Diana gave a short nod. “Good thing.”
“Let’s split up and get this patrol over.” Irene thumped her fists on her hips. “I want to get back to rehearsing the play—if Clair is in a sour mood, it seems to me the best thing we can do is make her laugh.”
No one had any argument against that, so we did.
o0o
For a while, as the season warmed up, things stayed pretty much the same.
We were increasingly curious to get a glimpse of Kwenz’s heir—though none of us wanted to meet a new villain face to face. But we knew it was going to happen, as there were more signs of the Chwahir snouting around in our woods. We were either just missing them, or else they were snouting around in the middle of the night.
That plus the trade stuff made Clair worry enough to study magic long into the night. After all, how could we resist if Kwenz did send his Black-eyes against our traders? Clair didn’t have any guards and wasn’t about to hire any. So we had to be watchful, and she worked on magical plans.
Meanwhile, regular life went on.
Like the time that we really didn’t come out looking so good. Though of course we thought we were perfectly in the right at the time, and when I first wrote it up, wow, talk about gloating and spackling all over the place!
But really, what do you expect we’re going to do if some snotty aristo clod rides into our forest just to—
Argh. I hate it when I start in the middle.
So okay. Here’s what happened. The girls patrolling the northern road saw a guy in super fancy clothes riding a horse down the road. Because of the fancy clothes and the direction he came in, they assumed he was from Fobo, which meant he was up to nothing good. They ran to get me.
We picked a spot to confront the clod, but I felt we should take a look first before doing anything.
So up into the trees we climbed. I sat on a branch, mentally reviewing my nasty pie spell, when the sound of horse hooves became distinct. Riding along the road below us came a guy maybe in his early twenties or so, wearing a riding coat with a lot of gold-work along the broad collar and down the frogs attaching the front, and on the big rolled-back sleeves and the hem. The buckles across the tops of his tasseled, two-toned fineweave riding boots were made up of diamonds. Visible at wrist and collar was expensive linen, and the horse’s trappings were all fancy.
The fellow himself was tall, blond, and rode with an air that made it plain he was certainly no enemy to his mirror, no sirree Bob.
Irene was wearing sturdy patrol clothes, but with embroidered flowers along the sleeves and neckline of her top, and ribbons in all her hems. She felt immediate challenge at somebody daring to enter the forest dressed more fancy than she was. She swung down from the tree and planted herself squarely in the pathway, hands on her hips.
The clod seemed to pay no attention, but you know how you can just tell when someone is really very aware of you, but for some reason wants to pretend you aren’t there? Like you’re beneath notice? A Fobo trick, by the way.
That’s what this slobbo was doing—because he very gently guided his horse around Irene, while he looked up and around like he was counting leaves for his life. No, that’s not right. He was signifying to the forest that it had earned the right to be looked at.
“A-HEM,” Irene said, stepping in the way of the horse.
He stopped, and looked down his nose at her.
“Where are you going?” Irene asked.
He yawned, and then cleared his throat, as he waved his fingers at her to get out of his way.
“Getting a cold?” Irene asked sweetly.
“Little girls,” the fellow drawled (it took as long to drag out the word gurrrrrrllllllz as it took any of us to say an entire sentence), “ought not to be stepping in the road. Haven’t your parents told you that’s quite dangerous?” And when she snorted, he added, “Speaking of parents. Ought you not be home helping Mama?” He looked away—showing a practiced profile.
Irene turned to me, shrugging dramatically, hands out.
Sighing loud enough to blow leaves off trees, I dropped down, and the other girls took that as a signal to plop, thump, scramble (or drift, in Dhana’s case) down to range themselves behind me.
“Are you from Glotulae Auknuge?” I asked, unwilling to call her a queen, when she wasn’t, or to give the name of her silly kingdom, which was actually part of MH.
The guy looked so affronted I turned a six-week-old-fish eye on Irene, who just shrugged and studied the leaves above as though the secret of the world was written there.
“No,” he said in such a long, sarcastic drawl he managed to get all the vowels in—with a few extra helpings. “Neiiiiiiiaaauuuooooooooowwwwwwww.” And then he zapped any sympathy he might have won so far (which wasn’t much) by adding, “I have come as a personal ambassador from Ujban to seek the hand of Queen Clevarlineh in—”
“What?”
“Euw!”
“Gag!”
“—in disgust and nausea?” I bellowed.
“Hand? How about toes? Fins?” Faline cracked.
“Tentacles,” I snarled, and Faline, and doubled over at this incredible wit.
“—marrrrriage,” he finished loudly, his fine cheeks quite red. “She has suitors?” he added with the first real expression he’d used yet—and I realized he’d expected us to be astonished. Maybe even grateful!
Astonished, yes, but as the girls whooped, cackled, bellowed, snickered, and whinnied (that was Gwen, and Faline promptly started cackling like a chicken, which got Diana ba-a-a-ing like a sheep, and so on) it was quite clear to him that we were anything but gratified.
“No!” I yelped. “Watch your language!”
“And as for I,” Irene put in, even more loudly, “I have no parents.” Then, with her most dramatic flair, she delivered a fine pocalube against marriage, suitors, and mush. (A pocalube being an insult of at least seven adjectives and a noun fit for villains. Pocalubes were a part of our villain-fighting equipment.)
The guy scowled at us all—his second real expression—as he said nastily, “You lot need a lesson in manners.”
“Who’s gonna teach it to us?” Irene fired back, even more nastily.
The guy looked a whole lot closer to our age as he jumped off his horse.
It was way too easy to imagine this clod knocking Irene into orbit.
I started on a spell—but got distracted when Irene yelled, “Any hand you get will be a fist to give you a black eye.” And she ducked behind a tree as Sherry and Gwen laughed.
Faline snickered as well, but I could hear her wheezing, “... ask for her nostril in marriage ...”
Seshe, on my other side, said with briskness (for her), “You might not like our manners, but you’re here in our country.”
“I’m here on a diplomatic mission,” the fellow said. “I’m from a very good family, and the girls at home think me handsome.”
“You won’t be with a black eye,” Irene snouted in from behind the tree.
He gave her a glare. “I’ve heard enough from you, little girl.”
“... ask for her wart in marriage ...”
“Mish mash,” Irene snapped, and then offered Gwen’s contribution to snobbish language, “Pip pip tut tut ol’ bean ol’ chap ol’ SAP.”
As soon as she heard Irene squeaking pip pip Faline stopped proposing marriage to body parts and went off into gales. Gwen had brought that bunch of sayings, insisting that she hadn’t made them up, and Faline badly wanted to go visit any land in which adults actually said pip pip to each other.
“Parp parp!” Faline honked.
“Go away,” Diana said to the guy.
Before he could answer, the rest of his party arrived—another fellow, turned out to be his cousin, and their servants.
Within five heartbeats we were all involved in a grand old insult fight. At that point Seshe stayed out of it, withdrawn and silent. In the middle of it all Faline, then Sherry, then Gwen started exchanging body-
parts in marriage again—this time between them, like “My little toe requests your spleen in marriage,” and then making Parp parp, pip pip, pop tut! noises.
When Sherry and Gwen got to animal parts (tentacles, hedgehog spines, antennae, hooves, etc) the cousin started laughing. Our guy started getting mad, and threatened Irene. At that point it was time for the Spam Pie of Justice.
These guys were not nearly as hardy as PJ’s slobs. Barely had the two Ujbanians received a sour-cream/sauerkraut deluxe and a cherry-banana-rhubarb supreme apiece when they rode off.
In triumph we went off to tell Clair.
She’d finished morning boredom and was just sitting down to lunch when we all flocked in. At once Janil broke out the food that we would have been transferring down to the Junky if we’d stayed below, as we all told her what had happened.
By now I’d gotten pretty good at reading her expression. Though she smiled and laughed at all the right places, the only time her eyes crinkled up in a real laugh was when Sherry said earnestly, “He came seeking your elbow in marriage.” Followed by Faline tootling, “Tut tut tut!”
“So anyway.” Irene dusted her hands. “He’s gone, and you’re safe.”
“Why?” Clair returned.
“Huh?”
“Why did you need to keep me safe?” Clair asked. Not mad or anything, but Irene looked as if she’d taken aboard a face-load of the cherry supremo instead of the cousin.
“Well—”
“I would have liked to do my own refusing,” Clair said.
Diana nodded once. “Thought so. Be fun for you,” she added.
“Well, I don’t know about fun,” Clair said. “I mean, he came from another country, so I suppose I should be diplomatic. Like you say he said he was being—though that makes me suspicious.”
“Like he’s a spy?” Irene asked, aghast. “I didn’t think of that.”
“No, more like marrying me sounds like a great way to become a king, get rich, not have to work, or any of that stuff.”
“But—eeeeuw,” Sherry said, her eyes wide.
Clair grinned. “Well, if I didn’t have the kid spell on me, what would I be? Fifteen or sixteen? How fun, I’ve forgotten. Maybe I should count so I can gloat on my next birthday.”
“I did,” I said—my first birthday, the thirtieth of fourth-month, having just been a couple weeks before.
Clair smiled my way, then continued. “Anyway, if they don’t know about the spell yet, he might think I’m the right age for courtship and all that flummery.”
Seshe nodded. “From a distance it sounds reasonable. Probably selfish motives, but reasonable. Plenty of people court for that reason.”
“And even say yes,” Clair admitted. “So I’ve found in the records. Another reason not to grow up! Well, I’ll have to smooth all that out, unless you girls want to go apologize and be ambassadors.”
Well, I knew duty even if it hadn’t been spelled out.
“Who’s coming with me?” I said. And, “Get some nice clothes.”
“No problem!” Irene said, smacking her hands and rubbing them.
o0o
Before we left, Clair asked us to review good manners for visiting adults in their homes. When most of the girls kind of looked uneasily at each other, Seshe turned bright red. “I could offer some things,” she said to the floor.
“Great idea.” Clair grinned. “We’ll have a Propah Dinner tonight. I’ll tell Janil to dig out the really good porcelain dishes in the back storage, and everybody has to put on her fanciest dress. Diana, you have to find a shirt without any holes in the elbows.”
The girls agreed, and that’s what we did. Janil cooked up a fancy meal and served it with delicate dishes and golden utensils I’d never seen before. Even Clair looked surprised by it all.
Pretending to be snootier than the snootiest duchess, Seshe demonstrated proper table etiquette, with a lot of crooked fingers and suchlike, to make the girls laugh. So it ended up being fun, but it also was a good lesson in how to eat nicely, and be a representative for the kingdom. “You never know when you might need it,” Clair said. “Spies always have to take manners lessons, I have read.”
“Spies!” Faline exclaimed, eyes wide. “Wow! Manners? No, nuh-uh. The only lessons they get are in sneaking around, and maybe codes.”
“Spies have to blend in when they aren’t sneaking. Look at the records.”
Faline cast a terrified look at the library as if the books would come flapping out like bats and make her read their words. When the others were done snickering at the look on her face, they galloped off to spend the rest of the evening doing fun stuff, as we’d leave early the next day.
I lingered.
Clair gave me one of those looks of hers. She said, “Seshe has what are called scruples. I think that’s what made her run away from wherever she was born.”
Scruples. I knew that word—sort of. A boring word, the kind of word adults ranted at you about, before they turned around and did what they wanted, NOT what they said.
Wrestling back my impatience, I said, “That’s kinda like a conscience, right?”
Clair looked out the kitchen window, toward the Squashed Wedding Cake in the distance. “There aren’t enough scruples—or consciences—in the world. Here’s what I like about Seshe, she never tries to be anyone else’s conscience.”
“That’s true,” I exclaimed. “You’re right!” And so my own bubbles of irritation when I saw Seshe doing the right thing were because my own under-used conscience would wake up and boot me when I should be heeding it. Even though she never, ever, yapped at us for being wrong.
I went off to think about that—not that I came to any conclusions, except the usual: to be a better princess. That always lasted until the first pocalube-causing snackle-wit got in my way!
o0o
There’s really only one other thing from that silly mess to report, which wasn’t us being brats. Clair spent a full day making us a transfer token, once she located the guy’s family on an old map, and the notes for the nearest magical transfer Destination. That way we wouldn’t have to risk traveling past Fobo’s lair on our way north. Traveling by magic didn’t feel good, but it turned a trip of several days into one of at most an hour.
We ended up being guests at the home of the guy’s mother, who was a countess. She was related to the rulers, so Clair had been right out that courtship business being (at least partly) diplomatic.
I talked to the countess, being careful to use all the ambassadorial terms that Clair had suggested. The countess was pleased, and gave me an interview with the cousins. I apologized, explained about our mistake, and the mention of the Auknuges was convincing, though they didn’t particularly like being compared to them. I got an idea that Princess Glotulae (they didn’t call her “Queen” either) had once tried to get her brother to invade Ujban. I ended by slipping the countess and her family an addition that I’d made up, and they became very thoughtful. Then, at the mother’s invitation, asked us to stay.
We were on our best behavior—Seshe was our guide on manners among toffs—but there was one thing she couldn’t do that ended up making a bit hit. And we hadn’t expected it at all.
See, they had a ballroom at that palace, and they weren’t afraid to use it. I mean, they had balls almost every night. Balls! I certainly would never have gone to one on my own, unless it was one for kids—you know, you get to wear a pretty dress with a swooshy skirt, and twirl around to music, but there’s lots of food, and maybe a food fight and some hide and seek, possibly a pool to fall into, which is ten times funnier when you’re in fancy clothes. Drinking wine and dancing around with a bunch of boys is not fun stuff unless you’re being zombies or something.
Anyway, the only ball I’d been to so far was when we broke in accidentally on one held by PJ when they practiced a dance while all dressed up. This was when we were scouting for furniture for the Junky. If he’d ignored us, we would have left him alone, but he yowled for the guards
. Ordered them to kill us. Then started chasing us himself, waving his diamond-studded sword and bellowing death threats. Of course we had to waylay him and toss him into the nearest fishpond, diamond sword and gemmed velvet and all.
What’s more, those guards hadn’t exactly been Speedy Gonzales about trying to catch us.
Anyway, we had misgivings about this ball.
We wore our nice clothes and when things began, we were careful with our manners. Faline even kept her jokes to a minimum, not saying a single “Parp parp!” to any adults.
Well, all of us like music, some more, some less. But one thing we agree on is that music made by many musicians is a real treat. Those of us who love it often go listen to the cloud-top musicians practice. But what is even more fun is having a giant room all fixed up fancy with silver-veined marble, and carvings, and velvet-covered little chairs, an orchestra playing music with a dancy beat (waltz time being my favorite) and a swishy skirt on so you can jump and leap and twirl to your heart’s content and not bump into anybody.
Anyway, we danced by ourselves, though the cousins teased us for it. (We more or less got things on a neutral footing once they found out Clair is still a kid and not planning to marry anybody—but they couldn’t resist teasing, and of course we piled on the pocalubes right back, but funny ones, not the stinkeroos we reserve for real villains.) In fact, Irene was in the middle of a long argument with a couple of guys Puddlenose’s age, when everyone fell silent one by one, some staring with their mouths open.
At what? Kwenz and an army? Faline turned into a purple squid? I whirled around, braced for anything, but only saw Dhana drifting along the side of the room the way she does in light rain, or if I sing her favorite song in one of the echo glades in the forest ... or now, when the orchestra played this weird minor-key song with a lot of triplets.
When it changed to a melody I half knew, I began singing a counterpoint, and Dhana lifted her head and arms and left the floor in an effortless leap, drifting and light as a wind-whirled leaf. I heard a couple of gasps, but by now Dhana was oblivious.