my gidaty said, as she had so many times before. The story she told was an old and familiar one. The first time my grandmother told me the tale of the three harem slaves of Babylon, I’d replied, “I know this story already.” Her old eyes—not as old as they were now, of course, for I’d been only five years old then, and I was thirteen now—had widened at my innocent words. “You know the story, Amarrah? How, my little one?” “I was there.” Gidaty had been stunned, I could tell. “You were, were you?” I’d nodded. I remember how clearly I’d been able to see it all in my mind. The glittering city of Babylon and the luxurious harem quarters where I’d been a servant. Slave girl to the slave girls. “I was a palace slave before,” I’d told my increasingly astounded grandmother. “I worked in the kitchens. But the other servants were mean to me. I had to do all the nastiest jobs.
