but little time for sport."
Ali nodded. "And I need go back to my father's councilors, who will blather at me until evening prayer on the theories of policy."
"I pity you," commiserated his friend.
Ali looked off into the distance. "Each man's fate is written upon his forehead at birth, and none may change a letter of the sentence."
Hassan, too, chose to wax philosophical. "If we knew what that sentence read, would we be happier or only the more aggrieved?"
"I know not," Ali sighed resignedly. "But my immediate fate is to bathe off the sweat of the hunt. Shall we meet again after evening prayer?"
"I should be pleased," his comrade affirmed.
Ayeesha had spent the afternoon sitting moodily in a corner of the women's quarters. She barely heard the soft footsteps behind her.
"You are Princess Ayeesha, soon to be my sister?" asked someone standing behind her.
The princess turned and espied a slim, dark-complected young woman of about eighteen standing over her. "Princess Badiat?" Ayeesha inquired, rising. "Welcome. It is true, I am the sister of your husband-to-be."
Badiat extended her hand. "I am pleased to meet you. One needs a kindly companion in a strange city; I hope that you shall be mine."
Ayeesha regarded the stranger quizzically. "You seem angry, Princess. A difficult journey?"
"A journey that ends too soon," the Edessan replied acridly. "I have never been outside my father's palace before. Now, again, after a brief viewing of fields and towns, I am again caged. Only the place has changed, nothing else. How do you bear it?"
The Damascene looked at her new acquaintance with renewed interest. "I was speaking on just that subject with my brother."
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| Ayeesha and Badiat |
Badiat frowned. "With my betrothed?"
"Why frown so? Ali is a fine man!"
The bride-to-be shrugged. "I saw him once at my father's court, through a screen. He was a fair enough figure of a youth, I suppose."
Ayeesha touched Badiat's hand. "You will love him, as I do."
"You have a soft touch," remarked the princess suddenly. "Does my touch please you also?"
"Princess, I --"
"We shall have many hours together, I do not doubt. Perhaps we shall become -- good friends."
"I hope we shall, my princess --" murmured Ayeesha with a wondering glance.
"Tis all a chequer-board of nights and days
Where Destiny with Men for pieces
plays:
Hither and thither moves, and
mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the closet
lays."
Chapter Two
Helping Ali descend into the waist-deep water, the bath-slave Aram failed to detect the stealthy footfalls of an unseen intruder. The wizard Yusuf, not yet absolutely confident of the Gem of Invisibility's power, paused and swallowed hard. Again he held clutched the glazed vial, now refilled. He had begun to hope that he might act with impunity, when Ali suddenly cast a glance his way. The old man quailed, but the prince's eyes moved fluidly past him, at which event the conspirator sucked in a deep breath of relief.
This inopportune gasp Ali actually did hear, and so frowningly scanned the chamber, while Yusuf stood frozen in place, too frightened even to breathe. Yet the prince saw nothing, and when Aram passed him the bottle of ointment, he poured a puddle of the oil into his palm and commenced to rub it into his own muscular arms and chest. With Ali and the servant both distracted, Yusuf carefully unstopped the flask and stepped to the edge of the bath-pit. Then, with trembling-yet-careful fingers, he evacuated the clear contents into the water with only the tiniest tinkling sound.
As the magical substance spread and reached Ali, something like a thousand pin-pricks benumbed the youth's flesh, and he let out a gasp of startlement. His knees failing under him, he thrust out his arms to catch the tile coping, lest he go under. He succeeded in this, but the servant above was already crying out in surprise and dismay:
"Master!" cried Aram. "This cannot be!"
Dazed, the son of Haroon looked up at him.
"What?" he murmured, and only belatedly realized that his voice sounded strange.
"You have changed!"
Dazed, Ali wondered why the man's eyes seemed to be starting from their sockets. Then he looked down at himself.
And screamed.
The Emir Haroon paced back and forth in front of his councilors, feeling much older than he was. The wise men of Damascus themselves appeared uncustomarily perplexed, and, out of reverence, and a certain squeamishness, refrained from looking at the cloaked figure of Ali. The latter was standing apart, side by side with Hassan, his face hidden by a close-wrapped kaffiyeh.
Lord Babur finally breached the tense silence with a platitude: "Sorcery is afoot, great Haroon. The culprit must be found and punished!"
The emir tore at his grey hair. "Oh, woe!" he wailed. "Should the sultan of Edessa discover this catastrophe, Ali's marriage to Badiat shall be doomed! Our own people may turn against us as a throne cursed of God! Our whole dynasty is ended! I no longer have an heir!"
"Majesty!" cried Ali. "It is not so! I am alive!"
Achmed, amused by the sound of the prince's voice, smiled unctuously at the shrouded figure with words calculated to wound: "Of course you understand what the emir is saying, O Royal One. The people will shun a prince under an enchantment such as yours. But hopefully, by the grace of Allah, we shall in time find the means to take this degrading spell from your person. But until then, alas, what His Eminence says is true."
He then turned toward the emir, saying: "Ali's wedding to Badiat is now impossible, Great One, but we dare not lose the alliance with Edessa. Therefore, another noble suitor must be found for the princess -- and swiftly."
"Do not despair, Mighty Emir," interjected the councilor
Madani, "I fear that I know what has befallen Ali -- and there is yet hope for
him."
Ali perked up. "What hope? Explain!"
"There is a spring called the Fountain of Marshan. He or she who bathes in its waters is --"
"Is what?" demanded Emir Haroon.
". . . is changed as Prince Ali has been changed." He went on to explain the legend in detail.
Achmed tensed. "And you suppose that an enemy has cursed Prince Ali with the water of this fountain?" he queried, keeping his tone controlled.
"I do. Fortunately, a little fresh water from the same spring will instantly remove the curse."
"Then I must go to the spring!" cried Ali.
"I, too, have heard of this evil fountain," put in another councilor, Aziz by name. "It is a long journey from here -- at the city of Marshan, far away to the north of the mountains of Persia, where the mountains end and the steppe land of Khwarizm begins."
"I do not care how far I must go!" the prince exclaimed. "I will not live as -- as --" His words choked off, their taste too bitter to utter.
"Be warned, Ali," said Madani with immense gravity. "The legends say that for the curse to be removed, the sufferer must do no dishonor to his original shape, and therefore must conduct himself accordingly."
Ali stepped determinably forward: "What does that mean? Do not speak in riddles!"
Madani explained his meaning carefully, and Ali's eyes grew wide in anger. "Why do you even make mention of such a thing?! By Allah's Sword, what do you take me for?!"
Councilor Aziz interposed himself between Madani and Ali. "Peace, Your Grace. Our colleague means only to say that no one knows what subtle changes this sorcery may have wrought in your blameless nature."
"My nature is exactly what it has always been!" exclaimed the emir's son. "Or," he demanded through clenched teeth, "have you noticed some alteration?"
"None at all," the elder replied with a reverential bow.
The emir slammed his fist against the arm of his chair. "We shall seek for the culprit! He may have more of the magic water, and thus the curse may be lifted at once. But if our search does not avail us, then we must waste no time." He swung toward Hassan.
The young warrior straightened. "Yes, Mighty One?"
"Hassan, you shall prepare an expedition to Khwarizm at once! Accompany Ali to the spring -- and do not return until my son is restored."
"Why do you not let me prepare the expedition myself, Father?" Ali asked in perplexity. "It will help keep my mind off this terrible condition."
"How can you speak to warriors and camel-sellers as you are, my son?" his father answered. "No one would recognize you, and you must not tell a soul your identity, lest the scandal shame our entire house, our ancestors' memory even!"
The prince blinked with startlement. "Am I a thing of disdain to you now, Father? Why? I have done no wrong and am responsible in no way for what has befallen me."
"No, of course you are not! But we must be discrete. Besides, you are too distraught to do such exacting work. Let Hassan see to these difficult matters."
"Why should I?" Ali answered defiantly. "Whatever else I may have become, Majesty, I have not become a child nor a fool!"
Achmed spoke up, not wanting the council to end before he cast blame away from himself: "That bath servant of the prince's may be a part of the plot. He should be put to the torture at once."
 |
| Achmed, Haroon, and councilors |
Ali raised a hand in protest. "No! He is innocent. -- I feel it. It is an evil thing to torture a good servant on mere suspicion, and I will not have it done on my account!"
"Of course, of course," vacillated the emir, "but he must at least be closely questioned. If, in the process, he behaves in a guilty manner --"
He dropped the subject and addressed the others: "Gentlemen, come; we must sort this matter out carefully."
The emir withdrew and the councilors stepped briskly after him, leaving Ali and Hassan behind. The prince looked askance at the warrior at his side.
Before Hassan could encourage or commiserate, there came a shout from Achmed in the adjacent chamber. "Hassan, you come also. This concerns your journey!"
The prince's comrade looked bemusedly at Ali. "Excuse me, my friend. I will rejoin you as soon as possible."
Now left alone, Ali spun about with a shout of frustration and stormed away.
Achmed, once more surrounded by a crowd of his women, received Yusuf for the second time that day. The latter was accompanied this time by a tall, muscular warrior in the garments of a ghazi.
The vizier pushed a doe-eyed concubine away, commanding: "Begone, all of you!" As the women scrambled from the suite, Achmed beckoned Yusuf and his bodyguard closer. The latter watched the departing dancers and concubines with avid interest.
"Visions of loveliness, lord," the ghazi rumbled, his accent betraying an Egyptian origin.
"Yes, indeed," Achmed affirmed distractedly. "You should see them when they dance."
"Aye," nodded the big swordsman, "that is the sort of woman for me -- a dancing girl, like my mother was."
"I take it that you are Mahmood, Yusuf's bodyguard?" said Achmed.
"That is so, lord," affirmed Yusuf. "I would have lost my life many a time during my travels, except that the stalwart Mahmood stood at my side."
"You are welcome here, warrior," Achmed said.
Mahmood gave a dignified bow. "Thank you, Mighty Vizier."
The Turkish grandee put his beringed hand upon the old wizard's back. "Yusuf, you should have seen Prince Ali! He was wrapped up like a bedouin! It was all I could do to keep from laughing! "
Yusuf grinned. "You forget that I saw him in the bath -- not wrapped, but naked! The spectacle was even more amazing than you can imagine!"
"And if I have my way, he will wear that shape for the rest of his life!" the vizier vowed determinedly. "Tell me, Sorcerer, have you come up with some plan to prevent Ali from ever again regaining his natural shape?"
"Yes indeed, Lord. Have I ever failed you?"
Achmed listened carefully to his learned cohort and then nodded. "I do like what I hear. How should we bring it about? Do you suggest violence?"
"Alas, lord, for the magic to work, Ali must act willingly, enthusiastically, even."
"He will never do that!"
"I agree. For that reason we must resort to magic once more."
"What do you mean?"
"I have a potion which comes from the city of Marshan also." Yusuf summarized the peculiar nature of the cantrip.
"But how do we know that the potion you purchased was true and pure?" Achmed asked edgily.
"I am confident, Esteemed One, but if you would set your mind at ease, I suggest that we test it upon the knight in the tower while you observe."
Achmed rubbed his beard thoughtfully, his lips drawing into a tight, thin smile. "And perhaps I shall do more than merely observe."
Yusuf led his master Achmed and his servant Mahmood to the Crusader's cell, whereupon Achmed sent the guards away and unlocked the door. On entering, they espied a blonde woman of about nineteen or twenty years of age wearing the rood-decorated tabard and hose of the infidel Crusaders.
Standing defiantly on the opposite side of a small table, the blonde snarled: "Sorcier! Va-t'en! Je ne suis pas un caprice pour votre amusement!"
"The knight, I think, resents being turned into a woman," Yusuf grinned toward Achmed. "And yet he makes such a pretty virgin girl!" Then, regarding the captive once again, he said, "We must fetter her." He passed the cup he was holding to the vizier. "Please hold this vessel, my lord."
Achmed received the chalice and his two underlings went after the Frankish maid. She shouted a foreign obscenity and seized an earthenware pitcher to throw at Yusuf's head. The old man ducked, but Mahmood charged. The French girl eluded his grasp for a moment, but he soon had her locked in his herculean arms. The Egyptian and his master dragged their prize to a wooden pillar, from whence a set of manacles depended. While Mahmood held her, the magician clicked the iron cuffs shut about her wrists.
"Cochons! Je vous tourai!" shrieked the fettered blonde, the echoes of her cry ringing through the tower.
Achmed now stepped forward. The girl's red-faced rage, her flashing blue eyes, the disarray of her hair, came across as feral beauty. "Very good," he said. "Now leave us alone. I will administer the potion and observe its effects personally."
Yusuf half-bowed in assent and drew Mahmood after him. Achmed watched the door close, then held the cup of wine up before his captive's nose. The bouquet was heavy and sweet.
"You are thirsty, are not you, Sir Knight? Let it not be said that I do not see to my captives' needs." He nudged the goblet to her lips. "Here, take this. I know how you French like wine. All the world knows you for a race of drunkards."
After a circumspect taste, the French girl yielded to her thirst and drank in large gulps. Finally, sated, she sighed and sagged in her bonds. Achmed watched avidly. After just a moment, the grandee noticed the girl's shiver. This shiver, whatever its cause, seemed to leave her as swiftly as it had come, and she was suddenly looking up, blinking at him with bedazzled eyes.
Had the spell worked? Achmed, deciding that it was time test it, groped the girl's tabard.
No sooner had he pinched her breast than she rebuked him: "A bas les mains, abatardi puant que vous etes!"
"You do not like being touched, my lotus?" he mocked. "Why should that be? I have heard that French girls are all whores, though I do not know whether they were speaking figuratively or literally. We must decide the matter for ourselves."
Achmed prodded the girl with insolent fingers. "Conchon!" the transformed knight yelled at the top of her lungs.
After a few minutes, Achmed began to notice a gentling of his victim's attitude. Was it the effect of the potion? Emboldened, the vizier took his victim by the waist and crushed her against himself, forcing hungry kisses upon her mouth. She thrashed about and aimed a knee at his crouch, but he was too quick for her.
"Allez-vous-en, vase Arabe!" she growled, and Achmed surmised that her words had amounted to an insult of the vilest kind.
"Do you impugn me, by proud beauty?" he inquired whimsically. "You will be punished for that."
He drew his father's bejeweled dagger; the girl froze as Achmed poised the keen blade under her chin. But instead of cutting her, he merely severed the tie at her throat.
"I want to see you naked," explained Achmed as he pulled her tunic down. "If your beauty pleases me, you shall be permitted to live as a concubine for the rest of your life."
The bare-footed knight kicked at Achmed's shins futilely while the vizier cut away those parts of her garments which would not yield to main strength. "Ahh, yes," he murmured, "I am impressed, truly. Some fool told me that Western women were small-breasted, but you are as generously-endowed as any Circassian beauty."
He touched her now-bared bosom, while the girl tried to shake him off. Achmed laughed at her mortification; the knight was easy prey for the Syrian in her present form. And he knew from experience how to deal with an indignant, chained girl.
Maliciously, Achmed sank to his knees and hooked his thumbs into the knight's waistband. His attempt to drag down her hose incited the knight to kicking again. Annoyed, Achmed left her hose bunched at her knees, where it would seriously impede her ability to kick with efficacy.
From his current perspective, Achmed inspected the curling gold below the Frank's little belly. The vizier placed his hands upon her buttocks, kneading them with vigor while his prey twisted right and left.
Eager to subject his prisoner to new indignities, the vizier took hold of her knees and bent to kiss her inner thighs. Oblivious to her growling cries, the Turk worked his way up along the blemishless flesh to the fair nest above. He touched his tongue to her clitoris -- the zambur, as his people called it -- giving it a mischievous flick, which caused the girl to leap.
Achmed doubted that a raw slave had ever given him so much pleasure before. His continued ministrations brought a gasping staccato from the girl, music to his ears. Finally, he desisted, got up, and wiped his mouth on his kerchief.
Strands of amber hair were pasted to the maid's moist face and her limbs quivered with sensation and emotion. He saw her slick sheen of perspiration -- the product, he was sure, not of air temperature, but of sexual heat. Did Achmed also detect a trace of feminine musk over the usual prison odors?
The Turk decided that he did, and so pressed his agenda. He picked up the leather collar which he had brought along and enjoyed the look of horror the Frankish maid showed when she saw the collar yawn open. Instead of thrashing about this time, the blonde simply hung there with eyes wide, her lips agape. The prisoner's demeanor made it easy for Achmed to fit the dark leather around her swan-like neck.
 |
| The French Crusader |
Was she stunned only? he wondered. Yusuf had said that the potion had three elements to its makeup. The first induced into a woman who drank it an insatiable sexual need. The second inspired a craving for bondage, for wearing the symbols of subjugation and submitting to the domination of a master. The third created a passionate fixation upon the first man which her dazed glance falls upon. Taken together, the three elements of the potion created a wild and lusty female slave. This was the fate which the grandee dearly desired to inflict upon Ali.
Achmed had by now notched the belt in place with these taunting words:
"At this moment, you cease to be a free man or even a woman captive. You are chattel. There shall be no purpose to your life hereafter, except the pleasing of those who hold power over you!"
Achmed stepped back to feast his eyes upon the circlet she now wore. The collar was not the fashion of Syria, but came from the lands east of Baghdad. Nonetheless, he very much liked the look of it upon the neck of a beautiful thrall. The item was, in fact, the girl's only garment above the knees. Though she didn't understand his words, the French prisoner comprehended the symbolism of his act and her expression transformed from one of anger to dismay.
Achmed surprised her by unlocking the manacles. So taken aback was she that, instead of darting away, or springing for his throat, she collapsed into his arms. Atremble with triumph and desire, the vizier lowered her to the floor. As she lay on the old straw, the Saracen stripped off her over-sized boots, then her hose, leaving her just the collar.
"What an addition you shall make to the seraglio which finally claims you!" prophesied the Turk, his lips drawn back in a rictus of sadistic mirth. Then, without further taunts, he opened his trousers to liberate his blood-gorged manhood.
The French girl stared.
"Like it, Crusader? It shall be yours -- in a sense."
The vizier stooped to grab a mass of her golden hair, and thereby pulled her up to her knees. Then he took his aroused organ in his other hand.
"Taste my zubb, infidel whore!"
The girl averted her gaze.
Angry, Achmed stood up, adjusted his breeches, and yelled: "-- Yusuf, you fool!"
When the old man had shuffled back into the cell, the vizier pointed an accusing finger at him. "The potion has no effect!"
"You are too precipitate, Lord," Yusuf counseled plaintively. "I have seen how the Marshanese use the potion. It is assuredly an effective means to tame a defiant female. The more she is forced to yield to the impulses it inspires, the greater grows its dominance over her emotions. And this is the royal mix of the cantrip, which is the most potent of all."
Achmed made a scoffing noise. "She doesn't seem to love me in the least."
"Be patient," the magician urged.
The Turk was only partially mollified as he made a new assessment of the girl. Her fair eyes were bloodshot and watery, her shoulders trembled, her breasts heaved.
The sight might have brought pity to another heart, but not to Achmed's. "You Crusaders invade our land, you rape, you pillage," he inveighed. "All of you cannot be punished -- but you are one who shall pay for his sins in hard coin! Do you know what the words `Mouth Magic' mean, you stupid little barbarian?"
The French girl reacted and Achmed laughed. "I see you do understand!" grinned the Syrian. "You must have learned all the words that filthy, Christian-loving whores use." He pointed to his formidable scepter. "Mouth Magic!"
The indignant Frank shook her head and effected to crawl away. The Saracen took the sash from his robe and, in a flash, had his fair prisoner bound belly-down to an iron floor-ring. Then he took his leather belt from his pantaloons.
"Mouth Magic now, little whore? I am waiting."
She shook her head furiously. "No! Jamais!"
Achmed struck. The Crusader yelled in pain and struggled to free herself, but the Syrian's knots were too clever. Achmed delivered one blow after another, until he left his victim gasping, her mouth full of straw. His vengeful impulse momentarily satisfied, Achmed set aside the belt and told Yusuf to fetch a pitcher of water.
From this, the official refreshed himself, and then condescendingly put the cup to his slave's lips, who drank so eagerly that should she coughed in swallowing. Achmed, anticipating the fulfillment of his desires, now scowled at Yusuf, saying, "Go now. I resume my private audience with our foreign guest."
When the wizard was gone, Achmed spoke sneeringly to the girl: "Mouth Magic, my little heifer, or --" he showed her the strap, "-- more of this?"
"Oui! Mouth magic!" she moaned -- in dread, of course, but perhaps her ready capitulation was also motivated by something more compelling than even the stinging touch of the strap.
Achmed arranged the girl on her hands and knees, then seated himself upon the prison stool. By means of a handful of her hair, he brought his slave's face to his loins. The vizier continued to hold her with one hand while he again freed his erection and commenced to rub it against the French girl's tight-clenched lips.
"Open your mouth, strumpet!" he directed, pantomiming the action which he wanted.
The Frank moved to comply, if woefully slow. Impatient, Achmed thrust the corona of his penis between her lips and felt its warm, wet envelopment.
"Suck! Suck, bitch, -- suck!" Achmed commanded, pulling her hair. By this means, and groaning encouragement from time to time, he exacted a satisfactory, if unpolished, performance.
Without warning, Achmed pushed the maid away, so that she fell back on the straw. The Saracen got to his feet and kicked the pantaloons from his ankles. Then, unsure whether to resist or not, his captive permitted him to take a mastering grasp upon her. His knees strategically placed between her spread legs, the vizier smiled at the way her nipples stood straight-out, stiff little pink-brown cones.
Confronted by such evidence of female heat, Achmed could control himself no longer. Consequently, he moved swiftly to burden her with his weight and she cried out in surprise. At first his action was to subject her to a rough, angry foreplay -- pawing and groping -- the sort of treatment that a whore could expect from a conquering soldier. Her wet face he covered in big, slavering kisses, interspaced with painful love-bites. The girl, pinned to the straw, could do nothing but cry out and struggle ineffectively against the hurt -- a hurt which was increasingly registering in her mind and emotions as pleasure.
Achmed felt about to burst, but he did not want to spend himself upon her thighs.
"Ah, my bitch, you have raped many daughters of the Faithful, I do not doubt. It is time for restitution. How shall it feel to be a sword no longer, but a scabbard put to the service of other men's weapons?"
She shuddered and her look of fear-mixed-with-need pleased him. "You are as hot as a brazier in wintertide, my beauty. I see in your famished eyes that you want to fuck, and fuck you shall! Do you know that word, my darling little harlot -- `fuck?'"
There was a capitulation in the French girl's psyche as the potion overwhelmed her. She had no presence of mind except to nod. "Oui, Maitre! `Fuck!' Jai compris! Penetre-me! Fuck! Fuck moi, Maitre!"
Achmed knew the tones of lust when he heard them, and so he placed his stiff length to the center of her vulva, and, with his victim moaning in near-delirium, he thrust.
She shrieked in her instant of violation. Her reaction was an aphrodisiac to the Turk, who pumped furiously, with long, slamming strokes. He continued until the woman shuddered under him and he shouted triumphantly as her hips arched and she was transported. He let himself go, pouring himself out in a series of spasmodic bursts. A man of vigor, Achmed continued thrusting as long as he had anything left to give.
Achmed at last rolled away. He immediately felt the girl tugging at his arm.
"Mon Deui!" she gasped. "C'est bon! C'est bon! Plus!"
When her lover proved unresponsive, the French maid groped at him, tried to roll him over on top of herself again.
Weary, Achmed pushed his ardent lover back but, to his annoyance, she held on to his leg, yammering: "Maitre! Fuck moi! Mas fuck!"
"No, Crusader, I am not here for your pleasure," he taunted as he stared into the cobwebs of the ceiling. "But I may tell your jailers that they may do as they please with you. Would you like that, my insatiable harlot?"
She didn't understand. Achmed grinned in anticipation of that soon-to-arrive moment when she would understand her fate fully. Then he rose, dressed, and then called his fellow conspirators back into the cell.
"She came like a bitch in heat!" the vizier laughed. "A man only this morning, tonight she climaxes like the hottest whore in Tyre!"
"Now you know that the potion works," said Yusuf proudly. "A man or woman who surrenders himself, or herself, to one of his former sex, so long as he was willing when he did so, is forever trapped in the shape which the waters have imposed."
"For once you have not blundered, old fool. That is, if the legend is true. Douse the slut with some more of the magic water tonight, just to make sure that she cannot be restored. If she cannot be, then it shall be clear that Ali cannot be, either."
"I will do so, my lord. But what about afterwards? The girl knows too much. She cannot speak our language as yet, but in time --?
Achmed frowned. Clearly, the Crusader must be sent away, killed, or have her tongue cut out.
"Tell me, wizard, will this delectable slut die of love for me if I send her from the city?"
"No, if a love-slave finds her ardor rejected, the spell will simply fade away in a few days. But the love-need only will go from her; she shall not be freed from her craving for sex and bondage. These drives will possess her, I understand, until the end of her childbearing years."
"She is able to conceive?"
"I have been to Marshan and so I know it to be true."
Achmed nodded, satisfied. "Death is too kind for a Christian dog -- I mean, a Christian bitch. I promised that I would make her a concubine, and so I shall. I know a slave-trader who is buying women for Abyssinia."
Yusuf inclined his head. "You are wise as well as merciful, Exulted One."
"No time for banter, Yusuf! You must follow Ali and Hassan's expedition. As soon as you are able, you must put the royal potion of Maiden's Ruin into his food or drink."
"Must it be the royal potion, Sire? As I say, the love spell is fragile, unless the sufferer's love is returned."
Achmed gave a toss of his hand. "Ali must lose his maidenhead as quickly as possible, and a slut in the grip of love-madness will not preserve her virginity as much as an hour. We play for dangerous stakes, Yusuf; we must win with devastating swiftness, or all might be lost."
"It is a vile revenge, Lord," spoke up Mahmood for the first time. "Why not simply use the power of the Gem of Invisibility to bring an assassin to the prince?"
The vizier shook his head. "That is too unimaginative, and it would not satisfy my hate. Debased as he is, Ali may live and suffer, but be forever denied the throne. And if I become emir, my first act shall be to place him under the tyranny of whip-mistresses for training as one of my concubines, or even as a lowly barracks-room belly dancer, to entertain my soldiers."
Achmed noticed Yusuf's doleful expression. "What ails you now, Wizard?"
"You say I must travel yet again. My bones ache for rest, Lord. I have grown too old for these long journeys."
"I can trust no one else! Do what I ask one final time and then retire with ten chests of gold for your own!"
"Yes, Exulted One," Yusuf capitulated, moved as much by fear as by greed.
Achmed turned to face the bodyguard. "And you, Mahmood? Will you go with your master?"
"A man can always use more gold, Lord, but my happiness requires much more."
The grandee regarded the Egyptian through a cocked eye. "Just how great is your ambition, ghazi?"
"I would give up my wandering forever," replied Mahmood, "if I could but open a simple hostel in my native Egypt and make it prosper."
"That is nothing," exclaimed the official. "I can make you the master of ten taverns."
"I do not need ten, Great One. So much responsibility would leave me no time for wife and family, and therefore for all which makes for a life of contentment. There is only one thing which I lack."
"What?"
"It is too much to ask."
"Ask anyway, dolt! We have little time for false modesty."
Mahmood nodded. "Lord Achmed is famous for the beauty of his harem."
"That is so. What of it?"
"I have already espied one in it whom I cannot but deem the most beautiful woman in all the world."
 |
| Visions of gold |
Achmed shook his head. "It is impudence, warrior, to aspire to a concubine who has previously graced my own bed! Yet I will not haggle with time so short. To destroy the heir of Haroon, I would gladly lay even my own sister at your feet. Serve your master well, come back successful, and the girl is yours. -- More than that, you shall also have a chest of gold to buy that hostel of yours!"
"Then I am your man," replied the bodyguard gratefully, clutching his scabbard in solemn pledge.
Achmed clasped both their hands, sealing their pact of rogues.
"Then to the rolling Heav'n itself I cried,
Asking, "What lamp had Destiny to guide
Her little children stumbling in the dark?"
And -- "A blind understanding!" Heav'n replied."
Chapter Three
That night, the young woman whom Ali had become lay in a bed of deep despondency. Nerves
frayed, afflicted by grief, she yearned for the slumber which eluded her.
Suddenly, she heard footsteps behind the curtains.
"Aram!" Ali called out irritably. "I told you to go to bed! Stop dragging your feet around!"
Then the prince heard an answering gasp of surprise, a gasp which told her that it was not the bath slave tiptoeing about, but an intruder! She seized her dagger from the nightstand.
"What --? Who is it?"
A figure emerged tentatively into the lamplight. "Where is my brother, maid?" the intruder demanded puzzledly. "And why are you lying alone in his bed with your face masked?"
"Ayeesha!" the prince blurted in recognition.
"Do you know me, slave? Would I also know you under that dust veil?"
"Ayeesha!" the masked maiden exclaimed urgently. "Do not shout or call for the guards.""
"What are you talking about, girl?"
"I am no girl!" the prince declared despondently. "I -- I am Ali!"
Ayeesha stepped closer. "Ali? What sort of fool do you take me for? Your voice is a girl's. Your figure is also a girl's, though you wear a man's gown!"
"Let me explain!"
And explain Ali did. Though Ayeesha refused to believe the wild tale at first, she plied the masked female with many questions and was finally convinced.
"Oh, Brother, what an incredible story!"
A moment of awkward silence ensued, then Ali asked: "Why hast thou come?"
"Gossip says that you were about to depart on a long pilgrimage to the East," she explained. "This made no sense, as everyone knew you were to marry the Princess Badiat but a few days hence. And if some sudden religious passion had taken hold of thee, I knew that my brother would at least visit me before he departed. Something seemed very wrong."
"Something is very wrong," Ali whispered miserably.
She touched her sibling's arm. "Do not grieve so."
"Why should I not grieve? If you were suddenly made a male, would you not feel as humiliated as I do?"
Ayeesha sat back on her heels and shook her head sadly. "No, I would be pleased."
Ali looked up, incredulous. "Thou would jest so at a time like this?!"
"I speak the purest truth, Brother! In this world men may do everything and women nothing. If you go to Marshan, as you say thoust will, I beg thee, return with a bottle of the fountain water -- for me. I would rather be your younger brother than any kind of a sister!"
Ali slumped back into the pillows, shaking her head. "I do not understand you. I never have."
"Nor do I understand why you must hide your face from even me, dear Ali. Has this magic made thee ugly?"
The prince gave a deep sigh. "No, not ugly. But -- my appearance -- it would shock thee. Thou more than any other, perhaps."
"Do not treat me so, Ali. I am not squeamish. Now that I am warned, I expect to see nought but a stranger's face."
The sound Ali made was half a laugh, half a moan. "It will not seem so strange. Councilor Madani explained to us in council what has happened. He said that the curse of the fountain does not simply change a man. It makes him over into the image of that one which he --"
"Which he what? "
"Which he holds in his own mind to be the most beautiful in all the world."
"Oh, no, Ali -- thou hast not taken the shape of one of your own slave girls, or some belly dancer of the marketplace? My poor, poor dear brother!"
Ali closed her eyes. "No, it is nothing like that. Perhaps it is less bad. Or maybe it is worse. I do not know."
"Then show me. I shall not quail."
Ali turned away in declination, but Ayeesha squeezed the maid's hand. Reluctantly, Ali faced her sister again and drew down the dust veil.
"Brother, you -- you look like --" gasped the princess in amazement.
"Yes," nodded Ali. "I look like -- you. . . ."
Scheherazade says:
"Before many days had passed, Ali and Hassan's caravan set out for the East, replete with many horses, pack camels, and thirty loyal warriors on horseback. But as swiftly as the royal party traveled, a small group of its enemies traveled just as swiftly in pursuit -- Yusuf and Mahmood, protected by a few trusted hirelings from Achmed's personal guard.
"Once far out in the desert, the cunning Yusuf hoped to steal into Ali's night-camp and place the cruel bewitchment of Maiden's Ruin upon him. But, alas, a great sandstorm swept the wilderness and concealed the tracks of the larger party. As they searched doggedly for their unsuspecting quarry, Yusuf and Mahmood became hopelessly lost in the wind-blown wastes, falling many, many leagues behind.
"The journey was a long one and, as the long weeks passed, the strain began to tell upon the royal questers. And despondency fell especially hard upon the young man who was a man no longer."
They had crossed the borders of Persia that morning, and the slow beasts were rambling along dry runs, and gullies that scored the parched terrain. Scrub weed dotted the landscape, and this humble growth was the only growth in a landscape burned barren by Shaitan's fiery breath. At last, one night amid the dunes of inner Persia, Hassan gave the order to pause and make camp and before long the men were serving out their rations of rice, camel milk, butter, and a bit of hare-meat taken in the last hunt. Ali, as was her wont, said nothing, ate swiftly, and then withdrew alone beyond the glow of the firelight. Hassan had noticed the prince's solemn departure with a heavy heart. He had always been reluctant to disturb his friend while possessed by such a mood, but yet Ali's grief seemed to be unending.
Rising quietly, Hassan quietly sloughed through the deep sand until he stood close behind the one whom he honored above all others in the world. Ali must have heard the rattle of the sand under his feet, but deigned not to look back.
"Ali, the night is cold, my prince. Come back by the fire."
 |
| The night is cold |
"Leave me, Hassan. I know when to come out of the cold."
Hassan persisted: "At least uncover your face, Ali. What is the point in hiding it from us out here in the desert? I, at least, already know what Ayeesha looks like." He reached out to draw down her dust veil.
Ali struck at his hand. "I said leave me!"
Hassan stood, his broad shoulders rigid with rebuke. "I have been mistaken. I thought that we were a guard of honor following a prince. Now I see that we are merely escorting a modest girl of the palace -- one who veils her face, one who humbly demurs from speaking when men are present, one who seeks seclusion --"
With a wild cry, Ali sprang at Hassan. The warrior dodged the wild blow and the girl's feet slipped in the loose sand and she would have fallen face-down, except that her comrade threw his arms around her in time.
The prince fought hard to get out of his grasp. "Jackal!" she yelled. "Release me! If this had befallen you, never would I treat you so!"
He released her and she staggered back "You might not," Hassan admitted, "but I hope I would not act so foolishly about what could not be helped.""
Ali faced away from him and wrapped her arms about herself. The bey of horse softened his tone: "I see one whom I have loved like a brother becoming a stranger. It is a loss which I cannot bear."
"I wish I were a beast down on four legs rather than a woman!" the prince whispered.
"You cannot mean that, Ali."
"I do! It is better to be pitied than laughed at!"
Hassan lay a hand upon the maid's shoulder. "No one is laughing at you. I am your friend, and these men are your most faithful retainers."
"What are they saying then?" she demanded with balled fists. "That this curse is the judgement of Allah?"
"Nothing of the kind!"
"Why not?"
"What do you mean, `Why not?'"
Ali now settled dejectedly to the ground. "I meant that it makes sense, Hassan. -- You of all men know how I used to talk. Did I not confide to you that I was reluctant to assume the responsibilities of my birth? This is Allah's vengeance."
Hassan dropped down beside her. "No, my friend, it is only the evil deed of some sorcerer. Allah does not avenge Himself for every small shortcoming in a man. Is He not called `el-Rahman,' the Merciful? If He were as vengeful against me as you believe He has been against you, I would be a donkey by now, not a man."
"So you say, but I know in my soul that I have been unworthy."
Hassan shook his head emphatically. "I cannot see it! And you, too, will know Allah's will when we reach Marshan and restore you. Then no one except us few shall ever know that you were once bewitched."
Ali looked into his face and Hassan saw the agonizing uncertainty in her brown eyes. "But what if our quest fails? What will my life be then? Shall I take a room in the women's quarters next to Ayeesha's? Shall my father have two daughters? Should he announce a rich dowry and find for me a mate?"
The warrior, listening with astonishment, at last comprehended the cruel fantasies which were driving his friend to despair. "Whatever your fate," he said, "God alone knows it. But, Allah willing, I shall stand forever at your side." He reached again for her veil.
Ali caught the wrist in mid-course, but this time no anger flamed in her almond eyes. She instead clasped it in a way to convey trust and reconciliation, and then drew down the mask herself.
Scheherazade says:
"The friendship of Ali and Hassan, strong before that night upon the dunes, grew ever deeper.
"After months of taxing travel, the royal caravan at long last reached its desired goal -- the city Marshan, which lay at the margin of the mountain ranges of Persia and the vast steppe country of Khwarizm.
"Yet, days before the soldiers of Damascus drew near to Marshan, its sultan had been forewarned by his watchful outriders. Hence, a guard of honor was dispatched to great the visitors and to escort Ali and Hassan to the palace as honored guests."
The palace steward met the Syrian visitors and ushered Prince Ali and Lord Hassan to quarters worthy of their dignity.
"Wait," remarked Ali as the man turned to withdraw, keeping her voice low and gruff so that the steward would not suspect her secret.
"Sire?" the rotund little man asked.
"We have heard very strange tales concerning Marshan."
"Ah, yes," nodded the servant, suppressing a smile. "No doubt these stories concern the magic fountain of Marshan."
"Yes," agreed Ali. "Does such an amazing thing truly exist?"
"I believe it exists," grinned the jovial steward, "for I have seen it perform its miracle many times. You may see it for yourselves, since, as it happens, some men will be transformed tomorrow."
"Transformed? Why would any man wish to subject himself to such a ghastly fate?" Hassan demanded.
"Not by any choice of their own, be assured! The sultan's nephew and his bravo friends gambled themselves into debt and then robbed some outlying villages to pay their moneylenders. They dressed as bandits and hoped that bandits would be blamed for their evil deeds. But Allah was not deceived, and He caused them to be discovered. The most guilty of them have been condemned to be cast into the Fountain, to be afterwards trained as slave girls."
Hassan and Ali exchanged perplexed glances.
"You say that the chastisement is public?" asked the Syrian warrior.
"Of course! What is more edifying than to see those who break Allah's commandments being punished by His own miracle? The infliction of punishment always draws a large crowd. Would it please our honored guests to witness it also?"
Hassan shook his head dubiously. "I do not think --"
"No," broke in Ali, touching Hassan's arm. "We must."
The steward bowed. "You shall see that the power of the fountain is exactly as I have told you, Great Prince."
The next morning Hassan and Ali saw something of Marshan, a wealthy, well-adorned city, with prosperous-looking subjects going hither and thither on their business. Slave girls thronged the streets and Hassan noted that they were not dressed with the same modesty that their Syrian counterparts displayed.
The Damascenes passed by a slave market which was poorly attended this morning -- probably because the punishment was drawing so many people away from the bazaar. Regardless, the women on display were young and beautiful.
"Fountain girls," remarked their escort, a captain of Marshan.
"What do you mean?" rumbled Ali.
"These are rebels who were captured last spring," explained the officer. "They were cast into the fountain and then trained to give pleasure as servant girls and concubines. Because rebellion is a most terrible crime, they are earmarked to be sold only to foreign caravaneers. It is the wish of the magistrates that the woe of their sex and slavery be increased by exile from their native city."
"What land would want such accursed creatures?" the prince inquired.
The captain gave a short laugh. "The fountain girls of Marshan are eagerly sought by connoisseurs of female flesh in India, Persia, and Khwarizm. Some men are pleased to hear cries of pain and mortification from nubile girls who were once, perhaps, as virile and well-endowed as they."
"Does that please the men of Marshan also?" asked Hassan.
Their guide shrugged. "It is a matter of taste. But most Marshanese think about fountain girls very little, if at all. Their kind is too commonplace hereabout to concern any serious man."
Hassan could not believe that `fountain girls' could ever be considered commonplace. Marshan seemed to him a wicked town, like Sodom in days of old. The warrior looked up into the sky, as if half-expecting the dark clouds of the city's coming destruction to be descending from Allah's abode!
Ali pointed to a nude woman chained to a wall. Her collar told the prince that the prisoner was a slave. "Is such a public display not a scandal here?"
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| A fountain girl on display |
"Not at all!" answered the officer. "Exhibition is one means for a master to punish a displeasing concubine."
"It is a harsh punishment!"
The Marshanese shook his head. "No blood flows and shame leaves no scars. As punishments go, it is merciful."
"She, too, is a fountain girl?" the prince asked tensely.
"Very likely. A fountain girl is not reared to obedience to men and so often requires much discipline -- until she is finally broken like any other spirited filly to the wearing of the bridle."
Hassan shuddered despite the heat.
They passed through the main city port, and before long they reached the precincts of the fountain. Hassan had expected to see a small pool fed by a spring. It was, in fact, a large pond whose edge was trimmed with a stone-block coping. An imposing edifice stood on the opposite bank and this, their guide explained, was a law court. Many trials were held within it, and many of the condemned, he assured them, were sent to the fountain.
How intimidating it must be, Hassan reasoned, for the felon to be tried in a courtroom overlooking the magic water. That there would be any crime in Marshan at all almost defied belief.
A large crowd had massed up near the water's edge. Undaunted, the captain nudged his horse slowly into the midst of it, shouting, "Make way! Make way for the sultan's royal guests!"
The mob parted and the captain dismounted near the water's edge. Ali and Hassan, did likewise, sliding down from their saddles to stand at either side of him. Hassan espied a group of guards and a smaller group of distinguished-looking elders. These latter, wearing immaculate robes and pure white muslin turbans, he supposed must be the presiding magistrates.
Two captives stood between the guards, their hands tied in front of them. Surveying the pair sternly, one of the magistrates commanded: "Bring forward Kislar Ibn Aglar."
Two of the guards shoved the felon up before the judge.
"Have you anything to say before sentence is enacted?" the later queried.
"There is no justice in Marshan!" the young felon declared indignantly. "I am an innocent man. I fell in with bad companions, true, but I always sought to dissuade them from deeds of rascality."
Though the young man had spoken with apparent sincerity, Hassan knew that many rogues were skilled and shameless liars and so he did not know whether he should sympathize or not.
A magistrate raised his hand to silence the man's pleading. "Our evidence finds you were in fact the worst of a bad lot, that you were indefatigable in egging on your despicable comrades to ever more horrendous offenses. For that reason, Kislar Ibn Aglar, it is meet that you be punished first." He then gestured to the guards.
The two men obligingly dragged the felon to the edge of the pool, though Kislar dug in his heels and fought them all the way. A third guard came forward with a looped rope, which he slipped over the head of Ibn Aglar and slid taut about his waist.
That being done, the guards seized their charge by the arms and legs, picked him up, rocked him back and forth, and hurled him out into the water, well beyond the stone coping.
The felon apparently couldn't swim, or was simply too shocked to try, for he splashed frantically and yelled obscene imprecations. Amid all noise of churning water, Hassan very quickly discerned that the manly howl of terror had become a woman's shrill.
This seemed to be the sign for the guards to draw the felon back to the bank via the attached rope.
"Are the guards not afraid to touch the water?" Ali asked of the captain beside her.
The Marshanese shook his head. "The guards who perform this duty are transformed women. They have taken wives, and so cannot be changed by the waters again."
Hassan blenched. This was a mad place -- and he dearly wished to be away from it in haste.
The crowd craned its necks to see what sort of woman Kislar had turned into, but for the moment the felon was left to lie like a great wet mass of laundry at the feet of the official party.
Next Lord Dwar was summoned up before the other judge. The sultan's nephew appeared craven, begging, importuning, incoherent. Hassan shook his head. Kislar's unctuous pleading had been the apex of manly fortitude by comparison.
The judge stilled Dwar with a shout: "You are a disgrace to your noble family line! They have disowned you, cast you out. All you have to say has been said before. Naught is left to do, except to see that the punishment mandated by law is carried out!"
At his signal, the guards handled Dwar as they had handed his co-conspirator. A scant two minutes later a figure gasping in a woman's voice was drawn out of the pool.
"Is Lord Dwar the highest-ranked personage ever to be so punished, Captain?" Hassan asked.
"Not so," the officer replied. "The fifth sultan of the first dynasty was also so punished."
"A sultan?" exclaimed Hassan. "How can that be?"
"The man was an unworthy cur," the guide explained with knitted brows. "He lied, he cheated, he committed adultery with other men's wives. The Fifth Sultan broke every stricture of the Koran. Never since the days of Nimrod has there been a man more evil upon a throne of grace."
"That is saying much," remarked Hassan.
"It only gives the Fifth Sultan his due," affirmed the officer. "In his youth, instead of training for war, he went away to Isfahan to study law. While there he defamed his own city and espoused the virtue of our foes, he hated Marshan and esteemed all who hated it also. He returned and was made governor of a province, married a wicked woman, and together they plotted with greedy money-lenders to enrich themselves from the pain of the unfortunate. He even summoned the wife of one of his officials to his chamber and violated her with barbarous cruelty. Perhaps he did likewise with others, but only this one had courage to speak.
When the Fourth Sultan died, his wicked son became as bad a sultan as he had been a governor. He secretly debauched the young daughters of good families, those who had been sent to the palace under his protection as royal wards.
Hassan glanced away. Such a catalog of evil could never have been the career of any living man. Surely the Fifth Sultan was only a myth, an imaginative cautionary tale of how depraved a prince may be. But, to the Syrian's surprise, the captain's catalogue of depravity was only begun:
"The Fifth Sultan surely did not believe in Allah, though he swore false oaths in the name of the Most High. Indeed, the wicked sultan made war upon all of his people who did not espouse hatred of God, even forbidding the symbols of Ramadan to be raised during the Holy Month.
"But, strange to say, as fierce and rapacious as the misbegotten sultan was toward the weak and innocent, he was by nature the least of men. His evil wife had become sultana, and she was harsh and forward in her manner, oftentimes discoursing in public as if she were a man, and using words that made even harlots blush. This harridan witch was permitted by her weak husband to perform magisterial functions traditionally forbidden to her sex. She even had leave to command the royal ministers and to voice her ignorance and shrill imprecations at all the meetings of the royal council.
"The wicked sultana engaged and dismissed servants of the state and, far worse, she was heard to boast that Marshan had two sultans, meaning that she was one of them -- and her craven lord accepted this insult." The captain shook his head in disgust. "For such an affront a true man would have ordered such an unnatural consort to be quartered between running stallions!
"Oh, the sins of that man! His father had already raised the taxes greatly, but the first royal act of the son was to exact a tribute much higher still. Out of the industry of our people great wealth came to the treasury, even more than his extravagance found the means to spend, but the Fifth Sultan would never reduce his onerous assessments upon the people.
"He made the worst of men mighty in the courts and these rogues honored not the Koranic law, but their own capricious whim alone. At last, tired of the need to buy forgiveness from the people by false weeping in public address with quivering lip and red eyes, the Cursed of God imported foreign soldiers, Turks from inner Khwarizm who knew not Allah, and lewd Indians who daily shed blood at the pagan altars of beast-faced demons. Henceforth the free people of Marshan lived like conquered wretches under foreign occupation. Those who protested the sultan's misdeeds were callously murdered by his hired assassins, and their bodies left in gardens, sewers, and parks.
"At long last, the people rose in anger and though the sultan's hirelings killed many, they could not defy the will of all the people of the town. Indeed, the hosts in the streets were greatly augmented by hordes of ruined and oppressed farmers and shepherds from the hinterlands, who came to the city bearing scythes and lion-spears. The cowardly sultan was at last taken. He, along with his evil minions and his unwomanly wife, was cast into the pool."
"Women are so punished, too?" asked Hassan.
The captain nodded. "Sometimes. The sultana was sent as a man to the salt quarries, to use her strength to carry heavy baskets beneath the broiling sun or the cold wind of the season, ever groaning under the threat of the lash."
"What happened to the sultan?" Ali asked, forgetting to modulate her voice. Its pitch brought a look of puzzlement to the captain's eyes and he looked about, supposing that some woman of the crowd had spoken. Nonetheless, he answered the question:
"There was a foreign king, a cruel man, but one whom the Fifth Sultan had often attacked. He did this not to protect his people, but merely to dispel the contention that he was a coward who had refused to serve in his father's armies. To this king was the sultan sold as a slave girl. It is said that for many weeks the Fifth Sultan was kept naked and chained by the neck under the royal dining hall. She was not permitted to speak, except to whine for food and water like a bitch. Furthermore, whip-mistresses rigorously trained her to please the men who sat at the king's table by the means of her hands and her mouth, even while they feasted. When she was permitted the relief of copulation, it came as an assailment from behind, without gentling kisses or soothing caresses."
"What happened then?"
The captain shrugged. "It is unclear. With time, most people ceased to inquire after the Fifth Sultan. I think, too, that her captor wearied of the amusement which she had afforded him. There are divers stories of the subsequent fate of the Most Wretched of Allah, but none are more than rumor."
Hassan shook his head in disbelief. What sultanate would allow its master, even one of very evil repute, to be treated so by a foreign rival? A clean axe upon the neck of a fallen monarch was to be expected, but the degradation of a sultan degraded his city also. This was further proof to him that the story was not true.
An agitation in the crowd around them brought Hassan's attention back to the matter at hand. The judges had resumed the punishment of the felons after a brief recess.
"Because you two were the leaders of your despicable band," one addressed the prostrate Dwar and Kislar, "because you are high-born, and your deeds are therefore are rendered the more deplorable, your punishment shall come first. By the law of the sultan, I declare each of you slave. Guards, strip the bondmaids!"
The guards commenced to tear the sodden garments from the convicted robbers. When the condemned pair were finally rolled out of their voluminous garments, they lay revealed as two nude women. One of them was yellow-haired, like a Circassian. The other was olive-complected, with black, flowing tresses. Both were slimly voluptuous.
The onlooking mob huzzahed loudly and Hassan heard some bawdy comments. The guards quickly bound the girls and, in a nonce, the punished conspirators were tied back-to-back, after which Kislar and Dwar were carried up the bank and set before a screen of lathes.
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| Dwar and Kislar |
This screen was intended to protect their skin from the sun somewhat but, because it was latticed, it allowed the curious to gape at the condemned ones from all the cardinal points, like beasts in a menagerie.
Afterwards, the young hellions who had followed Dwar and Kislar were punished. These were not stripped and displayed immediately, though a magistrate did pronounce all of them chattel. Finally, bound hand and foot and thrown into donkey carts, the rogues were taken away, while the two ringleaders were slung up into a cart of their own. The ne'er-do-wells of the town and a large number of lewd little boys walked beside the conveyances as they rolled away. The latter taunted the wagons' occupants raucously while the guards made certain that the boisterousness did not get out of hand.
Hassan shook his head in disapproval and only then did it cross his mind that Ali should simply go to the edge of the water and plunge in. In fact, when he saw his friend gazing contemplatively in that direction, he half-expected that she was prepared to do just that. But, for whatever reason, the heir of Damascus turned away from the fountain, received her horse from the boy who held it, and swung up into the saddle.
"Think, in this batter'd caravanserai
Whose doorways are alternate Night and Day,
How sultan after sultan with his pomp
Abode his hour or two, and went his way."
Chapter Four
Ali and Hassan kept close to their own quarters until twilight and did not speak together
before they received the sultan's invitation to dine. Donning raiment suitable for the
occasion, the pair accompanied the palace stewards to the royal feast. Ali wore a
deeply-cowled robe, this strange choice of attire being explained away as part of a
pilgrim's vow. When circumstances forced her to speak, she, as before, kept her voice
throaty and deep.
The Sultan Moustafa of Marshan was a tall, dark man in his thirties, displaying the demeanor of an enlightened and well-lettered prince. He was a convivial host, presenting jugglers, musicians, acrobats, and dancers for his guests' entertainment. Servants bearing flasks and trays wove in and out of the crowd, supplying all their culinary needs, while across from Ali and Hassan a team of tumblers finished their performance and accepted the chamberlain's dismissal.
Hassan graciously acknowledged the lavish display: "We are amazed by the wealth of your land, Mighty Sultan. It bespeaks an industrious people and a wise stewardship."
The black-bearded sovereign smiled in pride. "Long ago, before a desert traveler discovered the magical fountain, there was not even a village here, only the camp of an audacious bandit band in the mountains overhead. These preyed upon passing caravans to kidnap travelers, whom they cast into the fountain and sold afterwards in foreign markets. But escaping, the traveler sought help from the cities of the plain, and so the robbers were at last overthrown and well-punished."
"My prince and I have seen the magic fountain today, O Sultan, and witnessed its terrible power. We have since wondered why your good people have not destroyed such an abominable thing long ago."
"Destroy our magic fountain?" the sultan replied with brows arched. "Never! It is the eighth wonder of the world."
"It is an affront before Allah!" admonished Hassan, his politeness strained.
The sultan beamed with good nature. "No work of Allah is an affront, Lord Hassan. It is only how men use God's gifts that make for good or ill. Let me tell you a story, my friends:
"In the last century a holy man of the Nestorian faith came to our land and did long meditation before our fountain, endeavoring to divine whether it was a gift of God, or an evil tool of Shaitan, the prince of demons.
"He returned to our city after a few days with wonder in his eyes, saying that the angel Gabriel had appeared to tell him the secret of the fountain.
"When Allah created Adam, said the sage, He later made Woman from the Man's body to be his companion. But the first woman was not like the women of today, despite the stories which would have it so. No, Eve was another man, junior to Adam because Adam had been created first, but Eve was like him in all his parts -- and, as we know, Adam was made in the image of God.
"When Eve sinned and led her companion into sin also, Allah was exceedingly wrought and sent the angel Michael to smite the ground of Eden. From the place he struck, a fountain flowed forth, and the archangel placed into its waters the mighty power of God. Then he said to the man Eve, `You shall no longer be complete in yourself, but you shall live in eagerness for your mate's embrace and contribute to his increase, and he shall be called husband and be your master in all things.'
"Then the archangel cast Eve into the fountain, and she came forth changed, less perfect in the image of God, perhaps, but more beautiful in the eyes of her husband -- yea, beautiful beyond all his previous dreams of beauty. Only now did Eve possess all the divers parts of the woman as we know Woman today. And, as God decreed, Adam was smitten with passion for Eve, as Eve was smitten with passion for Adam.
"Then Michael said to the fallen pair, `As Eve was desirous of eating of the fruit of the tree, the fruit shall be placed upon Adam's body, and Eve will forever be desirous of consuming the fruit, and the hunger shall be of the loins, and the throat that shall engorge it shall be the throat of that second mouth which God hast provided. Moreover, any who enter the fountain from this day forth shall be changed, so that Eve's descendants shall know the glory of God. Hence, if he is like Adam, he will become like Eve, and if like Eve, like Adam.'"
"Majesty, are you saying that this land is the old Eden?" inquired Hassan skeptically.
"I repeat only what the holy man averred," replied the genial sultan, "as our ancestors have passed his words down to our generation. This is a fine land, I will not deny, but not so fine, I think, as Eden was. Allah, who is all-wise and all-powerful, may cause a fountain that flows in one place to flow again later at another place. He is Allah."
"A strange gift of God," remarked the Syrian warrior. "Of what possible use is the fountain to mortals, Majesty? We have seen in it only an object of terror. What can it offer mankind but punishment, and a cruel satisfaction to those who inflict it?"
The sultan shook his comely head. "No, warrior, you know little of what you speak. God is good. His fountain is good. It is our fount of increase. It is the flowing source of all our wealth."
"Your wealth? I do not understand."
A black-haired dancing girl had just run up, distracting the sultan briefly. She did obeisance and the monarch said with a satified nod, "Dance, Ben Jakhar."
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| Ben Jakhar |
Then the great man turned back toward Hassan. "Do you doubt our wealth, friend? Have you not seen our abundance?"
"I have seen it," answered the Syrian repectfully, "but what does it have to do with the fountain?"
"Why, it is only by the grace of Allah we have ten ewes for every ram, ten cows for every bull, ten hens for every cock. Our flocks grow so swiftly that it taxes our people's ingenuity just to tend them, and our merchants who travel far to take the abundant surplus to market."
Hassan only now realized that more females inevitably meant more increase, but nonetheless refused to change his mind. "Think of the misery that the fountain brings to human beings!"
"What misery, young lord? If an accident happens, if a clumsy sot falls into the magical waters by misstep, no harm is done. He can simply re-immerse himself and all shall be as before. Instead, think of Allah's blessing upon the parents of Marshan! Chance never need deny a father the son he yearns for. My father had twenty sons and not one daughter. The magic does not change children, but when my daughters come of the age my family shall be similarly blessed!"
Hassan stared open-mouthed. "Your people want no daughters at all? How does your population grow?"
"Daughters are greatly valued!" the sultan assured him. "The rareness of a free woman in Marshan makes her especially precious. Even a peasant's daughter may have her pick of a dozen wealthy husbands. I think that there is no land in all the realms of the Prophet that prizes its girl-children more highly. Alas, few parents desire a girl. Such is the custom of our race, which harkens back to the days when we were a poor wandering people who needed many warriors to defend the herds against man and beast."
"A kingdom so poor in womenfolk must soon wither and die, Majesty, even if your flocks of brute beasts increase beyond measure."
"We are not so desperate as all that, Lord Hassan," the sultan replied with an amiable shake of his head. "Our wealth allows us to purchase young females from afar -- indeed the fairest in all the world are brought to our door!"
Hassan inclined his head toward the belly dancer, truly noticing her for the first time. "So I see. From what land does this sultry beauty hail?" Realizing that the men were speaking about her, the slave's eyes flashed with fire and allure.
"She comes from no land but our own," Moustafa remarked as he beckoned the dancer near and stroked one nude thigh. "This one was Ben Jakhar, a notorious robber --"
Ali gasped; Hassan could scarcely believe his ears. Both had missed the first mention of the dancer's name, but now both realized that `Ben Jakhar' was certainly no woman's nomen.
"As you already know," the sultan went on, "unworthy men -- thieves, rioters, traitors -- all who are judged guilty of breaking the laws of Allah or man -- are cast into the waters of the fountain. Changed into women, they are harshly punished in the course of slave-training, then are set to performing useful tasks, like this one."
"We understand some of your practices, Great One," said Hassan slowly, trying to keep his voice from shaking, "though my mind still revolts at thought of them! Surely there is a better way to deal with wrongdoing than by such an unnatural transformation. Bitter wretches must make poor servants."
The sultan gave a short laugh. "The wretches, as you call them, are well-drilled in giving service and pleasure. Moreover, our ancestors discovered a potion which sweetens the most sour disposition. We call it, `Maiden's Ruin.'"
At that moment the belly dancer winked at Hassan, who looked uncomfortably away.
"Enough talk of magic," proclaimed Sultan Moustafa. "Perhaps you will desire more manly sport hereafter. I have desired of late to take my huntsmen into the heights to track and slay the savage mountain lion. Tomorrow would be a fine day for a hunt!"
Hassan endeavored to answer for both himself and the Syrian prince. "Thank you Mighty Sultan, but --"
"That would be most enjoyable, Great One," broke in Ali.
Moustafa nodded with pleasure. "Later tonight might I not send a girl or two to entertain you gentlemen?" He looked with particular interest at Ali, whose voice seemed to betray a very young man.
To spare his friend embarrassment, Hassan spoke up: "A girl like Ben Jakhar? I think not, Majesty!"
The lord of Marshan shook his head. "Be assured, lords -- only women-born shall be selected for you, as no doubt you would prefer. I myself do not understand the prejudice, but many of our visitors think as you do -- at least until they have dwelt with us for some little while."
"Hassan may do as he pleases, Great Sultan," said Ali, "but I have sworn at the royal mosque of Damascus to practice the grace of chastity until the success of our pilgrimage is fully attained."
The sultan gave the speaker an understanding glance. "Then I shall send you a story-telling girl only, young prince. You are under no compulsion to abstain from the diversion of flute, song, and story, I assume?"
"No indeed, Majesty, none," responded Ali, somewhat abashed to realize that the monarch was speaking to him as to a child.
"Then so it shall be!" pronounced Moustafa with a clap of his hands.
Hassan and Ali both felt the need to speak privately, and so they excused themselves at an early hour and returned to the prince's chamber.
 |
| Hassan and Ali |
Hassan, more than a little overwhelmed with the day's events, unburdened himself without preamble: "Ali -- why did you not end your cruel ordeal when you were at the fountain? And if you would not do so then, why did you not simply inform the sultan exactly why we came? It would have made everything so much easier."
Ali squared off with her friend in umbrage. "And let strangers gossip about my humiliation for the next hundred years, like they still gossip about the Fifth Sultan? For the love of Allah, let me salvage what little pride I have left!"
"All right, then," replied Hassan, "just what do you intend to do?"
The Damascene prince paced while she looked ahead: "We have found that they allow visitors to take water from the fountain at will. It is free to all and they do not even post a guard. One of our guards shall simply draw some magic water hour when few others are present, and then I shall bathe in private. Once I do, this nightmare shall be at an end and no one will be the wiser."
"I hope so, my friend," Hassan murmured, doubting the wisdom of making something so essentially simple so unnecessarily complex.
Ali flopped down on the bed and crossed her black boots. "What I wouldn't give to return to a normal life," she sighed, then seemed to reflect. "Ayeesha wants just the opposite," the prince said suddenly. "Hassan, can you believe that she actually asked me to bring her back a bottle of the magical water?"
This did surprise Hassan, though he knew Ayeesha for an exasperating hoyden. "She's a strange girl. I always found her a willful child when we all used to play together."
"I -- regard -- you both so well," Ali confessed haltingly. "I have never understood why you two never felt any mutual attraction."
Hassan looked soberly at his comrade. This was certainly a fair question, but one to which Hassan had no good answer. "I don't know. She certainly is beautiful --" He caught himself. To say that Ayeesha was beautiful was also to say that Ali was beautiful.
"Ah, but she is too disputant," he continued edgily. "A woman should be more --" He caught himself again. To say that a woman should be more compliant to the wishes of those responsible for her was also to imply that Ali should be the same. Hassan certainly didn't mean that.