Crystals of Air and Water

Chapter 1: The Royal Nuptials-2

“Now you will listen to me, O pampered cat of a mixed litter,” Shammara said in the same quiet, icy tones. “Your opinion of my son is your own affair, though it could scarcely be lower than mine of you. Your lower-class, harping complaints and petty tyranny show a lack of intelligence and breeding which I trust you’ll correct. Whether you love him or not, whether you honor him as a husband, is your concern and I will not interfere. But I’ve worked long and hard to arrange this marriage, and it will come about. You will wed my son and the union will be consummated, and thus will our two nations be allied. After the wedding night you can sleep with the asses in the stables if that’s your desire, but you will become queen and you will sit beside Haroun on the throne.”

Princess Oma was whimpering from both pain and fear, but from some unknown depth she found a tiny fragment of courage. “What if I spoil your plans and refuse to go through with the ceremony?” she asked. It was hard to talk with her head pulled back, but she choked the words out as best she could.

Shammara gave a sharp tug on the girl’s hair, pulling her head even farther back, and Oma had to grasp the seat of her chair to keep from spilling on the floor and breaking her neck. “You’ll marry him,” Shammara said. “You may have to be carried into the temple with both legs and both arms broken, and you may have to nod your head in response to the vows because your tongue has been cut out, but the ceremony will take place. Your condition depends purely on your cooperation. After the wedding and the coronation, you will be queen. It’s not so terrible a thing, to be queen of Ravan; there are many who will envy you. You can even look forward to a lengthy and prosperous reign, just as long as you don’t interfere with my plans for the city. But you will live only so long as you mind your own business and don’t displease me. Is my point understood?”

Princess Oma couldn’t nod, and she could barely gag out a noise that sounded vaguely affirmative. Shammara smiled down into the princess’s beautiful face and released her hold on the hair. Princess Oma leaned forward in her chair, coughing spasmodically.

“I’m so glad we understand one another,” Shammara said as she glided across the room and out the door again.

Princess Oma had never been so frightened in all her life. For the next ten minutes she sat silently in her chair, her body trembling uncontrollably. No one had ever threatened her or abused her this way, and there was a touch of rage mixed in with the fear, anger that Shammara would so boldly insult her this way. Oma knew she dared not challenge Shammara’s authority again if she valued her health, but she vowed to do everything she could to thwart the woman’s will.

Every day she dispatched a letter to her father, pleading with him to void the marriage contract and declare war on Ravan for slights against her person. Shammara routinely intercepted and destroyed each missive. When Princess Oma realized there would be no help coming to her from Marakh, she closeted herself with her handmaid Hinda to help ease her mind. She gave great thought to Shammara’s words and started to make some plans of her own as the days passed and the date of her wedding drew nearer.

The Holy City of Ravan, City of a Hundred Temples, was a city that rejoiced in celebrations—and a royal wedding was one of the greatest and most joyful that could occur. Catching the festive spirit, the citizens bedecked the outer walls of their homes with fabrics of the brightest colors. Women sewed gifts for the bride -to -be, and the city’s artisans fashioned wedding presents of the highest quality.

Word of the royal wedding spread with the royal messengers Shammara dispatched to the neighboring kingdoms, and from these lands came gifts and ambassadors from royal houses, and common people flocking into Ravan to witness one of the foremost events of their age. The bazaars did a brisk trade and the many caravanserais were filled beyond their capacity. Seldom since the days of its founding had Ravan known greater splendor.

Admitted through Merchant’s Gate with a large group of other pilgrims was a certain priest from the far kingdom of Khmeria. All about him as he walked through the city were merchants hawking their wares, jugglers and street magicians playing to the crowds, brightly colored streamers blowing in the afternoon breeze, the dialects of a dozen different regions being shouted, spoken, and sung. A man could easily lose himself in the gaiety of the moment and not recover his senses for a week.

But the priest paid no attention to the festivities around him. At the first temple he reached, he entered and asked for directions to the Royal Temple, then made his way purposefully through the city until he reached it. At the Royal Temple he asked to speak to Alhena, wife of Umar bin Ibrahim. He was directed to Alhena’s home, where he introduced himself to the servant answering the door as a man who knew Umar bin Ibrahim. The servant ushered him into the qa’a and went to announce his presence to Alhena.

After a few moments Alhena joined him in this beautiful room with its arched recesses, high ceiling, and wooden screens. A tall woman with intelligent, if sad, eyes, she bade him welcome to her husband’s home and offered him the hospitality of her kitchen. A servant brought in a plate of dates and figs, and the priest gratefully accepted a date. Alhena sat crosslegged on one of the mats beside the durqa across from this stranger, and asked him what he had known of her late husband.

The priest did not reply aloud but instead took from his sleeve the letter he’d been told to deliver to no other hand but hers. He walked around the durqa and handed it to her. Alhena had but to look at the writing on the outside to recognize it as her husband’s, and swooned back on her mat in shocked surprise.

The priest called for a servant, and together they brought her around within a few moments. Once the initial surprise was over, Alhena became her clear, rational self again and dismissed the servant so she could read the letter solely in the company of the priest who’d brought it. The priest guided her to a diwan in one of the arched recesses, where Alhena could sit more comfortably, then stepped back a few paces so the lady could read her note in privacy.

Alhena opened the letter with utmost delicacy, as though it were made of spiderwebs instead of sturdy parchment. She read the words with the glisten of a tear ever in the corners of her eyes and with the faintest tremble of her lips, scarcely daring to believe what had been placed before her.

In concise terms, the letter told how Prince Ahmad’s wedding party had been ambushed upon the road by minions of King Basir dressed as brigands, and how they had learned that this perfidy was inspired by the treacherous Shammara; how the miraculous appearance of the daeva Aeshma had saved them from certain doom, and how they had chosen to travel to the oasis of Sarafiq; how they had encountered the wizard Jafar al-Sharif, and how the prophet Muhmad’s strange vision was now sending them around the world on a dangerous quest for the pieces of the Crystal of Oromasd. Umar concluded the letter by telling Alhena to trust in his love for her and in Oromasd’s wisdom that goodness would yet prevail in Ravan.

By the time she finished, Alhena’s eyes were so filled with tears she could no longer distinguish the words on the page. She walked slowly to the small altar with the Dadgah fire always kept burning there, knelt before it, and thanked Oromasd and all the Bounteous Immortals, one by one, for the kindness and mercy they’d shown to her and her beloved Umar.

When she’d finished her prayers and regained some of her composure, she returned to the kind priest who had brought her the blessed news. The man had stood silently all this time, respecting the woman’s emotions; now he asked whether there was any other service he could perform. Alhena said no and offered him a reward for all he had done already, but the man would accept nothing from her but her blessing. He merely smiled and said he was pleased to do Oromasd’s work, which this obviously was.

Alhena offered him hospitality and a place to stay, but again the priest demurred. He would spend this night, he said, praying in the Temple of the Faith, something he had never expected to do in his lifetime. In the morning he would begin his travels back to his native Khmeria. Alhena showered him with her blessings as he departed the house, and for the next several months said extra prayers every day for the welfare of this kind and generous priest.

Being a wise woman, Alhena knew the value of keeping confidences. She knew she could tell no one else in Ravan of this news; to do so would mean their death as well as her own, and would merely alert Shammara to the truth of what was happening in the world beyond the city’s walls. Better to let Ravan’s evil, uncrowned queen gloat in ignorance over her petty triumph; it would give Umar and the prince more time to work their own triumphs in the world. The silence would be a heavy burden, but she could bear it better knowing her beloved Umar was yet alive and carrying out the will of Oromasd.

She reread her husband’s letter many times, until she’d memorized every line and every word of its pages, extracting from it all the love he had mixed with the ink of his pen. Then she placed it in a small dish and set it alight, letting the sacred flame of Oromasd consume it so there would be no evidence of its existence to warn Shammara of the forces gathering against her.

The day of the royal wedding came at last, amid much noise and merriment. Handmaidens from the palace strewed petals of roses, orangeblossoms, and desert lilies throughout the bazaars of Ravan, while billowing stretches of colorful silk and linen cloth were draped from building to building so the sun shone through to the ground in a variety of colors and patterns. Hundreds of musicians paraded through the streets, playing their festive tunes on lyres and lutes, on cymbals and tymbals, tempting the citizens irresistibly to dance. Street vendors sold stuffed dates, garlic-flavored lamb wrapped in flat bread, melons, and hundreds of delicacies to the waiting crowds. Children ran and played in and out among spectators’ legs, men smiled, and women came out of their homes to line the paths in hopes of catching a glimpse of the wedding procession. Evidence of the dyers’ trade was everywhere as people wore their brightest clothes, and household gardens were stripped bare of flowers to add to the festive atmosphere.

Princess Oma was carried on a litter through the main bazaars of the city surrounded by her handmaidens dressed in all colors of the rainbow. The princess’s gown was in the traditional cerise, adorned with other colors of Oromasd as befit a bride in the Holy City. Her kaftan was white silk shot with gold. Heavy gold, cerise, and sapphire embroidery in the intertwined symbols of Marakh and Ravan bordered the hem and sleeves. Over this was a cerise abaaya with gold, white, and sapphire cord edging it and tassels of the gold and white accenting the edges. Floating over this, lifted by the slightest breeze, was a silk gossamer thawb; it gave a rosy fog that kept the technical layer of modesty while showing the beauty of the princess to her soon-to -be subjects. From its edges dangled a thousand tiny antique gold coins that chimed and glinted with every move. Little bells dangled from the servants’ clothing, and the women beat on tambourines, dancing in high spirits around their mistress as she was borne on the shoulders of six priests, symbols of her purity.