THE TALE OF THE EBONY HORSE CONTINUES
The baby was fussy. Scheherazade sang as she nursed him extra long. Her finger ran along the curve of his ear. That calmed him. He stopped squirming and snorted softly. What a sweet, funny little fellow was this baby of hers. Would that she could see him grow year after year. The thought was like a sword, cleaving her in two. She held him tighter. He dozed off. As soon as he was silent, Scheherazade felt the excitement in the air. Her sister rustled about below the bed. Moonlight glinted off her husband’s liquid eyes. They were waiting, and not patiently. That was good. Very good.
hen the princess heard the wise man’s vile words, she screamed. The king of this land, which was called Rum, was hunting nearby. He and his servants came running and captured the wise man, who I will now call “the unwise man.”
The king addressed the princess kindly, asking who this old man was to her.
The unwise man said, “She’s my cousin and my wife!”
The princess shrieked, “Lies! I know him not. He tricked me.”
The King of Rum threw the unwise man in prison and brought the princess and the ebony horse to his palace.
Meanwhile, the prince, who had gone off to prepare a palace for the princess, returned to find her. The sight of the empty garden turned him icy. Though he was not the most honest of men, nor the most pious, he had found joy in both the princess and the horse. Loss scrabbled at him.
Then began the searching. The prince asked everyone if they had seen his marvelous princess and his blackest horse, who could fly. He searched day and night. He ran from place to place, muttering. The farther he wandered, the more disheveled he became. On hearing his questions and seeing his appearance, people laughed. “What a lunatic!”
The prince arrived in the hometown of the princess, hoping she had returned there. But the whole town cried, in mourning for her loss—which, of course, had been caused by this prince. No one there recognized him, however, for he was now skinny and unkempt.
The prince heard traveling merchants talk of a princess and a flying horse. He went to the place the princess had been taken to and talked with the guards. And all the while, the inventor of the flying horse wailed from his prison cell.
The prince finally arrived at an inn in the land of Rum and sat down for a drink when he overheard traveling merchants discussing the amazing story they had just heard: A wicked man had stolen a girl and flown away with her on an ebony horse, but she had been rescued. The prince questioned them and learned the location of the palace where the princess had been taken. He cleaned himself up and went there. It was nightfall by then, and the guards wouldn’t open the gates. Instead, they sat with him outside the prison and shared a meal, while from inside the prison came a high-pitched wailing. The prince could hardly pay attention to these guards, the wailing was so loud.
When the guards learned this traveler was from Persia, they talked about the miserable Persian sorcerer locked in the prison who had stolen a beautiful princess and brought her here. The king had fallen in love with the girl, but she had gone quite mad. She spoke of flying through the air, and ripped at her clothes and hair and moaned the whole day long. The king couldn’t find anyone to cure her, so he despaired. And then the stupid prisoner had the gall to wail all the time, claiming none of it was his fault and no one was fair, and he wasn’t a sorcerer, just an inventor, all so loudly that the guards couldn’t sleep.
The prince didn’t sleep either. A plan formed in his head and he was impatient to act it out.
Scheherazade saw dew on the carpet flower in the white porcelain pot on the windowsill. She hushed.
Shah Rayar smiled at her. He kissed her, then kissed the babe. 
