I looked up from the parchment. Justinia was gazing around her. “This castle is most fair!” she exclaimed. “It is like unto a child’s toy!”
The arrival of a flying carpet in the courtyard, laden with an elephant, an eastern governor’s granddaughter, an automaton, and all their luggage, had naturally attracted attention. The chaplain, short and fussy, scurried up beside me. “Do you think she can possibly be a Christian, looking like that?” he asked in a loud whisper, both shocked and intrigued.
Justinia overheard him. “Of a certainty I am a Christian,” she said haughtily. “All of Xantium’s governors have always followed the true faith.”
King Paul and Hildegarde came in across the drawbridge, practice swords in their hands. Paul stopped dead as Justinia turned with a swirl of her skirt. I wasn’t sure he even noticed the elephant. “Welcome, Lady,” he stammered as she favored him with a devastating smile. “I am the king of Yurt.”
His sword dangled unheeded and his mouth came partly open as she gave a deep, graceful curtsey, her head lowered but her eyes giving him a look of assessment. “I am honored to meet thee, most high king,” she said then, one eyebrow cocked and an amused twitch to her lips. “I was told the king of Yurt was a boy. Verily my uncle the mage has inadequate information.” I decided I didn’t have to worry after all that Paul might not find women romantically attractive.
“I desire to learn all the quaint customs of the West,” Justinia continued. “Now here is another wonder!” looking Hildegarde up and down. “Is the royal guard made up quite entire of such women? Are they perhaps bred for this purpose? This one is of a certainty a fine specimen! Or is she perhaps thy concubine?”
“No, she’s my cousin,” said Paul with an embarrassed laugh, not looking at Hildegarde. She hooked her thumbs into her belt and frowned, although as if not entirely sure what about the Lady Justinia she found insulting.
Gwennie came hurrying up at this point, before Justinia could ask us further about our western customs. “This lady is a very important visitor to Yurt from the East,” I said hurriedly. “Her great-uncle once did all of us a great service. Could you find her some appropriate accommodations?”
“The stables should suffice for my elephant,” said Justinia. “He is still quite young.”
“Welcome to Yurt!” said Gwennie, as polite as Antonia in spite of her surprise. She gave the king a quick glance and looked away again. “What a lovely dress, my lady! And what a, well, unusual way to arrive! Come right this way; the best guest chambers are in the south tower.”
The automaton stepped off the carpet with a jangling of joints to follow them. Gwennie gave a sharp gesture behind her back and several servants sprang forward, somewhat belatedly, to pick up the rest of the baggage. Paul remained stock still until Hildegarde took him rather firmly by the elbow.
I looked thoughtfully after the Lady Justinia and Gwennie. As I recalled, in the East slaves were common, and even trusted servants might throw themselves on their faces to kiss the ground at a master’s foot. But the lady did not seem to mind the relative informality of Yurt’s staff.
The automaton returned in a moment to unshackle the elephant. Highly dubious stable boys led it away, leaving the dark red carpet by itself in the courtyard. The elephant stopped at the watering trough, drank deeply, then shot a trunkful of water across its back and all over the stable boys.
“Maybe I can see a dragon some other time,” said Antonia, to reassure me in case I thought her disappointed. “But I’ve never seen an elephant before. Or a flying carpet either.”
“I rode on one once,” I said, “all the way, hundreds and thousands of miles, from the East back to Yurt.” Antonia looked at me with new respect.
Five minutes later, while I was examining the carpet and wondering if I might be able to keep it long enough to learn how the underlying spells worked that made it fly, Gwennie came racing back from the south tower. Paul and Hildegarde had gone outside again, although the king had appeared distracted enough that I thought the duchess’s daughter might have a chance to defeat him today.
“Do you know what she said?” Gwennie demanded. Her eyes were wide and voice high. “She said she thought it very ‘quaint’ that Yurt has a woman as vizier! And then she asked if I would ‘bid the slaves’ to come draw her bath!”
“And what did you tell her?”
“I don’t think we have slaves,” provided Antonia.
Gwennie smiled for a second and ruffled the girl’s hair. “We don’t. That’s what I told her. I did tell her I could assign her a lady’s maid for her stay. She started to pull herself up, as though about to tell me I was a worthless vizier who should throw herself into the moat at once, but then she relaxed and said she was sure she could cope with some ‘inconveniences’ while fleeing for her life, especially since she also had her servant. Have you ever seen anything like that creature, Wizard?”
“The mage Kaz-alrhun makes automatons; I assume it’s one of his.”
Gwennie shook her head. “If I was fleeing for my life I wouldn’t be worried about a slave shortage! I’d better send her a maid before this fine lady has to resort to something as degrading as pumping the hot water herself. Now, let’s see, which of the girls would be both skilled and obsequious, and unlikely to be spooked by that thing …”
The maids Gwennie referred to as “girls” were all older than she was. I smiled to myself as she turned on her heel, her mind apparently made up.
But she stopped for a second. “I’ll tell you one thing, Wizard,” she said in a low, intense voice. “That lady would make a terrible queen of Yurt.”
“How about a ride?” suggested Antonia, tugging at the tassels on the carpet. “I wasn’t scared in your air cart,” she added when I did not answer at once.
“All right,” I said, giving her a conspiratorial grin. “It’s not our flying carpet, but the Lady Justinia won’t be needing it for a while. And I think I still remember the magical commands to direct one of these things …”
I seated myself, Antonia in my lap, and gave the command to lift off. The carpet shot upward, far faster than the air cart, and headed rapidly south. The girl’s braids blew back into my face. “All right there?” I asked cheerfully, holding her closer.
“This is exciting, Wizard!” she shouted over the wind’s roar. Birds dodged out of our way. “Can we take Mother for a ride too?”
“We’d better not-it’s too far to get to Caelrhon and be back before anyone misses the carpet.” And besides, I was supposed to be spending time alone with Antonia this week. Was it my fault that I too would rather have been with Theodora?
“And I’m looking for something,” I added. I slowed the carpet’s flight with a few words in the Hidden Language, and we hovered while I put together a far-seeing spell to examine all the distant clouds in the sky before us.
If Justinia was the object of an assassination plot, I wanted to make sure she had not been followed to Yurt. Since Kaz-alrhun had entrusted her safety to me, I had to make sure she wasn’t killed in our best guest-room. The mage, I thought, had probably done his best to get her off unnoticed, and he might not have told even the governor himself where he was sending her, but I didn’t like to take chances.
“Nothing there,” I said to Antonia after a minute. “Just clouds.”
“No dragons?” she said, making it into a joke.
“No. Dragons would probably come from the north anyway. Let’s get back to the castle.”