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.”