“Know this,” said Arslanbek. “By the order of our illustrious emir, you are deprived of wages until the villainous Hodja Nasreddin is captured! And if you fail to track him down, then you will lose not only your wages but also your heads, this I promise. But, conversely, the one who spares no effort and captures Hodja Nasreddin will receive a reward of three thousand tanga and, on top of that, a promotion: he will be appointed head spy.”
The spies immediately set off to work, dressed up as dervishes, beggars, water-bearers, and traders, while the pockmarked spy, whose cunning exceeded all the others, took a rug, beans, prayer beads, and ancient books, and headed to the section of the bazaar where the jewelry and the musk rows intersected, intending to pass off as a fortune teller and interrogate the women.
An hour later, hundreds of heralds appeared on the bazaar square, calling all Muslims to attention with their shouts. They pronounced the emir’s firman [13]. Hodja Nasreddin was declared an enemy of the emir and a defiler of the faith. The people were forbidden to interact with him in any way, much less shelter him, which was punishable immediately by death. However, the one who delivered him into the hands of the emir’s guards was promised a reward of three thousand tanga and other favors.
The chaikhana keepers, coppersmiths, blacksmiths, weavers, water-bearers, and camel drivers whispered to each other:
“The emir is going to have to wait a long time!”
“Our Hodja Nasreddin is not the sort that gets caught!”
“And the inhabitants of Noble Bukhara are not the sort to be enticed by money and betray their own Hodja Nasreddin!”
But the moneylender Jafar, who was conducting his usual rounds on the bazaar and tormenting his debtors, thought otherwise. “Three thousand tanga!” he lamented. “Yesterday, that money was almost in my pocket! Hodja Nasreddin will come to see the girl again, but I will not be able to capture him myself, and if I tell anyone, they will steal my reward! No, I will do otherwise!”
He headed to the palace.
He knocked for a long time. No one opened. The guards did not hear him: they were talking spiritedly, thinking of plans to capture Hodja Nasreddin.
“O brave warriors, have you fallen asleep?” the moneylender kept calling in a desperate voice as he knocked with the iron ring, but a lot of time passed before he heard footsteps and the clanging of the bolts – and then the gate opened.
After listening to the moneylender, Arslanbek shook his head:
“Esteemed Jafar, I would advise you not to see the emir today. He is grim and wrathful.”
“I have just the means to cheer him up,” the moneylender replied. “O esteemed Arslanbek, pillar of the throne and tamer of its enemies, this matter cannot be delayed. Tell the emir that I have come to lift his sorrow.”
The emir met the moneylender gloomily:
“Speak, Jafar. But if your news does not cheer us up, you will receive two hundred cane blows on the spot.”
“O great ruler, who obscures all the past, present, and future kings with his light,” the moneylender said. “Your worthless slave has become aware that there is a girl living in our city that I can confidently say is the most beautiful of all beautiful girls.”
The emir livened up and raised his head.
“O ruler!” the emboldened moneylender continued. “I have no words worthy of praising her beauty. She is tall, lovely, slender, and proportionate, with a glowing brow and rosy cheeks, with eyes reminiscent of the eyes of a gazelle, with eyebrows that are like the thin crescent of the moon! Her cheeks are like anemones, and her mouth like the seal of Solomon, and her lips like coral, and her teeth like pearl, and her breast like marble decorated with two cherries, and her shoulders…”
The emir interrupted his outburst of eloquence:
“If the girl is indeed as you describe, then she deserves to take a place in our harem. Who is she?”
“She is from a common and ignoble family, o ruler. This is the daughter of a potter, whose worthless name I dare not pronounce lest it insult the ruler’s ears. I can point out her house, but will the faithful slave of the emir be rewarded for this?”
The emir nodded to Bakhtiyar, a purse fell to the moneylender’s feet. The moneylender snatched it, his face altered by greed.
“If she turns out to be worthy of your praise, then you will receive another like this,” said the emir.
“Our ruler’s generosity be praised!” exclaimed the moneylender. “But let the ruler hurry, for I have discovered that this gazelle is being hunted!”
The emir’s eyebrows moved together and a deep frown crossed the bridge of his nose:
“By who?”
“Hodja Nasreddin!” the moneylender replied.
“Again Hodja Nasreddin! Here, too, Hodja Nasreddin! He has time for everything, this Hodja Nasreddin, while you,” – tipping the throne, the emir turned sharply to the viziers – “you are always late, you do nothing and inflict shame on our majesty. Hey, Arslanbek! Let this girl be delivered here, to the palace, immediately, and if you do not bring her, the executioner will be waiting for you as you return!”
No more than five minutes later, a large detachment of guards left the palace, their weapons clanging and their shields glinting in the sun. It was led by Arslanbek himself, who had attached a gold badge to his brocade robe to signify his power and authority.
On the side, limping and hobbling nefariously, walked the moneylender; he kept falling behind the guards and catching up to them in a jumping gait. The people stepped aside, following the moneylender with unkind gazes, trying to guess what new evil he had concocted.
Chapter 20
Hodja Nasreddin had just finished his ninth pot and, placing it in the sun, he picked up a large lump of clay from the tub to begin his next one, the tenth.
Suddenly, there was a loud and authoritative knock at the gate. The neighbors, who frequently stopped by Niyaz’s house to borrow an onion or a pinch of spices, did not knock like this. Hodja Nasreddin and Niyaz exchanged worried glances, while the gate rang out again under a hail of heavy blows. This time, Hodja Nasreddin’s ear caught the jingling of copper and iron. “Guards,” he whispered to Niyaz. “Run,” Niyaz replied. Hodja Nasreddin leaped over the fence, while Niyaz fussed with the gate for a long time to give Hodja Nasreddin a chance to escape. Finally, he undid the latch. Immediately, starlings dashed in all directions from the vineyard. But the old Niyaz had no wings, and he could not fly away. He grew pale and bent over in a bow before Arslanbek.
“Your house is blessed with a great honor,” said Arslanbek. “The ruler of the faithful and Allah’s deputy on earth, our master and lord – may his blessed years be extended – the great emir himself, has deigned to remember your unworthy name! He has learned that a beautiful rose grows in your garden, and he wishes to grace his palace with this rose. Where is your daughter?”
The potter’s gray head began to shake, and his vision went dark. He could barely hear the brief, as if deathly, moan of his daughter as the guards dragged her from the house into the yard. The old man’s legs buckled at the knees; he fell on the ground face down and no longer saw or heard anything.
“He has fainted from such great joy,” Arslanbek explained to his guards. “Leave him alone, let him come to, and then he may come to the palace to pour out his boundless gratitude before the emir. Come.”