The guard, a Gorgorian from the roots of his lice-infested hair to the tips of his grime-imbedded toenails, snorted with laughter—or perhaps he simply snorted. At any rate, the resulting gob that splatted to the floor of the tower chamber was impressive. "Yer Majesty's got a good sense o' humor, I'll give you that. The libr'y! What for? It's all books down there."
"Yes, well, um, I—" Wulfrith bit his lip. "I like books," he finished rather feebly.
The guard gave him the fish-eye. "Here! You sure it wasn't you as plunked down on yer head on them cobbles?"
"No, I'm sure—I mean, I'm pretty sure, but—"
"Nice bit o’ business, that," the guard added. "Gettin' the old bastard drunk an' then givin' him a little push off the saddle, spong onto the stones."
Wulfrith was flabbergasted. "I did no such thing!"
The guard just shook his head, smiling fondly. "Oh, don't worry about it. If you ain't the sort to brag, I'll keep mum. 'Course it's a fine old Gorgorian tradition, kings' sons skrinking their dads. Not one you'd've been like to hear on. Some reason, the kings alius try t' keep that branch o' learnin' from their boys."
"I'm telling you, I didn't kill anyone! The king got drunk and he fell off his horse when I told him that I—"
The guard wasn't in a listening mood. He leaned on his spear and stared dreamily off into space. "Aye, now yer t' be crowned king, you'll be a right change fer us, an' no mistake. Got a good bit o' Gudge in you, but there's that Hydrie strain as well." He was one of the more thoughtful Gorgorian warriors. Had he but known, he was a rarity. In the days before the Hydrangean Conquest, most Gorgorian men were so busy looting, raping, and burning things that they didn't have the time for pondering the future. Nor was there much use for such a talent; given the nature of their chosen profession, very few of them lived long enough to have a future.
Wulfrith sighed and gave up, leaving the guard to his meditations. Back in the inmost room of his tower suite, he reviewed his own situation and found it ghastly.
Ever since that ill-fated "celebration of manhood," he had been kept confined to this suite of rooms in the Tower of Smug Reflection. The royal council, for once relieved of the danger of unexpected decapitations while in session, took over the instant that news of King Gudge's death reached the palace. They were waiting for him in the courtyard when Wulfrith returned, accompanied by the patrol and Gudge's corpse. Before the boy could escape to inform the real Prince Arbol of what had happened, they threw a heavy white velvet cloak over his head and bundled him away.
It was decreed before a solemn assemblage of the Gorgorian chiefs that Prince Arbol would remain in isolation until all the proper coronation rites had been performed, in the correct Old Hydrangean style. The chiefs saw no harm in this, as long as one of Gudge's bloodline wound up on the throne. They named one of their number—a Gorgorian worthy called Bulmuk—to be their representative and oversee the whole process.
"Don't wanna," Bulmuk said. "I wanna go to Gudge's funeral."
His colleagues told him that he had to stay with the Old Hydries, to look out for Gorgorian interests and make sure none of their fussy customs did anything to hurt Gudge's only son and heir.
“Who cares?" Bulmuk replied. “He dies, one of us gets the crown. Lotta blood, more funerals. I wanna go to Gudge’s funeral."
The other chiefs assured him that while they didn't mind a little civil war now and then, they’d rather not have one just at the present. They also told him that if he refused, the first funeral would be his.
Bulmuk drew his sword and moodily hacked an underbutler to pieces. “I'll stay," he said, pouting. It was very affecting to see the tears of disappointment in his eyes.
His friends promised that when the funeral was over, they would tell him exactly what everyone there was wearing and who killed whom using what and how many warriors drank themselves to death and if there were any grave treasures buried with Gudge that might be worth stealing later. They also swore on the Sacred Gorgorian Ox that they'd bring him back a couple of leftover kegs and some fruit.
Pacified, Bulmuk took his place among the Hydran- gean nobles. From time to time he would come up to Wul- frith's room to demand whether the lad knew anything at all about the upcoming coronation rituals.
“Anything to drink there?" he asked.
“I don't know," Wulfrith had to admit.
“Stupid Hydries," Bulmuk grumbled and went away until the next time.
In spite of his recent bad experience with strong drink, every passing day made poor captive Wulfrith long for a snootful, if only to help him forget his situation. They hadn't even let him out to attend the late king's funeral, and they refused to let him communicate with anyone.
Wulfrith sat in a sumptuous chair and stared at his hands. He was fairly sure that his magic could have unlocked the door, and he could have transformed the guards—though he couldn't be sure what he'd get—but then what? He had no idea where to go, or what to do, if he got out of the tower room, and there would be guards and Gorgorians all over the palace, probably. He couldn't transform them all before someone stuck a sword through him or did something equally drastic.
And if he did get away, what sort of trouble would that make for the real Prince Arbol?
Bitterly, he wished that his wizardry included the knowledge of how to send messages over great distances. He desperately wanted to contact Arbol and the queen.
What must they think of him? He didn't want to know. Palace rumors traveled faster than palace roaches. By now Queen Artemisia must have concluded that Wulfrith was a treacherous schemer who had waited his chance, then murdered her beloved husband before snatching the crown from her true son and heir. He had to get word to her and explain that it was all an accident. He hoped she'd believe him.
He hoped even more than Prince Arbol would believe him about not wanting the crown. He and the prince were friends, but he knew Arbol’s attitude about the kingdom: Mine! Mine! Mine! summed it up nicely. Too, Arbol had inherited his father's temper, and he was better with a sword than Wulfrith was with a spell.
Wulfrith put his hands protectively around his neck. If the prince found a way to get to him before he got to explain things to the prince, it was going to be ugly.
There was a knock on the door, followed by a fanfare of trumpets and a peal of silvery bells. A strong tenor voice bleated, “Hail in all humbleness the royal sun where he awaits below the dawn's horizon! May entry be vouchsafed the servants of his magnificence who loyally attend his pleasure?''
“Huh?” Wulfrith shouted back.
The door opened a crack and young Lord Alsike’s needle-sharp nose poked in. “May we come in?'' he whispered.
“I guess so.'' Wulfrith waited. No one moved. “What's the matter? I thought you wanted to come in.”
“You have to say something like, ‘Enter and be welcome to partake of my grace for howsoever long it please my regal condescension,' " Alsike informed him.
Wulfrith smiled for the first time in days. “You're kidding."
“No, we are not." Lord Alsike sounded peeved. “Look, we've got to get the coronation rites under way. The sooner you're crowned king, the sooner we don't have to eat lunch with Lord Bulmuk any more. So how about it?"
“I'll do my best." Wulfrith took a deep breath and declaimed, “Enter and be welcome to, uh, enter and—"
“Good enough!" Alsike brightened, then called over his shoulder, “His Majesty in his infinite grace and wisdom has bid us enter. Stop shoving!"
Before long, Wulfrith found himself surrounded by the entire royal council, several musicians, a host of richly dressed servants he'd never seen before, and Bulmuk, who looked like he could surround a whole city all by himself. There weren't anywhere near enough chairs for everyone.
Lord Alsike began by introducing Wulfrith to the silk- and-satin-clad servants. “These are the Official Royal Hydrangean Keepers of the Coronation Ritual. It is a hereditary post, passed down from father to son." The Keepers all bowed
beautifully.
Wulfrith noticed that each Keeper was attended by one to three young men, not so nicely dressed. “Who are they?" he asked.
Lord Alsike explained: “Some of them are the Keepers' sons, if the man has more than one. If he's only got one male child, the others attending him are apprentices. The job pays very well, even if the Keeper never has to perform his ceremonial functions even once in his lifetime. However, part of his duties entail passing on the ritual knowledge. The apprentices are kept on in case the Keeper's son dies or turns out to be too stupid to remember the rites."
“What's so hard about a coronation?" Wulfrith asked.
He was soon very, very sorry he had.
The first Keeper, a tall man wearing too much green satin, hurried forward, sank to his knees before Wulfrith, and pressed the boy's hands to his lips. It was like having two shucked oysters crawl over your skin.
“Your Pending Majesty, I am Oik, Principal Keeper of the Coronation Ritual, and this is my son, Oswego." He made a lovely flourishing gesture of introduction at the empty air to his left.
“Why is he invisible?" asked Wulfrith.
Keeper Oik did a double take that ended when his eyes lit upon his son way over on the other side of the room. The boy was engaged in animated conversation with Bulmuk. He was just saying, “Wow, all the way through a human skull on the downswing?" when his father grabbed him by the collar and yanked him away.
“The idea! Consorting with barbarous Gorgorians!" Oik fumed. Then he recalled one little detail about His Pending Majesty, the prince, and a sickly smile oozed over his face. “That is—I mean—some barbarous Gorgorians. The rest are perfectly delightful to consort with."
Oswego stuck out his lower lip, and it was a doozy. His father gave him a healthy clout in the back of the head. “Now be a good boy and tell His Pending Majesty all that I've taught you about the first three days' schedule."
Wulfrith and Oswego hollered “The first three days?” in such perfect unison that any listener would assume they had been practicing for some time.
“The first three days, did you say?" Wulfrith added.
“Preliminary rituals of valor and chivalrous address," Oik replied. “Simple things, really, but the peasants find them entertaining. Go on, Oswego, recite the way Daddy taught you."
“I don't remember," Oswego said. The lip was out again.
“But it's so simple! You remembered all right this morning." ..
“Didn't wanna be a barbarian this morning," Oswego informed his father. “Talk about simple; there's the life! Don’t like how someone’s treating you, whack)." He cut a mighty swath with swordless hands. "There goes his head, bouncing down the breakfast table." He gave his father a disturbing smile.
Lord Alsike tapped his foot. "Oik, if your son is unable to recount the rites to His Majesty—"
"His Pending Majesty," Oik corrected, letting Oswego have a clandestine thunk in the noggin.
"—then either do it yourself or let your apprentice handle it."
"Can I, sir? Can I? Can I?" Oik's apprentice was named Clerestory, a bright, eager lad with more get-up-and-go than a nest of insane fox terrier puppies. Without waiting for the go-ahead from Oik, the boy began rattling off, "Day One, dawn: Ritual of the Nine Cups and a Lemon. The king-to-be must inspect nine golden cups and find out which one has the lemon in it. Originally done with three wooden cups upside down and a dried pea hidden beneath one, this rite has evolved to nine cups rightside up and a pretty large fruit. Day One, before breakfast: Ritual of the Three Virgin Kitchen Wenches and the Tavern Slut. The king-to-be must use the virtue of his own spirit to find the one impure woman. Tavern slut is encouraged to dress the part. Day One, breakfast: Ritual of the Ox."
"We put that one in," said Bulmuk, smiling. No one else was. "You gotta kill an ox with your bare hands. Great tradition of the Gorgorian kings. Only tradition of the Gor- gorian kings."
"At breakfast?" Wulfrith yipped.
"Whaddaya think you get to eat for breakfast?" Bulmuk countered.
"It's all right, Your Pending Majesty,” Alsike whispered. "We'll drug the beast first, and maybe line up a couple of brawny guardsmen to be the official carvers. Who's going to notice if they start caning a little before you're quite done killing the ox bare-handed?"
Oik's apprentice leaped in and resumed his recitation of the many small and annoying rituals that would dog Wulfrith through the first three days of the coronation. Some of them involved dogs.
As young Clerestory went on and on about holy swords and enchanted doorknobs, Wulfrith began to feel calm for the first time since that awful night. So much time, so many things to do between the beginning of the coronation rites and the actual moment when the crown was placed on his head! Surely in all that time he must be able to get word to the queen!
Clerestory ran out of wind and passed the torch to the next Keeper, who informed Wulfrith about the rites awaiting him for the next three days. All in all, what with quests and vigils and receiving homage from almost everyone in the kingdom, the whole business wouldn’t be done with for about three weeks.
So it was that when the seventh Keeper said, “And then the only rite left before the coronation ceremony itself is the public bath,” Wulfrith did not flinch. This seemed to surprise the Keeper. He cleared his throat and repeated, “The public bath. In public. With people there to see. The king-to- be is entirely naked to the gaze of the populace, that all may know there is no defect of person about their ruler.” In an undertone he added, “You have to take all your clothes off.”
‘‘Very hard to be naked with them on,” Wulfrith replied cheerfully.
The Keeper let out a long breath. In the long intervals between coronations, he and his fellows often found themselves with little to do but listen to palace gossip, and he had, in recent years, heard from various sources about Prince Arbol’s surprising modesty—and about the Prince's ill temper, presumably inherited from his father. It was a great relief to find that for once, the rumors were apparently false.
Of course, it meant he should find better sources, but for now, sticking to the matter at hand, he simply said, “I am pleased to hear Your Pending Majesty say so. There have been times in our history—notably during the so-called Short Dynasty—when the king-to-be balked at this ritual.”
Wulfrith clapped the Keeper on the back. “A king's gotta do what a king's gotta do," he said.
“Whack!” Oswego yelled, only this time Bulmuk had loaned the boy his sword. Something bounced across the chamber floor.
There was a field promotion for Clerestory on the spot, and drinks ordered in afterward. All in all, by the time the delegation left him in peace, Wulfrith was feeling rather optimistic about what awaited him.
His wizardry, which had failed to provide any way to make contact with Arbol and Artemisia, didn't include a means to read the future, either.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“So tell us again about your green sheep,” Ochovar called through the twilight gloom.
Dunwin let out a sigh; he was sitting with his back to a tree and his feet to a campfire, letting his supper settle. He didn't really want to answer any more silly questions.
But if he didn't, the others would hound him all night.
“Her name’s Bernice,” he said wearily. “She’s about fifteen feet tall and thirty or forty feet long, I guess, with great big claws, and shiny green scales, and a long pointy tail,”
“How do you get wool off her, if she's scaly?” someone asked; Dunwin didn't see who spoke.
“If she gives green wool, it’d save some dyeing, anyway,” the Purple Possum remarked from across the fire, where he was repairing a lute.
“She doesn’t have wool anymore,” Dunwin explained. “She used to, when she was really a sheep.”
The Possum looked up from the tuning peg he was whittling. “How's that?” he asked. “Isn’t she a sheep any more?”
Dunwin stared at him in angry astonishment. “Of cours
e not,” he said. “Whoever heard of a green sheep?”
The Possum smiled wryly. “Up until the Blue Badger brought you to us,” he said, “not a one of us here ever had.”
“Well, of course not,” Dunwin said. “There's no such thing as a green sheep, not that I ever heard of. Bernice was white, when she was a sheep.”
The Possum put down the peg and whittling knife. “Then what is she now?” he asked.
"Well, what else is scaly and green and forty feet long?” Dunwin asked, amazed. "She’s a dragon, of course. That wizard turned her into a dragon.”
"Wizard?” several voices said.
"Dragon?” several others said simultaneously.
The Purple Possum leaned forward and said, "Dunwin, my lad, I don’t think you’ve ever told us the whole story. Would you care to explain what you’re talking about?” "It’s simple enough,” Dunwin said, puzzled by this sudden interest. He had been trying to tell the Bold Bush- dwellers all about it ever since he had arrived at the camp, but up until now all they had wanted to hear were descriptions of the dragon Bernice had become—descriptions that usually produced great merriment and much giggling.
The merriment had never, after the first day, taken the form of attacks on his person, however; a few broken bones had settled that, and once he started his sword lessons . . .
But he had never managed to tell the entire story before.
"I got into an argument with a wizard,” he said. "I don't remember all of it, but it had something to do with his apprentice. And he got mad at me, and turned my favorite sheep, Bernice, into a dragon. And she flew away, and I followed after, looking for her. And that’s what I was doing when you people found me.”
"You were chasing a dragon?” Ochovar asked. Dunwin nodded.
"What would you have done if you found her?” the Blue Badger asked curiously.
"Talked to her,” Dunwin said. "She’s still Bernice, after all—she’s still my best friend, that I brought up from a lamb. I’d ask her to come home with me.”
"You think she'd have come?” the Purple Possum asked, intensely interested, and unaware, as yet, of the figure standing in the shadows behind him.
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