The wedding party was reunited.  Ramak could think of nothing impressive to add.  Leili was tanned from her trip.  Shahrazade could think of no absent symbols.  Her alphabet complete, she whispered in her husband’s ear, “Well, that about does it.”

“Are you sure?” Shahryar asked his betrothed wife.  “What will you ride into the ceremony?”

“Ride into the ceremony?  Why would I ride into the ceremony?”

“Uh, well.  It seems to me that you were married to your doom with me.  A good mount will demonstrate how far you’ve come and demonstrate that the road is open before you.  I should honor you with an exotic animal.  I hear there’s an animal in the middle of Africa with an elephant’s size, a zebra’s stripes and the face of a macaque.  I’ll send Ali and Kassim and that kid from the royal kitchen.”

“My king, there’s no need for me to ride.  After the wedding we walk together.  That’s the idea.”

“Are your shoes comfortable?  Maybe a pair of wooden shoes from Jutland or some slippers made of glass from Albion?”  Sharyar interrogated her in the fast words of a convict faced with doom.

“My king, are you stalling?”  Around them, a hush fell.  Kassim and Ali stopped playing their game of chess and Ramak ceased scolding her handmaidens.  Sinbad silenced the tale of a cyclone he had been entertaining Shahrazade’s chambermaid with.  Rufus, the Dacian sous-chef had been bringing a plate of snake kabobs and paused in front of a tapestry depicting The Fall, hoping to blend in.  Even the Baroness of Istakhr lifted her head from her hay, unbalancing the Djinni in her ear.

“I thought it was something we could do together,” was Sharyar’s nervous answer.  He was surprised by Shahrazade’s reply.

“Very well.  I don’t need a grand royal wedding.  I am yours and you are mine but there’s another wedding still awaiting me.”  Sharyar blinked and considered a return to earlier habits.  

“Have you betrayed me?” Shahryar asked Shahrazade.  Ali grabbed his sword in preparation for Shahryar’s next order.  Kassim grabbed his for Shahrazade’s defense.

“No,” answered Shahrazade to the relief of an entire palace.  “But when I first became your wife it was supposed to be my doom.  Instead I found life and love through the adventures of others and have been given safety through their perils.  This palace is now filled with exotic gifts for our weddings, obtained from the distant monsters our families and servants have met.  I do love you...” and with this confession the rest of the palace returned to scolding, serving and slight of hand in a flurry of normal activity.

“... and no other man will touch me.  But it was adventure that kept my heart beating until you trusted me and that romance, unlike ours, remains unconsummated.  The wedding I want is to adventure, the puzzles and ambushes that wait for me in a world of monsters and danger.”

“So,” Sharyar asked, “you want to go on Safari?”

“Yes.  That’s all I need for a wedding.  Can I take the cow?”

“I’ll go, too!” Leili piped.  “You’ll want a narrator.”

“And a fool to rescue!” said Kassim, seeing the excitement in Leili’s eyes.  “I’ll go with them as a guard.”

“But will that leave us without enough fools for the palace?” the blind barber from Baghdad inquired generally.

“Very well,” Shahryar answered.  “Go have your wedding but remember your husband.  He is, after all, the Emperor!  And stay off of ships.”

Sinbad relaxed and returned to talking up the chambermaid, soon to be idle.

Shahryar and Shahrazade shared a long embrace and then she departed with Leili by her side and Kassim by Leili’s.  Behind them trotted the noble cow with her hidden djinni.

Ramak mouthed the words “but the wedding” and swooned.  She fell on a pillow, sitting up and inventoried in her mind all the beautiful things that been brought to Susa for a royal ceremony that now would never be.  She thought of her own, beautiful, Tuareg wedding dress.  “We need a wedding.  I’ve waited all my life for the wedding.”  She felt despondently without intrigue until her eyes fell on the tiny, blind, hare-lipped barber who by his wits had saved his own life, hers and, she had to admit, a healthy sum of money she’d have spent on a useless Roman wedding dress.

Although he was blind, the barber from Baghdad felt the shadow of Ramak’s gaze fall upon him.  Because he was blind, he knew he could live in that shadow.

 

To Be Continued...also, The End.