A Tale of Two Sorcerers, Sinister Cutlass [the unexpected everything txt] 📗

limbs?" she managed, sweetly. "Better fix that now. We're going."

 

The girl sighed, abandoning the game. She trotted over to the pile of clothes folded at the foot of her bed, while Sümeyra hoisted up the baby to wrap him. As Mayyadah wiggled into a little black shift, Sümeyra added, "I'm going to call on Pareesa today, so you'll need to play nicely with Hamed."

 

Mayyadah sighed ponderously, and wandered out to get the market basket. She mumbled little half-hearted "no"s, and Sümeyra rolled her eyes.

 

"You're not going to be this willful in a couple of years, are you?" she murmured to her son, but Jafar only looked to the side and busied himself with eating his own hand.

 

**************************

 

Mayyadah was swinging the basket as Sümeyra, with her son sitting on her arm, stepped up to the Halabi house. Pareesa answered the door, and as she opened it, Sumeyra could see that Saddaq, that mountainous man, had collapsed on a divan before the low table which bore their breakfast.

 

On the floor, Hamed placidly chewed his food, while the older man never took a bite.  He looked defeated.

 

Sümeyra could see that Pareesa's large, round eyes were haunted, too.

 

"Let's talk," said Sümeyra.

 

"Yes, please," Pareesa assented, thirstily.

 

The young wife directed Hamed to finish eating, and she attended to her father-in-law. "I'm going to help Sümeyra at the market. I'll be back by midday," she assured, dropping a kiss on his forehead.

 

The large man nodded wordlessly.

 

Pareesa bent down to speak to Mayyadah. "Here, let me take the basket."

 

The girl hesitated, and her little fingers curled tighter around the handle.

 

"Mayyadah…" Sümeyra warned.

 

"No, no…" the girl managed, looking confused. On market day, this was her basket.

 

"It will become too heavy for you, Mayyadah," the sweet Pareesa explained (the woman was 10 years younger than Sümeyra). She wrapped her plump fingers around the handle and gently tugged it out of Mayyadah's grasp. "You can help your mother collect some vegetables, how about that?"

 

The girl gave a little moan, and Pareesa patted her head. "Go walk with Hamed now, why don't you?"

 

Mayyadah rubbed at the spot on her head where the woman had patted it, and she reluctantly fell into step next to the boy. Hamed held an intricate golden toy, lacquered purple and green, with many interlocking parts. As the girl watched, Hamed became further absorbed in the toy and did not meet her eyes.

 

The women walked almost shoulder-to-shoulder, long brown robes swishing. In a low voice, Sümeyra began: "This must be quite a shock for you… being now married to the sultan."

 

Pareesa flushed pleasurably. "Yes… and my son, now heir to the throne! I never expected such a change. I thought I would be a good mother if I raised him to follow his father, and become a valued member of Talal or Salman's staff. Now there will be so many more expectations… so much more specialized education…."

 

Pareesa suddenly clutched the older woman's arm gravely. "Sümeyra?"

 

"Yes, what is it?" asked Sümeyra.

 

"It's a terrible thing to say, but I'm worried about my husband."

 

"In what way?"

 

"He wasn't raised for the sultanate from the cradle, like the prince. He doesn't know how to rule. I fear he won't be able to lead the empire."

 

Sümeyra looked away, and she decided not to confess the doubts that had flooded her mind when Adhemar had revealed to her the identity of the new sultan. Instead, she tried to assuage the younger woman's fears.

 

"I'm sure Maziyar and my husband will guide him carefully, and soundly. They will overcome this trial."

 

"Yes, I can only hope so. I think he shall depend greatly on your husband's wisdom, Sümeyra."

 

Sümeyra smiled bitterly.

 

Pareesa was just about to ask after that, when a cry erupted from her son.

 

Hamed was going red, while Mayyadah peacefully examined the pretty toy in her hands. Hamed's cries grew as the girl continued to play with his toy, unpunished.

 

Pareesa looked expectantly at Sümeyra.

 

The older woman bowed her head, blushing deeply. 

 

Sümeyra rallied her strength, and was stern.  "Mayyadah, return the toy to Hamed, now."

 

"No," the little girl replied easily.

 

Pareesa's eyes rounded in shock.

 

Sümeyra burned from the accusatory shade she detected in the younger woman's expression. "You will give the toy to Pareesa, then," she ground out, pronouncing each word furiously.

 

The little girl could not seriously question the combined authority of the two women. She reluctantly handed the toy to Pareesa, who did not pat her head this time. Pareesa returned the toy to her son.

 

"I'm sorry," Sümeyra said. "Mayyadah has a mind of her own. It doesn't matter what you tell her; she always considers obedience optional."

 

It was just then that the girl snatched the toy again, and Hamed cried out in protest.

 

"Mayyadah?!" Sümeyra cried out, exasperated and embarrassed.

 

Pareesa stared coldly at the girl, and laid a hand on the toy in the girl's grasp. Mayyadah pulled at it defensively, sure that the woman would just give it back to Hamed so he could ignore her.

 

"Give it to me now, Mayyadah."

 

The girl relinquished it when Pareesa added, "Nobody gets the toy."

 

Mayyadah was familiar with this phrase from Sümeyra's mouth. Resigned, she fell back into stride with Hamed, and she watched the little curlicues of dust puffing up around her small shoes. Hamed's plump chin fell upon his chest, as he had no toy to play with now.

 

"You weren't lying about her, were you?" commented Pareesa.

 

Sümeyra sighed. She put her free arm around her quiet, observant son, and cradled him against her chest. She kissed his forehead, and said nothing.

 

Across the river was the marketplace. An ancient stone bridge arched up before the mothers and their children. Mayyadah could see the first shops just beyond the end of the bridge.

 

Remembering her typical market day excitement, she bounded ahead of the others, her dusty black shift flapping around her ankles. She happily scaled the bridge to its apex, stopping to hop up and down and peep over the edge at the course of the river, that lazy slide of blue, as it wound its way out of the city. She ran down the other side, out of sight.

 

"Aren't you going to call her back?" Pareesa inquired of Sümeyra, as they themselves scaled the bridge.

 

"She'll come back when she wants to play with her brother," Sümeyra assured her, bouncing the baby on her arm. "She may not be an obedient child, but she is a loyal one."

 

Now deprived of his toy, Hamed jogged before them, attempting to catch up with Mayyadah. Sümeyra chuckled.

 

"See how quickly he forgets my daughter's crime!"

 

"I should hope he always remains quick to forgive," Pareesa defended. "It's a virtue."

 

Sümeyra thought about Pareesa's approach to dealing with her own husband.

 

"Well," Sümeyra sighed. "It will make his life simpler."

 

The marketplace was full of activity. There were flashes of vibrant color as textile merchants folded and displayed their fabrics. There was the clatter and singing of jewelry, oil lamps, and other brassware changing hands. Everywhere, there was the buzz of women and maidservants haggling over objects, nudging their ideal prices up to compromise.  Merchant friends laughed and jocularly sought deep discounts from one another.

 

At mid-morning, the sun's warmth was growing, but shade from the tiered houses on either side was languid and cool. The air was redolent with the smoky fragrance of spitting meat and vegetables, with the mixed scents from a whole spectrum of spices and powders, with aromatic tendrils flowing from the coffeehouse.

Sümeyra saw her daughter and Hamed some distance off, accepting gratuitous pieces of fresh cooked lamb from Ali, her meat merchant. Satisfied, she turned with Pareesa to begin measuring out a bagful of brown rice at Hosseini's stall.

 

Whispers in the Marketplace (Part 2)

Hamed had found that when Mayyadah asked the meat man for a treat, she got some juicy, spicy grilled lamb on a stick. When he stood next to her, so did he.

 

He decided to follow her.

 

The girl had rituals. Hamed followed her to a man who sold tobacco and hashish. The man had a table under an awning for transactions, and he surrounded himself with twists of tobacco and a myriad glasses of hashish.

 

Mayyadah gripped the edge of his table, and hoisted herself on tiptoe in order to take in all the smells. Her beaming head swung about and her little nostrils flared as she audibly inhaled. Hamed sniffed the mixture a few times, and he was not particularly moved.

 

The man who worked at the table paused over his ledger, and regarded his short little visitors. His face twisted in a wry smirk, and he teased Mayyadah: "Do you notice anything different in the bouquet today?"

 

"No," the girl replied with a smile, and she toddled on to the next diversion.

 

Hamed followed her to a textiles shop. The girl leaped to touch different fabrics. There was no rhyme or reason to her choices; she merely followed her eyes: a violet as bright as a prince's garments, a teal deeper than the green of any plants Sümeyra kept, and a red with the vibrance of sunset. Hamed noticed how the merchant had arranged the fabrics by color. His round, dark eyes traveled over a continuous spectrum of saturated color, well organized by a careful hand.

 

Hamed liked this shop. He wanted to stay and brush his little fingers over the robes with looping goldwork, but Mayyadah was moving on.

 

They came upon a rug shop. A short bridge arched overhead, between the rug shop and the building opposite. The merchant had hung his most prized rug from the bridge ledge, where it swayed gently in the breeze. Mayyadah peered into the shop, which looked to be cavernous.

 

She turned to smile broadly at Hamed. "Wait 'ere, and count. Then come find me," she said, before bolting into the dark of the shop.

Hamed didn't know how long to count, and he had only heard his mother's maidservant say a few numbers before, so he repeated those before cautiously creeping into the shop.

 

The floor was covered in rugs, straightened out for display, rolled into tubes, and piled by the walls. A staircase in the corner led up to the second floor and and provided bridge access. More rugs than Hamed could count hung from the second floor gallery. He marveled at the red, green, gold, and black. It was all so impossibly wonderful.

 

He almost forgot he was supposed to be finding Mayyadah, until he heard a tiny voice sing out, "'Ahhh-med..."

 

Hamed turned about in confusion. He looked round and round, but he only saw rugs. He peeked behind hanging rugs, looked under the staircase, and as he passed a pile of rolled up carpets, he didn't notice them stir as a small figure climbed out from underneath the tubes, and lunged at him.

 

Hamed was face-down on the soft carpet as Mayyadah cackled and tickled him. The boy at first cried out, then began laughing. He rolled over, and fought to push her away.

 

"Now you 'ide!" she cried, and ran to the front of the shop to shut her eyes and count. Hamed caught his breath, and decided to hide behind a hanging carpet.

 

Mayyadah found him quite quickly. Hamed was studying his concealing rug with dreamy eyes. He didn't bother to move from his woven shade as Mayyadah ran to hide. He vaguely heard the staircase creak a few times.

 

When the boy dutifully emerged and went to