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his wife.”
    “Who were your parents?” Fatima asked.
    “I never knew them and I don’t know anything about them. As far back as I can remember, I lived in the house of the merchant Ali. As long as his son was still at home, we managed to get by. But then the bad times came. The master would moan, pull out his hair, and pray. His wife told him to take me to Bukhara and sell me there. He put me on a donkey and we went to Bukhara. He asked all the merchants where they’d take me and who they’d sell me to, until he met one who worked for your master. This one swore by the beard of the Prophet that I would live like a princess. Ali settled on a price, and when they took me away he started crying out loud. So did I. But now I can see that the merchant was right. I really do feel like a princess here.”
    Misty-eyed, the girls glanced at each other and smiled.
    “My master cried, too, when he sold me,” Zainab said. “I wasn’t born a slave. When I was little some Turks abducted me and took me to their grazing lands. I learned to ride and shoot with a bow and arrow like a boy. They were all curious because I had blue eyes and golden hair. People would come from far away to look at me. They said that if some powerful chieftain found out about me, he’d probably buy me. Then the sultan’s army came and my master was killed. I was about ten years old at the time. We were retreating from the sultan’s soldiers, and we lost a lot of people and livestock. The master’s son took over the leadership of the tribe. He fell in love with me and took me into his harem as a real wife. But the sultan took everything away from us, and my master went wild. He beat us every day, but he refused to submit to the sultan. Then the chieftains made peace. Merchants came and started to trade. One day an Armenian noticed me and started to dog my master about me. He offered him livestock and money. Finally the two of them came into the tent. When my master saw me, he pulled his dagger and tried to stab me, so that he couldn’t give in to the temptation of selling me. But the merchant held him back, and then they closed the deal. I thought I was going to die. The Armenian took me to Samarkand. He was revolting. It was there that he sold me to Sayyiduna. But all that is long past …”
    “Poor thing, you’ve endured a lot,” Halima said and stroked her cheek compassionately.
    Fatima asked, “Were you your master’s wife?”
    Halima blushed. “No. I mean, I don’t know. What do you mean?”
    “Don’t bother her with those questions, Fatima,” Miriam said. “Can’t you see she’s still a child?”
    “Oh, what happened to me was bad,” said Fatima, sighing. “My relatives sold both my mother and me to some peasant. I was barely ten years old when I had to become his wife. He had debts, and since he couldn’t pay them, he gave me as payment to his creditor, but he didn’t tell him that I’d already become his wife. So my new master called me all kinds of abusive names, beat me and tormented me, and screamed that the peasant and I had cheated him. He swore by all the martyrs that he would destroy us both. I didn’t understand any of it. The master was old and ugly, and I’d shake in his presence as though he were an evil spirit. He let both of his former wives beat me too. Then he found himself a fourth one and he was as sweet as honey with her, but he’d just beat the rest of us all that much more. Finally we were saved by the leader of one of Sayyiduna’s caravans, who bought me for these gardens.”
    Halima looked at her with teary eyes, then she smiled and said, “See, in the end you came here, and things are all right.”
    “Enough storytelling for now,” Miriam interrupted. “It will be dark soon, you’re tired, and we have work to do tomorrow. Take this stick and wash your teeth with it.”
    It was a thin little stick with tiny, brush-like fibers at one end. Halima quickly understood its function. They brought