The Storyteller's Daughter

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?

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.

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

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.

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.