The prince pretended to be a scholar of medicine and went to cure the princess. When she recognized this man as the prince she loved, she fainted from joy.
THE TALE OF THE EBONY HORSE CONTINUES
Scheherazade wrapped her son in fresh swaddling cloth. The heavy fragrance of night jasmine wafted in through the window. It mixed with the sweet-milky breath of the babe in the most pleasant way. Scheherazade settled into the pillows to continue the tale.
n the morning, the guards took the prince to have an audience with the king. And the prince did what you might have guessed, for he was as cunning as he was determined. He said, “I am a Persian scholar of medicine. I wander all over the world, seeking out the ill so that I can learn about new problems and devise new cures. I never fail to heal.”
The King of Rum was delighted. He explained all about the beautiful princess and the ebony horse and the sorcerer.
The prince listened with big eyes as though noting all the details. Then he asked to see the horse first. The king led him to the ebony horse, which stood in the courtyard. The prince inspected it. Everything was intact; the horse had not been damaged at all. Good, that meant it would still work. “Please treat this horse with utmost care,” he said to the king. “I believe it may help cure the princess. With your permission, I am now ready to see her.”
The king led the prince to the princess’s room, then left him to enter alone. Upon hearing footsteps, the princess stomped in a circle and threw herself about. This behavior marked her as mad, but, in fact, she was perfectly sane. She behaved this way simply to keep the king at bay. His amorous attentions frightened her.
The prince approached her with quiet words of greeting and a plea to look at him but not to speak. She looked at him, then looked again. With a shriek of joy, she fainted. The prince rushed to her and cradled her head in his lap. As she came to, he whispered in her ear, “Hush, my love. Don’t give us away or we’ll both die. I will tell the king I have cured you of your madness, not completely—but close to completely—and that you will obey him. So when he comes to you, act sweet. Trust that I will whisk us away from here. Do you understand?” She nodded.
The prince held the princess close. She seemed fragile and small. He wanted to kiss her, but the risk of someone entering was too great. “Soon,” he murmured into her hair. “Soon you will be safe. With me.”
The prince left and hurried to the king. “I have treated the girl. She is mending well. If you visit her now and treat her kindly, if you take off her fetters and promise her to grant her every wish, then you will have what you want from her.”
The king entered the princess’s room. Then he stopped short and waited, uncertain what to do next. The princess stood and walked to him. She kissed the ground in front of his feet. She welcomed him with a smile. “At last,” said the king, “at last, you are well again. Come,” he called to his servants. “Set her free. Take her to the baths. Dress her in the finest robes. Let her choose the jewelry she wants.”
When the princess came back from all these ministrations, she was like the fullest moon surrounded by a million twinkling stars. The king gasped in admiration. “You’re perfect.”
“And you want her to stay perfect, Your Majesty,” said the prince. “So we need to call forth the demon that invaded the princess and we must kill it, so that it may not harm her again. Please have your troops carry the ebony horse out to the meadow where you first found it. Warn them to be careful not to damage it. You and the princess should go there, as well. I will follow. The horse will be part of this final cure, as I told you.”
Soon they were all assembled in the meadow. The prince said to the king, “Incense and charmed words will lure the demon out and capture him. Then I will mount the horse with the princess behind me. The horse will walk forward. Each hoofbeat will crush the demon. When the horse reaches you, the princess may dismount, completely healed. You and your troops must stand back while the horse moves, so the demon can’t infect you.
The princess was as good at deception as the prince. She stood sweetly beside the King of Rum and watched as her prince prepared the flying horse to whisk them both away.
And so the king and his troops retreated a good distance, while the prince and the princess mounted the ebony horse and flew away. The king stood looking up into the air for the rest of the day, wondering what had happened. When he finally realized the girl was gone for good, he cried. But his troops said the healer who had taken her was obviously a demon himself, and the king was lucky he hadn’t been harmed in this encounter.
When the prince got home, he married the princess. His father, overjoyed at having his son back, demolished the ebony horse so they could never fly off again. The prince wrote to the princess’s father, the King of San‘a’, explaining that they had married and the princess was well. So in the end, everyone was happy. The prince, the princess, and both kings gave thanks to the Almighty.
In this tale the king believes cures happen in large part through magic talk and charmed words. The belief in the power of words to transform and heal belongs to many religions around the globe. The child’s incantation abracadabra (which has a history that intrigues many), used to make monsters disappear or wonders appear, has ancient roots. There is nothing intrinsically childish or religious about word-therapy, however. Calming talk, such as the way the prince whispered to the princess, can be healing, while agitating talk can have negative effects. Likewise, inspirational talk and support groups can also be healing. They help people recover from grief and traumas.
Dawn came. Scheherazade lapsed into silence.
“But, Sister,” said Dinarzad, “what happened to the unwise man?”
“He was in prison in Rum.”
“But eventually he’d get out.” “Probably. Still, he was alone, without his precious horse, without the princess. Isn’t that enough suffering?” “I don’t understand the princess,” said Shah Rayar. “Why did she pretend to be mad rather than demand to be sent home.” “If the King of Rum had transported her home, the prince couldn’t have rescued her. It wouldn’t have been as good a story.” “Ah. I like rescues. Women need to be rescued.” “Men need to be rescued, too.”
Shah Rayar frowned. Then he lifted an eyebrow.
“Rescued from jinn, you mean?” “Rescued from terrible situations.”
“Men can rescue themselves from terrible situations.”
“Not always.”
The king played with the tips of his beard. “I wouldn’t enjoy stories about men who couldn’t rescue themselves from terrible situations.”
Scheherazade recognized the challenge. She bit her tongue and kept silent. She mustn’t take the challenge until she was sure she could win. 
The King of Rum stared. The girl who was about to marry him was riding off on a flying horse. And the man who had cured her was riding off on that horse, too. What was going on?