Third Visit: The East

In the dead of night, Eleanor snuck through the kitchen, going out the small door which led to the chickens. If they could stay quiet, she might have a chance. She looked next to the door to find the guard asleep. She smiled, knowing how hard it was to encourage him to drink just the right amount of wine that night at dinner without being obvious.

When she was out of sight of the castle, every fiber of her body ignited and she had the urge to run. She ran as fast as she could, cold night air whistling in her ears.

Her time of freedom didn’t last long. She ran right into a knight in full armor. Before she could plot her next move, a small, quiet voice came from the knight. “Queen Eleanor? Are you Queen Eleanor?”

Eleanor narrowed her eyes. “Who are you?”

“We can’t talk here, follow me.” Eleanor considered there was no reason to trust this knight, but she had no other choice. She followed and they came to a small hut. The knight lit a small fire in the middle of the hut, invited Eleanor to sit, and handed her a cup of tea.

When Eleanor looked up from her tea, she saw the knight without a helmet, but it was a woman! She had long black hair, and gold hoop earrings. “Queen Eleanor, my name is Scheherazade. I have come from Arabia to tell you a story. But I now see you have escaped your captivity.”

“Yes, I couldn’t take it any longer. I am hoping to reach my son Richard before his father finds me. Perhaps he will defend me against his father when he hears what I have suffered.”

“I see. I am happy to escort you. I have travelled these many months as a man and I have come to know the land. It would be my honor to help you.” Eleanor, exhausted by the highs and lows of her emotions, was unable to speak, but smiled and nodded in gratitude.

They slept through night and left early at dawn. They had to get as far away as possible before the guards came looking for her. They didn’t stop until they made camp that night.

“Scheherazade, I have to ask, what is the story you came to tell me?”

Scheherazade didn’t look up from the fire, the reflection of the embers dancing in her eyes. “My queen, it is a sad tale. Perhaps you do not want to hear it.” The young girl sighed deeply. Without looking up, she began her tale.

In my country, the king is a horrible man. After being betrayed by his wife, he wanted to have as many women killed as possible because he believed all of them to be deceptive creatures. He began marrying girls, just to have them killed in the morning. The king’s right hand man, the grand-vizier, had a daughter. She was determined to see this injustice stop.

She demanded that her father offer her as the king’s next bride. It pained the father to do it, but she insisted something must be done, and she would be the one to do it. She married the king the next day.

When the night came that she was to sleep and be killed in the morning, the king attempted to leave her alone, but instead she began telling him a story. It enraptured him so, that when the sun rose, he decided to have her killed the next day. However, night came and she continued her story. Again, the king promised to have her killed the next morning. This continued for many weeks.

After another night, the girl settled into bed, elated by her success. But outside her door, she heard the king talking to her father. “While she is a great storyteller, she has distracted me from my mission. Tomorrow night, gag her before I enter the room. I will then strangle her in her sleep.”

Terrified, she wondered how to survive this. She decided to strategically place dinner knives around the room. When her father left after binding her, she cut through the bindings around her wrists with the knife on her desk, held down by a book. She then ran away from the castle as fast as she could before the king came in to kill her.

“This girl was very brave,” Eleanor said. “How did you hear about her adventures?”

“Oh, I… I met her. Yes. When she was on the run. I helped her find a disguise, and I told where she could go and might be safe.”

“I see.” Eleanor was not convinced. “What is your story, Scheherazade? How did you find yourself in England disguised as a man? Only to come tell a queen a story?”

Scheherazade looked up at Eleanor with tears in her eyes. “Queen Eleanor, how can I speak the words? I am-”

“Queen Eleanor!” The two women looked up to see the king’s guards standing over them. “You are coming with us.”

Author's Note: This story was much different to write as now there is just as much action happening in Eleanor's world as there is in the story she is hearing. This is also the first time she hears not only a witness's account, but she hears it from the main character of the story herself. While there has been something relatable in every story Eleanor has heard, this story particularly hits home. Eleanor feels as if this may as well be her story. She is not fooled by Scheherazade's lies. I imagine that Eleanor recognizes something in this woman that speaks to her soul. Perhaps she sees it when she looks in the mirror. Of course Eleanor is smart enough to recognize clues, but she is so emotionally intelligent that she understand Scheherazade is also the victim of a harsh king.

For adapting from the original source, I trimmed as much of the fat as I could and only kept the bare bones. Scheherazade paraphrases the basics and then I added the ending of her escaping. In the original, there is no ending. We do not know if she merely continues telling stories for the rest of her life, if she is killed, or if she escapes the way she does in my version.

Scheherazade: The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898).