“Just so,” Hari-ibn-Hari agreed. But then he added, “However, hunger is stalking the Street of the Storytellers. Starvation is on its way.”
“Hunger?” the grand vizier snapped. “Starvation?”
Hari-ibn-Hari explained, “We storytellers have bent every thought we have to creating new stories for your lovely daughter—blessings upon her. We don’t have time to tell stories in the bazaar anymore—”
“You’d better not!” the grand vizier warned sternly. “The sultan must hear only new stories, stories that no one else has heard before. Otherwise he would not be intrigued by them and my dearly loved daughter would lose her head.”
“But, most munificent one,” cried Hari-ibn-Hari, “by devoting ourselves completely to your needs, we are neglecting our own. Since we no longer have the time to tell stories in the bazaar, we have no other source of income except the coppers you pay us for our tales.”
The grand vizier at last saw where they were heading. “You want more? Outrageous!”
“But, oh far-seeing one, a single copper for each story is not enough to keep us alive!”
Fareed-al-Shaffa added, “We have families to feed. I myself have four wives and many children.”
“What is that to me?” the grand vizier shouted. He thought that these pitiful storytellers were just like workmen everywhere, trying to extort higher wages for their meager efforts.
“We cannot continue to give you stories for a single copper apiece,” Fareed-al-Shaffa said flatly.
“Then I will have your tongues taken from your throats. How many stories will you be able to tell then?”
The three storytellers went pale. But the Daemon of the Night, small and frail though he was in body, straightened his spine and found the strength to say, “If you do that, most noble one, you will get no more stories and your daughter will lose her life.”
The grand vizier glared angrily at the storytellers. From her hidden post in the veiled gallery, Scheherazade felt her heart sink. Oh father! she begged silently, Be generous. Open your heart.
At length the grand vizier muttered darkly, “There are many storytellers in Baghdad. If you three refuse me I will find others who will gladly serve. And, of course, the three of you will lose your tongues. Consider carefully. Produce stories for me at one copper apiece, or be silenced forever.”
“Our children will starve!” cried Fareed-al-Shaffa.
“Our wives will have to take to the streets to feed themselves,” wailed Hari-ibn-Hari.
The Daemon of the Night said nothing.
“That is your choice,” said the grand vizier, as cold and unyielding as a steel blade. “Stories at one copper apiece or I go to other storytellers. And you lose your tongues.”
“But magnificent one—”
“That is your choice,” the grand vizier repeated sternly. “You have until noon tomorrow to decide.”
It was a gloomy trio of storytellers who wended their way back to the bazaar that day.
“He is unyielding,” Fareed-al-Shaffa said. “Too bad. I have been thinking of a new story about a band of thieves and a young adventurer. I think I’ll call him Ali Baba.”
“A silly name,” Hari-ibn-Hari rejoined. “Who could take seriously a story where the hero’s name is so silly?”
“I don’t think the name is silly,” Fareed-al-Shaffa maintained. “I rather like it.”
As they turned in to the Street of the Storytellers, with ragged, lean, and hungry men at every door pleading with passersby to listen to their tales, the Daemon of the Night said softly, “Arguing over a name is not going to solve our problem. By tomorrow noon we could lose our tongues.”
Hari-ibn-Hari touched reflexively at his throat. “But to continue to sell our tales for one single copper is driving us into starvation.”
“We will starve much faster if our tongues are cut out,” said Fareed-al-Shaffa.
The others nodded unhappily as they plodded up the street and stopped at Fareed’s hovel.
“Come in and have coffee with me,” he said to his companions. “We must think of a way out of this problem.”
All four of Fareed-al-Shaffa’s wives were home, and all four of them asked the storyteller how they were expected to feed their many children if he did not bring in more coins.
“Begone,” he commanded them—after they had served the coffee. “Back to the women’s quarters.”
The women’s quarters were nothing more than a squalid room in the rear of the hovel, teeming with noisy children.
Once the women had left, the three storytellers squatted on the threadbare carpet and sipped at their coffee cups.
“Suppose this carpet could fly,” mused Hari-ibn-Hari.
Fareed-al-Shaffa hmphed. “Suppose a genie appeared and gave us riches beyond imagining.”
The Daemon of the Night fixed them both with a somber gaze. “Suppose you both stop toying with new story ideas and turn your attention to our problem.”
“Starve from low wages or lose our tongues,” sighed Hari-ibn-Hari.
“And once our tongues have been cut out the grand vizier goes to other storytellers to take our place,” said the Daemon of the Night.
Fareed-al-Shaffa said slowly, “The grand vizier assumes the other storytellers will be too terrified by our example to refuse his starvation wage.”
