Lady Bedrulbudour in procession to the palace of her bridegroom
Alaeddin. So the troops forthright mounted with the officers of
state, who had been in Alaeddin's procession, and the slave-girls
and eunuchs went out with flambeaux and carried the Lady
Bedrulhudour in great state to her bridegroom's palace,
Alaeddin's mother by her side and before her the women of the
Viziers and Amirs and grandees and notables. Moreover, she had
with her eight and-forty slave-girls, whom Alaeddin had presented
to her, in each one's hand a great candle of camphor and
ambergris, set in a candlestick of gold, studded with jewels; and
all the men and women in the palace went out with her and fared
on before her, till they brought her to her bridegroom's palace
and carrying her up to her pavilion, [FN#495] attired her in
various robes [FN#496] and displayed her. Then, after they had
made an end of displaying her, they carried her to the pavilion
of her groom Alaeddin and he went in to her. Now his mother was
with the Lady Bedrulbudour, and when he came up and did off her
veil, she fell to gazing upon the bride's beauty and grace and
looked at the pavilion, the which was all wroughten [FN#497] of
gold and jewels and therein were golden lustres, all embossed
with emeralds and rubies; and she said in herself, "Methought the
Sultan's palace was magnificent; but, for this pavilion [FN#498]
alone, I doubt me the greatest of the Chosroes and the kings
never owned its match; nor, methinketh, might all mankind avail
to make the like thereof." And the Lady Bedrulbudour also fell to
looking and marvelling at the palace [FN#499] and its
magnificence. Then the table was laid and they ate and drank and
made merry; and presently there appeared before them fourscore
slave-girls, each with an instrument in her hand of the
instruments of mirth and music. So they plied their finger-tips