The Harem of Aman Akbar.

by Elizabeth Scarborough.

To all of my feminist friends who have become interested in the lives and culture of Middle Eastern women through Middle Eastern dance, and to all of my teachers of that dance, especially Jeannie and Naima. Also to all of my men friends who have had harems, now have harems, or would like to have harems, I affectionately dedicate this book.

Chapter 1.

In the second year of the reign of the Boy King, Aman Akbar commanded his djinn to begin casting into the ether for wives suitable to the station to which our ill.u.s.trious lord then aspired. An ambitious yet kindly man with a taste for the exotic engendered by the fashion of the day, Aman specified to his djinn servant that a woman for his harem must be comely and well learned in wifely crafts and also be of n.o.ble blood among her own people, but must not be so beloved that loss of her would greatly grieve her kin.

Perhaps you will think that such an arrangement was all very well for Aman Akbar but detestable for the women involved. You would, for the most part, be wrong, though the error is certainly forgivable unless you, as I, had been the third daughter and middle child of the overlord of our tribe. We Yahtzeni are fighters first (by inclination) and herders secondarily (by occupation). Thus good men are a rarity among us, for the attrition rate is great.

Our foes are distant relations to my mother. They live primarily in the upper portions of the hills and raid every spring and fall, killing many men while stealing sheep and women. We try to raid back, but are not such good climbers as they, and lose even more men in such raids. Meanwhile, the women left behind still bear children, and these children have in later years seemed more often to be girls than boys, so that the girls among us, by adolescence, have no marriage to look forward to, but a life of perpetual girlhood and servitude to their parents and the tribe. The only possible distraction any of us can as a rule antic.i.p.ate is to be captured, enslaved, ravished and married only when we bear male children to our captors and are thus proven worthy of protection.

By the time I, as third daughter, was born to my father, he had begun to despair of sons and in his sorrow became unhinged enough to teach me to fight with the curved bronze dagger and lance, to hunt with bow and arrow, and to capture and ride wild ponies, as he would have taught a son. My mother thought him mad and kept telling him no good would come of it, and the surviving older men in the tribe taunted us both and regarded me as uncommonly wild and strange. Great was my mother's relief when she bore my brother and I could be tethered to the spindle, flocks and loom, and taught the healing potions and prayers she considered essential to a daughter's education. Still, my early training as my father's son stood me in good stead when the camp was raided, my father sorely injured and my sister-somewhat gratefully-carried off. My own distaste for my people's enemies' marriage customs was explicitly expressed with my dagger.

Thus by the time I first felt eyes upon me as I sat spinning, watching the sheep, I was already considered unmarriageable among our people and thought to be of an unnaturally fierce disposition.

Rain was spa.r.s.e that season, and the sky, promising snow, looked like a felted blanket. Our sheep ranged far and wide to find forage and I with them. I'd found a comfortable rock, just high enough for my spindle to rest against my thigh. When I felt the eyes upon me, I stilled my spindle in mid-whirl and clasped it to my hip. The hills around my flock teemed with wolves and bear, as well as mother's disgruntled relatives. I set aside the spindle and grabbed my dagger, fearing the two-legged beasts more than the four. Had I known what was truly behind my unease, I would have been terrified beyond any comfort to be gained from the knife.

Later I would be glad that I had had to wear my new robe that day, for the tattered one my mother had sewn for me for my womanhood dance had been torn beyond repair in the last battle. Even before that, it had been worn to transparency in places so intimate I was almost embarra.s.sed to wear it in front of the sheep. The threads for my new robe were finer spun than those in the old one, for my skill with the spindle had increased in the years separating the making of the two. I had dyed it a rich rust color by soaking it in a bath of iron wood. Escaping the camp to roam with the sheep put me in a festive mood. That and the chill sharpening the morning prompted me to add to my new finery the felted vest I had been embroidering for my sister before her capture-it had the fleece of a black lamb inside and the yarns were various yellows and soft pinks. Aman says that he found the contrast between my finery of that day and my ferocious aspect in battle most erotic-Aman talks that way sometimes. For although he has lived all his life in Kharristan, he has always been a keen watcher of the market place and also is the possessor of a vivid imagination. He finds the strange people who flock to that center of the civilized world endlessly fascinating and their diversity intriguing. Thus he was prepared to find me beautiful instead of merely odd.

I am told the djinn complained that I was unworthy-what n.o.ble woman, he protested, would be so careless of herself as to bind her hair into leather-held braids instead of twining it with pearls? Which shows how much the djinn knows about feminine adornment-my hair is almost white and pearls would ill-become me. He also deemed my substantial nose hideous-but this is typical of the djinn, who has lived a sheltered existence, for the most part, confined in his bottle. Therefore his views often tend to be prudish and conservative. Though a great one for taking others places, he has generally taken no part in the life of those places, thereby managing to stay relatively untouched and unenlightened by his travels. However, on the occasion in question, his priggish complaints fell on unheeding ears, for Aman replied, "Her nose is curved like the beak of the hawk and is a fitting complement to the glitter of her eyes-know you, o djinn, that the hawk is a n.o.ble bird and proud and also, I think, useful." There was further discussion of the sort Aman indulges in when carrying out these quasi-poetic a.n.a.logies of his, about soft feathers and delicate coloring but even when he is being smooth-tongued and soft-headed he can be acute. You notice he did not pick a frivolous bird to compare with me.

All that morning I felt skittish as an unbroken pony, disturbed, though I knew it not, by invisible scrutiny.

The new pasturage was a sloping mountain meadow and the way was long and tiresome. I quickly shed my vest, the pleasant coolness giving way to p.r.i.c.kly discomfort as the sun and I climbed together. By the time I reached the stream where I planned to watch while the sheep grazed, sweat dewed my forehead and stuck my new garments to me at the armpits. The bubbling water looked refreshing and I smelled goatish. I did not wish to spoil my new clothing by stinking it up on its first day in use, so I shed it gratefully and waded in. The icy waters revived me for but a moment before I began shaking with a cold that struck through my body as though to cut flesh from bone. I shot from the water, blowing through my nose and lips like a horse, hugging myself and shivering in my blued hide.

"Who can account for the taste of my master?" a voice whined, seemingly from above. I looked up sharply and dove for my clothing, not to cover myself so much as to find my dagger, still tangled in the silken sash. Despite the unfamiliar accent, I feared I had been caught by our enemies and was determined to sunder as many as possible from their lives before they could sunder me from my maidenhood.

"Yes, yes, Rasa Ulliovna, by all means cover thyself," the querulous voice continued. I was so startled to hear it speak my name that I abandoned my blade to search again for the speaker. Once I saw him, I ceased to worry. Such a one, I thought, I could handle with my two hands. "Do you obey me, girl," the djinn commanded more sternly. "We have much to do before I may deliver thee unto the master."

"You, pip-squeak, will deliver me to no one," I replied, s.n.a.t.c.hing my gown over my head in one jerk so as not to let it blind me any longer than necessary. "How dare you spy upon a princess of the Yahtzeni at her bath?"

"Thy pardon, Highness," the ent.i.ty replied, rising from the rock on which he balanced like a ball and doing his best to bend at his nonexistent waist. "I sought a private time with thee. The draperies of thy bathing tent were invisible to mine eyes." In spite of his mockery, the djinn seemed genuinely disconcerted for, as I have mentioned, he is prudish. "Thou hast no need to take fright of despoilment by the gaze of mine eyes. I am an ifrit, not a man, who sees thee in thy rather unpalatable nakedness."

I knew not the meaning of the term "ifrit," nor of the terms "djinn" or "genie," for there are no such creatures in the lore of the Yahtzeni-even at that, the ent.i.ty obviously was not one of my usual enemies. While several of them might have had good cause to learn my name, none of them were apt to use the djinn's fancy mode of speech. Nor would any of them for any reason I could think of short of madness or the threatened torture of loved ones attire themselves in his strange clothing-billowing trousers of scarlet silk, an indigo tunic, and a vest of a color I had never seen except in some sunsets-a brilliant blue-green, like the stones of which I have become so fond that Aman has declared them my talisman, in particular. Around the circ.u.mference of the being's copious midsection wound a sash of golden cloth. The same cloth wrapped his head like a bandage. He wore no weapons, and his feet faded into a wisp of mist settling like a low fog across the rock. This last factor would have made me cautious, had I dwelt upon it, but the djinn's bland unwhiskered face and soft corpulence a.s.sured me that if he was an enemy, he was scarcely one with which to reckon seriously. Still, he might be able to summon friends, and I had my sheep to tend.

"Begone," I told him, flashing my dagger, "or I'll let the air out of you." And then my dagger flashed no longer, but vanished from my fist. At that I trembled like a child and shrank from him, knowing I had made a grave error.

"That's better," the djinn said smugly, and vanished to reappear beside me, all of him, that is, but the feet.

This time I observed his lack of visible support with great reverence, prostrating myself before the nonexistent detail and groveling, which is the only course of action prescribed by Yahtzeni lore for dealing with demons. "Forgive me, fearsome one," I managed finally. "I knew not that I was in the presence of such as yourself."

"Nevertheless, thou art," the djinn replied, "and wasting my time too, I might add. If thou wilt be so kind as to separate thyself from the earth as thou didst from the water, I shall undertake to enchant thee at once so thy master may behold thee in thy dubious splendor before this day has ended and another begun."

"Master?" I asked, puzzled despite my terror. "Do you mean my father? I have no other master."

"Have had," the djinn corrected, somewhat wearily. "And a deplorable state of affairs that is too. But never fear, that also shall be remedied by my powers and by thy master's will. For the great Aman Akbar hast looked upon thee and found thee pleasing, though G.o.d alone knows why, and has bidden me to bring thee to him this day." had," the djinn corrected, somewhat wearily. "And a deplorable state of affairs that is too. But never fear, that also shall be remedied by my powers and by thy master's will. For the great Aman Akbar hast looked upon thee and found thee pleasing, though G.o.d alone knows why, and has bidden me to bring thee to him this day."

"That's all very well," I said, my awe lessening as I grew used to this peculiar being. "But I'm not at all sure I want a master. I'm a chieftain's daughter, not a slave-what sort of man is this Ak-it sounds like a sneeze to me. And even if I did want to go, what of my sheep?"

The djinn snorted, his jowls wobbling. "Thou art even more foolish than thou lookest, O woman, to think of sheep and talk of slavery when high honor hast been awarded thee. Speak not of such matters to the instrument of thy deliverance from squalor and ignorance. For thou art to be installed in the harem of Aman Akbar, richest man in Kharristan save only the Emir himself, and-er-hero of a thousand adventures. I do his bidding in seeking thee out for this privilege."

"Some privilege," I answered, sitting up straight to pull on my leggings. "You spy upon me like a lecher and seek to carry me off-to go to some strange man and his harem, whatever that is, with no talk of marriage-and certainly none of a bride price. And I suppose that in order to accommodate you and your master I am to let my people's sheep just scatter among these hills? And who will do the work in our tent with my sisters gone, my father injured, and my mother growing daily older and more feeble?"

The djinn cast his eyes downward, as if to gather patience, and sighed a sigh that parted the mist where his feet should have been.

"Thou art a willful woman as well as an ugly one, and I pity my master. But he would have thee and is not a man known for unfairness. Thy sheep shall return to thy father's fold of their own accord. And I suppose I may provide thy father with recompense for the loss of thy labor if that is the way of thy people-though only cra.s.s barbarians would have it so. Properly, the master should demand of thy father a dowry for relieving thy poor parent of the burden of thy appet.i.te and rattling tongue."

"Demanding of my father would do no good," I said. "The flocks and the horses belong to all in my tribe, as does the work of my hands."

"I see. A cask of jewels should be more than adequate. I'll send them along with the sheep."

"Horses," I said boldly. "My people have no need for trinkets, but horses would lighten my mother's load and help at the herding and moving the tents. Ten should do nicely."

"Ten!" the djinn sputtered, but in a thrice produced them in a manner I found wondrous. I made no further protest as the beasts, black, necks arching, stampeded the sheep down the hill away from us and toward my father's camp. I swelled with pride at the bargain I had made and hardened myself to accompany the djinn.

Ten horses was the highest bride price ever paid for any woman among my people and indeed, as the djinn had suspected, the custom of paying any such price had fallen into disuse because of the lack of men. The djinn, perceiving my ill-concealed look of triumph, muttered something about the price being high enough to buy twenty more tractable houris, but then he snapped his fingers, the mist of his feet solidified into a rug, and when he had seated himself upon it and convinced me to do the same, he spoke a quick incantation and we rose into the air in a most astonishing fashion.

That the djinn should use an unusual mode of travel did not surprise me. I would have been disappointed had such a powerful being suggested we walk or ride one of the new horses. But the higher we flew, the more the mountains and glacial clefts drew my eyes over the side, and when I looked away, I had to whip my head back quickly so the wind would disperse the tears that formed as I saw my familiar plains shrinking to a thin yellow-green line. I spied the camp of our enemies and leaned so far over the edge of the rug, trying to spot my sister, that it tilted dangerously. The djinn threw out his arm and a magic force pulled me back and straightened our course again.

We flew over more mountains, beyond which were broad fields and seas and other mountains and great cities, and yet more plains and mountains; all of this in an eye's winking.

As we soared higher, it seemed to me, we should have seen yet more wonderful sights, but this was not so. Above the clouds were none of the palaces and gardens and herds of the G.o.ds, nor even the warriors we had lost in battle sitting around sharpening their knives and axes, waiting to make the next thunderstorm. Or if they were there, they were invisible to me, for all I saw were the tops of clouds, nothing more.

The djinn sat silent, legs and arms folded, and would not speak to me. After a time the clouds thinned to a gauzy film, m.u.f.fling us for a moment in its fleece before our conveyance sliced through it. I saw that we had been among the shrouded peaks of very tall mountains. From these we dropped into foothills, through which flowed a pair of rivers, between which was set a great city-round, scalloped with domes and p.r.i.c.kled with spires, glowing pale amber by the light of the sickle-shaped moon rising above it.

"Kharristan," the djinn said, hovering briefly to savor my astounded reaction at the sight of what his culture had produced. The cities I had seen were those walled towns we visited from time to time to trade our fleeces, horn b.u.t.tons, weavings and yarns for knives, needles, certain foodstuffs and occasionally for dyes we did not possess. Once or twice I had gone with father to trade with the servants of powerful men at the back entrances of their fine houses; there I saw a fine bolt of silken cloth, a porcelain bowl with figures painted on it, and a portable G.o.ddess chipped from marble. But mostly what I had seen were rude collections of straw and mud or mortared stone, surrounded by walls of the same-evil-smelling, foul traps for the whey-faced city men who dwelt in their own filth-as my father was fond of saying. None were like this mountain of moonlit walls, golden spires and billowing domes whose deeply shadowed and gracefully arched windows and doors made it look airy as a snowflake.

Muddled as I was by moonlight and the exhaustion of my unusual activities that day, I failed to notice the other magnificent palace in Kharristan, which seemed to me to be all one great and beautiful building. The djinn flew us to Aman Akbar's residence as soon as he felt I had had sufficient time to be duly impressed and yet not enough respite to regain my composure, which he seemed to delight in upsetting. I didn't even recognize it as a residence. Even though we settled down among walls to get there, I thought we'd landed in a vacant pasture in the middle of the city, for there were flowers blooming, trees and an animal blowing water out of the middle of a rectangular pool. The weather was no longer winter, as it had been at home. The wind rushing past my cheeks as we landed was as warm as human breath. My woolen robe began to p.r.i.c.kle once more against my skin.

Aster, about whom I will say more later, would make sure to tell you what kind of flowers bloomed there, and how many of them, and also would remark that the trees were different than the sort I was used to. She would also tell a good many other things which are beside the point and probably, on the whole, not entirely truthful. What was important was that Aman Akbar was waiting for me beside the pool.

Deep in the brain of every woman who has ever lived, there has been the dream of Aman Akbar or someone like him. Not that I had previously imagined a man who looked like him-never had I beheld anyone so dark and yet so fair at the same time. But a man whose touch is soft as a horse's muzzle, whose breath is sweet as clover rather than sour with the remnants of his last meal, a man who smells of well-washed cloth and whose hair mirrors any available light-aiyee! He was so much prettier than I was I could hardly speak for gawking. When he reached out to take one of my hands I hid them both in my skirt, ashamed of the dust deep in the knuckle creases and the scars of many brambles and many battles crisscrossed in pallid patterns along the backs of them and up my wrists and arms. His hands were well-shaped and long-fingered, the skin the color of honey, soft and smooth, though I felt the roughness of calluses when he succeeded in capturing my uncooperative wrist.

Not that beauty and good grooming were all that there was to his charm. In my experience, a man's cleanliness is less often to his own credit than to that of the woman who scrubs his clothing and carries the water for his libations. But there was also about Aman Akbar an air of wonder-at his surroundings, at the djinn (though this was tempered by such haughtiness as befitted the master of such an establishment), at life, and oddest of all, at me. His eyes were blacker than sloes but were wide and warm. His smile was at once sweeter and more tender than my mother's and more understanding and protective than my father's. Not that my parents ever smiled, either of them. Our people aren't generally great smilers. But his was even better than theirs would have been if they did that sort of thing. I felt that here was a man who would never cuff me for losing a sheep or breaking a water jar because I was more precious to him than anything else. Needless to say, I took to him immediately.

He said something to me in a low, soft voice. I recognized his name and mine though when he said "Rasa" he spoke the word with such melodious tones that it sounded totally unlike it did when I heard it screamed across the plains or over the cookfires. The way Aman said it it should have meant "first blossom of spring" or "face of the new moon" instead of "wild gra.s.s" or "weed"-which is its true meaning. Other than the names, however, I didn't understand a word he said. I nodded hopefully, nonetheless. He blinked, smiled sympathetically, and gave the djinn a command.

The latter rolled his eyes and bowed with a great show of reluctance, muttering, "But what is the use of foreign wives if you teach them to speak? Is not the chief virtue of such women their inability to scold or gossip?"

"The Lady Rasa is to be the heart of my heart, the light of my soul, o ifrit. How then shall I gain her confidence if she cannot understand a word I speak? I must not only win her love, but must also acquaint her with her new surroundings and the one true G.o.d and His word."

"It is done. Every word that pa.s.seth from thy mouth she hath understood. However, I can still arrange it so that she can understand all thou sayeth but cannot speak herself," the djinn said hopefully. Aman looked sternly upon him. The djinn shrugged and abruptly dissolved into smoke and blew away.

"Where did he go?" I asked, as much to see if the demon had done as he was told as because I was interested. He had. Aman stroked my hand in a pleased fashion with his thumb as he answered.

"Back to his bottle, beloved, to wait until I summon him again."

"Are you a great magician then, to be in control of such a demon?" I should have thought of that before. This bargain I had made would not be so clever if my husband were able to kill me with a fire-bolt the first time I angered him or would change from his present virile form into something vile at bedtime. A Yahtzeni woman usually lost a few teeth after marriage, but I had figured that I, being a largish girl, would be able to handle any of the men in our tribe or our enemy's. Had I inadvertently overmatched myself?

"No more than any other man of extraordinary wit and courage," he said, puffing out his chest and gesturing grandly before darting me a quick sidelong look to see if I was sufficiently impressed. I was simply puzzled, and must have looked it, for he relaxed and grinned, patting my arm. "What I mean to say, my darling Rasa, is that winning the services of the djinn required a great deal of both-and considerable luck. Though it was all in watching people, really. I noticed that a certain very wealthy man seemed to be searching for something and guessed that the object of his search must be a thing of great value, else why would he bother with it? With a little shrewd maneuvering, I managed to beat his agents to the thing, which turned out to be an old bottle." He smiled, his teeth flashing like the edge of the moon. "No Kharristani in his right mind would ignore such a treasure. Some old bottles contain nothing, some contain old wine, but many-and these are the important ones, the ones of which we all learn when we are but children, contain captive members of the race of the djinn, who must grant the person who holds their bottle three wishes."

"Why?"

His hands spread and his eyebrows rose, a gesture more graceful than a shrug. "Thus it is written. Some say the bottle contains not only the djinn's form but his soul, and to preserve it from harm the djinn performs his magical services."

The whole thing had an unsavory sound to me but I hated to be critical so early in our relationship. One could see, however, why the djinn wouldn't necessarily be a cheerful or willing servant.

Aman Akbar was leading me into the palace, not through the back entrance either, but through open-sided pa.s.sages roofed with arched ceilings and supported by white pillars carved with trailing vines. The warm night air was laden with the sweet-spicy smells of flowers I had never seen before and the sliver of moonlight danced our shadows before us. Inside, a lamp lit itself and dipped in front of us before leading us onward. I gaped.

Aman Akbar looked pleased as a six-year-old boy who has mastered his first slingshot. "You will notice that when I ordered this palace, I ordered it all with the utmost in magical labor-saving devices-no servants anywhere. I have only to step across the threshold and magic provides for my every wish." He placed a hand on the back of my neck and turned me this way and that to admire first the feathered fans with eyes in the tips that waved up and down the moment we were within range, the books that invitingly turned their own pages, and the bathing room, where steam hissed from the walls and jets of water leapt up as if trying to catch us when we skirted around them.

Here Aman Akbar said, "Perhaps you would like to refresh yourself after your long journey, my dear."

"In here here?" I asked, for I am used to less aggressive water, except in flood season.

"It is is the bathing room," he replied sensibly, and mopped a fingerful of perspiration from my brow. This mortified me. Aman Akbar wasn't sweating and I was sure no one else around here ever did either. He smiled again that sweetly rea.s.suring smile and pushed me toward the clutching fingers of water. "Go. You will enjoy your"-and here he gave a significant pause that indicated what he was about to say was not entirely what he meant-"evening meal more when you have bathed." the bathing room," he replied sensibly, and mopped a fingerful of perspiration from my brow. This mortified me. Aman Akbar wasn't sweating and I was sure no one else around here ever did either. He smiled again that sweetly rea.s.suring smile and pushed me toward the clutching fingers of water. "Go. You will enjoy your"-and here he gave a significant pause that indicated what he was about to say was not entirely what he meant-"evening meal more when you have bathed."

I certainly would. Fighting all that water was bound to work up an appet.i.te. On the one hand, I was tempted to make it the fastest bath ever taken and on the other hand, remembering the activity indicated by the pause preceding the mention of the evening meal, I was tempted to take quite a long time, both to be thorough enough not to be embarra.s.sed before my elegant new lord and also to put the d.a.m.ned thing off as long as possible.

But I tried to cooperate. I really did. I was beginning to agree with the djinn that being chosen by Aman was an unusual honor and I had no wish to respond to such distinction by being disobedient the first time he asked something of me. So I stripped, and folded my clothing as close to the door and as far from the water as possible.

The baths of Kharristan may be famed throughout the world, but I simply couldn't cope with them in my travel-bemused condition. No sooner had I stepped into the quietest looking apparatus there, a deceptively tranquil pool, than the waters turned into a whirlpool, and the demon at the bottom tried to suck me under. I sustained a rather major bruise scrambling out of there, and stood panting, looking over the edge. Perhaps this was a test of bravery Aman was demanding of me, to face these water demons? I had never heard of such a custom, but one never knew about strangers. n.o.body I knew ever sent feetless demons on flying rugs to fetch brides either.

Approaching the baths as such a test was not an appealing prospect without knowledge of how they worked or the use of my dagger. Being naked didn't help either. I decided the only thing to do was to submit myself to them, as to the G.o.ds, and hope for the best. That, as has been often explained to me, is the sort of thing the truly brave do when the battle is lost, their lord is slain, and the enemy is as numerous as drops of water in the sea-an unfortunate comparison, from my standpoint.

Marching bravely forward, I endured the suffocating steam and the needlings of the water jets, and when nothing more horrible happened, turned so they could reach other areas of my body, in order that they should see that they might do their worst and I would be undaunted. Discouraged, the steam dissolved and the water jets fizzled out after a time and sent instead a flurry of rough sponges, flying through the air, attacking me from all sides, sc.r.a.ping and polishing my hide, bruising old bruises and sc.r.a.ping the scabs off my knees and elbows. Hot water followed, but I endured it, stoically, though the cold water almost made me scream. After that, heavy towels swarmed upon me, smothering me, insinuating themselves under my feet and into personal places in an obscene attempt to make me falter. This activity was followed by the a.s.sault of the oil and perfume bottles, which heaped their contents upon me, to slide around on my skin until I was marinated in the stuff.

Then, incredibly, everything simply shut off. The pool smoothed and a cover pulled itself over it. The towels retreated to the alcove, where the light of the lamp beckoned me, shining on the soft blue folds of a lightweight gown to replace mine, which now hung drying on a silver peg. It was a pretty gown, and cooler than mine, so I donned it and followed the lamp and my nose-for I could already smell the odor of roasted meat and other, unfamiliar scents, that nonetheless conjured up fairly accurate pictures of the steaming platters surrounding Aman Akbar.

Chapter 2.

"You forgot the belt," he said, disappointment giving him a child's pout. "The dress looks more like a tent that way."

It was a rotten thing to say to someone who had barely escaped from water demons for his sake. I hadn't seen any belt for this gown-which did unfortunately resemble a somewhat diaphanous tent-and even if I had I probably wouldn't have paused to primp. I was in a hurry to get out of there. I hunkered down on my heels, so I wouldn't tower above him and also so he could invite me to eat.

He patted a cushion beside him and, as further inducement, picked up a tender-looking morsel from the nearest platter and extended it to me, waving it just under my nose. I settled back against the cushion, and grabbed for the meat, but he withdrew it, insisting with an intent, amused gaze that I open my mouth to receive it. I felt my face grow hot with embarra.s.sment. Only small children are fed thus among our people. Or the sick. But this was no doubt another of my husband's weird customs, so I closed my eyes, opened my mouth, and received the meat, which was so delicious I practically swallowed it whole. After that, he nodded to the platter and pointed to his mouth whereby I gathered that I was supposed to feed him. I wished heartily he had not lost his tongue all of a sudden and gained in its stead something of a self-congratulatory smirk, but I gathered that this too was customary and tried to forbear. So until the silver platters were considerably less burdened we silently fed each other k.u.mquats and rice, pistachios and lamb, oranges basted with honey, and lovely fruit drinks called "sherbets."

By the time we were down to peeling the grapes, a messy process not facilitated by fingers greased with mutton fat, the silence gave way to a great deal of giggling. When my last grape shot out of its skin and ricocheted off Aman's nose, I was considerably more comfortable than I had been at any time during that day.

When the giggling diminished to an occasional gust, he snapped his fingers twice and little bowls of scented water appeared under them. We used these to wash off the mutton fat, and the bowls bobbed and disappeared. Simultaneously a subdued din of whinnying horns, out-of-tune strings and palpitating drums began throbbing out what was the most disorganized piece of music I had ever heard. But it was certainly suggestive and I had only to look into the eyes of Aman Akbar to know what the suggestion was.

He took my hand again, saying, "I know one form of entertainment, my love, for which we need no magic other than that of our own producing."

By this speech I knew that he wished to do with me what men do with wives and slaves. Knowing that I had sold myself for a good price, I resigned myself to keeping my part of the bargain.

Every Yahtzeni child knows about the marital activity-no one who lives in a tent with six to twenty other people could fail to be aware of such, though the partic.i.p.ants usually try to disguise what they are doing with curtains and blankets. Still, such attempts are unsuccessful with sufficient frequency that now I was able to a.s.sume the mating position I had learned by watching my mother, who, like the rest of my people, knows all there is to know of love that sheep can teach.

For a moment Aman Akbar made no move in my direction and I cringed inwardly wondering if our differences in customs had not created another embarra.s.sing misunderstanding. Perhaps I would need to introduce him to some sheep too? But then he tapped me playfully on a nether cheek. I looked around to my backside to see the occasion of his delay and he smiled at me and, taking my shoulders, pulled me back into his arms and taught me many things unknown to sheep, whose bodies would not permit them the pleasures ours proceeded to enjoy.

Afterward I fell into a profound and dreamless sleep. Dreamless, that is, until the wailing began, softer than the howling of wolves but louder than wind. I couldn't tell if it was dreamed wailing or real, but either way it was bothersome. My mother always puts more stock in people's dreams than reality anyway, a.s.signing all manner of portents and omens to them. I woke enough to feel Aman Akbar roll over, groaning, to fling an arm across my shoulders.

Of everything that had befallen me since meeting the djinn-the trip, the palace, the water demons, the meal of strangely flavored foods-only this man seemed real. This I felt not only in the almost unpleasant warmth of his well-tended flesh next to mine, but from the sweat that did after all moisten that skin, and the calluses that roughened his elegantly shaped feet and hands. Similarly, the matters with which he sought to impress me-the palace, the djinn, his flowery speeches, his boast of "extraordinary wit and courage," his lovemaking-meant less to me than his manner. He, the handsome, wealthy lord of all of this magnificence, wanted very much to please me with all of these things, wanted very much for me-a stranger, a foreigner, of significance chiefly to my enemies-to like him. I found that I did, if not for any particular reason except perhaps that he was uncertain that I would. A Yahtzeni wishing to impress a woman would have picked up a horse with one arm and her with the other and not thought to solicit her opinion on the matter.

Aman began to snore. Gradually the wailing died away. I offered myself the groggy explanation that it was only natural that a palace built by demons was haunted by ghosts.

Wailing of a different nature awakened me the next morning. This sound had a spiraling, chanting quality about it and seemed to be emanating from a latticed window on the wall farthest from our mattress, of which I was now the sole occupant. I rose, pulling the blue dress over my body, sticky from the night's exertions and already perspiring somewhat in the first early simmer of the day. The streets below me were silent, and the few people visible across the city seemed to be napping upon rugs. Several streets over, the singer with whom the chanting originated serenaded them from a tower. With my new understanding of the local tongue, I could even make out some words. I heard the same sound four more times that day, and later learned that this singing was the call to prayer.

What I could see of the city, deprived of its moonwash, looked in the hard glare of sunlight more like the ones I was used to. The amber color was lent it by the bleached mud bricks of which the walls were fashioned, and these were much besmirched, chipped and soiled. Not only that, but with so much heat everything smelled to the heavens and the flies were awake, even if the people still slept. I liked the splashes of gay colors and the bright striped patterns that cropped up on blankets and clothing, wool drying in the sun, rugs and shop canopies. Perhaps Aman Akbar would let me buy some of the wool to fashion him a cloak-we Yahtzenis use mostly vegetables dyes, and the bright crimsons and indigos made even my fingers itch to weave them. I might as well like it. Now that I was a proper wife, I would no doubt be doing a lot of that sort of thing.

The light filtering through the window caught an answering glimmer from the mattress. A slender bangle, all of gold, where Aman had lain. An additional wedding gift. For all my ignorance I could not have done too badly or he wouldn't be rewarding me, would he? I slid the bracelet onto my arm, then removed it again and dropped it onto the pillow. I needed a bath more than adornment. I wasn't about to face that chamber of horrors from the night before however. The strange symmetrical pool in the clearing where Aman had first met me was more to my liking. Provided I could find it again, I'd bathe there. On the way, I'd brave the water demons long enough to collect my own clothing and maybe find the belt missing from the blue dress.

The water demons had been properly quelled the night before, it seemed, for now there was no trace of them, just the covered pool and the room, with my robe still on the silver peg, the sash that matched the blue dress beneath it, and a white robe of the same weight but a finer, shinier material, on a shelf beside them. The fans at the doorways were likewise quiet, and that pleased me less, for the morning had waxed from warm to nearly unbearable. None of the books saluted me either and I began to wonder if the pool would be there. It was, though the animal in its center no longer spouted water. But the flowers and trees still abounded providing perfume and delicious shade covering at least half the area. I washed thoroughly, dressed in the white robe instead of my heavier homespun, and looked around.

A pleasant spot to break my fast, I thought. But though certain tantalizing spicy smells shimmered across the tiled rooftops of the rest of the palace, no food appeared before me in response to my wishing. I tried unspoken wishing, spoken wishing, and finally cursing when I realized that only Aman's wishes produced food, as well as all of the other amenities missing this morning. He had not, evidently, thought of everything-but then, of course, he had lived alone before and wasn't used to considering what another person would do while he was gone. It was not really a problem, for the remains of the feast from the night before still littered our wedding chamber. Returning to the room, I retrieved the food and carried it back out to the fountain. I saw no more of Aman Akbar that day or the next, and none of the night intervening.

As a warrior I had fairly good nerves. As a wife the same nerves were wrecked by noon-time. Had he gone out to herd sheep? Or into the town? I slept but little that night, pacing the chamber, running out to the garden periodically to see if he was only just arriving, listening to the street below for his voice, which I wasn't really entirely sure I would remember.