Scorpion Soup (9 page)

With care, the sultan pressed the side of the ring into the lock.

The box snapped open.

Inside was a papyrus scroll that had not been read since the pen of Majnoon the Sorcerer had touched it a thousand years before.

Removing the brittle document, the sultan unfurled it, and held it to the light. But the words were unreadable, the alphabet unfamiliar.

Uncertain quite how he knew to do so, the sultan lifted an interlocking catch inside the box, and a slim drawer clicked open, revealing a lens.

Holding it to his eye, the sultan scanned the text.

The words were miraculously deciphered by the lens.

There was once a king who was loved by all his people.

On the day of his first son’s birth, a soothsayer was brought to the royal palace. Bending over the royal crib, he declared that the infant would have a long and contented life, and would be adored by all.

‘But,’ the soothsayer added before going on his way, ‘the prince must never – in any circumstances – ever be bathed.’

‘Why not?’ asked the king in confusion.

‘Because, Your Majesty, he is prophesied to drown.’

Accordingly, throughout his childhood, the royal prince was never bathed, but rather sponged down from time to time. A special department was established in the royal household to make sure that the prince’s bath sponge never became too moist. And, when the boy drank liquid, guards watched very closely as the glass touched the royal lips.

The prince was kept away from liquid of any kind.

Never permitted to get close to the water’s edge at the river, or onto the beach down at the sea, he was protected in every conceivable way – his guards keeping a vigilant eye over their ward.

He was never shown a stream, a lake, a waterfall, an icicle or snow, never permitted to swim, or even to paddle his toes. And, when it rained, he was hastened inside, for fear that an unexpected inundation might claim his life.

Years went by, and the prince grew up.

Then, on the morning of his father’s death, he rose to the throne as king. At last, he thought to himself, I shall be able to take control of my destiny, and learn to swim.

But, somehow sensing his enthusiasm for water, his mother stepped from the shadows and said:

‘Dearest son, I caution you to keep away from water. You know the soothsayer’s prediction. Will you promise me that you will abide by it?’

‘I promise, Mother,’ he reluctantly replied.

And so the years slipped away, and the young king had children of his own, and lived into old age. In all this time he had never once experienced the joy that water can bring.

Then, one day, the king found it a little hard to breathe. He called his chamberlain, and the chamberlain called the physician royal. As he examined the monarch’s chest, the respected doctor prescribed a treatment. But the treatment did not have a positive effect, and the king became all the more unwell.

Called to the regal bedside in the middle of the night, the physician royal examined the monarch once again.

‘What’s the matter with me?’ snapped the king.

His face fraught with worry, the physician royal replied without thinking:

‘The trouble, Your Majesty, is that your lungs are filling with water – and you are drowning.’

Within a day, the king was dead, and his eldest son was crowned king.

Despite the coronation, there was much tearing out of hair, and misery and grief. Shrouds of mourning covered the buildings, as the populace struggled to come to terms with their loss. Their sorrow derived as much from the fact that the eldest son was an imbecile, as it did from the passing of his father, an exemplary and popular king.

However hard he tried, the new ruler couldn’t think of a way to relieve the climate of national sorrow. To tell the truth, he couldn’t really think of anything much at all. He was so stupid that his own family made jokes about his lack of intelligence when his back was turned, and they called him Nums, which was short for ‘Numskull’.

Weeks and months went by, and the people forgot how to smile. After all, with an idiot on the throne, there was nothing at all to smile about.

Then, one morning, the new young king had an idea.

He would create a diversion, a diversion to take everyone’s mind off the melancholy – a contest, the winner of which would be presented with fifty bags of gold.

‘What form shall the contest take, O Imperial Majesty?’ asked the vizier.

The king thought for a long while.

‘What do the people –
my
people – love best of all?’ he asked.

‘They love to be amused, Your Majesty.’

A smile crept over the monarch’s lips.

He began to giggle.

‘Then amusement they shall have,’ he exclaimed.

The next day, a herald crisscrossed the capital, announcing the details of the contest:

‘His Majesty the king will himself award fifty bags of gold to the stupidest man in the kingdom,’ he cried. ‘Anyone imagining themselves to be especially stupid may come to the royal palace tomorrow at dawn!’

All at once the city seemed to erupt in excitement.

Wives pulled their husbands out of tea-houses, calling: ‘Come on you idiot, you can earn us a fortune!’ or ‘You’re the most foolish man I’ve ever met, you will surely win!’

Long before the sun had broken over the horizon, a snaking line of hopeful imbeciles wended its way through the streets and up to the palace gates. They included a man so stupid that he barked like a dog, and another who had a fork sticking out of his eye, because he had missed his mouth by mistake.

One by one, they were admitted into the palace, where the vizier and his staff examined them. Each one was permitted a full minute to demonstrate how stupid they were. After which, most were kicked unceremoniously out of a side door, back onto the street.

A handful of applicants were ordered to return at dusk.

Among them was a man who had married a broom thinking it was a beautiful woman, and an old crone who had raised a flock of pigeons, who was certain they were her children.

Just as the gates were about to be closed that evening, a young man called Yousef arrived. He was holding a package wrapped up in brown paper and string, and was whistling through his teeth.

‘Are you sure that you’re very stupid?’ asked the guard in a threatening tone.

Yousef gave a salute.

‘Of course I am,’ he said, ‘get out my way, for I am the King of Bukhara!’

‘Of course you are,’ replied the guard, waving him through.

Somehow, young Yousef was mixed in with the line of finalists. He took his place on a chair, which he turned upside down before perching upon it. When refreshments were brought round by an orderly, he poured them over his head and croaked like a frog.

Eventually, the king swept into the throne room, ready to judge those who had made it through to the next round.

‘Who will be first to amuse me?’ he cried out.

The man with the fork in his eye sloped into the throne room. He was followed by a woman who had married a clutch of kittens. After them came a one-legged sailor who hopped in backwards.

‘Who’s next?’ shouted the vizier.

Yousef found himself pushed into the firing line.

‘Well,’ said the king, bored by it all. ‘How stupid are
you
?’

Pulling the brown-paper package out from behind his back, the young man said nothing. Rather, he unwrapped the parcel, revealing a mirror.

Stepping up to the throne, he held the mirror so that it reflected the king’s face.

‘You had wanted to see the stupidest man in the kingdom,’ he said curtly, ‘and now you can!’

Silence prevailed for what seemed to be an eternity.

The vizier covered his mouth with a hand and prayed. The serving staff dropped their trays and gasped. The other contestants stumbled out in terror. Even the guards winced, fearful that their monarch would go wild with anger.

But Yousef stood his ground.

The king stared at his visage uneasily in the glass. Then, slowly, he broke into a smile, a smile that developed into a thunderous roar of laughter.

‘Give this man fifty bags of gold!’ he boomed.

Yousef invested the money wisely and was soon one of the richest men in the land. When he had amassed more money than even the king, he built a university, and arranged for it to be funded from his savings.

Then, having reached the highest level of society, he dressed in simplest clothing, left his home, and took to the road as a dervish.

Years passed, and Yousef learned the value of men.

And he came to understand what was important and what was not. But, most important of all, he came to know the most vital fragment of human knowledge – something that is lost or forgotten – something that has the ability to turn lives around, and change the destiny of all Men.

One evening, finding himself in a foreign land, he asked a hunter the way to the nearest town.

‘If you cross the forest,’ said the hunter, ‘and then the great river, you should reach the town by dusk.’

And so quickening his step, Yousef made a beeline for the forest.

The path on which he was walking wove in and out between the trees, forking once and then again. At the second fork, with the sunlight almost gone, Yousef looked for a place to sleep. He was about to lie on the ground, when he noticed a huge oak tree standing proud in a clearing. There was something about it, something almost magical.

Without knowing quite why, he walked over to it and lay down beneath it.

Very soon Yousef fell into a deep childlike sleep, his body exhausted after many hours of walking.

And as he slept, he heard a voice.

It was calling to him:

‘Wake up, O weary traveller,’ it said, ‘because I have something to tell you.’

‘Who are you?’ Yousef asked, unsure whether he was still dreaming.

‘I am the oak tree under which you take shelter.’

‘And what do you have to tell me?’

There was a pause, then the voice said:

‘I want to tell you the story of how I came to be rooted here in sunshine and in rain.’

Many lifetimes ago, the tree began, I was a child, a human child in my native Iceland.

I used to run through the fields and the forests, and play with my brothers and sisters in the long summer days. The world was perfect then, and we used to be thankful for the warmth on our faces, and for the soft ground beneath our feet.

But most of all, we were thankful for the trees.

We would climb them, carve our names on their trunks, swing from them, and lie in their branches, talking of all the adventures we would have in the years ahead.

One summer evening, I climbed to the very top of a soaring beech tree, and looked out over the forest. The view was astonishing – a carpet of green, an immensity that could never be dominated, even by Man.

Or so I thought.

Years passed and, before I knew it, I was no longer a child – but an adult with a wife and children of my own. However hard I worked in the town I never had enough money to make ends meet. My wife used to scold me, declaring that I didn’t strive hard enough in the market. My problem was that there just wasn’t enough work.

Then, one day, I overheard a wealthy man telling a stall-keeper that he had made a fortune in the timber business. He had got the right to chop down trees in a land to the west of our own. My ears pricked up, because the thought of being in the countryside, and gaining real wealth, was extremely interesting.

The next thing I knew, I had become a woodcutter.

I bought the very best axe I could afford, and chopped down trees from morning until night. I was strong and athletic, and found that I could do the job far better than anyone else.

Within a few months, I had paid my debts and had cleared a huge swathe of forest. And, within a couple of years, I was rich, and my wife was dressed in fine satins and silks.

But, as is the way of women, she wanted more.

And more, and more.

So, I kept chopping, cutting down all the trees I found in my path – great big trees and tiny saplings. Nothing escaped my blade.

One morning, as I was unsheathing my axe deep in the forest where I was camping, a little turquoise bird flew down and perched on my shoulder.

‘Please stop chopping down our forest,’ said the bird in my ear. ‘All the birds and the other animals are suffering because of you. If you don’t stop, the forest will take revenge.’

Swishing the little creature away, I got down to my work and, that day alone, I hacked down thirty trees.

Time slipped by and I made more and more money – so much so that I hired a team of woodcutters and got them to work for me. We bought better and better axes and, each week, I became more wealthy. But, needless to say, my wife found ways to spend all the money I earned.

Then, one morning, I woke up with a pain in my hand. I assumed it was from years of chopping wood, and so I rested.

A few days passed, and a pain began bothering my other hand. A week on, and something very strange indeed happened.

A little shoot began to sprout from my elbow.

Naturally, I was very alarmed. I showed it to my wife. Screaming, she sent me to a doctor, and left to visit her mother in the neighbouring town.

The doctor prescribed a tonic, and told me to get rest. So I took to my bed for a week, drinking the tonic morning and night.

As I lay there, under the blanket, the shoot began to grow.

It grew and it grew, and it grew and it grew, until it was more of a branch than a simple shoot. And, at the same time, another shoot sprouted on my other elbow, and on both my hands. Before I knew it, there were shoots peeping out from each finger, and from my ears as well.

I was terrified and ashamed.

No one else I knew had foliage growing from their body. After three weeks, my wife came back from her mother’s home. By this time, my entire frame was covered in greenery. Vines were growing out of my nostrils and my face was rough and grey like the trunk of a tree.

And that is what I was becoming – an oak tree.