Gateways (58 page)

For although the grand vizier and his family resided in a splendid wing of the sultan’s magnificent palace, the grand vizier was responsible for the upkeep of his quarters. The sultan was no fool.

“Father!” Scheherazade screeched. “Help me!”

“What can I do?” asked the grand vizier. He expected no answer.

Yet his beautiful, slim-waisted daughter immediately replied, “You must allow me to go to the Street of the Storytellers.”

“The daughter of the grand vizier going into the city! Into the bazaar! To the street of those loathesome storytellers? Commoners! Little better than beggars! Never! It is impossible! The sultan would never permit you to leave the palace.”

“I could go in disguise,” Scheherazade suggested.

“And how could anyone disguise those ravishing eyes of yours, my darling child? How could anyone disguise your angelic grace, your delicate form? No, it is impossible. You must remain in the palace.”

Scheherazade threw herself onto the pillows next to her father and sobbed desperately, “Then bid your darling daughter farewell, most noble father. By tomorrow’s sun I will be slain.”

The grand vizier gazed upon his daughter with true tenderness, even as her sobs turned to shrieks of despair. He tried to think of some way to ease her fears, but he knew that he could never take the risk of smuggling his daughter out of the palace. They would both lose their heads if the sultan discovered it.

Growing weary of his daughter’s wailing, the grand vizier suddenly had the flash of an idea. He cried out, “I have it, my best beloved daughter!”

Scheherazade lifted her tear-streaked face.

“If the Prophet—blessed be his name—cannot go to the mountain, then the mountain will come to the Prophet!”

The grand vizier raised his eyes to Allah in thanksgiving for his revelation and he saw once again the peeling gold leaf of the ceiling. His heart hardened with anger against all slipshod workmen, including (of course) storytellers.

And so it was arranged that a quartet of burly guards was dispatched that very morning from the sultan’s palace to the street of the storytellers, with orders to bring a storyteller to the grand vizier without fail. This they did, although the grand vizier’s hopes fell once he beheld the storyteller the guards had dragged in.

He was short and round, round of face and belly, with big round eyes that seemed about to pop out of his head. His beard was ragged, his clothes tattered and tarnished from long wear. The guards hustled him into the grand vizier’s private chamber and threw him roughly onto the mosaic floor before the grand vizier’s high-backed, elaborately carved chair of sandalwood inlaid with ivory and filigrees of gold.

For long moments the grand vizier studied the storyteller, who knelt trembling on the patched knees of his pantaloons, his nose pressed to the tiles of the floor. Scheherazade watched from the veiled gallery of the women’s quarters, high above, unseen by her father or his visitor.

“You may look upon me,” said the grand vizier.

The storyteller raised his head, but remained kneeling. His eyes went huge as he took in the splendor of the sumptuously appointed chamber. Don’t you dare look up at the ceiling, the grand vizier thought.

“You are a storyteller?” he asked, his voice stern.

The storyteller seemed to gather himself and replied with a surprisingly strong voice, “Not merely
a
storyteller, oh mighty one. I am
the
storyteller of storytellers. The best of all those who—”

The grand vizier cut him short with, “Your name?”

“Hari-ibn-Hari, eminence.” Without taking a breath, the storyteller
continued, “My stories are known throughout the world. As far as distant Cathay and the misty isles of the Celts, my stories are beloved by all men.”

“Tell me one,” said the grand vizier. “If I like it you will be rewarded. If not, your tongue will be cut from your boastful throat.”

Hari-ibn-Hari clutched at his throat with both hands.

“Well?” demanded the grand vizier. “Where’s your story?”

“Now, your puissance?”

“Now.”

Nearly an hour later, the grand vizier had to admit that Hari-ibn-Hari’s tale of the sailor Sinbad was not without merit.

“An interesting fable, storyteller. Have you any others?”

“Hundreds, oh protector of the poor!” exclaimed the storyteller. “Thousands!”

“Very well,” said the grand vizier. “Each day you will come to me and relate to me one of your tales.”

“Gladly,” said Hari-ibn-Hari. But then, his round eyes narrowing slightly, he dared to ask, “And what payment will I receive?”

“Payment?” thundered the grand vizier. “You keep your tongue! That is your reward!”

The storyteller hardly blinked at that. “Blessings upon you, most merciful one. But a storyteller must eat. A storyteller must drink, as well.”

The grand vizier thought that perhaps drink was more important than food to this miserable wretch.

“How can I continue to relate my tales to you, oh magnificent one, if I faint from hunger and thirst?”

“You expect payment for your tales?”

“It would seem just.”

After a moment’s consideration, the grand vizier said magnanimously, “Very well. You will be paid one copper for each story you relate.”

“One copper?” squeaked the storyteller, crestfallen. “Only one?”

“Do not presume upon my generosity,” the grand vizier warned. “You are not the only storyteller in Baghdad.”

Hari-ibn-Hari looked disappointed, but he meekly agreed, “One copper, oh guardian of the people.”

Six weeks later, Hari-ibn-Hari sat in his miserable little hovel on the Street of the Storytellers and spoke thusly to several other storytellers sitting around him on the packed-earth floor.

“The situation is this, my fellows: the sultan believes that all women are faithless and untrustworthy.”

“Many are,” muttered Fareed-al-Shaffa, glancing at the only female storyteller among the men, who sat next to him, her face boldly unveiled, her hawk’s eyes glittering with unyielding determination.

“Because of the sultan’s belief, he takes a new bride to his bed each night and has her beheaded the next morning.”

“We know all this,” cried the youngest among them, Haroun-el-Ahson, with obvious impatience.

Hari-ibn-Hari glared at the upstart, who was always seeking attention for himself, and continued, “But Scheherazade, daughter of the grand vizier, has survived more than two months now by telling the sultan a beguiling story each night.”

“A story stays the sultan’s bloody hand?” asked another storyteller, Jamil-abu-Blissa. Lean and learned, he was sharing a hookah water pipe with Fareed-al-Shaffa. Between them, they blew clouds of soft gray smoke that wafted through the crowded little room.

With a rasping cough, Hari-ibn-Hari explained, “Scheherazade does not finish her story by the time dawn arises. She leaves the sultan in such suspense that he allows her to live to the next night, so he can hear the conclusion of her story.”

“I see!” exclaimed the young Haroun-el-Ahson. “Cliff-hangers! Very clever of her.”

Hari-ibn-Hari frowned at the upstart’s vulgar phrase, but went on to the heart of the problem.

“I have told the grand vizier every story I can think of,” he said, his voice sinking with woe, “and still he demands more.”

“Of course. He doesn’t want his daughter to be slaughtered.”

“Now I must turn to you, my friends and colleagues. Please tell me your stories, new stories, fresh stories. Otherwise the lady Scheherazade will perish.” Hari-ibn-Hari did not mention that the grand vizier would take the tongue from his head if his daughter was killed.

Fareed-al-Shaffa raised his hands to Allah and pronounced, “We will be honored to assist a fellow storyteller in such a noble pursuit.”

Before Hari-ibn-Hari could express his undying thanks, the bearded, gnomish storyteller who was known throughout the bazaar as the Daemon of the Night, asked coldly, “How much does the sultan pay you for these stories?”

Thus it came to pass that Hari-ibn-Hari, accompanied by Fareed-al-Shaffa and the gray-bearded Daemon of the Night, knelt before the grand vizier. The workmen refurbishing the golden ceiling of the grand vizier’s chamber were dismissed from their scaffolds before the grand vizier asked, from his chair of authority:

“Why have you asked to meet with me this day?”

The three storytellers, on their knees, glanced questioningly at one another. At length, Hari-ibn-Hari dared to speak.

“Oh, magnificent one, we have provided you with a myriad of stories so that your beautiful and virtuous daughter, on whom Allah has bestowed much grace and wisdom, may continue to delight the sultan.”

“May he live in glory,” exclaimed Fareed-al-Shaffa in his reedy voice.

The grand vizier eyed them impatiently, waiting for the next slipper to drop.

“We have spared no effort to provide you with new stories, father of all joys,” said Hari-ibn-Hari, his voice quaking only slightly. “Almost every storyteller in Baghdad has contributed to the effort.”

“What of it?” the grand vizier snapped. “You should be happy to be of such use to me—and my daughter.”

“Just so,” Hari-ibn-Hari agreed. But then he added, “However, hunger is stalking the Street of the Storytellers. Starvation is on its way.”

“Hunger?” the grand vizier snapped. “Starvation?”

Hari-ibn-Hari explained, “We storytellers have bent every thought we have to creating new stories for your lovely daughter—blessings upon her. We don’t have time to tell stories in the bazaar anymore—”

“You’d better not!” the grand vizier warned sternly. “The sultan must hear only new stories, stories that no one else has heard before. Otherwise he would not be intrigued by them and my dearly loved daughter would lose her head.”

“But, most munificent one,” cried Hari-ibn-Hari, “by devoting ourselves completely to your needs, we are neglecting our own. Since we no longer have the time to tell stories in the bazaar, we have no other source of income except the coppers you pay us for our tales.”

The grand vizier at last saw where they were heading. “You want more? Outrageous!”

“But, oh farseeing one, a single copper for each story is not enough to keep us alive!”