King Arch made a sound deep within his throat, a doubtful grunt. “Frankly, Nolan, I don’t have the highest regard for you, letting yourself be bossed around by your wife as you do.”
King Nolan did not feel-nor had he ever felt-bossed around by Genevieve. He loved his wife, in part, because of her strength, her estimable handling of the very responsibilities that Arch thought should fall only on a man’s shoulders. To Nolan, nothing could compare to the love of his kind, strong-willed queen.
“So,” Arch said, “you’d receive military support to help defend against your enemies and what would I get? What benefits would the people of Boarderland be able to expect as a result of this proposed nation-coupling?”
“I am prepared to offer you crystal-mining rights within our borders, twice-yearly payments of a million howlite gemstones, and the use of our military should the need for it ever arise.”
King Arch stood; the meeting was over. “I’ll consider it and send word of my decision in the next week or so.”
Eager to arrive back at Heart Palace in time for Alyss’ birthday, Nolan made a race of the journey with his men, riding at full speed without stopping for rest or food. They were still half a day’s ride away. The mountain ridge was far behind them now and they galloped across a dusty plain. At the crest of a hill, with Heart Palace visible on the horizon, Nolan reined in his spirit-dane. A gust of wind carried with it-or so he imagined, for he was quite a distance from the palace-the sounds of revelry, music, and laughter. His men came to a stop beside him.
“What is it, my lord?”
“She’ll never forgive me for missing the party.”
“I think the queen would forgive you anything, my lord.” “Not the queen. The princess.”
“Oh. With her you’ll have trouble.”
The men laughed. With Alyss, King Nolan would indeed have trouble, but it would be a pleasant sort of trouble. Even in her pouts, he thought his daughter a delightful creature.
“Hi-yah!” With a refreshed sense of urgency, the king prodded his spirit-dane onward, toward home and family.
CHAPTER 3
B IBWIT HARTE gathered together books and papers in preparation for his charge’s lessons the next day. Now that she had reached her seventh birthday, Alyss would begin her formal training to become
queen.
“And being a queen isn’t easy,” muttered Bibwit Harte. “The position comes with tremendous responsibilities. One has to study law and government and ethics and morality. One must train the imagination for the promotion of peace and harmony and the precepts of White Imagination, because Black Imagination is not what anybody wants at all, oh no. And if that isn’t enough, there’s the Looking Glass Maze to get through.” Bibwit Harte, alone in the library at Heart Palace, recited from an ancient Wonderland text, In Queendom Speramus: “A unique Looking Glass Maze exists for every would-be queen. The maze must be successfully navigated by the would-be queen if she is to reach her imagination’s full potential and thus be fit to rule.” The tutor returned to his usual tone: “And where the Looking Glass Maze is, only the caterpillars know.”
Mr. Bibwit Harte was an albino, seven feet tall, with bluish green veins pulsing visibly beneath his skin, and ears a bit large for his head-ears so sensitive that he could hear someone whispering from three streets away. He was rather intelligent, but he had the habit of talking to himself, which more than a few Wonderlanders found strange, particularly members of the Diamond, Spade, and Club families, not one
of whom had ever forgiven him for his decades-long schooling of the Heart daughters as opposed to their own. Not that Bibwit paid much attention to what others thought of him. He talked to himself because there weren’t many people as learned as he, and he liked to talk to learned people.
“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you!”
Bibwit threw open a pair of doors leading to the royal gardens, and the chorus of voices might have become painfully loud to his finicky ears if it had been any other song sung to any other princess. But he found nothing too much when it was in appreciation of Alyss. Among the assembled guests being led in song by the garden’s sunflowers, tulips, and daisies, Bibwit spied various members of the suit families (he bowed to the Lady of Diamonds when he caught her eye) and General Doppelganger, commander of the royal army, who suddenly split in two and became the twin figures of Generals Doppel and Ganger, so as to lend two voices to the song instead of one. Bibwit bowed to the blue caterpillar-that oracle of
oracles, sage of sages, wisest of the wise-sitting curled in a corner of the garden, puffing on his hookah while a gwynook-a small creature with a penguin’s body and an old man’s wrinkled face-waddled about on his back.
“Waddling is an underappreciated art,” Bibwit heard the gwynook say to the caterpillar. “Say, let me have a puff of that.”
“Ahem hmm hem,” grumbled the caterpillar, who never shared his pipe with gwynooks, even on the happy occasion of Alyss Heart’s birthday. “Smoking’s bad for you.”
“It is indeed a special day when a caterpillar comes all the way from the Valley of Mushrooms to partake in the celebration,” Bibwit Harte murmured, watching two spirit-danes pull a giant cake toward Alyss, a host of tuttle-birds glowing and flapping their wings in place of candles. Next to the birthday girl stood the queen, and behind her, Hatter Madigan, leading member of Wonderland’s elite security force known as the Millinery, and the queen’s personal bodyguard. Carrying the backpack common among Millinery
men, wearing a long coat and bracelets, and the top hat he took off only in times of violence, he alone in the crowd remained stoic, alert.
The song ended. The guests applauded, and Queen Genevieve said, “Make a wish, Alyss.”
“Besides wishing that Father had never gone on his trip,” Alyss declared, “I wish to be queen for a day.” Her mother’s crown lifted into the air and floated toward her head. The guests laughed-all except
Hatter Madigan, who never laughed.
“Hatter Madigan,” sighed Bibwit, “even you should relax sometimes and enjoy yourself.”
“You’ll be queen soon enough,” Genevieve said to her daughter. The queen’s imagination was not exactly weak, and the crown floated back onto her head.
Alyss noticed Bibwit standing at the library doors and decided to have a little fun. It was the least she could do until she found Dodge. She whispered, “Do you want some cake, Bibwit Harte?”
The tutor nodded and she brought him a slice of cake on an edible chocolate plate.
“Happy un-birthday to you,” she said. “It’s raisin-butterscotch with peanut butter, marshmallows, and gummy wads. It’s the best.”
Bibwit stared at the cake. “Yes, well…thank you, Alyss. But I’m afraid you won’t be so nice to me after we begin our lessons tomorrow.”
“I won’t need any lessons,” Alyss said. “I’ll just imagine that I know everything and then I will, so you won’t have to give them to me.”
Bibwit picked at the cake, examining it, squinting at it. “My dear,” he said, “you can’t imagine everything because you don’t know everything there is to imagine. That’s precisely where the lessons come in. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. I taught your grandmother and your mother when they were your
age, and yes, I did try to teach the woman who shall not be named-namely, your aunt Redd-but we won’t go into that.”
Not at all sure that it was the right thing to do, Bibwit put a bit of cake into his mouth. He chewed once, twice, but something was amiss; the stuff in his mouth felt like it was moving. Alyss started to laugh. Bibwit spat the half-chewed cake into the palm of his hand and saw that it wasn’t cake at all; it had turned into a handful of gwormmies.