The messenger blinked.
“That’s rather a contradiction, sir,” he said. “If I were, as you put it, to ‘shut up,’ then how…”
The tip of the sword drew blood. The Black Weasel adjusted his stance to prepare for a thrust. “You’re new at this,” he said. “If you ever want to be old…”
He let the threat hang unfinished.
“All right all right all right! King Gudge is dead!”
The Black Weasel froze. Utter silence descended; for a moment nothing moved, no one spoke.
“There, are you happy now?” the messenger said. “You’ve ruined the whole thing, and I had this great speech all set to go, but now you’ve spoiled the ending for everyone.”
The Black Weasel withdrew his sword and wiped the tip carefully with his pocket handkerchief.
“The usurper is dead?” he asked.
“That’s right,” the messenger said. “Fell off his horse while he was drunk and broke his neck. Or maybe he was pushed; Prince Arbol was with him at the time, and there’s been some talk.”
“Is the prince safe?”
“Safe?” The messenger stared. “Of course he’s safe! He’s the new king, isn’t he?”
“Is he?”
“Of course he is! The Gorgorians don’t care whether Gudge was pushed or not.”
“What about the queen?”
“Her Majesty Queen Artemisia is in mourning, of course,” the messenger said, his expression appropriately somber. “But she seems to be bearing up well. The funeral was held according to the rites of the king’s own ancestors, but even so, Her Majesty only threw up twice at the ceremony. The bruises are reportedly only superficial. Her laughter is being attributed to mere womanish hysteria, and her dancing down the street singing is being called an attempt to deal with overwhelming grief.”
“A Gorgorian funeral, hey?” The Black Weasel considered. “I wonder what their funerals are like, then?”
The messenger shuddered delicately. “You don’t want to know,” he said. “The Grand Hall for State Occasions Involving Death or Other Unpleasantness has been closed, and the architects aren’t sure if they can repair it or whether it will have to be torn down.”
“So I suppose they’ll be putting Prince Arbol on the throne, then? With some barbaric ceremony of their own?”
“No, O brave defender of the people,” the messenger said, “a compromise was arranged—a Gorgorian funeral, but the coronation will follow all the traditional rites and procedures of Old Hydrangea, to ensure that no one will ever accuse Prince Arbol of being a mere usurper, as his father was.”
“That takes three weeks, though.”
The messenger nodded.
“Besides, he’s still a usurper,” the Black Weasel said. “The throne rightfully belongs to me—I mean, to Prince Mimulus, the queen’s brother.”
“Not according to the Gorgorians,” the messenger pointed out.
“Well, damn the Gorgorians!”
This elicited a loud cheer from the gathered Bush-dwellers.
“Let’s go throw them out!” Spurge shouted from the crowd.
“No need to be hasty…” the Purple Possum began.
“Hasty, nothing!” Spurge replied. “Listen, with Gudge dead, the Gorgorians don’t have a real leader—their new king is just a boy, and besides, isn’t he going to be all locked away until the whole coronation ceremony is over? And with that wizard Dunwin told us about, and maybe Dunwin’s dragon, or even a couple of dragons—this is the best chance we’re ever going to have! If we don’t go now, we might as well admit we’re never going to drive out the Gorgorians!”
Several people applauded. Dunwin was one of them, though he wasn’t entirely sure why.
The Black Weasel looked out over the cheering throng; he stroked his beard thoughtfully. The Purple Possum, who had intended to make further protests, also looked over the crowd and decided to keep his mouth shut.
“Yes!” the Black Weasel said at last. He stood up on his throne, narrowly avoiding an overhanging branch, and called, “Yes! At long last, my faithful friends and followers, the time has come! I know the coronation rituals, and when the grand climax comes, when the new king emerges from his holy bath in the Hallowed Hall of Sacred and Ever-Flowing Royal Enthronement, and makes the mark from the Palace of Divinely Tranquil Thoughts out to greet his people in the Square Of Munificent Blessings From Those Gods Worthy of Our Attention, every eye will be upon him. And when all the attention of the capital is on the ceremony, we will strike! With our patriotic Hydrangean dragons and our heroic wizards, and with the strength and courage of our own hearts, we will drive the dreaded Gorgorian from this land forever! Are you with me, lads?”
Dunwin and the rest cheered more loudly than ever.
“Good, then! We’ll find that dragon—Spurge, I want you to organize…” The Black Weasel saw the expression on Spurge’s face just then, and thought it was perhaps a shade too eager. “No, on second thought,” he said, “you come with me. Badger, you organize search p arties to explore the South Cliffs. And Pelwyn—I mean, Green Mole—you go find that wizard. The rest of us will see about finding disguises, so we can enter the city unobserved. And we’ll rendezvous in the Square of Munificent Blessings three weeks from now!”
There were more cheers.
“And when we do, Hydrangea will be free!”
There were more, louder, cheers. People were waving swords and spoons and other such things in the air.
Dunwin cheered as loudly as anybody; it wasn’t until much later that he realized he really didn’t care whether Hydrangea was ruled by Old Hydrangean aristocrats, or by Gorgorians.
All he wanted was Bernice.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Stop sulking, dear,” Queen Artemisia told Prince Arbol. “You’ll get wrinkles.”
In a corner of the inmost chamber of the queen’s apartments, Prince Arbol slouched back against the wall and drummed her bootheels against the stones. “Who cares if I do?” she snarled. “Wrinkles make kings look fierce and solemn and wise.”
“Yes, but—” The queen stopped herself. She had been about to say, But wrinkles make royal princesses damned hard to unload on the interkingdom marriage market, until she thought better of it. Arbol still did not know the truth of her own sex. It was hardly the sort of thing a mother could break to her child all of a sudden.
The queen smiled a secret smile. There would be plenty of time for bringing Arbol around to see that the life of a princess was not so bad. Things were going beautifully. Gudge was dead, which was perhaps the most beautiful thing of all, and if rumor had it right, Artemisia’s own darling son had had a hand in his father’s death.
I always knew my children were special, the queen thought fondly. Aloud, however, she said, “I don’t see why you’re making such a silly fuss, Arbol, dear.”
“Silly?” The outraged prince leaped to her feet and started kicking the wall for a change. “My rightful place as king of this realm has been usurped by a perfect stranger and you say it’s silly to be upset about it?”
“Precious, Wulfrith’s not a stranger; he’s been working here for, oh, ever so long. Why, he’s practically family.” Artemisia patted her child’s cheek. “I’m sure everything will work out for the best,” she said. “You’ll see. The coronation rites have begun, and we certainly can’t interrupt them at this point.”
“Why not?” Arbol demanded. She fidgeted with the hilt of her dagger. “It wouldn’t take me long to kill the traitor.”
The queen put on her sternest face. “There will be none of that talk, young la—man! Really, sometimes I think you’re pure Gorgorian—as if there could be anything pure about those hairy beasts. I work and I slave over the hot funeral pyre, trying to get your father properly out of our hair for good, and this is the thanks I get! I don’t know why I ever had children.”
“Dad forced you to,” Arbol said, very matter-of-factly. One look at the queen’s cold eye snapped the prince
back into a more docile frame of mind. “All right, Mother, I promise I won’t do anything to mess up the stupid old coronation,” Arbol said glumly.
“There’s a dear,” Artemisia said, mollified. “I know what’s bothering you: You’re bored, being cooped up like this with just your mother for company. I’ve got an idea! Why don’t we try to think of something that’s lots and lots of fun to do, just to keep you busy and happy?”
“Like what?” the prince grumped.
“Like kill Lady Ubri,” the queen suggested.
“Huh?”
“Darling, surely you’ve heard? Lady Ubri’s been going around telling anyone fool enough to listen that she is the betrothed of the new king. The nerve!”
“I remember Lady Ubri,” Arbol said. “She’s that Gorgorian woman who kept following me around making all these stupid remarks about bulls and towers and lances and swordfish when there wasn’t a bull, tower, lance or swordfish in sight. And then she was always trying to tell me these dumb jokes about the travelling barbarian horde and the sheepfarmer’s daughter—” The prince stopped. “Why should I kill her?”
“Because it will be neat,” Artemisia said simply. “You see, my love, once the coronation rites are finished and my so—Wulfrith is king, Ubri will automatically be his queen. If we show up and announce that they’ve crowned the wrong person, Wulfrith can be set aside with no problem.” Except we will not do that, Artemisia thought. “However, if he has a queen—even though he rule but for a minute—and the queen be found to be with child, by Old Hydrangean law that child has as good a claim to the throne as you. You wouldn’t want to have to kill the poor little thing then, would you? Historians tend to make such a to-do about kings who murder their child-rivals.”
“Nnnnno,” Arbol said slowly. “I guess not. But it’s all right if I kill Lady Ubri now? If she’s pregnant, I’ll still be killing my child-rival.”
“But we don’t know she’s pregnant, love,” Artemisia wheedled.
“If she’s not pregnant, I shouldn’t have to kill her to prevent her child from ever trying to take my crown because there is no child,” the prince argued.
“But we don’t know there is no child,” the queen countered.
Prince Arbol sat back down in the corner, holding her head. “I hurt,” she announced.
“That’s because you need some exercise.” The queen siezed hold of Arbol’s arm and hauled her to her feet. “Swinging a sword is very good exercise, especially when there’s such a big target. Run along, now, dear. Oh, and don’t forget to put on your mask! It wouldn’t do to have anyone recognize you in the halls and upset—”
“—the coronation ritual; yeah, yeah, yeah.”
Prince Arbol did as instructed. Her head was still spinning as she left the queen’s apartments by one of the many secret passageways with which the Palace of the Ox’s Tranquil Thoughts was honeycombed. Ever since the arrival of Wulfrith, life had gotten much too complicated for the prince’s taste. Then Dad had to go and get himself killed and complicate things even more.
Arbol did not miss her father, exactly. All she remembered of old Gudge was something large and furry that always smelled of stale beer. Or maybe that was her pet dog, Vexmor. No; Vexmor never threw up on people’s shoes. Also, Vexmor couldn’t swing a sword the way Gudge did during that military campaign on the border. Arbol remembered that all right. Gudge kept barging into Arbol’s private tent making loud, nasty remarks about stupid Old Hydrie customs that kept a lad all closetted up like a linen towel when he should be out at the ditch pissing side by side with his men. Then he kept pushing all these women in front of the prince.
Some of the women were ugly, some of them were old, some young, some pretty, some pretty old and pretty ugly, but all of them were smiling all the time. As soon as each one smiled, Gudge would always bawl, “Look! She likes you! Go for it, boy!”
“Go for what?” Arbol always asked. For some reason this made the women smile more, then laugh, then make a grab for Arbol’s trousers which the prince easily sidestepped. Arbol couldn’t understand why they’d want to do something so silly. It was all very confusing and Prince Arbol became convinced that she would never understand women.
Understanding men was a different matter altogether. Arbol understood men just fine. From her father she learned that there was just a single one-word thought behind anything a man ever did: MINE! This applied equally to land, gold, livestock, women, beer, and kingdoms. It was all quite simple. Gudge liked things simple.
Arbol liked things simple, too. This business about killing Lady Ubri was not simple. Arbol decided not to do it.
On the other hand, her decision to kill Wulfrith was simple. If the traitor died before the coronation ritual was done, he would never be king. Therefore, Lady Ubri would never be queen. Therefore, it wouldn’t matter whether she was pregnant or not. All very nice and simple.
Prince Arbol had been raised in the Palace of the Ox, once called the Palace of Divinely Tranquil Thoughts, now widely referred to as the Palace of the Ox’s Tranquil Thoughts for some reason beyond the prince’s understanding. She just called it “home.” If there was one thing the prince knew, it was how to get from here to there inside her own home, even if there was the super-secret apartments of isolation where they were keeping Wulfrith.
The Palace of the Ox’s Tranquil Thoughts was a maze of corridors, but it was also a web of secret passageways that had the official corridors outnumbered three to one. If Prince Arbol had ever bothered to stay awake during her history lessons, she might have learned that the secret passageways owed their existence to generations of her Old Hydrangean royal ancestors playing an unending game of “Tag, You’re a Corpse” with their blood relatives.
Arbol didn’t give a fig for history (in fact, Arbol hated figs). It was enough that the passageways existed and that she knew them like the back of her swordhand.
So it happened that Wulfrith was seated alone in his tower apartments, catching his breath between waves of coronation rituals, when a very fine tapestry illustrating the Old Hydrangean Wolverine Dance was flung aside and a masked figure leaped into the room, dagger drawn.
“Prepare to die, vile traitor!” Arbol shouted, tearing off her mask.
“Oh, it’s you!” Wulfrith exclaimed, face and voice a study in pure joy. “You’ve got no idea how happy I am to see you!”
Arbol could not have been more dumbstruck if Wulfie had used his magic to drop a catapult on the prince’s head. Her dagger fell to her side. She gave Wulfrith the sort of stare usually reserved for three-eyed eight-legged calves. “You’re happy to see me?”
“Ecstatic!” Wulfie rolled his eyes heavenward.
“But—but you stole my crown! You usurped my throne!”
“They’re saying I killed your father, too,” Wulfrith added, looking very embarrassed. “It’s not true.”
“What isn’t? The part about my father?”
“Right. Oh, and the rest, too. I mean, it all happened so suddenly. One minute there I was, riding along with the king, trying not to throw up, and the next there he was, dead on the cobbles. Then there were these guards and—”
Briefly, Wulfrith told Arbol the whole story. By the time he was done, the two young people were seated side by side in a padded window niche, enjoying a good chuckle over the whole affair.
“And to think I nearly stuck a foot of steel into your throat!” Arbol roared with laughter.
“And to think I would’ve killed you if you’d tried!” Wulfrith got the giggles.
“What! You kill me? Haw! Like to see you try.” Arbol swung her legs up and rested her boots on Wulfie’s lap. “You’re not half the man I am!”
“There’s other things than men to be,” Wulfrith retorted, putting on that smug, knowing expression Clootie used to wear whenever he spoke of the advantages of the life sorcerous. “Better things.”
Arbol spat casually out the window. “In a pig’s eye. There’s only one thing better to be than a man.�
��
“What’s that?”
“King.”
Wulfrith suddenly looked very weary. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d’ve had to go through what I’ve been going through. Powers preserve us, how did your Old Hydrie ancestors manage to get any use out of their kings? By the time all those coronation rites are done, the poor bastard’s a hundred seventy-three years old.”
“They’re not all done yet, are they?” Arbol asked, tensing. “You haven’t been crowned yet, have you?”
“No, but almost. There’s just one more bit of flashy foolishness left for them to do before the actual crowning, and I’m happy to say I won’t be there for that.”
Arbol grinned. “And I’m happy to know I won’t have to go through all the stupid rituals that go before because you’ve taken care of them for me.”
“Right. You owe me.”
“I paid you. Let you live, didn’t I?”
Wulfrith shoved Arbol’s legs out of his lap and retrieved the hooded mask. “I only hope the last ritual’s nastier than all the rest put together, just to teach you.” He yanked the mask on.
“You don’t know what it is?” the prince asked. She looked a little worried.
“I’m sure someone must’ve told me all about it before,” Wulfrith replied. “That’s part of the torture: They tell you all about the great big fat historical significance of every single lousy detail of each miserably boring coronation ritual they’re going to inflict on you, then they go on and do ’em to you! If I were king, my first act would be to declare that the Official Royal Hydrangean Keepers of the Coronation Ritual can either tell the new king about the rites or do ’em to him, but not both. That’s cruel.”
“My first act as king will be even better,” Arbol declared. “I’m going to gather all the Official Royal Hydrangean Keepers of the Coronation Ritual into one room, I’m going to tell ’em how they’re going to die and then I’ll do it to ’em. Personally.”
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