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

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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 illustrious 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 noble 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 anticipate 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 sparse 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 embarrassed 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 noble 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 noble bird and proud and also, I think, useful." There was further discussion of the sort Aman indulges in when carrying out these quasi-poetic analogies 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 prickly 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, snatching 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 entity 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 entity 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 circumference 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 assured 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 God 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 crass 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 appetite 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 gods, 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, muffling 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 prickled 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 buttons, 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 goddess 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 prickle 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 grass" 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 God and His word."

"It is done. Every word that passeth 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 passages 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?" I asked, for I am used to less aggressive water, except in flood season.

"It 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 reassuring 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 appetite. 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 embarrassed before my elegant new lord and also to put the damned 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. Nobody 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 gods, 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, scraping and polishing my hide, bruising old bruises and scraping 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 assault 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

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"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 embarrassment. 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 kumquats 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 participants 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 assume 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 embarrassing 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, assigning 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.

The room was stifling. I slid the bracelet, the ring my lord had given me, up and down my arm in a fitful manner, trying to decide what I must do. Surely such a rich man didn't herd or hunt and if he were delayed on business, why didn't he send me a message? Why not take me with him? I would have liked to see the city, even if it was too hot.

When he was not there by the next day, I considered going into the town to search for him, for I was becoming frightened for his sake. Thieves and murderers prowled city streets, my father said. Worse men than my mother's cousins. What if my new husband had met with one of those? Then what would I do? I knew no one in this strange land except he and the djinn, and the latter was not likely to be much help without his master.

But as the day wore on, and I once more expected to see him appear by the pool or in the street outside my window at any time, I told myself that though this city seemed threatening to me, to him it was home. He had lived here for years without my protection, and would no doubt be less than grateful for it if I interrupted him while drinking with other men, gambling, doing business, or whatever it was that kept him away. Such absences were not an indication of bright days ahead for us, but so far what he had done regarding me had been otherwise exemplary. Nevertheless, I promised myself that if he missed the evening meal (which I too would miss, for the leftovers from the dinner of two nights ago were now little more than cores, seeds and fly-blown scraps) I would go searching for him, as well as for something to eat.

I was in the process of keeping this resolution, having redonned my own robe, attaching to my sash a knife I found in the room of books, when suddenly I noticed that the pages had begun turning, the lamps were lighting, and, sure enough, down the corridor, the eye-tipped feather fans were waving in salutation as Aman Akbar strode through the arches and pillars beyond. He was more beautiful than ever, clad in a coat of green embroidered thickly about the hem and facings with blue, scarlet and gold. Full blue trousers belled out beneath. Upon his feet were curly toed slippers of gold-embroidered scarlet. These matched the bandage which wrapped many times around his head. This bandage, called a turban, was in its turn bedecked with a brooch of blue jewels set in gold in the shape of a flower and from this sprouted three white feathers, so that he looked tall and stately. Upon his face was the tender smile, though it seemed to me weary, and in his hand a silk-wrapped parcel.

"My Lord!" I cried, running up to him and then stopping, uncertain as to whether I was expected to take his coat, bow, embrace him, or make some other obeisance. I knew what my people did, but I was unfamiliar with the ways of the rich and powerful in this land, and even my lenient husband might take offense if I behaved improperly. He, however, solved my dilemma.

"Beloved," he sighed, opening his arms and folding me therein.

"Where were you?" I asked, and from the hard look with which he favored me gathered that my perfectly reasonable question was not permissible. I tried to cover it up, "I mean, if you were herding, is it not my duty to relieve you and to bring you lunch at midday or—or does the demon do that?"

The hardness fled from his countenance and his brown eyes melted with sympathy. "But, darling, you fretted for me. You must not. My business often takes me away unexpectedly, but I am well-provided for when away from your side. See you here, I've brought you a gift." He extended the parcel of yellow silk. I unknotted it, and a pendant of gold dangling one of the blue-green stones tumbled into my hand. Aman tenderly placed it around my neck saying, "Ah, how well it suits you. I see you found the bracelet. Are you pleased?"

"I am and I thank you but—"

"What do you fancy for dinner tonight? I had in mind partridges roasted with honey and almonds and perhaps a sherbet of pomegranate and rice with dates."

And so this night passed as pleasurably as the first had, with the difference that Aman, once refreshed by his meal, grew loquacious, and began to tell me more of the city and its people. Some of this talk was entertaining, and some seemed simply an unburdening of his mind, for he was in a rage about the conditions under which the new Emir forced the city's poor—Aman's old friends—to dwell. The royal guards had become the scourge of the common people, whose homes they looted at will. Nor did the armsmen scruple to carry off women, assault holy persons, or rob the cups of beggars. The Emir, save for enriching himself, paid no attention to affairs of government but was concerned only with accumulating objects of magic, beautiful women—even those betrothed to others (Aman waxed especially indignant over that.)—and the wealth rightfully belonging to old and respected families who had served the former King well for generations. Aman's own father, he told me, had been an adventurer in the service of the King, and had won a measure of fortune and prestige. This modest legacy was left for Aman when his father died, to be his when he reached manhood. But when the King conquered Sindupore, he found it necessary to settle the capital in the still-troubled heart of his new domain, leaving the other great cities in the control of various governors. Among these were several like the Emir, seeming chiefly to qualify for their posts by being too untrustworthy or inept to be of use to the King within the new, turmoil-filled frontier. Under these governors, taxes were raised and possessions confiscated until the fortune of Aman's father had been reduced to nothing, and Aman had been forced to labor at the most menial of tasks to support himself, until he found the lamp.

I found this discourse most enlightening, but remembered that my father said that every man who was not governing was likely to feel privately that his lord was unfair at times and I discounted somewhat Aman's discourse because I thought his complaint was quite possibly of such a nature and also because I was preoccupied with my own questions, still unanswered in spite of all of his words. Not that the words were not spoken with what appeared to be deep sincerity. Aman Akbar was at his most appealing, making great effort to relate these matters to me so that I would understand them and think well of him for the manner in which he had elevated himself above his harsh circumstances. And so I did think well of him, for he was most charming, most persuasive, and listening to his soft and throbbing voice was no strain upon my ears. Even so, there was something slippery in the way he told his tale, a hint of evasiveness in the quick darting away of his eye, the sudden change of subject just as I thought of a question to ask. I felt rather as if I were being sold a horse I had not yet seen but was expected to buy just on the weight of the testimony of its owner.

He had been lying on his back, gesturing to the ceiling, popping a grape into his mouth occasionally, but suddenly rolled over and looked at me closely. "You're very quiet, my darling Rasa," he said.

"I could hardly add to your eloquence, my Lord," I replied. The words came out wryly rather than flatteringly, as I intended.

He let forth an inelegant hoot of laughter and hugged me. "I have lectured you somewhat, haven't I? But you are so easy to talk to, as I knew you would be. When I first saw you leap over that campfire to slay that rascal who had one of your comrades pinned down, I said to the djinn, "That's the girl for me.' "

"When was that, my Lord?" I asked. "Why did I not see you?"

"Because I wasn't actually there, my darling. If I had been, do you think I would have stinted to leap forward and aid you and your noble father and thereby win your regard? But the djinn did not actually take me to the places—place, where I saw you. Instead, he cast the image of the events occurring in your camp upon the waters of one of the garden pools and thereby let me choose you for my bride." Looking deeply into my eyes, he lifted a strand of my hair and curled it between his fingers. "I am so happy that you agreed to come with the djinn, or I would have been obliged to embark on a journey to seek you out and win you in less expeditious ways. Your lands lying so far from my own, we might have both been very old by the time we came to lie here together, but I would have done so, nevertheless. Women of high birth I have seen aplenty, with the djinn's help, and women whose beauty inflames my senses. But none of them moved with the fierce grace of a cornered lioness as you did, nor did such loyalty and courage shine like moonbeams from any other pair of eyes. I knew at once that you would be my friend as well as lover, that you would support and even guide me in all of my dreams and plans."

Perhaps he also knew that I would be so overcome with pleasure at his praise that I wouldn't question him for a while about what those plans and dreams of his were. In any case, we were both too taken up with the spirit of the moment to pursue conversation further and all of my questions slipped my mind for the time being.

One of the more innocuous of these questions was about the wailing that came only at night—more faintly when I was alone than when Aman was with me, but occurring at about the same time. When the wailing came that night, we were very involved in amorous activity, and when I might have asked what the sound was, my mouth was otherwise engaged. Aman completely ignored the noise. His disregard for it convinced me that it was as normal and commonplace an occurrence as the prayer-caller. So I gave it no more thought until the following night. It was fainter then, and farther off, but no less annoying. The self-pitying tone of it seemed to mock me as I once more paced our wedding chamber alone, gnawing on a partridge bone.

I hasten to emphasize that it was Aman's evasive attitude and not fear which prevented me for so long from further investigation. For though he talked more about the stories, customs, and religion of his people, and plagued me for similar information about mine, he never alluded to where he spent every other night and all of his days. If I so much as looked inquisitively at him, he, clever fellow, would ask me to tell him more of my battles against my mother's cousins, and I would grow so engrossed in my own memories and presenting them entertainingly and in such a way as to reinforce his good opinion of me that I again forgot my questions. In this way a week passed, with Aman feasting, talking and dallying with me every other night. When he was present, everything was brighter, more intense, more distinct, even the wailing. When he was away, I wandered aimlessly through the long days, ate sparingly of food I ceased to taste, and wished for a spindle or even a loom to help me pass the time. Nights alone I thought of the nights with him and wondered that even the wailing was less robust when he was gone.

By the end of the week boredom, curiosity, the wailing and the inability to speak what was in my heart and mind to my lord, even while loving him more each night, drove me to desperation. The next night we spent together, I made certain to awaken when he did and followed him.

I lost him almost before he left the palace, for I had to wait until he had left the room to don my own native gown which was not as transparent as those provided in the room of water demons and therefore less likely to attract attention on the streets. This delayed me sufficiently that I was unable to see him in the halls or labyrinths. However, passing the room of water demons, I heard the hissing of steam and water and also singing in my lord's voice more distinguished by lustiness than tunefulness. I hid myself behind a pillar and waited until he emerged, clad now all in crimson, with silver plumes in his turban and a necklace of silver links across his broad chest.

He passed me and entered the library, two doors down on the opposite side of the corridor. The wooden doors to most of the rooms are seldom kept closed, in order that the air may flow more freely throughout the palace and lessen the heat, and so, by repositioning myself near the pillar opposite the room, I could see Aman crossing the room to a shelf. With a touch of his finger he caused the shelf to pivot. Out it swung, betraying an empty space behind it, from which my husband extracted a vessel made of some shining substance, green and cloudy. This bottle he carefully tucked into his sash. Replacing the shelf, he gave the volumes a little pat and strolled jauntily from the room, past the rectangular pool. The animal spritzed a salutory spray of water in his honor and continued spritzing until he had passed. By the time I felt it safe to follow, the animal's mouth was empty, only the glistening rivulets upon its metal hide bearing witness that the beast had come to life momentarily. I quickened my step in case the doors too worked only for Aman Akbar. I would have to be very stealthy to sneak through right behind him without being discovered, but he gave no indication that he had the slightest suspicion he was being followed. So intent was I upon keeping him in sight without tripping or stubbing my toe on something that I paid little attention to my surroundings.

Some will ask why I followed Aman Akbar, despite all I have written of his mysterious disappearances and appearances, of his bland reassurances of safety while declining to discuss his whereabouts. Was I not betraying his trust by doing so? I can only answer that I was not. On the contrary, I was adhering to the very code which engendered in me the loyalty for which he had expressed such admiration. I saw my duty as a wife differently than women of this country are wont to do. For I was trained not as a wife, but as a warrior. My husband was not only my husband, but my lord, my ring-giver, as well. Among women, so often removed, forcibly or otherwise, from their own people, loyalty to the overlord is hardly advisable, since if one is taken in a raid, bears children to and marries one's captor, one's former overlord will become the enemy of one's children. Therefore, the allegiance of women is directly to their husbands, who in turn represent the family at council. It is an arrangement born of necessity from years of captivity and enslavement. With most women, sworn against their will to men not of their choosing, the duty ends with bearing children, herding, the usual domestic sort of thing. But for me, raised to fight for my father who was also my overlord, my duty to my husband included the same services, should he require them. At least, that was how I saw it. If he was still in trouble, and his reluctance to talk about it stemmed from a desire to protect me, I must discover the source of and remedy to his problem. Therefore, I braved the streets of Kharristan for his sake. And also because I was curious—and wanted to sample the wares of the bazaar and possibly have something fresher than leftovers during the next two-day absence.

First, however, I wished to learn where Aman Akbar spent his days. To this end I followed him through streets just beginning to bustle with people preparing for their day. On the way out, Aman paused at a little room near the gate and pulled from it a rug, which he slung over his shoulder. It looked very incongruous to see such a finely dressed man carrying a burden through streets lit with oil lamps on poles and as yet unilluminated by the first glimmerings of dawn. The first two men I passed gave me hard stares and one deliberately threw the contents of the water basin in which he had been washing himself at my feet, splashing mud onto the hem of my robe. I glared hard at him and debated long enough about the advisability of making him drink the water, mud and all, that I lost sight again of Aman Akbar.

At the next corner I spotted him, his step quickening as he reached a cobbled street leading toward the tower where the singer practiced his craft. Sure enough, before I was able to close the distance between the two of us, the singer began his song and Aman hurried even faster, disappearing into the building attached to the tower.

Several other men also went into the building, and all of these also gave me very hard looks, then turned up their noses and stalked inside, carrying rugs like Aman's. I thought about following, but since I didn't seem to be welcome, and because if anyone made trouble, Aman was sure to discover my presence, I decided to wait for a moment to see what happened. Nothing happened. When the singer ceased his song all was quiet except for one great voice and the mumblings of several others. These were prayers, I realized suddenly. Aman had said the singer was calling the people to prayers and I had followed my husband when he went to pray. He was a very devout man—and from what I had experienced of the character of the other men that morning, the only good-natured man in all of Kharristan. I hoped his gods appreciated him. Very well then, I'd give the market place a look and be on my way to wait dutifully at home until his prayer vigil was completed.

The streets were not silent for long. Suddenly a landslide of people tumbled around me, jostling, elbowing, shouting, and running as the business of the city began. Baskets of melons, trays full of jewelry, big clay pots full of little clay pots, bolts of cloth, racks of copper jars came out of hiding and lined the street. Bright canopies unrolled to shade the merchants, and the fragrances of spices and perfumes mingled with the stench of the streets. People cried to each other and to their beasts, donkeys and peculiar-looking hunchbacked beasts with deceptive smiles on their ugly faces and a predilection for biting and kicking. These beasts wore woven saddles with tinkling bells and carried burdens nearly as large as themselves. A few people stared at me rudely, and still I could not understand the reason for their hostility, until I noticed that the women in the marketplace, of whom there were few, wore cloths over their faces.

Perhaps they were expecting a dust storm? Or perhaps all of the women of this race were very ugly, so hid themselves. In which case I did not see why so many people cast offended eyes at my person. Certainly among my people honest women did not cover their faces without some special reason.

Besides the merchant women with the cloths over their faces, small bundles of black draperies darted about, dodging animals and bargaining with the sellers of fruits and silks at the tops of their voices. I would have done the same, for I had come to do so, at least in part. However, I had forgotten that I had no coin with which to buy and no wools with which to barter, and short of selling my bracelet or pendant, which I did not wish to do, I would be unable to pay for the goods I found so attractive. Regretfully, I turned away and headed back the way I came.

Or tried to. My route was altered abruptly by the changing of the Emir's palace guard. One moment I was standing between the booths of a purveyor of dates and almonds and a silk merchant whose bales of shimmering wares had drawn my eyes as surely as the sea draws a river to it. The next I was in serious danger of merging with the paving stones as nearly forty men on black horses galloped straight through the center of town, scattering people and produce with jangling abandon. When the dust cleared, I raised my head and wiped my eyes and rose from where I was wedged into a muck-filled corner between wall and street. I ventured forth, looking after the last of the flying hooves, wondering what all that had been about and why none of the other folk seemed to be moving again yet. My ears still rung with the noises of the first procession, and so I heeded not the din of the second until it was almost upon me—the disturbance in the air, more than the clatter of hooves and the jingle of harness caused me to turn and look and flee for my life straight down the street ahead of them, dodging and ducking and racing just ahead of the horses until I was able to fling myself through an arched gate and cower against the wall until the horses thundered past.

This portion of the city, not visible from my window in the palace of Aman Akbar, was not so different from cities I had seen before. The streets were full of refuse and excrement, dried and odoriferous splotches and runnels coating the bricks just below waist level, and sore-bedecked beggars in all states of disrepair contending with sellers of dung-cakes for the attention of passersby not noticeably more prosperous than themselves.

Through this morass I wandered, past the next gate, and the potters who plied their craft nearby, and on to the next. Here I spent a goodly portion of the following hours, overcome with longing for the familiar home I had left as I watched the weavers at their horizontal looms doing the same work I had always hated. Had I had upon me any coins I would have tried to purchase one of the combs they used to beat the new rows of knots back against the already completed pattern. The combs were ornately carved and tinkled with silver and jeweled charms which I felt sure must impart some magical qualities to the rugs in progress.

I tried to strike up a conversation once with one of the youngest, to ask her about the dyes, and if their sheep were like ours, and why they cut and knotted their weft rather than wove it in a long thread as we did, and how they spun. But the girl, after one shy glance up over the top of her veil, ignored me. The others shifted positions, so that their shoulders were to me. They spoke in fast, loud voices to each other, giving me no opportunity to speak to them.

I've since learned that many women go unveiled in the market place, mostly foreign like myself, although a few of the desert tribes scorn to hide their women's features, even in public places, but that day I saw none of those and almost began to wonder if I was as deformed as the looks of my husband's countrymen seemed to imply. Their attitude toward me put a damper on my friendly feelings, and I wandered back toward the gate of beggars, feeling that perhaps after all a day spent in the company of dormant water demons and leftovers from love feasts was preferable to the society of haughty foreigners.

Prayers had been called once more as I stood watching the weavers. The populace again prostrated itself. I felt as though I were in a deserted city haunted only by the wailing ghost in the tower.

The sun was high and hot now. Instead of business continuing as usual, most of the merchants rolled down their canopies, the beggars crouched against their walls, and the craftspeople disappeared within doors to wait for the heat to pass. I, mad stranger, sweltered in my woolen robe. The top of my head burned as if I were carrying a dish of hot coals upon it. Except for the occasional tinkling of bells, a snore here and there, a footstep on a distant street, and the buzzing of the insects flecking the abandoned produce, the city was quiet, until I passed close by another gate.

Thus the brutal tone of the raised voice struck me all the more forcibly. For some reason, my first thought was of Aman Akbar, and that he had encountered danger after all. Perhaps this was because I had just been debating whether I should return to the tower containing the prayer-caller in order to ascertain that my beloved was indeed spending his days piously, or in some other harmless activity. The sound of impending conflict seemed a guarantee that he was not and I hurried toward it, snatching up a handy chunk of stone on my way.

Aman Akbar was not there, but others were, and one of them was clearly in trouble. A burly man wearing the uniform of the armsmen who had all but ground me into the dust was manhandling the first bare-faced woman I had seen all day. Perhaps because she was no great beauty she saw little reason to hide her face, which bore the red imprint of a large hand on the left cheek. Both of these people were turned slightly away from me, and intent upon each other.

"Slave-slut! If you weren't too good before when you belonged to the wine-seller, what makes you think—?"

"I'm no slave now. I'm free, and making a good living without the likes of you—" she spat back. "Leave me alone or I'll curse you such a curse—"

Her threat seemed feeble under the circumstances but the armsman took her seriously. His fingers flew to her eyes and when she tripped backwards against the wall he shoved his hand into her face. She might as well have tried to claw a tree away.

In even the most private quarrel there comes a point where intervention is necessary purely to keep people from doing harm they don't mean to each other in the heat of battle. I hefted my rock, brought it down on his thick head, where it probably wasn't going to kill him, and stepped aside to let him fall. The woman shook her head, gave me a quick penetrating look, which I answered with a modest grin, and hoisted her skirts and trotted away.

As I dropped the rock and walked away from the armsman's inert body, I found I was thinking longingly of the rectangular pool with the spitting metal animal in its middle.

Unfortunately, I had neglected to leave a gate ajar and found myself locked out. This did not please me but there was no help for it, and however little I had used it of late, I possessed the stalking patience of a good hunter. I hunkered down in a shadow so as not to be observed by those who disliked me for my mode of dress, and spent the rest of the day watching for the return of Aman Akbar, so that I might enter after him. If he did not enter, where then would I spend the night? Foolish man, I thought, to live alone, with no guards and no one to attend either of us. What if I had become ill or injured? I was hot, dirty and hungry by the time I saw him approach, a blur of brilliance two streets away. I was preparing a wrath to match that I imagined he might entertain if he learned of my adventure.

Nor was I alone in looking for my beloved, for across the street from the spot I had worn clean with the now-dirty soles of my feet, two others watched: a fellow in a turban striped green and gold, and one in a guardsman's uniform. Now, how long had they been there? Though both of them studied the gate to our palace, neither seemed more than mildly curious about me, until Aman Akbar appeared. Then I had a fear that they would reveal me to him, and I stepped into hiding in a shadow. However, when I followed the swaying plume of my beloved's headdress inside, and the magic servant closed the door behind us and I glanced back once, the guardsman smirked at me and the man in the striped turban rubbed his knife-pointed beard.

The curiousness of the presence of those men and their reactions to my lord and myself was presently wiped away by the curiousness of the actions of my lord himself. For he did not, as I expected, proceed through the garden, past the rectangular pool and to the room of water demons, but instead walked to a far wall, and tugged upon a length of trailing fuchsia, whereupon the wall opened and closed behind him.

After a long enough time that he was not likely to hear my footsteps and a short enough time that I was not likely to lose sight of him, I followed, yanked upon the vine myself, and the wall opened again. On the other side was a garden similar to the one in which I had stood, except that the pool was circular and contained another sort of metal animal and the flowers were all different shades of red, crimson, scarlet and pink. I went after him, through similar carved pillars, under similar vaulted arches, the journey confusingly ending as he stepped into the room of the water demons, with steam hissing, tub swirling, and perfumed jets spurting even as they had been when first I beheld them. I saw all of this through the door, which he was careless about closing. I was aided, now that the light of the day was dimming, by two solicitously bobbing oil lamps, hovering near the door, waiting for him to finish. By their light I saw after a time that the room was not the same as the one to which I was accustomed, for the tiles were gold and blue, rather than rose-colored marble, and the tub was of a different conformation, and the little alcove for keeping clothing was in a different location. The man, however, was the same handsome, honey-skinned Aman Akbar and at that I wondered exceedingly.

This part of the house was but in a few details a replica of that part in which I was housed. Soon the aromas of roasted mutton and saffron rice told me that the activities here might be similar to those in my own abode. As Aman emerged from this second room of water demons and I ducked from pillar to pillar pursuing him, I was nearly knocked down by the trays of food wafting in his wake into a room whose door was open and across which a curtain of jeweled beads shimmered. As my husband approached the door, a shapely and supple hand which seemed carved of black marble parted the beaded strings and took him by the arm, pulling him within, leaving the trays of food to follow alone.

Alas! All activities were the same. The beaded curtain was not entirely able to conceal that Aman dealt with the owner of the ebony arm even as he had dealt with me on other nights. I tried to decide whether to rush upon them and kill them both with my bare hands, a sad alternative even had it seemed plausible, or to demand an explanation, which seemed shameful. Or perhaps I would simply slink away and confront him tomorrow—for of course this was where he spent the nights out of my company. Of all possibilities this last was the most impossible. Thus torn between going or staying, I was lingering by the curtain when I heard the wailing.

It seemed more edifying to investigate the eerie noise that had been haunting me since my first night in the palace than to listen to the more earthly noises of whose origin I was all too sure emanating from the room before me. No light bobbed forward to assist me. The magic controlling the palace was well aware of its master and did not extend itself to accommodate others unbidden. So I groped back down the line of pillars alone, until I came once more to the garden, and there, pacing back and forth by the pool, was a black-clad figure, darker than the night surrounding her, her skirts swishing and bracelets clinking as she moved, and all the while the wails emitting from her proclaiming her kinship to wolves.

I could see her feet, but still I was not sure that she was a natural person, and not a ghost or a demoness of some sort. Having made an unfortunate error with the djinn, I was cautious in this regard. I hid and watched, squatting on my heels in the concealment of pillars and night shadows as the woman swept about like a crow with broken wings. I almost decided she was indeed supernatural, for the power of those lungs to keep wailing was so extraordinary to my weary mind it seemed beyond human ability to sustain such a racket.

But about this too I was disillusioned, for I heard the shushing of soft footsteps behind me, and shifted my gaze to see Aman Akbar, bobbing lamps preceding him. He was barelegged and bareheaded, clad in a hastily tied robe. His expression was pained but neither frightened nor angry. At his approach the wailing stopped, as did the pacing. The black-garbed figure waited for him to reach her, whereupon she embraced him with a certain injured chilliness, visible in the stiffness of her shoulders, the angle of her head and elbows where the wide sleeves slid above them.

Then as if seeing him had destroyed her, the woman sank to the ground in a black heap and sobbed. With weary patience, he knelt beside her.

"Mother, this has got to stop. Every night you disturb my rest. Every night you do without the sleep you need to plague me like this. What ails you? Won't you tell me? Are you ill?" All of this he asked as if he knew the answer and dreaded it.

"Ill?" she spat derisively. "Not ill. Sick rather, sick to my stomach when I think of my son who was the light of his father's eye ignoring his own beautiful bride to languish in the embrace of unclean and unbelieving foreign harlots."

"Mother, we've been through all this before. I tried to find Hyaganoosh but she has moved. She has a better situation in life now and is not interested in the contract you made when we were children. What would you have me do? Carry her off against her will? I like these women—you would too if you gave them a chance. Amollia is the soul of sweetness and is very good with animals—"

"That wild beast of hers nearly took my eyes the first night she was here!"

"It hasn't bothered you since though, has it? She has it under control, and she loves it, and I won't make her part from it. And I'm sure you'd find Rasa a great help if you'd only consent to meet her. She and Amollia are both perfectly nice girls even if they're not relatives. They're ladies in their own lands and better born than you or I or Hyaganoosh for that matter—"

"Don't you dare talk against your poor cousin! The things that child has had to endure while waiting for you to find a station in life so you could do your duty by her! No wonder she was enticed away by the Emir! Why, her mother would—"

"Her mother is with God and her father also," Aman Akbar said with pious reproof equal to his mother's. "All of this was written long ago, so I fail to see why you work yourself into such a frenzy. Hyaganoosh is in a place where she may gain high station and for my part, I have acquired wives who among their own people were born to even higher station—"

"Then they should have stayed among their own people," the mother snapped. "Hyaganoosh is the daughter of your father's own brother and has a face like the full moon and she deserves to marry her cousin, the richest man in Kharristan—"

"I know, I know. But you forget that her cousin is not the richest man in Kharristan. He is second to the Emir, to whom he pays exorbitant taxes and owes allegiance and in whose graces he holds a negligible position since tricking the bottle of the djinn out from under his Eminence's nose. I have the bottle and the brides of my choice and the Emir and Hyaganoosh have each other—"

"Aiyee! To think I raised a son who would sell his own true love for riches and an uncouth ifrit who doesn't even know how to run a household properly!" And she wailed even louder and said a lewd expression neither easily nor graciously translatable.

"Furthermore," she said, "it is unworthy of you to say that Hyaganoosh is with the Emir willingly, for I have heard among my women friends that she is most unhappy, and was coerced by him. I was told she was faithful to the troth you two plighted, but her faithfulness availed her not and she was carried away by force—"

"And fails to enjoy the luxuries and fine dresses he lavishes upon her? Pah! Did it occur to you that your women friends would hardly tell you otherwise of this relative of my father's you dote upon, especially if it will add more fuel to the disapproval with which you favor your poor abused son these days? I thought you would like being rich, mother. I only got the genie for your sake." His voice dropped to a caressing murmur and I saw him stroke her cheek. "It pained me so to see you carrying those heavy piles of dung patties out to sell—"

"It gave me something to do," she replied, jerking her face back, regretting it immediately, and reaching back out to touch him. But it was his turn to repulse her and he rose now.

"Go back to her!" the old woman screamed, and black eyes flashed fiercely for a moment from beneath the black draperies and I saw a nose not unlike my own and a bony, determined chin rise to face the retreating back of Aman. "Go back to your foreign tart! Abandon your family! Shame your cousin! Pour grief upon your old mother's heart! It is all I deserve. I'm only a poor honest woman—not an exalted high prince who can sit around in the bazaar and talk all day and debase myself with sinful pleasures by night—"

"Goodnight, mother," Aman said softly, and I saw something glitter against his cheek as he passed by my hiding place. The old woman continued to rant and wail long after he had disappeared.

Chapter 3

« ^ »

The heat awoke me the next day, beating in through the latticed window as if in a serious attempt to burn through the delicate strips of wood separating the diamond shapes. The street noise was almost as appalling as the heat, and to my chagrin I found that the food left from the feast two nights ago was all but inedible. I felt much better when I had thrown an orange across the room and watched it splatter against the carving of stylized flowers decorating the wall. As if in remonstrance, the prayer-caller began wailing noon prayers. The realization that I had compensated for a sleepless night by dozing the morning away did nothing to improve my mood.

My mind felt as rumpled as my bed and my face was swollen with tears and sleep. I still felt like applying the nearest blunt object to all within this confusing household but was also aware that in doing so I was no doubt sealing my own doom. What galled me most, I suppose, was that in selling myself into this arrangement, I had inadvertently fallen into domestic problems as painful as those I had sought to avoid by evading my mother's relatives. The gods do not like to have their plans thwarted, I suppose.

My husband now occupied the place formerly held by my father and chief: His will was law. But I didn't care for those laws—they went against me, they confused and angered me. Furthermore, he had lied. No leader should lie to his people and no husband to his wife. Maybe he'd try to beat me (though I doubted it), but I'd face him with his lies. Thus decided, I stomped with satisfying ferocity down the corridor, picked up a fresh gown in the room of water demons (all but daring them to rise up and fight me) and stomped out to the pool, stripping off my new clothing and flinging it onto a pile with the old. I paddled around the rectangular pool on my hands and knees, letting the lukewarm water refresh me as best it could.

The first intimation I had that something new prowled my familiar garden was the growling slightly to the left and above my right ear. I elbowed myself back slightly and risked a look up. A round, bewhiskered face with malice in its golden eyes, a curving cat's grin not quite concealing fearsome fangs regarded me from the raised edge of the pool. Just past its sleekly muscular shoulder, I beheld a space in the garden wall where no space ordinarily was—the doorway to my rival's quarters. What had the black-clad hag said about a beast? If this was the beast, I began to think more kindly of her judgment, for I cared for its presence in my household no more than she.

The cat blinked, wiggled its hindquarters and jerked its tail twice. I backed toward the metal animal in the middle of my pool. We stayed thus for a time, eyes locked, the cat's acquiring a somewhat mournful expression at my inexplicable reluctance to come out of the water, which it plainly shunned, and allow myself to be devoured.

The sun was very hot indeed and I could feel my hide blister through the water. My face was moist with my own perspiration and I rinsed it briefly, not wanting to take my eyes from the predator. The cat settled onto its front feet and watched with a certain detached interest.

Someone knocked timidly upon the front gate, and the cat's head snapped up. The knock was followed by other, equally timid knocks, and by smothered laughter, after which someone grew bold enough to knock loudly. Before I had time to wonder who was there, the black-clad figure of the night before, a small spare woman with a nose not unlike my own, rushed through the now not-so-secret entrance to the adjoining garden. I cringed deeper into the water and hoped the cat, now out of sight, had gone to chase the newcomers or, better yet, had escaped through the front gate while it was open. A quick peek over the edge revealed that the damned creature instead was curled atop my clean robe, kneading its rapier claws and growling to itself in a pleased fashion.

Meanwhile, Aman's mother gathered the women inside the garden and divested them of their outer garments. Beneath their cloaks they wore bright dresses of the same loose cut and a great deal of clanking jewelry. Most of them were older, but a few younger women and children were among them.

Leaving only enough of my head exposed that I could see and hear, I waited as the women strolled past. They exclaimed over the flowers and the fine artistic detail of the tiles and carvings, and greeted each other.

"So, Um Aman, how are you doing?"

"Well, Naima, thanks be to God. And you?"

"Well, also, God be praised. And your son?"

"He is also well, thanks be to God."

"And your son's ifrit?" This last was a departure from the normal inquiries.

"He is also well, in the manner of devils and plagues, and has cursed me with other devils. But I won't discuss that now." She looked around her as if sensing my presence and ushered her friends through the door, saying, "May God preserve us all."

A woman clad in unevenly dyed crimson stopped and placed her hand on Um Aman's arm. "God has done well enough by us, Samira, but he has given you wealth and a certain position to maintain. Are you sure our visit will cause you no trouble? Your son is a rich man now. He—"

"My son is a fool," Um Aman spat, then, evidently repenting her forthrightness, said more gently, "But not such a fool as to deny his mother the comfort of the friends of her girlhood. Our home is yours. You honor us both with your presence. Forgive me, Khadija, all of you. Aman is a good son. A good provider."

One of the women giggled. "I don't like to be critical, Samira, but if he took his other duties as seriously as he does providing for you…"

"You're right, of course. Otherwise I would not have sent for you seeking your advice."

"What are friends for if not to support a poor widowed sister in time of need?" another guest said sympathetically, to be interrupted by an impish and rather breathless laugh.

"Has he brought home another one yet, Samira?"

The group passed through the garden wall and from my sight.

Which returned me to my original dilemma of escaping the cat. Except that the cat was no longer on my clothing. From behind me a languid voice said laughingly, "If you plan to stay in there until we're the same color, you'll be there a long time, my friend. I'd forget it, if I were you. Aman Akbar likes variety in his love life."

I swirled around in the water, stubbing my toe against the metal animal, and the same ebony hand I had seen the night before reached down to assist me.

Even to those accustomed to the sight of black women—which I was not—Amollia is striking in both beauty and bearing. She is tall and straight as one of the pillars supporting the palace and black as a shadow on a starry night. She and her cat carry their heads with similarly proud and half-amused bearing. Her eyes seem to say she has seen everything, has been neither impressed nor disappointed by it, and is looking forward to seeing more. That day she was wrapped with a cloth the color of curry, heavily embroidered with gold and wore her own weight in jewelry on her neck, arms, ankles and ears. Her hair was short and curled like the fleece of a black lamb.

Ignoring her hand, I stood, snatched up my clothing, pulled my robe over my head and stepped across the edge of the pool. The cat made no move to stop me.

"Who are you?" I demanded. "What are you doing in my husband's house?"

"I might ask you the same thing," she said, the tips of her teeth showing dazzlingly white against the dark plum color of her lips. "But that would only complicate matters unnecessarily. I am Amollia Melee, daughter of the Great Elephant of the Swazee, wife to Aman Akbar. I take it that you are my co-wife. Welcome, sister."

And she opened her arms to embrace me. I failed to understand her attitude. I didn't feel in the least like embracing her.

My lack of enthusiasm did not deter her. "Have you eaten?" she asked. "Wait—let me guess. Leftover kumquats and cold rice, right? I've made do with the same fare on the nights he spends with you. It's possible he just forgets about everything but what he's doing at the time, or it may be his strange idea of economy. He's frugal in his way, is Aman. Must get it from his mother, I suppose. She, however—" she stopped and gave a brief, dainty lick combined with a sidelong look at me. "I suppose you are interested in something fresh, hot, and tasty to eat, are you not?"

I nodded.

"Aman says you are a warrior. Are you very brave?" A demon probably not too distant a relative from the djinn played in her eyes.

I shrugged and watched her warily.

"Very well. Come along. We'll tackle the lioness unarmed. She has a mean mouth but she feeds it well. Perhaps she can be shamed into feeding ours too."

Curiosity warred with pride and won out. "How came you to know so much about this household?" I asked.

"About the old one and about you? Is that what you mean? Why, Aman told me, of course." And did not tell me. That stung like the bite of an enemy's arrow. "He introduced me to the old woman and—ah—that's why he didn't introduce you to her. She was not what you would call ready to welcome me into the bosom of the family. As for you, Aman discussed the matter with me before deciding to bring you here."

"He did?"

"Assuredly. I told him I didn't want to have to put up with that cranky old woman and this great big house all by myself. Besides, what would people think, a man of his stature having just one wife? What if he wishes to entertain somewhere outside the palace? With no slaves or servants in our employ, who would help me with the work? And anyway—" she sighed and looked at me with a pleased and even fond expression "—I am the one hundred and thirty-fifth daughter of the Great Elephant and used to having all of my sisters and all of my mothers around me. With Aman gone during the day and no one but my leopard Kalimba for company, that old woman drives me mad with her silence. I am most glad to have you here. I would have sought you out sooner, but Aman said he felt it would be best for you two to get to know one another first, and for you to grow accustomed to your new surroundings before you met me… particularly before you met his mother. But I think he would have prolonged the time of dealing with us separately as long as possible."

"Why?" I asked, feeling distinctly disoriented all over again.

"Because men don't like for the women to compare stories, of course. One at a time, they stand a chance of cajoling or browbeating us into letting them have their way in all things, but when we join together, there's very little in which they dare oppose us. Still, Aman is a good man, a kind husband. And he has that mother to contend with, so we must be extra loving and patient with him. If we do not handle her properly, she will be the scourge of our lives. So, if you're quite ready?" And she linked her arm with my reluctant one and together we crossed my garden and hers, through another gate into yet a third garden where the women were assembled by a charcoal brazier from which emanated succulent smells.

I knew open warfare already from my life among my own people. From Amollia I learned subterfuge. A common foe makes allies of the most unlikely persons.

As we neared the group, Amollia's noble stride shortened to a demure shuffle and her proud chin bent into her neck, so that she gazed humbly at the ground. I followed her example and together we stood with seeming timidity on the outskirts of the group.

One of the women tittered behind her hand and Um Aman glared in our direction. A benefit of casting one's eyes downward is that one thus deflects the full impact of such a glare.

Perhaps Um Aman realized this, for she said, "These strange-looking creatures are the very harlots my son has brought as concubines into the home he built for my old age."

"I understand from my Faisal that Aman claims to have two foreign wives, Samira," said the eldest among them—the one our revered mother-in-law had addressed as Khadija.

"Have you been invited to the wedding, you who are my oldest friend?" Um Aman replied bitterly.

A number of children clung to the skirts of the behind-the-hand titterer, an understandably weary-looking young woman. A girl of perhaps four years with a great quantity of the contents of her nose smeared across her cheek said, "Mama, why are those ladies so ugly?"

"Hush, child, or they'll put the evil eye on you," her mother whispered, enveloping the child in her tattered and dirty skirts, effectively cleaning the face and shutting it up at the same time.

"It's true though," another of the younger women observed critically. "They are ugly. Um Aman, I'm surprised that a man like Aman Akbar has no better taste than to marry a woman so dark and one with a nose like that!"

Um Aman immediately turned on her. "And where did you learn so much of taste? My Aman has most splendid taste—look at this palace! I've heard the former King's favorite wife was very dark, and if you ask me, the nose on that washed-out strumpet is her best feature. Aman says they're both princesses too. Better born than any of us." Though she said this with rather perverse pride, she stabbed us with another glare. "They'd better not give themselves airs around me, though. I won't have it."

"They don't say much, do they?" the third of the younger women, a plump-cheeked and saucy sort, remarked. "Do they talk at all?"

At this a rather plain woman whose long braided hair was liberally streaked with gray looked up from her embroidery. High in one cheek a dimple winked encouragingly as she smiled directly at us. "Would you talk, Miriam, with everyone making such rude comments about you? Is this how we repay Samira's hospitality, insulting her son's new wives? Poor things, so far from their homes. Their mothers must miss them terribly." She turned to Um Aman and said gravely, "It doesn't seem to me that they're giving themselves airs, Samira. Quite the contrary. They seem very modest and shy and quite cowed. People who don't know you often fail to realize what a kind heart you have, my dear." She smiled at us again and Amollia modestly, shyly, and in a cowed manner licked her lips and allowed the most delicate droplet of drool to form at the corner of her mouth. "They're hungry too," our defender told Um Aman.

Um Aman's gaze, formerly fierce, dropped abruptly and she leaned across to the platter containing the couscous. With a sharp straightening of her elbow, she proffered it without looking at us.

Thus we partook of hot food rather than leftovers and met those women with whom Um Aman shared her problems. The only other interesting fact about the encounter was that Um Aman kept referring to us throughout as Aman Akbar's concubines and insisted that he had no wives until he had taken his cousin to wife.

The party ended just before mid-afternoon prayers. By that time everyone had had an opportunity to discuss other ungrateful children with whom they were acquainted, and Um Aman seemed to feel much better. Amollia rose to her feet and with a soft jingle of jeweled limbs headed for the gate leading back to her garden. I followed quickly. Aman Akbar could be coming home any time now. And tonight if he followed his previous pattern he would be looking to stay with me.

Amollia walked straight through her own garden and trailed the departing visitors into mine.

"Pardon my intrusion, sister-wife," she said pleasantly. "But I thought I would at least greet our husband with you this evening. He should know now that we two are acquainted. I think we should also speak to him about having the magic feasts shared between us so that one of us need not make do with leftovers when he lies with the other." She smiled. "This is one advantage of having co-wives. Together we may perhaps exert more influence over our husband than either of us might do individually."

Aman Akbar, however, had his own ideas about his family banding together. Amollia and I posed companionably, sitting side by side on the edge of the fountain, pretending not to notice when the metal beast started spouting as our husband entered the garden. The cat spread across Amollia's feet, kneading its claws in and out while she told me some of the jokes the minstrels from neighboring kingdoms told of her father, the Great Elephant. Her former home sounded merry and exciting compared to mine and I found I laughed more often than I wanted to and began to wonder why Aman Akbar had summoned me to wife when he already had such an amusing creature on the premises.

Aman entered the garden and greeted us, taking one of each of our hands in each of his and kissing them in turn before seating himself on Amollia's far side. He twinkled uncertainly at us. "So," he said. "So."

"Even so, husband," Amollia smiled. "Rasa and I have been discussing our household and thought we would greet you together this night. How has your day gone?"

"Well, thanks be to God," he said, taking refuge in the formula. "And yours?"

"Well, indeed. We joined your honored mother and her friends in her garden this afternoon and profited much from her wisdom."

"You did?" He tried to sound pleased and incredulous at once but the incredulity had a decided edge over the pleasure.

"Indeed," I said. "She is a very fine cook, your mother." I thought I was being pleasant too by failing to mention that she was also a very disagreeable woman, but the twinkle in our husband's eyes was extinguished in two rapid blinks.

"Good," he said. "Good. I'm glad you're all getting on so well."

"As a matter of fact, husband, Rasa and I were thinking that perhaps if it would not tax the magic of your bottle too much, we would like to be able to share our dinners with you so that—"

He blinked once more and smiled his most dazzlingly tender smile. "What a wonderful idea, my clever darling. We shall all eat together. Shall we sup here in the garden? Afterward, I think the djinn shall entertain us with a new surprise I've been considering."

We had music that night, some of the thin-noted throbbing love songs of which Aman was so fond, and a song or two from Amollia's homeland, which caused her to leap to her feet and dance a sinuous dance that made my jaw ache with the wish to remind her that tonight was supposed to be mine and that we were in my garden. But though Aman looked as if he were enjoying himself and he talked at great length about a funny fellow who had accosted him on his way to prayers, he remained distant. We ate the almond-stuffed lamb and rice and all of the standard sweets without saying too much. When Amollia attempted playfulness with grapes, our lord smilingly declined and chewed his, skins and all.

When he had finished he wiped his hands on a towel with pile thick as a beaver's pelt and pulled from his sash the bottle I had seen him with previously.

Closer up the bottle looked more disreputable than ever, just a scratched, discolored old bit of crockery, dust still smeared upon it in places and dirt caked for all time into its dings. Stuck in the mouth of it was a broad bit of stuff that seemed like wood or bark of some sort and on top of that was a melted-looking seal of greenish, tarnished silver which had endured some attempts to polish it. Dangling from this seal was a bit of broken chain.

Aman's long fingers stroked the chain for a moment.

Amollia laid her hand upon his arm and said solicitously, "You must let me repair that for you, beloved, or you might lose the top sometime."

He looked as if he would do so only if he had been five years dead and said, "You are so thoughtful, dear one."

And he pulled the cork out of the bottle, nearly choking us all on the cloud of acrid smoke that boiled from it.

The smoke set to work arranging itself and solidified into the form of the djinn. The djinn straightened his turban and tugged at the hems of the two sides of his vest and said, "What is it now, noble master? I thought not that thou wouldst spend thy last wish so soon but perhaps these women tax thy beneficence beyond measure. Is it thy pleasure that I return them whence they came?"

"Not at all, O djinn," Aman replied. "I wish you to fetch forth that last candidate you showed me before I decided to wait."

"Dost thou refer to that princess from the Central Empire? Master, I think there is a thing thou shouldst know concerning that one."

"I know only that she has touched me most deeply," Aman Akbar said as passionately as he had ever said similar words to me. "And for my final wish I would have her come and be my loyal and loving bride, an ornament to my home and the friend of my bosom." And he clapped his hands and the djinn's feet once more solidified into a rug upon which he sat, folding his arms grimly as he flew away.

Aman Akbar turned and looked meaningfully at us. Amollia carefully knelt beside her cat and scratched its ears, avoiding looking at either of us. I wondered which of them to kill first. He for taking offense and retaliating in such an underhanded way or she for provoking the situation at which he apparently took offense? I did not understand these people. Nor did I understand myself at this time. What did I care if the silly man was offended when his own actions quite naturally caught up with him? Why should I even want such a man to share my bed? Was I not better off without him? Surely, somehow, I could manage to find my way back to my own land, to my father's camp. But I found I didn't want to. It was rather crowded here for my taste, true, but no more crowded than in my father's camp or that of his enemies. Aman bewildered me, but I had become most attached to him and wasn't about to give him up easily.

He stood up suddenly to greet the djinn, who sailed over the well on a carpet burdened with a small black-haired figure in an embroidered blue silk jacket and white trousers, a tidy roll of belongings tied to her back. Surely the djinn had been gone no longer than it took to peel an orange and just as surely our trip from my home to Kharristan had taken most of a day. Again, I did not understand, but at least the djinn, unlike his master, was magic and was supposed to be beyond my understanding.

The girl leapt off the carpet while it was still at the level of the shoulders of the metal animal in the pool and flattened herself in front of Aman Akbar, her hair fanning prettily across her back and the tiles.

Aman Akbar looked triumphantly from Amollia to me and touched her lightly on the head. "Come, my dear, rise up and tell us who you are." He confronted the ifrit, whose middle was bent in a bow as if awaiting applause. "I assume she can understand me."

"Dost thou never learn, O master?" the djinn sighed. And added, in a resigned tone, "She can."

"Indeed I can, O master, and let me assure you your every word will be to me a sacred command." She scrambled into a kneeling position and regarded him with tilted eyes both large and shining set into a round-cheeked face with a distressingly tiny nose and a pointed chin. Above either ear was a large pink flower with many petals.

"There now, my darling, you are a princess and while your humility is becoming it is quite unnecessary with one who loves you even as he loves his own life and two women who will cherish you as a dear sister and who will help you in every possible way."

"I am a wha—? Oh, yes, so I am." She smiled at him. "But actually, my people aren't that formal. 'Princess' sounds so stilted, don't you think? My lord and master could certainly call me by my given name, which in your tongue means Aster. And my revered sisters need not use my title. Lady Aster is respectful enough—I'm sure the difference in our stations is moderate."

Aman Akbar beamed at her. "As gracious as she is lovely. My dear, I'm sure you must be exhausted from your long journey. Let me return my servant to his bottle and I'll escort you to your quarters."

"May I remind thee that although my services as already delivered remain thine, great one, my obligation to thee is now fulfilled and thou must needs leave me to rest in my bottle?" The djinn looked highly pleased about this.

Aman Akbar looked only mildly vexed, but replaced the stopper in the bottle with alacrity once the djinn had smoked himself back inside.

"And now, dear ladies, "I'm sure you two have much to talk about now that you're such good friends and won't mind if Aster and I repair to our marital chamber."

"Not at all, O husband," Amollia said with a voice softly docile and even affectionate. And to Aster she added, "Little sister, may you find all to your liking. If you have any questions or problems, please feel free to avail yourself of our assistance."

I thought Amollia would do well to speak for herself. I also wanted to remark that Lady Aster shouldn't mind a little noise in the night. That it would only be the mother of her new husband lamenting her son's knuckle-headed behavior. In fact, I had half a mind to join the old hag in her nightly session. Instead, Amollia showed me the darts with which her people used to hunt and we played a game with them until the call to morning prayers.

Aster's quarters were to the left side of my own, while Amollia's were to the right. My self-appointed friend returned to her own empty bed as the wailing of Um Aman was replaced by the wailing of the morning prayer-caller, leaving me to try to bear the heat alone. And to wonder why my lord should have acted as if he had been betrayed when indeed I was the one who had been misled.

I yearned to speak with him when he emerged from Aster's garden into my own, and I stayed beside the pool waiting. Yet he did not come and I began to wonder if Aster's rooms contained a separate exit to the streets.

I had a poor idea of the layout of the palace. Buildings larger than a good-sized tent were too vast for my taste, and the succession of rooms seemed an unnecessary labyrinth. But when prayers came and went with no sign of Aman Akbar I became worried. Was this new one then so skilled in love as to separate our husband from his devotions to his god? If so, how long was it until he cast me out? If he came that night to my section of the palace, I would be reassured. Meanwhile, I did not eat or sleep but sat beside the fountain enduring the heat of the day, letting the flower scents soothe me and the light breeze cool my fevered mind.

The face peering over the top of the wall appeared sometime around midday, when most of the people of the city took their rest. I had been breaking off blossoms from the garden and floating them in the pool to amuse myself when I heard a faint scrabbling noise. Looking around and up, I barely managed to glimpse a quick succession of knife-pointed beard, wide-open mouth, precisely trimmed mustache, beakish nose, pocked cheeks, popped eyes, thick brows bowed into hoof tracks of surprise, and green-and-gold striped turban before the apparition was gone.

I remembered the face. But to whom it belonged or what its purpose could be in spying on me, I could not guess. I rose and ran to the gate to call out. The gate was locked, however, and though I pried and pounded and prodded I could not find a way of forcing it. When I turned from it yet another apparition faced me, the black-clad form of Um Aman.

She flung herself between me and the door as if she were afraid I was going to injure the wood.

"What are you trying to do now, foreigner? Disgrace my son again?"

"I? Disgrace your son? Old mother, it seems to me it's the other way around." She glared at me but her glare seemed to lack some of its earlier conviction and I thought about asking her why, if she didn't like the way her son behaved, she had reared him to have such odd ideas about how to run his home. Instead, I asked, "Have you a friend of the family with a face like a rockslide, a pointed beard and a striped turban? One who is fond of entering over the wall?"

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Of course not. Only a scoundrel would climb another man's harem walls. Who is this man, strumpet? Your secret lover?"

"Certainly," I spat. "And I was telling you about him because I wanted to introduce him to the rest of the family. Old woman, I have tried to honor you for the sake of my husband but you are not a sensible person. I tell you, I do not know who this man is but I wonder at his intentions toward my husband. I saw him watching this house two days ago when I—"

"When you what, girl? How came you to gaze upon another man?"

I shrugged, seeing from her angry gaze that a lie was in order. "I saw him from my window."

"Did he see you? Unveiled?" The woman made much of the last word, hissing it with a sharp intake of breath that made it sound as horrible as "decapitated" or "impaled."

"I don't think so," I said. "What does it matter? Honest women of my people don't need to hide their faces."

"You may not have noticed, harlot, but you are no longer among your people. As long as you are among mine, and God grant that will not be long and that my son soon discovers your true nature and sells you to the slavers for such little value as he can gain from your worthless person, you will not go out unchaperoned and will cover yourself with a respectable abayah as is required of any decent wife." And she pulled her cloak over her head and her veil across her face so that she again resembled a bale of black laundry with eyes.

"I thought you said I'm a concubine," I reminded her. With a contemptuous swirl of black draperies she departed and I once more had to amuse myself.

I whiled away the hours imagining tortures I could subject the lot of them to. I belatedly included Amollia, toward whom I had started to entertain a sneaking fondness, when she failed to appear to keep me company even as morning became afternoon and afternoon fled with evening upon its heels. How could she, having caused me to find disfavor with my lord, have the temerity to sleep when I needed to speak to her? Nor could I go wake her without risking missing Aman if he left his new paramour's arms long enough to perform the rituals he had never, dammit, neglected for my sake.

Our conversation with him had, as it developed, had more effects than the addition of Aster to our number. When time came for the evening meal and I reached for a last smear of lamb grease left among a few kernels of rice on one of the platters, the platter suddenly whisked itself away and three other, smaller ones appeared, each with a meal-sized portion of seasoned duck, nutted rice, and assorted fruits. This was accompanied by a cool brass jug sweating with a refreshing condensation of sweet moisture and filled with a delicious drink far surpassing the fountain water I had been drinking throughout the day.

My pleasure in this repast was not great, however, for Aman did not appear with the sustenance, and from this I gleaned that he was passing a second night in the arms of his new love. I grieved. The sun sent a glory of Vermillion streamers across the sky, pinking the distant domes. The fountain tinkled, the breeze blew and I patted my full belly and settled down beside the fountain in the lush grass. Perhaps he'd come out for a stroll. But I doubted it. From sheer exhaustion I drifted into sleep.

The grass stirred against my cheek and tickled my nose and I woke, seeing at first only the blur of movement, and then, in the starlight, the legs and curl-toed slippers responsible for the movement. The fountain behind me spurted more energetically than had been its wont all day, with Aman Akbar now near rather than merely in the immediate vicinity. As he turned down the path to the outer gate, I rose and followed him—quiet, if I do say so myself, as Amollia's cat.

Obviously he did not wish to attract notice. No less strange than his behavior, however, was the unusual silence in the night. It seemed unfair. Um Aman had wailed nearby when Aman was making love to me, and in Amollia's courtyard when Aman was with her. Why had she not plagued him with Aster as well? Perhaps she had finally strained her stringy old throat. That thought provided me with at least some satisfaction.

My satisfaction diminished and I suspected she might have had the last word after all when I saw Aman creep out the gate. There was what looked like a gaping black hole or a great shadow with no object to cast it in the middle of the wall beside the gate. A last quick look over his shoulder from Aman caused me to brush against this shadow, and discover the substance of it, which was cloth. The cloth of the same black draperies about which I had earlier been admonished. I swept up an armful of them and squeezed through the closing gate as Aman's back retreated down the street, rounding the corner beyond our palace wall.

Um Aman's stature increased considerably in my eyes as I struggled to don the disguise afforded by the draperies while attempting to walk and keep an eye on my husband at the same time. The veil does not hook on either side of the head covering but is rather a portion of the head covering itself and must either be held in place with one's hand (I tried, to no avail, to tuck it over my ear, causing the whole business to bare my head.) or secured with one's chin.

I was fortunate, in this venture, that Aman Akbar, a rich man who could well afford a fine stable of steeds, was not partial to conducting his errands on horseback. Perhaps he did not know how, being a man from humble origins in a city where humble men walked or went nowhere. Except for the encumbrance of the cloak, I followed him easily enough through the shadowy streets, grateful for the marvels of municipal lighting I had noticed the first morning I followed him.

We passed the palace where Aman prayed, and followed the market street through which I had been chased by the soldiers, coming at length to another long white wall, above which rose tiled domes and spires and through whose latticed windows soft colored lights gleamed. The heady perfumes of night-blooming flowers lifted across the walls, teasingly.

I melted into a shadow as from his sash Aman drew the bottle and from the bottle the cork. Smoke billowed and the djinn loomed above him. "I told thee that finishing thy harem was thy final wish and to bother me no more."

"Ah, that would be so," our husband replied, "if indeed my harem was finished. But as my mother keeps telling me, the house and my other women are but a setting for the central jewel, my cousin, Hyaganoosh, dwelling within these walls."

"I thought thou disliked women of thy own kind, despising them as uninteresting."

"I've changed my mind."

"Thy shrew of a mother got to thee, did she not?"

"My mother has nothing to do with it. She is a wonderful woman who has always done everything for me. Why should I deny her the company in her own household of this girl she treasures so much if it will shut her—give her pleasure? She's just reminded me of what a charming girl my little cousin used to be. If only you can get me into Hyaganoosh's chambers, I'm sure I can convince her to come with me as my bride."

"What will she think of thine other brides?"

"Well, as my mother has pointed out, while those women are married to me according to the customs of their peoples, I am not exactly married to them according to our own ways. Thus far they are, by our law, concubines. Surely Hyaganoosh will not object to them as such, and if she does, I will take some of the treasure you have given me and build them a new house, and she need never know. But by law I am allowed four wives and four wives I intend to have, God willing."

"Oh, very well. Never let it be said I do not give full value. But thou hast been wily indeed in extracting several wishes for the one and though I must say it has been a pleasure to serve a master who uses his power over me with such cleverness, think not to prolong thy hegemony by so much as a wistful thought hereafter. I intend to sleep a good long time when thou art done with me."

"O djinn, would I trick you? Only deliver me to the chambers of my cousin and let me win her heart and you shall be quit of me."

I was ready to be quit of him right there, after that perfidious speech, and would have told him so except that no sooner had he finished speaking than the smoke drifting at the djinns ankles belched upward, enveloping both master and servant. When it had dissipated from the ground, so had they. A wisp of gray curled up over the wall and across a wide open area to disappear between the carved marble vines of a centrally located window. After a short pause I heard a faint surprised squeak, and then nothing.

Though I strained my eyes and ears, from that position beyond the wall, I could see or hear nothing intelligible. The squeak was followed by a hush, the hush by a distant creaking, and the next noise I heard did not drift out the window but rather seemed to be from somewhere on a level similar to my own. It was also a fainter noise and more muffled, sounding like a giggle. I heard little more for several hours, during which I imagined all I would say and do to Aman Akbar and also to Hyaganoosh if he brought her forth. I also imagined what they might be doing there in that palace, but the truth of that I was not to learn for some time. Still I could hear in my mind, if only there, Aman's blandishments to his cousin, and her coy protests. They naturally had to speak softly, for the measured steps of a sentry patrolled the other side of the wall by which I waited. Only that sentry's pacing kept me from doing some of my own, for I feared alarming the guard to my presence and that of Aman, for whom the wrath of a guard was entirely too gentle.

I slept not at all. I swear it. Nevertheless, shortly before dawn, my eyes, which I had been resting, snapped open and my head, lolling on a stiff neck, jerked up. A short distance from me a gate crashed open, flung wide by a soldier with a stick in his hand.

"Go on, now, out with you, accursed one! And thank your donkey's gods for a lady's soft heart that you weren't flayed alive! The Emir takes his rose garden seriously!"

Only stillness answered at first and the guard retreated from the door for a moment. The swish of his switch sounded three times, and the third time was followed by indignant and heartsick braying as an ass whiter than the whitest lamb galloped out of the gate and down the cobbles. I leaned incautiously away from the concealing shadows to watch. The guard, following the donkey out the gate a pace or two and slapping the stick against his palm in a satisfied fashion, spotted me.

This armsman was a far more considerate fellow than the one who assaulted the woman at the gate. He gestured to me, smiling, and pointed down the road after the donkey, calling, "You there, woman! There's a nice bit of livestock for you if you care to lift your heels before prayers. Get a move on! Chase it! Its owner will never have the nerve to claim it after it invaded the harem gardens. Only put a rope around its neck and you can beg from donkeyback from now on."

There was little I could do but pretend to agree, and run after the donkey while putting as much distance as possible between myself and the guard. Aman Akbar would have to extricate himself as best he could. Perhaps indeed the djinn had already smoked both Aman and his cousin back to the palace. Perhaps had even installed her in my chambers.

I began to chase the donkey in earnest, not a difficult task since the beast and I appeared to have adopted the same route and the white of its coat was easy to follow even in the dim light of a new morning. A woman with property of her own was someone to reckon with, someone with bargaining power. Whatever trials the new object of my husband's affections might mean for me, I meant to face them riding rather than walking. The gods were with me for as I pantingly neared Aman's palace, I saw that the gate had swung open and the donkey's tail was disappearing inside. I sped after it and stood, gasping for breath, in the courtyard, as the poor animal likewise stood with heaving sides, its eyes rolled back so that they seemed as white as the rest of it.

Aman had to be around somewhere, else why would the door be open, but I could not see him. I hurriedly slipped off the abayah and hung it where I had found it. The most prudent course of action seemed for me to return to my own chambers and pretend to sleep, for these people were entirely capable of claiming that I was guilty of treachery if they discovered I had been out at night. I would tend the beast first, however. The poor thing had dragged its hooves over to the pool beneath the spurting fountain and was lapping at a rate that would surely sicken it.

"There, my dear, there," I said into one long ear, tugging it gently. "Come away now and let Rasa rub you down."

But instead of submitting gratefully to my attentions, as I might have expected, the beast let forth an ear-splitting bray that rocked me backwards on my heels. "EEE-YAW!" it said.

I stretched my hand forward while keeping my distance otherwise, and the animal lunged at me, braying loudly and plaintively.

"EEE-YAW, EEE-YAW!" it repeated, its brown eyes rolling and its hooves pawing at the tiled paths. I wondered momentarily if eating roses made donkeys crazy. Braying continuously, it backed me against the fountain and eee-yawed at me, punctuating its noise with sharp tosses of its mane and angry thrashings of its tail, all the while showing its great white teeth and hopping up and down on its front hooves so that I felt my exposed toes in great jeopardy.

Just as I thought I would be obliged to take a swim to escape the creature, it reared up and bounced back down again facing away from me and galloped off through the hyacinths to the hidden gate to Amollia's garden. Amollia and the cat stood there framed by the swags of flowering vines. The donkey galloped headlong for them. I shouted a warning, but the beast was already upon them. It stopped, dirt and shreds of ruined rose bushes spraying beneath its hooves, and continued its braying at her. Its voice was growing fainter now, but no less insistently plaintive.

Amollia looked puzzled and tried to pat it, whereupon it ran back to me, still braying. The bray faltered to a wheeze.

"There, there, old dear," I said in my gentlest horse-taming talk. "Don't take on so. Come and have that nice rub-down. You're home now. No need to carry on." It gave one last heartsick bray and laid its long head against my midsection, a great shuddering sigh running from eartips to tail.

I took a deep breath and let it out again and patted the beast's forehead. It brayed very faintly and looked up at me sadly before it began again to drink, this time more slowly, its sides heaving.

Using the end of my sash, I began to wipe the froth from the beast's sides.

Amollia quietly joined me. Her robe was long and decorated with paintings of leaves. Her face wore an expression of mingled bewilderment and exasperation.

"What possessed you, sister-wife, that you not only sneak from your husband's house in the middle of the night, but also prove that you have done so by bringing that ass home?" The ass looked up with dripping muzzle and gave her such a wounded expression that she gave it an apologetic pat and at once began using the hem of her gown to help me mop its sides. "You do realize that among these people that kind of behavior could get your body separated from your head?"

I lowered my voice, so as not to stimulate the beast again. "What makes you think I went anywhere?"

"I suppose the ass knocked at the door and you were simply practicing these people's laws of hospitality by admitting it? I saw you leave and I know you were up to—"

The cat Kalimba had been sniffing, perilously, first at the donkey's hindquarters and then at its muzzle. Rather surprisingly, the cat rumbled in a contented manner the whole time it sniffed and even more surprisingly the donkey made no objections. As we spoke, the cat settled itself, paws curled and eyes slitted, in the shade of the donkey's belly. A gate brushed open at our backs and Kalimba immediately pounced forward, growling.

A blinking, yawning, tousle-haired Aster emerged from her own garden. Her hair flowers were folded into droopy semi-circles dangling over her ears. Her silken pajamas were rumpled. "Whose animals?" she asked, as familiarly as if she were not an unwelcome stranger.

"The cat is mine and the donkey is Rasa's," Amollia said smoothly.

"I didn't know our husband would let us have personal pets," Aster said. "What am I to have for mine, do you suppose? A peacock, perhaps? Or a panda? Or maybe one of those horrible-looking humpbacked things I saw out the window this morning? If Aman wants to get me one too and asks either of you what I'd like, tell him a cricket, will you? They're easy to take care of and one never feels too aggrieved if they die."

The donkey gave her a squeaky bray and trotted toward her but she dodged it. It brayed once more, sadly, and turned back to us.

Aster eyed it speculatively. "Not a bad-looking beast. Did it follow you home, barbarian?"

"Home from where?" I asked innocently.

"From following my husband, of course. I watched you leave, so you needn't deny it."

What I had thought was a private excursion turned out to have been fairly public after all.

Amollia said calmly, "Rasa was only trying to protect our husband. He had been behaving strangely."

"This humble person could not agree with you more, elder sister," Aster said with a quick bow. "And I certainly am not one to betray secrets. I but wondered, barbarian, that you have so little love left for your current life that you should speed toward another with such haste. City streets at night are dangerous, you know, especially for those who are where they should not be. But you need not fear my tongue. Why, in my last life but one I was a magistrate known throughout the province for my discretion—"

"There is nothing to tell," I said. "And nothing to hide. I suspected our revered mother-in-law had finally convinced Aman Akbar to seek the woman Hyaganoosh—"

"And so she had," Aster nodded agreeably. "I—er—chanced to overhear them when the old bat interrupted my wedding night to exhort with her son."

"So I followed him," I finished, a little lamely.

"Ah," Amollia said. "And once you were there what did you do?"

"Nothing. I waited, and when the donkey was driven out from the courtyard of the Emir, I followed it back here. I merely wanted to see this Hyaganoosh."

Amollia rolled her eyes at the dawn-streaked sky. Aster pointedly studied her fingernails. The donkey snorted. "Well," I said, "if he had left her alone for a short while I could have told her how terribly crowded it is here and how hungry we get while waiting for Aman."

"That wouldn't bother her, I'll bet," Aster said. "If she's tai-tai, number-one wife, he'll change things to suit her."

"I had," I said stiffly, "planned to exaggerate."

"Ah," Aster said, nodding wisely. During this exchange the donkey looked from her to me as if following a fighting match of some sort.

"And did you speak to her?" Amollia asked.

"I think I heard her squeal," I said. And I told them all that had happened, and how the guard's intended kindness had forced me to leave before Aman returned.

"You would have had a long wait," Amollia said drily. "He has yet to return."

At this the donkey gave another short wheezing bray, which even to the animal's own long ears must have sounded feeble, for it desisted at once as if shamed and hung its head.

Aster patted it absently. The cat at its feet growled low. "That's where the old woman is now. She came round shaking me awake early this morning and asked if I had seen her precious son. When I said I hadn't, she put on her crow robes and went to search for him. I can tell you, she doesn't look nearly so pleased as she did after she spoiled my wedding night."

"Don't be too sure that was a wedding night," I told her, and repeated what had passed between Aman and the djinn concerning us. That stopped her preening.

"But at least Aman doesn't intend to set us aside," Amollia said. "And this is not truly his doing, but his mother's. His cousin has had her whole life to win him, but had it not been for the old one, he would never have pursued her."

I thought of my father's tents and of the new horses my alliance with Aman had won him and of the life of my sister, a slave to her captor until she bore him a son. Being the least of Aman's concubines was better than her life, in many ways. Yet I was not so sure. I would almost rather face all of my mother's cousins single-handedly than watch Aman stroll away with one of the others again. But at least by now there were so many others that I was unlikely to be lonely when he did so.

The donkey had wandered off and seemed to be trying to go indoors toward our chambers, but I felt no inclination to stop him. The cat prowled after him.

"He would be very foolish to cast me off," Aster said confidently. "He paid twice what father was offered for me by the people who run the flower boats."

"Flower boats?" Amollia asked. "What are you talking about? Are flower boats some sort of royal honors that a princess should be sold to them? Princesses don't get sold to anything, except perhaps husbands. Or so it is in my country."

"In mine, birth means little," Aster shrugged. "Station in life is the thing. My family in this life was once noble but my esteemed grandfather committed a slight indiscretion with public funds. Since then, my family has existed as a troup of traveling players. A princess is only one of the many roles I play. Fortunately, it was the one for which I was costumed when Aman saw me. My father had already made a deal with the manager of one of the boats—that's where the best and prettiest girls are sent to dance and sing and please men."

"That's barbaric," Amollia said. "Our people would never do so. Rather they would marry you into the harem of an established man who could protect you."

"Oh, our men marry several girls sometimes too," Aster said airily. "Only there are too many girls."

"But why do they not dispose of the excess ones at birth?" Amollia asked.

"They try," Aster said. "But you can't always tell who's going to be excess. You were lucky to be so valued among your people. I am surprised they let you marry so far away."

"Oh, they don't know I'm gone and won't unless they take a count," Amollia answered. "They'll assume I've run off into the jungle with Kalimba, and think it no particular loss either. For in truth I am the ugliest of all of the daughters of the Great Elephant. You see, I have never quite persuaded myself the time was right to submit to my beautifying tattoos."

"Modesty is a becoming ornament," Aster said piously.

"Happily, Aman seems to be of the same opinion," Amollia said. "I was more than pleased to be spoken for by a man who doesn't want me to carve my skin with knives and rub magic ashes in it. That he also granted that I should keep Kalimba with me, when any man of my people would have insisted I turn her out into the jungle or make a robe of her, was a greater boon yet. True, having only three other women with whom to share wifely duties will seem bleak but—"

The ass galloped out from between the arches leading to my quarters. Chips flew from the tiles broken under the flying hooves as the beast clattered past us and skidded to a halt beside the gate. The gate creaked open. I ran after the beast. Though reason told me the gate had to be opening for Aman and no other, I surreptitiously clutched a knife I had once found in the library. The gate had opened before without Aman, and the fountain had sprayed. The magic wasn't working according to its custom and Aman wasn't behaving according to his either. I, however, was going to behave according to mine.

Footsteps plopped on the road outside, only one set first, light and hurrying, more halting than Aman's and not as firm. Then others, which were very firm indeed. These did not approach from any distance but commenced as soon as the first walker neared the gate.

"You there, woman, wait," a man's voice commanded.

"In God's name, sir, who are you to bother an old mother returning from an urgent errand?" The voice corresponding with the first set of footsteps was Um Aman's.

"Do not be alarmed, madam. We are the appointed representatives of the Emir Onan and we wish a word with you, no more."

"What could such exalted personages want with me?" she asked. Fear was in her voice and her weight creaked the door open farther.

"Actually, it is with Aman Akbar, master of your house, we wish to speak. We would have spoken with him earlier today, in his customary place in the cafe in the bazaar, but he has not been seen in any of his usual places of business."

"He has had—er—pressing business," Um Aman said. "No doubt he is now sleeping soundly in his bed as any good man might do. Perhaps I could take a message?"

"That is unacceptable. A personal response from Aman Akbar is required."

"My son is not available, and any official who would disturb such an important man at this hour would do well to look to his job. My son is not without influence."

"You had better hope he is not without money, old woman. There is a small matter of unpaid taxes on this estate and at least one unregistered female slave being harbored on the premises."

"You must be mistaken. My son has no slaves."

"She has been seen." His voice was muffled for a moment as he consulted with the other in whispers. "What do you think? A night in the dungeon for this insolent old bird until her influential son satisfies His Eminence?"

The donkey took a step closer to the gate and it swung open, all but spilling Um Aman into the garden. Knocking the animal aside, I threw myself upon the gate and succeeded in closing it most of the way before the official could get more than a foot in the door. The foot was crushed with what must have been considerable pain to its owner as Amollia, Aster, Um Aman and the donkey joined me in keeping the gate closed.

"Open up, I say! Aman Akbar, if you are in there, you are called upon to account to the Emir!"

Aster suddenly disengaged herself from the rest of us and, standing well back from the door, spoke in a voice much lower and stronger than the breathless little girl tones she had formerly used, the new voice holding some hint of Aman's fluid accents. "In the name of God, do not disturb a man in his own home. My beautiful new wife is ill and I have been tending her this long night through. My friend the Emir is well aware of my good reputation and—and—the tax payment is on its way to him even now by messenger service. He will reward your zeal with blows if he hears of your discourteous treatment to my mother."

Her speech so moved the donkey that it croaked agreement. Pikes magically concealed in the topmost portion of the wall revealed themselves in bristling array, as if armed men wielded them. They were balanced there seemingly by ghosts but so angered was I then by almost everything that had happened since my arrival in this country that I snatched down one of the pikes and thrust the tip through the opening in the door. The ghost formerly holding my pike had sense enough not to resist and our would-be oppressors were no less sensible. The foot withdrew instantly.

Hasty consultations were held on the other side of the wall. In greasy tones, one of the officials said, "Your pardon, Aman Akbar. We will depart for now and see if your messenger has reached the Emir. If he has not, perhaps we can expedite his progress."

"Indeed," Aster growled. And two sets of footsteps marched double-time down the street again.

Um Aman was as grateful as could be expected. "How dare you impersonate my son?" she asked. "Where is he? What have you done with him that he cannot speak for himself?"

Amollia ignored the woman's Sailings and the red color her face was turning and put an arm around her shoulders. "Old mother, we do not know where Aman is. Did you hear no word among your friends?"

The woman sagged slightly and her cheeks seemed more sunken than before. "No word." Then the wrath in her eyes rekindled and she shook off Amollia's arm. "But how can you pretend he is not here? The magic is functioning. It functions only when Aman is here."

"I do not know. We also had thought that he was here but if you can produce him you're doing better than any of us," Amollia replied reasonably. "Perhaps he arranged for the magic to work in his absence."

Um Aman shook her head stubbornly. "He never does so. Before you came he was gone all night once or twice and had I not insisted on bringing my own brazier and housekeeping implements from our hut, despite him telling me I need not, I would have gone hungry. He is a good boy, but poor at considering details. No doubt that is why we have incurred the wrath of the Emir. Had he but mentioned to me the taxes, I would have seen to it that they were paid. But now you—you have lied about it and they will probably come and take us all to the dungeons and I will never see my son nor the light of day again!"

At this the donkey once more seemed to go mad, emitting great hoarse wheezing "EEE-AWS" until we had to hold our ears. The beast frantically knocked against the old woman until he had her backed into a corner. She tried to beat him away, raining blows upon him with her gnarled hands. Kalimba snarled at her, and Amollia, who was already trying, with Aster's assistance and my own, to pull the donkey from her, now had to try to restrain the cat as well.

Quite by accident, she hauled Kalimba back across the donkey's legs, raking them with the cat's claws. Rather than further agitating the ass, this seemed to shock him to his rightful mind again, and he backed away from Um Aman, shuddered one last time, and with a docility that spoke of a broken spirit—or heart—allowed me to lead him away. Thinking that all that braying surely had dried his mouth, I led him to the pool. He walked so sadly that my anger quite fled and I patted him and spoke to him gently. He lowered his head to drink, but then shook it, as if he could not take a mouthful, and raised it again, regarding me from the depths of miserable, frightened eyes of a familiar melting brown. Perhaps I would have recognized those eyes sooner, but there was no hint any longer of Aman's triumphant twinkle.

The metal beast in the pool was more discerning, however. Once more as its master approached, the fountain began spraying in a maniac, sprightly fashion so that its droplets spread to the edge of the pool. The donkey's sides heaved and Aman's sad eyes looked out of his ass's face once more and I sank to my knees and embraced him.

Amollia and Aster approached too, Amollia with halting steps and Aster saying, "But, but, but—" as if she were a bird with one song.

Um Aman did not see the resemblance at first. But finally she stopped being indignant and muttering imprecations long enough to truly look, and then she wailed as even she had never wailed before. "Witches! Murderesses! What have you done to my poor son?"

Chapter 4

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I'll say this for Um Aman. When she has made up her mind to do something, she is a woman of action. Shortly after morning prayers, Amollia, Aster and I were bundled into abayahs and, with Aman Akbar trotting beside us, hustled through the streets to the gate of the dung-sellers, through a wall and into a courtyard, where we soon stood among a crowd of Um Aman's cronies watching a wild-eyed woman veiled in her own greasy hair having fits around a doomed chicken.

We took a proprietary interest in what the woman and the chicken had to say to each other, for they were the judges of the council of women Um Aman had selected to determine our fate.

I would have thought she'd have been more interested in finding out how to turn Aman Akbar back into a human or at least in paying the taxes, but, as usual, when something goes wrong, the first priority was to find someone to blame. Also, as usual, the someone was bound to be the outsider—or outsiders—and in this case, it was my co-wives and me. At least Amollia had her cat, still perched upon the back of Aman Akbar who was protected from the claws by a very fine rug plucked from the floor as an improvised saddle blanket. Amollia looked as serene and sociable as if she were attending a celebration at which she was an invited guest but stayed close by Aman and Kalimba. Aster's eyes twitched from one woman to the next, and one doorway to the next. She had kept up a stream of nervous chatter most of the previous night until threatened with extinction by drowning in the fountain if she didn't shut up. Part of Amollia's serenity, I suspected, was exhaustion. None of us had slept for fear of being murdered by Um Aman or carted off to the dungeons by the tax assessors.

Um Aman had disappeared a short time before the prayer-caller sang his earliest song and had returned with the abayahs. We arrived at the gathering with a number of other women and children, some of whom I recognized from Um Aman's party. Moments after we settled against the side of the house farthest from the racks of dung cakes drying in the first rays of sunlight, a ragged boy arrived with the woman now confronting the scrawny chicken.

Um Aman consulted with her briefly, and then turned to the others, interspersing questions and explanations with all of the standard references to their god's wisdom and mercy.

We did not exactly stand among them—no one wanted to be near us. No one looked at us, though there were frequent wondering, puzzled, and frightened glances at Aman Akbar. Until batted away by their mothers, several children made a game of running forward to touch him and scampering quickly away again. The mothers stretched their fingers out at us in a sign of warding off, not the same as that my people use against demons, but obviously with the same intention. We had been promoted overnight from nuisances to menaces.

The fits of the woman with the chicken were evidently a preface to some sort of rite, for she stopped suddenly, huddled in the dust shivering in her sweat-soaked gown, her ankle-length hair unbound and dust streaked where it had swept the ground. The chicken—a rooster actually—now fed unconcernedly near her head. She crouched there for a long time in the midst of everyone and the other women spoke very little. She was not only resting, it seemed, but in some sort of trance. It ended when her arm whipped out, grasping the unfortunate rooster by the neck.

This signaled a few of the other women to start drumming on whatever was handy: the floor, overturned water jugs, children. The entranced woman writhed to her feet and, flopping fowl in hand, began emulating the movements of her prey, all in time to the improvised drumming. This was no solo performance. Several of the others, at one time or another during the dance, rose and followed her movements, or created their own, mostly involving a lot of jerking and flopping. Some of the contortions of head, abdomen, arms and upper body appeared impossibly boneless. But the basic steps did not appear complicated, and the women who neither danced nor drummed trilled an eerie cry that rivaled the prayer-caller's and clapped their hands in complex counterpoint to the drumbeats. But though the other dancers rose and danced and collapsed again throughout the morning, the woman in the middle began to show that she was a person of special power, for her dancing continued and she never quite killed the rooster until the end.

Actually, the ritual probably usually has another ending. But Amollia loves to dance and the cat loves chicken. Amollia's people decide many important matters by dancing too. She, more than Aster or myself, was duly solemn and respectful throughout the ceremony. But as the day wore on, and the heat rose, and the rhythm of the drums and hands reverberated through our skulls, and the trillings ululated high and mournful, and the hair of the shamaness snapped like a banner to the music, Amollia's eyes glazed over. Her hands twitched all the way up to her shoulders and into her torso and soon her feet began to move. Before I quite realized what she intended doing, she was in the middle, dancing with the others. The main dancer tried to salvage the situation. She snapped the chicken's neck immediately, the drumming stopped, and Amollia retreated back to our corner, still looking dazed. The others looked horrified.

The main dancer threw the chicken down and gutted it, wiped the knife she had used on her skirt and set it aside. With movements she had no doubt learned from the spirits with whom she had been communing she raised her eyes and poised her hands high, preparing to sink them back into the chicken. She was too slow. Kalimba leaped from the back of Aman Akbar in a blur of spots, secured the chicken, and retreated between our husband's hooves to enjoy the treat and any attendant portents in peace.

Someone screamed. Aster's foot shot out and Um Aman, dagger in hand as she dove for the cat, sprawled on the ground. Someone grabbed Aster and someone else assisted Um Aman. Dragging Amollia with me, I sat down in front of Aman Akbar, shielding the cat from the crowd. I drew my own knife and prepared to defend myself from the women, who seemed to regard the death of the chicken as a signal for our deaths.

Fortunately, the shamaness saw the matter differently. "In the name of God, desist. This is a holy animal and the black woman also carries holiness within her. Did you not see how the spirits entered her?"

Had Um Aman not been supported by the body of a friend, you could have blown on her and knocked her over, so shocked did she look. "Holy? But clearly she and these others are possessed by evil."

The dancer drew herself up, her hair a tangled mess, what was visible of her face smudged with dust and flecked with chicken blood. Her dignity was undeniable. "You argue with a seeress?"

"No, no, God forgive me. But this is the woman—" and she said the word even more poisonously than she usually said slut"—who directed my son away from his true bride."

"And the pale one with the knife? And the little maiden beside her?"

"Other foreign women who directed—"

"Who directed your son away from the girl you chose for him?"

"Yes, until I was able to persuade him, God be praised, of where his duty lay."

"And when was this?"

"One night ago."

"And when did he become a donkey?"

"One night—" she broke off.

"Aiyeeah! You call yourself a believer and yet cannot accept that which has clearly been written? Only by the compassion of our most compassionate God have you been granted these blessed vessels of great holiness and this cat, who shall aid them in devouring the evil afflicting your son as surely as it devoured the cock. These women would have protected your son from the very evil to which you hounded him."

"But they are not even believers!" Um Aman protested.

"Have they been instructed?"

"No. There has been no time—"

"Then how can you condemn them? You have failed in your duty toward them as well as your son, but God seems to favor you nonetheless. Do not abuse His mercy." And with that the woman clapped her hands and the hostess brought forth a basin of water in which first the dancer and then all of the others washed themselves before midday prayers. Two women came forward with bone combs to help the dancer dress her hair. She pushed it back with both hands and began washing her face as they tugged at the tangles. As soon as I saw her face I had to look very carefully elsewhere. For though she had surely known me as soon as she stepped into the courtyard, I saw her clearly only at that moment and recognized her as the woman on whose behalf I had clobbered the armsman.

We ate with our hostess, a widow who had no men with whom to concern herself, and departed for our home in mid-afternoon. On the way Um Aman spent a few coins for food, in case Aman Akbar could procure from the palace magic only nourishment appropriate to his new body.

We need not have hurried, for we returned to find our gates barred against us with the seal of the Emir splashed across them. Um Aman began to wail again, and Aman himself to bray piteously. Um Aman wiped her face on her sleeve and gave a final sniff. "And that woman said God was being merciful. What does she know? My son an ass, the door of my home barred against me, three new mouths to feed, and all of us beggared."

"Shhh," Aster said, her eyes shifting from right to left over the top of her veil. "There could be guards nearby. Beggars we may be, but you and I, old mother, have been beggars before, eh? Be glad that we're alive and free—for the time being."

Though Aster's wise words did not exactly cause Um Aman's face to be transformed by glee, some of the anguish did depart from the old woman's eyes.

"Perhaps we could talk with this Emir or even with his wives," Amollia said. "After all, if he is the ruler, he must dispense justice and surely he will see how unjust it is to take everything when—" She stopped as Um Aman and Aster both gave her pitying looks. "No, perhaps he wouldn't."

We departed before the Emir could impound our persons as well as our house. Even in abayahs a group of four women with a donkey and an exotic cat is not an inconspicuous party. The widow received us again at her home with good grace and declared that she hated eating alone anyway.

We brought with us the few purchases we had made in the market, and these paid our way that night. But by the way our hostess scraped and sent the children to borrow as she prepared the evening meal and from the small amount of couscous and bread she was able to produce for each of us even with our additional contributions, it was evident that she could ill afford company twice in one day.

Um Aman looked as if she might weep again. "A wonderful meal, Sheda. I could never make couscous like you."

"Ah, Samira, it is nothing compared to yours. And when I think of the other delicacies we had at your house that day!" She smacked her lips appreciatively but her eyes were anxious as she looked at her children.

We could not stay here.

She spread mats for us on the floor, and nothing would do but that Aman Akbar sleep with the children. When the others were quiet, however, our husband rose in his new sure-footed way and, pulling the door curtain aside with his teeth, walked into the courtyard, his head hanging low. Amollia, whom I had thought to be sleeping, rose at once and followed him outside.

Though it seemed to me that it was no use to borrow a bed if you didn't sleep in it, and I was more than a little tired, I could no more sleep than they could and crept outside to stand beside them. We said nothing to each other, but in a very few moments Um Aman joined us, followed, belatedly, by Aster, who had been asleep from the look of her but who didn't want to miss anything.

"We must free him somehow," Amollia said quietly, stroking Aman's ears.

"That is very easy for you to say, blessed one," Um Aman said with spiteful emphasis on the last words, "but how? We cannot even buy food and Sheda may come to harm for offering us even this small measure of comfort. And if we are taken, there will be no hope for Aman Akbar. Oh, I had a feeling the Emir would not believe you," she wailed—but softly, for fear of waking her friend's family—at Aster. "I should have taken the time to dig up the bag of gold coins Aman gave me to make into a necklace. Then we would at least have enough to eat and start some small business while we figured how to free him."

Amollia bit her lip and I wanted to smack the old woman for her oversight—none of the rest of us had bags of gold to forget, after all.

But Aster shifted her lower jaw and scratched her nose speculatively and said, "You'd have to dig it up, eh? That means it's buried, I suppose?"

"Why else would I have to dig it up?"

"What I mean to say, revered mother, is that it is probably buried where the tax assessors are unlikely to find it. Is that so?"

"Unless they are able to steal the hiding place from my mind, yes."

"Then what is to prevent us from digging it up again?"