Unbidden, a memory comes to me—Shireen and I in the Caliph’s orchards. A baby bird had fallen from its nest. I’d sighed and bit my lip and my Shireen—a dreamer, but not a soft one—had laughed and clapped at my tender-heartedness.
I slide each wet gray leg out from under the flayed skin and gently unbend them. As I flex the little joints, the she-ghoul’s voice returns.
What…what is this, learned one? Tell me!
For a long moment I am mute. Then I force words out, my throat still cracked. “I…I do not know. They are—they look like—the legs of a kid or a ewe still in the womb.”
It as if she nods inside my mind. Or the legs of one of my people I have long wondered how a mere man could captivate me so.
“All knowledge and understanding lies with God,” I say. “Perhaps your husband always had these within him. The villagers say he is of uncertain parentage. Or perhaps… Perhaps his love for you… The crippled beggars of Cairo are the most grotesque—and the best—in the world. It is said that they wish so fiercely to make money begging that their souls reshape their bodies from the inside out. Yesterday I saw such stories as nonsense. But yesterday I’d have named you a villager’s fantasy, too.” As I speak I continue to work the little legs carefully, to help their circulation. The she-ghoul’s sorcery no longer guides my hands, but a physicker’s nurturing routines are nearly as compelling. There is weakness here and I do what I can to help it find strength.
The tiny legs twitch and kick in my hands.
Abdel Jameela’s wife howls in my head. They are drawing on my magic. Something pulls at— The voice falls silent.
I let go of the legs and, before my eyes, they begin to grow. As they grow, they fill with color, as if blood flowed into them. Then fur starts to sprout upon them.
“There is no strength or safety but in God!” I try to close my eyes and focus on the words I speak but I can’t. My head swims and my body swoons.
The spell that I cast on my poor husband to preserve him—these hidden hooves of his nurse on it! O, my surprising, wonderful husband! I hear loud lute music and smell lemongrass and then everything around me goes black.
When I wake I am on my back, looking up at a purple sky. An early morning sky. I am lying on a blanket outside the hovel. I sit up and Abdel Jameela hunches over me with his sour smell. Further away, near the hill-path, I see the black shape of his wife.
“Professor, you are awake! Good!” the hermit says. “We were about to leave.”
But we are glad to have the chance to thank you.
My heart skips and my stomach clenches as I hear that voice in my head again. Kitten purrs and a crushed cardamom scent linger beneath the demon’s words. I look at Abdel Jameela’s legs.
They are sleek and covered in fur the color of almonds. And each leg ends in a perfect cloven hoof. He walks on them with a surprising grace.
Yes, learned one, my beloved husband lives and stands on two hooves. It would not be so if we hadn’t had your help. You have our gratitude.
Dazedly clambering to my feet, I nod in the she-ghoul’s direction. Abdel Jameela claps me on the back wordlessly and takes a few goat-strides toward the hill-path. His wife makes a slight bow to me. With my people, learned one, gratitude is more than a word. Look toward the hovel.
I turn and look. And my breath catches.
A hoard right out of the stories. Gold and spices. Jewels and musks. Silver and silks. Porcelain and punks of aloe.
It is probably ten times the dowry Shireen’s father seeks.
We leave you this and wish you well. I have purged the signs of our work in the hovel. And in the language of the donkeys, I have called two wild asses to carry your goods. No troubles left to bother our brave friend!
I manage to smile gratefully with my head high for one long moment. Blood and bits of the old man’s bone still stain my hands. But as I look on Abdel Jameela and his wife in the light of the sunrise, all my thoughts are not grim or grisly.
As they set off on the hill-path the she-ghoul takes Abdel Jameela’s arm, and the hooves of husband and wife scrabble against the pebbles of Beit Zujaaj hill. I stand stock-still, watching them walk toward the land of the ghouls.
They cross a bend in the path and disappear behind the hill. And a faint voice, full of mischievous laughter and smelling of early morning love in perfumed sheets, whispers in my head. No troubles at all, learned one. For last night your Shireen’s husband-to-be lost his battle with the destroyer of delights.
Can it really be so? The old vulture dead? And me a rich man? I should laugh and dance. Instead I am brought to my knees by the heavy memory of blood-spattered golden hooves. I wonder whether Shireen’s suitor died from his illness, or from malicious magic meant to reward me. I fear for my soul. For a long while I kneel there and cry.
But after a while I can cry no longer. Tears give way to hopes I’d thought dead. I stand and thank Beneficent God, hoping it is not wrong to do so. Then I begin to put together an acceptable story about a secretly-wealthy hermit who has rewarded me for saving his wife’s life. And I wonder what Shireen and her father will think of the man I have become.
Judgment of Swords and Souls
Layla bas Layla’s breath came raggedly and her blue silks were soaked with sweat, but she was pleased with her performance. Ten beheaded in threescore water-drops. She lowered her forked sword.
The clay-and-rag dummy skulls littered the packed-dirt training yard of the Lodge of God. Boulder-faced Shaykh Saif kicked one aside. He wore the same habit of silk blouse and breeches as she—he had been a member of the Order for thirty years longer than she—but even smiling, his craggy features somehow made the bright blue garments seem muted.
“Only seven-and-ten years old, and you’re better with the forked sword than I was as a Dervish in my prime. And I was the best, God forgive me my boasts!”
Layla bowed and sheathed her sword. She ran a hand over her stubbly head and wondered idly how it would feel to have long hair like the women outside the Lodge of God.
As if he sensed her thoughts, Shaykh Saif’s smile faded. “Almighty God willing, someday perhaps your soul will be as disciplined as your sword arm!” There was a reprimand in his eyes as well as his words.
Layla fingered the red silk scarf wound around her blue scabbard, the only difference between her garments and her teacher’s. It was the cause of the discord that was tearing the Lodge of God apart.
She said nothing.
The Shaykh shook his head. “Child, again I say you must repent this willfulness! Seven years now have I known you. I cheered as loudly as any when you moved from student to Dervish. Your skill, your martial focus—you are unique in this Lodge, and not only because you’re female. But this scarf—it disgusts me.”
Disgust. A hard word for her to hear—nearly as hard as if her grand-uncle, the High Shaykh, himself had said it. “Shaykh Saif, I—”
“No, child, I’ve heard your reasons. An oath to your mother, God shelter her soul. What you owe her. But what of your obligations to High Shaykh Aalli? For forty years your grand-uncle has, praise God, been High Shaykh of this Lodge. But by his own words, his time in this world is almost at an end. His rivals see a chance for power. That is why they have called this tribunal against you. Every day that you wear the forbidden color you undo the work that High Shaykh Aalli has done, and you strengthen his enemies. Shaykh Rustaam has taken up your cause, yes, but you deepen the fractures in the Lodge of God so that it may well split asunder. Dervish fighting against Dervish, and over what? A scarf? A red scarf?”
Layla shot her eyes downward during the scolding. She’d thought this training session was meant to help soothe her before the tribunal. Now she saw that it was just another attempt to convince her to break her oath. “I swore to my mother, O Shaykh, that I would wear her scarf when I came of age. I’m a Dervish now and no longer a student. I will keep my oath, and God piss on the man who tries to stop me.” The curse was awkward in her mouth and she r
egretted it as soon as she spoke it.
“These words from you? God forgive you! You’ve spent too much time talking with caravan guards! I warned your grand-uncle to lock you away when men visit!”
“May God forgive me my careless tongue.”
“Almighty God forgives us all our failings, child. But you must smother this obstinacy. For it was not put in you by God—know that for truth.”
Layla knew it, but she did not feel it. And try as she might, she could not find the shame that should have been there. She bit her lip and fell silent again.
Shaykh Saif’s expression grew cold. “I see that my words still mean nothing to you. May it please God to show you your error before your foolishness rends this Lodge in two! In any case, you’re Shaykh Rustaam’s problem now.” He turned his back to her. “Go bathe. The tribunal will commence within the hour and since you still parade the Traitorous Angel’s color, your appearance is already offensive.”
Layla fought back hurt words. She bowed to Shaykh Saif’s back, and returned to her room to prepare for judgment.
Layla’s fingers dug anxiously into the potash-and-olive soapcake as she scrubbed away the training yard’s grime over a pail of spring water. A thousand thoughts raced through Layla’s head, but she took a deep breath and rerouted them like a general commanding soldiers. Only one topic mattered—her mother’s scarf.
For a long time Layla just stood there, water dripping from her body as she stared at the thing, which was spread like a scarlet serpent across her simple reed sleeping-mat. So much trouble over three feet of silk!
The Heavenly Chapters said that the Traitorous Angel, who was cast out of heaven by God, wore red robes. Many in the Order took this to mean that red was unclean, and long-standing tradition banned it from the Lodge, even if scripture itself did not. To most of the Lodge’s students, Dervishes, and Shaykhs, the matter was clear—and her recent insistence on wearing the forbidden color was simply proof that female vanity ought not taint the Lodge of God.
But as her mother lay dying she had given the scarf to Layla, to wear on her seven-and-tenth naming day. And Layla had sworn in God’s name that she would wear it always. In the end, that was all that mattered. That the Order considered such oaths petty and profane, and that her mother hadn’t known what pain the oath would cause, did not excuse Layla. Her last words to her mother had been a promise. O Believer! God hears your every word, and will weigh your lies against your promises. She repeated the bit of scripture again and again in her mind as she donned her blue silks and wound the red scarf back around her scabbard.
On the short walk to the tribunal hall, one of her grand-uncle’s student-attendants ran up to her, huffing. Layla’s heart jumped in her chest. “What’s wrong? The High Shaykh? His illness has not worsened?”
“The High Shaykh, praise God, is better than he’s been in days. His speech is clear and he insists upon presiding over the tribunal himself.” The young attendant tried and failed to keep his eyes from Layla’s scarf. “He bid me fetch you and says he must speak to you before the proceeding begins.”
Layla nodded and silently thanked God that her grand-uncle was fighting the illness that threatened to claim him after nearly a hundred years of life. She followed the attendant to the High Shaykh’s house.
A pack of students hovered about her grand-uncle’s divan. As soon as Layla entered, though, he dismissed them with an irritated motion. The youths shot surreptitious looks at her scarf as they left.
If they can’t discipline even their eyes, they will never become Dervishes.
She looked at her granduncle and saw the white-eyebrowed old man—old even then—who had kissed the top of her head and given her sesame candies when she’d arrived at the Lodge as a terrified orphan.
He would not kiss her now. Before anything else, she was a Dervish and he her High Shaykh. He raised a bone-thin arm in greeting and spoke in his usual to-the-point manner.
“So, my child. A tribunal. Before it begins, I must ask you again: why do you do this?”
“Because, O High Shaykh, my mother, God shelter her soul, pledged me to it.”
Her grand-uncle took a rattling breath. “I dandled your mother on my knee, child. My love for her was great, which is why I brought you into this Lodge. But the Heavenly Chapters tell us ‘No man or woman can be closer to you than God.’ Would you displease Him to fulfill an oath to your mother?”
“Forgive me, O High Shaykh, but my oath to my mother and my oath to God were said with the same words. And…forgive me, but I am not certain that wearing red in the Lodge is truly forbidden.”
“You are right, child, that there is nothing in the Heavenly Chapters that says in so many words that a Dervish must not wear red.” Her grand-uncle spoke carefully, though each word clearly caused him pain. “As with so many of the Lodge of God’s Traditions, this is a matter of interpretation. Still, I could command you to remove that scarf.”
He winced and fell quiet. Layla hated herself for hurting this old man whom she loved. Her grand-uncle breathed in and continued, and she had to strain to hear him. “I could command you, but it would not be right. For you are a Dervish now. In ambiguous matters such as these, you ought to make some of your own rulings. Shaykh Rustaam, of course, agrees.”
He stood up shakily, but as his voice took on the High Shaykh’s formality, it gained strength. “I ask, then: Do you swear before God, O Dervish, that you have made this ruling in love of and obedience to Him?”
O believer! Honor your father and your mother and you have said a thousand prayers. Layla had repeated that section of the Heavenly Chapters countless times over the past year. “O High Shaykh, I do swear it before God.”
“So be it. Would that it could end there, but Shaykh Zaad will not let it.” He was her grand-uncle again, and his voice was weaker than ever. “God help me, child, sometimes I think this is just not the place for you.” He leaned against the wall and ran his fingers over a map that adorned it. Layla’s eyes danced about the city names as they had a hundred times before. Dhamsawaat. Kez. Tamajal. Shaykh Rustaam had told her stories of each, but swore that stories were not enough. Her grand-uncle sat back down.
“Still, all is always as God wills it to be. I’ll see you in the tribunal hall, child, and God willing this will end peacefully.”
Layla thanked her grand-uncle and backed out the doorway bowing. Again, confused and fearful thoughts threatened to overwhelm her. She had to keep her oath to God and her mother—there was simply no other way. But at what cost?
Layla stepped out into the warming midday air. She hadn’t walked ten yards toward the tribunal hall when someone grabbed her from behind and pinned her arms to her body.
“Wake up, now! A drunken cripple could’ve taken you unawares with your head in the clouds like that!”
Before she could begin to struggle she was free again, and tall, long-haired Shaykh Rustaam spun her around to face him. “You’ll need your wits about you when you walk into that hall. Shaykh Zaad isn’t a man to take mercy on a sleepwalking opponent.”
Shaykh Rustaam had always been Layla’s favorite teacher. She was glad to see him before her tribunal. “O Shaykh! May God forgive me, for I have brought discord to His Lodge!”
Shaykh Rustaam toyed with his thick black moustache and gave a pained smile. He then herded her toward the tribunal hall, speaking softly. “Listen to me, Layla bas Layla. You are already a great Dervish—better than any man in this Lodge with the sword, and purer in regimen than those men who would call you heretic. But this is a much bigger poison-pot than you could have cooked up alone. This bit about the red scarf is merely the bushel that proves the camel’s bad back. This tribunal is truly meant to determine one thing—which man holds power in the Lodge of God. This day has been coming for some time now.”
They reached the Lodge’s plain-faced main building. The area about the great brass-bound double doors bustled with students and Dervishes who conspicuously averted their gaze from Lay
la and her Shaykh.
Shaykh Rustaam halted. “Just tell the truth and don’t let Shaykh Zaad cow you. God is with you, for ‘God smiles on all men, but smiles on the righteous man twice.’ Your case is just. Take strength from that.”
The Shaykh headed for an onion-arched side entrance while Layla walked on through the great double doors alone.
The tribunal hall was a simple space—one large, open room with great carpets spread for the scores of students and Dervishes at one end, and a low stone platform for the Shaykhs at the other. Layla sat alone in the hall’s center, the assembly murmuring behind her and the Shaykhs staring down before her.
Her grand-uncle sat on a juniper-wood divan atop the platform, elevated slightly above the simple seat-cushions of the senior Shaykhs. Those three sat cross-legged before the High Shaykh—Shaykh Rustaam, who winked at her affectionately; Shaykh Saif, who as recorder would stay silent during the proceedings; and lastly, staring at her as if at a sucking-beetle found in his pallet, Shaykh Zaad.
Layla looked back toward the assembly, anxious to avoid Shaykh Zaad’s gaze. But then she saw Hakum. A Dervish barely older than she, he was one of Zaad’s most fervent supporters. He scowled at her. He was tall and powerfully built, but Layla had outsparred him twice. It was Hakum who had first run to Zaad to report Layla’s scarf. As she frowned at him, he did not look away, but deepened his scowl and put his hand to his swordhilt. Then Shaykh Saif was speaking, and Layla focused on the matter at hand.
“’Let your trials serve justice, not pageantry’ say the Heavenly Chapters! It has always been so with the Order’s tribunals. And so, we lay the matter out plainly now: The Dervish Layla bas Layla has been called to tribunal by Zaad, Shaykh of the Lodge of God. May God, who alone knows what is true and what is false, guide us to a just outcome. Shaykh Zaad?”
“I beseech God’s blessings on us all, and may God guide us to justice,” Shaykh Zaad invoked. “Layla bas Layla, seven years ago, you were brought into the Lodge as a student. Only last year, you donned the blue silks of a full Dervish, which have been granted to only three females in the Order’s distinguished history. And how have you repaid the Lodge of God?”