"What are friends for if not to support a poor widowed sister in time of need?" another guest said sympathetically, to be interrupted by an impish and rather breathless laugh.
"Has he brought home another one yet, Samira?"
The group pa.s.sed through the garden wall and from my sight.
Which returned me to my original dilemma of escaping the cat. Except that the cat was no longer on my clothing. From behind me a languid voice said laughingly, "If you plan to stay in there until we"re the same color, you"ll be there a long time, my friend. I"d forget it, if I were you. Aman Akbar likes variety in his love life."
I swirled around in the water, stubbing my toe against the metal animal, and the same ebony hand I had seen the night before reached down to a.s.sist me.
Even to those accustomed to the sight of black women-which I was not-Amollia is striking in both beauty and bearing. She is tall and straight as one of the pillars supporting the palace and black as a shadow on a starry night. She and her cat carry their heads with similarly proud and half-amused bearing. Her eyes seem to say she has seen everything, has been neither impressed nor disappointed by it, and is looking forward to seeing more. That day she was wrapped with a cloth the color of curry, heavily embroidered with gold and wore her own weight in jewelry on her neck, arms, ankles and ears. Her hair was short and curled like the fleece of a black lamb.
Ignoring her hand, I stood, s.n.a.t.c.hed up my clothing, pulled my robe over my head and stepped across the edge of the pool. The cat made no move to stop me.
"Who are you?" I demanded. "What are you doing in my husband"s house?"
"I might ask you the same thing," she said, the tips of her teeth showing dazzlingly white against the dark plum color of her lips. "But that would only complicate matters unnecessarily. I am Amollia Melee, daughter of the Great Elephant of the Swazee, wife to Aman Akbar. I take it that you are my co-wife. Welcome, sister."
And she opened her arms to embrace me. I failed to understand her att.i.tude. I didn"t feel in the least like embracing her.
My lack of enthusiasm did not deter her. "Have you eaten?" she asked. "Wait-let me guess. Leftover k.u.mquats and cold rice, right? I"ve made do with the same fare on the nights he spends with you. It"s possible he just forgets about everything but what he"s doing at the time, or it may be his strange idea of economy. He"s frugal in his way, is Aman. Must get it from his mother, I suppose. She She, however-" she stopped and gave a brief, dainty lick combined with a sidelong look at me. "I suppose you are are interested in something fresh, hot, and tasty to eat, are you not?" interested in something fresh, hot, and tasty to eat, are you not?"
I nodded.
"Aman says you are a warrior. Are you very brave?" A demon probably not too distant a relative from the djinn played in her eyes.
I shrugged and watched her warily.
"Very well. Come along. We"ll tackle the lioness unarmed. She has a mean mouth but she feeds it well. Perhaps she can be shamed into feeding ours too."
Curiosity warred with pride and won out. "How came you to know so much about this household?" I asked.
"About the old one and about you? Is that what you mean? Why, Aman told me, of course." And did not tell me. That stung like the bite of an enemy"s arrow. "He introduced me to the old woman and-ah-that"s why he didn"t introduce you you to her. She was not what you would call ready to welcome me into the bosom of the family. As for you, Aman discussed the matter with me before deciding to bring you here." to her. She was not what you would call ready to welcome me into the bosom of the family. As for you, Aman discussed the matter with me before deciding to bring you here."
"He did?"
"a.s.suredly. I told him I didn"t want to have to put up with that cranky old woman and this great big house all by myself. Besides, what would people think, a man of his stature having just one wife? What if he wishes to entertain somewhere outside the palace? With no slaves or servants in our employ, who would help me with the work? And anyway-" she sighed and looked at me with a pleased and even fond expression "-I am the one hundred and thirty-fifth daughter of the Great Elephant and used to having all of my sisters and all of my mothers around me. With Aman gone during the day and no one but my leopard Kalimba for company, that old woman drives me mad with her silence. I am most glad to have you here. I would have sought you out sooner, but Aman said he felt it would be best for you two to get to know one another first, and for you to grow accustomed to your new surroundings before you met me... particularly before you met his mother. But I think he would have prolonged the time of dealing with us separately as long as possible."
"Why?" I asked, feeling distinctly disoriented all over again.
"Because men don"t like for the women to compare stories, of course. One at a time, they stand a chance of cajoling or browbeating us into letting them have their way in all things, but when we join together, there"s very little in which they dare oppose us. Still, Aman is a good man, a kind husband. And he has that that mother to contend with, so we must be extra loving and patient with him. If we do not handle her properly, she will be the scourge of our lives. So, if you"re quite ready?" And she linked her arm with my reluctant one and together we crossed my garden and hers, through another gate into yet a third garden where the women were a.s.sembled by a charcoal brazier from which emanated succulent smells. mother to contend with, so we must be extra loving and patient with him. If we do not handle her properly, she will be the scourge of our lives. So, if you"re quite ready?" And she linked her arm with my reluctant one and together we crossed my garden and hers, through another gate into yet a third garden where the women were a.s.sembled by a charcoal brazier from which emanated succulent smells.
I knew open warfare already from my life among my own people. From Amollia I learned subterfuge. A common foe makes allies of the most unlikely persons.
As we neared the group, Amollia"s n.o.ble stride shortened to a demure shuffle and her proud chin bent into her neck, so that she gazed humbly at the ground. I followed her example and together we stood with seeming timidity on the outskirts of the group.
One of the women t.i.ttered behind her hand and Um Aman glared in our direction. A benefit of casting one"s eyes downward is that one thus deflects the full impact of such a glare.
Perhaps Um Aman realized this, for she said, "These strange-looking creatures are the very harlots my son has brought as concubines into the home he built for my old age."
"I understand from my Faisal that Aman claims to have two foreign wives wives, Samira," said the eldest among them-the one our revered mother-in-law had addressed as Khadija.
"Have you been invited to the wedding, you who are my oldest friend?" Um Aman replied bitterly.
A number of children clung to the skirts of the behind-the-hand t.i.tterer, an understandably weary-looking young woman. A girl of perhaps four years with a great quant.i.ty of the contents of her nose smeared across her cheek said, "Mama, why are those ladies so ugly ugly?"
"Hush, child, or they"ll put the evil eye on you," her mother whispered, enveloping the child in her tattered and dirty skirts, effectively cleaning the face and shutting it up at the same time.
"It"s true though," another of the younger women observed critically. "They are ugly. Um Aman, I"m surprised that a man like Aman Akbar has no better taste than to marry a woman so dark and one with a nose like that!"
Um Aman immediately turned on her. "And where did you learn so much of taste? My Aman has most splendid taste-look at this palace! I"ve heard the former King"s favorite wife was very dark, and if you ask me, the nose on that washed-out strumpet is her best feature. Aman says they"re both princesses too. Better born than any of us." Though she said this with rather perverse pride, she stabbed us with another glare. "They"d better not give themselves airs around me, though. I won"t have it."
"They don"t say much, do they?" the third of the younger women, a plump-cheeked and saucy sort, remarked. "Do they talk at all?"
At this a rather plain woman whose long braided hair was liberally streaked with gray looked up from her embroidery. High in one cheek a dimple winked encouragingly as she smiled directly at us. "Would you talk, Miriam, with everyone making such rude comments about you? Is this how we repay Samira"s hospitality, insulting her son"s new wives? Poor things, so far from their homes. Their mothers must miss them terribly." She turned to Um Aman and said gravely, "It doesn"t seem to me that they"re giving themselves airs, Samira. Quite the contrary. They seem very modest and shy and quite cowed. People who don"t know you often fail to realize what a kind heart you have, my dear." She smiled at us again and Amollia modestly, shyly, and in a cowed manner licked her lips and allowed the most delicate droplet of drool to form at the corner of her mouth. "They"re hungry too," our defender told Um Aman.
Um Aman"s gaze, formerly fierce, dropped abruptly and she leaned across to the platter containing the couscous. With a sharp straightening of her elbow, she proffered it without looking at us.
Thus we partook of hot food rather than leftovers and met those women with whom Um Aman shared her problems. The only other interesting fact about the encounter was that Um Aman kept referring to us throughout as Aman Akbar"s concubines and insisted that he had no wives until he had taken his cousin to wife.
The party ended just before mid-afternoon prayers. By that time everyone had had an opportunity to discuss other ungrateful children with whom they were acquainted, and Um Aman seemed to feel much better. Amollia rose to her feet and with a soft jingle of jeweled limbs headed for the gate leading back to her garden. I followed quickly. Aman Akbar could be coming home any time now. And tonight if he followed his previous pattern he would be looking to stay with me.
Amollia walked straight through her own garden and trailed the departing visitors into mine.
"Pardon my intrusion, sister-wife," she said pleasantly. "But I thought I would at least greet our husband with you this evening. He should know now that we two are acquainted. I think we should also speak to him about having the magic feasts shared between us so that one of us need not make do with leftovers when he lies with the other." She smiled. "This is one advantage of having co-wives. Together we may perhaps exert more influence over our husband than either of us might do individually."
Aman Akbar, however, had his own ideas about his family banding together. Amollia and I posed companionably, sitting side by side on the edge of the fountain, pretending not to notice when the metal beast started spouting as our husband entered the garden. The cat spread across Amollia"s feet, kneading its claws in and out while she told me some of the jokes the minstrels from neighboring kingdoms told of her father, the Great Elephant. Her former home sounded merry and exciting compared to mine and I found I laughed more often than I wanted to and began to wonder why Aman Akbar had summoned me to wife when he already had such an amusing creature on the premises.
Aman entered the garden and greeted us, taking one of each of our hands in each of his and kissing them in turn before seating himself on Amollia"s far side. He twinkled uncertainly at us. "So," he said. "So."
"Even so, husband," Amollia smiled. "Rasa and I have been discussing our household and thought we would greet you together this night. How has your day gone?"
"Well, thanks be to G.o.d," he said, taking refuge in the formula. "And yours?"
"Well, indeed. We joined your honored mother and her friends in her garden this afternoon and profited much from her wisdom."
"You did?" He tried to sound pleased and incredulous at once but the incredulity had a decided edge over the pleasure.
"Indeed," I said. "She is a very fine cook, your mother." I thought I was being pleasant too by failing to mention that she was also a very disagreeable woman, but the twinkle in our husband"s eyes was extinguished in two rapid blinks.
"Good," he said. "Good. I"m glad you"re all getting on so well."
"As a matter of fact, husband, Rasa and I were thinking that perhaps if it would not tax the magic of your bottle too much, we would like to be able to share our dinners with you so that-"
He blinked once more and smiled his most dazzlingly tender smile. "What a wonderful idea, my clever darling. We shall all eat together. Shall we sup here in the garden? Afterward, I think the djinn shall entertain us with a new surprise I"ve been considering."
We had music that night, some of the thin-noted throbbing love songs of which Aman was so fond, and a song or two from Amollia"s homeland, which caused her to leap to her feet and dance a sinuous dance that made my jaw ache with the wish to remind her that tonight was supposed to be mine and that we were in my garden. But though Aman looked as if he were enjoying himself and he talked at great length about a funny fellow who had accosted him on his way to prayers, he remained distant. We ate the almond-stuffed lamb and rice and all of the standard sweets without saying too much. When Amollia attempted playfulness with grapes, our lord smilingly declined and chewed his, skins and all.
When he had finished he wiped his hands on a towel with pile thick as a beaver"s pelt and pulled from his sash the bottle I had seen him with previously.
Closer up the bottle looked more disreputable than ever, just a scratched, discolored old bit of crockery, dust still smeared upon it in places and dirt caked for all time into its dings. Stuck in the mouth of it was a broad bit of stuff that seemed like wood or bark of some sort and on top of that was a melted-looking seal of greenish, tarnished silver which had endured some attempts to polish it. Dangling from this seal was a bit of broken chain.
Aman"s long fingers stroked the chain for a moment.
Amollia laid her hand upon his arm and said solicitously, "You must let me repair that for you, beloved, or you might lose the top sometime."
He looked as if he would do so only if he had been five years dead and said, "You are so thoughtful, dear one."
And he pulled the cork out of the bottle, nearly choking us all on the cloud of acrid smoke that boiled from it.
The smoke set to work arranging itself and solidified into the form of the djinn. The djinn straightened his turban and tugged at the hems of the two sides of his vest and said, "What is it now, n.o.ble master? I thought not that thou wouldst spend thy last wish so soon but perhaps these women tax thy beneficence beyond measure. Is it thy pleasure that I return them whence they came?"
"Not at all, O djinn," Aman replied. "I wish you to fetch forth that last candidate you showed me before I decided to wait."
"Dost thou refer to that princess from the Central Empire? Master, I think there is a thing thou shouldst know concerning that one."
"I know only that she has touched me most deeply," Aman Akbar said as pa.s.sionately as he had ever said similar words to me. "And for my final wish I would have her come and be my loyal and loving bride, an ornament to my home and the friend of my bosom." And he clapped his hands and the djinn"s feet once more solidified into a rug upon which he sat, folding his arms grimly as he flew away.
Aman Akbar turned and looked meaningfully at us. Amollia carefully knelt beside her cat and scratched its ears, avoiding looking at either of us. I wondered which of them to kill first. He for taking offense and retaliating in such an underhanded way or she for provoking the situation at which he apparently took offense? I did not understand these people. Nor did I understand myself at this time. What did I care if the silly man was offended when his own actions quite naturally caught up with him? Why should I even want such a man to share my bed? Was I not better off without him? Surely, somehow, I could manage to find my way back to my own land, to my father"s camp. But I found I didn"t want to. It was rather crowded here for my taste, true, but no more crowded than in my father"s camp or that of his enemies. Aman bewildered me, but I had become most attached to him and wasn"t about to give him up easily.
He stood up suddenly to greet the djinn, who sailed over the well on a carpet burdened with a small black-haired figure in an embroidered blue silk jacket and white trousers, a tidy roll of belongings tied to her back. Surely the djinn had been gone no longer than it took to peel an orange and just as surely our trip from my home to Kharristan had taken most of a day. Again, I did not understand, but at least the djinn, unlike his master, was magic and was supposed to be beyond my understanding.
The girl leapt off the carpet while it was still at the level of the shoulders of the metal animal in the pool and flattened herself in front of Aman Akbar, her hair fanning prettily across her back and the tiles.
Aman Akbar looked triumphantly from Amollia to me and touched her lightly on the head. "Come, my dear, rise up and tell us who you are." He confronted the ifrit, whose middle was bent in a bow as if awaiting applause. "I a.s.sume she can understand me."
"Dost thou never learn, O master?" the djinn sighed. And added, in a resigned tone, "She can."
"Indeed I can, O master, and let me a.s.sure you your every word will be to me a sacred command." She scrambled into a kneeling position and regarded him with tilted eyes both large and shining set into a round-cheeked face with a distressingly tiny nose and a pointed chin. Above either ear was a large pink flower with many petals.
"There now, my darling, you are a princess and while your humility is becoming it is quite unnecessary with one who loves you even as he loves his own life and two women who will cherish you as a dear sister and who will help you in every possible way."
"I am a wha-? Oh, yes, so I am." She smiled at him. "But actually, my people aren"t that formal. "Princess" sounds so stilted, don"t you think? My lord and master could certainly call me by my given name, which in your tongue means Aster. And my revered sisters need not use my t.i.tle. Lady Aster is respectful enough-I"m sure the difference in our stations is moderate."
Aman Akbar beamed at her. "As gracious as she is lovely. My dear, I"m sure you must be exhausted from your long journey. Let me return my servant to his bottle and I"ll escort you to your quarters."
"May I remind thee that although my services as already delivered remain thine, great one, my obligation to thee is now fulfilled and thou must needs leave me to rest in my bottle?" The djinn looked highly pleased about this.
Aman Akbar looked only mildly vexed, but replaced the stopper in the bottle with alacrity once the djinn had smoked himself back inside.
"And now, dear ladies, "I"m sure you two have much to talk about now that you"re such good friends and won"t mind if Aster and I repair to our marital chamber."
"Not at all, O husband," Amollia said with a voice softly docile and even affectionate. And to Aster she added, "Little sister, may you find all to your liking. If you have any questions or problems, please feel free to avail yourself of our a.s.sistance."
I thought Amollia would do well to speak for herself. I also wanted to remark that Lady Aster shouldn"t mind a little noise in the night. That it would only be the mother of her new husband lamenting her son"s knuckle-headed behavior. In fact, I had half a mind to join the old hag in her nightly session. Instead, Amollia showed me the darts with which her people used to hunt and we played a game with them until the call to morning prayers.
Aster"s quarters were to the left side of my own, while Amollia"s were to the right. My self-appointed friend returned to her own empty bed as the wailing of Um Aman was replaced by the wailing of the morning prayer-caller, leaving me to try to bear the heat alone. And to wonder why my lord should have acted as if he had been betrayed when indeed I was the one who had been misled.
I yearned to speak with him when he emerged from Aster"s garden into my own, and I stayed beside the pool waiting. Yet he did not come and I began to wonder if Aster"s rooms contained a separate exit to the streets.
I had a poor idea of the layout of the palace. Buildings larger than a good-sized tent were too vast for my taste, and the succession of rooms seemed an unnecessary labyrinth. But when prayers came and went with no sign of Aman Akbar I became worried. Was this new one then so skilled in love as to separate our husband from his devotions to his G.o.d? If so, how long was it until he cast me out? If he came that night to my section of the palace, I would be rea.s.sured. Meanwhile, I did not eat or sleep but sat beside the fountain enduring the heat of the day, letting the flower scents soothe me and the light breeze cool my fevered mind.
The face peering over the top of the wall appeared sometime around midday, when most of the people of the city took their rest. I had been breaking off blossoms from the garden and floating them in the pool to amuse myself when I heard a faint scrabbling noise. Looking around and up, I barely managed to glimpse a quick succession of knife-pointed beard, wide-open mouth, precisely trimmed mustache, beakish nose, pocked cheeks, popped eyes, thick brows bowed into hoof tracks of surprise, and green-and-gold striped turban before the apparition was gone.
I remembered the face. But to whom it belonged or what its purpose could be in spying on me, I could not guess. I rose and ran to the gate to call out. The gate was locked, however, and though I pried and pounded and prodded I could not find a way of forcing it. When I turned from it yet another apparition faced me, the black-clad form of Um Aman.
She flung herself between me and the door as if she were afraid I was going to injure the wood.
"What are you trying to do now, foreigner? Disgrace my son again?"
"I? Disgrace your son? Old mother, it seems to me it"s the other way around." She glared at me but her glare seemed to lack some of its earlier conviction and I thought about asking her why, if she didn"t like the way her son behaved, she had reared him to have such odd ideas about how to run his home. Instead, I asked, "Have you a friend of the family with a face like a rockslide, a pointed beard and a striped turban? One who is fond of entering over the wall?"
She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Of course not. Only a scoundrel would climb another man"s harem walls. Who is this man, strumpet? Your secret lover?"
"Certainly," I spat. "And I was telling you about him because I wanted to introduce him to the rest of the family. Old woman, I have tried to honor you for the sake of my husband but you are not a sensible person. I tell you, I do not know who this man is but I wonder at his intentions toward my husband. I saw him watching this house two days ago when I-"
"When you what, girl? How came you to gaze upon another man?"
I shrugged, seeing from her angry gaze that a lie was in order. "I saw him from my window."
"Did he see you? Unveiled?" The woman made much of the last word, hissing it with a sharp intake of breath that made it sound as horrible as "decapitated" or "impaled."
"I don"t think so," I said. "What does it matter? Honest women of my people don"t need to hide their faces."
"You may not have noticed, harlot, but you are no longer among your people. As long as you are among mine, and G.o.d grant that will not be long and that my son soon discovers your true nature and sells you to the slavers for such little value as he can gain from your worthless person, you will not go out unchaperoned and will cover yourself with a respectable abayah as is required of any decent wife." And she pulled her cloak over her head and her veil across her face so that she again resembled a bale of black laundry with eyes.
"I thought you said I"m a concubine," I reminded her. With a contemptuous swirl of black draperies she departed and I once more had to amuse myself.
I whiled away the hours imagining tortures I could subject the lot of them to. I belatedly included Amollia, toward whom I had started to entertain a sneaking fondness, when she failed to appear to keep me company even as morning became afternoon and afternoon fled with evening upon its heels. How could she, having caused me to find disfavor with my lord, have the temerity to sleep when I needed to speak to her? Nor could I go wake her without risking missing Aman if he left his new paramour"s arms long enough to perform the rituals he had never, dammit, neglected for my sake.
Our conversation with him had, as it developed, had more effects than the addition of Aster to our number. When time came for the evening meal and I reached for a last smear of lamb grease left among a few kernels of rice on one of the platters, the platter suddenly whisked itself away and three other, smaller ones appeared, each with a meal-sized portion of seasoned duck, nutted rice, and a.s.sorted fruits. This was accompanied by a cool bra.s.s jug sweating with a refreshing condensation of sweet moisture and filled with a delicious drink far surpa.s.sing the fountain water I had been drinking throughout the day.
My pleasure in this repast was not great, however, for Aman did not appear with the sustenance, and from this I gleaned that he was pa.s.sing a second night in the arms of his new love. I grieved. The sun sent a glory of Vermillion streamers across the sky, pinking the distant domes. The fountain tinkled, the breeze blew and I patted my full belly and settled down beside the fountain in the lush gra.s.s. Perhaps he"d come out for a stroll. But I doubted it. From sheer exhaustion I drifted into sleep.
The gra.s.s stirred against my cheek and tickled my nose and I woke, seeing at first only the blur of movement, and then, in the starlight, the legs and curl-toed slippers responsible for the movement. The fountain behind me spurted more energetically than had been its wont all day, with Aman Akbar now near rather than merely in the immediate vicinity. As he turned down the path to the outer gate, I rose and followed him-quiet, if I do say so myself, as Amollia"s cat.
Obviously he did not wish to attract notice. No less strange than his behavior, however, was the unusual silence in the night. It seemed unfair. Um Aman had wailed nearby when Aman was making love to me, and in Amollia"s courtyard when Aman was with her. Why had she not plagued him with Aster as well? Perhaps she had finally strained her stringy old throat. That thought provided me with at least some satisfaction.