“A great sacrifice, but a wise one, I think, my friend,” Abdullah murmured. He sawed the pigtail off and hid it in the golden weathercock. This made quite a transformation. The soldier now looked like a bushy-headed prosperous farmer. Abdullah hoped he would pass for the farmer’s young brother himself.
While they were doing this, the two servants finished cleaning the carriage and began pushing it into the coach house. As they passed under the roof where the carpet was, one of them asked, “And what do you think of this story that someone’s trying to steal the Princess?”
“Well, I think it’s true,” the other one said, “if that’s what you’re asking. They say the Royal Wizard risked a lot to send a warning, poor fellow, and he’s not the kind to take a risk for nothing.”
The soldier’s eyes met Abdullah’s again. His mouth formed a hearty curse.
“Never mind,” Abdullah murmured. “There are other ways to earn a reward.”
They waited until the servants had gone back across the yard and into the inn. Then Abdullah requested the carpet to land in the yard. It glided obediently down. Abdullah picked the carpet up and wrapped the genie bottle inside it, while the soldier carried his pack and both cats. They went into the inn trying hard to look dull and respectable.
The landlord met them there. Warned by what the servants had said, Abdullah met the landlord with a gold piece casually between his finger and thumb. The landlord looked at that. His flinty eyes stared at the gold piece so fixedly that Abdullah doubted if he even saw their faces. Abdullah was extremely polite. So was the landlord. He showed them to a nice spacious room on the second floor. He agreed to send up supper and provide baths.
“And the cats will need—” the soldier began.
Abdullah kicked the soldier’s ankle, hard. “And that will be all, O lion among landlords,” he said. “Although, most helpful of hosts, if your active and vigilant staff could provide a basket, a cushion, and a dish of salmon, the powerful witch to whom we are to deliver tomorrow this pair of exceptionally gifted cats will undoubtedly reward whoever brings these things most bountifully.”
“I’ll see what I can do, sir,” the landlord said. Abdullah carelessly tossed him the gold piece. The man bowed deeply and backed out of the room, leaving Abdullah feeling decidedly pleased with himself.
“There’s no need to look so smug!” the soldier said angrily. “What are we supposed to do now? I’m a wanted man here, and the King seems to know all about the djinn.”
It was a pleasant feeling to Abdullah to find that he was in command of events instead of the soldier. “Ah, but does the King know that there is a castle full of stolen princesses hovering overhead to receive his daughter?” he said. “You are forgetting, my friend, that the King cannot have had the advantage of speaking personally to the djinn. We might make use of this fact.”
“How?” demanded the soldier. “Can you think of a way to stop that djinn stealing the child? Or a way to get to the castle, for that matter!”
“No, but it seems to me that a wizard might know these things,” said Abdullah. “I think we should modify the idea you had earlier. Instead of finding one of this King’s wizards and strangling him, we might inquire which wizard is the best and pay him a fee for his help.”
“All right, but you’ll have to do that,” said the soldier. “Any wizard worth his salt would spot me for a Strangian at once and call the constables before I could move.”
The landlord brought the food for the cats himself. He hurried in with a bowl of cream, a carefully boned salmon, and a dish of whitebait. He was followed by his wife, a woman as flinty-eyed as himself, carrying a soft rush basket and an embroidered cushion. Abdullah tried not to look smug again. “Generous thanks, most illustrious of innkeepers,” he said. “I will tell the witch of your great care.”
“That’s all right, sir,” the landlady said. “We know how to respect those that use magic, here in Kingsbury.”
Abdullah went from smug to mortified. He saw he should have pretended to be a wizard himself. He relieved his feelings by saying, “That cushion is stuffed only with peacock feathers, I hope? The witch is most particular.”
“Yes, sir,” said the landlady. “I know all about that.”
The soldier coughed. Abdullah gave up. He said grandly, “As well as the cats, my friend and I have been entrusted with a message for a wizard. We would prefer to deliver it to the Royal Wizard, but we heard rumors on the way that he has met with some sort of misfortune.”
“That’s right,” said the landlord, pushing his wife aside. “One of the Royal Wizards has disappeared, sir, but fortunately there are two. I can direct you to the other one—Royal Wizard Suliman—if you want, sir.” He looked meaningly at Abdullah’s hands.
Abdullah sighed and fetched out his largest silver piece. That seemed to be the right amount. The landlord gave him very careful directions and took the silver piece, promising baths and supper shortly. The baths, when they came, were hot, and the supper was good. Abdullah was glad. While the soldier was bathing himself and Whippersnapper, Abdullah transferred his wealth from his jacket to his money belt, which made him feel much better. The soldier must have felt better, too. He sat after supper with his feet up on a table, smoking that long clay pipe of his. Cheerfully he untied the bootlace from the neck of the genie bottle and dangled it for Whippersnapper to play with.
“There’s no doubt about it,” he said. “Money talks in this town. Are you going to talk to the Royal Wizard this evening? The sooner, the better, to my mind.”
Abdullah agreed. “I wonder what his fee will be,” he said.
“Big,” said the soldier. “Unless you can work it that you’re doing him a favor by telling him what the djinn said. All the same,” he went on thoughtfully, whisking the bootlace out of Whippersnapper’s pouncing paws, “I reckon you shouldn’t tell him about the genie or the carpet if you can help it. These magical gentlemen love magical items the way this innkeeper loves gold. You don’t want him asking for those for his fee. Why don’t you leave them here when you go? I’ll look after them for you.”
Abdullah hesitated. It seemed sound sense. Yet he did not trust the soldier.
“By the way,” said the soldier, “I owe you a gold piece.”
“You do?” said Abdullah. “Then this is the most surprising news I have had since Flower-in-the-Night told me I was a woman!”
“That bet of ours,” said the soldier. “The carpet brought the djinn, and he’s even bigger trouble than the genie usually manages. You win. Here.” He tossed a gold piece across the room at Abdullah.
Abdullah caught it, pocketed it, and laughed. The soldier was honest, after his own fashion. Full of thoughts of being soon on the trail of Flower-in-the-Night, Abdullah went cheerfully downstairs, where the landlady caught him and told him all over again how to get to Wizard Suliman’s house. Abdullah was so cheerful that he parted with another silver piece almost without a pang.
The house was not far from the inn, but it was in the Old Quarter, which meant that the way was mostly through confusing small alleys and hidden courts. It was twilight now, with one or two large liquid stars already in the dark blue sky above the domes and towers, but Kingsbury was well lit by big silver globes of light, floating overhead like moons.
Abdullah was looking up at them, wondering if they were magical devices, when he happened to notice a black four-legged shadow stealing along the roofs beside him. It could have been any black cat out for a hunt on the tiles, but Abdullah knew it was Midnight. There was no mistaking the way she moved. At first, when she vanished into the deep black shadow of a gable, he supposed she was after a roosting pigeon to make another unsuitable meal for Whippersnapper. But she reappeared again when he was halfway down the next alley, creeping along a parapet above him, and he began to think she was following him. When he went through a narrow court with trees in tubs down the center and he saw her jump across the sky, from one gutter to another, in order to get into that court, too, he knew she was certainly following him. He had no idea why. He kept an eye out for her as he went down the next two alleys, but he saw her only once, on an arch over a doorway. When he turned into the cobbled court where the Royal Wizard’s house was, there was no sign of her. Abdullah shrugged and went to the door of the house.