Shadow Spinner (18 page)

“Don't you
dare
lie to me,” she said. “Where were you?

“I was here,” I said. “I was here the whole day.”

This time, she hit me with her clenched fist. Pain shot
through my cheek. I staggered backward, caught a foot in the hem of my gown, fell to the floor. She was standing over me now. I scooted back like a crab but bumped into Ashraf's legs.

“Who is he?” the Khatun asked. “Who is she exchanging messages with? When do they meet?”

He? Exchanging messages? A meeting?
I struggled to understand but couldn't grasp what she was saying.

“I know she has a lover—she can't hide it from me. They all do. Let them live a month beyond the wedding and they're plotting with their lovers against my son.
Who is he? Tell
me!”

She was talking about Shahrazad. She thought—“No,” I said. “There is no lover! She—”

“Tell me!”

The Khatun's foot thrust out and caught me in the ribs. I rolled onto my stomach, but she kept on kicking—little vicious jabs. My sides were on fire with pain. Somewhere in the back of my mind I wondered how she could keep this up. She was so fat, she could barely
walk.

At last the kicks stopped. I could hear her wheezing. “Tell me!” she said.

“She . . . doesn't. . . have . . . a . . . lover.” It hurt to talk. It hurt to
breathe.

I felt her moving heavily away. As the smell of her ebbed, I heard her say, “She knows. I'll wring it out of her. Lock her up—for now.”

Ashraf took my arm and hauled me to my feet. Pain sliced through the whole middle of me. I groaned, stooped over, clutched at my ribs. My cheek and eye were throbbing. I stole a look back once as we left—a quick one, because the pain struck again, a jagged bolt of it in
my side. In the dim light, I saw that the Khatun had seated herself again on her sofa. Behind her, I half expected to see Soraya's familiar smirk.

But no. She wasn't smirking.

Her face was rigid with fear.

*  *  *  

It was a small, musty-smelling room she took me to, in an uninhabited part of the harem. By the feeble light of Ashraf's candle, I could see a chamber pot in the corner. Dust, sprinkled with corpses of dead bugs, carpeted the floor. There were no rugs, no cushions, no hangings, no windows. No ornaments of any kind—except for the cobwebs that festooned the shadowy corners of the room. Something scuttled across the floor. Only a beetle—I
hoped.

Ashraf hesitated in the doorway, then grudgingly set the candle on the floor. The wooden door thumped shut; I heard the grate of a key in the lock and then footsteps moving away.

I squatted down, leaning against a wall, pressing one hand in upon my hurting ribs and another against my hurting cheek and eye. I couldn't cry. I couldn't think. I couldn't sleep. I knew I should be afraid. But I was numb.

Gradually, my mind unfroze, and thoughts began to skitter across the surface of it.

Would they feed me? I wondered. Or would they leave me here to starve? My thoughts took a weird, sideways jag to Badar Basim, how Princess Jauharah had banished him to an island with no food and no water. Someone had saved him, I remembered—Marsinah, the slave girl. But this was real life—not a tale. There would be no Marsinah for me.

At least we'd gotten the story. So for now, Shahrazad
was no worse off than she'd been before I met her. Unless Dunyazad had been caught. But no. She
wouldn't
be caught.

Still, I'd hoped for so much more. To
save
Shahrazad.

But there could be no saving of her. At best, she was doomed to cast about for new tales day after day so she could survive another night. At worst...

I had heard tales of torture in the palace.
I'll wring it out of her,
the Khatun had said. Would I break under the pain, tell the Khatun what she wanted to hear? If the pain was bad enough, would I betray Shahrazad to save myself?

Madar!

The word came to me unbidden: a plea.
You should have stayed with me. You should have smuggled us away with Abu Muslem. You smashed my foot, but it didn't do any good. Are you happy now?
Are
you?

And I could see her face then, in my mind's eye. But she was not happy. She looked down at me, and her eyes were sad.

*  *  *  

I sat up, uncertain what had awakened me. Pain jolted through my body—though not quite as bad as before. My eye still throbbed, and I couldn't get it all the way open. Hunger gnawed at my belly. Though the candle still burned, it slumped on the floor, a mere stump. Soon, it would go out.

And then I heard it: a sound. A grating at the door. A key.

I backed into a far corner, avoiding the cobwebs. Slowly, the door swung open.

In the dim yellow glow of the candle, I made out a
pale face and copper-colored hair. Soraya. She put a finger to her lips, motioning me to hush. That was odd, I thought. Who would hear? Why would it matter?

She closed the door behind her and, moving forward, pulled some objects from the folds of her gown and set them down on the floor.

A full waterskin, an embroidered napkin filled with bread and dates, and three more candles.

“Eat quickly!” she said. “No ones supposed to feed you.”

Like Marsinah! But I never thought that
Soraya
would help me. Briefly, I wondered if the food were poisoned. Or drugged, as someone had drugged her sharbat. But hunger overcame my doubts. I gobbled the bread and dates, then washed them down with water. Soraya watched, still standing, lifting her skirts a little so as not to soil them on the filthy floor.

When I had finished, I rose, brushed the dust from my gown.

“This was all I could manage for now,” Soraya said. “I'll bring you more tomorrow.”

“Why? What do you want from me?”

She licked her lips. “I don't want to marry the Sultan. The Khatun . . . she beat me yesterday when she found out you'd escaped.”

I remembered how she had looked the day before—as if she had been crying—and felt a sudden twinge of guilt.

“Now she doesn't trust me. She'd trust me even less if I married her son. I don't think she'd trust any woman who married him.”

What was it the Khatun had said?
Let them live a
month beyond the wedding and they're plotting with their lovers against my son.

“I know you re helping Shahrazad,” Soraya said. “But I doubt she's taken a lover. I'm not even certain the Khatun truly thinks that—though she
wants
to. It would suit her ends. She's never liked Shahrazad.”

“There is no lover,” I said. “But . . . is Shahrazad all right? Has the Khatun . . . done anything to her?”

Soraya shook her head. “No. Not yet.”

Then Dunyazad must have returned safely.

“I want to help you help Shahrazad,” Soraya said. “I want her to live.”

How can I believe you?
I thought.

I looked at her—hard—and saw fear. She had changed.

“You have to tell me what you're doing,” she said. “So I can help.”

I shook my head. “No. I can't tell.”

“Then tell me what I can do. To help her stay alive.”

I pulled my silver-and-garnet comb out of my hair. Slowly, I held it out. “Here,” I said. “Give this to Dunyazad. I'm sure she'll recognize it. Tell her where I am, and why. She deserves to know that. Tell her . . . not to do anything to put herself or her sister in danger for my sake. But tell her that I'm afraid . . . of what they might make me say. What
lies,”
I said. “If they hurt me.”

Soraya held up the comb to the light. Auntie Chavas comb. I almost snatched it back. But then Soraya nodded, picked up the waterskin, and left. The key grated again in the lock.

Surely there could be no harm in what I'd done. Even if she couldn't be trusted.

For the first time since they had locked me up, I felt a
loosening of the doom that gripped me. A lightening of spirit. Hope.

*  *  *  

The day passed slowly. The first of my new candles burned down to a stump; I lighted a second. The moazzen called for prayers at noon and then again at sunset. Each time, I prayed—fervently. Since I couldn't get to water, I had to make dry ablutions, touching the dust on the floor of my room. I was thirsty again, and hungry. My ribs hurt every time I moved, and my whole face ached.

I watched the beetles crawling on the floor, making patterns in the dust. I watched the spiders mending their webs and swaddling unlucky flies. The feeling of doom came back, stronger than before. Would the Khatun keep me in here forever? Would she starve me? Torture me? Would I die here, in this room?

My life—what was left of it—seemed to shrink and harden, like the dry, brittle husk of a rosebud starved for water.

*  *  *  

The next morning, sometime after the call for daybreak prayers, I was awakened again by the sound of a key in the lock. As I watched, the door slowly creaked open.

It took a moment for me to make out her features in the glow of my shrinking candle.

Shahrazad.

“Lady!” I exclaimed, then kissed the floor before her. Pain tore at me, but I didn't care.

“Shh, Marjan! Sit up now—don't kiss that dirty floor.”

“You shouldn't be here!” I whispered. “The Khatun, she—”

“Don't worry. I have a little time. She sleeps late and—oh, Marjan, look at you!” She knelt down beside me—not worrying about getting her skirts dirty—and fingered the skin around my eye. “Does it hurt?”

I shrugged. “A little.”

She opened the bundle she was carrying. Three oranges rolled out; a heap of flatbread and dates and almonds nestled in the cloth. My mouth began to water; hunger reared up within me and raged.

“Eat,” Shahrazad said. “This is not the time for politeness. You're probably starved.”

Greedily, I reached for a piece of bread. I had to use all the restraint I possessed to keep myself from stuffing the whole thing into my mouth at once. Then I peeled an orange and, putting one section at a time in my mouth, blissfully sucked out the sweet juice.

Shahrazad had brought candles, too, I saw. Five more. And a little pot of salve. This she promptly opened and began to spread the cooling paste beneath my eye. “Now your ribs. Let me see them. Soraya told Dunyazad that you'd been kicked.”

“No, Lady, you shouldn't be doing this. I'm your servant, I can—”

“You want me to command you? Is that it? Very well, I command you: Let me see your ribs.”

I lifted my gown. In the faint, flickering light I could see that they were bruised—all purple and black. Shahrazad drew in a soft gasp. “Oh, Marjan, I'm so sorry. This is all my fault for bringing you here.”

“No, Lady—don't say that! It's not your fault at all. You're saving everyone; you—”

“Shh, Marjan. Just let me do this.” Shahrazad began
slathering on the salve. “Have they fed you at all?” she asked.

“Soraya sneaked some food to me yesterday.
That
surprised me.”

Shahrazad laughed bitterly. “She approached my sister, told her what had become of you, and lent her the key. It seems Soraya doesn't want my job after all.”

“She's afraid,” I said. “The Khatun . . . she thinks you've taken a lover. She said she'd think that about any of the Sultans wives. And so Soraya understood that any wife of the Sultan is . . .”

“Expendable?” Shahrazad said.

I nodded.

“She just realized this?”

“I think . . . she thought she could do what you're doing. I think she envied you.”

Shahrazad unrolled a long, clean strip of cloth and began wrapping it around my ribs. “Well, things are going better for me, Marjan—thanks to you. The Sultan loves the story. And we're working on something . . . some way to get you out. My sister has another of her plans.” She laughed—not bitterly this time. “Its a good one though,” she said. “I don't want to tell you too much because it's—”

“Dangerous to know?” I asked.

“Yes.” Shahrazad made a snug knot in the cloth; I smoothed my skirts down around me. “We think we know who your storyteller is,” she said, “but I can't tell you that, either. For now . . . there are some gaps in the storytellers tale. My sister forgot a few parts and I thought maybe you would remember.”

“I'll try,” I said.

She asked me about Queen Labs magic rituals and how
long Badar Basim stayed with her and how Queen Lab's mother summoned the jinn. I told her what I remembered.

“Your memory is good,” she said.

“No it isn't! I could never remember all the stories you know! Even though I worked for years training my memory—trying to be like you. That's why I started telling stories. Because—” I stopped, feeling suddenly shy. Shahrazad looked at me questioningly; I had to go on. “I admire you so much,” I whispered.

Shahrazad bit her lip. I could see that her eyes were glistening. “Marjan,” she said. She took one of my hands, enfolded it in hers. “This may be the last time I will ever see you. That's the other reason I had to come—to say good-bye. Someone will come to fetch you—someone you will know you can trust. They'll give you back your comb.” She sighed, squeezed my hand. “I'll miss you, my friend. I can never thank you enough for what you've done. I wish I could repay you as it's done in the old tales—with a caravan of mules laden with sacks of gold and silver.” She smiled. “But I'll arrange something . . . You won't lack for money. And I'll do everything in my power to get you out of here . . . to a safe place.”

My heart was so full, it seemed to swell up into my throat so I could hardly speak. To say good-bye to Shahrazad . . . and to everything I knew.
A safe place.
It would have to be a
strange
place, one that I'd never been to.