Диана Джонс - Wizard's Castle - Omnibus

The grin remained broadly fixed on Jamal’s features, “My great, great lady,” he said, “it is not wages I want, only safety. For this I will cook you food fit for angels.”

“Hmm,” said the elderly princess. “I’m not at all sure what those angels eat, but that’s settled then. Does either of you other two want anything before you’ll help?”

Everyone looked at Sophie.

“Not really,” Sophie said rather sadly. “I’ve got Morgan, and since Howl doesn’t seem to be here, there’s nothing else I need. I’ll help you, anyway.”

Everyone looked at Abdullah then.

He rose to his feet and bowed. “O moons of many monarchs’ eyes,” he said, “far be it from one as unworthy as me to impose any kind of condition for my help on such as you. Help freely given is best, as the books tell us.” He had got this far in his magnificent and generous speech when he realized it was all nonsense. There was something he did want—very much indeed. He hastily changed his tack. “And freely given my help will be,” he said, “as free as air blows or rain bedews the flowers. I will work myself to extinction for your noble sakes and crave only in return one small boon, most simply granted—”

“Get on with it, young man!” said the Princess of High Norland. “What do you want?”

“Five minutes’ talk in private with Flower-in-the-Night,” Abdullah admitted.

Everyone looked at Flower-in-the-Night. Her head went up, rather dangerously.

“Come off it, Flower!” said Princess Beatrice. “Five minutes won’t kill you!”

Flower-in-the-Night seemed fairly clear that it might kill her. She said, like a princess going to her execution, “Very well,” and, with a more than usually freezing look in the direction of Abdullah, she asked, “Now?”

“Or sooner, dove of my desire,” he said, bowing firmly.

Flower-in-the-Night nodded frigidly and stalked away to the side of the room, looking positively martyred. “Here,” she said as Abdullah followed her.

He bowed again, even more firmly. “I said, in private, O starry subject of my sighs,” he pointed out.

Flower-in-the-Night irritably twitched aside one of the curtains hanging beside her. “They can probably still hear,” she said coldly, beckoning him after her.

“But not see, princess of my passion,” Abdullah said, edging behind the curtain.

He found himself in a tiny alcove. Sophie’s voice came to him clearly. “That’s the loose brick where I used to hide money. I hope they have room .” Whatever the place once had been, it now seemed to be the princesses’ wardrobe. There was a riding jacket hanging behind Flower-in-the-Night as she folded her arms and faced Abdullah. Cloaks, coats, and a hooped petticoat that evidently went under the loose red garment worn by the Paragon of Inhico dangled around Abdullah as he faced Flower-in-the-Night. Still, Abdullah reflected, it was not much smaller or more crowded than his own booth in Zanzib, and that was usually private enough.

“What did you want to say?” Flower-in-the-Night asked freezingly.

“To ask the reason for this very coldness!” Abdullah answered heatedly. “What have I done that you will barely look at me and barely speak? Have I not come here, expressly to rescue you? Have I not, alone of all the disappointed lovers, braved every peril in order to reach this castle? Have I not gone through the most strenuous adventures, allowing your father to threaten me, the soldier to cheat me, and the genie to mock me, solely in order to bring you my aid? What more do I have to do? Or should I conclude that you have fallen in love with Dalzel?”

“ Dalzel !” exclaimed Flower-in-the-Night. “Now you insult me! Now you add insult to injury! Now I see Beatrice was right and you do indeed not love me!”

“ Beatrice !” thundered Abdullah. “What has she to say how I feel?”

Flower-in-the-Night hung her head a little, although she looked more sulky than ashamed. There was a dead silence. In fact, the silence was so very dead that Abdullah realized that the sixty ears of all the other thirty princesses—no, sixty-eight ears, if you counted Sophie, the soldier, Jamal, and his dog and assumed Morgan was asleep—anyway, that all these ears were at that moment focused entirely upon what he and Flower-in-the-Night were saying.

“Talk among yourselves!” he shouted.

The silence became uneasy. It was broken by the elderly princess saying, “The most distressing thing about being up here above the clouds is that there is no weather to make conversation out of.”

Abdullah waited until this statement was followed by a reluctant hum of other voices and then turned back to Flower-in-the-Night. “Well? What did Princess Beatrice say?”

Flower-in-the-Night raised her head haughtily. “She said that portraits of other men and pretty speeches were all very well, but she couldn’t help noticing you’d never made the slightest attempt to kiss me.”

“Impertinent woman!” said Abdullah. “When I first saw you, I assumed you were a dream. I assumed you would only melt.”

“But,” said Flower-in-the-Night, “the second time you saw me, you seemed quite sure I was real.”

“Certainly,” said Abdullah, “but then it would have been unfair because, if you recall, you had then seen no other living men but your father and myself.”

“Beatrice,” said Flower-in-the-Night, “says that men who do nothing but make fine speeches make very poor husbands.”

“ Bother Princess Beatrice!” said Abdullah. “What do you think?”

“I think,” said Flower-in-the-Night, “ I think I want to know why you found me too unattractive to be worth kissing.”

“ I DIDN’T find you unattractive !” bawled Abdullah. Then he remembered the sixty-eight ears beyond the curtain and added in a fierce whisper, “If you must know, I–I had never in my life kissed a young lady, and you are far too beautiful for me to want to get it wrong!”

A small smile, heralded by a deep dimple, stole across Flower-in-the-Night’s mouth. “And how many young ladies have you kissed by now?”

“None!” groaned Abdullah. “I am still a total amateur!”

“So am I,” admitted Flower-in-the-Night. “Though at least I know enough not to mistake you for a woman now. That was very stupid!”

She gave a gurgle of laughter. Abdullah gave another gurgle. In no time at all, both of them were laughing heartily, until Abdullah gasped, “I think we should practice!”

After that there was silence from behind the curtain. This silence went on so long that all the princesses ran out of small talk, except Princess Beatrice, who seemed to have a lot to say to the soldier. At length Sophie called out, “Are you two finished?”

“Certainly,” Flower-in-the-Night and Abdullah called out. “Absolutely!”

“Then let’s make some plans,” said Sophie.

Plans were no problem at all to Abdullah in the state of mind he was in just then. He came out from behind the curtain holding Flower-in-the-Night’s hand, and if the castle had chanced to vanish at that moment, he knew he could have walked on the clouds beneath or, failing that, on air. As it was, he walked across what seemed a very unworthy marble floor and simply took charge.

T en minutes later Abdullah said , “There, most eminent and intelligent persons, are our plans laid. It only remains for the genie—”

Purple smoke poured from the bottle and trailed in agitated waves along the marble floor. “You do not use me!” cried the genie. “I said toads, and I mean toads! Hasruel put me in this bottle, don’t you understand? If I do anything against him, he’ll put me somewhere even worse!”