douban
ID: 45lml/VK
6/17/2025, 9:00:47 AM No.6259786
In the name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful.
The Sultana was troubled. For a fortnight she had been suffering the same dream, grim, with a startling vividness, such as she had not experienced since her girlhood. They concerned her only son, the prince, now eleven years old, perched upon that precarious threshold between childhood and maturity. Only the other day the Sultana had been devastated to learn that the prince no longer wished to play Shatranj with her. "Shatranj," he had said, "is a game for men. It is not fitting that I should play with you." This, despite that she had herself taught him the rules of the game. They were parroted words he had picked up from one of his tutors, but that was little comfort.
Some rituals are harder to erase. When the prince fell sick one dark moon, his body trembling with feverish chills, it was his mother whom he called for. His mother, to come and wipe his brow and comfort him and whisper in his ear the tales she spun so skillfully and with so much love. So she came, passing through the dark hall alone by the light of a single oil lamp.
The scent of sandalwood and night-blooming jasmine hovered thick in the lavish bedchamber.
"Ummi," the prince said, in a little lamb's voice which smote the Sultana's heart, though she showed nothing of it in her face.
"I am here," she replied, sitting down upon a silken cushion beside the bed.
"Will you tell me a story?"
"Certainly. Of whom do you wish to hear? The hunchback? The fishermen? Perhaps the Vizier's daughter?"
"No, something new. Something I have not heard before."
"As you wish. A story of the great and the small, the wise and the strong and the cruel, the ordinary and the supernatural. But I shall need your help."
"My help?" So great was his astonishment that even in his fatigue he raised himself up on his elbows, his eyes alight with pleasure.
"We shall recount the tale together."
"How?"
"Well, to begin, tell me, ya ruhi, what sort of hero this story shall concern..."
The Sultana was troubled. For a fortnight she had been suffering the same dream, grim, with a startling vividness, such as she had not experienced since her girlhood. They concerned her only son, the prince, now eleven years old, perched upon that precarious threshold between childhood and maturity. Only the other day the Sultana had been devastated to learn that the prince no longer wished to play Shatranj with her. "Shatranj," he had said, "is a game for men. It is not fitting that I should play with you." This, despite that she had herself taught him the rules of the game. They were parroted words he had picked up from one of his tutors, but that was little comfort.
Some rituals are harder to erase. When the prince fell sick one dark moon, his body trembling with feverish chills, it was his mother whom he called for. His mother, to come and wipe his brow and comfort him and whisper in his ear the tales she spun so skillfully and with so much love. So she came, passing through the dark hall alone by the light of a single oil lamp.
The scent of sandalwood and night-blooming jasmine hovered thick in the lavish bedchamber.
"Ummi," the prince said, in a little lamb's voice which smote the Sultana's heart, though she showed nothing of it in her face.
"I am here," she replied, sitting down upon a silken cushion beside the bed.
"Will you tell me a story?"
"Certainly. Of whom do you wish to hear? The hunchback? The fishermen? Perhaps the Vizier's daughter?"
"No, something new. Something I have not heard before."
"As you wish. A story of the great and the small, the wise and the strong and the cruel, the ordinary and the supernatural. But I shall need your help."
"My help?" So great was his astonishment that even in his fatigue he raised himself up on his elbows, his eyes alight with pleasure.
"We shall recount the tale together."
"How?"
"Well, to begin, tell me, ya ruhi, what sort of hero this story shall concern..."
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