"Diana Wynne Jones - Castle In The Air (txt)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones Diana Wynne)

father had never ventured into the desert in his life; indeed, he had
often said that anyone who ventured beyond Zanzib must be mad.
Nevertheless, Abdullah could picture every nightmare inch of the dry,
thirsty, footsore journey he had made before the good carpet merchant
found him. Likewise, he could picture in great detail the palace he had
been kidnapped from, with its pillared throne room floored in green
porphyry, its women's quarters, and its kitchens, all of the utmost
richness. There were seven domes on its roof, each one covered with
beaten gold.

Lately, however, the daydream had been concentrating on the princess to
whom Abdullah had been betrothed at his birth. She

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was as highborn as Abdullah and had grown up in his absence into a great
beauty with perfect features and huge misty dark eyes. She lived in a
palace as rich as Abdullah's own. You approached it along an avenue
lined with angelic statues and entered by way of seven marble courts,
each with a fountain in the middle more precious than the last, starting
with one made of chrysolite and ending with one of platinum studded with
emeralds.

But that day Abdullah found he was not quite satisfied with this
arrangement. It was a feeling he often had after a visit from his
father's first wife's relations. It occurred to him that a good palace
ought to have magnificent gardens. Abdullah loved gardens, though he
knew very little about them. Most of his experience had come from the
public parks of Zanzib-where the turf was somewhat trampled and the
flowers few-in which he sometimes spent his lunch hour when he could
afford to pay one-eyed Jamal to watch his booth. Jamal kept the fried
food stall next door and would, for a coin or so, tie his dog to the
front of Abdullah's booth. Abdullah was well aware that this did not
really qualify him to invent a proper garden, but since anything was
better than thinking of two wives chosen for him by Fatima, he lost
himself in waving fronds and scented walkways in the gardens of his
princess.

Or nearly. Before Abdullah was fairly started, he was interrupted by a
tall, dirty man with a dingy-looking carpet in his arms.

"You buy carpets for selling, son of a great house?" this stranger
asked, bowing briefly.

For someone trying to sell a carpet in Zanzib, where buyers and sellers
always spoke to one another in the most formal and flowery way, this
man's manner was shockingly abrupt. Abdullah was annoyed anyway because
his dream garden was falling to pieces at this interruption from real
life. He answered curtly. "That is so, O king of the desert. You wish to
trade with this miserable merchant?"