Chapter 17: Tall Tales of the Short Woman

Virtue yields heaven's honor and earth's wealth.What is there then that is more fruitful for a man?There is nothing more rewarding than virtue,Nor anything more ruinous than its neglect. - Tirukkural 4:31-32

It was an uncomfortable night for Zere’maya. In other circumstances she could have set wards round herself and her people, putting them under her protection and doing so with less of her magic than a flick of a lighter -- not even enough to notice.

Here, there were the men and the puli dogs. Early in the morning the camp picked up and the march began again. Late that night they would reach the village where the present generation of adults had nearly been burned.

Zere’maya, like the other women, hopped from vardo to vardo, supervising the children who had to remain boon docked. They didn't like it, and Zere’maya hated the feeling of fear that lingered in the air.

“We all miss Karl, since he has to be outside working with the others. Who would like to hear a tale about dragons from my homeworld?” asked Zere’maya. There was a general rumbling of support. One woman, about as old as Zassh or maybe a little younger, pulled out from her blouse a dark nipple, wreathed with a circle of fine dark hair, and guided herself into her baby’s mouth to buy them all a little more quiet. Zere’maya smiled and began.

Dragon Compassion

Even a dragon can have a very, very bad day, and although dragons are very tough, when they fly, they are the highest things around – and when they fly in stormy weather every now and then one unfortunate dragon ends up hit by lighting. There are some fates that even a dragon finds painful.

To the dragon that day the wind was bad, the hail worse, and the way weary until his world exploded in a sheet of light and heat, and he fell unconscious and wounded to the ground.While he half drowned, half froze on the half in, half out of a mud puddle a local man who lived in a very shabby hovel passed by with his cart and donkeys.

On catching sight of the monster, who lay so still that he looked dead, the man felt compassion for him – burns he understood – blood he understood. That the dragon’s was blue rather than red seemed unimportant at the time.

He unhooked his wagon, hitched his tackle to the dragon and pulled him out of the mud puddle. That was a start, but did not seem like enough. He thought of covering him with a sheet of canvas that served as his wagon top, but that did not seem like enough. Sighing, he laid the canvas in front of the dragon and pulled him into his barn, getting on and off of his donkeys to place the sheet of canvas in front of the dragon when the dragon would pull forward and off of it again.

With the shelter from the weather and the peace and quiet, the wounded dragon seemed to be more at peace. He turned back, collected his wagon, and returned to his own home for a hot meal for himself and food for his donkeys, and related his amazing day to his wife.

She was far less than pleased with him.

“Remember the tale of the scorpion and the bull – if you give protection to a vicious animal you must be ready for him to turn on you. Let me get you your shaving blade, you can remove his skin and sell it to benefit you, and me, your family and those who you truly owe your loyalty.”

“You had to have seen him --,” her husband muttered, “it’s right to feel compassion to someone ailing, you should’ve seen his intelligent eyes even with the scales on his face, and his injuries made me hurt to see them. It’s only a barn, and only just a little we can give.”

“Compassion can be stupid. As soon as he is strong enough he will look at you with his intelligent eyes and I will be widowed and left alone – for as long as it takes him to find me, or unless I can flee for my own safety. To keep such a wicked beast under our roof – it defies God and the Church to comfort wickedness!”

Taking no notice of his wife's warning, the husband devoted himself to feeding and caring for the animal. As a result of his efforts, the dragon soon recovered and thanked the husband for saving him.

'There is nothing to thank me for', replied the good man. 'We are all God's creatures.

''Even so, many men in your position would have killed me and sold my skin, which is very valuable.'

”And many a woman.” The man said softly, but the dragon did not hear anything but a sigh of agreement.

The wife and the husband arguing over their poverty was to such a degree that even a dragon living in a shed on the edge of the property could not miss hearing. As payment for his shelter, the old rams, billy-goats and roosters he had eaten, as well as the family strife in his name the dragon offered the man a reward for his troubles.

“I could not refuse anything in gold, because I will soon have to pay the lord of the manor and I have no gold to give him – otherwise I would have to pay my fees in the produce we have both worked so hard to make this year. But that is not why I helped you, friend”, said the man.

'I know, but now that I am strong enough to fly home, come to my cave and choose anything you wish. The husband climbed fearlessly onto the dragon's back, but his wife begged him not to trust the dragon.

'When you are in the middle of the forest, he will eat you,' she groaned, ‘and I will be left alone.'

The dragon bore his benefactor to his cave and there he entertained him for three days. When the time came for him to return home, the animal loaded a huge sack of gold and precious stones on his back as a gift, and carried the husband back to his wife and farm.

'Come and see me whenever you are hard up', he said on parting.

The husband found his wife sad and dressed in mourning; for she believed he was dead. With the dragon's gifts the couple were able to build a beautiful house, and the best of animals, and entertain their neighbors to gain their repute, but the wife started becoming extravagant, and one day she said to her husband:

”If we had a little more money, we would be able to buy our freedom from our landlord, and then purchase land for ourselves, have others to work for us and our children could carry on after us as nobles. Certainly that would be good and just, and the right thing to do for those to whom you owe your true loyalty. Why don’t you ask your dragon for a little more gold?”

The husband refused, but in the end he gave in and went to see the dragon. The creature thought it was a sound idea, and was delighted to be able to help his friend once more. But then hardly a year went by and the wife insisted:

'If we could petition the king and offer him support, he could grant us titles, and we could have nobles under us to do the tiresome work of leading the serfs, and our children could become kings and queens themselves from where we placed them – we could set our children into the court and that would surely be the right thing to do for those whom you truly owe loyalty.” The husband, tired of his wife's nagging, went once more to see the dragon in his cave, and the latter granted his request. The king was delighted to have the dragon’s resources, and the husband and wife began their new life in the king’s court.

But now the queen herself and her retinue was within the wife’s eyes, and in comparison with such riches her own finery seemed no more than painted glass. She was more unhappy than ever.

'My good lord husband, it has occurred to me that when we have a son, if there is a war he will have to go the front as an officer, and he might die in combat. It would be much better if we became King and Queen ourselves so that our coming son would be in less danger. Your friend the dragon will grant us this wish.'

'But wife don't talk nonsense.' His wife cried and entreated him until finally the husband decided to visit the dragon who greeted him warmly.

'Friend,' said the dragon after listening to his story, 'your wife is too ambitious. She will never leave you in peace. She will never have enough and she will always want more, but I have the answer. Come into the cave.'

And the dragon showed his guest into a cozy room where beautiful young women were singing and dancing.

”Now you are my prisoner. These girls will keep you company and will see that your every wish is carried out, for they were benighted as you were and so have given themselves to be my slaves, but you will not be able to leave the cave other than in my company and you will not return to see your wife.”

The dragon looked at him. “Would you prefer to be her slave ----- or to be mine?”

From then on the good man lived happily with the dragon and the maidens. As for the abandoned wife, she had to dress in mourning, convinced that the monster had finally devoured her husband, just as she had predicted from the beginning.

Zere’maya looked around the wagon’s inside. The young woman with the baby had dropped off to sleep but her baby was watching her with black button eyes. The little girl near her feet shifted.

“Well, miss – it seems like that was happy ever after for the wife, anyway. She ended up wealthy and if all is well, with a son to care for her, with power and wealth and possibilities. The husband ended up trading one woman for many, perhaps many times the servitude was how it all ended for him.” She finished.

“I wouldn’t think so. You see, all those young women were the sort who can give a free ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a dragon, and that’s not your average girl. To give yourself you must first own yourself.” said Zere’maya. The young girl looked at the tiny symbolic knife that Zere’maya now wore, as was the custom here for all gypsy women who come of age.

In a world full of men women here chose to wear an equalizer – more for expression of just that intent than for causing of harm, but a real knife nonetheless.

“It wasn’t so bad for him, either. After all was said and done his wife helped him – after her he could enjoy his life better. As they say, “kiss a goat in the morning and nothing worse can happen to you for the rest of the day.” Said the little girl smugly.

“All right then, you seem to have your talking motor working, why don’t you tale for us now?” said Zere’maya.


The Dragon Prince

Back on Old Earth, when we were many, the gypsies gathered in a great court, with many from far and near celebrating their many cultures, their many ways, all of which were Gypsy way. The young men gathered to demonstrate their dances, and there was one man, strange to all but familiar as One of Us, who was the winner, the most graceful, the most talented with dance and violin. We celebrated our art, and this young man, a veritable Django reborn, and the young women swirled and danced around him.

On the one occasion, the winner was an unknown and very handsome young man, who refused to give his name or say where he came from, despite the entreaties of all the members of the court. The aura of mystery surrounding the anonymous young gypsy man, leaving him only more handsome to the women, and together with his kindness and beauty, soon made him one of the favorites among the ladies of the court. Bashtam, a wise and passionate woman, the youngest daughter of the old age of her mother and the child of that year’s Gypsy King fell passionately in love with him and declared her love for him. Moved by the entreaties of all, that no woman among all the gypsies of the world could be his equal beside Bashtam, the handsome young man agreed to marry her “as long as the love shall last” and take to her home, but on condition that Bashtam should never try to see him other than when he chose, and that she should never try to discover his secret.

The lovesick lady promised to comply with this strange condition. It seemed little to ask in exchange for being able to remain with her loved one.

One night, the young Bashtam had fallen asleep in the arms of her lover, and on opening her eyes she found herself in an unfamiliar place. It was luxurious palace, a huge spreading tent, adorned with silk and precious stones, and beside her lay her husband smiling benignly at her.

'You are in my caravan, which rejoices to welcome you', said the young Rom. 'You may do whatever you please. There are horses at your disposal, great safe lands for you to ride freely in them, for there are none here who fear the gypsy, you may go as you wish. I am your husband, and all that is mine is yours. There are dancers and musicians to entertain you, jewels and silks to adorn you. If you need anything, tell me and I will give it to you.

''I wish only for your love and the love of my family', replied the young woman, bewildered.

'That is good, my love, but do not forget your promise. The way out to your vardo is at the head of our bed, others coming in will only go to that place, you alone can come to my home, in the far, safe land'

Bashtam, full of happiness, demonstrated her compliance by flinging herself into the arms of her beloved husband.

For a while Bashtam kept her promise and believed she was in paradise. The Rom, who was kind and passionate, spent most of his time with his wife. Occasionally he would disappear into a locked room, and she, faithful to her promise, did not ask him any questions. However, curiosity gradually got the better of her. One day she decided to find out the secret of her knight. She crept up to the door of the forbidden room, which he had left ajar, and spied through the chink. Horrified, she watched as her husband turned into a huge dragon with green scales and powerful wings.

“If all that you have is mine, dear husband, than this secret of yours is my secret, too, she thought. Day by day she walked between her people and his, for she was Bashtam, the wise, and she would understand or no longer be herself. Children learn what to fear by watching what the adults fear, and of nothing did she fear as much as losing herself, then of losing her husband.
The lady could not forget her beloved, and not a day went by without her recalling the months of happiness beside the gentle dragon. Full of self will and driven by her intelligence, she found the means to become a dragon herself.

Alas! On that day he came up to the forbidden room and saw her change from wife to dragon, she in radiant sunset and blue, like sunset after a storm. He turned from her, disgusted.

"I have to make you evil in order to make myself good" he told her. Now that you are dragon, as I am dragon, for clearly you know who I am – I reject you. And he transformed for the last time and flew out the open window. Poor Bashtam never saw him again. Bashtam resumed her human form in desolation. She looked around the palace, at all the people. They would no longer meet her gaze; she could not stay among them. She did not know how they knew of her transformation, but they did. She could only go back to her caravan through the door at the head of her bed, and the palace turned her stomach. She sat on a great stone contemplating her fate – lost from her people, lost to her love, lost to the reason she had taken on this great change, and cried. No human came to her aid.

Then far off, in the distance, she heard a strange, silver song. She felt the answering call rise in her own throat, and she called back to it. The world had other dragons, far away but within the sound of her voice, if she had any place in the world it was with them. She stripped herself naked in plain sight of all, there on that rock, and gently tied her fine clothing into a bundle. Her belt she made into a strap and tied her bundle around her neck, to ensure that she could again be in human form if she chose to.

She felt herself stand on tiptoe – her toes spread wide, like a great warm leather train, her tail reached out and formed a slender diamond. Her arms reached out and her fingers spread wide to embrace the whole sky before her, and with a great bound and her four wings of living dragon leather she took to the sky, as natural as if she was swimming through the air, and if you wonder if she found the rest of dragonkind? Yes, child, she did.

For the older I grow the less I see conflicts in the world in terms of good and evil and the more I see them as competing egos, quests for domination, battles for control of resources, tribal conflicts, and the struggles of humans competing to control the world.”

The girl finished. Zere’maya gasped. “The dragons of this world have four wings? I’ve never imagined such a thing.”

“Yes, they look rather like our horses do, walking on the air. Not that I’ve seen one myself, but I’ve seen pictures. Don’t all dragons have four wings? They have four limbs.” said the girl.

“Actually, on most worlds dragons have six, two lizard-like, and leather wings. There’s a special name for four-legged, one set of lizard legs, one set of wings – the Wyvern.” said Zere’maya.

“Now, a six legged reptile? That’s bizarre!” agreed the children.

“Enough of the dragon stories. Let’s have one of the holy tales, a Bible story.” said one young man. Zere’maya nodded. “How about one with Joseph in it? You all know of Joseph, the youngest of twelve brothers?” The surrounding group nodded.

Zulaikha and the Her Dream of Love.

Once upon a time there was Zulaikha, a younger princess of the land of Mauritania. As was the custom for younger King's daughters at the time she became the wife in her youth to Potiphar, Grand Visir of the nearby land of Egypt.

She was eager, beautiful, and wise – Potiphar did not care about such things. With a Princess for a wife he had acquired the greatest treasure, and he took her to his home and kept her there – an unspent coin, a conversation piece at parties. Of wives he had many – of the companionship of women he cared not a bit, his youngest children were older than his youngest wives. She had everything humans can long for – except for love, and except for freedom. She did what she could to pass the time – and it passed very slowly. Her father King Taimus hardly noticed her as one of his many little girls of his court, but he grew to know her as she grew in eloquence and expression in her many letters home.

"I knew her -- she lived, in my home, here every day, but I never knew had this daughter -- Zulaikha -- until I sent her from my house," he thought, and in his own way he grew to fall in love with her, the love of a father for a child who bears his likeness, in which he can see himself. With her he felt compassion, and often pondered as to ways he could help.

Zulaikha was also writing her other siblings, and the effects were not so endearing. There grew jealousies, for the life of a royal child among many others is crowded, and the sheer riches and strangeness of her life there turned his girl children away from Mauritania, causing them to long for the courts of Egypt. To these sisters and half-sisters she gradually stopped writing, but to her father she grew ever closer, and she became wiser in her loneliness, for there was little to do but write, learn, and ponder on what she had discovered.

Potiphar no less considered her to be his finest bauble – warm, breathing, but no less of a prize. At long last King Taimus induced Potiphar to return to his palace so that he could see his child and talk of the matter face to face.

When his daughter came into his throne room he could see his own face shining back to him – full of life, intelligence, and a fiery will. He cradled her hands among his own and kissed them.

"Oh daughter, how could it be that you are so well, when you describe a life that is so wretched?" he asked. She gazed off across the room. Joseph nodded.

"Though it would be his life Joseph and I plead for his freedom – and my life. You are understanding – this man has been my personal attendant, he has taught me as you have in your letters. I have to be free of that horrible old man, no one could live without wrinkling up and dying in that horrible place, my life is no better than that of the men in your dungeons, Princess and your daughter that I am. This is the worthy man, and without Joseph I would die, and with Potiphar I will die! We beg of you, rescue us!"

King Taimus sent his daughter away and talked with Joseph in private. Potiphar had ridden in and had been playing the wise men in his court for quite some time and had never missed either his princess or Joseph, nor had chosen to greet his royal father in law. Joseph and King Taimus came to an understanding, and, as fathers have done since before the telling of tales, King Taimus set his resolve. He called in his daughters, Zulaikha among them. She had cleaned and dressed herself, and so there were six beautiful princesses before him – all daughters of one father, though they had more than one mother.

"He does not love me. He does not even know me." said Zulaikha. "He could not tell which one of your daughters was his wife, he has no use for me except that I am your Princess."

So King Taimus called Potiphar to his throne room. As Potiphar came into the room six pairs of ebony eyes gazed into the face of their father, seeing how he would react to the rich man from Egypt. Then, slowly, one pair of eyes turned away. Potiphar walked up to the woman who had turned to see him, see his finery, and addressed her as Zulaikha, his own wife.

The wrong princess did not correct him, and Potiphar lead her from the throne room.

Five princesses looked at their father to see what his reaction would be.

"Before today I had given away my one daughter Zulaikha. Now, it seems, I have been blessed with two."

A princess for a princess. It was the new Zulaikha who accused Joseph of accosting her, and he could truly say he was innocent. King Taimus had no choice but to put him in his dungeon, and send the other Princess to Egypt to her new home.

Zulaikha warned her little sister that it would not be as easy or sweet as she had hoped – that a life of riches without love and without freedom was not as she imagined, but her sister was adamant.

So Joseph and Zulaikha waited quietly, hidden guests of the court of King Taimus for many years, until it was time for Joseph to return to Egypt to fulfill his dreams. The steward regained his memory of Joseph, and Pharaoh sent for him.

Potiphar had long since died and Zulaikha the second was blinded, worn, and despondent – riches without love had left her to wander, in her prison of regret, sorry that she had taken such a bad bargain. She confirmed to Pharaoh that Joseph had been sent to prison as an innocent man. Pharaoh married her to Joseph, who sent her home to his father's court and so the true Zuliekha returned to his side, whole and beautiful from her time as secret counsel to her loving father.

The tale of how Joseph's magic abilities to restore a woman's youth, sight and beauty attracted the attention of a daughter of a priest of Pharaoh's court, the lady Asenath, but that is another tale altogether.

Some say that Zulaikha, like Joseph had been a great dreamer from childhood and the hand of God had brought her to dream of only him, so that a great dreamer could have a woman who would understand him, but that, too, is a matter for other stories. All we do know is that Princess Zulaikha and Joseph, first among the Egyptians lived happily ever after."