Thief of Baghdad (11 page)

Karim munched his candy. “You know, O Jinni, when I was a boy, I used to dream of having one of you appear to me. Now I’m not so sure.”

“Because you’ve found out that the three wish thing isn’t so?”

He laughed, and glanced over at the group of overseers. They were beginning to unfurl their whips; rest time was nearly over. “No,” Karim said. “No. Wishing for three wishes is boy’s stuff. But it seems to me that the price of having a jinni in one’s life . . . How’ll I put it without hurting your feelings?”

“Don’t worry about my feelings, O Karim. At my age they’re well callused.”

He grinned. “What I’m trying to say is, don’t you have a less—well—curious jinni you could assign to whatever it is you want me for?”

With difficulty I kept my temper. “Curious? Damn it, I can turn into the handsomest young man you ever saw. And I would, too, if we were any place but here. Curious, indeed!”

Karim stood up. “Work time,” he said. “You’d better vanish, or evaporate or whatever it’s called. I don’t mean curious looking. I mean—well, nosy. I’d much sooner be poor all my life than have the feeling a jinni is looking over my shoulder every time I kiss a girl.”

“Very delicately put, Karim. And would you rather be poor and in this place all your life?”

He was strolling away from me. He glanced at the nearest overseer, saw the man was out of whipshot, and turned to call back to me. “Oh, I’ll get out of here, all right. They never made bars yet that could hold Karim.” And then he went to spring nimbly back on top of the oil press.

That’s gratitude for you. I thought of several things I could have said, but an overseer was stalking toward me. As his whip cracked toward my legs, I dematerialized with a piece of
rahat lakhoum
half swallowed, which was sure to give me indigestion.

I floated overhead for a few minutes, to see what that overseer made of my disappearance. But he just rubbed his eyes. They were bloodshot eyes, he looked like a hashish user. I suppose he didn’t dare report my behavior, or he would be accused of smoking on duty, and maybe demoted to the grade of prisoner; so he said nothing.

Dematerializing while swallowing had upset my stomach, just as I thought it would. I materialized in a corner of the bazaar and ate an
atzem pilaff
to settle myself, dematerialized again, and did a fast zoom for the palace.

Just in time. Trumpets were blowing, cymbals clashing, and the Prince Osman was making a morning call on the Sultan. I floated alongside him as he rode across the courtyard, and from the gleam in his eye, I saw he was well-satisfied with himself. I zoomed an immaterial finger under his robes, and there was the vial, sure enough; the vial but not the contents that Ghamal had put there; instead, there was the substitute potion I’d supplied.

Ghamal met the Prince at the door of the great court, clapping for guards to come hold the princely stallion, for servants to sweep the carpet ahead of the princely feet. They exchanged winks, Ghamal and the Prince Osman; low, conspiritorial winks that almost burned me as they passed through me; I happened to be between them at the time.

The usual crowd of fellaheen had sprung up to watch the royal meeting, as my Baghdadians will always show up to watch any spectacle. I pity jinns who have to live in cities like Damascus and Cairo, where the crowds are incurious; I think a good crowd makes a show; a spectacle is nothing without plenty of people.

I got behind Ghamal’s ample figure, and materialized as the old man, and then was shoved away from the Grand Vizier by a palace guard and into the crowd, where I wanted to be anyway.

Ghamal and the Sultan’s chamberlains took up their posts and began the royal shoutings: “The Sultan Abdir Bajazeth, Lord of all he surveys, Sultan of Baghdad, Lord of Samarkand and Samarra, etc., etc.”

And: “The Prince Osman of Mossul, third son of the mighty Sultan Abdul Ali, conqueror of the Berbers, scourge of the Bedouins . . . etc., etc.”

What it came down to was that the Sultan and the Prince were glad to see each other. But two strong men had to shout themselves red-faced to prove it.

Now that the shouting was over, the Prince took his place on the
leewan
next to the Sultan. Ghamal clapped his hands, and servants brought Turkish coffee and nargilehs delicately filled with a mixture of Persian tobacco and hashish; the royalty sipped and puffed and occasionally exchanged jewels, to show their friendship.

The crowd began to drift away, and sensing this, Ghamal leaned over and whispered something to Sultan Abdir the Foolish. The Sultan looked up at him over his fat royal shoulder. Ghamal looked patient, and I dematerialized one ear and zoomed it in to hear. “Your daughter; sire.”

“Which one?”

“You’re only legitimate one, O Sultan. The Lady Amina.”

Abdir the Foolish was particularly so this morning. Really, it was too early to mix hashish with your tobacco. “Amirah?”

I brought my ear back, rematerialized it in place, and took down the hand that had been covering its absence. There was no profit in eavesdropping on
that
conversation.

Eventually, of course, Ghamal got through to his royal master, and the royal hands were clapped: “Let the Princess Amina appear before her Sultan!”

The chamberlain took it up, of course, and the words boomed off the dome of the great hall. Glancing up, I could see activity behind the pierced stone screen.

But I kept myself and both my eyes down on the floor of the great hall. Another day had gone by in which I was separated from the Lady Jinni of the Rocky Sands—in fact from all lady jinns—and I was in no mood to go watch a covey of forbidden maidens dress for a court appearance, or for anything at all.

That frightful, off-beat palace music started up again, and the procession of ladies-in-waiting began to come down the stairs from the harem. The screen was bright with the flutterings of the handmaidens who, of course, couldn’t accompany their lady to the great court, but who could stand there and watch the ladies. Under the sweet rule of the Princess Amina, there was hardly any difference at all in the status of her maids and ladies-in-waiting; they were all friends.

Who got the Lady Amina for a bride would surely be a lucky man; and it would not be the Prince Osman, if I had put the right potion in his crystal vial. I hoped I had; my interest in chemistry is not strong.

Now the Lady Amina was on the stairs; the ladies-in-waiting fanned out at the foot of it, each looking lovelier than the last. Oh, if only one of them had been a lady jinni in disguise; but she wasn’t.

Princess Amina came forward demurely, obediently; and obediently she bowed in front of her father, who frowned absent-mindedly. Ghamal leaned forward to prompt the Sultan, but Abdir the Foolish remembered all by his royal self. “My daughter, Amina,” he said graciously. Ghamal did prompt him this time, and the Sultan added; “Brightest star in my crown, fairest jewel in my turban.”

Prince Osman, sure of victory, decided to play it as though the failure of the first meeting had never happened. “O noble Princess, my heart is lifted at the sight of you; my soul is enlightened by your presence.”

His chamberlain gave it a little volume: “The Prince’s heart is lifted by the sight of her; his soul is enlightened by her presence.”

“You do me too much honor,” the Princess Amina said. Over her face cloth her eyes were downcast.

“The Prince does her too much honor,” the Sultan’s chamberlain boomed.

“Nay, it is you who honor me,” Prince Osman said.

His chamberlain rendered that “It is she who honors him, says the Prince Osman of Mossul, third son of the Sultan of Mossul, conqueror of the Berbers, scourge of the Bedouins.”

The Princess murmured: “Thank you.”

But this was no material at all for the Sultan’s chamberlain. He expanded it to: “She gives thanks, does the Princess Amina, only and sole daughter of the Sultan Abdir Bajazeth, Sultan of Baghdad, Ruler of Samarra and Samarkand, First Knight of the Desert, mighty hunter of lions and gazelles, whose voice is known and respected at every oasis from the Gulf of Aden to the Dead Sea of Jordan!”

The Mossulman chamberlain boomed: “It is the Sultan of Jordan who is known from the Gulf of Aden to the Dead Sea, not the Sultan of Baghdad. He has always been known from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea!”

Our Baghdadian muscle-throat roared: “Are you trying to tell me—”

Ghamal, the Grand Vizier, clapped his hands, or Suleyman only knows where it would have ended. Ghamal leaned forward and whispered to the Sultan. Abdir the Foolish said: “O my daughter, it is our wish that you become the Princess of—” whisper, whisper—“of the Prince Osman of—” whisper, whisper—“of Mossul.”

Having gotten that out, Sultan Abdir took a long drag on his nargileh, and too deep a sip at his coffee cup; he had to spit out a few grounds, while his chamberlain repeated the royal command. This time the chamberlain delivered the message without embellishment; there was a frosty look in Ghamal’s vizierly eye.

“To hear my father is to obey,” Princess Amina said. But her voice shook a little, and her eyes were too bright.

Prince Osman got up off the
leewan
—the only time an Arab stands for a woman is when they become betrothed—and took a step forward. “Come sit with us, most lovely of princesses.”

She gave him her hand, demurely enough, and allowed him to lead her to the
leewan
where she collapsed between him and her father.

Ghamal clapped his hands. “A cup of coffee for the Princess!”

It was brought by the new Chief Guard himself; he handed it to Ghamal, who started to give it to the Princess. But Prince Osman gave Ghamal a furious look, and said: “I will serve the Princess with my own hands.”

The whole court gasped at this great honor done a woman. But a peasant near me muttered: “I hand the rice to my old lady every night, and the mud walls of my hut haven’t fallen down yet.”

Prince Osman was wearing, under his desert cloak, a full-sleeved jacket of carmine, slashed with gold. As the sleeves fluttered over the coffee, the gold glittered, but I was sure that there was a sparkle of crystal, too.

I zoomed an eye in there; yes, he was slipping her what he thought was the love potion. He held the cup up for her tenderly.

My Princess Amina looked confused. Ghamal whispered to Abdir the Foolish, and the Princess’s father said: “Remove your face cloth, O my daughter. It is said that a betrothal is not concluded till the groom gazes on the face of the lady.”

The Princess obediently slipped her face cloth over her head, threw it aside. The fellaheen and the courtiers gasped alike at her beauty.

“Drink deep at my hands,” Prince Osman said. He smirked. He was quite a man; after what the love potion had done for the Berber girl, you would think he’d want a rest from the ladies for a while. But he was young.

The Princess Amina took the brass cup—it was set with rubies and emeralds—in her two long-fingered hands, raised it, and drank, deep but cautiously, because Turkish coffee is half full of grounds. In the old days, Arabians drank their coffee properly, but for the past few hundred years the Turkish brew has been fashionable.

As the coffee went down her shapely throat, her eyes widened; she stopped drinking, and her tongue moved in her mouth, as though tasting something unfamiliar. I wondered what that stuff I’d conjured up was like; I materialize potions, I don’t drink them.

Still smirking, the Prince Osman said: “Drink deep, my loved one, my adored.”

She drank down to the dregs.

The brass cup clattered on the floor of the grand hall. One of the rubies popped out of its setting, and rolled across the paving. A palace guard scooped it up while all eyes—except one of mine—were on the Princess Amina, and hid it under his robe.

The Princess turned pale. A little cry was born in her throat, and died there, as her fingers fluttered up to cover her face. Her knees bent, and then she was falling. She would have clattered her jewels alongside the cup if Prince Osman hadn’t caught her.

The Lady Mariam screamed, and hurried forward to take her Princess from the arms of Prince Osman. He seemed glad to let her go; he looked puzzled and angry.

He glared at Ghamal, who dropped his eyes.

The palace guards had drawn their swords, not knowing what else to do. Lady Mariam screamed: “A physician, we need a physician!”

The chamberlains took it up, both of them booming: “Let the court physician be sent for!”

He appeared from somewhere or other, an old man, dressed in the pointed cap of his profession. He kneeled by the Princess Amina where she rested, her head on my Lady Mariam’s shoulder. He fussed and made little noises to himself. He tasted the coffee dregs.

A murmur ran around the court; a murmur that almost, but not quite, formed the word poison. Mossulmen guards and Baghdadian soldiers were glaring at each other, their fingers playing with the hilts of their scimitars and swords.

Abdir the Foolish was glaring at Osman the Sturdy, and Osman was glaring at Ghamal. I felt as though one of my eyes was off a ways, glaring at me. It had never occurred to me that my tampering with the love life of royalty might produce the one thing I dreaded most: war between Baghdad and Mossul.

Such a war could only end with the defeat of Baghdad; Sultan Abdir had, except for his single regiment of Bedouins, no army at all; he had allowed Ghamal to convert good Arabian soldiers into collectors raising tax money for Ghamal’s pocket. One by one the fighting men had left for other Arab armies.

True, as Jinni of Baghdad, I would be allowed to intervene on the side of my city. But, unfortunately, the Jinni of Mossul could intervene for his people, too. I tried to remember who was Jinni of Mossul just then, but I couldn’t. It was a job that changed hands quite frequently.

It might even be a hairy, or infidel jinni. While we true Moslem jinns look down on the hairy jinns, their powers are every bit as strong as ours, and they are without the code of ethics that binds us . . .

Ghamal had hurried forward and was whispering in the Sultan’s ear. But Abdir the Foolish had suddenly hardened his face; for the moment he looked like one of the best of his own ancestors. He leveled a finger.