The Ninety-Ninth Bride

by Catherine F. King

  However, Priya’s peace had been shattered by her memories of war. She stayed long enough to see the healthy presentation of her niece and nephew, but then she departed their little village, saying she was going to seek wealth by trying her luck among dragons. She did not return for a long time, not until Shashi took up her staff, travelled to the dragons, and brought her sister home.

  The Princess

  A month later, Munir sent a request to Dunya to meet him in the Lotus Garden in the evening. She and Upalu arrived bright and early. Dunya sat uneasily on the edge of a fountain and occasionally had to warn Upalu off from setting the flowers on fire.

  “I can’t help it,” said Upalu. “This time of year makes me so sad. It was about this time a year ago that… ” she sighed.

  “That you lost the girl who broke your heart,” Dunya said. “Yes, I remember.”

  “I wonder if she ever thinks of me,” Upalu plucked off one flower petal. It began to singe, and soon smoke drifted up from between her fingers. “Ever. At all. Even if only to be mad at me.”

  “I really thought you had forgotten her.”

  Upalu shook her head, and said no more.

  “Ah!” said Dunya after a pause. “Here comes Munir.”

  Upalu gave a “Hm” and stood to attention. Munir and Hussein strode towards them, and Dunya saw that the Captain’s head was bowed and his eyes were sad. Hussein stopped just out of earshot, but Munir stopped before Dunya. After he greeted her formally, he sort of slumped a little further and said, “Dunya, I’ve come to say goodbye.”

  “Goodbye?”

  “The border wars are finished for now. Now we’re building a trading outpost on the site of our old camp. I’m going to oversee the building of it.”

  “Must it be you?” Dunya asked, and bit her lip. Those were the words of a little child, not a Princess like she hoped to be.

  “I know the project better than anyone—I should, I’m the one who proposed it to the Viziers five years ago. I was not sorry to leave the Capitol then, but I am now.”

  He reached out, and Dunya slipped her hand into his. There was silence, then Munir said, “There is no place for me here.”

  “Of course there is,” Dunya said.

  Munir didn’t answer.

  Dunya turned to Upalu. “Help me, here.”

  Upalu regarded Munir levelly. “Come to me when you know what you wish,” she said. Then, with a little bow, she moved out of earshot.

  “What do you wish?” Dunya asked Munir.

  He didn’t answer. After a pause, he asked, “What responsibilities do you have?”

  That took Dunya aback. She cleared her throat, and said, “I… I am responsible for myself… and Upalu. She has no place in the Palace except as my lady-in-waiting. Of sorts.”

  “That’s something.”

  Dunya’s next words were halting. “I… if I don’t keep an eye on Zahra, who will?”

  “The Sultana? I should think she is watched at all times.”

  “But… I need to keep a particular eye on her.”

  “So you have responsibilities. Duties. As do I. But believe me,” he gave her hand a squeeze, “I will return. Write to me?”

  “Yes.” Dunya looked down. Munir pulled his hand out of hers, and he crossed to Upalu. In a voice that carried—just barely—to Dunya, he said, “I wish that Dunya continues to be safe and happy.”

  “Funny,” Upalu said, “I wish that, too. I’ll do all I can to ensure it.”

  They nodded to each other. Dunya was still sorting out how she felt about this exchange, as Munir bowed to her and left. She watched him leave and sighed. He would come back. She had to have faith in that.

  “Come on,” Upalu said, taking Dunya by the arm. “Let’s go to the harem.”

  As they started to walk, Dunya said, “You wish that I’ll be safe and happy? Of all the things you could wish?”

  “Munir and I both. He has a little good sense, after all.”

  “I didn’t think… well.”

  “Well, what?”

  “Sittou—my grandmother—was the only person I was really sure loved me. You two seem fond of me, too. I don’t know what to make of it.”

  Upalu’s arm grasped Dunya’s a little tighter. “Take joy in it,” she said. “That’s my advice.”

  When they reached the harem, Upalu halted at the door. Dunya turned back to look at her. “What is it?”

  “I should tell you,” Upalu said, “Djinn live a much longer time than humans do—especially if they are sealed up in lamps, or rings, or whatever human sorcerers can devise. When my heart was broken, I was… well, I was mired in self-pity because I thought I would be brokenhearted for the rest of time. I was wrong about that. I, I don’t know. I am better now. But you, Dunya… well, I will miss you for a very long time. I’m sure of that.”

  Dunya didn’t know what to say. She held out her hand. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get some dinner.”

  Dunya already knew how to read and write. Now she taught herself a new skill: how to forge handwriting. Specifically, the handwriting of Sultan Sayyid.

  After Munir left, the Palace seemed dreadfully quiet, and the city seemed full of strangers. Now when Dunya went into the city, she did not wander for pleasure. She sought to understand the problems of the people, from root cause to final consequence.

  By investigating in the Demon Market, she found the nasnas mirror-merchant that she had met many years ago and spent hours listening to him talk of troubles with tariffs and the fickleness of the market. She visited the mermaids who were still living by the Second Gate and learned a little bit about the river traffic problems, but she learned more by actually paying a few captains for their time and listening to what they had to say. She spent hours in the cafés of the theater district, sipping coffee and asking the coffee merchants their thoughts. Thus she gathered the opinions of one class of people, and it was a frustrating day when she realized she had not spoken to anyone of a higher or lower class than “merchant.” Oh, well, she lived with it and every day started again.

  When she spent days in the Palace, she did not pass the time idly. Either she read her way through the economics and geographical sections of the library, or she sat in the harem and worked out the problem with the chess sets that the harems’ occupants had left behind.

  A month passed this way. By Dunya’s tally, her life had been spared for a year and six months—some five hundred nights, give or take. Zahra told stories about a boy who climbed mountains, and the stories were thick with danger and fear, but the boy kept climbing, trying to reach the door of Heaven and knock.

  Gradually, Dunya took more and more courage from these stories. There was a mountain for her to climb that seemed terrifying, and it was this: if her ideas were to do any good, she needed to communicate them to one of the Viziers. And the Vizier that she had the best chance of convincing was the one she least wanted to speak to: her own father.

  She knew he enjoyed passing time in the Lotus Gardens, a place that Dunya did not want to go. It held more memories for her now. But it was the best place for her to talk to him.

  She dressed herself as befitted her station, and with Upalu trailing behind her as attendant she headed to the Lotus Gardens. There she approached him.

  “Father,” she chose to address him as such this time.

  He turned to her. “Dunya! It’s been a long time. What do you want?” He gave her a discomfiting look. “You never speak to me usually, so I assume that you want something.”

  “I want you to listen to me. I have been going into the city, lately, and I have been doing my best to study the troubles of the people—

  “I have been thinking of what might improve the lots of the people in Al-Rayyan. I want to share my ideas with you.”

  “Why not with the Sultan? You spend enough time with him.”r />
  “He doesn’t care about the people of the city. You… well, you might.”

  “Thank you for your overwhelming confidence.”

  “Father, if you may remember, I have little reason to suspect you truly care for the lives of those under you.”

  Upalu leaned forward. “You’re sounding angry,” she whispered in Dunya’s ear. Dunya worked to calm herself, but this did not do her much good.

  “What, just because I gave you and your sister in marriage to the Sultan? Not that you ever thanked me for that.”

  “When I was brought to the Palace, every woman who married the Sultan died,” she said.

  Her father made a “Ssh” gesture, and looked around nervously. “Don’t remind people of that. But it’s all turned out well, hasn’t it?”

  “You’re looking very angry,” Upalu whispered.

  Dunya composed herself. “You say I should put more trust in you. Then, will you do this for me? Will you listen to my proposals and implement them if they will help the city?”

  “I will,” he said. “You may not believe me, but everything I have done, I have done for the good of the city. You think you know its inner workings, and you can help it, fine, share your ideas. God knows we need a new perspective.”

  Dunya bowed. “Father,” she said, “I ask for nothing more.”

  Her father brought her words into the Vizier’s Council. Dunya wished for a way to listen, and Upalu picked up a lamp at random from the harem’s collection and said, “Here, hold this to your ear.” When Dunya did, she could hear the meeting between the Viziers and the Sultan, and hear her father reading out her own words. She smiled, thrilled to hear this, and rejoiced when the Viziers decide to adopt some of her suggested changes.

  She resumed going out into the city, seeking to learn all that she could.

  And somehow—she never quite found out how—the word got out that the new voice in the Vizier’s Council chambers was the voice of the young Princess Dunya. Courtiers looked at her differently in the dining hall. They took notice of her, and Dunya did not always like their attention.

  But out in the streets, when she listened to gossip under her blue headscarf, Dunya heard her own name mentioned from time to time, and more and more she was called “the people’s Princess.”

  But she didn’t want people she met to realize that they were talking to a Princess, so she called herself Rashida, these days when she went out.

  It was a long and busy month for her, which turned into a year of new ideas and new ways of thinking.

  She continued writing letters to Munir. She talked over and over with Upalu about the meaning and usefulness of courage and of pragmatism. And she listened to Zahra’s stories.

  Zahra announced that she was expecting another child.

  The doctors set the delivery date at mid-August, when the summer heat would be torturous. Zahra again was at the center of a round of doctors and attendants to ensure the birth of another healthy child. As for Dunya, she was determined, this time, to pay attention. When the calendar turned to August, she and Upalu joined the throng of attendants on Sultana Zahra. And Dunya whispered to Upalu a wish: “That I may only fall asleep when I wish to.”

  Upalu whispered back, “That’s a strange wish, but I’ll grant it.”

  The wish was granted. On one particular day, Dunya felt a change in the air. She recognized it. She pretended to fall asleep, and lay down in the shade of a carved screen. Through a crack in her eyelids, she saw the other attendants fall asleep and lay down where they were standing. Even Upalu curled up like a flame banking to embers.

  Only Zahra remained awake. And she picked up her veils, turned, and was gone.

  Dunya sat up at once. “Zahra?” she said, at normal volume. There was something supernatural about this sleep; she needn’t worry about awakening anyone. She went to where Zahra had been standing and rubbed her hand on the tiled floor. It was cool. In the August heat, that was remarkable by itself.

  She waited. And she waited. The sun had begun to set when there was a cool breeze through the room, and a flutter of black cloth like a wing, and Zahra appeared. She hurried out of the room of attendants, and to a small side chamber, meant for washing. She took the ewer of water, poured it into the basin one-handed, and then Dunya heard splashing. Zahra was washing something.

  “What are you doing?” Dunya asked, coming around Zahra’s shoulder.

  The older woman exclaimed in surprise. “Don’t sneak up on me!” she chided. “You’ll wake the baby.”

  Yes, there was a baby in Zahra’s hands. This one was not colored blue, but he coughed up a storm. Dunya got a whiff of smoke. When she put her hands into the water, the water was nice and cool.

  “I see you have given the Sultan another son,” Dunya remarked.

  “You are not to speak of this to a soul, you understand,” Zahra said, washing the baby with great focus.

  “I won’t,” Dunya said. “Not even Upalu. Just like the first child.”

  For a time, there was silence, except for the splashing of the water and the child’s coughs, which gradually subsided. Finally, Dunya asked, “Did you rescue him?”

  “What?”

  “Did you rescue him from a fire? He’s coughing, he smells like smoke… ”

  “Yes.”

  “How?” Dunya gripped Zahra’s wrist gently, so as not to hurt the baby, but she hoped to make Zahra look her in the eyes. She failed. Zahra remained focused on the baby. “Are you an enchantress? A sorceress? A pari? You must have magic in you somehow, I know it. You vanished… ”

  “It is not yet the time to tell you,” said Zahra. “And you must make your peace with that, little sister.”

  Dunya let go of Zahra’s wrist. She stayed by the basin, watching the little baby. When Zahra finished drying the child, she wrapped him up and handed him to Dunya. “There, make yourself useful. Remember—not a word.”

  Then, quick and silent as a shadow, Zahra returned to the main chamber and lay on the bed, just as the attendants began to come awake. One by one, they came fully awake and spoke to Zahra about what a wonderful, easy birth that had been, and what a handsome baby—oh, a second son, God be thanked in His heaven! Dunya handed over the child and having caught Upalu’s eye, they left.

  They went to the harem and played chess while the day cooled down. When the announcement rang out over the Palace—Our Highness has a second son! All pray for the health of Prince Hashim!—Upalu captured Dunya’s pawn and looked up at her.

  “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  “Mm.”

  “You’re barely paying attention to the game.”

  “Mm.”

  “It’s something about Zahra. The baby. It had something to do with enchantment, didn’t it?”

  Dunya, her head leaning on one hand, looked up. “I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

  “That’s as good as saying yes! What is at the bottom of it?”

  “I wish I knew. I’m sorry, I can’t tell you.”

  “I told you everything about me.”

  “But this is not about me. This is about Zahra. I barely know her, it turns out.”

  “Well, make a move. I stand to check you in about five turns if you don’t start paying attention.”

  “Upalu?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m glad you’re my friend.”

  There was silence. Upalu finally cleared her throat. “It’s not bad,” she said, “being friends with a human. But you live such a short time. I try not to get too attached.” And she did not capture Dunya’s pawn. And that’s how Dunya knew that Upalu was also glad they were friends.

  There dawned a bright day in Syria, when the king announced that whichever of his three sons could catch a unicorn and return it to the court would be crowned the king.

 
This announcement spread across the kingdom. And in one tanner’s shop, a girl by the name of Batel heard the news, and her eyes glinted, for she was as full of ambition as the shop was full of stink.

  She said to herself, “I bet I could catch a unicorn, and a fair bit quicker than any of the princes. If I brought a unicorn to a prince, I could name my price—up to his hand in marriage. And so I will.” That night, she scrubbed the stink off of her hands and slipped away, to seek a unicorn.

  Batel had learned at her grandmother’s knee three things about unicorns:

  They are blindingly white, and to touch one would burn your hand off;

  They are pure and like to live in the deserts and in the calderas of volcanoes;

  They are intelligent and can speak any language, but are usually caustic.

  Armed with this knowledge, Batel set out for the mountains.

  She heard that the mountains closest to the sea hid volcanoes in their heights. Batel went to the merfolk that lived along the coast and offered them any service or skill they would ask for, if they would give her a means to ascend to the mountaintop.

  The merfolk wanted a score of wineskins, and a score more of leather sacks, treated to resist water. Batel agreed, and the merfolk took her down into the water.

  She swam around the base of the mountains and got as close as she could to the lowest volcano. Then the mermaids gave her precious shoes of fishes’ mail and warned her that they would only last three days, so she had better find her unicorn quickly.

  Batel lost no time in climbing.

  The mountain air was sulfurous, but she was no stranger to fumes. The stone burned, even through her shoes of fishes’ mail, but she kept saying, “And so I will, and so I will,” and kept climbing. When she reached the caldera of the volcano, she could glimpse something white on the far end.

  Then she unhooked from around her neck the cord of half-cured leather she had brought with her. She held it out, and tried not to breathe too much smoke.

  As she had hoped, the unicorn was lured by the smell of the leather, the smell of death and feces that clung to it, because unicorns purify whatever they touch, so what is impure holds a great fascination for them. This unicorn sniffed Batel, close enough to scorch her hair, and she flung the cord around the unicorn’s neck, and although the terrible beast snorted and stomped, it could not escape the touch of a virgin who had captured it honestly.