The Ninety-Ninth Bride
by Catherine F. King
Book Smugglers Publishing
Contents
The Ninety-Ninth Bride
Inspirations and Influences
A Chat with Catherine F. King
About the Author
Book Smugglers Publishing
Copyright Information
The Ninety-Ninth Bride
Once there was a little girl, born at midnight during the Feast of the Sacrifice, in a certain city of Arabia. The baby’s mother, sighing, named her Dunya. Dunya means “the world,” but what her mother meant by that, no one ever knew, for her mother died that very night.
Dunya’s father did not grieve much; she had not been his favorite wife.
He left Dunya in his mother’s care, and did not give the girl a second thought. His mother, at first stunned by the intrusion of a new life in her secluded estate, soon grew to love her grandchild. So it was that Dunya grew up among the aged, among her grandmother’s friends and sisters-in-law. There, she listened to their stories and squabbles, and learned from them.
Like her aged teachers, she was frequently sick and never strong, and her father, when he visited, tut-tutted that she would not live very long.
Before Dunya grew to be very old at all, Death took away the first of her aged companions. Year by year, one after another of her friends laid down to rest, some in peace, some in pain. The last to hang on was Dunya’s grandmother herself, for she had her young charge to live for, but before Dunya’s thirteenth birthday even her grandmother succumbed.
Before dying, she called Dunya to her side, and gave the girl her final instructions.
“Dunya,” said the grandmother, “Do not be afraid for me, and do not weep; Death and I are old friends. Whatever place you reach in the world, you too must accept its embrace.”
And so, the old woman died.
After the funeral, Dunya was taken to her father’s house. There, no one listened to her or cared about what she had to say. There were six brothers and six sisters, all jostling for attention. There were three wives in constant competition. Looming above them all was the father, who served as the Grand Vizier to a powerful Sultan, and who was always occupied with his work.
The family lived a grand life in the capital of their sand-swept country. The Vizier, Dunya’s father, ordered manuscripts on medicine, astronomy, and theology from all corners of the world, though only his sons were allowed to touch them. He hosted banquets which drew the greatest and richest in the land. His eldest wife hired the finest musicians and reciters to perform at his home. From time to time, even the Sultan would deign to visit them.
When he did visit, he would bring his Sultana. She was unlike any other woman in the city, a pearl from the far North, with pale skin, vigilantly guarded from the sun, and hair that fell down her back like a river of gold and silver. But to Dunya, the woman’s most marvelous grace was her kindness. When they sat in the women’s quarters to dine, the Sultana listened to every woman like a sister, from the servants to the Vizier’s first wife, and she was always especially kind to Dunya. And so Dunya was happy when they visited.
When Dunya was fifteen, the Sultana died suddenly, and the Sultan went mad.
For once, her stepmothers were afraid to gossip. In their silence, Dunya heard the echo of fear. The Vizier prepared to send his family into the countryside without him.
“To better attend to my duties here,” he said, when they asked.
One night, Dunya came upon her father, bent with worry. He looked haggard and worn. Dunya was shy of him, but she could not let him sit there, so melancholy, without helping. She brought him a glass of sharbat and a plate of flaky pastries, and while he ate, she ventured to ask him what made him so afraid.
“I am only a daughter,” she said, “and I know little, but perhaps I can help.”
Her father spoke as if to himself, or to the empty air, as if he could not believe the words he was saying. “The Sultan has gone mad. His madness would destroy a lesser man; in him, it may destroy our Kingdom, too. He demands a gift from each of his viziers, to show our heartfelt loyalty to him.”
“Is there anything I could do?” Dunya asked.
As she said that, her father looked up at her. His eyes were ringed with dark circles, but a cunning look, the look of a politician, gleamed within them. “What would you do,” he asked, “to help your father?”
“Anything,” Dunya said. “I only want to help.”
He stared somewhere past her, beyond her. “I must prove my loyalty to the Sultan,” he said. “And you, with more filial piety than any other child of mine… you will help me.”
He did not answer her question of how, but sent her to bed. The next morning he bade her don her veils to go out, and he took her to the palace.
He led her through the gates, past the main palace with its screened windows, past the fountains and the glorious gardens. She was brought to a pavilion set apart from the main palace, small and ivory-colored among the roses. Inside, the air was heavily perfumed, the sounds muffled by damask curtains and pillows. In the gloom Dunya glimpsed women with painted faces, pleading with her father for help.
Her father did not heed their cries, any more than he would have if he were made of stone. He found an aged woman sitting on a couch, playing chess. He sat Dunya next to the woman, forcibly.
“Now be good,” he told her, “and obey the guards, and listen to this woman here. Remember, you are doing your family, and your father, a great favor.”
Dunya was so stunned she could not speak. She watched her father leave.
When the door shut, Dunya looked around. The women had fallen silent, and were staring at her. Dunya drew her veil closer around her, and grew very afraid. She didn’t belong here: she felt little and lost. She looked at the woman that her father had given her to. She was the oldest woman in the place, her hair gone gray, streaked with black.
“Please, Grandmother, where am I?” Dunya asked.
The old woman laughed. “Grandmother! Am I as old as all that? You may call me Morgiana. And you are in the palace harem.”
“The harem?” Dunya repeated. “Why would my father leave me in the harem?”
“Was that really your father?” asked the woman across the chessboard from Morgiana. “The Grand Vizier? I thought you were a girl he pulled in off the street.”
“Now, now,” said Morgiana. She fetched tea, while other women gathered around, inspecting Dunya with cold, dark eyes. When Morgiana returned, Dunya said, “Last night, my father said that the Sultan had gone mad. Today he brought me here. Someone, please tell me what is going on.”
So Morgiana explained.
“The Sultana betrayed the Sultan. He found her in the arms of another man– her bodyguard. He slew her on the spot.”
“I heard tell,” said the chess-playing concubine, toying with a rook, “that the Vizier found the Sultan drenched in blood. I heard that the Sultan’s only words to him were, ‘It was over too quickly.’”
“Hush, Shirin,” said Morgiana. “The Sultan has gone mad indeed. Having killed his first wife, he now picks his way through the women of the harem. He takes one of us to be his Sultana each day; the concubine chosen is imprisoned in his bedchamber, until he visits her. At the next dawn, the Sultan leaves his chamber and orders his Sultana executed.”
“But why?” Dunya asked.
“Because he is the Sultan,” answered Shirin.
Morgiana said, “Because he wants to continue punishing his wife.”
“Because we are all the same to him,” Shirin added.
“Because he is enamored of death,” Morgiana finished. “He has taken eighty-seven of us for Sultanas so far, including poor Yasmeen, taken just an hour hence. Before her it was Lironi, the prize of Jerusalem, and before that, Zumurrud, of Samarkand. If the Sultan trusts his concubines so little, he must be demanding great shows of loyalty from his viziers.”
“You’ve just become a show of good faith, little girl,” Shirin said, capturing a pawn.
In a small voice, Dunya said, “I am sorry for your plight.” She looked around at the harem women. There were exactly twelve left, including herself.
“Do not be sorry for me,” Morgiana replied. “I am not afraid. I am only sorry that your father used you in such a way.”
“At this rate,” Shirin observed, “you will be the ninety-ninth of the Sultan’s brides. How auspicious!”
Dunya started to cry. She would be sixteen in a month’s time, and her own father had given her over to be a prisoner in the keep of a madman. None in the Sultan’s harem told her to stop crying, or to be brave. They offered what kindnesses they could, but each woman was held fast within their own fear.
Fortunately, they were given a reprieve. The next day, after executing Yasmeen, the Sultan announced that he was going on a hunting trip, leaving the palace—and his marriages—for two weeks. Shirin, ever sharp, said that when he was hunting he slaked his thirst to kill. Morgiana said that she hoped the time spent in nature would soothe his soul.
Two weeks passed. Dunya had learned the names of all of the concubines, and was learning chess from them, when the Sultan returned to the Capital.
Four of his bodyguards came to the harem. They frightened Dunya, these tall men with black skin and sharp eyes. Their gleaming swords separated Shirin from the rest of them, as an attendant covered her with veils of red and white. They led her away. She was glimmering and beautiful, and her jaw clamped shut, lest she curse the Sultan and his entire revered ancestry.
From then on there was no reprieve. After ten days, the only ones left in the harem were Morgiana and Dunya, and then, on the eve of Dunya’s sixteenth birthday, Morgiana was summoned out.
Dunya was prepared to cry herself to exhaustion for the rest of the day, but to her surprise, Sultana Morgiana called Dunya to the royal bedchamber. Dunya went there, escorted by guards, and rejoiced to see her friend still living.
“The Sultan thinks himself a merciful man,” Morgiana said by way of greeting, “for he always grants his wives the mercy of spending their last hours with a friend. And I understand it is your birthday?”
Dunya said that it was, and Morgiana ordered the palace servants to bring out pastries and wine, as haughtily as if she had been doing this all her life. She relaxed onto the cushions of silk from distant China, and gestured through the cedar screen to the palace gardens.
“Look at this splendor. Such glory and grandeur! Would you believe that all these years, my fondest wish has been to escape?”
Dunya shook her head, awed.
“I’ve walked every inch of these grounds. I have found many marvels. In the garden there are trees whose leaves murmur and sing lullabies to themselves, and a fountain that spurts water as cold as ice. In the palace’s basement, there is a carpet, woven in red and black. It has a great magic in it… though I’ve never been able to name what that magic is. A scholar would dream of finding such a menagerie of wonders. But I have never wanted anything more than freedom.”
She continued, as the evening went on, “I was brought here from a faraway land, a country that bordered the sea. Have you ever seen the sea? Can you imagine how vast it is? Ah, I sometimes think that even I have forgotten what it was really like.”
“How did you come to be here?” Dunya asked.
“I was captured. A prisoner of war. I was brought here to grace the bed of the previous Sultan, but instead he left me to languish and wait. Like thieves, forty years have taken away bits of my life. But I am not afraid. Come tomorrow, I will be at last free. I hope you will have a pleasant Festival of Sacrifices, and a wonderful birthday.”
After that, the Sultan was announced. He entered the bedchamber, tall and forbidding, and sent Dunya away without even looking at her. Two of the Sultan’s bodyguards escorted her back to the empty harem.
She did not sleep that night.
At sunrise, Morgiana died, though Dunya did not witness this.
At noon, attendants came to the harem, and wrapped Dunya in the red and white veils. Trembling like a rose in a storm, she was brought before the Sultan, and a holy man. Some prayers and promises were said, and just like that, she was Dunya, the little Sultana.
With the title of Sultana came immediate responsibilities. To fulfil her spiritual obligations, she was guided to the royal mosque under armed guard, to honor the Feast of the Sacrifice.
Prayer, that was still within her power. Listening to the imam, that was a skill she had long since mastered. She listened to his words, and prayed as well as she could, while trying to order her tormented soul to be peaceful.
The imam in his prayer recounted the day when Abraham bound his beloved son Ismail to the altar rock to be sacrificed before Allah. At the last moment, Allah sent an angel to stay Abraham’s knife. But Dunya’s mind lingered on the image of the ram with its horns tangled in thorns. Did the ram think that was fair? Was the ram grateful to Allah?
Silently, Dunya the Sultana prayed for the souls of Morgiana, Shirin, and the others; she prayed for her family; but in her most honest heart, she prayed that Allah would send a way to save her.
Night fell, and after presiding at a feast where she could not eat a morsel, the Sultana had to retire to her rooms. Dunya entered the bedchamber, just as luxurious and beautiful and perfect as it had been the night before.
She sat in the same place as Morgiana, looking out the window restlessly.
It had been a long day, and she was very tired. She laid her head down on the pillow and slept as the stars came out.
She woke up suddenly. The lanterns were dim, the starlight was bright in the room, and there was a strange woman in the bedchamber with her.
“Do not be afraid,” the woman said, before Dunya could cry out. “I am here to help you.”
And Dunya, looking at the woman, was not afraid. The woman was very beautiful. She was tall and strong beneath rich black robes glinting with silver. Her hair was black and glossy, and her eyes were as brilliant as diamonds.
“Who are you?” Dunya asked.
“I have been watching over you since the day you were born, young Dunya,” said the woman, with a gentle smile.
“What is your name?” Dunya was now quite confused.
“You may call me Zahra,” the woman answered. “May I presume to make a request?”
Dunya, bewildered and wondering if the woman could have possibly scaled the palace walls, nodded.
“When the Sultan has arrived and is at ease, ask that I tell you a story. Do you like stories?” Zahra asked.
Before Dunya could answer (or ask another question), the Sultan entered. His eyes were full of anger, despite the sanctity of the night. He shed his robes of state like a snake shedding his skin. As he passed into the bedchamber, he looked around for his bride.
Dunya shrank back, afraid of him, but Zahra stepped forward, greeted him, and called him “Husband.” The Sultan looked suspicious, perhaps comparing the tall figure before him with the diminutive form he had married that morning. He pointed to Dunya, curled up against the screen.
“Who is that?” He demanded.
“You don’t recognize her?” Zahra answered. “She is my little sister, come to keep me company in my last hours. We are the daughters of your faithful Vizier.” She was so graceful, so elegant, that the man forgot the small lady in the corner entirely.
After a time, when Zahra’s charms failed to move him any longer, the Sultan took himself to a table, set against the western wall. He pulled a cl
oth away to uncover a tray full of silver blades, all shapes and sizes, glinting in the lamplight. He picked the instruments up, one by one, and toyed with them.
Dunya started to breathe too quickly, fear stealing her breath, but Zahra seemed not perturbed at all. She called for wine to be poured, and asked Dunya to sit at her knee. As Dunya settled herself comfortably, she looked up at Zahra—uncertain if she looked at a blessing from Allah, or a cunning thief, or maybe both—and asked, “Sister, would you please tell me a story?”
“If the Sultan does not object,” Zahra answered.
The Sultan did not object, but waved his hand in a generous gesture. He turned to them, now sharpening a blade with a whetstone.
“Dunya,” Zahra looked at the girl with a sly and curious expression, “do you know the story of Ali Baba, the forty thieves, and the slave girl?”
Dunya shook her head. And Zahra began her story.
She began to tell Dunya about a poor woodcutter named Ali Baba, who chanced upon a bandit’s treasure trove. Ali Baba stole their gold with the help of the magic words, “Open, Sesame!”
But what had seemed like a marvelous boon turned into a deadly threat. Ali Baba told his brother, Caseem, about the treasure, and against Ali Baba’s warning, Caseem sought out the cave himself. In his delight at finding more gold than he could fit into his saddlebags, Caseem forgot the spell to leave the cave, “Close, Sesame!”
Well, Caseem reasoned, in his gold-filled prison, he could fight off the cave’s owner. He was a strong man, he could take a cowardly bandit or two. But when he heard the words “Open, Sesame!” the door opened to reveal forty thieves. They stared in surprise at an intruder in their treasury—but they weren’t surprised for long.
After three days, Ali Baba sought out Caseem at the cave, and found his elder brother murdered in a manner most gruesome for his greed. Ali Baba retrieved his brother’s body, took him home for burial, and put out the word that Caseem had died of a sudden illness. All that had been the brother’s now belonged to Ali Baba—and first among these assets was a slave girl, known to be both brave and clever, whose name was Morgiana.
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