Thief of Baghdad (2 page)

No. By Suleyman, he was a cutpurse. He was going to pick Ghamal’s robes right on the royal terrace, a few feet behind the palace guards’ backs, in front of the assembled people of Baghdad.

He had courage, that boy. He had daring. I zoomed a hard jinni-look at him, being careful that it didn’t rake and blind anybody near me. Yes, he had looks, too. A little while ago I’d been looking for a man with those characteristics, and a few more besides.

One thing our boy didn’t seem to have was honesty. After all, even Baghdad wasn’t broad-minded enough to accept a cutpurse as sultan . . .

He was a good one, all right. He had that bag of gold off Ghamal’s waist slick as a Syrian beggar swallowing a stolen date.

Ghamal had his second wind, or maybe he had been waiting for the applause he wasn’t getting. He boomed: “We, your Sultan, order therefore that our noble guest, suitor for the hand of our beloved daughter, be received by our people with great enthusiasm.”

Behind him the cutpurse was opening the bag. I held my breath; the boy was brave all right, but he didn’t seem very smart; he should be getting out of there.

Ghamal orated: “Today, is hereby decreed a holiday—” He waited, smirking.

Nobody was cheering yet.

But they were in a moment. The cutpurse, that thief of Baghdad, had reached into the bag, and over Ghamal’s shoulder he was throwing gold coins, over Ghamal’s shoulder and over the heads of the sawdust-throwing guards, and right into the hands of the good—though poor—people of Baghdad.

Oh, how they screamed. I even did a little screaming myself, as a lovely yellow coin spun across in front of me and I grabbed it in my jinnish fingers and pocketed it in my jinnish robe. A fellow can’t have too much of that stuff, ever.

That knave, that poisoner of honest men, Ghamal, was beaming and bowing; he thought the huzzahs and the
farihas
were for him. And all the time that noble thief was throwing Ghamal’s money away! I hadn’t laughed so hard in two hundred years.

Ghamal, filled with applause, raised his hand for silence. He got a little of it. “Not only today,” he cried, “but the next ten days are holidays.” He hastily added: “By order of your Sultan,” but it was plain who was really running Baghdad—running it into the sand.

“Huzzah,” Ghamal cried, “for the Sultan. Allah il—”

He never finished the traditional cry that our Prophet taught us. The thief made a mistake. One of the gold coins spun out of his hand, and hit Ghamal behind the ear.

The Vizier flung his hand up, in time to catch the coin. He brought it around to look at, and then he beamed; being hit in the head with a gold coin is good luck.

But then—he was no fool, that dastardly politician—he must have realized that gold doesn’t rain from heaven, not very often. He turned around, just in time to see the thief’s robe-hem disappearing around the pavilion. The Vizier clapped his hand to his waist, and his expression as he found his gold bag gone was as sour as mine when I tasted his sweetmeat.

Ghamal started shouting for the guards. But they were still busy throwing their jackal-droppings over the parapet. He had to pull them around by force, and I saw him point to where the thief had disappeared among the oil jars and potted date palms that cluttered the roof.

The crowd had stopped cheering now, and they were laughing; I looked around. Even the men I had spotted as Vizier’s spies were chuckling a little, though they were trying not to show it.

They didn’t have to worry. Ghamal was too busy leading his guards on a frantic search of the roof to waste any time leaning over the parapet to see if his spies were laughing at him.

From where I was I—and most of the crowd—could see what really was happening. The thief had run to the lowest part of the roof and vaulted over, straight for the crowd.

They loved him, that crowd. A dozen hands were held out to break his fall, and in a minute he was just another Baghdadian come to hear the Vizier’s speech.

The guards would never find him now.

Near me, a Baghdad camel-herder beat an Egyptian dragoman on the back. “Oh, that Karim! I’ll lay you odds there’s no thief like him in your country!”

I didn’t hear what the dragoman answered; I was busy remembering that name.

Karim.

There hadn’t been a Sultan Karim of Baghdad in my time, which is enough time for any Arab.

The Sultan Karim!, it didn’t sound bad.

He was brave, resourceful, handsome. He was an acrobat, which I hadn’t looked for, but it would be entertaining to have a sultan who could vault over parapets and off roofs. Most of our sultans have been as fat as their own eunuchs.

He was generous—good—and not too honest, which wasn’t bad.

I’d look into him a little more. But now was the time to look over the Princess Amina, only daughter of Sultan Abdir Bajazeth the Foolish.

If she was shapely, well-visaged and slightly brighter than her father, the easiest way to make Karim the new sultan—if I decided I wanted to—would be to marry him to the princess.

If she was slightly less than all that, her father’s wealth and the position might make her shapely and so on in a young man’s eyes.

If she was really a true daughter of the foolish—and ugly—sultan, I’d have to figure out something else, which would be a bore.

Time to size up the situation.

2

S
o I retired into a doorway, where I wouldn’t frighten some pregnant daughter of Baghdad into giving birth before her time, and dematerialized. When I was good and invisible—once I forgot to dematerialize a hand and the big toe of my left foot, and frightened the chief cook at the Rahat Lakhoum works into spoiling a whole batch—I flew gently up to the roof, and through the palace wall, and into the Sultan’s Grand Chamber, where a much annoyed Ghamal was leading his frightened guards back in.

The Sultan was sitting on his
leewan,
the pillow of state.

I averted my jinnish gaze from his fat and foolish face; I was headed for the harem and the quarters of the Princess Amina.

But there she was, up on the women’s gallery, peering through the stone fretwork screen at her father and his court, so I came to rest beside her.

However, I didn’t rematerialize, because she had her face cloth down, and I didn’t want to offend her maidenly modesty by materializing as a man, or frighten her by appearing as some sort of wild animal. Those are the only two things I can be; oh, I could be a camel, if I wanted to, but I don’t. But it is forbidden for a male jinni to make himself into a female anything.

Invisible as I was, I leaned on the stone screen and studied the Princess Amina. At once, I wished I was a man instead of a jinni. Not that she was as beautiful as the Lady Jinni of the Rocky Sands, whom I had just finished courting so unsuccessfully at the meeting at Mount Kaf.

But Amina had an advantage over the Lady Jinni. She was here, and so was I, and forbidden by jinni law to leave Baghdad, except on urgent business.

In the Arabian tradition, I looked at her face first, because that is the part of an Arabian girl you most seldom see. Pretty good, in fact a lot better than pretty good.

Black hair, of course; there’s no Circassian blood in that family. Smooth forehead, a little high for safety; no man wants a girl who’s smarter than he is. True black eyes, not the soft brown that’s getting so common. The whites of the eyes clear and almost blue; good, she was no weeper. Straight nose, not too big, full-lipped mouth, wide enough for kissing; pointed chin, with a slight cleft in it.

Neck long, but not too much so; shoulders smooth as the well-spun wool of an unborn lamb, and slightly sloping.

Body— Oh, how I missed the Lady Jinni of the Rocky Sands when I looked at that body!

Oh, how I wished I hadn’t missed her at the meeting at Kaf Mountain. Looking at the princess, I suffered all over, and a jinni my age has really learned how to suffer.

If Karim fulfilled all my other requirements for the job of sultan, and didn’t have sense enough to fall in love with the Lady Amina on sight, I would turn him in at the nearest bazaar on a second-hand brass slop jar with a leak in it.

But down below, Ghamal was talking to the Sultan; talking loudly and clearly the way people talk when they don’t think the listener has good hard sense.

Ghamal said: “O Great Sultan, the time has come for your august presence to receive the Great Prince Osman.”

The Sultan gave this a sultanly answer. He said: “Who’s that?” Beside me, the Princess Amina sighed. Good; her high forehead was not just an accident; she had enough brains to know her father didn’t have any.

Down on the
leewan,
the Sultan seemed to be thinking. At least he was rubbing his forehead and occasionally scratching behind one ear. Suddenly something worked. “Osman!” he yelped. “He’s Prince of Mossul! Turn out the guards, man the walls! Loose the royal trumpets and the—”

Ghamal had gotten to his Sultan, was quieting him.

Beside me, the Princess Amina sighed and drifted away. Back in the women’s quarters, there were soft cooing noises, as the ladies and maids received her.
Very
disturbing noises to me, just then.

But I stayed on. I wanted to watch the court.

Ghamal had gotten through explaining to the Sultan that Osman was coming to marry the Lady Amina, not to loot the kingdom.

The Sultan said: “Oh, yes, I remember now . . . Osman. He isn’t Sultan of anything, is he?”

Ghamal was a thief and a poisoner and a penny-pincher, but he had patience. “No, your Royal Highness. He’s third son of the Sultan of Mossul.”

The Sultan brightened. “Maybe if he marries Amina, I could abdicate in his favor.” He scratched behind his ear again. “This being Sultan gives me no time for my cymbals, at all.”

The Chief Vizier’s guard was standing in an archway, off to one side, trying to catch Ghamal’s eye. Ghamal was very calm; he nodded to the guard, and bowed to the Sultan, and signaled to one of the royal servants, all at one time. I zoomed one of my ears—invisible, of course, sometime I must tell you about the time I did it with a
visible
ear—down there. Ghamal softly told the servant to fetch the royal cymbals, and the Sultan’s eye lit up. Ghamal said: “But just ten minutes, Your Royal Highness.”

The Sultan didn’t hear him. He was off in some happy world of his own, where cymbal playing was encouraged in fat men. Ghamal and my ear went on over to the guard.

The guard said: “I couldn’t find him, O Grand Vizier.”

Ghamal said: “The thief?”

“No thief, O Grand Vizier. An evil spirit, indeed. A jinni.”

I considered materializing and teaching him a lesson, and fought the impulse down. Evil spirit, indeed!

Ghamal looked at the Chief Guard a moment. The guard crumpled like a stepped-on melon vine. Then Ghamal looked around the great room. There was an armed guard near a door. The Grand Vizier summoned him with a lazy finger.

By now the servant had brought the Sultan’s cymbals. I turned my immaterial ear every way I could, but I couldn’t cut off the noise. I have no idea what song he was playing the cymbal accompaniment to.

The door guard arrived, and bowed deep to Ghamal. The Grand Vizier said: “How would you like to be chief of my guards?”

The door guard looked at the Chief Guard, and then he looked at the Vizier, and then he looked at the floor.

Ghamal said: “What is your name?”

“Abdoul, O Grand Vizier.”

“Chief of the Grand Vizier’s Guards Abdoul, never forget what happened to your predecessor!”

Abdoul blurted out: “What did?”

“You beheaded him,” Ghamal said, turned away, and hurried out of the hall. Outside in the courtyard trumpets were blowing, not very melodiously; I guess the Sultan rehearsed the royal trumpeters himself.

Abdoul was dragging his predecessor toward the entrance of the great hall. I brought my ear back; I had less desire to see the ex-Chief Guard beheaded than I did to listen to the Sultan’s playing.

This left all of me, both ears and everything, leaning on the stone fretwork of the gallery outside the harem. The cooing noises back here were still going on; they’d never really stopped, but I had tried not to hear them with the one ear I hadn’t teleported down to the Grand Hall.

Really, I had no business in the harem; any further observation of the Lady Amina would only increase my loneliness, which is a polite word for what I was suffering.

But I’m only a jinni; I went, still dematerialized, into the women’s quarters.

And came right out again. The Princess Amina was in her bath, with her handmaidens pouring soothing waters over her.

It was a sight calculated to drive a lonesome jinni out of his seven-hundred-and-sixty-two-year-old mind.

Down in the grand hall, the Sultan was banging and tinkling away. I wondered why he scratched his left ear so often; obviously both ears were dead.

So I flew out of the palace and down to the courtyard.

It was full of troops, a regiment of Janizaries that the Pasha of Turkey had given the Sultan for his last birthday, a squadron of Bedouin cavalry, and the regular palace guards. As I watched, Abdoul arrived to take his place at the head of the guards. His uniform robes didn’t fit very well; they were the ones the former Chief Guard had been wearing last time I saw him. Abdoul was a smart man; most people would have beheaded the Chief Guard in his robes and ruined them.

They were all lined up facing the big main gate, and up in the towers slaves were holding onto the big ropes that would open the gates. I figured—clever old jinni—that somebody was about to come in.

It would have to be Prince Osman. Only a stranger to Baghdad would bother with the main gates; every Baghdadian knows that there are a dozen side gates and three back gates that haven’t been closed in fifty years.

The ropes that ran from the towers to the gates were awfully old; I hoped they wouldn’t break and disgrace Baghdad. Of course, they were made of the best twisted camels’ hair, and that is supposed to last forever, but maybe to camels’ hair fifty years is forever; if I were any part of a camel, time would pass very slowly.