Forty-Two

 

Philemon could not refuse her. He let the blade clatter to the floor.

Anahita kicked it out of reach. "Get out."

He stared at her. Surely she couldn't mean that.

"Is there anything you wish of me, my princess?" a new voice asked.

He stood in the doorway to the courtyard, too well-dressed to be a servant, yet not proud enough to be a prince. This lean man reminded him of a desert hunting falcon – tamed and kept hungry to serve one of the desert camps, waiting for his mistress's command.

The witch favoured him with a beaming smile. "My sister's man needs some air. Perhaps you could take him into the garden? He might find it cooler under the trees."

The man returned her smile, and bowed deeply. Not like a servant. More like...he was mocking her. He was the witch's lover, Philemon realised. "As you wish, Princess." He turned to the side and gestured toward Philemon. "Please, be my guest."

Philemon risked a glance back at Anahita, but her eyes still blazed with fury. She hadn't sheathed her knives.

Philemon sighed. "Very well." He followed the witch's lover.

"Men who threaten Maram tend to die gruesome deaths. You are the first she has ever invited to see her garden," the man said over his shoulder. "Perhaps it is because you are a man of the desert. The laws of hospitality are strong in the camps, or so I am told. She must be curious to discover what would make a man forget something so fundamental."

Philemon glanced down at his clothes, for the first time realising what he must look like. He was dressed like a desert sheikh – had they mistaken him for Anahita's dead husband?

"I am not what I appear. I am, in fact, a man of Tasnim," Philemon said.

The witch's lover nodded slowly. "A city known for the high price of its hospitality." A faint smile touched his lips.

"Have you been there?" Philemon demanded.

"Once. I have no desire to return. It is a desolate place." The witch's lover dismissed it with a shrug of his shoulder.

Philemon bristled. "Now the waters have returned, so will its people. Tasnim will live again. I swear it."

"Spoken like a man who loves his home, and knows it is only home because of the people in it. I almost lost everything before I came to realise that. Without Maram, I am nothing." Another shrug, as though this man didn't care that his happiness depended on a woman – and a witch, at that.

"No man is nothing. Return with me to Tasnim, and I will show you that no man is worthless," Philemon said.

The man looked amused. "You would turn me into a man of Tasnim?"

Philemon opened his mouth to correct him, for the right to live in Tasnim was earned, not granted, except in the most unusual circumstances. Like saving the life of the prince, or some other such act of courage and service.

"Behold, the princess's garden." The man turned to the side, to let Philemon precede him. "Have you ever seen anything so wondrous?"

Philemon stepped from darkness into light – and what a wondrous light it was. Fractured rainbows, blinding, glittering, from every angle, both above and below. He shaded his eyes, squinting to find the source of so much light. The noon sun gazed down from above, but there was more to it. It was like standing in a cage of mirrors, or...

Philemon's heart turned to a burning lump of lead in his chest, firing his blood to boiling. "These are the jewelled gardens from the harem of Tasnim. Your Master stole these from me! Tell me his name, and I will grant you full citizenship of my city. He will die for this!" He reached for his sword, but the scabbard was empty. Too late, he realised he'd left the blade behind at Anahita's command, when he needed it now. "You stole these. You visited my city. How?"

A blue cloud erupted between Philemon and the witch's lover. "My Master is no thief, Philemon. I took them as my due, a price for service, as it were. And I was right to do so. Their splendour in sunlight is unmatched. You left them to be buried in dust and blown sand. My greatest creation!" The djinn door guardian spat on the floor at Philemon's feet. "You did not deserve them."

"Kaveh, that is no way to treat a guest in my house," the man chided.

"He means you harm – he threatened your life, just as he drew his sword on the princess!" the djinn insisted.

Realisation dawned on Philemon. "You're not the witch's lover. She's your wife – you're the man who was not content to just pretend to be a prince! My name, my garden...my door guardian! What else have you stolen from me?"

The man pulled a ring off his finger – a ring Philemon recognised. "I did not – "

"No!" the djinn howled, shoving the ring back on his master's finger. "You swore an oath. That ring is not to leave your finger until you pass it to your son on your deathbed!"

A djinn fighting his master? Philemon would not have believed such a thing was possible, if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes.

Philemon held out his hand. "That is my ring of office. I demand you hand it over, along with mastery of that disobedient djinn."

The djinn glared back at him. "You cast the ring aside, along with everyone else in the city, when you deserted us. Fadi sold that ring to a silversmith, so that he would have the money to feed your people. An evil wizard bought it, and gave it to Aladdin. It belongs to him and you shall not have it!"

Philemon ignored him. The fake prince was the key, he knew it. What had the djinn said his name was? "Aladdin, give me my ring, or I will tell your wife who is the real Prince of Tasnim. Let's see if Princess Maram wishes to be your wife when she knows the truth!"

"Please, enlighten me," a female voice purred.

The witch.

Philemon reached for his dagger.

"Oh, don't bother," she said. "She's gone home to her apartments in the Sultan's palace, and you've made your preferences perfectly clear. You fancy my sister, and against her better judgement and my own, she's still partial to you. She's never taken a lover before. She's more likely to take a man's life, than take him to bed. You must have been quite persuasive, Prince Philemon of Tasnim."

Philemon sagged. "Not persuasive enough, if she has left me."

Aladdin had the right of it. The world was empty without the woman he loved. He stared at the fake prince with sympathy, for the first time. The djinn had vanished.

"Perhaps not." The witch wet her lips. "Would you care for a wager, Philemon?"

"What do you have that I want?"

The witch smiled. "By the sound of things, everything. Your garden. Your title. Your symbol of office. And the woman you wish to be your wife."

She had him. "What do I have that you want?" Philemon asked, his heart sinking. He was back to promising all the wealth of Tasnim to a witch. If she turned him into a frog again...Anahita would not save him this time, he was sure of it.

"The power to make my dearest sister happy," she said. Her eyes filled with tears. "I would gamble my garden for that."

Philemon drew closer. "What do you mean?"

Maram waved her hand and a servant appeared. "Bring us refreshments. We have business to discuss." The maid scurried away.

Maram gazed into Philemon's eyes. A frank assessment of his soul, without a hint of the seduction she'd tried earlier. "You will go speak to the Sultan, and you will tell them Aladdin is your younger half-brother. And then you will tell him that seeing your brother's happiness, you must be married to another of my sisters at once."

Philemon shook his head. "Anahita will never agree to it. You didn't see the way she looked at me."

Maram wet her lips. "That is where the wager comes in. If this works, she will be your wife, and I keep my garden. If this does not work...I will ask my husband to have another garden crafted for you to replace this one. Do we have a deal?"

Hope danced before Philemon, like Anahita on her wedding night. Tantalising, but too far away to touch. "And if she decides she wants me dead instead?"

Maram laughed. "If my sister wanted you dead, you'd be lying in a pool of your own blood in my reception room. Anahita does not hesitate...or she didn't, before you."

Could he gamble everything for love?

He stared at Aladdin, the pretend prince, who only had eyes for Maram. Her dark eyes were firmly fixed on Philemon.

"Yes," Philemon said. "Yes, we have a deal."