TWENTY-THREE
Maram stabbed the needle through her embroidery, wishing she'd chosen to attend court today instead of going to the bathhouse to meet with the assassin. Now she'd have to wait until her father retired for the day before she heard what the prince had said.
"Are you thinking of becoming an assassin? I've heard tales of men in the far east who execute traitors by piercing them with a thousand needles."
Maram dropped the needle in surprise. "Father?"
"I have another gift for you today, but it will not fit in here. You must come with me if you wish to see it."
A squad of guards waited outside, and Maram hastily secured her veil, realising they would be leaving the palace, for neither she nor her father required an escort so large within the palace grounds.
Father filled her in as they walked. The prince had asked for her hand, and promised her a palace, just as she'd asked for from Hasan.
"A palace he tells me he has already built – here," Father said with a flourish as the building came into view.
Maram's breath caught in her throat. How had she missed it this morning? Too intent on her thoughts, she supposed, as her men fought their way through the crush outside the palace.
A second palace sat beside her father's, grand and gleaming in the sun. The open gates beckoned her in, and Maram could not refuse the elegant invitation. The scent of rosewater reached her nostrils – whoever owned the palace had seen fit to perfume the entrance steps, a delightful touch.
As she stepped inside, she expected servants to come rushing forward to greet her and offer refreshments, yet there was no sound but the echo of her and her father's footsteps on the tiles. They were alone in this palace. A palace that easily outshone her father's.
The tiled floors were so perfectly smooth, they seemed to be made of a single piece of stone. Every room had a different ceiling mosaic, so lifelike it seemed she was staring up at the real sky and not a picture of it. And the bathhouse...tears sprang to her eyes to see her dreams made real, in a way no man could have known she wanted, for she hadn't even told her father how much she wanted this. The bathhouse was as opulent as the rest of the palace, but it was also familiar – if the bathhouse she'd visited that very morning were made anew, then surely it would look like this. A copy of the place on the day it opened, all those centuries ago...but no one could know such things!
Shaking her head at the impossibility of what her eyes were telling her, Maram no longer knew what to think.
"Come and look at the garden," her father called.
Only now did Maram realise she stood alone in the bathhouse – her father had ventured into the courtyard without her.
A courtyard or a garden? Maram wasn't certain until she saw the light glint off what she'd taken for grass. No, the ground was covered in grass-coloured tiles, while jewelled shrubs and trees dotted the courtyard like the harem gardens at home. A jewelled replica of the harem gardens...a place no prince had ever visited, for her brothers had been given their own garden for their boisterous play. The only men who had ever visited them were sultans, like her father, or traitors like her mother's lover, Amani. There was magic at work here. Magic meant to delight her, and her alone.
Maram's mouth was unbearably dry. More than ever, she wished for a servant to offer her refreshment, but no one granted her wish.
"Father, whoever this man is...whoever built this...I must meet him," she said. Because if he was even the slightest bit better than Hasan, she would scream her YES to his proposals before he could repeat them to her.
A shape stepped out of the shadows. A shape wearing a crown in the folds of his turban. The prince threw himself face down on the green tiles. "I am honoured by the presence of such a beautiful princess and her father in my humble home."
Maram glanced around, only to find her father nowhere in sight. Had he gone, leaving her alone with this man?
It seemed he had.
Maram took a deep breath. "Rise, Prince of Tasnim, for I am the one who is honoured. Why would a man I barely know offer me such a magnificent gift?"
"Because Hasan does not deserve you." The prince rose stiffly to his feet, only to lose his turban partway up. It clanged to the tiles, crown first, and rolled away.
She couldn't hide her smile. "And you do?"
"No," he said, raising his head to meet her eyes. "But I could think of no other way to free you of both slavery and your betrothal to him."
Maram's breath caught in her throat and she couldn't seem to draw another one. This couldn't be. It couldn't. Yet...
"Aladdin?" she gasped.