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The Palace Guardiennes were the sultan’s delight,
resplendent in their tight uniforms
of scarlet and magenta silks,
embroidered with golden flowers,
with sterling silver scimitars in
ruby studded scabbards
hanging off lovely hips,
and boots and belts of finest faun-skin
and helmets topped by peacock plumes

They carried poplar lances
and twirled them like batons
and slashed the air with their sparkling swords 
as they pranced precisely,
weaving complex patterns
across the well-groomed grounds
beneath the sultan’s balcony

Often did he stand there, gazing down
upon his four and twenty girls,
a beauty every one,
enjoying their jiggles and geometry
as he put them through their paces
to the tune of a comely drummer

No training had they in the art of war,
only the tutelage of Terpsichore
for they were arrayed for the eye alone,
for parades and ceremonies solely,
whilst the male soldiers,
clad in baggy blacks and grays,
with dull, far sharper swords
stood watch, unwatched,
atop parapets and before the gates,
and patrolled the city’s streets
with plodding clodhopped feet

And when invading armies from Dramazgas
neared the city
the sultan’s men retreated,
with the enemy hard on their heels.
But the sultan was a crafty devil
and had plotted wisely.
His foes would surge through
open, unguarded gates,
tasting victory on their tongues,
but the sultan’s men had left behind
encircled wagons to welcome them–
full of fuses burning in hidden powder kegs,
to obliterate the enemy in one blinding blast

Yet unexpected resistance
formed before the gates –
the Palace Guardiennes,
with lightweight lances lifted,
and peacock feathers fluttering,
and scimitars sliding from scabbards,
snatching sparkles from the sunshine

And the sultan stood safely atop a hill
with spyglass pressed to eye,
and said in consternation:

“Are they mad? Who ordered this?
Surely they’ll give way,
the blast is timed quite carefully,
our foes must not delay.
Those girls are merely baubles,
made for pretty spins,
to entertain our eyeballs;
no battles must they win.”

And his grand vizier said glumly,
“We cannot call them back.
They are closing with the enemy
and meeting the attack.”

“But they shall ruin everything
and suffer gruesome fate.
They are but pretty baubles;
they’ve no business guarding gates!”

The grand vizier said softly,
as he slowly doffed his hat,
“The blame is ours, great sultan,
for we never told them that.”
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