Gateway to Elsewhere

Chapter 12

The Queen smiled. There was flour on her hands, as if she had been cooking something.

“Have you breakfasted, Lord Toni?” she asked.

“Well—no,” admitted Tony.

“Then come in,” said the Queen, “and we will talk while you do.”

They entered a small room, an almost bare room, a peasant’s general-purpose room which had the shining neatness of a house with no man in it to mess it up. But this had not the fussy preciosity of too many possessions. There was a small fire burning on a raised hearth, giving off a distinctly acrid smell which yet was not unpleasant.

“You will have coffee,” said the Queen, “and whatever else we can find. We are a little straitened for food today, because so much went for your meal last night.”

Tony had been dazed, but this was a jolt which showed in his expression. The Queen laughed.

“The djinns have their own foods,” she explained. “But no human being can eat of their dainties. When I was first made prisoner the king used to raid caravans to get food for me, but it was very tedious! So now I have my own garden, and someone—I think it was Abdul—stole chickens for me. When you came as a guest they asked me for food for you, and I gave it. Of course. You probably did not notice, but no matter what you pointed to in all the dishes they paraded before you, you actually got—” she chuckled—“no more than flesh of chicken, and eggs, and cheese and dates and salad! That was all I had for you.”

Tony said: “Majesty, I think I ought to make some appropriate speech. But I don’t know what to say!”

She busied herself at the fireplace, and Ghail went quickly to help. The two of them gave Tony his coffee, and a melon, and eggs. It went very well.

“You are going to defeat the djinns, Ghail tells me,” the Queen said practically. “She assures me you will destroy them to the last small djinnling. I hope not.”

Tony goggled at her. “But—”

“Oh, I know!” said the Queen. “I am their prisoner, and so on. But in their way they’re rather cute.” Tony stared.

“I’ve lived among them four years,” the Queen said briskly. “I’ve had them around all the time. They’re a little bit like men, and a good deal more like children, and quite a lot like kittens. I suppose you’d say that I’ve made pets of them. Of course they won’t let me go home, but it isn’t bad.”

Tony chewed and swallowed, and then said carefully: “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.”

The Queen shrugged. “They’re terribly vain, like men. If possible, more so. You can do anything with a djinn if you flatter him. They’re terrible show-offs, like children. My maid outside can wind Abdul around her little finger any time. He loves to show off his transformations, and she watches him. The other djinns won’t. And they’re like kittens because they’re so completely selfish. But that’s very much like men and children, too.”

Tony said in astonishment:

“But they’re a menace to Barkut—”

“Of course!” the Queen conceded impatiently. “They’re dangerous to Barkut in the same way that a troop of—say—wild apes would be dangerous to a village near where they lived. They steal, and they destroy, and they probably kill people now and then. But it’s because they can’t understand people and people can’t understand them.”

“There’s a war—” began Tony.

“Oh, the war!” The Queen dismissed it scornfully. “That’s what all wars are about! Misunderstandings! Marriages are too, probably. Men are so absurd! That’s why I have to stay a prisoner.”

Ghail said warningly: “Majesty!”

The Queen regarded Ghail with impatience.

“My dear, you cannot deny that I am patriotic! I have no children, so I can be patriotic! But for the same reason I haven’t any particular prejudice against the djinns. Do you remember how I used to adore horses? I’ve come to like the djinns as well, that’s all. I admit that it seems terribly silly to me that I have to stay here because the djinn king’s vanity is involved in holding me prisoner! If I were to escape and go back to Barkut, he’d feel that he had to attack it furiously to recapture me. So I can’t go home until he’s conquered. So I simply want the Lord Toni to realize that as far as I am concerned—”

Ghail said again: “Majesty!”

Tony looked sharply at Ghail and at the Queen. Ghail was young and very desirable. The Queen was less young and contentedly undesirous. She laughed frankly.

“Very well, Ghail!” And to Tony she said: “I think that even as a captive queen, though, I can amend my council’s orders to say that it will not be necessary to exterminate the djinns completely! I should think, in fact, that if they were suitably subdued, a few tame ones kept around the palace would be quite pleasant. They’d be excellent for the prestige of the throne of Barkut, too!”

Tony said painfully: “Majesty—”

“It’s really too bad you came to Barkut at all,” the Queen said, though with no unfriendliness. “Humans and djinns alike believe that if anybody can bring about a human victory, you can. So the humans won’t consent to a compromise until they’ve tried for conquest. And if they would, the djinns would be sure they knew they couldn’t win, and they wouldn’t compromise until they’d tried for conquest. It’s so silly! We really could get along without fighting, if we tried! I’ve been working on the djinn king. He was willing to come to a compromise, but—male vanity again!—only on condition that the Queen of Barkut married him. And that seemed to be out of the question.”

“It was out of the question!” snapped Ghail, her eyes angry.

“I was wearing him down,” protested the Queen. “After all, if he had his harem of djinnees, a private agreement that his marriage to a human queen would be a form and not a fact—”

“Absolutely out of the question!” repeated Ghail, her color high. “Absolutely!”

The Queen sighed.

“I know it is, my dear… and it’s too late now, anyhow. The Lord Toni has come. The humans think he’s going to lead them to victory. The djinns are sure that if he can’t, the war goes to them.” She looked at Tony, frowning. “Of course you’ve got to win, Lord Toni! Of course! Humans as the slaves of djinns would be in a terrible state! It would be like enslaved by apes or—children! And apes make nice pets—I had one once—and children are doubtless very well, but apes or children or djinns would be horrible masters! But the djinns are so amusing—”

“I’m getting a trifle confused,” admitted Tony.

The Queen nodded kindly.

“I know,” she said condescendingly. “You men only really talk to each other. You don’t often see things straight. If you only talked to women more… about things that really matter, that is—”

“May Allah forbid!” said Tony grimly. “I’ve never yet talked to a woman who didn’t try to make me apologize for being a man, or any who’d have bothered to talk to me if I hadn’t been! You are a queen, Majesty, and you’re giving me what I take to be rather complicated instructions. I’m only a man. So whatever I do—because I’m a man—you will explain should have been done differently. No man can ever do anything exactly the way a woman would like him to, but whatever he does, women will make the best of it. So I’m not going to try to do whatever it is you’re trying to command. I’m going to handle this my way!”

He spoke hotly, through a natural association of their viewpoint with that of his conscience. Which had reason behind it, at that. But at the same time, he wondered rather desperately what his own way would be.

The Queen regarded him complacently.

“I know. Men are like that.” Then she added, “I think you and Ghail will be very happy.”

Ghail turned crimson. She stamped her foot furiously. “Majesty—” she cried. “You go too far—”

There was a small-sized uproar outside. The voice of the stout woman, in alarm:

“Abdul! Abdul! You can’t do things like that!”

Tony plunged to the door. At the foot of the wall which was the djinn king’s palace, almost a quarter of a mile away, there was a twelve-foot soldier-djinn who by his gestures had just communicated some message of importance. In the stretch between the wall and the farmhouse, a charging rhinoceros raced at top speed. It plunged toward the small group of buildings. Fifty yards away it seemed to stumble, crash, and in mid-air turned into a round ball with spiral red-and-white stripes which made a dizzying spectacle as it rolled. It was five feet in diameter. It checked abruptly two yards from the Queen’s door and there abruptly wrinkled itself, changed color, and collapsed into the short, fat, swaggering djinn with a turban who was Tony’s guide to this place, who was Nasim’s friend Abdul, and who had awaited a summons to duty as a valet in the form of a cockroach atop the window hangings of Tony’s bedroom.

He bowed profoundly.

“Lord,” he said, “there is a message from the king. Es-Souk, who was to have been executed today for your amusement, has escaped from his prison. He undoubtedly seeks you, lord, to attempt your murder before his own death, since he cannot live under the king’s displeasure.”

Tony felt himself growing just a little pale. He remembered fingers closing on his throat, and an elephant-sized monster in his bedroom in the palace at Barkut, beating its breast before falling upon him to demolish him utterly.

That—irrelevantly—suggested the only possible source of action. Tony gulped and said:

“Thank you, Abdul. Tell the king I am very much obliged for the warning. But tell him not to worry about it. I won’t need any extra guards. I’ll handle Es-Souk. In fact, I’ll help hunt for him as soon as I’ve—as soon as I’ve refilled my cigarette lighter.”