Thief of Baghdad Read Free

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