“You must be Princess Scarlet!” Scarlet was being addressed by a radiantly beautiful young woman of about her own age.
“Are you Princess Cinderella?” Scarlet said.
“How did you recognize me? Do I have soot on my nose?”
“Oh, no … I just assumed . . . having gotten your invitation. . . .” Scarlet was filled with confusion, but Cinderella laughed and put her at ease. “It was just my little jest! I am so glad you could come. I heard you are under a sleeping spell.”
“Actually it’s a napping spell. But how did you hear about it?”
“Word gets around in the domain of fairy tales,” Cinderella said. “If you should need them, we have resting rooms upstairs, and a variety of stimulants if your spell responds to chemical means.”
“No need,” Scarlet said. “I was able to get a temporary rescindment.”
“However you did it, I am very glad you could come. This is the debutante event of the season, you know. We have many eligible bachelors here, mostly of the nobility, but also a few enterprising and famous commoners like Jack of the Beanstalk and Peer Gynt. Come, let me get you a glass of champagne and introduce you to some people.”
Cinderella gave Scarlet a foaming glass of champagne and, taking her hand, led her around from one group of gorgeously dressed people to the next. Scarlet’s head was awhirl, and the music – loud, rhythmic-was setting her dancer’s toes to tapping. She was pleased when a tall, dark, handsome man in a gold lamé suit and crimson turban asked her to dance.
They whirled around the dance floor. The turbaned man introduced himself as Achmed Ali. He was a fine dancer, conversant with the newest steps. Scarlet had a dancer’s quick instinct for dance steps, and so she soon found herself doing the straddle duck, the limping elbow, the pigmy hop, the delirious dogleg, and the double wolverine, all dance sensations of that eventful year of the Millennium. Achmed Ali seemed to float across the floor, matching her consummate skill with his own scarcely inferior efforts. The other dancers moved back to clear a space for them, so obviously superior were they to the common lot. The orchestra segued into Swan Lake, so balletic was the spectacle before them. Around and around Scarlet and Achmed whirled while the trumpets blasted and the steel guitars whined, turning ever more daring pas de deux, whirling, tapping, stamping, as the applause mounted. At last, for the finale, Achmed Ali danced her out of the ballroom and onto a little balcony.
The balcony overlooked a little lake. The moon had just risen, and little silvery ripples moved slowly toward the dark shore. Princess Scarlet fanned herself with the Chinese fan that Supply had provided and, turning to Achmed Ali, said in formal tones, “Belike, sir, I’ve not seen thy match for overall all-in dancing eftsoons.”
“Nor I thine,” Achmed answered gallantly. His face, which was spread neatly along either side of his hawk nose, had firm, finely cut lips of pale pink behind which teeth of a nacreous white could be seen when he smiled or lifted his lip in the small sneer with which he expressed emotion. He told Scarlet that he was a prince from the court of the Grand Turk, whose lands stretched from the misty frontier of eastern Turkestan to the sea-shrouded coastline of hither Asia. He described the splendor of the Grand Turk’s palace, which had so many rooms that they were uncountable save by those skilled in mathematical necromancy. He told her of the palace’s main features, the carp ponds, the mineral springs, the great library where could be found writings from all over the world. He mentioned the kitchens where delicacies of unusual splendor were prepared every day for the delectation of the ensemble of happy and talented young people who made up the court. He told her how she would dazzle all of the beauties of that court with the previously unheard-of splendor of her delicate and finely proportioned features. He declared that he, despite their short acquaintanceship, was utterly and entirely smitten with her, and begged her to accompany him so he could show her the splendors of the Grand Turk’s domain and, if she so desired, stay on for a while. He described the luxurious presents that he would shower on her, and he went on in that vein and similar veins and tendentious arteries of teasing promises for so long that the Princess’ head was turned and turned again.