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Cinnamon was a princess, a long time ago, in a small hot country, where everything was very old. Her eyes were pearls, which gave her great beauty, but meant she was blind. Her world was the colour of pearls: pale white and pink, and softly glowing.

Cinnamon did not talk.

Her father and her mother -- the Rajah and Rani -- offered a room in the palace, a field of stunted mango trees, a portrait of the Rani's aunt executed on hardwood in enamels, and a green parrot, to any person who could get Cinnamon to talk.

The mountains ringed the country on one side, the jungle on the other; and few and far came the people to try to teach Cinnamon to speak. But come they did: and they stayed in the room in the palace, and cultivated the field of mango trees, and fed the parrot, and admired the portrait of the Rani's aunt (who was quite a celebrated beauty in her day, although she was now old and crabbed and pinched with age and disappointment), and, eventually, they went away, frustrated, and cursing the silent little girl.

One day a tiger came to the palace. He was huge and fierce, a nightmare in black and orange, and he moved like a god through the world; which is how tigers move. The people were afraid.

"There is nothing to be frightened of," said the Rajah. "Very few tigers are man-eaters."

"But I am," said the tiger.

The people were much amazed at this, although it did nothing whatsoever to quell their fear.

"You might be lying," said the Rajah.

"I might be," said the tiger. "But I'm not. Now: I am here to teach the girl-cub to talk."

The Rajah consulted with the Rani, and, despite the urgings of the Rani's aunt, who was of the opinion that the tiger should be driven out from the city with brooms and sharp sticks, the tiger was shown to the room in the palace, and given the enamel painting, and the deeds to the mango field, and he would also have been given the parrot, had it not squawked and flown to the rafters, where it stayed and refused to come down.

Cinnamon was shown into the tiger's room.

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