The Thousand Flower Throne loomed on the dais. The throne, though rendered in gold and fine enamels by masters of a bygone age, was not as striking as the dainty figure propped upon it. Sitting in her own personal storm cloud of black silk was an austere-looking, scrub-rose-faced woman. A scrub rose that had earned its place in this garden not by the merit of its particular splendor but on the cunning of its thorns. This rose queen with her tenacious tendrils and piecing gaze cast her eyes down from her high garden perch to me.
“Well, captain?” Her voice was like pruning shears. Precise and ruthless. “What have you learned of our visitor?”
Tag: Sulaiman
The man with the sandwich
The cat squinted in irritation. The man had quite rudely invaded its alley. He had not even offered a bit of the sandwich he was gnawing on. It was a rather good-smelling sandwich too with some sort of fish spread on a hot loaf. The cat gave a disgruntled hrmph before beginning a half-hearted bath hoping the man would notice and toss him a tidbit. The man did not in fact notice the cat. He was too busy gazing across the busy market, watching a monstrous man draped in a boar skin haggle over some bangles.