The Palace Guardiennes

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.”