The prince was breaking in his new boots when an officer of the guard requested entry.
“My Prince,” and he brought his right fist smartly across his chest in a thumping salute, “a small company of men, Prince Mavron at their head, have just received permission to pass through the Elbow.”
“On, indeed? Did they vouchsafe why they are coming on this visit?”
“To collect Lady Laurel for her imminent wedding!”
Jamas was as glad that Willow was with her ladies or she would lose all the self-confidence she had acquired in her married life.
“How shocking! And she four weeks the bride of Baron Illify. Whatever is Egdril thinking of? Form up a guard of honor to escort the good prince.” And he waved the young lieutenant to depart on his mission. “Frenery,” and when his secretary appeared, “please to let Bishop Wodarick know that his presence is respectfully requested here at the palace for tea. And he is to bring the registry book with him, if he would not mind. We might need that, too.” Frenery turned to leave on that errand. “Oh, and tell the chatelaine that Prince Mavron is guesting with us tonight. We’ll have to have something more special than the light supper we had ordered.”
Consequently when the troop with Mavron at its fore trotted into the courtyard, the prince and princess, flanked by the tall, dignified bishop, welcomed their royal visitor.
“My dear Mavron, how good it is to see you so soon again. What can bring you here?”
“Did not my father leave word that I was to escort the Lady Laurel back to Mauritia?” Mavron’s shrewd eyes were watching Princess Willow who regarded him evenly.
“In his note to me, he did say something of the sort but I doubt very much if my sister-in-law will wish to leave.”
“Oh, and why?”
“Where are my manners? Do come in, Prince Mavron. Bishop Wodarick has joined us for tea. Surely a cup will do you good after your long ride, and we can forgive your travel dust since we are all informal here,”
“Did you by any chance bring letters from my mother for me, cousin?” Princess Willow asked with a hopeful expression on her face.
Mavron hesitated between one step and another and frowned down.
“But surely you must know, Princess…”
“Know what?” Willow’s hand went to her chest, her eyes widened with panic.
Jamas thought she had struck just the right tone of surprise in her dissembling.
“That your mother, and indeed, your younger sisters have all left Mauritia?”
“Oh, my, they have?” The princess was the epitome of surprise. “Oh, so they did get permission to visit my paternal uncle in Sarmarland? Mother has wanted to retire there for some time, you know. I believe she asked her majesty’s permission for the visit some time ago! That may be why I have not heard. It would take a long time for letters from Sarmarland to arrive here in Esphania, would it not?”
“Sarmarland? Your uncle Barrein?” Mavron absorbed that information and nodded. “Perhaps that is the case, then.”
“I’m sure it is,” Princess Willow said, teapot pointed over a fresh cup and saucer. “Tea, then? Milk? And no sugar, if I remember correctly.”
“Just so.”
“Now, about Laurel,” Willow said, for she and Jamas had agreed not to prevaricate with Prince Mavron. She smiled and even managed a light giggle. “It was ever so romantic.”
“What?” Mavron did not even get a chance for a sip of the tea.
“Why, her elopement.”
“Elopement?” Milky tea sloshed over the rim as he precipitously returned the cup to its saucer.
“Yes,” and Jamas stretched out his long legs, grinning. “She and my equerry. Baron Grenejon of Illify, you know, my best man. They eloped without a word to anyone. Except the Bishop here who married them.”
“You married them without the king’s permission?”
Bishop Wodarick had been forewarned and mildly regarded the royal visitor, clasping his hands together so that the ruby bishopric ring flashed in the sun.
“Indeed, my son, I was unaware that permission would be required in the case of Lady Laurel, when she had the permission of her brother-in-law, who, in the absence of the king, could be constituted as her legal guardian.”
“Legal guardian?”
“She is of age, as is the baron,” the bishop replied gently. “Surely there was no impediment to their union?” he asked, as if the thought had just occurred to him. “She was not married before, was she?”
“Nor even betrothed,” said the princess firmly, and she stared back at the prince.
“I…I came to escort her back to a wedding: a wedding most felicitously arranged by the queen.”
“The queen so enjoys matchmaking, does she not?” Willow said. Then her eyes dropped, following Niffy, who had approached Mavron and was now rubbing herself against his legs. “New boots, cousin?”
Fortunately for the delicate china, Mavron had already deposited cup and saucer on the table beside him because they would surely have slipped from nervous fingers. Mavron went quite pale and then blood suffused his face. His complexion went through several more changes, turning almost purple once. Jamas poured a respectable tot of his best brandy and offered it to his cousin-in-law. Mavron swallowed more than the spirits before he got himself under control again.
Then the Mauritian prince turned to the prelate. “I may have a copy of the marriage certificate?”
“Of course.”
“Who witnessed this union?” Mavron gave Jamas and Willow an almost desperate glance.
“We did, of course,” she said and left it at that.
Mavron then sighed very deeply and began rubbing his hands on the chamois riding breeches he wore.
“These are, actually, very new boots,” he said in the most conversational of tones. “You won’t have heard, of course, but my brother Geroge has been laid up the past week with a severe fever. We think he caught cold when he had to ford the River Thuler and did not think to change his wet boots at once.”
“Yes, wet boots could be detrimental to one’s health,” Princess Willow agreed. “But he will recover?”
“Oh yes,” Mavron agreed emphatically and his eyes narrowed. “A close call, to be sure, and one can never be too careful, can one?”
“Never,” Princess Willow agreed.
“Never,” Jamas said, uncrossing his ankles and then reaching down to flick off a small piece of carpet fluff off his own new, highly polished half boots. Mavron watched the action, his face quite thoughtful.
“We trust that the queen remains in good health during this pregnancy?” Willow asked with delicate concern.
Mavron’s face was a study in suppressed emotions. “We all hope…” and he paused a beat, “that she will soon be delivered of a healthy child.”
“A child would be welcome,” Willow said, “but a son would be a cause for great rejoicing, would it not? And many new plans.”
Mavron rubbed one temple thoughtfully, as if to generate a proper response.
“Do you have the same bootmaker as your father, the king?” Willow asked in the silence.
Mavron fixed his eyes on hers, and she did not break the contact.
“Would she dare?” was his whispered comment.
“Just wouldn’t she!” was Jamas’ reply.
Mavron stood then. “I must request an interview with…”
“Baroness Laurel,” Willow supplied when he looked in her direction for Laurel’s new rank. “But, of course. It is high time that pair left their idyll and returned to their duties here at Esphania City.”
“I shall send my fastest rider. They can be here by midday tomorrow,” Jamas said.
“Come, cousin,” Willow said, rising, “let me show you to your quarters while my husband pens the message. I believe you were comfortable in the ones you had on your previous stay with us…”
When the door had closed on the two, the bishop leaned toward his prince.
“I had
not believed your discreet explanation about the dangers threatening your wife and her sister, but now I do. I mean, both the king’s sons? Appalling! If there is anything more I can do…”
Jamas finished dashing off the few words needed to bring his equerry and bride back to the city and now turned to the bishop.
“No, my lord Bishop, sheltering my inlaws in your summer residence has been a great relief to my wife. Let us hope someone can stop the fiend before she accomplishes whatever it is she wants so badly.”
“I would hazard the guess that she is one whom power makes giddy. Only God has the right to dispose life and death, and she has usurped that prerogative.” He shook his head sadly. “Power is a very dangerous tool, my son, and some are unsuited to employ it.”
“One must be raised to the job,” Jamas said.
“Meh!” replied Niffy, settling down again in the sun shining in the windows.
Baron and Baroness Illify arrived just before the bells in the cathedral and town hall indulged in their midday excess. Prince Jamas had taken his cousin-in-law to the registry to inspect the entry for the marriage. Prince Mavron found it in proper order, though he frowned.
“This is the day you and my cousin were married,” he said, a finger on the date.
“Yes. You know we all disappeared early. Well, that was why!”
“Oh!”
Then the two men went on a horseback tour of the city, which allowed Jamas to show Prince Mavron all the river defenses. Which were formidable. By the time they returned to the castle, the other newlywed couple were in the morning room, chatting merrily. Willow winked at her husband, which indicated that she had had sufficient time to inform her sister and her husband of all the latest events.
Laurel jumped to her feet when Mavron bowed over her hand and called her “Baroness.”
“Oh, I have left you with a disagreeable duty, have I not, Mav. And I wouldn’t have done that to you for a million guilders if I’d had any inkling that your father had already arranged a marriage for me.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Mavron said, raising one dark eyebrow at such guilelessness. But it was patently obvious that the young couple were madly in love with each other. “I suppose I can manage to placate my father. It was more her idea.” Then he closed his lips on something he had been about to say.
“You will be careful?” Laurel asked.
“You may rest assured on that point,” he said, his expression grim. “And on the fact that I have discovered nothing irregular in your elopement, for the bishop has reassured me on that score.” Then the prince turned to Jamas. “I think I had best not dally here, and indeed it is with deep regret that I find I should make all haste back to Mauritia.”
“You can at least have lunch,” Willow said, “to give yourself the energy to return in all speed.”
“I accept.”
“And,” Jamas said earnestly, “should you require the assistance of a friendly neighbor…”
Mavron’s smile was perfunctory, though the bow he gave Jamas’ suggestion was profound. “I shall remember that.”
“We squeaked out of that one well, didn’t we, Niffy?” Jamas said as he and Willow retired to their apartment after bidding Mavron farewell.
“I do hope that Mavron can, too. Unfortunately the queen recognizes an enemy in him…”
“And in Geroge, from recent events…”
“Geroge was more vocal in trying to persuade his father not to marry again. That woman had no background at all to recommend her to anyone, much less a king.”
“Ah, but a king is the very person to raise one in rank, is he not?” Jamas reminded her.
“A king should have twice the ordinary amount of common sense,” Willow said, to which Niffy replied with an emphatic “Meeerow!”
“There should be nothing ‘common’ about a king,” Willow added primly.
Jamas tousled the formal curls in which she now wore her beautiful black hair—as befit her new station.
“How much we’ve learned in the past few weeks!” he teased her.
“Giving myself airs, am I?” Willow said in mock indignation.
“At least, you’re not seeing shadows everywhere.” The words were no sooner out of his mouth than he regretted them and had to coax her out of the return of her anxiety.
“Are you prescient, my love?” Jamas asked three days later when a courier who had ridden day and night arrived with a missive from Mavron.
“Oh, good heavens, what now?” Willow said. “And it must be important, for here comes Niffy.”
“Then it’s from Mauritia, isn’t it?” put in Laurel who was also at the table with them for lunch. Baron Illify was off on his prince’s business.
“Indeed.” Jamas frowned at the seal. He had only glanced at the first line when he half rose from his chair in surprise. Niffy let out a wail. “The queen has been delivered prematurely of a son, Geroge has died and the king is now very ill. Mavron requests my presence.”
Niffy stretched up, planting her paws on Jamas’ thighs and merowing at her most emphatic.
“Yes, yes, Niffy, you’ll come, too,” Jamas said, stroking the cat’s head in reassurance. He passed the letter to his wife. “I’m not at all sure how I can help Mavron, but someone must before that woman takes total control and we discover ourselves dead in our beds from some mysterious ailment.”
“What can Niffy do?” Laurel asked, accepting the letter which Willow, looking distraught, handed over to her. “Mavron wrote this himself, too.”
“So no one else would know he had sent it.” Jamas sat back in his chair, all appetite gone. He locked his fingers together at the back of his head and, tilting his chair, kept his balance by one foot on the substantial leg of the table. “Hmmm.” His chair came down with a bang, and he propelled himself out of it, beginning to pace up and down.
Niffy leaped to the chair he had vacated, her almond-shaped eyes watching his progress back and forth. Then he stopped and stared at her.
“All right, Niffy, what do we do?”
“How could the cat know?” Laurel asked, laughing a little nervously at her brother-in-law’s unexpected whimsy.
Willow raised a finger and waggled at her sister. “Of course, you haven’t been around this Niffy-cat as much as I have. Jamas is reasonably certain that the spirit of Mangan somehow inhabits this magnificent—ooooooh,” and she drew in a long breath of amazement, then burst into laughter. “Of course, how stupid not to have guessed. Magnificat! That’s your true name!”
Niffy threw back her head and keened a particularly piercing note and puffed up every hair on her body until she appeared four times her actual size. Laurel recoiled in her chair, but Willow seemed amused.
“Of course it is,” Jamas said as he strode back to his chair and cupped Niffy’s head in his hand, smiling conspiratorially down at the Magnificat. “How like Mangan. How like Mangan you are, Niffy. Did you think I was so dense as not to add up a few of those equations you were always making me sweat through? Did you think I haven’t seen your fine feline hand in much that has happened these last few months? However, you have done it, Mangan-Niffy, you have succeeded in leaving behind an essence to guide me. And I never needed guidance more!”
Niffy’s fur gradually subsided to a normal appearance and, as Jamas’ impassioned words died away, she gave a flick of her head and proceeded to groom her shoulders in the satisfied way that cats have when they’ve won their point— whatever it might be.
Jamas chuckled. “Frenery!” he called. When the good man arrived, he started his instructions. “Send a messenger to retrieve Baron Illify. Ask Moxtell to lend me his sons and his brothers, and I’ll want the Fennells, too. Also Prince Temeron, the Duke of Brastock, and ask Bishop Wodarick if I can borrow those two stalwart canons of his…”
“Estreger and Memmison?”
“The very ones.” As soon as Frenery had hastened off to do his bidding, he turned to Niffy. “Shall we see what books I’m to peruse before I lea
ve, my dear Magniffycat?”
“He means it,” Laurel said to her sister.
“Of course he does,” Willow replied, blotting her lips. “Go with him and see. I’ll pack. Will you need any dress clothes?”
“Funeral attire and something quietly elegant for any formal occasions, but leave room for Niffy,” Jamas called over his shoulder as he fiddled with the moulding by the fireplace to gain entrance to the quickest route to Mangan’s tower. “Oh,” he added, sticking his head around the door, “when Grenejon gets here, send him up.”
The door had only just closed behind him when it sprang open again.
“Oh, and you two are coming with us, I think. After all, we must present a solid front, mustn’t we? I know your mother can ride, but can Sollie?”
“If we are all going with you, who will guard Esphania?” Willow asked.
“Esphanians!” And this time the door stayed shut.
Sombre banners covered the main gate at Mauritia and informed the hard-riding party that there had been deaths in the royal palace.
“Who goes there?” the captain of the guard demanded, for the gates were also shut.
“The Prince and Princess of Esphania, come to pay respects!”
“I’ve orders to admit no one. Certainly not an armed company.”
“Captain Nesfaru, don’t you recognize us?” Willow said, throwing back the hood of her cape. “I’m Lady Willow and here is my sister, Laurel. And Countess Solesne. Surely we may enter and console the grieved.”
The captain plainly saw no threat in three women doing what women did best.
“Well, I guess you’re all right,” he said, grudgingly. “But leave your horses.”
“What! Don’t be silly, Captain. We can’t walk up the hills after travelling as hard as we have,” Willow said.
Jamas was delighted to hear his beloved taking charge of events, instead of letting them just happen to her.
“Well…” and again he was indecisive.
“We are tired and wish to present ourselves to her majesty as soon as possible,” Laurel put in.
So he agreed to let them in.
“Jamas, I know I can get orders to admit you, too,” Countess Solesne murmured to Jamas. “Just dismount and wait.”
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