Elizabeth Ann Scatborough - The Harem of Aman Akbar

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September 2006

The Harem of Aman Akbar

Elizabeth Scarborough

HAIR-RAISING PERIL IN THE TEMPLE OF DOOM

As soon as I awoke I wished I had not, for I could feel in great detail the agony of

my scalp as each hair in my head tried to rip from its native soil as it strained

upward, and the horrible tension in my neck as my body was pulled in the other

direction by its own weight. The red hot glaze before my eyes vanished briefly when

I blinked and saw Amollia dangling just across from me. Her short curls would not

allow her to drop as far from the iron ring to which they were tied as did my captive

braids…

I saw a shutter fly open, and suddenly a stick was thrust forward, striking

Amollia in the ribs, setting her swinging and shrieking. A moment later I too

received a clout that tore loose part of a braid, so that blood and tears

simultaneously coursed down my face as I rocked to and fro…

"Isn't that a shame?" Chu Mi's slimy voice hissed to Aster. "Such nice little

women. Such good friends of yours. See how much they hurt? Don't you want to

give us what is ours so we can pull them in before they are quite bald and dropped

into the river for the crocodiles to eat… ?"

contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

THE HAREM OF AMAN AKBAR

A Bantam Book/October 1984

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by

mimeograph or any other means, without permission.

For information address: Bantam Books, Inc.

ISBN 0-553-24441-8

Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words "Bantam Books" and

the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca

Registrada. Bantam Books, Inc., 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To all of my feminist friends who have become interested in the lives and culture

of Middle Eastern women through Middle Eastern dance, and to all of my teachers

of that dance, especially Jeannie and Naima. Also to all of my men friends who have

had harems, now have harems, or would like to have harems, I affectionately

dedicate this book.

Chapter 1

^ »

In the second year of the reign of the Boy King, Aman Akbar commanded his

djinn to begin casting into the ether for wives suitable to the station to which our

illustrious lord then aspired. An ambitious yet kindly man with a taste for the exotic

engendered by the fashion of the day, Aman specified to his djinn servant that a

woman for his harem must be comely and well learned in wifely crafts and also be

of noble blood among her own people, but must not be so beloved that loss of her

would greatly grieve her kin.

Perhaps you will think that such an arrangement was all very well for Aman

Akbar but detestable for the women involved. You would, for the most part, be

wrong, though the error is certainly forgivable unless you, as I, had been the third

daughter and middle child of the overlord of our tribe. We Yahtzeni are fighters

first (by inclination) and herders secondarily (by occupation). Thus good men are a

rarity among us, for the attrition rate is great.

Our foes are distant relations to my mother. They live primarily in the upper

portions of the hills and raid every spring and fall, killing many men while stealing

sheep and women. We try to raid back, but are not such good climbers as they, and

lose even more men in such raids. Meanwhile, the women left behind still bear

children, and these children have in later years seemed more often to be girls than

boys, so that the girls among us, by adolescence, have no marriage to look forward

to, but a life of perpetual girlhood and servitude to their parents and the tribe. The

only possible distraction any of us can as a rule anticipate is to be captured,

enslaved, ravished and married only when we bear male children to our captors and

are thus proven worthy of protection.

By the time I, as third daughter, was born to my father, he had begun to despair

of sons and in his sorrow became unhinged enough to teach me to fight with the

curved bronze dagger and lance, to hunt with bow and arrow, and to capture and

ride wild ponies, as he would have taught a son. My mother thought him mad and

kept telling him no good would come of it, and the surviving older men in the tribe

taunted us both and regarded me as uncommonly wild and strange. Great was my

mother's relief when she bore my brother and I could be tethered to the spindle,

flocks and loom, and taught the healing potions and prayers she considered

essential to a daughter's education. Still, my early training as my father's son stood

me in good stead when the camp was raided, my father sorely injured and my

sister—somewhat gratefully—carried off. My own distaste for my people's enemies'

marriage customs was explicitly expressed with my dagger.

Thus by the time I first felt eyes upon me as I sat spinning, watching the sheep, I

was already considered unmarriageable among our people and thought to be of an

unnaturally fierce disposition.

Rain was sparse that season, and the sky, promising snow, looked like a felted

blanket. Our sheep ranged far and wide to find forage and I with them. I'd found a

comfortable rock, just high enough for my spindle to rest against my thigh. When I

felt the eyes upon me, I stilled my spindle in mid-whirl and clasped it to my hip. The

hills around my flock teemed with wolves and bear, as well as mother's disgruntled

relatives. I set aside the spindle and grabbed my dagger, fearing the two-legged

beasts more than the four. Had I known what was truly behind my unease, I would

have been terrified beyond any comfort to be gained from the knife.

Later I would be glad that I had had to wear my new robe that day, for the

tattered one my mother had sewn for me for my womanhood dance had been torn

beyond repair in the last battle. Even before that, it had been worn to transparency

in places so intimate I was almost embarrassed to wear it in front of the sheep. The

threads for my new robe were finer spun than those in the old one, for my skill with

the spindle had increased in the years separating the making of the two. I had dyed

it a rich rust color by soaking it in a bath of iron wood. Escaping the camp to roam

with the sheep put me in a festive mood. That and the chill sharpening the morning

prompted me to add to my new finery the felted vest I had been embroidering for

my sister before her capture—it had the fleece of a black lamb inside and the yarns

were various yellows and soft pinks. Aman says that he found the contrast between

my finery of that day and my ferocious aspect in battle most erotic—Aman talks that

way sometimes. For although he has lived all his life in Kharristan, he has always

been a keen watcher of the market place and also is the possessor of a vivid

imagination. He finds the strange people who flock to that center of the civilized

world endlessly fascinating and their diversity intriguing. Thus he was prepared to

find me beautiful instead of merely odd.

I am told the djinn complained that I was unworthy—what noble woman, he

protested, would be so careless of herself as to bind her hair into leather-held braids

instead of twining it with pearls? Which shows how much the djinn knows about

feminine adornment—my hair is almost white and pearls would ill-become me. He

also deemed my substantial nose hideous—but this is typical of the djinn, who has

lived a sheltered existence, for the most part, confined in his bottle. Therefore his

views often tend to be prudish and conservative. Though a great one for taking

others places, he has generally taken no part in the life of those places, thereby

managing to stay relatively untouched and unenlightened by his travels. However,

on the occasion in question, his priggish complaints fell on unheeding ears, for

Aman replied, "Her nose is curved like the beak of the hawk and is a fitting

complement to the glitter of her eyes—know you, o djinn, that the hawk is a noble

bird and proud and also, I think, useful." There was further discussion of the sort

Aman indulges in when carrying out these quasi-poetic analogies of his, about soft

feathers and delicate coloring but even when he is being smooth-tongued and

soft-headed he can be acute. You notice he did not pick a frivolous bird to compare

with me.

All that morning I felt skittish as an unbroken pony, disturbed, though I knew it

not, by invisible scrutiny.

The new pasturage was a sloping mountain meadow and the way was long and

tiresome. I quickly shed my vest, the pleasant coolness giving way to prickly

discomfort as the sun and I climbed together. By the time I reached the stream

where I planned to watch while the sheep grazed, sweat dewed my forehead and

stuck my new garments to me at the armpits. The bubbling water looked refreshing

and I smelled goatish. I did not wish to spoil my new clothing by stinking it up on

its first day in use, so I shed it gratefully and waded in. The icy waters revived me

for but a moment before I began shaking with a cold that struck through my body

as though to cut flesh from bone. I shot from the water, blowing through my nose

and lips like a horse, hugging myself and shivering in my blued hide.

"Who can account for the taste of my master?" a voice whined, seemingly from

above. I looked up sharply and dove for my clothing, not to cover myself so much as

to find my dagger, still tangled in the silken sash. Despite the unfamiliar accent, I

feared I had been caught by our enemies and was determined to sunder as many as

possible from their lives before they could sunder me from my maidenhood.

"Yes, yes, Rasa Ulliovna, by all means cover thyself," the querulous voice

continued. I was so startled to hear it speak my name that I abandoned my blade to

search again for the speaker. Once I saw him, I ceased to worry. Such a one, I

thought, I could handle with my two hands. "Do you obey me, girl," the djinn

commanded more sternly. "We have much to do before I may deliver thee unto the

master."

"You, pip-squeak, will deliver me to no one," I replied, snatching my gown over

my head in one jerk so as not to let it blind me any longer than necessary. "How

dare you spy upon a princess of the Yahtzeni at her bath?"

"Thy pardon, Highness," the entity replied, rising from the rock on which he

balanced like a ball and doing his best to bend at his nonexistent waist. "I sought a

private time with thee. The draperies of thy bathing tent were invisible to mine

eyes." In spite of his mockery, the djinn seemed genuinely disconcerted for, as I

have mentioned, he is prudish. "Thou hast no need to take fright of despoilment by

the gaze of mine eyes. I am an ifrit, not a man, who sees thee in thy rather

unpalatable nakedness."

I knew not the meaning of the term "ifrit," nor of the terms "djinn" or "genie," for

there are no such creatures in the lore of the Yahtzeni—even at that, the entity

obviously was not one of my usual enemies. While several of them might have had

good cause to learn my name, none of them were apt to use the djinn's fancy mode

of speech. Nor would any of them for any reason I could think of short of madness

or the threatened torture of loved ones attire themselves in his strange

clothing—billowing trousers of scarlet silk, an indigo tunic, and a vest of a color I

had never seen except in some sunsets—a brilliant blue-green, like the stones of

which I have become so fond that Aman has declared them my talisman, in

particular. Around the circumference of the being's copious midsection wound a

sash of golden cloth. The same cloth wrapped his head like a bandage. He wore no

weapons, and his feet faded into a wisp of mist settling like a low fog across the

rock. This last factor would have made me cautious, had I dwelt upon it, but the

djinn's bland unwhiskered face and soft corpulence assured me that if he was an

enemy, he was scarcely one with which to reckon seriously. Still, he might be able to

summon friends, and I had my sheep to tend.

"Begone," I told him, flashing my dagger, "or I'll let the air out of you." And then

my dagger flashed no longer, but vanished from my fist. At that I trembled like a

child and shrank from him, knowing I had made a grave error.

"That's better," the djinn said smugly, and vanished to reappear beside me, all of

him, that is, but the feet.

This time I observed his lack of visible support with great reverence, prostrating

myself before the nonexistent detail and groveling, which is the only course of

action prescribed by Yahtzeni lore for dealing with demons. "Forgive me, fearsome

one," I managed finally. "I knew not that I was in the presence of such as yourself."

"Nevertheless, thou art," the djinn replied, "and wasting my time too, I might

add. If thou wilt be so kind as to separate thyself from the earth as thou didst from

the water, I shall undertake to enchant thee at once so thy master may behold thee

in thy dubious splendor before this day has ended and another begun."

"Master?" I asked, puzzled despite my terror. "Do you mean my father? I have no

other master."

"Have had," the djinn corrected, somewhat wearily. "And a deplorable state of

affairs that is too. But never fear, that also shall be remedied by my powers and by

thy master's will. For the great Aman Akbar hast looked upon thee and found thee

pleasing, though God alone knows why, and has bidden me to bring thee to him this

day."

"That's all very well," I said, my awe lessening as I grew used to this peculiar

being. "But I'm not at all sure I want a master. I'm a chieftain's daughter, not a

slave—what sort of man is this Ak—it sounds like a sneeze to me. And even if I did

want to go, what of my sheep?"

The djinn snorted, his jowls wobbling. "Thou art even more foolish than thou

lookest, O woman, to think of sheep and talk of slavery when high honor hast been

awarded thee. Speak not of such matters to the instrument of thy deliverance from

squalor and ignorance. For thou art to be installed in the harem of Aman Akbar,

richest man in Kharristan save only the Emir himself, and—er—hero of a thousand

adventures. I do his bidding in seeking thee out for this privilege."

"Some privilege," I answered, sitting up straight to pull on my leggings. "You spy

upon me like a lecher and seek to carry me off—to go to some strange man and his

harem, whatever that is, with no talk of marriage—and certainly none of a bride

price. And I suppose that in order to accommodate you and your master I am to let

my people's sheep just scatter among these hills? And who will do the work in our

tent with my sisters gone, my father injured, and my mother growing daily older

and more feeble?"

The djinn cast his eyes downward, as if to gather patience, and sighed a sigh that

parted the mist where his feet should have been.

"Thou art a willful woman as well as an ugly one, and I pity my master. But he

would have thee and is not a man known for unfairness. Thy sheep shall return to

thy father's fold of their own accord. And I suppose I may provide thy father with

recompense for the loss of thy labor if that is the way of thy people—though only

crass barbarians would have it so. Properly, the master should demand of thy father

a dowry for relieving thy poor parent of the burden of thy appetite and rattling

tongue."

"Demanding of my father would do no good," I said. "The flocks and the horses

belong to all in my tribe, as does the work of my hands."

"I see. A cask of jewels should be more than adequate. I'll send them along with

the sheep."

"Horses," I said boldly. "My people have no need for trinkets, but horses would

lighten my mother's load and help at the herding and moving the tents. Ten should

do nicely."

"Ten!" the djinn sputtered, but in a thrice produced them in a manner I found

wondrous. I made no further protest as the beasts, black, necks arching, stampeded

the sheep down the hill away from us and toward my father's camp. I swelled with

pride at the bargain I had made and hardened myself to accompany the djinn.

Ten horses was the highest bride price ever paid for any woman among my

people and indeed, as the djinn had suspected, the custom of paying any such price

had fallen into disuse because of the lack of men. The djinn, perceiving my

ill-concealed look of triumph, muttered something about the price being high

enough to buy twenty more tractable houris, but then he snapped his fingers, the

mist of his feet solidified into a rug, and when he had seated himself upon it and

convinced me to do the same, he spoke a quick incantation and we rose into the air

in a most astonishing fashion.

That the djinn should use an unusual mode of travel did not surprise me. I would

have been disappointed had such a powerful being suggested we walk or ride one of

the new horses. But the higher we flew, the more the mountains and glacial clefts

drew my eyes over the side, and when I looked away, I had to whip my head back

quickly so the wind would disperse the tears that formed as I saw my familiar plains

shrinking to a thin yellow-green line. I spied the camp of our enemies and leaned so

far over the edge of the rug, trying to spot my sister, that it tilted dangerously. The

djinn threw out his arm and a magic force pulled me back and straightened our

course again.

We flew over more mountains, beyond which were broad fields and seas and

other mountains and great cities, and yet more plains and mountains; all of this in

an eye's winking.

As we soared higher, it seemed to me, we should have seen yet more wonderful

sights, but this was not so. Above the clouds were none of the palaces and gardens

and herds of the gods, nor even the warriors we had lost in battle sitting around

sharpening their knives and axes, waiting to make the next thunderstorm. Or if they

were there, they were invisible to me, for all I saw were the tops of clouds, nothing

more.

The djinn sat silent, legs and arms folded, and would not speak to me. After a

time the clouds thinned to a gauzy film, muffling us for a moment in its fleece

before our conveyance sliced through it. I saw that we had been among the

shrouded peaks of very tall mountains. From these we dropped into foothills,

through which flowed a pair of rivers, between which was set a great city—round,

scalloped with domes and prickled with spires, glowing pale amber by the light of

the sickle-shaped moon rising above it.

"Kharristan," the djinn said, hovering briefly to savor my astounded reaction at

the sight of what his culture had produced. The cities I had seen were those walled

towns we visited from time to time to trade our fleeces, horn buttons, weavings and

yarns for knives, needles, certain foodstuffs and occasionally for dyes we did not

possess. Once or twice I had gone with father to trade with the servants of powerful

men at the back entrances of their fine houses; there I saw a fine bolt of silken cloth,

a porcelain bowl with figures painted on it, and a portable goddess chipped from

marble. But mostly what I had seen were rude collections of straw and mud or

mortared stone, surrounded by walls of the same—evil-smelling, foul traps for the

whey-faced city men who dwelt in their own filth—as my father was fond of saying.

None were like this mountain of moonlit walls, golden spires and billowing domes

whose deeply shadowed and gracefully arched windows and doors made it look airy

as a snowflake.

Muddled as I was by moonlight and the exhaustion of my unusual activities that

day, I failed to notice the other magnificent palace in Kharristan, which seemed to

me to be all one great and beautiful building. The djinn flew us to Aman Akbar's

residence as soon as he felt I had had sufficient time to be duly impressed and yet

not enough respite to regain my composure, which he seemed to delight in

upsetting. I didn't even recognize it as a residence. Even though we settled down

among walls to get there, I thought we'd landed in a vacant pasture in the middle of

the city, for there were flowers blooming, trees and an animal blowing water out of

the middle of a rectangular pool. The weather was no longer winter, as it had been

at home. The wind rushing past my cheeks as we landed was as warm as human

breath. My woolen robe began to prickle once more against my skin.

Aster, about whom I will say more later, would make sure to tell you what kind of

flowers bloomed there, and how many of them, and also would remark that the

trees were different than the sort I was used to. She would also tell a good many

other things which are beside the point and probably, on the whole, not entirely

truthful. What was important was that Aman Akbar was waiting for me beside the

pool.

Deep in the brain of every woman who has ever lived, there has been the dream

of Aman Akbar or someone like him. Not that I had previously imagined a man who

looked like him—never had I beheld anyone so dark and yet so fair at the same time.

But a man whose touch is soft as a horse's muzzle, whose breath is sweet as clover

rather than sour with the remnants of his last meal, a man who smells of

well-washed cloth and whose hair mirrors any available light—aiyee! He was so

much prettier than I was I could hardly speak for gawking. When he reached out to

take one of my hands I hid them both in my skirt, ashamed of the dust deep in the

knuckle creases and the scars of many brambles and many battles crisscrossed in

pallid patterns along the backs of them and up my wrists and arms. His hands were

well-shaped and long-fingered, the skin the color of honey, soft and smooth, though

I felt the roughness of calluses when he succeeded in capturing my uncooperative

wrist.

Not that beauty and good grooming were all that there was to his charm. In my

experience, a man's cleanliness is less often to his own credit than to that of the

woman who scrubs his clothing and carries the water for his libations. But there

was also about Aman Akbar an air of wonder—at his surroundings, at the djinn

(though this was tempered by such haughtiness as befitted the master of such an

establishment), at life, and oddest of all, at me. His eyes were blacker than sloes but

were wide and warm. His smile was at once sweeter and more tender than my

mother's and more understanding and protective than my father's. Not that my

parents ever smiled, either of them. Our people aren't generally great smilers. But

his was even better than theirs would have been if they did that sort of thing. I felt

that here was a man who would never cuff me for losing a sheep or breaking a water

jar because I was more precious to him than anything else. Needless to say, I took to

him immediately.

He said something to me in a low, soft voice. I recognized his name and mine

though when he said "Rasa" he spoke the word with such melodious tones that it

sounded totally unlike it did when I heard it screamed across the plains or over the

cookfires. The way Aman said it it should have meant "first blossom of spring" or

"face of the new moon" instead of "wild grass" or "weed"—which is its true

meaning. Other than the names, however, I didn't understand a word he said. I

nodded hopefully, nonetheless. He blinked, smiled sympathetically, and gave the

djinn a command.

The latter rolled his eyes and bowed with a great show of reluctance, muttering,

"But what is the use of foreign wives if you teach them to speak? Is not the chief

virtue of such women their inability to scold or gossip?"

"The Lady Rasa is to be the heart of my heart, the light of my soul, o ifrit. How

then shall I gain her confidence if she cannot understand a word I speak? I must

not only win her love, but must also acquaint her with her new surroundings and

the one true God and His word."

"It is done. Every word that passeth from thy mouth she hath understood.

However, I can still arrange it so that she can understand all thou sayeth but cannot

speak herself," the djinn said hopefully. Aman looked sternly upon him. The djinn

shrugged and abruptly dissolved into smoke and blew away.

"Where did he go?" I asked, as much to see if the demon had done as he was told

as because I was interested. He had. Aman stroked my hand in a pleased fashion

with his thumb as he answered.

"Back to his bottle, beloved, to wait until I summon him again."

"Are you a great magician then, to be in control of such a demon?" I should have

thought of that before. This bargain I had made would not be so clever if my

husband were able to kill me with a fire-bolt the first time I angered him or would

change from his present virile form into something vile at bedtime. A Yahtzeni

woman usually lost a few teeth after marriage, but I had figured that I, being a

largish girl, would be able to handle any of the men in our tribe or our enemy's. Had

I inadvertently overmatched myself?

"No more than any other man of extraordinary wit and courage," he said, puffing

out his chest and gesturing grandly before darting me a quick sidelong look to see if

I was sufficiently impressed. I was simply puzzled, and must have looked it, for he

relaxed and grinned, patting my arm. "What I mean to say, my darling Rasa, is that

winning the services of the djinn required a great deal of both—and considerable

luck. Though it was all in watching people, really. I noticed that a certain very

wealthy man seemed to be searching for something and guessed that the object of

his search must be a thing of great value, else why would he bother with it? With a

little shrewd maneuvering, I managed to beat his agents to the thing, which turned

out to be an old bottle." He smiled, his teeth flashing like the edge of the moon. "No

Kharristani in his right mind would ignore such a treasure. Some old bottles

contain nothing, some contain old wine, but many—and these are the important

ones, the ones of which we all learn when we are but children, contain captive

members of the race of the djinn, who must grant the person who holds their bottle

three wishes."

"Why?"

His hands spread and his eyebrows rose, a gesture more graceful than a shrug.

"Thus it is written. Some say the bottle contains not only the djinn's form but his

soul, and to preserve it from harm the djinn performs his magical services."

The whole thing had an unsavory sound to me but I hated to be critical so early

in our relationship. One could see, however, why the djinn wouldn't necessarily be a

cheerful or willing servant.

Aman Akbar was leading me into the palace, not through the back entrance

either, but through open-sided passages roofed with arched ceilings and supported

by white pillars carved with trailing vines. The warm night air was laden with the

sweet-spicy smells of flowers I had never seen before and the sliver of moonlight

danced our shadows before us. Inside, a lamp lit itself and dipped in front of us

before leading us onward. I gaped.

Aman Akbar looked pleased as a six-year-old boy who has mastered his first

slingshot. "You will notice that when I ordered this palace, I ordered it all with the

utmost in magical labor-saving devices—no servants anywhere. I have only to step

across the threshold and magic provides for my every wish." He placed a hand on

the back of my neck and turned me this way and that to admire first the feathered

fans with eyes in the tips that waved up and down the moment we were within

range, the books that invitingly turned their own pages, and the bathing room,

where steam hissed from the walls and jets of water leapt up as if trying to catch us

when we skirted around them.

Here Aman Akbar said, "Perhaps you would like to refresh yourself after your

long journey, my dear."

"In here?" I asked, for I am used to less aggressive water, except in flood season.

"It is the bathing room," he replied sensibly, and mopped a fingerful of

perspiration from my brow. This mortified me. Aman Akbar wasn't sweating and I

was sure no one else around here ever did either. He smiled again that sweetly

reassuring smile and pushed me toward the clutching fingers of water. "Go. You

will enjoy your"—and here he gave a significant pause that indicated what he was

about to say was not entirely what he meant—"evening meal more when you have

bathed."

I certainly would. Fighting all that water was bound to work up an appetite. On

the one hand, I was tempted to make it the fastest bath ever taken and on the other

hand, remembering the activity indicated by the pause preceding the mention of the

evening meal, I was tempted to take quite a long time, both to be thorough enough

not to be embarrassed before my elegant new lord and also to put the damned thing

off as long as possible.

But I tried to cooperate. I really did. I was beginning to agree with the djinn that

being chosen by Aman was an unusual honor and I had no wish to respond to such

Elizabeth Ann Scatborough - The Harem of Aman Akbar

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