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.”
This caused a silence, if possible more frozen, outraged, and royal than before, until Flower-in-the-Night pulled herself together and rose to her feet again. “My friends,” she said, “we all need the help of this man—if only for his ruthless, low cunning. What we do not want is to have a beast like him set over us to guard us. Therefore, I vote that he be allowed to choose a wife from among us. Who disagrees?”
It was clear that every other princess disagreed mightily. Further freezing looks were turned on the soldier, who grinned and said, “If I go to Dalzel and offer myself to guard you, rest assured you’ll never get away. I’m up to every trick. Isn’t that true?” he asked Abdullah.
“It is true, most cunning corporal,” Abdullah said.
There was a small murmuring from the tiny princess. “She says she’s married already—those fourteen children, you know,” said the elderly princess, who seemed to understand the murmur.
“Then let all who are as yet unmarried please raise their hands,” said Flower-in-the-Night, and most determinedly, raised her own.
Waveringly, reluctantly, two-thirds of the other princesses put their hands up, also. The soldier’s head turned slowly as he looked around them, and the look on his face reminded Abdullah of Sophie when, as Midnight, she was about to feast on salmon and cream. Abdullah’s heart stood still as the man’s blue eyes traveled from princess to princess. It was obvious he would choose Flower-in-the-Night. Her beauty stood out like a lily in the moonlight.
“You,” said the soldier at last, and pointed. To Abdullah’s astonished relief, he was pointing at Princess Beatrice.
Princess Beatrice was equally astonished. “Me?” she said.
“Yes, you,” said the soldier. “I’ve always fancied a nice bossy, downright princess like you. Fact that you’re a Strangian, too, makes it ideal.”
Princess Beatrice’s face had become a bright beety red. It did not improve her looks. “But—but—” she said, and then pulled herself together. “My good soldier, I’ll have you know I’m supposed to be marrying Prince Justin of Ingary.”
“Then you’ll just have to tell him you’re spoken for,” said the soldier. “Politics, wasn’t it? It seems to me you’ll be glad to get out of it.”
“Well, I—” began Princess Beatrice. To Abdullah’s surprise, there were tears in her eyes, and she had to start again. “You don’t mean it!” she said. “I’m not good-looking or any of those things.”