Castle in the Air Read online

  They edged behind the pillars in the direction Flower-in-the-Night had gone, keeping a wary eye on the huge hall as they went. In the far distance Dalzel was moodily settling into an enormous throne at the top of a flight of steps. When Hasruel returned from wherever the kitchens were, Dalzel motioned him to kneel by the throne. Neither looked their way. Sophie and Abdullah tiptoed to an archway where a curtain was still swaying after Flower-in-the-Night had lifted it to go through. They pushed the curtain aside and followed.

  There was a large, well-lit room beyond, confusingly full of princesses. From somewhere in the midst of them Princess Valeria sobbed, “I want to go home now!”

  “Hush, dear. You shall soon,” someone answered.

  Princess Beatrice’s voice said, “You cried beautifully, Valeria. We’re all proud of you. But do stop crying now, there’s a good girl.”

  “Can’t!” sobbed Valeria. “I’m in the habit!”

  Sophie was staring around the room in growing outrage. “This is our broom cupboard!” she said. “Really!”

  Abdullah could not attend to her because Flower-in-the-Night was quite near, softly calling, “Beatrice!”

  Princess Beatrice heard and plunged out of the crowd. “Don’t tell me,” she said. “You did it. Good. Those djinns don’t know what hits them when you get after them, Flower. Then things are coming along beautifully if that man agrees—” At this point she noticed Sophie and Abdullah. “Where did you two spring from?” she said.

  Flower-in-the-Night whirled around. For a moment, when she saw Abdullah, there was everything in her face he could have wished for: recognition, delight, love, and pride. “I knew you’d come to rescue me!” said her big dark eyes. Then, to his hurt and perplexity, it all went. Her face became smooth and polite. She bowed courteously. “This is Prince Abdullah from Zanzib,” she said, “but I am not acquainted with the lady.”

  Flower-in-the-Night’s behavior shook Abdullah from his daze. It must be jealousy of Sophie, he thought. He, too, bowed and made haste to explain. “This lady, O pearls in many a king’s diadems, is wife to the Royal Wizard Howl and comes here in search of her child.”

  Princess Beatrice turned her keen, weathered face to Sophie. “Oh, it’s your baby!” she said. “Howl with you, by any chance?”

  “No,” Sophie said miserably. “I hoped he’d be here.”

  “Not a trace of him, I’m afraid,” said Princess Beatrice. “Pity. He’d be useful even if he did help conquer my country. But we’ve got your baby. Come this way.”

  Princess Beatrice led the way to the back of the room, past the group of princesses trying to comfort Valeria. Since Flower-in-the-Night went with her, Abdullah followed. To his increasing distress, Flower-in-the-Night was now barely looking at him, only inclining her head politely at each princess they passed. “The Princess of Alberia,” she said formally. “The Princess of Farqtan. The Lady Heiress of Thayack. This is the Princess of Peichstan, and beside her the Paragon of Inhico. Beyond her, you see the Damoiselle of Dorimynde.”

  So if it was not jealousy, what was it? Abdullah wondered unhappily.

  There was a wide bench at the back of the room with cushions on it. “My oddments shelf!” Sophie growled. There were three princesses sitting on the bench: the elderly princess Abdullah had noticed before, a lumpish princess swaddled in a coat, and the tiny yellow princess perched in the middle between them. The tiny princess’s twiglike arms were wrapped around the chubby pink body of Morgan.

  “She is, as far as we can pronounce it, High Princess of Tsapfan,” Flower-in-the-Night said formally. “On her right is the Princess of High Norland. On her left the Jharine of Jham.”

  The tiny High Princess of Tsapfan looked like a child with a doll too big for her, but in the most expert and experienced way, she was giving Morgan a feed from a large baby bottle.

  “He’s fine with her,” said Princess Beatrice. “Good thing for her. Stopped her moping. She says she’s had fourteen babies of her own.”

  The tiny princess glanced up with a shy smile. “Boyth, all,” she said, in a small, lisping voice.

  Morgan’s toes and hands were curling and uncurling. He looked the picture of a satisfied baby. Sophie gazed for a moment. “Where did she get that bottle?” she asked, as if she were afraid it might be poisoned.

  The tiny princess looked up again. She smiled and spared a minute finger to point.

  “Doesn’t speak our language very well,” Princess Beatrice explained. “But that genie seemed to understand her.”

  The princess’s twiglike finger was pointing to the floor by the bench, where, below her small, dangling feet, stood a familiar blue-mauve bottle. Abdullah dived for it. The lumpish Jharine of Jham dived for it at the same moment, with an unexpectedly big, strong hand.

  “Stop it!” the genie howled from inside as they tussled for it. “I’m not coming out! Those djinns will kill me this time for sure!”

  Abdullah took hold of the bottle in both hands and jerked. The jerk caused the swaddling coat to fall away from the Jharine. Abdullah found himself looking into wide blue eyes in a lined face inside a bush of grizzled hair. The face wrinkled innocently as the old soldier gave him a sheepish smile and let go of the genie bottle.

  “You!” Abdullah said disgustedly.

  “Loyal subject of mine,” Princess Beatrice explained. “Turned up to rescue me. Rather awkward, actually. We had to disguise him.”

  Sophie swept Abdullah and Princess Beatrice aside. “Let me get at him!” she said.

  Chapter 19

  In which a soldier, a cook, and a carpet seller all state their price.

  There was a brief time of noise so loud that it drowned Princess Valeria completely. Most of it came from Sophie, who started with mild words like thief and liar and worked up to screaming accusations at the soldier of crimes Abdullah had never heard of and perhaps even the soldier had never thought to commit. Listening, Abdullah thought the metal pulley noise Sophie used to make as Midnight was actually nicer than the noise she was making now. But some of the noise came from the soldier, who had one knee up and both hands in front of his face and was bellowing, louder and louder, “Midnight—I mean, madam! Let me explain, Midnight—er—madam!”

  To this Princess Beatrice kept adding raspingly, “No, let me explain! ”

  And various princesses added to the clamor by crying out, “Oh, please be quiet or the djinns will hear!”

  Abdullah tried to stop Sophie by shaking imploringly at her arm. But probably nothing would have stopped her had not Morgan taken his mouth from the bottle, gazed around in distress, and started to cry, too. Sophie shut her mouth with a snap then and then opened it to say, “All right, then. Explain.”

  In the comparative quiet the tiny princess hushed Morgan, and he went back to feeding again.

  “I didn’t mean to bring the baby,” said the soldier.

  “What?” said Sophie. “You were going to desert my—”

  “No, no,” said the soldier. “I told the genie to put him where someone would look after him and take me after the Princess of Ingary. I won’t deny I was after a reward.” He appealed to Abdullah. “But you know what that genie’s like, don’t you? Next thing I knew, we were both here.”

  Abdullah held the genie bottle up and looked at it. “He got his wish,” the genie said sulkily from inside.

  “And the infant was yelling blue murder,” said Princess Beatrice. “Dalzel sent Hasruel to find out what the noise was, and all I could think of to say was that Princess Valeria was having a tantrum. Then, of course, we had to get Valeria to scream. That was when Flower here started to make plans.”

  She turned to Flower-in-the-Night, who was obviously thinking of something else—and that something else had nothing to do with Abdullah, Abdullah noted dismally. She was staring across the room. “Beatrice, I think the cook is here with the dog,” she said.

  “Oh, good!” said Beatrice. “Come along, all of you.” She strode toward the middle of t
he room.

  A man in a tall chef’s hat was standing there. He was a seamed and hoary fellow with only one eye. His dog was pressed close to his legs, growling at any princess who came near. This probably expressed the way the cook was feeling, too. He looked thoroughly suspicious of everything.

  “Jamal!” shouted Abdullah. Then he held the genie bottle up and looked at it again.

  “Well, it was the nearest palace that wasn’t Zanzib,” the genie protested.

  Abdullah was so delighted to see his old friend safe that he did not argue with the genie. He barged past ten princesses, entirely forgetting his manners, and seized Jamal by the hand. “My friend!”

  Jamal’s one eye stared. A tear came out of it as he wrung Abdullah’s hand hard in return. “You are safe!” he said. Jamal’s dog bounced to its hind legs and planted its front paws on Abdullah’s stomach, panting lovingly. A familiar squiddy breath filled the air.

  And Valeria promptly began screaming again. “I don’t want that doggy! He SMELLS!”

  “Oh, hush!” said at least six princesses. “Pretend, dear. We need the man’s help.”

  “I… DON’T… WANT…” yelled Princess Valeria.

  Sophie tore herself away from where she was leaning critically over the tiny princess and marched down upon Valeria. “Stop it, Valeria,” she said. “You remember me, don’t you?”

  It was clear Valeria did. She rushed at Sophie and wrapped her arms around her legs, where she burst into much more genuine tears. “Sophie, Sophie, Sophie! Take me home!”

  Sophie sat down on the floor and hugged her. “There, there. Of course, we’ll take you home. We’ve just got to arrange it first. It’s very odd,” she remarked to the surrounding princesses. “I feel quite expert with Valeria, but I’m scared stiff of dropping Morgan.”

  “You’ll learn,” said the elderly Princess of High Norland, sitting stiffly down beside her. “I’m told they all do.”

  Flower-in-the-Night stepped to the center of the room. “My friends,” she said, “and all three kind gentlemen, we must now put our heads together to discuss the plight in which we find ourselves and make plans for our early release. First, however, it would be prudent to put a spell of silence upon the doorway. It would not do for our kidnappers to overhear.” Her eyes, in the most thoughtful and neutral way, went to the genie bottle in Abdullah’s hand.

  “No!” said the genie. “Try to make me do anything and you’re all toads!”

  “I’ll do it,” said Sophie. She scrambled up with Valeria still clinging to her skirts and went over to the doorway, where she took hold of a handful of the curtain there. “Now, you’re not the kind of cloth to let any sound through, are you?” she remarked to the curtain. “I suggest you have a word with the walls and make that quite clear. Tell them no one’s going to be able to hear a word we say inside this room.”

  A murmur of relief and approval came from most of the princesses at this. But Flower-in-the-Night said, “My pardon for being critical, skillful sorceress, but I think the djinns should be able to hear something or else they will become suspicious.”

  The tiny princess from Tsapfan wandered up with Morgan looking huge in her arms. Carefully she passed the baby to Sophie. Sophie looked terrified and held Morgan as if he were a bomb about to blow up. This seemed to displease Morgan. He waved his arms. While the tiny princess was laying both small hands on the curtain, several looks of utter distaste chased themselves across his face. “Burp!” he remarked.

  Sophie jumped and all but dropped Morgan. “Heavens!” she said. “I’d no idea they did that!”

  Valeria laughed heartily. “My brother does—all the time.”

  The tiny princess made gestures to show that she had now dealt with Flower-in-the-Night’s objection. Everyone listened closely. In the distance somewhere they could now hear the pleasant ringing hum of princesses chatting together. There was even an occasional yell that sounded like Valeria.

  “Most perfect,” said Flower-in-the-Night. She smiled warmly at the tiny princess, and Abdullah wished she would only smile like that at him. “Now if every person could sit down, we can lay some plans to escape.”

  Everyone obeyed in his or her own way. Jamal squatted with his dog in his arms, looking suspicious. Sophie sat on the floor with Morgan clumsily in her arms and Valeria leaning against her. Valeria was quite happy now. Abdullah sat cross-legged beside Jamal. The soldier came and sat about two places away, whereupon Abdullah took tight hold of the genie bottle and gripped the carpet over his shoulder with the other hand.

  “That girl Flower-in-the-Night is a real marvel,” Princess Beatrice remarked as she sat herself between Abdullah and the soldier. “She came here knowing nothing unless she’d read it out of a book. And she learns all the time. Took her two days to get the measure of Dalzel; wretched djinn’s scared stiff of her now. Before she arrived, all I’d managed was to make it clear to the creature that we weren’t going to be his wives. But she thinks big. Had her mind on escaping right from the start. She’s been plotting all along to get that cook in to help. Now she’s done it. Look at her! Looks fit to rule an empire, doesn’t she?”

  Abdullah nodded sadly and watched Flower-in-the-Night as she stood waiting for everyone to get settled. She was still wearing the gauzy clothes she had been wearing when Hasruel snatched her from the night garden. She was still as slim, as graceful, and as beautiful. Her clothes were now crushed and a little tattered. Abdullah had no doubt that every crease, every three-cornered tear, and every hanging thread meant some new thing that Flower-in-the-Night had learned. Fit to rule an empire indeed! he thought. If he compared Flower-in-the-Night with Sophie, who had displeased him for being so strong-minded, he knew Flower-in-the-Night had twice Sophie’s strength of mind. And as far as Abdullah was concerned, this only made Flower-in-the-Night more excellent. What made him wretched was the way she carefully and politely avoided singling him out in any way. And he wished he knew why.

  “The problem we face,” Flower-in-the-Night was saying when Abdullah started to attend, “is that we are in a place where it does no good simply to get out. If we could sneak out of the castle without the djinns’ becoming aware of it or the angels of Hasruel’s preventing us, we should only sink through the clouds and fall heavily to earth, which is a very long way below. Even if we can overcome those difficulties in some way”—here her eyes turned to the bottle in Abdullah’s hand and, thoughtfully, to the carpet over his shoulder, but not, alas, to Abdullah himself—“there seems nothing to stop Dalzel from sending his brother to bring us all back. Therefore, the essence of any plan we make has to be the defeat of Dalzel. We know that his chief power derives from the fact that he has stolen the life of his brother Hasruel, so that Hasruel must obey him or die. So it follows that in order to escape, we must find Hasruel’s life and restore it to him. Noble ladies, excellent gentlemen, and esteemed dog, I invite your ideas on this matter.”

  Excellently put, O flower of my desire! Abdullah thought sadly as Flower-in-the-Night gracefully sat down.

  “But we still don’t know where Hasruel’s life can be!” bleated the fat Princess of Farqtan.

  “Exactly,” said Princess Beatrice. “Only Dalzel knows that.”

  “But the beastly creature’s always dropping hints,” complained the blond princess from Thayack.

  “To let us know how clever he is!” the dark-skinned Princess of Alberia said bitterly.

  Sophie looked up. “What hints?” she said.

  There was a confused clamor as at least twenty princesses all tried to tell Sophie at once. Abdullah was straining his ears to catch at least one of the hints and Flower-in-the-Night was getting up to restore order when the soldier said loudly, “Oh, shut up, the lot of you!”

  This caused complete silence. The eyes of every single princess turned to him in freezing royal outrage.

  The soldier found this very amusing. “Hoity-toity!” he said. “Look at me how you please, ladies. But while you do, think whether
I ever agreed to help you escape. I did not. Why should I? Dalzel never did me any harm.”

  “That,” said the elderly Princess of High Norland, “is because he’s not found you yet, my good man. Do you wish to wait and see what happens when he does?”

  “I’ll risk it,” said the soldier. “On the other hand, I might help— and I reckon you won’t get too far if I don’t—provided one of you can make it worth my while.”

  Flower-in-the-Night, poised on her knees ready to stand, said with beautiful haughtiness, “Worth your while in what way, menial mercenary? All of us have fathers who are very rich. Rewards will shower on you once they have us back. Do you wish to be assured of a certain sum from each? That can be arranged.”

  “And I wouldn’t say no,” said the soldier. “But that’s not what I meant, my pretty. When I started on this caper, I was promised I’d get a princess of my own out of it. That’s what I want—a princess to marry. One of you ought to be able to accommodate me. And if you can’t or won’t, then you can count me out and I’ll be off to make my peace with Dalzel. He can hire me to guard you.”