Desert Rhapsody - Chapter 14

Chapter 14

To celebrate this stirring victory, Abal took Jiang Yuan and opened the sealed wineskin-though what it held was better called date wine. It was only a crude home-brew. Dates were so rich in sugar that one needed only to pick them, wash them, and seal them in a skin with water; after three or four days, the skin could be opened and drunk from to one’s heart’s content. Theirs had been fermenting for half a month. Though they chilled it in cool water whenever they made camp, it had already grown too sweet, carrying a faintly intoxicating, sour smell of liquor.

After they finished the wine, they spent a day skinning the lion. Once they had preserved the hide with simple local methods, they dug out the Lion Tooth, mounted their horses, and left. Behind them, a flock of vultures swallowed the rotting meat like a whirlwind, while gazelles and foxes once again gathered by the water to drink.

There was no need to dwell on the journey that followed. Abal brought the hide back to camp and was met with thunderous cheers. The tanners sang praises of his courage, then carried away the bloodstained pelt in trembling excitement, determined to use every skill they possessed to turn it into the most perfect wall hanging. As for the bandit chief, after cleaning himself up in a cursory fashion, he led two camels out of the camp once more, fulfilling his promise to take Jiang Yuan to Damascus.

As long as they found a trade route, it would be an easy matter. Traveling light and on horseback, the two of them blended into the wilderness like drops of water. The weight of hooves, camel feet, and wagon ruts had packed the sand so hard it became a road. Caravans of several hundred people wound through the desert. They passed thousands of camels laden with goods; the setting sun cast endless shadows over the dunes, and windblown sand seemed to sweep up a thousand years of time. Singing and torches continued day and night.

Abal brought her into a caravan transporting spices. The trade routes of the Nafud Desert did not run along the sea, so the coral, pearls, and blocks of salt from the Gulf of Oman were not carried through here. This road was the Incense Route still praised to this day, the lifeline of the Arabian Peninsula. The footprints of pilgrims and merchants connected the peoples of Arabia from top to bottom like blood vessels. From Aden and Najd came frankincense, dates, horses, and camels; beyond Mecca and Medina lay Taif. This small city built in the mountains was picturesque and produced a steady stream of fine wine and rose oil. Honey and fruit crowned with the name of Taif were sweet enough to seep into the heart, and as precious as gold.

“Gold is far too cheap for that.” Jiang Yuan bit into a sweet, crisp piece of watermelon and said this to Abal. After celebrating for several nights with prostitutes, Abal finally felt his boiling energy settle somewhat-more importantly, those prostitutes had the backing of the caravan and had stolen Abal’s gold. After the bandit chief slaughtered one woman who failed to read the room, he quietly came to find Jiang Yuan under cover of night. So Jiang Yuan gave him a slice of watermelon, and the two of them sat side by side at the entrance of the tent to eat.

Abal said simply, “You were cheated.” Then he added, “Though Taif’s watermelons are sweet.”

Jiang Yuan said, “I thought your white goods really were worth more than the yellow ones.”

Those blue eyes looked at her and curved slightly. “That was hundreds of years ago. Merchants like using that line to fool people with faces different from ours.”

Legend had it that when the warriors of Arabia broke into Ctesiphon, the capital of the Persian Empire, they were astonished by the gold that filled their eyes. The people from the desert had once had their own theory of currency: they abandoned gold and looted silver coins instead. Abal gave her several gold coins and a jeweled necklace. Then a pile of glittering gold earrings, waist chains, bracelets, and silk robes fell out of his waist pouch, still stained with blood. “By custom, I should share the spoils with you, my dear Jia Nan.”

Jiang Yuan said calmly, “Even if you didn’t share them with me, they would still think I was your accomplice. After all, we joined the caravan together.” Abal smiled and chanted, “So we should go. Come, my dear, change into the clothes I prepared for you. Let us revel in the desert. Do not waste this bright moonlight. To couple under the gaze of wild wolves is a glorious rite.”

Jiang Yuan threw the watermelon rind at him, then stormed into the tent with the clothes in hand. Half an hour later, Abal swaggered out of the oasis under the noses of the patrolling guards, leading his two camels and embracing a fragrant beauty draped in a headscarf and covered in jewels.

They were already very close to Damascus, but their journey was not yet over. At the foot of Damascus, people arriving from every direction converged: scholars and warriors from Greece, while the Mediterranean winds brought men from Spain and Franks. The Province of Egypt sent shiploads of grain from Alexandria, and dancing girls from India and Persia sang at the tops of their voices along the road, twirling gracefully to attract customers.
They sold the camels, and with the money easily found a merchant ship bound for Basra. It carried grain, dates, and countless casks of wine and sugar down the Tigris River all the way to the port of Basra. At the harbor, they used what was left to buy two fine donkeys from Oman, and still had enough money remaining to go to Baghdad and find a skilled craftsman to polish the two pairs of Lion Tooth ornaments in Abal’s possession. Just as the ancient proverb of Arabia said: “Every part of a camel is treasure.”

Jiang Yuan had read One Thousand and One Nights many times. As a child, the tales had been her bedtime stories; she had listened to those whimsical fantasies and romantic myths. After she grew up, she read them in the language of Arabia and came to understand the people’s hardships beneath all that strangeness and absurdity. A third of those stories came from Baghdad-the wilderness city on the banks of the Tigris River, the capital at the height of the empire of Arabia, an ancient metropolis that could stand beside Tang Chang’an and Luoyang. Now, in her own time, it was a dream city destroyed by war.

She swayed on the donkey’s back, her anticipation growing stranger by the day. At times, Jiang Yuan could scarcely believe it: she was going to Baghdad. From the mouths of traveling merchants, she had pieced together the history around her. The Battle of Talas, famous in later generations, had already happened, and Byzantium now paid tribute to the empire as a vassal. At last, she knew what era she had fallen into, yet she could not tell anyone.

That secret, impossible to speak aloud, had once kept her awake at night. Again and again, she thought back to One Thousand and One Nights, to legends that had crossed a thousand years and landed before her eyes. She tried telling Abal some of the stories, disguising them as “tales brought by an itinerant merchant in a town where we stopped.” Who knew whether Abal believed her? That night at the inn, he did not find a woman to his liking, and so, for once, did not go off to amuse himself. They sat beside the fountain, listening to a minstrel sing to the oud, sharing wine from the same oak barrel. Those blue eyes watched her with a look that was almost a smile, his snow-white headscarf falling over both shoulders, setting off his striking face until it shone like gemstones propped beside his cheeks.

“They can tell stories like that?” he said. The language he spoke was the language of Arabia now, no longer the tongue of Jiang Yuan’s homeland. “A cave where bandits hide their treasure, opened by such a simple spell? I don’t know what band of robbers would have that sort of taste-taking money and hiding it instead of dividing it among their men. Isn’t seizing pleasure while we can our creed? Or perhaps they stole too much and needed to lie low for a while. But I have never heard of any wealthy caravan from the past being wiped out in one swoop.”

Jiang Yuan turned her head to look at him. Though they rented a single room, Abal usually found other accommodations at night. She had never imagined she would travel with someone like Abal. Perhaps life was just this unpredictable; she could only accept, in full, the fate that had fallen into her lap. “Perhaps Ali Baba truly existed. I ought to find that itinerant merchant and ask him the whole story from beginning to end.”

Jiang Yuan felt she really should never have told Abal that story. Over the next two days, however, Abal became interested and kept probing for details. A rich merchant elder brother and his poor younger brother, and somehow the younger brother could find the cave simply by going out to chop firewood. Left with no choice, Jiang Yuan told him it was a story she had heard in the “Tang Empire.” As a matched offering, she also gave him the far less realistic The Voyages of Sinbad.

That story was very long, so Jiang Yuan split it over several days. Each night, she told Abal a portion, and then they parted and went to sleep separately.

After they entered the Mesopotamian Plain, the desert and wasteland, at some unknown point, gave way to lush green fields. They traveled along the trade road beside the river, with an endless stream of pedestrians, carts, and horses on one side, and boundless farmland and towns on the other. At last, one day, Jiang Yuan saw the famed green dome emerge on the horizon.

They were just crossing a low hill, heading down the slope toward the Tigris River. From there, they would follow the river to the city gates. The magnificent ancient city finally revealed itself before her in full. Towering walls formed a perfect circle, layer after layer guarding the palace at the center. Lofty palace towers seemed to pierce the clouds, glittering beneath the sun. She suppressed the excitement in her heart and looked again and again into the distance. That night, they stayed at an inn, a three-story building raised to accommodate guests from every corner of the world.

They were still squeezed into one room. Jiang Yuan sat on the floor of the terrace, facing the hot, damp evening breeze as she gazed at the city. It was a sleepless city blazing with lights, and the wind seemed to carry countless songs and bursts of clamor. Abal handed her a set of clothes. “We enter the city tomorrow. Change into this.”
Jiang Yuan looked it over. It was a set of women’s clothes. The one she’d had before had long since been sold on the road to cover travel expenses. Who knew where Abal had gotten his hands on a pile of jewelry, but it flashed and glittered with gaudy gold. Without her noticing, the bandit chief was now half a head taller than she was.

Jiang Yuan accepted the clothes without asking any questions.

But Abal sat down beside her, apparently with no intention of leaving. “You don’t seem to like Baghdad.”

Jiang Yuan said, “That’s not true.”

“Then why is it that the closer we get to Baghdad, the less I see you smile? Is the thought of seeing your uncle soon not enough to make you happy?” Abal asked lazily. “Or have you finally realized that being with me makes you happier?”

Jiang Yuan turned her head and glared at him. The bandit chief’s expression did not change. So after a pause, she decided not to overreact. She would just assume flirting had become a habit for him, and that in a moment of blindness, he’d happened to flirt with a tomboy like her. “You’re overthinking it,” she said. “I just never thought I’d come to Baghdad.”

Abal sipped the wine in his cup, watching her with a smile that was not quite a smile. His young, handsome face had now begun to show the first traces of manly bearing, and over the course of their journey he had proven quite popular with women. He did not say anything more, only asked, “Any more stories today?”

Yesterday, Jiang Yuan had already finished telling the last tale from the sea voyages. Jiang Yuan said, “No.”

“If you’re short a man, I’ll find you one. Any other stories?”

Jiang Yuan got straight to her feet and left, abandoning him on the terrace.

Jiang Yuan discovered just how convenient it was for a man and a woman to enter a city together. She had no identity papers, and she knew the guards would inspect identities at the gates. But when she put on women’s clothing, covered her face with a headscarf, and covered herself in cheap jewelry bright enough to dazzle the eye, everything changed. Abal sold the donkey and used the money to bribe the guards. He helped her down from the donkey, pulled her close to his side, handed over his forged permit, and introduced her to them as his wife from the Tang Empire.

“I bought her from the Turkic people.” He pulled down her veil and barked, “Smile!” Jiang Yuan lowered her head as Abal held her, pressing her face against his chest. The smell of perfume on him, as aggressively bandit-like as the man himself, flattened her nose. With his arm around her, travel-worn and all smiles, he said, “Forgive her, sirs. Women from the Tang Empire are always shy. Don’t take offense-she hasn’t seen much of the world.” Then, in front of everyone, he put his hand on her backside and gave it a resounding smack.

And so the guards paid her no further mind and went to extort grease money from the next person. Beside them, the river rushed on, while countless merchant ships waited in line to be inspected before entering the city. At last, the glorious face of ancient Baghdad from a thousand years ago unfurled before Jiang Yuan like a painting. The stone-paved roads were packed with people, and cries of hawkers and shouts of vendors rang endlessly along the streets. Palm trees swayed by the river, and through countless pockets of cool shade drifted lilting music and flute players.

But Jiang Yuan was in no mood to look.

Abal brought her to the place. It was also a residence along the river, with a small garden rich with fragrance. They informed the servant who answered the door; Adnan must have given prior instructions that a guest named “Jia Nan” would arrive. They were invited inside and seated on a magnificent rug threaded with gold, then served wine while they waited. At last, with no one else around, Jiang Yuan and Abal sat on opposite sides, the atmosphere stiff.

“Dear Jia Nan,” Abal asked with a smile that was not quite a smile, “have you now discovered that being with me makes you happier?”

Jiang Yuan held out a hand toward Abal. In her palm lay a gold coin. “Your reward.”

Abal froze for a moment.

So she leaned forward and took his hand. Unlike its slender, beautiful appearance on the surface, his palm was rough and covered in calluses. He stiffened for an instant, but before he could react, Jiang Yuan lifted a knee and firmly set her stance. There came a violent sound of fabric tearing from her skirt. She yanked the bandit chief toward her and, following the motion, threw him over her shoulder.

I’m home today! So tired. Half update. Mwah.

Abal, who keeps testing the waters with his daily flirting, really is kind of annoying hahahahahahaha.

Just the usual macho-man problem. Once he recognizes reality later, he’ll be cured.