Climbing the Date Palm

by Shira Glassman

“You are saving them.”

  Shulamit leaned into her and breathed deeply. That feeling had been like a drug. “I hope so.”

  ***

  Inside King Jahandar’s palace, Crown Princess Azar sat in court, unable to take her eyes off her new husband. He had been ravenously attentive to her lately -- singing to her, asking her lots of questions about her ideas and dreams and opinions, and touching her in ways that truly made her feel valued and cherished. She was grateful for the attention, and often she interrupted her thoughts with thankful prayer.

  It was prayer, in fact, that had brought them together this way. Some days ago, the Crown Prince had been in the garden at dawn, praying to the Sun for guidance in his new marriage. He could sense he hadn’t yet captured the heart of the lovely and fiery Azar, even though her mind had indeed chosen him as a suitable companion. “The Sun answered me, dear Princess,” he had told her in bed on that first good night as he caressed her well-loved body. “He spoke in a deep voice that I almost felt flow through my body like the heat of his rays. He taught me how to love you properly. I listened and tried my best to remember every word, and I swear to you, Azar, I’ll do my best to be all that you deserve.”

  Azar adored him now. She was embarrassed that her attitude had ever prompted such prayer. “None heard your prayer save for the Sun, right?”

  “None but a lizard,” laughed the Crown Prince. “I was alone in the garden.”

  “Lizards also pray to the sun, in their own way,” Azar observed, “basking in the heat on the rocks.”

  “I could bask in your heat,” purred the Crown Prince, mounting her again.

  These were the kinds of memories Azar’s mind replayed as she sat in court with her husband and her father-in-law, surrounded by courtiers. She was therefore paying very little attention to the legal case King Jahandar was discussing with two lawyers who had come to arrange an arbitration. The Crown Prince was listening studiously, since he was in training for the throne. She contented herself with studying his expression of concentration.

  Suddenly, the doors at the far end of the hall banged open and drew everyone’s attention. Azar heard a crash and realized Jahandar had sprung up from his throne and was standing, frozen in place, the broken pieces of his teacup scattered around the floor. She followed his stupefied gaze and beheld, standing in the open doorway, a beautiful woman standing before them wearing a floor-length cloak of peacock feathers over a blue gown. Her hands were outstretched, and no guards could come anywhere near her. Dark, curling hair cascaded over her shoulders, held out of her face by a few pieces pinned back behind her head with blue feathers.

  Behind her stood two darker-skinned handmaidens, or so Azar took them for -- one beautiful and bosomy, the other smaller and with hair bundled up into braids. The smaller woman was fidgeting with the ends of the lilac scarf around her neck.

  The court had fallen silent. Jahandar took a step closer. Then the woman spoke, her voice calm and powerful and present, like a mountain.

  “Free my son.”

  Chapter 22: The Last Day

  Whispers rose up through the court like trees swaying in the wind before a big rainstorm. “That’s Queen Shulamit of Perach!” called a man Shulamit recognized as a merchant who had visited her court recently.

  The man standing at the door, who was fidgeting nervously as if he expected to be executed for letting Aafsaneh and her companions through the entrance without introduction, eagerly pounced on the tip. “Really?” he hissed. When the merchant replied with a quick nod, the doorman bellowed, “Presenting Queen Shulamit bat Noach of Perach, to the east.”

  Shulamit stepped forward as the crowd bowed to her, oblivious to the double-take coming from Crown Princess Azar. The little queen’s mouth formed a grim semi-smile as she beheld Jahandar in the flesh, riding a wave of surrealism as she came face-to-face with the man she’d studied on parchment and obsessed about for the past three and a half weeks. Tall and olive-skinned, he towered over her, his dark hair elegantly sculpted in waves and his clothing brilliantly red and gold. Like his son, his features were aesthetically pleasing, but whereas Kaveh was a creature of beauty, Jahandar’s face was hardened by cruelty. “Your Majesty,” she greeted him, honey in her voice but hate in her eyes.

  “I welcome my future daughter-in-law to my kingdom,” said Jahandar in a calm tone that contrasted dramatically with his wide eyes and practically vibrating body. Shulamit could tell from her own experience on the throne that he now clung to automatic protocol to save him from whatever it was he might be feeling. “This is my son, the Crown Prince, and his new wife. My second son is traveling the world. Have you brought Prince Kaveh?”

  “No, he’s on his way separately,” said Shulamit. “But instead, I’ve brought your friend.” Inwardly she was floating on a sea of storm-tossed waves, bobbing up and down, and if she could only keep her head above water, she could get through today.

  “I see that,” said Jahandar, gazing at Aafsaneh until she had to look away under the power of his glance. He turned to the Crown Prince. “My son will take the court into the garden. I will hear no more cases or visitors today.”

  A hubbub rose up. “But, sire!” each of the lawyers exclaimed with twin agitation.

  Jahandar held up his hand. “Don’t worry -- you’ll get your chance to assault my poor ears with your nonsense tomorrow.”

  The Crown Prince stood, nodded to Shulamit, then led the court away.

  The three women now stood alone in the room with the king and his guards. “Where have you been all this time?” Jahandar asked in a softer, more vulnerable voice than Shulamit had thought possible.

  “On my husband’s farm,” said Aafsaneh quietly.

  “Then you’re married? And have a son, you said?”

  “My husband is dead. My son will be too, soon, if I can’t reach that heart I once loved so well.”

  “What are you talking about? By all the holy Sunlight is my soul stirred by your presence,” he added as an aside. “You should have been queen.”

  “My son... that you’ve bidden to be put to death tonight at sunset.”

  “What are you talk-- wait-- Farzin? You’re talking about Farzin? He’s your son?” He whirled around to face his throne, his eyes downcast and angry. “He tried to take over my kingdom.”

  “He tried to preserve your honor,” Aafsaneh pointed out, “which you lost when you broke your promise to the workers.”

  “My honor...” Jahandar turned again and looked up at her, his face a mass of confusion. “We have to talk -- alone.”

  “As long as it takes,” Aafsaneh consented.

  Jahandar ordered the guards away, telling them to take the visiting queen and her “lady” into an adjoining antechamber. The heavy door shut, and they could hear and see very little through its carved open designs.

  “Well,” said Aviva, “we planted the seeds, and we watered them. Now we wait.”

  Shulamit gave her a weak smile and sat down beside her on an ornate cushion.

  They sat for a long while, unable to speak as they strained to hear what was going on. The tones coming through the door were pleading, furious, frustrated -- from Jahandar and Aafsaneh alike. Shulamit was too tense to enjoy looking around the room at the various specimens of art that lived there, but it was the only occupation available. Aviva hopped up off the seat eventually and began wandering around the room examining them more closely, especially the ones that had to do with food and drink.

  After an intolerably long time, a beautiful woman entered the room. It was Azar. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to speak before,” said Azar. “I don’t know what’s come over the king.”

  “That’s okay,” said Shulamit, more icily than she intended. All she could think about was Azar’s double betrayal of Prince Kaveh. Words like broken buzzed around in her head like big ugly houseflies. She looked away.

  Azar sat down across the little room and looked over at Shulamit as if she wanted to speak but wasn’t sure if it
was a good idea. Shulamit wanted to be anywhere else. Finally, the inevitable came. “Your Majesty... do you know... about Prince Kaveh?” Azar’s expression was one of protective concern, not malice or amusement, but this didn’t ease the awful cramp in Shula’s stomach.

  “Kaveh’s been honest with me about everything,” said Shulamit with serene bitterness. In other words, she thought, I know what you did to him. You disgust me.

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Azar, “that there’s probably a cure.”

  “For being narrow-minded?”

  The princess blinked, considering. “It’s true -- people can be very judgmental,” she said, completely missing Shulamit’s meaning. “I mean, it’s not like other forms of sickness. It doesn’t get in the way of, you know, life.”

  Shulamit’s stomach felt like a kettle of boiling soup, and her heartbeat pounded in her heated face. She didn’t say anything, instead concentrating on straining her ears to hear anything she could from beyond the closed door.

  Azar continued, “Take Captain Riv, for example. I don’t know why anyone cares what he does when he’s off-duty. He’s already proven how well he can fight and defend you, and that’s what he’s there for. If I were in your shoes I certainly wouldn’t care what he was lying with -- other men, parrots, an oil lamp... When I met him, I immediately saw why you have so much confidence in him and why you’re willing to overlook--” Tiny droplets of her feelings about the captain were leaving a misty residue around her tone of voice, and her eyes grew dreamy.

  “When did you see my captain?” Shulamit interrupted sharply. Azar obviously didn’t know that Rivka was female -- if she’d seen her someplace and felt an attraction, what did that mean? Was there any way to use this to teach Azar a lesson without outing Rivka?

  “When he and the other man, the older one, came to ask the king’s blessing for your marriage,” said Azar. “I was there. I was in court. What a powerful figure he makes!”

  Shulamit remained expressionless, but she longed to smack her face with the heel of her hand. I should have known, she said to herself. Isaac being Isaac. Oh, well, I guess the cat -- lizard -- will be out of the bag soon enough.

  “Everyone knows him as a hero,” Azar continued. “But the prince, I mean, that’s different. Aren’t you scared he’ll look at men?”

  Aviva, who had been trying to ignore the conversation by concentrating on a jeweled mosaic of an orchard, tensed up. She was behind Azar, so the princess saw nothing, but Shulamit could see raw fear in her sweetheart’s eyes.

  “You’re married to the Crown Prince,” Shulamit pointed out, “but do you never notice men anymore? Ever?”

  Azar’s eyes flickered, and Shulamit hoped she was self-aware enough to think of her crush on Isaac. “But-- but I’d never cheat on my husband.”

  “Exactly. I don’t see why it shouldn’t be the same for someone like Prince Kaveh or anyone else who likes both men and women.” Shulamit, seeing Aviva’s anxiety relax into a beaming smile, straightened her shoulders and held her head high and proud. Despite her growing anxiety about the raised, increasingly annoyed voices beyond the door, for a moment she felt eight feet tall.

  ***

  Hours later on the open grassland, Queen Shulamit’s Royal Guard rode their galloping horses toward the City of the Red Clay. Rivka led them, riding on her husband’s back and clutching an overwhelmed Prince Kaveh to her chest protectively. She was in full battle armor, but Kaveh carried in his pack the wedding dress and chuppah, and they all rode with the hope in their hearts that they’d only be there as a honor guard, not to start a war.

  Isaac was well-rested; when he and Rivka arrived at the palace, he’d immediately gone to bed as she gathered the Royal Guard and gave command. They left at once, riding on ahead because the journey by horseback took longer than that by dragon flight. Rivka, Kaveh, and Isaac caught up with them the next morning, Kaveh fast asleep because he’d been up most of the night terrified about Farzin’s scheduled execution.

  The prince sleeping against Rivka’s chest awoke in a sudden startle, gasping. “Nightmare?” Rivka asked protectively. She had some idea of what devastating pictures his treacherous imagination had produced, especially since she’d spent three years thinking Isaac had died from similar violence.

  “I thought we hadn’t made it.”

  “There’s still light.”

  “But it’s almost sundown.” Kaveh looked back at Captain Riv with pleading eyes, and she felt the sweat of his anxiety seeping against her. The sky before them was lit all over with orange fire, and below them the horses pursued it westward.

  Rivka inhaled deeply. “From what Isaac overheard, the king will wait until it’s dark enough for the bonfire to stand out against the night sky.” Within, she didn’t know if she could trust a man like Jahandar to stick to that plan, and she wished she could cast out a harpoon and use it to tow herself behind the sun itself.

  “Look! There’s the city!” Kaveh sat up straight on the dragon’s back, a taut and quivering plucked string. Red clay walls loomed before them, shadows in the dusk. Some glowed in the remnants of light.

  “Onward!” Riv screamed to her men down below.

  “Onward!” Isaac echoed, in a louder voice.

  “Long live the queen!” the men called back in a unison roar.

  “Can you see anything?” Kaveh squinted into the dusking sky. “It’s getting darker, and my eyes hurt.” With Riv’s firm grip still holding his waist, he leaned forward against Isaac’s neck to peer over his head, each hand grasped tightly around one of Isaac’s gold horns.

  “Isaac, speed up. We have to see inside the city. If there’s a bonfire, we can drop down and retrieve the package.” Rivka had slipped completely into combat mode. “Tell the men we’ll go on ahead. They should keep going and wait for our signal.”

  “Company, continue until you reach the walls,” bellowed Isaac. “Watch the sky for a golden snake and stop at the wall. Without the snake, proceed straight to the river. Repeat, proceed straight to the river.”

  “Yes, sir!” Tivon called back from the head of the company.

  “Do it,” Rivka hissed at her husband, and he zoomed forward. Her powerful thighs gripped him tightly as she held the prince safe with her upper body. He was so frantic that he was making it difficult for her to keep him from falling off the dragon, but she was determined and also very strong. Her thick, wavy hair streamed behind her, waving in the wind, and her cloth mask was plastered against her face.

  They soared over the walls into the city. “Where would they be?”

  “The bridge.”

  “Of course.” It was very crowded outside, and there were torches all over, since the celebration of the closing of the Month of the Sun was about to start. People everywhere were craning their heads up and pointing at the dragon, but Rivka ignored them. Her eyes were fixed forward with single-minded purpose -- looking for fire.

  When they darted around a corner onto the main drag of the river, Rivka’s eyes snapped straight to the far-off bridge and beheld, to her horror, a brilliant yellow blaze twice as tall as a man. Kaveh went limp and tried to slip off the dragon, but Rivka caught him. “Stop it,” she hissed. “We don’t know yet.”

  “Get closer!”

  “We are!”

  As they approached, she saw the dark shape of a humanoid silhouetted against the fire. Kaveh had seen it, too. “Who’s that?” Kaveh gasped. He struggled in Rivka’s grasp, reaching out.

  She strained her eyes. Was it Farzin? They were still too far away to tell if the figure was fat or thin, tall or short, merely standing there in front of the fire, or tied up and screaming, caught in its flames.

  In his frenzy to see, Kaveh nearly fell off again as he leaned to the side, trying to see around Isaac’s head. Rivka seized him as if he were an escaping criminal and held on.

  Then the shape became more distinct. It was a woman, and she was waving her arms in the air at them. Finally, Rivka saw the shape of a braid
sticking out from the woman’s head on both sides. “Shulamit!” Rivka called out.

  Queen Shulamit waved to them again and then danced around with her hands in the air. “He’s free! Farzin is free! Come and join the feast!”

  Chapter 23: In the Dark

  In the streets of the City of the Red Clay, crowds of happy people thronged to celebrate the Month’s End and the New Year. The bright yellow light of torches and lamps made it easy to see, and street vendors on every corner were ready to sell the Citizens their first meat of the year -- fowl, goats, and even more exotic things like frog. A group of little girls sang peasant songs on one street corner, and over across from them, a man sold streamers attached to sticks to anyone feeling frivolous enough to wave them around.

  A marvelous noise was coming from the east, foreshadowed by a burst of light in the sky that looked like a snake of gold against night’s blackness. Those nearest the city gates were first to see them -- a large group of men on horseback, wearing beautiful ceremonial armor and bearing the crest of Shulamit’s house. They were singing as they rode, a steady, thrilling hymn in two-part harmony. Before them, the crowds parted, and ran beside them, and stared.

  In front of them on foot strode three figures.

  “Look! It’s Prince Kaveh!”

  “He’s back!”

  “Where did he go?”

  “Where have you been all month? He ran away when the princess married someone else.”

  “He must have run to the east.”

  “Did you hear? He’s going to marry the queen of Perach.”

  “He looks well.”

  “He certainly looks better than he did at his brother’s wedding.”

  “Who are those? They’re not from around here.”

  “Their hair’s made of bronze!”

  “Look at those muscles!”

  “I’ve never seen such a big sword.”

  “Why is he wearing a mask?”

  “Oi! That’s Riv Dragonfucker!”