25 Chapter 25: Diagnosis: Dangerously Bewitched

After the beauty contest, Shirazad had to adapt to a new rumor circulating the palace... certain people started to look at her with disdain. She had survived the dungeon and now this beauty contest... Perhaps the king was not simply enchanted by her fairy-tales, but he was dangerously bewitched! ...From a city savior, she turned into a witch overnight...

Obviously, she had to be prepared for everything -- she never knew what people would think the next day. Despite all the rumors regarding how she had "bewitched" him, she tried to get rid of the idea that the king might have written the poem for her during the beauty contest.

Perhaps he'd just paid someone -- perhaps he just wanted to show off his "property" in front of other noblemen. Although Shirazad was not proud of her beauty, she was aware of it, and often reminded of it by other people, so she could guess that a certain husband might want to show off with it. Of course, everybody wanted to see the fabled beauty Shirazad... That was what must have happened.

Gisi was soon to leave the palace and she was terribly frustrated. The thought she might never see Shirazad again made her feel truly guilty... Shirazad tried to calm her down -- she would be fine... But in fact she too was afraid that she might have no one to talk to.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, who knew, the king often left the palace on business so Shirazad spent time alone. You know what they say, men had work to do and had a more active social life, while women often had fewer opportunities for social interaction to distract them from relationships, and little to entertain themselves with except their own minds.

Shirazad's only friend was Anuvaniya, her new handmaiden, as Gisi had finally left. The other ladies in the palace thought that Shirazad was spoiled; born with a silver spoon in her mouth, she was the apple of her father's eye; and now even the king pardoned her and saved her life; and all this they thought had little to do with Shirazad's personal qualities of the mind or the heart. And actually the better she preformed any task, the more disapproval she garnered, especially from a single person, Mehrnaz.

As if Shirazad had committed a terrible sin by being silently pardoned for the incident during winter solstice and let out of the dungeon...

And with the time, as Shirazad discovered that her contributions were unwanted, she decided it would be better if she just detached from the situation.

So she just sat quietly in the garden together with Anuvaniya. There was one child there who helped bring food to the horses and clean the nearby stables. It was the out-of-wedlock child of some of the maids, a young boy. He was not the most well educated, but whenever he saw Shirazad in the garden, writing some stories, he would go and ask her to tell him a story and what would happen next to the characters. He was one of the few people who talked with her. At first, Shirazad was happy she had a fan.

The child however had insatiable curiosity. He would continue to ask again and again "what happened next?" He would interrupt whatever she was doing to ask his questions. Finally, Anuvaniya couldn't stand him and scolded him,

"Hey! Show some manners, this is your Queen! If it were me, you would have been scolded already and chased away! How dare you keep disturbing her?! When she has a new story, she will tell you if she wants to. You shouldn't complain about it!" Anuvaniya finished, then she turned to Shirazad,

"Your Highness, I am sorry. I truly love children too, but how can you stand him? He's so uneducated. And he complains all the time as if it's your daily job to write stories for him... Also, from what I've heard, I'd guess his taste is quite different from the king's, so you can't use exactly the same stories for both of them."

"Yes," Shirazad said. "But it is exactly because he's so uneducated that I feel happy. Such people are usually not so interested in literature or science; I would guess that his parents are also not very well educated and his environment inappropriate. So, I'm afraid if I scold the child he might lose his interest in reading altogether."

"Interest in reading?! He reads and writes so badly! But you are right, I guess his parents are illiterate, whoever they are."

"This child in fact may be a very good child. If he's been rude, it may be because nobody taught him how to show less curiosity or to be more polite, and he didn't have a good example... Anyway, no one else disturbs me in this garden." She smiled.

"Speaking of which, Your Highness, I heard that Mehrnaz is getting married and will be going on a honeymoon. Why don't you use this opportunity to mingle with people... They can get to know you personally, instead of just relying on hearsay. Oh, I heard there is a foreign language course in the palace, you could enroll."

Shirazad thought it was a good idea since she wouldn't be able to see her sister and wouldn't have much to do.

The first day when she arrived at the place designated for a classroom, people threw curious looks at her. But some people did not just stop there.

One young noble lady came to her and whispered,

"Your Highness, I also have someone I like a lot. Can you teach me some magic?"

"..." Shirazad was speechless. She'd heard of the rumors, but she couldn't imagine that people so readily believed them. It seemed the girl was still waiting for an answer.

"The magic is in your heart," Shirazad snapped. She had to put an end to such rumors early on. She knew some women outside the palace were killed after being accused of "witchcraft."

The noble lady frowned, thinking Shirazad didn't want to share her secrets... After all, it wasn't just the king. Many a man had been crazy over this woman -- it couldn't be just a coincidence!

...Whenever Shirazad felt bad, she remembered Gisi's last words before she left the palace,

"Your Highness, in case we don't see each other again... I just want you to remember me and to know that I will remember you! And if we were ordinary people, and the palace was an ordinary place, then I would indeed come back to visit you as a friend... but now I'm afraid I won't be able to do it." Though Gisi admired Shirazad for other things too, for example, how she had survived Shahryar's wrath, she did not tell her about that because she did not want to speak in advance... For who knew what the king's thoughts might be tomorrow?

... It happened so that the king's thoughts were very interesting, and it wasn't even tomorrow yet. When Shirazad arrived at the king's quarters she found the whole bed covered with rose petals much to her surprise. But she did not smile, nor did she express any other emotion. Shahryar was standing by the window as usual. He circled around her,

"...Why don't you take off your clothes and cover your body with rose petals?" he said.

~~Why don't you take off your clothes and cover your body with rose petals?!~~ she thought angrily. So angrily that even though she was speechless there was something in her eyes that made him smirk.