Zahara the Pilgrim

Stories for Another Day

The day after she killed her first dragon, Zahara bound up her hair, changed her gown for cotton pants and a jacket, put on a strong pair of boots, and with a sword wrapped in felt strapped to her back, she left the castle where her mother and father and brothers and sisters lived.

She had no destination in mind, only a plan to travel until she found whatever it was that she was looking for, and what that was, she had no clue.

After many weeks of walking, she came first to the wild mountainous country where the villages were poor and the people were thin and hungry, plagued by dragons who would swoop down by night and steal their cattle, their goats and their sheep, and sometimes even their children, when the cattle and goats and sheep were too thin.

Zahara stayed and fought her second dragon and killed it, and was badly injured by her third dragon but recovered. Little by little, month by month, she learned the skills of dragon-slaying, the quick slash and the powerful thrust, flawless aim and endless patience. She learnt quickly because, after all, her mother Shanama was a famed dragon-slayer, and her grandfather, Dharab, was known as the greatest dragon-slayer in all the seven secluded kingdoms.

She moved from village to village, ridding them of the menace of death by night, so that the people could begin to live in hope and prosperity once more. In one village tucked into a crevice in a forbidding mountainside, she came upon a young boy who was facing a huge dragon with only a pitchfork in his hands. Zahara slew the monster, and stayed to teach the boy, whose name was Rustum, everything she knew.

When it was time to leave the village, Zahara found that she had no more heart for killing dragons and spilling their black blood on the earth, so she turned instead to the lowlands, where people lived in contentment in sunny villages filled with happy, laughing children and surrounded by fruit trees and vines. As she entered the first of these villages, she heard an entrancing sound. She followed it to a house, where a man was seated, playing a harp.

The sound captivated Zahara. She spent many months there, learning all the harpist could teach her. She became so skilled that her music rivalled that of anyone in the village, and they were a village of harpists. But discontent stirred in her again, and before a year was up she moved on, strapping a harp of her own making, wrapped in felt, to her back, for her sword she had given to the boy Rustum as a parting gift, many months ago.

Her steps turned by themselves to the deep, wild woods. She wandered for days and weeks until the smell of cooking led her along a faint trail to an encampment of foresters. In a dark clearing surrounded by forest as thick as an army, she found small huts made of fallen branches and sticks and mud, each one big enough for only one or two people. In the centre of the clearing was a huge campfire, warm and inviting to a traveller such as Zahara, who had spent so many days with little to eat but whatever berries and leaves she could scrounge.

A cooking pot full of a fragrant stew of vegetables and herbs nestled in the campfire, and the foresters welcomed Zahara to share their fire and their food. The vegetables and herbs they had grown themselves, among the trees which they tended.

Zahara was glad to sit with them and listen to their quiet talk. After the meal she took out her harp and played for them. They were struck with amazement and gathered around her to find out how the harp was made and how it made its sounds. They sang their own songs and she played with them, far into the night, as the fire sank to red, glowing coals.

She stayed with them then, and the craftsmen among them made harps of more and more extraordinary beauty from the wood that the forest gave them. Zahara taught them how to string and tune and play the harps, until the forest rang with gales of wonderful music every night. She even built her own small hut, on the edge of the circle of huts around the fire, but still her heart was not content.

She had made up her mind to leave, and continue on her travels, when one night a voice spoke out of the darkness. “I know who you are,” it said.

“What? What do you mean?” Zahara asked, recoiling from the sound. In the darkness, she could not see who spoke.

“You are a rose petal child,” the voice said, “born in the heart of a rose.”

Zahara was taken aback. “How do you know?” she said.

“By the little finger of your left hand,” he said, emerging from the darkness to stand a few feet away from her. “For I am one myself,” he said. He held up his hand, and by the light of the fire she could see that his little finger was half the size of the others.

Now Zahara had always been ashamed of the deformity of her finger. From her earliest years resentment and anger had churned in her heart at this difference. Yet in all these months and years of travelling, she had hardly remembered that her hands were not as other people’s. Wielding her sword, playing the harp, building and making, she had given little thought to it. Now she held her hand to the light, and she found that all the resentment and shame had gone.

“I am Lincoln,” the man said. “I would tell you two things. One, for the rose petal child, you will not find your heart’s desire by seeking it. And two, the human heart is made for giving.” And he was gone, slipping away into the darkness.

In the morning when Zahara was making her farewells, she could not tell which of the foresters he was, until he raised his hand, with a smile. Zahara raised hers, and so a bond was forged between them.

She gave her harp to a young child named Silvana who was especially skilled at music, and she set off again, with a new light step and a heart warm with hope.

After some weeks of walking, she came to a small valley lit by sunshine, bordered by the forest, with its back to the mountain. A cold, clear stream ran down from the mountain through the valley. Here she built a hut for herself and planted vegetables, which grew in such abundance that she could trade them for chickens and a pair of goats, so she had milk and eggs and cheese besides.

There was always room for travellers at her fireside, and hot food, and music. Before long she found herself sharing her knowledge of music and instrument-making, and then the art of wielding swords and daggers. Others came to join her in the sunlit valley, some for a short time, and others who built houses for themselves and settled there.

One of those who came was Lincoln. When Zahara saw him, she knew her happiness was complete. Together they had two happy, rosy children, a daughter named Rosabel and a son named Carlo. They taught them all the skills of the forest and the hearth, music and swordplay, but although the children learned quickly and easily, these were not the skills they excelled at – but that’s a story for another day. Indeed, Carlo eventually married a princess of his own, after many struggles, but it was Rosabel who was acquainted with more wonders than the human heart can tell.

Zahara and Lincoln lived many, many years in great contentment, giving of their food, their knowledge and themselves, as the human heart is made for.