Song of a Peacebringer, Chapter Twenty-Six – A Woman Named Scheherazade
Nasir and Tiberias were already inside the Great Hall when Aude arrived, appropriately attired in a blue-gray party dress, one of the best she owned – both men stood when she made her curtsey, Nasir with a little more ease than Tiberias, who looked as though his chest was giving him pain again. Aude took her usual seat next to Eschiva, feeling very much as though someone or something was missing. What it was she couldn't quite place – Tiberias was making his usual excuses to Eschiva as she tried to steer him away from the rich foods and towards the dry, cool things that would calm his unbalanced humors and Aude's attention was divided between watching that exchange and Nasir's reactions to it, torn between diplomacy and laughter.
There was a ruckus outside the door, and the Little Dove realized who it was who was missing from the table, the only person who would come in late like this. "Oh, God in heaven help us. Remy," Aude muttered, watching as Raymond's godson entered the room, proud as a peacock for whatever he had done on hunt today. He would not take Nasir's presence here very well.
"Uncle, you would have been proud of me today – I took down three roe deer by myself! We shall eat them tomorrow…"
The young Frankish knight stopped short when he saw Nasir sitting at his uncle's right hand, sharing a meal like a great friend would. His pride melted away, replaced by something that looked strangely like hate-filled disdain. "Uncle, who is this, that he sits at your table and dines with you like a friend?" Remy asked, sneering. Nasir stood up, out of respect and, Aude suspected, out of a need for defense as well. His hand was resting ever so slightly on the hilt of the dagger at his belt, only hinting at his capability. But he was no fool – he was a guest in this house, and however much the host's nephew insulted him, Audemande knew Nasir would not strike back.
"My lord Nasir, allow me to introduce my nephew, Lord Raymond of Antioch. Remy, this is Salah Al Din's ambassador; he is come to renegotiate our peace. I pray you forgive my nephew, my lord – he is unschooled," Raymond said sharply, giving his nephew a warning look. Remy gave a short, curt bow, taking his place without any further comment, a chair further away from his usual seat at Tiberias' side and rather farther away from the salt than he was accustomed to sitting. He remained sullenly silent for the rest of the meal, glancing down the table over his wine cup with a deeply etched frown on his face.
It certainly was a meal for princes, with every care taken not to offend the honored guest. Special butchers had been employed to make certain the meat was prepared in the correct fashion, and the kitchen had been scrubbed meticulously clean to make certain no trace of pig could be found anywhere. The meal itself was also served in the Arab style, being eaten with the hands out of large communal dishes, all of them on the table at once – first fruits, dates and pomegranates in the main, then cold appetizers, chickpea garnish over the ever-present flatbread and olives soaked in herbed oil. After that the hot dishes, mostly meats served with vegetables, the halal-butchered chicken, beef, and veal.
And finally – finally! – when the rest of the delicious, fragrant repast had been consumed and Audemande was fairly certain she could eat no more (surely there was no more food to be eaten, anyway) the kitchen staff came out with their grand trays heaped over with desserts, "sweet enough to make angels cry and open the gates of heaven," as Tiberias assured Nasir. He winked at Audemande as he took a generous piece of the heavy, syrup soaked Greek pastry called kopte, his wife frowning all the while. Eschiva was trying, again, and unsuccessfully, to regulate Raymond's diet. The patient, however, was being less than cooperative in the matter, and the treatment wasn't proceeding as planned.
While the fragrant pastries and wildly dyed marzipan were making their way around the banquet hall, the night's entertainment was emerging from the servants' entrance, ready to do as they had been paid to. There was a juggler, and a family of acrobats, doing all manner of flips and turns as the diners applauded. Then from the back of the hall came a raucous cry and the sweet trills of a flute, proceeding the entrance of Laudebec the troubadour with two of his musician companions, ready to tell their jokes or ribald tales or whatever it was they had been engaged to do for the evening. The Little Dove sat back in her chair, pushing some crumbs around her plate with her spoon and trying not to look too dismissive.
Audemande knew that Tiberias had his reasons for not inviting her to sing her own songs or share a poem: she was the master's ward, and it would be unseemly for her to recite in front of such a group. It was no longer her place to entertain – now she was a member of the audience, an observer only. It was all she could do to sit still for the remainder of the entertainments, and when Laudebec finished his final piece, a very sad, melancholy story about a maid pining for her lost lover, Audemande was one of the only people in the hall not clapping enthusiastically. She rose from her chair quickly after he finished, leaving the hall with as much stealth as a woman in a full train can muster.
"My lady Audemande," Nasir said from behind her once she had reached the outer hall, returning to her room. Aude turned back to speak with the Saracen, who had obviously followed her out after the music was completed. "You did not enjoy the troubadour…Laudebec, was that his name?" he judged, smiling a little at the answer he already knew she would give.
"I think his style a little elementary," Aude said diplomatically. "But the crowd enjoys it, and that is always a good thing." Nasir chuckled, nodding and crossing his arms.
"Yes, it was a little juvenile, I think. But you and I are of a different class of poet entirely, not meant for mere entertainment, but for reflection."
"I like my stories to have a little substance, something stronger than overused conceits," Aude stated truthfully. "Flimsy tales of love lost and found may be well and good for them, but they will not do for me."
"I have no doubt you could do better at any tale you told, my lady Scheherazade. Good night," Nasir said softly, bowing deeply and departing in slipper-shod silence. Scheherazade? What manner of woman is that? Aude wondered to herself, rolling the long, Persian name over her tongue in silent syllables as she walked back to her own room to retire for the night.
"Did you enjoy your day with Lord Nasir, my lady?" Khazuran asked, brushing and plaiting Aude's hair before she went to bed. "You remained rather long in the garden."
"It was lovely," Aude confessed, not thinking beforehand of how her matchmaking tutor would take this. "He read me poetry all afternoon, and after dinner he...he called me by another name," Aude remembered. "Yes, Khazuran, you shall have to help me with this. A Persian name, I think it was. Scheherazade. Was that the name of someone he knew in Isfahan?"
"Scheherazade..." Khazuran smiled secretively. "Someone he knew very, very well, indeed. That is a good name for you, Audemande of Jerusalem. Yes, that is a very good name."
Curious, Aude couldn't help but ask. "Who was she, this Scheherazade?"
"She was a great storyteller. Oh, not a real woman!" Khazuran said quickly, looking at Aude's slightly fallen face. "A character in a grand tale of love, and desire, and trust."
"Do you know it?" The Little Dove asked, fully prepared to stay up to whatever hour was necessary to hear this grand tale.
"Some of it. It is a very long tale," the tutor admitted.
"We are not lacking for time, Khazuran. The rest of the castle is asleep and we shall not be disturbed except, perhaps, by the sunrise," Aude offered, sitting back in anticipation that her tutor would cave and tell the story. Khazuran was somewhat predictable like that.
Khazuran nodded, considering this. "I suppose it is not now such a bad time to tell the tale, for most of it takes place at night." She sat down on a nearby stool, arranging the folds of her dress and collecting her thoughts. Audemande smiled at her predictability. If there was a person who loved telling stories as much as Audemande did, it seemed from months of observation that person was Khazuran, one of many qualities that made her such a wonderful teacher. Experience, it is said, is the greatest tutor of all, and the Muslim woman was always happy to share hers with Audemande. "Once upon a time, long ago in Persia, there lived and ruled a king, Sharyar, who loved his wife very much. However, he came back from the hunt one day to find her committing an indiscretion with one of his counselors. Without thinking, he took up his sword and killed both the counselor and his wife in a jealous rage. But then Sharyar issued the following proclamation -- that every night he would marry a new wife, and to keep her faithful to him, she would be slain in the morning, giving her no chance to betray him."
"This greatly troubled Sharyar's counselors, who knew, and took note of the simple fact that Sharyar was yet a young king, and had need of an heir, which of course would prove impossible to beget if the bride was killed every morning. One of the king's oldest councilors, a man named Jafar who had served Sharyar's father before him, took this news home to his daughter Scheherazade with a heavy heart. "Father, what troubles you? Why is your brow anointed with confusion?" Scheherazade asked, as a dutiful daughter should. "O Daughter, terrible news! Our great king, Sharyar, may Allah make his reign long and prosperous, has made a most distressing proclamation today. The Queen has betrayed him with one of his counselors, and he has killed both in his rage. Now he has declared that in order that no wife will ever betray him again, he will marry a new woman every night, and have her beheaded in the morning. It is only a matter of time before you are summoned to be his wife, and when you are gone, I will be alone in this world, without companionship."
"Father, let not this news trouble you. Allah will provide a way through this most troublesome time," Scheherazade promised, letting her father go to bed that night knowing that his very wise daughter would think of something clever.
"When the day came for Scheherazade to be named for marriage to Sharyar, she went to her wedding feast with a brave face, sitting through the toasting without any tears. Finally, however, it was time for the marriage to be consumed, and Sharyar escorted his new wife to the bridal chamber. When the thing had been done and the King was ready to go bed, Scheherazade spoke. "Come, my lord -- let me tell you a story, to pass the time before you fall asleep. Such a tale as you have never heard before," the present Queen of a Single Night promised. Sharyar was interested, and he sat back down upon the bolsters, inviting her to begin. So Scheherazade began to tell her tale, about a young man who found a cave filled with the accumulated treasures of forty thieves. But she told it in such a way, and with such timing, that before she could finish the story, the sun had already risen again, and it was the next day."
Khazuran adjusted the way she was sitting, an impish smile on her face, the kind worn by every storyteller when their tale mentions mischief. "Sharyar was torn. He could either kill her, as his proclamation demanded, and never hear the end of the tale, which was a new one to him, or let her live another night and hear out the story."
"He chose to let her live," Audemande guessed, smiling. Khazuran looked at her, a little annoyed with the interruption, and nodded.
"He was a great lover of stories, Sharyar, and you must remember, Audemande, that he had never heard this one before. So he let her live, bidding her to continue the story the next night. That night, she finished the story of the young man and the treasure cave, and started a new tale, about a prince who owned an enchanted ebony horse and who traveled the world in search of a princess he had seen in a dream. Like the first night, by the time the sun had risen, Scheherazade had not finished her story, and again, Sharyar decided against killing her in favor of hearing the rest of the story. This went on for one thousand and one nights, ending one tale and starting another to remain alive, until Scheherazade at last had no more tales to tell. By this time she had borne the king three beautiful sons, and she brought them before him.
"'My lord,' she began, 'I have been your wife these three years. I have been no threat to you, though threat has always been upon me. I have loved you as deeply as it is possible for wife to love, and I have never broken trust with you. I have one last story to tell you.' And so she began telling the tale of a great king whose wife betrayed him, and who told stories to keep herself alive so that more young women would not have to suffer. As she said this story, the story of Sharyar and Scherazade, their story, the King realized how selfish he had become when his first wife had betrayed him, and how selfless his present wife now was for remaining with him to spare others. He realized, also, that her love was genuine and that he, too, loved her deeply. She would not betray him, and her love would remain pure until the day of his death, or hers. Realizing this, he repealed finally the decree that said he would take a new wife every night and kill her at daybreak, and remained married to Scheherazade until the end of their days," Khazuran finished with a slim, contented smile, basking in the rosy glow a good ending always leaves with the audience.
"Did she continue telling stories?" Audemande asked. "Surely Sharyar must have had a favorite after all that time."
Khazuran chuckled. "The story never says. I assume, of course, that Sharyar did hear those stories many, many more times before his death. But now is not the time to riddle over such things -- the hour grows late, my lady, and the candle dips low. I think it is time for poets and their tutors to go to bed."
"Come, my lord, and I will tell you a tale that has never been told before," Audemande whispered to herself as she lay in bed, imagining the garden in Jerusalem, lit by oil lamps and the moon, filled with the sound of poetry in her own voice, her audience her very own Sharyar, a man who could truly appreciate the tales she told. If only such a man existed, she thought to herself before drifting into sleep.
A shorter chapter, but I hope you all enjoyed the Arabian Nights retelling. Most of my research says that those stories are based on a set of Persian stories, and Nasir, being of a family from Persia (Isfahan is in modern day Iran) would be intimately acquainted with them. If you're not familiar with the Arabian Nights, get familiar with them – they're a great set of stories embedded in an even more fantastic frame story about the incomparable Scheherazade, the Queen of Storytellers.
Hopefully you've all realized what Audemande hasn't by the end of this chapter; her oblivion makes this part of the story is becoming the most fun to write.
ALSO! I gave a presentation on the vocabulary of fanfiction at an undergraduate research conference this week. You can find it on YouTube by searching 'mercury gray fanfiction'. It comes in two parts.