“And killed her father.” Matt gave Papa an apologetic look. “That’s why she clung so tightly when you called her ‘daughter.’ ”
“So she is,” Papa said sternly, “and she can cling whenever she needs to.”
Mama nodded firm agreement, but amended it to say, “I expect she will cling to you more often, though, Mateo.”
“Hope so,” Matt said, grinning, then gave them a brief account of the war to defeat the evil sorcerer Malingo and win back Alisande’s throne. He threw in Stegoman the dragon, Sir Guy the Black Knight, Colmain the giant, Father Brunel the werewolf priest, and Sayeesa the lust-witch. When he’d finished, he was amazed to see that the light had changed; he’d taken at least half an hour.
“Let me understand.” Mama frowned, leaning forward and holding up a palm. “You won back her throne for her?”
“Well, not alone,” Matt amended, “but I do seem to have been one of the crucial elements in her success, yes.”
“So you really are her chief wizard, then,” Papa said, frowning.
“Yes. That’s the government job I told you about.”
“Lord Wizard! When did you become a nobleman?”
“When Alisande told me I was one—and that was before we married, by the way. A year or three before.”
Mama smiled. “She kept you dangling awhile, then? Good for her!”
“I wouldn’t have said so at the time,” Matt said darkly.
Mama grinned. “More power to her, then!” Abruptly, she turned serious again. “I don’t know, though, Mateo—this is so hard to believe.”
“Are you speaking Spanish now?” Matt asked softly.
“Why, no, I am speaking English, and...” Mama heard her own words and stared, amazed. “I am not!”
“Try talking to me in Spanish.”
“Why not?” Mama said. “All your life, I spoke to you in...” She stared again. “It still is not! It is the same language I spoke before!”
“You can recite a quotation in Spanish, if you try hard enough,” Matt said, “or in English or French—but it takes a major effort.”
“Ou sont les neiges d’antan?” Papa recited, then frowned. “I see what you mean—it takes great effort indeed.”
“But what language are we speaking?” Mama asked.
“The language of the parchment scrap I found,” Matt told her. “The language of Merovence. When you recited the verse I lined out for you, and the words began to make sense, your mind tuned in to this universe, which helped bring you here—but once you arrived, you were thinking in Merovencian.”
“Helped bring us here?” Papa pounced on the word. “Who did the main work, then?”
“I’m pretty sure it was St. Moncaire,” Matt told him. “He seemed to think I was the missing ingredient for putting Alisande back on the throne—and since Merovence was the only kingdom in Europe that hadn’t fallen to the reign of Evil, it was worth some indirect saintly intervention.”
“The reign of Evil?” Mama leaned forward, her gaze intent.
“White magic works by drawing on the power of God,” Matt explained. “Black magic draws on the power of Satan. Both of them work by chanting poetry or, even better, singing it—that modulates the magical forces, causes the magical elements to fall into line, and makes things happen.”
“Only Good or Evil?” Papa asked, frowning.
“It’s hard for modern people to accept, I know,” Matt said. “Saul still won’t; he keeps trying to figure out some impersonal rules of magic. So does King Boncorro, in Latruria—Italy in our universe...”
“So Merovence is no longer the only good kingdom?” Mama asked.
“We’ve won back Ibile and Allustria,” Matt told her. “Latruria is trying hard to be neutral, but at least King Boncorro has kicked out the sorcerer who was running things. We’re worried about him, though.”
“Yes—in medieval theology, walking the line between good and evil was impossible,” Professor Papa said, frowning. “Equivocating, Shakespeare called it, and his Drunken Porter made it clear that you can’t equivocate between God and the Devil—you fall into the Devil’s hands eventually...”
“Just as Macbeth did.” Matt nodded. “Saul’s still trying, though. Every time he does something good, he commits a technical sin to balance it.”
“A ‘technical’ sin?” Mama frowned.
“Yeah, something like eating meat on Friday—the Church hasn’t lifted the ban on that, here. Trouble is, his heart isn’t in it, and he usually winds up doing more good anyway.”
Mama smiled. “You have told us much about this friend of yours.”
“The kind of student every professor wishes to have!” Papa said fervently. “So he tries to work out laws of magic, like our laws of physics?”
Matt nodded. “He’s made a lot of progress, actually. Trouble is, he can’t find a poem that’s value-neutral; every work of literature seems to have some sort of a theme, moral or immoral—even if it’s pulp fiction, or straight from a greeting card.”
“So that is why I felt this strangeness when I quoted Villon,” Papa said, frowning.
Matt went still inside. “You did? Try it again.”
“Ou sont les neiges d’antan?” Papa recited, then frowned. “Yes, I definitely feel some sort of tension growing around me.”
“Like a force of some kind?”
Papa gazed off into space. “I suppose you could say that. It feels the way I’ve always imagined a dynamo would feel as it builds up electricity—if it could feel.”
That said a lot about his father—that he was the kind of person who would try to imagine how it felt to be an electrical generator.
“Let me try,” Mama said, and gazed off into space. Her eyes lost focus; her face seemed to empty, then to fill with glory as she recited. It was archaic Spanish, so Matt couldn’t follow every word—but he recognized “rose” and “red,” and something about water...
Air glimmered on the taboret between Mama’s chair and Matt’s. It thickened to mist, coalesced into solidity—and a rose lay there, fresh and velvety, its petals still beaded with morning dew.
Papa and Matt goggled.
Mama gasped. “Oh, my! Did I do that?”
“You did indeed, querida,” Papa said, his face solemn. He turned to Matt. “So. This is no mere fable you have told us.”
“Did you really doubt me?”
“My heart wanted to believe you.” Papa was skilled at sidestepping questions, too.
Matt frowned. “You don’t seem surprised that Mama has the talent.”
“Why should I be? I have known and felt her magic for every day of my life these thirty years.” Papa turned and caught his wife’s hand, smiling into her eyes. “I have lived under her enchantment since I met her, and it has been my support and my mainstay all my days.”
Mama blushed and lowered her gaze.
Still holding her hand, Papa turned back to Matt. “Do you think that I, too, can work this magic?”
“I should think so,” said Matt slowly. “It would make sense, after all—if I have the talent for magic, there’s a good chance I inherited it from both of you.” He didn’t mention that double inheritance should have made him more powerful than either of them. “Besides, if you can feel the forces gathering, you must have the gift. Try a poem, Papa—but keep it small, okay?”
Papa frowned, thinking, then recited,
“Soup of the evening, thick and green,
Waiting in a deep tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!”
The air shimmered, clouded, cleared, and a closed and steaming tureen stood on the taboret next to the rose.
All three of them stared.
Then Mama said, “It will mar the tabletop. Mateo, some sort of mat, quickly! Ramón, lift!”
Papa took the handles and lifted. Matt looked about the room, then took a glove from a chest against the wall and brought it back. Mama slipped i
t under the tureen and said, as Papa set it down, “So. You said you had no appetite for supper tonight, Ramón.”
“I did not.” Papa grinned. “But our new quarters have improved my appetite most amazingly.” He lifted the lid, took out the ladle, sniffed cautiously, tasted even more cautiously, and nodded. “It’s mock-turtle soup, all right! Apparently this magic even knows where the verse came from.”
“You probably had it in the back of your mind when you recited,” Matt said. “Mama, I thought you told me you still did the cooking.”
“Well, Tuesdays and Thursdays this year, I had late classes.” Mama sighed. “I do not suppose I will finish my doctorate, now.”
“You won’t need it here,” Matt assured her. “I’d better arrange some lessons in wizardry for you, though.”
“Oh, you will teach your parents now, eh?” Mama said it with a smile, but there was an edge to her voice.
Matt shook his head. “I do it, but I don’t make sense out of it very well. I mean, sure, I figured out the basic rules, but anything beyond that, I leave to Saul and Friar Ignatius.”
“Friar Ignatius?” Papa asked.
“He’s a scholar of magic,” Matt explained. “Saul met him while trying to find me, and incidentally overthrowing the sorcerer who ruled Allustria. The good friar doesn’t do magic himself much—that was our first big hint that spellcasting requires talent. I’ll ask him to come give you a crash course.”
From outside the window came a crack like a cannon shot, and the whole room shuddered. Mama made a frantic grab and barely saved the soup tureen from shattering on the floor. As it was, green liquid leaked around its edges. “What was that?” she gasped.
“It must have been the beginning of our crash course,” said Papa, smiling. “Would you like to explain that, son?”
CHAPTER NINE
They climbed the winding stair inside the West Tower with the stones of the castle shuddering around them.
“Is this safe?” Papa asked with an anxious glance at Mama, between the two men.
“Yes, if the enemy hasn’t come up with something new,” Matt replied. “In fact, if we don’t hurry, Saul may have sent them packing before we get there.”
“What enemy is this?” Mama asked.
“Genies,” Matt answered.
Mama and Papa exchanged a glance of surprise and picked up the pace. Matt felt a surge of affection—here was danger, and they were rushing toward it, afraid they might miss it.
“How do you know they are djinn?” Mama asked.
“I recognized them from your bedtime stories,” Matt called back.
Mama and Papa exchanged another glance of a very different sort of surprise.
They came out onto the battlements, and the roaring smote their ears, the thundering laughter of four djinn punctuated by the blasting of huge boulders striking the castle wall. Mama and Papa froze, staring at the gigantic spirits who hurled huge stones as a baseball pitcher might throw a ball, laughing with delight as they did.
“They are djinn!” Mama exclaimed.
Papa just stared, then drew a long, ragged breath. “I didn’t doubt you, Matthew—but I didn’t quite believe all this, soup or no soup.”
“Believe me now?”
“Yes. Now, I think even my stomach believes you.”
“Dame Mantrell!” Alisande hurried over to her, all concern. “You should not be here—especially without armor! You might be injured.”
But Mama was more concerned with the djinn. She pointed at them and cried, “They are Moorish!”
“Huh?” Matt stared at the huge humanoids, fascinated by her confirming his own guess. “How can you tell?”
“The patterns on the cloth of their turbans and trousers! Those are Moorish, not Arabian!”
Well. Matt wouldn’t have known the difference—but he wasn’t about to argue with an expert.
Mama held up a hand like a traffic cop and intoned foreign words in a stern tone.
Alisande stared, then seized Matt’s arm. “What does she say?”
“It’s Spanish,” Matt said. Wonder flashed through his mind—was this really Spanish, or only an old dialect of Ibile? Which universe claimed her discourse? “I can’t follow the words, though.”
“It is an old form of the language,” Papa told them, “an old song, a very beautiful one, in which an infanta, a princess, calls soldiers to her banner to fight for her.”
The song certainly was calling soldiers. Every guardsman on the battlements was turning to stare at Mama—and Matt was amazed to realize how thoroughly she was really worth staring at. The old words made her seem to stand straighter, to grow larger, becoming a truly commanding presence, drawing all the men. Even Saul turned to stare, and took a few involuntary steps toward her. Her own son couldn’t take his gaze from her—the flashing in her eyes, the glow in her face, compelled his total attention, binding him under her spell. She fairly glowed with beauty.
Human males weren’t the only ones she held spellbound. The djinn dropped their boulders, staring at her. Their eyes glazed. They began to drift toward her, slowly at first, then faster and faster, as though a breeze pushed them, freshening to become a gale.
Then, suddenly, they all jerked, as though someone had given each of them a good, hard shake. They stared at Mama in disbelief. Then they began to drift toward her again—but their eyes narrowed with menace.
Mama changed meters; her chanting beat with a new rhythm, a different cadence, and her tone became severe, scolding.
Papa stared.
“It’s too old a form of Spanish for me,” Matt said, low-voiced. “What’s she saying?”
“She is rebuking them for their temerity,” said Papa.
Mama snapped her hands up, shouting a command.
“She’s telling them to go away in shame,” Papa translated.
The djinn’s eyes turned glassy again. They turned about and drifted away, thinning as they went, becoming translucent, then fading from sight.
Everyone on the battlements was silent, staring in disbelief. Then Saul uttered a long, shaky sigh. “Man,” he said to Matt, “I can’t understand how you ever resolved your Oedipal feelings.”
Matt and Papa both stared at him; Alisande frowned, puzzled. Mama blushed.
Then Papa grinned. “No man living could ever fail to see the beauty of my Jimena—except her son.”
Mama gave Papa a sly smile. “Yes, he was attracted to younger women—from the time he turned twelve.”
“Twelve?” Saul asked in surprise, and started to say something more, but Matt said firmly, “We all have to wake up sometime, and realize that girls aren’t nasty backbiting barnacles on the ship of life.”
Alisande frowned. “Did you ever truly think so?”
“When he was eight?” Mama asked. “When he was eleven? Oh, yes. You shall see, young mother. You have a son yourself.”
“Thank you for the warning,” Alisande said, but her voice still sounded with doubt, and her gaze was uncertain. She turned to Mama, and became all business again. “You amaze me, Dame Mantrell! I had not known you were a woman of power.”
“Neither had I,” Mama confessed.
Papa shook his head. “How could you ever have failed to know it?”
Mama glanced at him with exasperation. “I did not speak of my beauty alone, Ramón.”
“Neither did I.”
“You mean she’s always been able to command spirits?” Saul asked, his voice shaky.
Papa’s gaze turned remote. “Now that I think of it, the neighbors did tell us we had bought a haunted house, but no ghosts ever disturbed us there.”
“Nonsense, Ramón!” Mama said briskly. “It was all superstition!”
Papa’s gaze focused on her. “Did I not say the peace and harmony of that house were your doing? It seems I spoke more truly than I knew.”
Matt decided that his talent probably wasn’t any stronger than his parents’, after all—just differently directed.
&n
bsp; “But now you are in peril!” Alisande stepped up to take both of Mama’s hands between her own. “Whatever sorcerer commands these djinn knows now that there is one who can command them as surely as he himself. I fear that you will yourself be the object of their attacks now!”
“Or other kinds of magical attacks directed directly at you,” Saul said, scowling. “She’s right, Ms. Mantrell.”
“Mrs., please,” Mama said absently. “I am old-fashioned.”
“Why debate?” Alisande drew her sword. “Kneel.”
Mama stepped back in surprise, and Papa’s eyes widened in shock even as he moved to step between them—but Matt touched his arm and said softly, “Don’t worry. It’s an honor.”
Papa hesitated, but frowned at Alisande, unsure. Mama, however, squared her shoulders as she knelt.
“I create you a dame of the land of Merovence,” Alisande said, touching each shoulder in turn with the blade. “All will now address you as ‘Dame.’ ” She stepped back, sheathing her sword.
“It confers some extra abilities,” Matt told his mother as he helped her up. “Extra courage, not that you need it—but a certain kind of tactical insight, and extra power in fighting.” He grinned. “It also gets you a lot more respect.”
Alisande turned to Papa. “I doubt not you also shall be knighted, Master Mantrell—but we must wait for your deeds, then give you both all proper ceremony.” Finally she turned to her husband again. “How shall we protect them, then?”
“We’re already doing everything we can,” Matt told her. “Between Saul’s spells and mine, this castle is so thoroughly wrapped in protective enchantments that if you could see them, it would look like a cocoon.”
“That’s why all the genies can do is stand back and throw stones,” Saul explained, “plus the occasional shake.”
Alisande nodded. “But Dame Mantrell can learn how to use her magic to even greater power. See it done immediately.”
Matt nodded. “I’ll send for Friar Ignatius right away.”
“That is well. Let it be done.” Alisande turned and inclined her head to her knights and wizards. They all gave a half bow in return; then she turned and strode into the tower.
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