"I shall bring him here directly," the djinn said, opening a hole in the wall.
"No! I don't want him to know I'm there. I want to see him in his home, where I imagine he'd be asleep now," Aladdin clarified.
Kaveh bowed. "I'd be honoured to help you. Invisibility is my speciality."
Leaving the other djinn behind with his handiwork, Kaveh and Aladdin made their way through the near-empty streets to the Vizier's house, where the princess's soon-to-be husband lived. They entered the house and dodged between servants readying the house for the day. No one spared them a glance, buoying Aladdin's hopes that Kaveh had made them truly invisible.
"The best bedchamber is this way," Kaveh said softly, leading Aladdin upstairs. "Don't worry, they can't hear us."
"How do you know where it is? Have you been here before?" Aladdin asked.
"This house has belonged to a long line of viziers. The man in office may change but the house does not."
One day, Aladdin would ask Kaveh how old he was. Today was not that day, though, as he fought to catch his breath while they hurried up the stairs.
Aladdin heard quiet sobbing, then a smack of flesh on flesh followed by a pained cry, like a child being spanked. Curiosity made him follow the sound into a grand bedchamber, but the scene he found made him wish he hadn't.
A semi-naked slave girl, judging by what remained of her torn clothes, squirmed under a naked man who evidently took great pleasure in her tears and cries of pain as he bedded her. He clenched his fingers around her breast, squeezing until she let out a little scream, then backhanded her across the face, adding what would be another bruise to match her two blooming black eyes.
"You like that, don't you, slut of a sultan's daughter? Answer me!" the man demanded. He hit her again, twice, eliciting more cries of pain. "Answer me!"
Finally, the weeping girl whimpered, "Yes, master. Your touch honours me."
"Louder!" he insisted, slapping her face again.
Her voice rose to a shriek as she repeated the words, over and over, at his command, each sentence punctuated by another blow from the brute.
Aladdin wanted to help the girl, but what could he do? He was half the man's size, and there were dozens of servants who would come to his assistance. Why weren't they coming to help the girl? For surely they could hear her...
He stuck his head out of the open doorway. Sure enough, a steady stream of servants filed past, intent on their tasks for the day.
The girl screamed, and Aladdin saw a serving girl flinch. She stumbled, then caught herself and continued past, hugging her arms to her chest. Arms bruised almost black in places, Aladdin noticed, matching her own fading black eyes.
All the female servants bore the marks of this monster, he realised. All were young and pretty, or would be if not for the bruises. No older women worked here.
"Is that the Vizier?" Aladdin asked. Even as the words left his lips, he knew they could not be true. The brute had not looked old enough to be the father of an adult son, old enough to marry Maram. Dread curled a cold tendril around his heart.
"No, that is his son, Hasan, who will soon marry the princess," Kaveh said sadly.
Aladdin swore. "Not while I live, he won't. If he lays so much as a finger on her perfect skin, I will kill him myself."
How did a humble spinner's son stop the daughter of the Sultan from marrying whoever she wished? The Sultan would not listen to him. Perhaps if he was the Vizier's equal, or a prince...
A bubble of inspiration burst in Aladdin's head, brighter than dawn in his own audience chamber. For it would be.
"Kaveh, go to the alley behind the entrance to the marketplace. There you will find a number of men waiting to be offered work. Labourers, all of them. Tell them you come from me, and you will pay them a week's wages if they meet me at the gates of the city an hour before my audience with the Sultan."
"What will you be doing?"
"Persuading the servant of the lamp to make me look like the richest prince in the world. One who deserves not only that palace, but the princess, too."
Kaveh grinned. "That's the spirit. I still haven't seen this princess of yours yet."
TWENTY-ONE
"Leave me," Maram commanded her attendants, and they did, leaving her alone in the bathhouse.
Except...she wasn't really alone.
"You may approach," she said softly.
A dark-clad figure melted out of the shadows. "I was informed you might have a job for me."
Maram turned a seductive smile on the hooded man. She did not need to see his face as long as he could see hers. "There is no might about it. If you are indeed the best assassin in the city, then I have a job for you."
"There is no assassin better than me," the man said.
Maram knew it was a lie, but this man probably did not. The best assassin she knew was out of the city, with no definite return date, so second best must do.
"Then tell me. If someone paid you to assassinate the Sultan, how would you do it?" she asked.
The man shook his head. "I would not take that job."
"What about the Vizier?"
"He is an old man. Old men are prone to clumsiness. If old age does not carry him off, perhaps he might stumble down some stairs, or trip and hit his head."
The stories Maram had heard about this man were true. He was clever enough to make cold-blooded murder appear like an accident.
"And what about the Vizier's son?"
"He is young and strong, but death lurks in the most unlikely places. One of his servants might slip poison into his wine, for it is well known that he is a hard master."
"What if someone asked you to kill a princess?"
"You toy with me, Your Highness. I could kill you now where you stand, for you carry no weapon. By the time your servants came to your assistance, you would be dead." He bowed his head. "But an assassin with my skills has the freedom to choose which jobs he takes. And I would not wish to rob the world of your beauty, so you are safe from me. I do not kill women."
She had heard this, too.
"What poison would Hasan's servants choose, I wonder?" she said.
The assassin produced a small pouch. "A little will send him to sleep, but enough will make sure he does not wake up."
Maram nodded, satisfied. "Then I will pay you for it now, and on the night before my wedding, I ask you to meet me here once more, to complete the job." She held out a jingling purse.
He exchanged his pouch for the purse, then paused to count his coins. "This is more than my usual fee."
"You will receive the same again when your job is complete."
He bowed deeply. "As Your Highness commands." He melted into the shadows once more.
When she was certain he'd gone, Maram peeped into the pouch. She almost laughed. He'd given her opium, a drug she'd used more often than any other. A waste of good coin, but never mind. She had no doubt Hasan used the stuff, too, so it would be no surprise if anyone found the pouch in his house. Or in hers.