He found a seat at a mostly empty table; there were none that were completely unoccupied. This was a small one, with two empty chairs and one unconscious old man slumped across the table. Clootie could see little of his sleeping companion except a ragged coat, a battered, wide-brimmed hat and a pair of wrinkled hands, one of them locked in a death grip on an empty bottle. From the height and angle of the hat, Clootie judged that the head beneath it had the right ear to the tabletop; the sound of rather damp snoring emerged from beneath the drooping headgear, and one edge of the hat’s brim vibrated erratically in response. A rather rank odor accompanied the snores.
Whoever the fellow was, he raised no objection to Clootie’s presence, and there were no tables completely free of custom; the wizard settled in his own chair, turned raised a finger to the proprietor, then dug in his purse for a coin. When he found one he tapped it on the table and sat back to listen.
He could hear the murmur of voices at the surrounding tables as he waited for his ale. A lively discussion was going on; Clootie couldn’t follow all of it without visibly eavesdropping, but he caught snatches.
“…crazy Gorgorian women…”
“Probably didn’t know about the bath—maybe they thought if we had a girl for a king they’d be able to get away with their schemes…”
“…didn’t know those witches could do anything like that…”
“Pretty damn frightening, the idea that if I get some Gorgorian bitch mad at me I could wake up one morning with a draft in my pants, if you know what I mean…”
“I don’t think it was those women at all,” one man proclaimed, very loudly. “I think it’s some trick by our own Old Hydrangean wizards, trying to get back at Gudge for killing them all!”
“Oh, shut up, Dudbert,” a companion said. “If the wizards could’ve done it, why’d they get Gudge’s son, and not the old man himself?”
“Because how long did those spells of theirs always take, anyway?” Dudbert persisted. “They’ve probably been working this one up for the whole fifteen years since the Gorgorians got here! All our Old Hydrangean stuff’s all like that; I mean, look at all that silly rigamarole they went through instead of just saying, Here, Arbol, here’s the crown, you’re king now.”
“Well, if they hadn’t done it all up proper, there wouldn’t have been a public bath, and we wouldn’t know the king’s a girl, would we?” someone argued. “The old ways have got their uses, you know—if you ask me, Dudbert, someone might think you’re about half-Gorgorian yourself, the way you talk sometimes.”
Clootie listened to all this in puzzlement.
King Arbol was a girl?
If they’d already gotten to the royal bath, then the coronation was over—but if someone had turned Arbol into a girl…
Just then the old man across the table made a noise like a tornado sucking up mud and stirred himself sufficiently to turn his head over onto the left ear.
“Say, friend,” Clootie said, tapping a mildewy shoulder. “Do you know anything about this stuff about the king?”
“Murmph,” the old man replied.
“The Disaster of the Bath, the scholars are already calling it,” someone said from just behind Clootie; startled, he turned, and almost spilled the tankard of ale the proprietor was delivering.
“Oh?” Clootie said.
“That’s right,” the tavernkeeper said. “Someone turned the prince into a girl last night, at the coronation, right as he got ready to step into the bath—big flash of light and a sound like thunder, they tell me.”
“Really? And then what happened?”
“Well, Queen Artemisia said it was the Gorgorian women as did it, and everybody went running about screaming and hitting each other, and that was the end of the coronation, and now nobody knows which way is what. There’s the Gorgorians saying they’ll have to have a match to pick a new king by seeing who can kill the most peasants—they used to do it by killing each other, I hear, but they’ve got civilized now, they say, after living here all these years. Most of ’em, anyway. And there’s the Old Hydrangeans saying that they have to trace the royal family tree and find another claimant, ’cept for the ones say we could just have a queen, like as we done three hundred years ago with Queen Nilemia. And meanwhile nobody’s in charge, and it’s like the whole stupid war might start up again and the Gorgorians start killing everybody, and not just peasants, neither.”
“Amazing,” Clootie said. A situation such as this would surely provide opportunities for someone; as the wizard gulped his ale he tried to think what he could get out of it for himself.
Just then the old man, scenting alcohol, lifted his head and stared at Clootie.
The wizard lowered his tankard, licked his lips, and then stared back.
“By all the little gods who crawl around in the dark,” Clootie said. “It’s old Odo!”
It was, indeed, Odo the shepherd; he stared at Clootie, recognition slowly dawning.
“You,” he said, “it’s you!”
“It’s good to see you again,” Clootie said. “Have you found your Dunwin, by any chance? Or seen Wulfrith anywhere?”
“You!” Odo screamed. He jumped to his feet, sending his chair over backward, and stood, swaying slightly, as he pointed an accusing finger at Clootie. “You’re the stinking wizard who turned my boy’s sheep into a dragon, and made him run off, and ruined my life!”
“It was an accident,” Clootie protested.
The other patrons of the tavern were all staring at the two travelers. Odo turned to face them and announced, in slurred and unsteady words, “This is the wizard who turned m’boy’s sheep inna a dra…dragon!”
Then drink overcame him once again, and he toppled forward, sprawling on the floor.
“What’d he say?” someone asked.
“He said that fellow’s a wizard,” someone answered.
“Said he turned a boy into something in his sleep.”
“Something about someone in drag?”
“I thought he said damsel.”
“Turned a boy into a girl?”
“Did what?”
“He turned a boy into a girl.”
“You mean the king?”
“What, him?”
“Is he the one?”
“He’s the one turned the king into a girl?”
“He’s the one turned the king into a girl!”
“He did it!”
“Get him!”
“Make him turn her back!”
“Stop him before he gets away!”
“Hang him!”
“Burn him!”
Clootie didn’t even have time to phrase a coherent protest before the crowd came surging toward him.
Thinking quickly, he unleashed his transformation spell upon the first of his attackers; unfortunately, he got a gorilla, and no one even noticed the change. A second brawler became a very surprised snake, and managed to crawl away under a table; a third found himself suddenly wearing the shape of a wombat, which was to prove particularly distressing in the coming months because he would be unable to find anyone who could tell him what he had become, as wombats are unknown in Hydrangea and the surrounding lands. Matters of proper diet and behavior would be a mystery to this unfortunate ever after, and though he might make do as best he could, he would be always aware that he might be letting his adopted species down.
For the moment, though, the wombat followed the snake’s example and simply tried to get out of the way, as did a new-made pigeon and an unexpected ant. The ant, alas, did not make it, and had Clootie been able to spare any attention, he might have been gratified to learn that his transforming spell was indeed permanent, and was not terminated by the death-by-squishing of the subject.
The wizard, however, had no time to worry about matters of craft; he simply wanted to create enough of a distraction to allow him to reach the door. He thought he might have a chance, until some person far too clever for his own good called, “Grab his arms! It’s that w
aving about he’s doing that’s turning people into things!”
The gorilla took this suggestion, and the transformations ceased. Clootie looked into the big yellow eyes, studied the big yellow teeth, and decided against further resistance.
Someone found a rope, and a bar rag made an adequate gag; moments later, the wizard was securely trussed up, the gag in his mouth, his hands tied behind his back, legs lashed together from ankle to knee, arms strapped to his sides.
That done, the crowd stepped back and gazed admiringly down at their handiwork. Clootie stared back, regretting that he had ever heard those idiots outside his cave. If he had stayed safely at home…
“Now what?” someone asked.
No one had thought that far.
“Now,” someone suggested, “make him turn the king back into a boy!”
“Right!”
“Yes!”
A score of voices shouted agreement. Someone knelt before Clootie’s face and demanded, “Will you turn the king back?”
Clootie replied, “Mrmf.”
The spokesman snatched the gag from the sorcerer’s mouth and repeated, “Will you turn the king back?”
“I can’t,” Clootie said, regretfully. “I mean, I’d like to, but I don’t know how.”
The crowd muttered angrily, and Clootie suddenly realized he should have lied. If he’d waved his hands about and chanted something, and said, “There, all fixed,” they might have let him go. But no, he’d had to go and tell the truth.
Having started off that way, though, he thought he might as well continue. “Listen,” the wizard said, “I could turn her into something else, maybe—a frog, or a cat, or a horse, or something. Would that help?”
The mob considered that, but eventually decided against accepting the offer—the determining comment came from someone in the back who shouted, “I’m not going to take any royal decrees from a damned pussycat!”
Clootie decided it was time to abandon honesty as a policy, and was about to explain that if someone would fetch him a gill of virgin’s blood and a dragon’s liver he’d be glad to restore the king’s manhood, he just hadn’t had the right ingredients before, but before he could get a word out the crowd’s spokesman stuffed the gag back in his mouth. As Clootie made unhappy noises and strained against his bonds, the spokesman asked, “What’ll we do with him, then? He won’t turn her back!”
“Kill him!”
“But then we’ll never get the king back.”
“Take him to the palace! They’ll make him turn her back!”
“Take him to the palace!” The shout became an enthusiastic chorus.
“Who at the palace?” the spokesman asked. “The Gorgorians, or who?”
“Whoever we find,” someone answered. “Let them sort it out.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Me, too.”
“Right, then,” the spokesman said. “I’ll get his feet, a couple of you get his arms, and let’s go.”
Together, the entire crowd spilled out into the street, about thirty people and a gorilla; together, they carted Clootie away, leaving the tavern occupied by a disgruntled proprietor, an unconscious shepherd, a snake, a pigeon, and a very confused wombat.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
A small but pungent group of Gorgorian women was assembled outside the palace in the cool light of morning. They had been sent as a formal delegation to greet the liberation of the lady Ubri, and as such wore their most ceremonial garb. Good Gorgorians all, they had spent most of their lives in tents, and as a result, when they decided to dress up, they chose to resemble tents as closely as possible. From head to foot they were draped in layer upon layer of richly brocaded and embroidered cloth, diaphanous veiling, and plain old headscarves until they looked like the floor of Queen Artemisia’s closet when she was in one of her I-haven’t-a-thing-to-wear moods.
“I don’t think she’s going to come out, Bungi,” said one pile of cloth.
“Yes, she will, Jigli,” another replied. “My man told me to get my ass out here to greet her. It’s not every day they let a woman go free for a crime she didn’t commit.”
The other fabric mounds muttered agreement. When it came to women, traditional Gorgorian justice worked on the principle Well, even if she didn’t do this, she’s probably so pissed now that she’s sure to do something worse later on, so let’s kill her anyway and play it safe. There were very few female criminals among the Gorgorians, or at least none stupid enough to get caught. Ever since they’d received the news that Ubri was to be let go, every Gorgorian—male and female—had been most impressed.
“I’m so happy they caught that wizard!” The mound named Jigli fairly trembled with relief.
A third heap of splendid remnants scuttled over to ask, “Has he turned the prince back yet?”
“He claims he can’t.”
“So does this mean we’re going to have us a queen?”
It was impossible for a bundle of cloth to sneer, but Gorgorian women had ages of experience pushing body-language into the outer world through twenty-nine layers of clothing, so Jigli managed. “You’re a married woman, Crosbi, and you ask that?”
“Oh. Right.” Crosbi’s swathed body sagged. “Still, it’d be nice. All our men being forced to take orders from a woman.”
“They’d cut her head off, first.”
“From what I hear, that wouldn’t be so easy. Prince Arbol’s a demon with a sword, and his Companions are as murderous a bunch of brats as you’d ever want to meet. Faithful, too. They all took the Oath of Blood and Spitting in Your Palm when they became the prince’s Companions, and they’re clean scared to death of him besides.”
“That was when he was a he,” Bungi pointed out. “Do you think any young warrior, Hydrie or Gorgorian, would ever admit he was scared of a girl?” Her eyes added, That’s their mistake.
“So what’s been done with the prince, then?”
The cloth rose and fell as Bungi shrugged. “That’s something Lady Ubri will have to tell us. At least now she’s free, there’s an end to all the riots these fool townies were pitching about the rest of us.”
“Silly nits,” Jigli remarked. “One little magical unmanning of their prince and the whole kingdom goes on a witch-catching binge! It’s not like they knew what to do with a witch even could they catch one. Half wanted to burn any Gorgorian woman they found, the other half went sneaking around the back of our tents trying to hire our great magical services to unman their enemies.”
“I earned almost enough to buy a reliable assassin to cut my man’s throat,” Crosbi said demurely.
“You lying bitch, you never did!”
“Did so.” She jumped up and down in place, jingling with the coins secreted everywhere upon her person. The other women cocked expert ears to gauge the worth of the sound.
“Crosbi, love, you’re being too modest,” Jigli said. “For that much you can buy a fine killer. Just go ’round to the Wheelwrights’ and Gravediggers’ Union Hall and ask for a recommendation. You’ve got more than enough to cover the fee.”
“Aye, but I’m a heavy tipper.”
Before Jigli could reply, the door in the palace’s great gate opened and Lady Ubri emerged. She was still dressed in her palace garb, which looked both scandalously indecent and chilly to her Gorgorian sisters. They immediately began pelting her with layers of cloth torn from their own costumes until she felt as if she were caught in a ring of self-stripping artichokes.
“Stop that!” she commanded, flinging aside the veils. “I’m perfectly all right.”
“Just looking at you makes me shiver. Put something on!” Bungi directed.
Crosbi sidled up to Ubri and with much effort got a hand free to touch her dress. “Couldn’t you make them give you back your clothes?”
“These are my clothes!” Ubri snapped. “What I couldn’t make that cursed Artemisia do was give me back my position in the palace.”
“Artemisia? The queen?”
&n
bsp; “Artemisia the bitch on wheels. It was humiliating.” Ubri’s brow darkened at the recent memory. “She had me hauled out of the dungeon into the second-best throne room. The throne itself was empty, of course, but there she sat on her fat behind, handing down judgement from a comfy old chair. My jailors dumped me right at her feet. By the time I got the hair out of my eyes I saw that I wasn’t the only one there.”
“Where, in the second-best throne room?”
“No, stupid, at Artemisia’s feet. Of course the room was packed with men.” She made the word sound a lot like vermin, only not so tasty. “Gorgorians and Hydries three-deep all around, staring like a bunch of constipated owls. And there in the center of it all along with me was the wizard.”
“A genuine Old Hydrangean wizard,” Bungi mused. “To think there’s one still left alive!”
“Not for long,” Ubri said grimly. “Artemisia told me, in that snotty voice she’s got, that because the wizard refused to admit I was his accomplice, and in view of the fact that he had worked a transformation spell before witnesses, I was free to leave, and the sooner I left and the farther I went the better. So I’m off the hook but out on my ear.”
“What about the prince?” Crosbi asked.
“The wizard won’t turn him back—can’t turn him back, he claims. At first he said he was willing to try, if someone would only have the kindness to fetch him a gill of virgin’s blood and a dragon’s liver. But then Bulmuk said that there weren’t any dragons around and virgin’s blood only works when the donor is older than twelve, so lots of luck there! This is the city, after all.”
“We’re so sorry, dear,” Bungi purred. “We heard that you and the prince were, well—”
“I had him, damn it!” Ubri shouted. “I had him right in my hands.”
“Oh, so that’s where you had him,” Crosbi purred.
Ubri ignored the barb. “It was all set: As soon as he was to be crowned king, I’d be named his queen, but now—” She spat.
“Engagement’s off, is it?” One of the piles of cloth had a sarcastic streak.
Split Heirs Page 24