Book Description
Sultan Mejhem ibn El-Hashem has forty-two wives and countless children. He has a large, prosperous realm, a large palace and numerous fortresses too. He has good relations with the Byzantine Empire and also the Persian one. Emissaries come from far and wide to pay homage to this illustrious ruler of Anazzah, master of Sakakah and Ar’ar, of the numerous other towns, villages and oases and of the deserts too stretching to the north, to the south, to the west and to the east. But, despite the sultan’s many riches, influence and power, and his complete command over life and death, he lacks the control over one single person. And her name is Alisha. Alisha is but one of many … one wife out of forty-two. A mere child when she was snatched away from the streets of Sakakah, this former street urchin was discovered by one of the sultan’s wife seekers. She was a beautiful girl, only thirteen years old and just right for the ruler. Alisha was made a wife and she served him well enough until other, younger wives took his interest away from her. But Alisha did not care about this. She never loved nor even liked the sultan. She thought of him as an old, fat and ugly man, aloof and uncaring and wholly inadequate as a husband. And despite her previous life in the city streets, Alisha was never impressed by el-Hashem’s power and wealth. One day, Alisha fell in love with another wife of the sultan. Her name is Zenobia. And Zenobia loved Alisha too, for she felt the same way about their husband as Alisha. Thus, the two wives of the sultan lived their daily lives in the palace, married to him, but devoted to each other. Alisha kept up the veneer of being a sultan’s wife until one day she and Zenobia met a prisoner. His name is Geisarix and he was brought to Sakakah by the Byzantines, who had captured him in battle. The barbarian warrior was to be sold as a slave, but the sultan bought him instead, to be made a member of his guards. When Alisha and Zenobia first saw him, they were impressed by his looks, strength and sense of freedom. This chance meeting inadvertently increased Alisha’s desires to be free again, like she once was. And thus she and Zenobia initiated a plan that would free them from the sultan’s clutches and liberate Geisarix too, whose defiance got him thrown into the dungeon. Although things initially went well, they run into trouble when the sultan catches wind of some of their misdeeds. Eventually, the two girls end up in the dungeons, and even a slave too, who had assisted the two wives. And thus the four of them sit in murky cells, lost and forlorn. What will happen next? Will the sultan punish Alisha and Zenobia further, as he had promised? Or will they be set free? If not, can they get free on their own? Will Alisha forsake Zenobia to favor Geisarix, or perhaps vice versa? And what will become of Bahira, the slave?
