Shadow Spinner (15 page)

More thumps and footsteps and scraping noises. Then a huff of breath; the flickering light went black. There came the faintest rustle of fabric, then the retreating
pad pad padding
of the first, heavy footsteps again.

And now the harem was coming to life. I heard women's voices, a shuffling of many slippered footfalls, a feverish din of clangs and bumps and scrapings. My legs had begun to ache from crouching, but I didn't dare stand. I found that if I set my body in a certain way, I could wedge myself into the contours of the jar, with my shins resting against one part of it and my seat against another and the bird basket hugged to my breast.

I waited for the call to withdraw, which would tell the women to leave when the merchant's men came to deliver the oil. And
waited.
I began to think that Dunyazad was wrong—that the oil merchant wouldn't come today, that we would be trapped in these jars until nightfall.

Suddenly, “Withdraw!” I heard. The high, reedy voice of a eunuch. “Withdraw! Withdraw!” There was a flurry of pattering footfalls, and then silence.

Male voices. I could hear them now in the distance—and the clatter of mules' hooves. Heavy, boot-shod footsteps coming near. Something scraped against my jar and then I heard—I almost
felt
—the sound of a body pressed against the jar.

An exhaled breath, just above me. My scalp prickled. I kept my head bowed, but whoever it was could look straight down at my veil. The jar heaved up. I was moving.
I braced myself, holding my veil with one hand and the bird basket with the other, pressing my legs and back against the jar.

I couldn't help . . . picturing. . . who it was that carried the jar. He must be strong. I imagined the young eunuch, the one who had smiled at me. He didn't falter, but carried me smoothly outside—I knew it was outside from the brightness that cast shadows into the jar and warmed the top of my head.

My jar lurched suddenly upward, and one of the pigeons let out a sharp
coo.
I held my breath. Had anyone heard?

A creaking sound. The leather straps of the jar harness? Shahrazad had told me that Dunyazad and I would be carried on either side of the same mule in the oil merchant's caravan.

A shout—some distance away. Then more creakings and the hollow clop of hooves on pavement. Now I was moving again, swaying gently. I heard the rhythmic swish of the jar rubbing against the side of the mule.

I ventured a look up; the circle of pale early morning sky joggled above. I could see pieces of buildings, but I couldn't tell which ones they were. A pigeon flew overhead, then a shoulder swam into view, the back of someone's head. I ducked down again.

After a time, we stopped. The mules stomped and blew; their harnesses creaked. Now, footfalls. Voices.

“Wait. I'll get these!” The voice was so near, it startled me. It was deep—not a eunuch's voice. “My nephew needs two leather jars. Keep them on the mule, and I'll have Majeed drive them over.”

We began moving again. When we stopped this time,
I peered up through the hole and saw a rough wattle roof. The scents of fur and hay and manure drifted into the jar, overpowering the oil smell and the bird smell.

Footfalls. I ducked my head. Creaking noises. All at once the jar plunged downward, and now I felt firm ground beneath my feet. Not for long. The jar was laid gently on its side; the pigeons cooed, flapping and scrabbling about. I wound up on my back with the pigeon basket above me.

Then a man's voice, near and quiet and low. “Wait. Don't come out now. I don't want to see you. Count to ten slowly, then leave by the stable yard door.”

“W
hat is that terrible
stench?”

Dunyazad brushed hay off her clothes while I finished wriggling out of my jar.

I didn't smell any stench. Just ordinary stable smells and a hint of the street.

“Hurry, Marjan! Come
along!”

I put on my veil and then, with my free hand, righted my bird basket, which I had pushed out of the jar before me. The pigeons fluttered and cooed indignantly. “Are you all right, little birds?” I asked softly. I peered inside; none seemed to be injured. So I snatched up the basket by the ring at the top and followed Dunyazad across the barnyard. She was already fumbling with the latch on the heavy wooden gate. She pulled the gate open, picked up her basket, stepped outside—then stopped.

“What's the matter?” I asked. I looked beyond her into a stream of people and animals: a ragged goat boy and his bleating flock, two men on camels, a fisherman lugging two sloshing pails, a carter, a woman with a stack of flat-bread balanced on her head, a band of shouting street urchins pestering a man toting a basketful of oranges. The smells and the din, muted in the courtyard, now clashed in my nose and ears.

“What's the matter?” I asked again, but Dunyazad only stared. “Look out!” I grabbed Dunyazad's elbow and yanked her back out of the path of a donkey cart. The driver lurched to one side, cursing at her. She cried out sharply, her eyes snapping with anger. “How
dare
he!” she said. “How
dare
he!”

“Dunyazad—stop!” I said. Quickly I straightened my veil, which had slipped when I let go to grab her. Now I felt like shaking her. I would have, too, if she hadn't been bigger than me . . . and a princess. “What's the matter?” I asked for the third time. Then all at once I knew. She'd never been out of the harem. She'd never smelled air that wasn't perfumed. She'd never been around so many people all at once.

Dunyazad peered out at the street again. “Where do we
go now?” She sounded uncertain—so unlike her usual self.

“This way,” I said. “To the fountain to wait for Ayaz.” I led her into the street, merging into the flow of people moving toward the bazaar. I wished I had a free hand to pull her along behind me, as she had done in the dark passageways in the harem. I kept looking back, calling out things for her to watch out for—a cart coming from behind, a pile of dung, an overloaded porter cutting across the current.

“Are we almost there?” she asked.

“Do you see those domed roofs? That's the bazaar!”

We came in at the portal by the brass bazaar, then wove through it to the mahogany bazaar, then the cotton sellers' bazaar. Often, I had to wait for Dunyazad, who gaped like a visitor from another world. When I began to feel impatient, I reminded myself that this
was
another world—to her. Once, I had to stop her from giving a gold dinar to a skin-and-bones beggar boy with flies buzzing around his eyes. “But he's
hungry!”
she said.

“If you give that to him, we'll have every beggar in the bazaar swarming around us and we'll never get the rest of the tale.”

She put the coin away. “I just want to feed him,” she said. “What will he do if no one feeds him?”

I handed the boy a copper fils, thinking, same as they all do. Same as they've done forever. Same as they would always do, unless the sultans and rich people opened their coffers. And there was little chance of that.

At last we came to the fountain. The man with the trained monkey was there again. I looked about for Ayaz, but he was nowhere to be found. “Now we wait,” I told Dunyazad.

“Are you certain he'll come?”

I nodded, trying to seem sure of myself. Of course he would! I'd seen his eyes when he looked at those dinars.

Dunyazad drew forward, watching the monkey perform. I stayed back a little way, so I could look over the crowd in the bazaar. I saw a boy walking by with a drum, and another lugging a bulging burlap sack for an old woman. I saw a boy climbing up a huge pile of folded carpets, as if he were scaling a mountain. A merchant pointed and yelled at him. The boy tugged at a carpet in the pile until it came loose, then tossed it down to the man.

No Ayaz.

After a while, the man with the trained monkey picked up his bowlful of coins, signaled for the monkey to leap onto his shoulder, and left.

Dunyazad looked at me. She didn't say anything. She didn't have to.
Where was Ayaz?

What if he had come already, before we had arrived? What if he didn't come again until late afternoon? That would ruin our plans. That would be
dangerous,
because the Khatun would discover that we'd gone.

“Sister?”

I turned around and there was Ayaz, grinning his impish grin. “Who is your friend?” he asked.

“You don't need to know,” I said quickly, trying to stop Dunyazad from blurting out her name. “Just take us to the storyteller.”

“What are the birds for?” Ayaz asked, not moving.

I had a terrible thought, then.
Pigeon pie.

“Not for
you,”
I said crossly. “Let's go.”

Ayaz held out his hand, still grinning.

I sighed. “We've been through this before! I'll pay you when we get there. Four copper fils.”

He looked hurt. “Have I displeased you so much, Lady, that you would cut my wage from gold to copper?”

“I didn't have the right change before. Now I do.”

“But now there are two of you. It's twice as much work. So my fee has gone up to two gold dinars.”

“Two gold dinars?”
I whispered, furious. “I'll find him myself, then.”

He shrugged. “You're welcome to try. But if she—” he nodded at Dunyazad—“is as fine a lady as my nose tells me she is, you're lucky I'm not charging you three.”

Perfume. Dunyazad was wearing perfume!
Expensive
perfume. I could smell it now—that smell like rain—though I hadn't noticed it before.

“Two silver dirhams, when we get there. That's my last offer.”

He shook his head. “Gold,” he said. “Two of them.”

And then, so quickly I didn't have time to stop her, Dunyazad set down her birds, plucked two dinars from her sash, and handed them to Ayaz. “Thank you, gracious lady!” he said. He grinned at me, then whirled round and dived into the crowd.

I set off—running—after him, my pigeon basket bumping against my legs. “You shouldn't have done that!” I said over my shoulder to Dunyazad. “Now he's probably gone for good!” I didn't care if she
was
a princess. She had ruined everything!

“Two dinars is nothing,” she said, close behind me. “We don't have time to haggle.”

“You might as well come right out and tell him who you are, then,” I said.
“Nobody
can afford to pay that
much. And even if they could, they
wouldn't.
And now that he's got what he wants from us, hell just leave!”

Ayaz was far ahead now, weaving in and out among porters and mule drivers and shoppers. Soon he vanished altogether.

“He's . . . gone!” Dunyazad said, and now she sounded sorry.

We stood there in the street while people flowed around us. I searched for Ayaz, avoiding Dunyazad's eyes. Then, “Look, Marjan! There he is!” She pointed up a small flight of stairs, beneath a carved stone arch. He was motioning us to come.

It seemed longer this time until we came to the place where he had blindfolded me before. The pigeons grew heavier with every step. Ayaz disappeared and returned with two kerchiefs, apologizing profusely to Dunyazad for having to blindfold her. He had never apologized to
me,
I thought bitterly. Dunyazad looked worried, but I reassured her. “He did this before,” I said. “Remember, I told you?” Still, it was scary. If anyone found out who she was . . . More than ever, I questioned the wisdom of having her along.

“Lady, you hold on to her veil,” Ayaz told Dunyazad, nodding at me. “I'll carry your basket, so you'll have a hand free.”

“I won't have a hand free,” I said.

“I'll guide you like this.” Ayaz hooked one finger through the ring at the top of my pigeon basket.

Dunyazad held my veil as Ayaz blindfolded us. Then he led us to the storyteller's house. Inside, I set down my pigeons and pulled off the kerchief.

“You brought a friend,” the storyteller said.

I looked at Dunyazad. Ayaz had removed her blindfold, but she kept her veil taut about the moon of her face and her eyes turned down toward the carpet. For once, she was silent.

The storyteller raised his shaggy brows, waiting, I thought, for me to introduce her. I didn't. “And you brought pigeons,” he said at last.

“You said the story was long. And we have to leave before noon. The pigeons are trained to return . . . to where we live. You can send whatever's left of the story with them. If you can't write, we'll give you coins to pay a scribe.”

“So they're Zaynab's birds,” he said. It stopped me cold.

He was far ahead of me. I had so carefully not told him anything about us—who we were and where we had come from—yet he knew, somehow, that we had come from the harem. And he knew of Zaynab. How did he know of Zaynab? I had never heard of Zaynab until a week ago.