Princess of Dhagabad, The (38 page)

“I am happy you are feeling better,
princess.”

“Thank you, Prince Amir.”

They are sitting in a gazebo on a low, wide
sofa covered with a bright Baskarian rug. A light wind through the
ornate window gratings is gently blowing about the fine shawl
wrapped around the princess’s shoulders. She is studying Prince
Amir through lowered eyelashes: dark handsome face, slim muscular
figure, rich elegant clothes—all this seems too good to be real.
The princess catches herself at the thought that in studying Prince
Amir so closely, she is really just trying to find some fault in
his splendid perfection. She calls herself to order. Why should he
have any faults? It is only fair that her future husband should
seem absolutely perfect to her. I am going to spend my life with
him, she thinks. He is so nice and kind to me. I cannot lie to him,
whatever mother says.

“I wasn’t ill, prince,” she says. “Someone
was trying to bewitch me.”

“Bewitch?” The prince looks at her in
disbelief.

“Caliph Agabei wanted to make me a djinn and
take me as a slave. This way he was hoping to get Hasan too,
although he already has Shogat…”

“Why would the caliph need you and Hasan when
he already has Shogat?” There is sarcasm in the prince’s voice that
the princess does not want to notice.

“He thought that having three djinn slaves
would enable him to conquer the world. Two would have probably been
enough, but without me he wouldn’t have been able to get
Hasan.”

“And he wanted to bewitch you to get Hasan?”
The prince is barely holding in his laughter.

“Why are you laughing, prince?”

“You are not well, princess. Let me walk you
to the palace.”

The princess makes a great effort to suppress
her rising anger.

“Why don’t you believe me, prince?” she asks
hotly.

“Caliph Agabei is the closest friend to my
father,” the prince says. “I have known the caliph since early
childhood. He wouldn’t hurt a flea, let alone bewitch anybody.”

“You did not see how wicked his eyes were
when Hasan did not let him approach me!”

“Hasan must have told you a fairy tale and
you took it seriously, princess,” the prince says patronizingly.
“Don’t be afraid. No one will try to bewitch you in Veridue and you
will never need a djinn to protect you.”

“Why do you hate djinns so much, prince?” the
princess asks.

“I don’t hate djinns at all, princess. I
think they are very useful but only when they know their place.
There is nothing worse than a slave trying to be too familiar with
his master.”

“Do you know that djinns are
all-powerful?”

“If they were all-powerful, they wouldn’t be
slaves, princess.”

“They are slaves exactly because they are
all-powerful,” the princess explains hurriedly, hoping to
straighten out the misunderstanding. “At one point every djinn was
human. And then they come to absolute power and are imprisoned in
containers because—”

“Forgive the interruption, princess, but your
information is not accurate. It is generally known that djinns or
ifrits, as they are sometimes referred to, are a special kind of
demons born in a land called Djinnistan. Their powers, by the way,
are very limited. As for what Hasan tells you about the djinns, it
only serves one purpose: to make the mistress treat her slave
better.”

“How do you know all this about djinns,
prince?” the princess asks with sarcasm.

“From books, princess. From the palace
chronicles. I dare to point out that my honorable parents and
myself chose the books for my wedding present with a meaning. My
noble wife cannot allow herself to be ignorant about djinns.”

“I know about djinns from the best possible
source, prince!”

“Your source is not impartial, princess. We
in Veridue have our own sources of knowledge about djinns. My noble
ancestor had a djinn, and it came to no good… Besides, you now have
no need for such a dangerous slave. I will be able to grant your
wishes better than anyone else.”

Where do I get this feeling of helplessness…?
The princess wonders how exactly Prince Amir imagines their life
together. Does he believe that I will always submit to his
opinion?

“Do you want me to give up Hasan?” she
asks.

“I am not the tyrant to force you, princess,
but I am convinced you will soon understand that a respectable
marriage can never go together with childish fantasies.”

“How exactly do you see that, prince?” the
princess bursts out, unable to hide her feelings anymore. “Do you
think I will give Hasan to someone else? Or do you want me to seal
him in a bottle and hide him?”

“By no means, princess. A djinn can be very
valuable if you use him correctly. With my knowledge of djinns, we
could agree to sometimes let him out of the bottle and put his
abilities to work for the glory of the kingdom… You look faint,
princess. You have barely had a chance to recover from your
illness. I do not want to tire you out. Don’t a bride and a groom
have better things to talk about?”

A lump in the princess’s throat makes it hard
to continue the argument. Prince Amir is so perfect, so nice, so
kind to her. How is it possible that he cannot hear what she is
telling him—that which is so important to share with a husband? How
can it be that by marrying such a splendid suitor she has to refuse
something so dear, so important to her? Should she really have to
lie from now on, lie to make everyone happy, as mother tells her
to? Or should she make a choice between a lie and a
misunderstanding, between unending quarrel and intolerable
peace?

Chapter 23. The Princess and the Djinn

With a trembling hand the princess opens a
book, the title of which runs in golden script across the carved
wooden cover:
How to Overcome a Djinn
. She is certain that
her disagreement with the prince is a result of some discrepancy in
the information he has, and she is ready to take the first step in
resolving their misunderstanding.

Sitting in the garden, where slaves have
carried the Veriduan books, she is turning the age-yellow pages of
the ancient volume. The princess begins to read:

The demon was horrible in looks. His legs
were like giant masts, his arms like pitchforks, his head swept the
clouds like a dome. His mouth was like a cave, his teeth like sharp
rocks on the shore, his eyes like lamps, and all his appearance was
dark and disgusting. His hollow laugh made the earth shake, and he
spoke in a voice that echoed like the trumpets of doom.

“
Beware, O wretched one! Your time has
come, for I am going to kill you this very minute in the worst
possible way!”

Horrible was the djinn indeed, but the
fearless Almansor did not lose his presence of mind.

“
Why do you want to kill me, O mighty
ifrit? I was the one to release you from the jar, to free you from
your imprisonment!”

And the merciless djinn exclaimed:

“
Know, O mortal, that you see before you a
djinn apostate who was imprisoned in this jar at will of the great
prophet Suleiman ibn Daud. Four hundred years have I spent in the
jar, and nobody came to set me free. And I swore to give eternal
riches to the one who opened the cursed jar. But nobody came.
Another four hundred years went by, and I swore to grant any three
wishes to my savior. And again nobody came to break the seal of the
great Suleiman, and I languished in captivity four hundred years
more. And finally, O mortal, I felt great anger in my heart, and I
swore the third horrible oath. In the name of the great prophet I
swore to put the one who saved me from this jar to the worst
possible death. You freed me, O wretched one, after I was bound by
this oath. Prepare to die.”

And the fearless Almansor realized that it
was useless to enter into an argument with the ungrateful monster.
And, being gifted with valor and wisdom, Almansor decided to trick
the vile demon. Bowing his head in pretended submissiveness, he
said:

“
So be it, O mighty ifrit. Like any true
believer I respect the oaths sworn in the name of the great
prophets of Allah. I accept my destiny.”

And the evil djinn exclaimed:

“
Indeed, my heart rejoices at the sight of
such commendable acceptance!”

Meanwhile, the fearless Almansor went on:

“
Allow me, O mighty one, to satisfy my
curiosity by asking you just one simple question before I
die.”

“
Speak, and be brief!” the revolting demon
roared.

“
My mind is confused by one odd thing,”
Almansor said. “How could you, so huge and mighty, fit into such a
tiny jar? For, Allah is my witness, this jar cannot hold even a
little finger on your hand!”

“
You don’t believe I can fit into this
jar?” the ifrit asked threateningly.

“
I don’t, O mighty one, and I am willing
to accept death for this lack of faith!” Almansor answered
firmly.

“
Look, then, O mortal one!” And the djinn,
spinning into a wild whirlwind, turned into a dusty cloud and
momentarily drew himself into the narrow mouth of the jar. And at
the same second the fearless Almansor closed the jar with the lead
stopper bearing the seal of the prophet Suleiman, ignoring the
angry wails coming from the ancient container. Thus Almansor
overcame the ugly evil djinn, because the perfect human mind is
always greater than the vileness and the treachery of the lower
demons.

“Do I interrupt, princess? Your nannies told
me you were probably reading in the garden.”

“Prince Amir?” the princess absently raises
her eyes from the book, watching him walk toward her with his
light, assured steps. He sits on the bench next to her, elegantly
throwing aside his white cloak.

“I was just reading one of the books you gave
me.”

“My heart rejoices at the sight, princess.
You who own a djinn should really learn the things that we in
Veridue know, alas, from our own bitter experience.”

His confident, patronizing tone makes the
princess angry against her better judgment.

“Regretfully, prince, the description of
djinns in this book is prejudiced and inaccurate, to put it
mildly,” she says, much more harshly than she intended.

“Please, princess,” the prince says
peacefully, “let’s not begin our fruitless argument again. To my
greatest happiness you have had no misfortune to feel upon yourself
the bad sides of owning a djinn, and I will try to do everything I
can so that you won’t have to regret your ignorance. On the other
hand, if you care to spend some time learning…”

“What are the bad sides, prince?” she
asks.

“I’d rather not talk about it, princess.”

The princess frowns, and a thought suddenly
crosses her mind that he is unhappy not about the memories of what
the djinn did to his family but about her insistent questions. But,
once started, she is not going to turn back.

“But to understand you completely, I have to
know, prince! So far I cannot find any real facts in these books
you gave me.”

“These books were created with the wisdom of
centuries, princess. Undoubtedly, you can understand it completely
only by reading them more carefully.”

“Did you read them yourself, prince?” she
says with sarcasm that she immediately regrets. But the prince
seems not to notice.

“Choosing books for the wedding gift, I
looked through all of them,” he says matter-of-factly. “Thanks to
the great knowledge gathered in our family, I could appreciate them
at first sight.”

“Tell me about your family’s experience,
prince. Maybe this story will put an end to our
misunderstanding!”

“Very well, princess.” The prince gives in,
making himself more comfortable on the bench, preparing for a long
story. “As I told you before, my noble great-grandfather owned a
djinn.”

“I also heard that this story has a sad
ending, prince. But I don’t understand…”

“If you insist on hearing it, princess, I’ll
tell you. I heard that you got your djinn as an inheritance from
your noble grandmother. I also heard that your grandmother studied
magic and understood completely how dangerous her slave was.
Therefore, reaching her declining years, she confined the djinn to
his bottle.”

“Unfortunately, I know little of my
grandmother’s motives, prince.”

“Only the sad experience of our family allows
me to be so sure of my words, princess. Alas, my noble ancestor did
not possess cryptic knowledge of magic and he never fully realized
how dangerous was his mighty slave. For that reason, even when very
elderly he continued to use the djinn’s powers for his noble
needs.”

“I still don’t understand…”

“Listen, princess. I am certain this story
will dispel all your doubts. My noble ancestor did not tolerate
traveling very well. Once he had to make a trip to Megina to ask
the caliph for the hand of his daughter in marriage to my
great-grandfather’s only son, the future sultan of Veridue and, as
you probably guessed, my noble grandsire. At that time traditions
called for very formal marriage arrangements. Mindful of the
difficulties of the long trip, my noble ancestor decided to use the
djinn to get to Megina by magic. Unfortunately, the evil demon had
long planned to arrange the death of his master. Taking my
great-grandsire in his arms, the djinn carried him so fast that the
heart of the elderly man could not endure the strain. The djinn
brought to Megina a lifeless body. The caliph’s daughter escorted
the body back to Veridue to conduct a royal funeral worthy of the
great ruler. The beautiful maiden became the wife of my grandsire,
but their union was forever affected by the sad event preceding
their marriage.”