A Thousand and One

by Daria Doshrelli

  Zaen was slowly leading a black horse through the market. He collected the horse’s reigns in one hand and cupped the other around his mouth. “Hisham!” he cried over the bustle.

  A dark man standing in front of a bread cart turned toward him.

  Tad sneaked closer so that he might overhear their conversation.

  “Look what I got.” Zaen nodded at the black horse. “For Della. This time she’ll accept my offer for sure.” He pulled a piece of parchment from his pocket, winked at it, and slipped it back into his faded, flowy pants.

  Hisham raised his eyebrows in evident surprise at the magnificent mare prancing nervously beside Zaen. “Ya fouadi…a horse?” He swept his upturned palms out in front of him. “This is not how you put the charm on a lady.”

  “She likes spirited mounts.” Zaen patted the mare. “And I don’t need to put the charm on her, as you say. She is my true love.”

  “Women want gold and jewels,” Hisham replied.

  “Not my Della. She’s special.” Zaen cast another look of approval at the horse. “And this gift shows I know her better than anyone.”

  Hisham opened his mouth, apparently to object. But then his eyes spied a street urchin sneaking a round of bread from his cart. “Alibaba!” he cried and lunged after the child.

  Zaen snatched his arm. “Leave her alone. She’s just hungry. I don’t know how you can go from such a deep and sighing voice when we’re talking about my love life to that screech you just made over a piece of bread.”

  “Little thief,” Hisham hissed.

  The girl disappeared into an alley.

  Hisham shook his fist after her.

  “She’s only a child,” Zaen said.

  “But she’s a girl,” Hisham replied. “They’re all thieves.”

  “Even yours?”

  “Especially mine. How will I ever afford them all?”

  Zaen laughed. “What was that you called her…Ali…?”

  Hisham’s eyes widened in childlike wonder. “You don’t know who is Alibaba? He is a thief, the prince of forty thieves. Nobody is safe from him.”

  A shriek coming from the balcony overhead had the whole street looking up at a woman leaning over the railing, the wind whipping at the edges of the scarf tied round her head. “Another one, ya Hisham!”

  “What’s she on about?” Zaen asked.

  Hisham tugged at his robe. “Catastrophe!”

  “Eh?” The woman put her hands on her hips and gave him what-for in her strange tongue. She prattled on and on and finally seemed to end with, “No thousand congratulations, ya habibty?”

  “What is she congratulating you on?” Zaen asked. “One day I’ll understand why some men marry foreign wives whose language no one understands.”

  “Pregnant again,” Hisham said with a gloomy expression. “And we marry the foreign wife because we think if she believes we can’t understand, she will stop speaking.” His frown deepened. “But she screams louder.”

  Zaen pressed his lips together but amusement sparkled in his dark eyes.

  “Ya Hisham!” the wife cried. She beckoned him with her hand.

  Hisham shook his glassy-eyed head and turned to Zaen. “I know it will be another girl. That will make…” He began a slow count on his left hand with his index finger. “…six daughters…six dowries.” He turned his back on his still-screeching wife. “I had better get back to work.”

  Zaen put a hand on Hisham’s shoulder with a grin. “Come with me and I’ll treat you to a feast fit for a king, as consolation for your…misfortune.” He chuckled and smacked his companion on the back.

  Hisham shrugged. “This is good since you can afford to pay, now that you’ve got yourself some—”

  “Shh.” Zaen pressed a finger to his lips. “That’s the last time I tell you anything.”

  Just then Tad spied something impish out of the corners of his eyes. He marched over to a cloaked form huddling in the alley behind Hisham’s bread cart. He tapped the figure on the shoulder.

  It whirled around.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  Two blue-green eyes narrowed at him. “Researching.”

  “Well if you’re going to steal my clues—”

  “I have as much right to overhear their conversation as you do,” Claire replied in a hush.

  “What have you found out?”

  For a moment he couldn’t tell if she was smiling or frowning or what was going on behind the veil. Only her eyes were visible in the getup she had no doubt snatched from an unsuspecting clothes line. “I thought you didn’t need my scientific help?”

  “If you’re going to sneak around stealing my clues it’s only fair that you share yours with me.”

  Claire sighed very dramatically. “I’ll easily win our wager even if I do let you in on my findings…To the library, then.” She moved farther into the empty alley and magicked herself away.

  Tad was hot on her trail. She had been trying to cheat and he wasn’t about to let her get away with it. He found her standing in front of the long table next to the ledger. Her hand went into her dress pocket and retrieved a lump. Tad couldn’t be sure if it was the same one she had patted to gloat about her progress on the case the day before. “Let’s see your big clue, then,” he said.

  Claire unwrapped the plain, brown cloth to reveal a necklace all in gold with a shimmering rectangular pendant, also of gold. She extracted a square metal-like object from the shelf next to her and moved it back and forth over the yellow metal. Then she tossed the square, black thing back onto the shelf where it landed with a thud, and pulled a cylinder wrapped in a red cloth from a wooden crate. Her fingers gently unwound the cloth to reveal a vial with a yellow stopper. “Stand back.”

  Tad took two hops backward. Not that she was the boss of him but the way she eyed the concoction in her hand it must be something noxious. Just to make sure she knew he was still in charge he had to say, “Before you open that thing, you just tell me what it is you think you’re doing?”

  “Testing…” Very slowly she pulled the stopper and squeezed a single drop of liquid onto the back of the gold pendant. She replaced the stopper with great care. “And that confirms my suspicions.”

  “Nothing happened. It just fizzled a little.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Am I supposed to be impressed?”

  Claire let out a beleaguered sigh as she rewrapped the vial and gently returned it to its crate. “If you knew anything about the composition of earth metals, you would know what procedure it was I just performed. These tests—a powerful magnet and a very unpleasant sort of acid—plus the conversation we just heard…”

  “Amounts to what, precisely?”

  “It means our young groom has been dealing in more than horses lately.” She pointed to the necklace. “I found that in Zaen’s saddlebag…and I’m not certain the source is entirely respectable.”

  Chapter 8

  “I suppose since you showed me your clue I’ll show you mine,” Tad told Claire as she loaded up her dress pockets with mischievous things from her shelf in the library, “and then we’ll be even.” Her so-called clue wasn’t very useful but he wanted to show her something that would get her in a lather. “Come with me and I’ll let you have a look at what I discovered in the globe…I only got a glimpse before you interrupted me but I’ll warn you I suspect what we’re about to see will be very romantic.”

  Claire turned from the shelf she had commandeered for her experimental paraphernalia. “This, I have to see.”

  Before she could ruin his happy surprise by changing her mind, Tad snatched up her wrist and whirled the two of them away. There was no telling where her hand had been, though, so he let it drop as soon as they landed in a small, dimly-lit room.

  Claire turned her head around the cramped space. “This is a very strange chamber.”

  “It’s Zaen’s quarters next to the stables.”

  “It’s a Della de Courville shrine, that’s
what it is.” She frowned deeply and shook her head at the largest item in the room.

  In one corner sat a shabby writing table with a three-legged stool pushed underneath. A parchment, a small ink bottle, a reed pen and several rolled-up letters were neatly laid out on top. But that was not what Claire was gawking at. It was hundreds of love letters that held her dumbstruck gaze, arranged in an arc over the table. They had been lovingly stuffed into compartments intended for housing scrolls. Zaen had tucked flowers into each one, all still in the bloom of youth as if they had just been picked.

  “He’s a man in love. Look…” Tad held out his hand to the letters Claire was staring at all crazy-eyed. “He has obviously not dispensed with a single reply his true love has ever made to his inquiries.”

  “Inquiries? She flat out rejected him…it must be…” Claire’s eyes breezed over the notes. “…a thousand times already.”

  Tad picked up one of the few letters lying on the desk and unrolled it with the greatest care. “How romantic.”

  “How ridiculous. A man with any pride at all would have burned the lot of them and moved on.”

  “How could he?” Tad pointed to the note in his hand. “There is some very elegant poetry here, on his part and hers…though she was obviously exercising la politesse, which is an entirely foreign concept to you, I know. But I’m sure Zaen treasures each word.”

  “It’s absurd.”

  “You’re just upset that I am going to solve this case since my method esteems romance and that is all around us.” He thumped the parchment. “This room is proof.”

  “The only proof in here is that our male client suffers from insanity. I’m going to look for a useful clue, one that explains all this. Why would Lady Love pair Della up with a fool?”

  “Della is the fool and not Zaen.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Tad’s amusement at her distraught face got the better of him. His belly laugh provoked a fresh frown from his little helper. “Waste your time if you like,” he said in a chuckle, “but remember that Zaen doesn’t see rejections when he looks at these letters. He sees only the most elegant script, the most delightful smiles, eyes with moons that never wane, lips more fragrant than honeysuckle. He can find no fault with these fair manuscripts. I know that because he wrote it right here.” Tad replaced the letter just as he had found it and swept his hand across the others. “These sentiments demonstrate real love.”

  “I feel sorry for Della.” Claire paced between the bed and the shrine, shaking her head and mumbling as if her own love life were in distress. “Is there anything the lady might do to discourage a man like Zaen from continuing to pursue her? Anything at all?”

  Lady Love had certainly done a good deed by recruiting a hopelessly unromantic gal. Tad nodded repeatedly at the realization of his patroness’s benevolence. And as the real avenger it was his duty to help set the Lady’s charity case straight. “A woman other than his truest love would have no need to discourage him because anyone else would have given up long ago. And you should be glad of that because at least one of our clients has good sense, unlike the last case. We just have to make sure that Della gets uncursed or fix whatever has caused her to do such a foolish thing as reject her true love.”

  “That’s your method but I have my own.” Claire was looking quite determined now.

  Tad sighed inwardly at the great burden that had been thrust upon him. “Trying to prove that Zaen is not Della’s true love just because you don’t like poetry? That’s very illogical of you since Lady Love does not make mistakes.”

  “I intend to get to the bottom of this case while you admire the lunatic ramblings of a madman. Once I understand what has happened, the answer will present itself. Whether or not that includes Della having a future with Zaen is something I am willing to allow my scientific method to determine. For all you know, he could be the most devious villain yet.” With this, Claire magicked herself away.

  Tad almost followed her until he recalled he had an important mission, one that had gotten sidetracked by Claire trying to steal his clues. He magicked himself back to the alley behind the place where Hisham and Zaen had been chatting. Now they were gone. But he hadn’t come back for them. He headed across the bustling market toward a merchant cart with words written above it he couldn’t understand since they were written in some foreign script.

  But he hadn’t gotten there in time. The merchant had already sold the only item that was good enough for Roselle. It would have been perfect for her, too, delicate gold strands winding about the arm, and with a ruby-studded clasp.

  Tad sighed at the many inconveniences Claire thrust upon him. If not for her cheating, he wouldn’t have missed his opportunity. He addressed the merchant. “Haven’t you got anything else like it? Something exotic yet elegant?” He gestured at the finely-clad gentleman who was walking away what was supposed to be Roselle’s bracelet.

  The merchant looked Tad over as if trying to estimate his precise weight in gold. His hazelnut eyes twinkled as he gestured to the half a dozen silver bangles on the table. “You like?” he asked in an accent Tad couldn’t quite place.

  Tad shook his head emphatically. “Give me the best you have. Something distinctive and grand, like what you sold that other gentleman. Only, not an exact copy, you understand. It must be special.”

  The merchant whirled around. When he turned back a necklace draped between his tanned hands. It seemed woven of very fine individual strands of gold, delicate as fairy-dusted spider web, an impossible pattern that could only have been forged by a true master. It was the most sparkly thing that ever was made.

  Tad inspected the item in awe. “I’ll take it.” He dug in his pocket for the only gold coin he had. He only hoped it would be enough.

  A stranger appeared at Tad’s elbow. “Good choice, sir. Exotic yet tasteful.” He nodded a head bound in a cloth with a large but obviously fake jewel sewn into the front.

  Tad heart thrilled at the confirmation. Roselle would weep when she saw this remarkable gift. But he had better get something for Claire as well. Might come in handy the next time he needed to bribe some sense into her. Plus he’d have to console her over the uselessness of science when he solved the case. “I need another gift, for a different lady,” he said as he handed over the gold coin and accepted the necklace. “Something plain and ordinary…practicality is a must.” And he only had a few silver pieces left in his pocket so it had to come cheap, too. He carefully folded Roselle’s necklace into his handkerchief and placed it in his shirt pocket.

  The dealer raised his eyebrows a little and gave him another look over. Tad could see his estimation had jumped several points at the mention of two ladies and he did not wish to deflate his value by describing what sort of creature Claire was.

  “Interests? Hobbies?” the merchant asked.

  Tad rubbed his chin and turned his eyes up in thought. “Well, she enjoys collecting theories and hypotheses…and sometimes facts.” He shrugged. “Nobody knows why.”

  “Oh…er…” The man’s black, bushy eyebrows drew down. “What does she do with them?”

  “She gives them away, mostly, with the greatest enthusiasm and even when nobody has asked her for—.”

  “The charitable sort, eh?”

  Tad put up his finger to object, but the dealer went to rummaging through his cart. Out came a small, circular item, brown and rather shabby.

  “A spinning wheel?”

  “Practical yet unexpected,” the merchant replied.

  “I’ll take it.” Tad dug into his trouser pocket and extracted one silver piece, all that remained of his true love wooing fund, save two coins. True, the spinning wheel was a homely little thing but he’d have it cleaned up in no time.

  The merchant looked at the coin in Tad’s palm and drew the wheel to his chest with a look of indignation. “This is no ordinary spinning wheel.”

  Tad’s shoulders slumped. “How much do you want for it, then?” He should hav
e known never to shop for simple things among foreigners.

  “One gold piece is a bargain for—”

  Tad stalked off. Haggling was such a chore. He could get a mad scientist something in Rosendale.

  “Two silver pieces and it’s yours.”

  Tad whirled around and thrust a finger at the merchant. “Deal.”

  He used the last coin in his pocket to buy a very charming box from a different merchant, one with a rose carved into the top, sanded and oiled until it shone like glass. His heart leapt again as he tucked Roselle’s necklace into the box. She would be so surprised. He only hoped she didn’t think he was trying to buy her affection.

  A man needed time to think about the right way to present a gift of jewelry to the love of his life. It was a declaration of admiration and intention so things had to be done just right. Plus he wanted to draw out his anticipation of seeing the look on her face a little longer. He didn’t feel like hauling the spinning wheel around with him anymore, either, so he magicked himself back to his cottage, wiped it down in the kitchen and had another look at it. The thing was as ordinary as ever, but Claire probably wouldn’t mind. It was the thought that counted, anyway.

  He hid the necklace in the last place a thief would ever look, on top of his wardrobe cabinet. Though he had to retrieve his step stool from the kitchen and had already wasted half an hour cleaning up the spinning wheel, it was only a little after his usual lunch time once these chores were finished. A leftover breakfast biscuit in a glass of milk would have to do since he had to make sure Claire wasn’t burning down the Library of Love with one of her experiments.

  With this in mind he rushed through his meal and went back to the library where he found his assistant precisely where he had imagined she would be.

  Chapter 9

  Claire was working furiously at whatever concoction she had stirred up in a vial on the table next to the ledger. The inspection of her project had her leaning forward, which sent her hair tumbling down over her eyes, and she brushed it away with the back of her hand.