Swords clashed with a clank and arrows were fired mercilessly at the straw dummy. The ambience was coated with dirt and sweat and some accidental drops of blood. Shahrazad sniffed strength in the air.
He had come to the training grounds of the hundred bodyguards to meet with the third and fourth of the melophoroi– Naseer and Caspar respectively. It took him some time to search for them. The trainees present were visibly excited on seeing the royal consort. Shahrazad blushed upon realising that he had build a fame for himself by just surviving. But surviving in the palace, as a spouse to the Shah, was a daunting task.
The trainees guided him to a wrestling ring. Shahrazad was apparently late– a lean muscular man had fallen face flat on the sandy floor. The trainees informed him that he had missed the entertaining duel.
"Agility alone will not take you far. Perfect yourself in every aspect," the victor said. He was a man very dark, with a receding hairline and balmy warm eyes. Despite the bulging muscles and the overall gigantic appearance, he seemed to be quite calm and tranquil. There were cuts on his back, proudly flaunting themselves as marks of honor.
"Are you Naseer, the third of melophoroi?" Shahrazad asked.
The man turned. He was visibly awestruck on seeing the consort here, amidst blood and dirt and not in the flowery garden. A trainee quickly fetched him an overcoat and he slipped himself into it.
"Yes," he said, tying a belt around his waist, "I am Naseer. Glad to have the Shahamsar-am grace our humble abode." He gallantly bowed.
Shahrazad acknowledged the respect with a slight tilt of his head. "I thought of making acquaintances with the melophoroi. I have already met Firdaus and Adonis."
Naseer helped the other guy who had lost to get up. "This is Caspar, the fourth melophoroi."
Caspar, unlike Naseer, looked rogue and rough with an unkempt beard, messy hair and frowning eyes. He grunted when Naseer elbowed him. Caspar reluctantly bowed.
"Excuse me, I have to go and wash myself." Caspar strode away with an attitude. Naseer pursed his lips. "I am sorry for this display of behaviour, Shahamsar-am. He is just upset that I defeated him in front of the other lower bodyguards."
"Ah, happens. Such is the quality of men in general. It takes years to tame the ego within us."
"Is Shahamsar-am also a prey of vanity?" Naseer asked with a curvy smile.
"I won't deny that I may seem vain at times, but I assure you it's just unpolished faith in my abilities. I don't know why but people do assume I am conceited. And then they say, no smoke without fire!"
The two men headed to a secluded part of the training ground where a bench was present. They sat there to continue the conversation.
"When I had been selected as the melophoroi, I was over the cloud! It really came as a blow when I got repulsed by the power of Firdaus and Mahfuzur. They are indeed the best of us."
"Mahfuzur? Is he the first among you all?"
"Yes. He is also the son of Parmenion. He has inherited his father's warrior aura."
Shahrazad noted it. "How long have you been serving the Shah?"
"Well, most of us were recruited when the Shah ascended the throne after Great Damun's death. For some time we were just four, and then Adonis joined later."
"He is the youngest out of you all."
"And I am the oldest, if I keep the hazahrapatish out. Look at me going bald!"
"I suggest you marry and please yourself with the comfort of marital harmony."
Naseer raised his hands in the air, pulling out his lower lip. "Never! Marriage brings extra responsibilities and stress. I better play around till old age."
Shahrazad beamed with amusement. "I see. So that's what you have planned!" He laughed. "It was good meeting you, though Caspar was not kind enough to-"
"He is a bit dumb, Shahamsar-am. Or else he would have known how to properly treat the authority." He winked. "But he's dim-witted."
And your Shah thinks I am dim-witted. "I look forward to more meetings."
The two men shook hands and Shahrazad departed for his chambers. Indeed, it was very refreshing for him to converse on lighthearted matters after such a long time.
****
Shahryar had been lighting up the candles in the room when Shahrazad came in. The latter was quite shocked to see their room glazed in an intimate flavour.
The dusk had left behind a new moon night of darkness. Decorating the meditative silence were uncountable candles, wafting from whose melting wax were fragrances exotic. The environment stimulated Shahrazad's senses, arousing him to the cliff of passion.
"You met Adonis, I heard," Shahryar said, sitting on Shahrazad's bed.
Shahrazad was afraid of sitting beside him. That close, their arms brushing, his palm over Shahryar's, skin to skin. But he mustered up the courage. After all, it was his bed.
"I did. He is prone to anger and sour words." Shahrazad sat, careful enough to not be sticking to Shahryar's side and neither too far. He could feel a magnetic pull that asked him to rest his head on the Shah's shoulder. But he wasn't yet entitled to such proximity.
He was probably a Shahamsar-am just in name.
"I also met Naseer and Caspar today," Shahrazad said, trying to keep the conversation going and mute the pricking thoughts of his mind. "Naseer was nice enough but Caspar didn't talk to me."
"Such tensions can occur. They have been the sole members of my closed circle until now, when you came and joined a position higher than anyone else's."
Or maybe because they know the murderer and are upset that I am alive? "I understand, though I think I am only having the position in name. Just a show of power. Nothing real."
Shahryar didn't speak. Shahrazad bit his lips, guilty of having blurted too much.
"I am not used to making close connections," Shahryar confessed. "Even with the melophoroi, it's more of mutual respect and duty. My life hasn't allowed me to bond with anyone."
"But you loved a boy, did you not?"
Shahryar looked at him meekly. His long tresses fell over his forehead, obstructing the vision. Shahrazad's hands itched to remove those, but he knew he couldn't be so audacious. Shahryar would call him clingy and not caring.
Are all my efforts futile?
"I did. He was a little older to me, maybe by a year. We met when we were kids."
"Ah, childhood love?"
Shahryar chuckled. It was a melody to Shahrazad's ears. It tickled his fantasies.
"I met him when I was barely five, I guess. Our bond was born at a very tender age. Maybe that's what has made him unforgettable."
"I think he remembers you too and wants to be with you, but maybe fate doesn't allow him too."
"You know what was peculiar about him? He never shared with me his name."
Shahrazad's eyes were at the brink of tears. "Then-then what did-did you call him?"
"I called him Shah. He was no less than that in my eyes."
Shahrazad turned his head away to wipe the pearls that glided down his cheeks. But Shahryar's eyes gleamed with dreams which remained unfulfilled, glistening with the shine of wishes he had whispered to the stars every year.
"Children are very different to us adults," Shahryar continued. "They aren't capable of differentiating between types of love. They just love, purely and intensely, like God loves us all. But out of all the loves I have committed myself to since childhood, my love for this friend just grew more and more. After he left suddenly, I felt so alone. No one would see me as a friend. Everyone saw me as the heir. Years went by and my hunger for him grew, and when adolescence came, the love started to take shape. Now I wanted him more than a friend."
Shahrazad recalled the days of his childhood. No, their childhood. They used to pluck flowers and make garlands for each other, comb each other's hair, practice with wooden swords and everytime Shahrazad would feign defeat to see a smile on Shahryar's face.
"Is it possible to love someone so much without seeing them, without knowing about them? What do you think, Shahrazad?"
"Yes," he answered immediately. He knew this all along. He didn't have to think twice. "You can. Love works in ways no one can fathom." His voice shivered like a string of harp. "God had joined you two and no one can put you two asunder."
He flinched when some fingers traced the tears streaming down his face. His eyes widened at the touch. He had not expected it.
"Is it my story that has made you emotional or the fact that I love someone else?"
"Umm, the story."
"I think also the latter. Forgive me, but you had shown interest in my past and I thought it would help me to share the pent up feelings. I have been selfish."
Shahrazad caught the moment when he grabbed Shahryar's palm that rested on his face. "There's nothing wrong in being a little selfish. We can always be a little demanding."
"There's something unique that I had noticed about you, Shahrazad."
"Don't tell me it's my annoying behaviour."
"That is a part of you, but I wonder, who gave you those beautiful eyes? You are gorgeous no doubt, but without those eyes, I feel you would be nothing."
Teardrops balanced on his eyelashes, swimming away with care to not smudge the kohl. In the dim light of the room, Shahrazad's eyes acted as a lighthouse of the past, serving as a memory of the days gone by in the sea of life.
"Your eyes remind me of him, Shahrazad."