The Complete Parsina Saga

Volume I: SHRINE OF THE DESERT MAGE-5

He kicked at a clot of dirt in the road at his feet and, in a voice to mock the servant’s, repeated, “We’ve already got a poet. Now all thou needst is a brain, son of a monkey’s sputum.”

He tried again at other gates and other houses throughout the morning, but his reception was largely the same. Storytellers were not in vogue in Ravan these days. Poets, it seemed, were all the rage. Every rich merchant and noble household sponsored at least one, if not an entire stable of the creatures—yet no one was willing to spend a dirham for a storyteller of substance and art.

Jafar’s spirits sank lower with each rejection. To be unwanted is a bad thing, but to know one has a proven talent and to be outcast because it is unpopular is devastating. Jafar’s eyes were cast hopelessly downward as he at last gave up his attempts for the day and began making his way through the now-busy streets of Ravan to the caravanserai where he and Selima currently dwelled. Perhaps tonight he could find some other tavern where his stories were fresh and his welcome hadn’t been worn out.

With his gaze so low, he could not miss the glint of gold as it shone from the corner of a doorway. Thinking at first it might be a coin, he moved closer and saw that it was merely gold thread along the bottom of a long rectangular piece of good white linen. The gold was stitched in a design he recognized as lettering, but the words meant nothing to him. Reading was not among the talents of Jafar al-Sharif. He could hear any story once and know it forever in all its detail, but the mystery of the written word was still beyond his grasp. It was a trait he shared with most men of his time.

Jafar the storyteller bent over and picked up the discarded cloth. He knew enough of such matters to tell it was a valuable piece of fabric—too valuable to be simply lying about in the street. Since it had been lying near a doorway his first thought was that the owner of this building must have dropped it—but the building was a large warehouse, currently empty. The words sewn on the bottom of the cloth might be some blessing or invocation, but they would not reveal the name of the owner; no one sewed names onto cloth because a fine piece of fabric could be handed down from generation to generation, reworn and remade in a variety of guises. There simply was no clue to the original owner of the cloth, and so Jafar assumed it was his to find and keep and use as he would.

The cloth was finely done, but ironically enough it was of little use to him because there wasn’t enough of it to sell. There was real gold in the thread, but to pull the embroidery apart would devalue the entire piece.

“O great lord Oromasd, mysterious indeed are thy gifts,” Jafar mused. “If I had found food, or money with which to buy food, I would have been eternally grateful for thy bounty. Instead, thou givest me a cloth I can neither eat nor sell. I wonder, sometimes, at thy sense of perversity.”

He was about to discard the cloth once again when an unselfish thought struck him. True, the cloth was useless to him, but his daughter Selima might have some use for it. She’d been wearing her late mother’s dresses a year now, and even they were becoming threadbare. It had been so long since she’d had anything new of her own. Jafar had seen her eyeing with envy the beautifully dressed women of Ravan, but Selima had made no complaint, no protest of her lot in life. She deserved at least a token of his parental love for her patience and good spirits.

Jafar al-Sharif looked at the fabric again and smiled, picturing his beautiful Selima wearing it draped over her head and down her back. He could hear her laughter in the ears of his imagination, and he could picture her smile lighting up an entire room with its glow. This cloth would be a gift for Selima, then, courtesy of her father and the great lord Oromasd. Jafar might be in little demand as a storyteller and unable to earn even their daily food, but he vowed there was no one, king or peasant, on the face of this earth who would surpass him in parental affection.

With his love for his daughter warming his heart, Jafar al-Sharif tenderly folded the newfound fabric and held it to his chest as he walked slowly back home.

Near the central fountain in the maidan of Ravan, behind the King’s Bazaar, was the caravanserai where Jafar and his daughter currently made their home. This was a large two-story building with a wide courtyard and a central fountain of its own. Merchants and pilgrims from all corners of Parsina stayed here on their travels through Ravan; merchandise was stored in ground floor rooms around the courtyard while the travelers themselves slept in the upper floor rooms, alone or in dormitories depending on their situation. The landlord of the caravanserai appraised each new guest upon arrival according to the cut of his clothing, the weight of his purse, and the value of his merchandise, and was licensed by the throne to charge each according to his ability to pay. The fees from the richer patrons more than made up for the loss on the poorer ones.

As the poorest among the poor, Jafar al-Sharif and Selima occupied the worst room in the caravanserai, a small enclosure beneath the stairs next to the stables, a room where usually only saddles and horse trappings were stored. The caravanserai landlord, taking some measure of pity on this pair, allowed them to watch over the stables so they might occasionally receive payment from generous travelers to guard their mounts. This payment, small though it was, had enabled them to live for the past few months since arriving in Ravan; but now, with the coming of summer, there would be fewer visitors to the Holy City and fewer beasts in the caravanserai to care for.

As Jafar al-Sharif entered the caravanserai he could see Selima squatting beside the entrance to the stables, idly tracing pictures in the dust on the ground. She did not see him, and the storyteller stopped to look at the beautiful daughter he had raised while she was thus posed in fragile innocence.

Selima was a blossom entering her fifteenth summer. Though veiled and covered now in public, Jafar knew her long black hair flowed like a midnight river down her back and her black eyes glowed like jet, set off by a complexion as radiant as the moon on its fourteenth night. Her breasts were as ripe pomegranates and her slender hips swayed enticingly when she moved. Dressed as she was now, in one of her mother’s old gowns, she made Jafar’s heart ache anew at his loss. He recalled the first time he’d seen his lovely Amineh unveiled on their wedding day, when he realized his parents had arranged a marriage even better than he could have hoped for.

The thought of marriage brought a brief cloud over Jafar’s face as he realized Selima would soon be ripe for marriage herself. He frowned when he thought of his failure as a father to provide her with a suitable dowry. Beautiful though she was, no decent man would consider her without a good bride price, and Jafar was not going to allow just anyone to steal away the treasure of his life. There had to be a way, somehow, to assure Selima the future happiness his daughter deserved.

As he stood there lost in these dismal thoughts, Selima looked over and spotted him, and jumped up to run to his side. Only as she approached did she notice his drawn expression, and she realized his search today must have been as fruitless as it had been in the days and weeks before.

“Oh Father,” she said sadly. “Still no luck?”

“Poets!” Jafar exclaimed with disgust, waving his arms about. “All they want is poets. Imagine—Ravan, a city out of legend, denying its own heritage for poetry. It’s obscene, a travesty.”

Selima put her arms around her father’s waist and held herself tightly to him. “If they want poets, Father, why not be a poet? It can’t be too hard if so many others can do it. I’ve heard you recite poetry, you’re very good. I’ll bet you’d be the best and certainly the handsomest poet in all Ravan.”

Jafar shook his head. “When Oromasd gives you a specific talent, it’s prostitution to demean it. It’s bad enough I have to spin my tales for drunkards in taverns. I’d sooner spend my life guarding stables than twisting my talents into the wrong channels. Besides, I have serious doubts about any place that would scorn storytellers and revere poets.”

He disentangled himself from Selima and walked across the courtyard to their tiny room, where he sat down disconsolately on the trunk that contained the few worldly possessions they still hadn’t sold. Selima followed him, her eyes filled with sadness for the agonies of her poor father.

“I regret the day I ever let you convince me to leave Durkhash,” he said, burying his face momentarily in his hands. “I was known and respected there. I could have become shaykh of the storytellers if I’d stayed. Here I’m just a stablehand with unseemly pretensions.”

Selima knelt beside him, removed her milfa so her full face was showing, and put her slender arms around his shoulders. “You knew as well as I did that Durkhash was no longer for you. In the last year, since Mother died, you told no stories. You wandered the streets like one of those old men who sit near the fountains and babble to anyone who’ll listen.”

“I loved Amineh very much,” Jafar said quietly. “I miss her terribly.”

“I loved her too, and I miss her no less than you do,” Selima insisted strongly. “But Oromasd has seen fit to leave us both among the living, so living is what we must do. A month of mourning is fit and proper, but over a year borders on obsession. When I heard they were lacking storytellers in Ravan I knew it would be the place to rejuvenate you.”

“And instead it’s only made me feel more alone, more unwanted,” Jafar said. “Were it not for my love of you, I’d have ended my life long ago.”

“I’ll hear no more of such nonsense,” Selima said. Taking her father’s head in her hands, she turned it forcefully until his face stared directly into her own. “O my father, you are a wonderful man still in the prime of your years. I’ve seen women turn their heads to follow you when you walk through the streets. I’ve watched their eyes admire you even through the modesty of their milfas. If Ravan does not appreciate such a master storyteller, then Ravan is only the poorer for its ignorance. There are plenty of other cities, hundreds of places to go where a man of your talents will be justly appreciated.”

Jafar al-Sharif smiled wanly and returned his daughter’s hug. “How did an old liar like me raise such a practical, levelheaded daughter?”

“With your honest love and your gentle wisdom,” Selima replied affectionately.

Jafar smiled and, digging into his pocket, pulled out the piece of cloth. “I brought you a present.”

“Oh Father, we have no money for such things.”

“Not everything requires money, though that’s less true in Ravan than elsewhere. Oromasd sent this to me specifically for you to wear, to make you even more beautiful than you already are.” He unfolded the cloth to show it to her in its entirety.