Текст книги "The Storyteller's Daughter"

Автор книги: Кэмерон Доки

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HOW DO ALL GREAT STORIES BEGIN?

With "Once Upon A Time . . "

Once upon a time, there lived a king whose heart was heavy. He had been betrayed by the woman he loved. Though the queen's schemes were discovered before she could deprive her husband of his life, her dying curse killed something deep within him: his ability to love and trust.

And so he makes a terrible resolution: He will take a bride for one night only. In the morning she will face a horrible fate. Then he will choose another. Nothing can change his course, until one brave woman steps forward. Shahrazad, the Storyteller's Daughter.

Steeped in the ancient art of her mother's people, Shahrazad embarks upon a perilous course. With words alone, she will seek to restore the king's heart. As she tells her tales a bond forms between them that neither can deny. But will it be strong enough to hold them together when unexpected danger erupts?

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Can you see me now? Not as I am, but as I was?

A young woman of seventeen years. Straight and slim, my hair and eyes as black as the ebony wood chest that was the only possession my mother brought with her when she married my father. My skin, the color of rich, sweet honey.

Are you ready to hear my greatest secret? The one that I have never spoken? You know only a small part of my story. What I am about to relate has never before been told.

"How can this be?" you ask. All have heard of the storyteller so gifted with words that she told tales for one thousand and one nights running. With her gift, her voice alone, she saved her own life and that of countless others. Through the years, this story has been handed down, with never a hint at anything left out. How, then, can what I claim be true?

Listen now. Listen truly. Fall under my storyteller's spell.

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THIS BOOK IS FOR:

Lisa, always and forever the fairest of them all

Jodi, who’ s no slouch either

Sina, may all your storytelling dreams come true

And for Maju and her daughters

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Prologue

I F Y O U W O U L D K N O W

A story is alive, as you and I are.

It is rounded by muscle and sinew. Rushed with blood. Layered with skin, both rough and smooth. At its core lies soft marrow of hard, white bone. A story beats with the heart of every person who has ever strained ears to listen. On the breath of the storyteller, it soars. Until its images and deeds become so real you can see them in the air, shimmering like oases on the horizon line.

A story can fly like a bee, so straight and swift you catch only the hum of its passing. Or move so slowly it seems motionless, curled in upon itself like a snake in the sun. It can vanish like smoke before the wind. Linger like perfume in the nose. Change with every telling, yet always remain the same.

I am a storyteller, like my mother before me and hers before her. These things I know.

Yet, in spite of all this, I have told no story for almost more years than I care to remember.

Perhaps that is why I have the need to tell one now.

Not just any story. My story. The tale of a girl named Shahrazad.

You sit up a little straighter in your chair. "But wait!" I hear you cry. "I have no need to hear, to read, this story. I have heard it many times before."

And this may be true, I must admit. For my story is not a new one. It is old, even as I am now old.

Though you cannot see me (not quite yet, for you have not yet truly decided to enter the life of this story), I smile. I take no offense at your objection. I can be patient, as anyone who knows even the smallest portion of my tale must know.

I watch, as your hand hovers in midair above the page. Will you go forward, or back? Turn the page, or close the cover?

There is a pause.

Then from across the space that separates us, I see the change come over you. Your hand, so still and steady just a moment ago, now trembles in a slight movement toward the next page....

I smile again, for I know that you are mine now.

Or, to be more precise, you are the story's.

For I recognize the thing that has happened: You have felt the tantalizing brush of surprise.

And, close upon its heels, so swift nothing on earth could have prevented its coming, anticipation.

This tale, which you thought so long asleep as to be incapable of offering anything new, has given an unexpected stretch, reached out, and caught you in its arms. Even as your mind thought to refuse, your heart reached back, already surrendering to the story's ancient spell.

Can you see me now? Not as I am, but as I was?

A young woman of seventeen years. Straight and slim, my hair and eyes as black as the ebony wood chest that was the only possession my mother brought with her when she married my father.

My skin, the color of rich, sweet honey. Others who have told my tale have said that I was beautiful.

But I can see with no eyes but my own, and so I am no judge.

Are you ready to hear my greatest secret? The one that I have never spoken? You know only a small part of my story. What I am about to relate has never before been told.

I see you set the book down into your lap with a thunk. "But how can this be?" you ask. All have heard of the storyteller so gifted with words that she told tales for one thousand and one nights in a row. With her gift, her voice alone, she saved her own life and that of countless others. Through the years, this story has been handed down, with never a hint at anything left out. How, then, can what I claim be true? How can there be anything more?

Listen now. Listen truly. Fall under my storyteller's spell Did I not say that a story could change in the telling yet remain the same in its innermost soul?

Did you truly believe that what you had been told was all there was to know?

Did you ever stop to wonder how the spirit of a man, once a wise and benevolent king, could so lose its way as to plan to make a maiden a bride at night and take her life the very next morning? Did you ever wonder how such a spirit, gone so far astray, could find its way into the light once more?

Was it truly done with words alone?

Or could it be that there was something more?

Something kept long hidden. Held back, untold. A story within a story. Not just the trunk and limbs, which have been told countless times, but something new. Something only I can tell you.

Forget all that you think you know about me. Remember that what you have heard was always told by others. You have never heard me tell my own tale before. No one has, for I have never told it.

I will tell it to you now.

Listen to my name as I send it across the years. Do you not hear its power? The way the very syllables are hard and soft all at once, even as I was? They illuminate and darken. Peveal and conceal Whisper it now, and my story begins.

Shahrazad. Shahrazad. Shahrazad.

C h a p t e r 1

H O W T H E S T O R Y B E G I N S

Once, in days so long past even the graybeards among you remember them only in stories, there lived a king who had two sons. Their names were Shahrayar and Shazaman.

Now, this king was a wise man. Where other rulers raised up their sons in jealousy and anger, keeping themselves strong by causing those around them to be weak, this king strengthened himself by making those around him strong. He raised up his sons in harmony and love. And so, at his passing, his kingdom reaped not the whirlwind, but a great reward. For the princes did not quarrel over their father's earthly goods. Instead, Shahrayar, the eldest, said to his brother, Shazaman, "Hear my words, O Shazaman! You are my brother, and I love you well. Though I am oldest and could, by law, rule all, instead I will make a different choice. Hear now what I propose: "The kingdom of our father is a vast one. Let us then divide it between us, each attending to his own domains and never making war upon the other. In this way, our people will know peace and all will prosper."

To which Shazaman replied, "Firstborn of our father, my brother, Shahrayar! Truly you are our father's worthy successor for, even in your greatness, you seek to do me honor. And, as I love you no less than you love me, I will therefore be satisfied with the lands you grant me and never seek to overthrow you."

Then Shahrayar divided the kingdom, keeping for himself the vast lands of India and Indochina. But to his brother he gave the city of Samarkand, the trade routes and the lands thereof—all jewels of great value.

And so the brothers embraced each other and parted.

But all this is yet to come, for I have let the story run on ahead of itself.

Now, at his father's death, Shahrayar inherited not only the king's lands. He also inherited his court and palace. He inherited courtiers and advisors. Chief among them, most high and highly prized, was his vizier.

A fitting title! One which means, "the one who bears burdens."

What burdens this vizier was to bear in the service of his young king shall soon be told.

The vizier was older than his new master, being more of Shahrayar's father's age, and he had two daughters. Though they were far apart in years, they were close in love. The younger was a child of ten as this tale opens. Her name was Dinarzad. The elder was a young woman of seventeen. She was called Shahrazad.

Dinarzad's mother had been a great lady at court. But Shahrazad's mother had come from afar. Ah!

Many were the tales told about her: Maju the Storyteller.

As a young man the vizier had led the forces of Shahrayar’s father to a great victory, deep in the heart of India. When he returned home, he brought with him a bride, daughter of a people both fierce and proud.

They lived not in cities and settlements as others did, but traveled always from place to place, as if their true home in the world had yet to be found. They obeyed the laws of all the lands they passed through, yet made alliances with none.

Greatly honored among them were the drabardi– the tellers of stories and fortunes. It was whispered that the viziers young wife was greater than all the drabardi who had come before her. So great was her gift that her people wept and cast themselves upon the ground when they understood that she meant to part from them. For, once gone, she would become a stranger and could never return. So said their customs.

And it had been prophesied at Maju's birth that in her time, she would come to bear the greatest drabardi of them all.

Though she loved the vizier, when the time for parting with her people came, Maju wept also. For many days and nights the tears fell from her eyes without ceasing, across all the miles to her new country.

Only when the outrunners declared that the towers of the king's palace were actually in view did Maju dry her eyes. For the sake of a story she herself would never tell, she knew that she must put away her sorrow.

And so it was that Maju the Storyteller came to her new home. She was possessed of an intellect as sharp as the blade of a newly honed knife, and a beauty so terrible only a few could bear to look upon it.

But Maju herself had never had to pass the test of gazing upon her own features. For she was as it was whispered all the truly great drabardi are:

Maju the Storyteller was blind.

The vizier and Maju lived quietly in their quarters in the king's great palace. In the second year of their marriage, Maju presented the vizier with a child. A daughter. They gave to her the name of Shahrazad.

Though Shahrazad grew to young womanhood in the palace, she kept herself far from the pomp and circumstance of court functions. Her father, the vizier, sat at the king's right hand. He was loved and trusted. But, even as the years went by and Shahrazad's mother showed herself to be true and virtuous, few of the people she had come to live among gave their love to Maju the Storyteller. She had not been born in that place, and the fear of such a one proved to be too strong.

And so even as the parents in the kingdom withheld their love and trust from the mother, so did they teach their children to do the same to her child. And though she never saw them nor lived amongst them, Shahrazad grew up like the people of her mother. Searching yet never finding her true place in the world.

And she grew up lonely.

The palace of the king was vast and lovely, and in it there flowed many beautiful fountains. One in particular, the young Shahrazad loved. It was not large, rather a small pool shaded by a pomegranate tree and tucked into a corner of a secluded garden. In it swam many beautiful goldfish. It was tiled with stone of such a piercing blue that looking down into the water was exactly the same as looking up into the sky.

This quiet corner of the palace was Shahrazad's favorite place—the closest she had ever come to finding where she belonged. And so it happened that one day at the beginning of her eighth year, her happiness at being in the place she loved best made Shahrazad set aside her usual caution, and she was taken by surprise.

A group of courtiers' children set upon her, lifted her up, and threw her into the pool with such force that the branches of the pomegranate tree shook above her. Shahrazad struck her head upon the stones that lined the pool and her red blood flowed out into the water.

When the courtiers' children saw what they had done, they became afraid. How terrible, they feared, would be the revenge of Maju the Storyteller! And so they fled, leaving Shahrazad sitting in a pool of bloody water, sobbing as though her heart would break. And thus her mother found her.

"Why do they treat me so?" Shahrazad cried when she saw her mother. "I do nothing to them.

Nothing!"

Though she thought perhaps her own heart would break when she heard the pain and despair in her daughters voice, Maju the Storyteller answered calmly, "Nothing is all you need do, Shahrazad, my daughter. Being yourself is enough. For you are not the same as they are, and they can neither forgive nor forget it. Come now, dry your eyes and get out of the water."

But Shahrazad was hurt and angry, and she felt rebellious. She stayed right where she was. "But I want to be the same!" she cried. "Why must I be different?" She splashed the water with an angry fist. "I won't get out until you tell me."

Before Shahrazad knew what her mother intended, Maju the Storyteller strode to the fountain, lifted her skirts, and waded into the water. She tore one of her sleeves and made a bandage to bind Shahrazad's bleeding head. How Maju knew to do this when she could not see the injury, Shahrazad did not know.

"Get up, go into our apartments, and put on dry clothing," Maju commanded her daughter. "Then go to my chest and bring me the length of cloth you will find inside."

Though her spirit still felt bruised, Shahrazad did as her mother commanded, for she understood that this was the only way Maju would give her an answer—with a story.

While Shahrazad changed into dry clothes, Maju the Storyteller stood in the water, her blind eyes cast downward. As if she could see the pool Shahrazad loved so well, now bloody and sullied. And from her eyes there fell two tears, one each from the left eye and the right. As Maju's tears struck the water, the pool was cleansed, and the water ran clear once more.

When Shahrazad returned, she found her mother sitting beside the fountain, her skirts already dry. At the sound of her daughters footsteps, Maju held out a hand.

"What have you brought me?" she inquired.

Shahrazad reached out and placed a length of cloth into her mothers hand. It was silk as fine and sheer as gossamer, the same color blue as the stones that lined the fountain. Shahrazad watched as Maju brushed her fingers across the surface of the cloth, and she felt the hair rise on her arms.

For she knew that woven into the cloth so finely that only the hands of the storyteller could discover it, there was a tale waiting to be told. And she knew that this was the true storyteller's art. Not the speaking aloud, for that was something anyone might do, but the deciphering of the tale woven into the cloth. A secret known only to the drabardi.

"Ah!" Maju said when she was finished. "You have chosen well, my little one."

Shahrazad made a sound that might have been a laugh and plopped down beside her mother on the edge of the fountain.

"It was hardly a choice," she said. "That was the only piece of cloth in the whole trunk."

"That's as it should be," Maju replied with a smile.'Tor it means that this story is yours. Will you hear it?"

"I will," said Shahrazad.

"Then I will give you its name," said her mother. "It is called..."

Chapter 2

T H E T A L E O F T H E G I R L W H O W I S H E D T O B E W H A T S H E W A S N O T

"Once" Maju the Storyteller murmured as her fingers whispered across the silk, "there lived a girl who was very unhappy, for it seemed to her that no one loved her for what she was.

"Though she was the child of a king—a princess—she was not prized. For in a land that valued beauty above all other attributes, she was not beautiful. In a land where only men could rule, she was not a son.

And so it seemed to her that although others looked upon her all day, they never saw her worth. Instead, they saw only their own disappointment.

"Yet there was one place in the palace of her father where the girl was happy. That was a small pool set beneath a pomegranate tree in the corner of a secluded garden."

At this, Shahraze day, whenad stirred, but the voice of Maju the Storyteller never faltered.

"She would sit beside it all day, watching the goldfish glide along the bottom. One day, when she was feeling particularly sad, the girl spoke her thoughts aloud:

"'Oh, lovely fish!' She sighed. 'How I wish that I were one of you! For then I would have a place in the world, and I would be admired, for all who look upon you exclaim over your loveliness.'

"Now, the princess was young, and so she did not know that it is not always wise to speak your innermost thoughts aloud. For you never know who might be listening. On this day, just as the princess was bemoaning her fate, a djinn was passing by. No sooner did he hear the princess's words than he swooped down and appeared to her in the garden.

"At the sight of a djinn suddenly materializing out of thin air, the princess was understandably alarmed. She leaped to her feet, prepared to flee. But the djinn spoke, and at his words, she halted.

'"Do not fear me, princess,' said the djinn. 'For, I have the power to grant the first wish of your heart.'

'"Tell me what it is then,' said the princess. For she knew that djinns did not always deal fairly with mortals.

'"That is simple,' the djinn replied.'You wish to be a goldfish in that pool of water—a thing which is easily done. But because you are a princess, I will do more. I will grant you two wishes instead of merely one. The first will transform you, as you desire.'

"The heart of the princess had begun to beat so hard she feared her chest would split wide open before she could speak.

"And the second?*

'"Will return you to your true form once more. You have only to say the word and all shall be as I have spoken.'

"'What is the word? asked the princess.

"The djinn pronounced a word of great magic. The princess repeated it, savoring the way the strange syllables rolled across her tongue. In the next instant her voice had ceased, for she was a girl no longer, but a beautiful goldfish swimming in the water.

"The djinn stared down at her for a moment. ‘Lovely princess, I cannot leave you yet,' he murmured.

'For I would see how this wish spins out.' So he made himself invisible and hid himself in the branches of the pomegranate tree. Though a djinn is many things, he is curious, above all else.

"Several days went by. No one seemed to notice that the princess was missing. The djinn kept watch over the fish in the pool from the branches of the pomegranate tree. He thought that he had done his work well, for the princess was the loveliest color gold of all.

"On the fourth day following the princess's transformation, the djinn's vigilance had its reward. As he watched, invisible, from the branches of the tree, two courtiers appeared at opposite ends of the secluded garden. Ah! When they saw each other, great were their exclamations of pleasure and false surprise!

"One, who was no less than a prince—the king's designated heir and cousin to the princess—gestured the other over to the pool. He seated himself at the water's edge, trailing his fingers in the water. Thinking he might have food, the goldfish gathered around. But the young prince had no thought to feed anything other than his own ambition.

'"All is in readiness?' he inquired, being careful to keep his voice low.

"His companion nodded. All is as you have commanded, Highness,' he replied.'Tomorrow, when you walk here in the early morning with the king, I will be hidden in the branches of this tree, which stretches out above the pool. At your signal, I will fall upon him and hold his head beneath the water until he moves no more.'

'"Then I will be king,' the young prince said. And you shall have your reward.'

“And so the conspirators embraced each other and departed.

"Now, when the princess heard this plan, she was greatly alarmed. For, though the djinn's magic word had transformed her outward shape to that of a fish, she was still a girl in her heart and mind. A young girl who loved her father. The princess swam round and round the pool, trying to think of a way to warn him.

"Should she speak the magic word now? If she did, she would be herself again. She could go to her father at once. But what if he refused to see her? For the bitter truth was that the king did not often have time for his daughter. Of all those who saw the princess only for what she was not, her father was chief among them. Had he even noticed she was

"No, the princess thought. She would wait until the morrow. The moment before the conspirators prepared to strike, she would speak the magic word, be restored to her true form, and warn her father. He would have no choice but to believe her then. She would prove her worth at last, and her father would see how much she loved him.

"And so the princess passed a troubled night and waited for the morning.

"Early the next day, just at dawn, there came a rustle of garments as the first conspirator crept into the garden. He climbed the branches of the pomegranate tree, hiding himself among the leaves. The princess bided her time.

"Soon she heard the murmur of low voices as her father and her cousin entered the garden. Still, the princess did nothing. She waited as her father approached the pond, gazing down into its still water.

"Now! the princess thought. She tried to speak the magic word that would bring about the transformation. To her horror, she discovered she could not! For she had no tongue to speak the word. Goldfish do not speak as young girls do. And the princess was just a goldfish, swimming in a pond.

"Desperate now, she sought a way, any way, to save her father. In a frenzy, she swam around the pool.

"'Mercy!' exclaimed the king. 'What ails the fish this morning?’ In the next instant he drew back in alarm. For he had seen a face not his own, and not the prince's, reflected from above in the water. It could only be that someone was hiding in the pomegranate tree. Someone who wished to do him harm.

"When the prince saw the king draw back, he betrayed his true weak nature. He panicked in fear lest all should be lost. And so he also revealed his treachery. From his sash, he drew forth his knife.

"'Traitor!' cried the king as the young man set upon him. The prince was young and strong, but he proved no match for the fury of his uncle. They fought bitterly, and the king's robe was torn. But at last the king knocked the knife from his nephew's hand and swept his feet from under him, sending him splashing into the water. The prince struck his head upon the stones that lined the pool. His head slipped beneath the water and did not rise.

"But the king's danger had not passed. Seeing the young prince dispatched, the prince's fellow conspirator decided to risk all. With a great cry, he sprang from the tree, his knife pointed at the king's unprotected back. But before he could strike home, the fish that had first attracted the king's attention leaped from the water. Up, up, up it sailed, in a perfect arc of gold. The conspirator's knife pierced it clean through.

"The would-be assassin fell into the pond, as had the prince before him. There, he met the fate he had planned for another. For the king held his head beneath the water until he moved no more. But the fish fell to the stones of the garden, mortally wounded, and, as it did, the princess was returned to her true form.

"The sight of his daughter, her heart's blood seeping out onto the cobblestones, gave the king a greater shock than any assassin's knife.

'"My daughter! What magic is this? he cried.

"But by then, the princess was beyond speech. She had given up her life. And so it was the djinn who answered for her. Making himself visible, he appeared before the king and replied, 'O King, it is mine. I heard your daughter, grieving by the side of this pool, and offered her the first wish of her heart. She thought her wish was to be a goldfish in this pool. But what the heart of your daughter truly wished above all else was that she might have value in your eyes. She has paid for this wish in the manner you see.

"And so tell me, O King. What value do you place upon your daughter now?

"So speaking, the djinn bowed before the king and departed.

"Great was the king's sorrow when he heard the djinn's words. For, too late, he recognized his daughter's true value. She had loved him so much she had given up her life for him, while others thought only of his possessions and would have taken his life from him.

"The king had the princess's body laid to rest with all the pomp and ceremony he could command, and declared an entire year of mourning. In her honor, he erected a statue in the pool she had loved so well.

"A fish, its eyes the blue of lapis lazuli. Each and every scale a piece of beaten gold. And from its mouth poured water as clear and sparkling as diamonds. Such was her value, for such had been the strength and purity of her love."

Maju's fingers stopped their movement among the silk. "Well, Shahrazad," she said. "What do you make of this story?"

Shahrazad stayed silent. "Never trust the word of a djinn?" she asked after a moment.

Maju chuckled. "Sound advice," she replied. "Your mind is quick, as always. And your heart? What does it say?"

Shahrazad sighed and put her head upon her mother's shoulder. "That I should know my own value and never seek to be what I am not."

The storyteller reached to stroke her daughter's hair. "Well spoken," she said softly. "Your heart is a strong one, my Shahrazad. With a heart such as yours, many wishes are granted, even those that seem impossible. Remember well what I have spoken."

"I will, Mother," promised Shahrazad. She felt her mother's fingers whisper along her hair. Could Maju read her the way she read the cloth? Shahrazad wondered. She lifted up her head and felt her mother's touch drop away.

"I will always be different, won't I?"

"You will always be different," Maju replied.

"And they will never like me."

"I cannot say what another will or will not do. No one can," answered the storyteller.

Abruptly Shahrazad got to her feet, her expression set. "Then I will learn to live without them."

Maju tipped her face up, as if she could really see her daughter's determined face as it stood over her.

"Do you think that such a thing is possible?"

Shahrazad snorted and turned away. "I don't know yet. When I do, I'll tell you."

At Shahrazad's sharp reply, Maju made a tsk eing sound with the tip of her tongue. She got to her feet in her turn, and the piece of silk she had been holding fell from her lap and floated down into the water. It settled on the surface for no more than a moment.

But in that moment, those with eyes to truly see would have beheld an image they had not noticed before. A fish, outlined in intricate stitches of shimmering gold. Then the silk sank beneath the surface of the water like sugar melting into coffee, and this fish became as any other fish in any other pond.

"I am not so sure I like your story, Maju," Shahrazad informed her as she turned to take her mother by the arm."That djinn tricked the princess in more ways than one. She only got two wishes. Everyone knows you always get three."

"O, bah!" Maju exclaimed. "I waste my talent on you. Such things happen only in fairy stories. Have I not always said so?"

Shahrazad was laughing as they left the garden.

For many moments after their departure, the garden stayed still and silent. Then, there came an agitation high in the pomegranate tree, as if its branches had caught a sudden wind and held it. A face appeared amid the leaves. A youth several years older than Shahrazad shimmied down the trunk and dropped to the ground. Without hesitation, he moved to the pool, and caring nothing for his fine robes, he thrust his arms into the water, all the way to the bottom.

Although he searched until he was wet from head to foot, he could find no trace of the cloth the storyteller had left behind. Finally he simply sat beside the pool, staring down at the fish moving lazily in the water and tried to count them.

This youth's name was Shahrayar.

C h a p t e r 3

S O R R O W

Not long after what I have just related, a great sorrow came to Shahrazad and her father. Maju the Storyteller fell sick of a fever that would not abate. No healers potion would make the fever fall. For many days she lay upon her sickbed never moving, never speaking, with her blind eyes closed. Then, one day, she summoned all her strength, opened her eyes for one last time, and called her daughter to her bedside.

Shahrazad came at her mothers bidding. She sat beside her for many hours. In those hours Maju told her daughter many things, and Shahrazad came to understand much that had been painful and troubling.