‘This merchant lived in a modest house in the city, neither poor nor opulent, but the homely gifts of his friendship were many and offered without stint: ass’s milk and sweet dates, spiced lamb and eggs baked with herbs, flatbreads, sweetbreads and candied peels – more, my eyes, than I could eat, and I was well satisfied. When we had pushed away the meal and sat together in the cool part of the evening, the merchant turned to me.
‘“Brother merchant,” he said, “your trading today has reminded me of a story that is known to everyone in this city but which I think you, as a foreigner, will not have heard. I would like to tell you this story.”
‘In those days I was as eager to gather stories, my eyes, as I was to buy new wares, and I urged my new friend to continue.
‘“There was a great king from this place, who became king over many kings. It was his custom to pass the winter in feasting, and the summer in campaigning, fighting wars to extend his kingdom and to bring riches back to his city. At the end of one long summer, he returned from campaign, bearing in his train a mass of treasure the likes of which no eastern or western monarch had ever seen, more than historians, more even than poets could begin to describe. My words, brother merchant, cannot do justice to such wealth. With this treasure he planned to make his capital city the centre of the world, a city more fragrant and luxurious than ancient Babylon, grander and more elegant than Rome, more famous for learning than Athens or Alexandria, a city to rival Carthage, Persepolis or Tyre or Antioch. He had sent before him orders to his masons and artisans, to construct a palatial temple surpassing the scope and beauty of any building ever constructed. To his temple he summoned a thousand kings and emirs, the princes of the lands lying between the Bosphorus, the Asian steppe, the great eastern gulf, and the deserts of Egypt. These princes would he feast in his temple, and they would acknowledge him the shāhanshāh, the king of kings.
‘“This conqueror rode to the Feast of a Thousand Kings upon his favourite stallion, alone, without his guard, dressed in a common soldier’s garb and bearing at his belt only his sword, for during the feast the kings his vassals were to confer upon him his rich robes of state, with all the ornaments of power and rule. He alighted on the steps of his new temple, and was about to enter the great hall when he was stopped by a beggar – by a little boy, no more than twelve years in age. This boy stood on the steps in his rags, holding in his hand the brush with which, for a few common coins and a great number of painful kicks, he had cleaned the feet of the kings as they had arrived to take their seats for the feast.
‘“‘Great king,’ said the little boy, ‘great king and lord of land and sea, pardon my insolence, and suffer me to speak the space of a single breath.’
‘“The king was irritated by the child’s forwardness and thought at first to strike him, but the boy was at once so humble and mean, and yet so well-spoken, so lowly and yet so courteous, that he paused; and that pause saved his life. For the boy told him that every one of the thousand emirs had borne into the temple a dagger strapped to his leg, concealed beneath his gown. Only the beggar boy, grovelling in the sand and dirt upon the steps as he ran his brush over their feet in exchange for copper coins, had noticed these weapons. By these daggers surely the princes intended some harm to the king of kings, and not to crown him but to kill him.
‘“A few simple orders were quickly given, and the king entered the temple as planned – to the smiling faces and the loud cheers, but to the hollow and the faithless hearts, of his subject lords. Walking the length of the hall, and taking his seat on the throne set highest above the expectant audience, he called for the servers to carry in the feast – a thousand men bearing a thousand platters, to be set at once before a thousand revelling kings. Glasses were lifted and a salute began to rise. But at the signal – for these men were not servants, but soldiers, trained and obedient – the platters were uncovered to reveal not a sumptuous feast, but shackles. Before they could rise to defend themselves, every prince seated at the feast found his neck bound in a collar of iron. They had entered the hall as kings, but they would leave the hall as slaves.
‘“To each of the soldiers who had served him on that day, the king granted a kingdom for his service. But to each of the kings who had sought to betray him, he gave a punishment. Their beards were shaved, and their royal garments exchanged for coarse cloth. Their sandals with buckles of beaten gold the king caused to be cast upon the fire, and from that day they went barefoot. Chained by the collar one to the other, they were beaten into the desert, and set to work in a secret place building the king’s tomb.
‘“Meanwhile the king sent forth a decree
