Castle in the Air. Diana Wynne Jones

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by taking off my hands this miserable flowery thing, at a bargain price.”

      “The contents of your booth should in future be choice indeed,” the merchant said. “Let me offer you half what you ask.”

      “Ah, shrewdest of shrewd men,” Abdullah said. “Even a bargain costs money. But for you I will reduce my price by two coppers.”

      It was a long hot day. But by the early evening, Abdullah had sold all his best carpets for nearly twice as much as he had paid for them. He reckoned that he now had enough ready money to keep Flower-in-the-Night in reasonable luxury for three months or so. After that, he hoped either that something else would turn up, or that the sweetness of her nature would reconcile her to poverty. He went to the baths. He went to the barber. He called at the scent-maker and had himself perfumed with oils. Then he went back to his booth and dressed in his best clothes. These clothes, like the clothes of most merchants, had various cunning insets, pieces of embroidery and ornamental twists of braid that were not ornaments at all, but cleverly concealed purses for money. Abdullah distributed his newly earned gold among these hiding places and was ready at last. He went, not very willingly, along to his father’s old emporium. He told himself that it would pass the time between now and his elopement.

      It was a curious feeling to go up the shallow cedar steps and enter the place where he had spent so much of his childhood. The smell of it, the cedarwood and the spices and the hairy, oily scent of carpets, was so familiar that, if he shut his eyes, he could imagine he was ten years old again, playing behind a roll of carpet while his father bargained with a customer. But, with his eyes open, Abdullah had no such illusion. His father’s first wife’s sister had a regrettable fondness for bright purple. The walls, the trellis screens, the chairs for customers, the cashier’s table and even the cash box had all been painted Fatima’s favourite colour. Fatima came to meet him in a dress of the same colour.

      “Why, Abdullah! How prompt you are and how smart you look!” she said, and her manner said she had expected him to arrive late and in rags.

      “He looks almost as if he was dressed for his wedding!” Assif said, advancing too, with a smile on his thin bad-tempered face.

      It was so rare to see Assif smiling that Abdullah thought for a moment that Assif had ricked his neck and was grimacing with pain. Then Hakim sniggered, which made Abdullah realise what Assif had just said. To his annoyance, he found he was blushing furiously. He was forced to bow politely in order to hide his face.

      “There’s no need to make the boy blush!” Fatima cried. Which of course made Abdullah’s blush worse. “Abdullah, what is this rumour we hear that you are suddenly planning to deal in pictures?”

      “And selling the best of your stock to make room for the pictures,” added Hakim.

      Abdullah ceased to blush. He saw he had been summoned here to be criticised. He was sure of it when Assif added reproachfully, “Our feelings are somewhat hurt, son of my father’s niece’s husband, that you did not seem to think we could oblige you by taking a few carpets off your hands.”

      “Dear relatives,” said Abdullah, “I could not, of course, sell you my carpets. My aim was to make a profit and I could hardly mulct you, whom my father loved.” He was so annoyed that he turned round to go away again, only to find that Hakim had quietly shut and barred the doors.

      “No need to stay open,” Hakim said. “Let us be just family here.”

      “The poor boy!” said Fatima. “Never has he had more need of a family to keep his mind in order!”

      “Yes, indeed,” said Assif. “Abdullah, some rumours on the Bazaar state that you have gone mad. We do not like this.”

      “He’s certainly behaving oddly,” Hakim agreed. “We don’t like such talk connected to a respectable family like ours.”

      This was worse than usual. Abdullah said, “There is nothing wrong with my mind. I know just what I am doing. And my aim is to cease giving you any chance to criticise me, probably by tomorrow. Meanwhile, Hakim told me to come here because you have found the prophecy that was made at my birth. Is this correct, or was it merely an excuse?” He had never been so rude to his father’s first wife’s relations before, but he was angry enough to feel they deserved it.

      Oddly enough, instead of being angry with Abdullah in return, all three of his father’s first wife’s relations began hurrying excitedly round the emporium.

      “Now where is that box?” said Fatima.

      “Find it, find it!” said Assif. “It is the very words of the fortune teller his poor father brought to the bedside of his second wife an hour after Abdullah’s birth. He must see it!”

      “Written in your own father’s hand,” Hakim said to Abdullah. “The greatest treasure for you.”

      “Here it is!” said Fatima, triumphantly pulling a carved wooden box off a high shelf. She gave the box to Assif, who thrust it into Abdullah’s hands.

      “Open it, open it!” they all three cried excitedly.

      Abdullah put the box down on the purple cashier’s table and sprung the catch. The lid went back, bringing a musty smell from inside, which was perfectly plain and empty apart from a folded yellowish paper.

      “Get it out! Read it!” said Fatima, in even greater excitement.

      Abdullah could not see what the fuss was about, but he unfolded the paper. It had a few lines of writing on it, brown and faded, and definitely his father’s. He turned towards the hanging lamp with it. Now that Hakim had shut the main doors, the general purpleness of the emporium made it hard to see in there.

      “He can barely see!” said Fatima.

      Assif said, “No wonder. There’s no light in here. Bring him into the room at the back. The overhead shutters are open there.”

      He and Hakim took hold of Abdullah’s shoulders and pushed and hustled him towards the back of the shop. Abdullah was so busy trying to read the pale and scribbly writing of his father that he let them push him until he was positioned under the big overhead louvres in the living room behind the emporium. That was better. Now he knew why his father had been so disappointed in him. The writing said:

       These are the words of the wise fortune teller. “This son of yours will not follow you in your trade. Two years after your death, while he is still a very young man, he will be raised above all others in this land. As Fate decrees it, so I have spoken.”

      My son’s fortune is a great disappointment to me. Let Fate send me other sons to follow in my trade, or I have wasted forty gold pieces on this prophecy.

      “As you see, a great future awaits you, dear boy,” said Assif.

      Somebody giggled.

      Abdullah looked up from the paper, a little bemused. There seemed to be a lot of scent in the air.

      The giggle came again, two of it, from in front of him.

      Abdullah’s eyes snapped forward. He felt them bulge. Two extremely fat young women stood in front of him. They met his bulging eyes and giggled again, coyly. Both were dressed to kill in shiny satin and ballooning gauze – pink on the right, yellow

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