"Yes, Your Highness." The two men bowed and hurried out.
The woman threw herself full length on the floor before Maram. "Your Highness, please have mercy on a poor mother. Tell me why you have imprisoned my son."
"Aladdin is in prison?"
The woman let out a wail. "It is a mistake, a misunderstanding! My son would never do anything to offend the Sultan!"
Maram shook her head. "Mistress, please, get up. Tell me what has happened to Aladdin."
The woman rose to her knees, wiping her eyes with her veil. Hers was black, though so threadbare Maram could see through it. "I do not know. He left to find work, as he does every morning, but he did not return. No one has seen him. Then some guards came to my humble house and told me to come with them to answer questions about my son. Please, Your Highness, tell me what he has done!"
Maram beckoned one of the guards back into the room. He stood in the doorway, reluctant to enter any further. "Send a man to the prisons, to see if a man named Aladdin is held there, and if he is, find out what his crime may be."
The man bowed deeply. "I will, Your Highness, but we already checked there. There is no prisoner of that name anywhere in the city. The only Aladdin we could find is reputed to be this woman's son, so we brought her. As she said, the man has not been seen for days."
Maram nodded and dismissed him. "Mistress...please, can you tell me your name?"
"This humble mother is called Sadaf, Your Highness."
"Mistress Sadaf, please, sit with me." Maram gestured to the table where – finally! – the food and drink had been laid out. She gestured for one of the maids to shut the door behind her and Maram was alone with Aladdin's mother. Only then did she unwind her veil so that Aladdin's mother might see her face.
Sadaf crept timidly to the cushion Maram indicated, still not raising her eyes to Maram's face.
Maram settled on her own cushion. "Mistress Sadaf, I have invited you here to..." What could she say? She wanted to ask where Aladdin had been since that day in the bathhouse, but if she had no idea where he was... "I wish to ask about your son," Maram said finally. "Is it possible that he has left the city?"
Sadaf shook her head. "Aladdin has never stepped out of the city gates, Your Highness. He was born here, and he has never left. So when he did not come home, I thought..." She covered her mouth, but not fast enough to hold in a sob.
"We will find him," Maram said, though she had no idea how. If her father's men hadn't found him inside the city by now, it stood to reason that he was either not in the city or he was dead. No, surely not dead.
Sadaf burst into noisy tears. "Thank you, Your Highness. I do not know what we have done to earn such kindness, but if there is anything I can do to repay you, tell me, and it is yours."
"If he returns...when he returns," Maram corrected herself, "Send him to the palace to see me."
"Who should he ask for, Your Highness? If my son came to the palace, asking to see a princess, he would surely be turned away," Sadaf said.
She was right. No one would see Aladdin the way Maram did. "Tell him to ask for Princess Maram. No, he is to tell the guards that Princess Maram commanded him to present himself at the palace." They would believe that.
"As you command, Your Highness." Sadaf bowed low.
"No, I don't. I ask..." Maram stopped, lost. "Mistress Sadaf, please understand me. It is not a command. That is only what he must tell the guards. Tell Aladdin...tell Aladdin that I wish to see him, and if he wishes to see me, what to say to the guards." There, that sounded better.
Sadaf's knowing eyes were upon her, and Maram didn't know where to look.
"My son is as charming as his father. I do not know how you came to meet him, Your Highness, but if my son is in prison, then it is because he is accused of being a thief," Sadaf said.
"Aladdin is a thief?" She didn't want to believe it. If he was a thief, surely he would have stolen something from her in the bathhouse. He hadn't touched her jewels, her clothes...nothing.
Sadaf smiled faintly. "My son has never stolen anything in his life, or so I had thought, but a princess's heart is something so precious, so priceless, perhaps he could not resist." She bowed low once more. "I will do as you ask, Your Highness, if I am lucky enough to see my son alive again."
Without waiting to be dismissed, Sadaf backed out of the room, and left.
Maram couldn't seem to close her mouth. Were her feelings for Aladdin that obvious? Surely she did not look as hopelessly enamoured of him as the royalty of the northern lands were of her. Surely not.
She shook the silly thought out of her head. What she looked like and what Sadaf thought didn't matter. Aladdin was missing, and if he'd been missing long enough for his mother to despair of his return...he must be found.
ELEVEN
Aladdin woke to find his head pounding, as though he'd drunk too much wine. As if he could afford to drink wine. "Where in heaven's name am I?" he asked the inky darkness.
"Tasnim, the forgotten city," a familiar voice replied, as a glimmering blue ball appeared and expanded to become a man. Kaveh.
"And why does it feel like a camel stomped on my head?"
"That would be the cask of Prince Firdaus' private reserve you drank." Kavek sounded amused. "It's powerful stuff, or it was a century ago, when he first bought it. Now it must be strong enough to kill an ox. I told you to drink sparingly, but you told me you were too thirsty."
Aladdin lurched to his feet. "Well, now I don't want wine. I want water. I'm sure I saw a well around here somewhere."
"You won't find any water in it. Why do you think all the people left? Without water, the city would die."
Kaveh began to tell a story about a ruling prince who vanished when the water did, and the fate of his people, but Aladdin shut him out and concentrated on looking for water. His mouth tasted like rats had nested in it and used his throat for a privy. He never wanted to drink wine again.
In the faint blue light from Kaveh following him, Aladdin came to one of the wells he remembered. A dusty bucket lay on the ground beside the well, so he hooked it up to the rope and lowered it into the depths, praying for the splash.
He'd almost lost hope when he heard it – though the sound was faint and deep. Aladdin let the bucket drop lower, then began hauling it up again, hand over hand. It was heavier than before, he was certain of it.
When the bucket rose into sight, the blue reflection on the surface of the liquid of the brimming pail was enough for him to let out a hoarse cheer.
"I wouldn't drink that if I were you," Kaveh said.
Aladdin ignored him again. He lifted the bucket to his lips and only then did the stench reach him. Aladdin coughed. "What is that? It can't be water."
Kaveh grinned. "Well, it was once water. Before some bastard pissed it out, maybe, and threw it down the well before he left the city. Where it's been festering ever since."