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"Come with me and I will show you," Gwandoya said.
Berk caught Aladdin's shoulder. "Don't, man. Bugra's likely dead in the gutter somewhere, and if you go with him, you will be next."
If he didn't find work soon, Aladdin knew he'd be dead in a gutter anyway. He hadn't eaten in two days, and his mother was too tired to spin. A quick death was better than starving to death, and if there was a chance he might be able to free Maram...
"So be it. I shall take my chances," Aladdin said. He dropped his voice to a whisper that he hoped only Berk would hear. "If I survive, I swear I will return here, if only to tell you the truth of what happened to Bugra and the others. If I do not...please tell my mother that I love her, and my last thoughts were of her." Whatever happened, he would no longer be a burden on his mother, for her spinning was enough to support her alone without him.
Berk looked like he wanted to say more, but he pressed his lips together and nodded. "May you have better fortune than the rest of us."
Gwandoya clapped Aladdin on the shoulder. "Good boy! You will be rich, you shall see!"
Aladdin wanted to believe him, so he hoped, but in his heart, he dreaded what would come next. Anything that made a starving boy rich had to be unpleasant. Otherwise, why would Gwandoya share such riches with anyone?
FIVE
Maram trudged back to her apartment, vowing not to return to the bathhouse unless he was there. Somehow that one encounter with Aladdin had left the place empty of all joy for her. She had returned every day, yet he had not. She wanted, no she needed to see him again. She'd been touched by so many men, but that one kiss from him had burned through her memories of all of them so that only he remained.
Who was Aladdin? More than some simple spinner's son. More than any man she'd ever known...they'd shared one moment, but that moment was everything.
"Did you put him up to it?"
Maram blinked. Two hulking shadows bracketed her favourite couch and the dark-clad figure who reclined upon the cushions.
"I'm still in mourning, you know," Anahita said, throwing herself down in a picture of despair.
Maram smothered a laugh. "In mourning for which husband? Do you even remember his name?"
Anahita sat up indignantly. "Of course I do. It was...um, Abd-something-or-other. I think. Oh, what does it matter? He never wanted me to address him by his name. I was supposed to call him Master, like I was a slave. Me! It is not fitting to speak ill of the dead, but that man..."
"Is not mourned by anyone, least of all you," Maram finished for her. "Father has a problem with Sheikh Basit. He is attacking the outlying towns and camps, taking our people as slaves."
Anahita frowned. "Then he is a fool, and Father does him too much honour, giving me to him as a bride. Is he at least a handsome fool?"
Maram shrugged. "I do not know. I have never seen the man. What do you care? All of your husbands meet untimely ends. One might think you drive your husbands to suicide."
"Oh, hush." Anahita flapped her hand at the nearest guard. For all that her sister never went anywhere without them, Maram had never learned their names. "Get us something to drink."
The man bowed and left without a word, while his twin folded his arms across his chest to appear even more formidable.
Anahita didn't even seem to notice. Maram would never understand why her sister favoured these two enormous men as her personal guards. They'd been a gift from her first husband, a man Maram knew deserved his untimely death ten times over.
"He cannot be handsome, or you would have kept this sheikh for yourself," Anahita said. "The gossip in the palace is that you have a new lover in the city. One you meet in the old bathhouse near the city gates." Anahita's eyes sparkled. "Who is he?"
Maram's heart ached at the mention of Aladdin. "No one." She wet her lips. "And he is not my lover. I met a man there once. I have not seen him since." But she would give everything she owned to see him again. Or for more than a kiss.
Anahita whistled. "A man who can resist you! A superior creature indeed. You must introduce me to this paragon. Perhaps he can keep me company when you go travelling again. A widow always needs so much consolation!"
"No!" Maram snapped, more sharply than she'd intended. She softened her tone as she continued, "You'll be living in marital bliss with that sheikh, I'm sure."
"Marital bliss is not for the likes of me, or you," Anahita said. "Why else would Father allow us to have apartments outside the protection of the harem?"
Maram shot a pointed glance at her sister's remaining bodyguard. Either one of them would be quite the temptation to her father's wives, some of whom had not spent a night with their husband since their wedding night. Someone who hadn't grown up in a harem might think it a place full of secrets, and it was, but secrets were the currency of the place, and they flowed as freely as coins in the marketplace. For a politician like Maram who was known to have her father's ear, nothing stayed a secret for long.
"Fate is fickle. You don't know what she might have in store for either of us. Perhaps you will find a handsome prince of a husband who will outlive you. And I..." She might meet Aladdin again, a man of vastly changed fortunes, who could marry her the way he wished to.
"You might find some prince who doesn't know the difference between a virgin and a courtesan, a man so stupid he allows you to rule in his stead," Anahita finished for her with a smile. "I know you. You would never be content to be anything less than a queen. I think you like the power you have over men when you travel to foreign lands. There are tales of queens who rule like men, I am told."
Maram thought of Queen Margareta, a world-weary widow who was lonely without her husband. "There are a few such women, and their lives are not easy. I would not aim so high. But sometimes it would be pleasant to be loved."
