II
Princess Margareta came down to dinner with her eyelids painted an iridescent blue like the Lady Justinia’s, which earned her a look of askance from the queen, and carrying a big porcelain doll. The doll wore a lace and silk dress more elaborate than the princess’s own and had golden curls arranged around its placid face in a style that even Elerius might have had trouble matching.
The king’s Great-aunt Maria threw up her hands with delight at the sight of the doll, but Antonia frowned. “The wizard told me not to bring Dolly to the table with me,” she said to the princess in a low voice, as though warning her against possible embarrassment.
But Margareta tossed her head imperiously and said in her slightly squeaky voice, “Queen Margarithia always sits wherever I do.” She ordered a servant to bring up a stool and set the doll in it, next to her own chair. One of the castle hounds, who were not supposed to be in the great hall at meal time, came up and started sniffing, but Margareta aimed a kick at it and the servant took the animal quickly away.
“Queen Margarithia is a good name for a doll,” said Antonia approvingly.
Margareta settled herself with a complacent flounce into the place of honor, at the king’s right hand. She had first been given that place by the queen two visits ago and seemed to feel it was rightfully hers.
As the rest of us seated ourselves and started passing the platters, I noticed that the young princess, however, paid less attention to King Paul than to the Lady Justinia, sitting directly across the table from her in the secondary place of honor. When Justinia took a single piece of chicken but several scoops of vegetables, Margareta pushed the three pieces of chicken she had already taken to the side of the plate and tried surreptitiously to fluff up her vegetables with a spoon. When Justinia set down her knife and switched her fork from left hand to right to eat after cutting each piece, Margareta tried to do the same, although on the second effort she dropped her knife on the floor and blushed when a servant slipped over from the other table to give her a clean one.
Paul too gave most of his attention to the Lady Justinia. Elerius was entertaining the knights and ladies with tales of his travels, including a trip right up into the far northern land of dragons, where I had never gone. He seemed so comfortable at an aristocratic table that I wondered vaguely, as I had several times before, if the family background he had always kept secret might include birth in a noble household, or if he, like me, had learned to imitate refined social graces upon taking up a post as a royal wizard. Antonia followed his stories with such rapt attention that she almost forgot to eat, but the king scarcely appeared to hear him.
When dessert came, Elerius graciously refused requests to entertain the court with illusions, referring the company instead to me. My dragons doing the tango got a much more appreciative response here than they had received last night from the renegade magic-worker who might-or might not-have been watching me covertly.
As the servants began clearing away the plates and everyone else started back toward their chambers or else talked in small groups by the hearth, the Lady Justinia put her hand on the king’s arm. “I have a question for thee, perhaps even a suggestion,” she said with a slow smile, under the sounds of general conversation.
Princess Margareta, picking up her doll, glanced toward them. Justinia, her back toward the table, did not notice either the girl or me. “I have been at thy court long enough, O King, to learn that thou art truly a man and not a boy,” Justinia continued quietly, her lips curved into a half smile and her dark eyes holding his. “A man and a king can make his own choices in love: he is not one to let the old women decide for him. Thou and I both know, do we not, that thy own choice would never be a little girl, scarce more than a child, who still plays with dolls?”
The tips of Paul’s ears went pink as he started to smile in response. But the effect on Margareta was immediate. She blanched white and stood stark still for a moment, clutching her doll to her. Queen Margarithia wide blue eyes stared unseeing at the room, and her painted china lips continued to sketch their cupid’s-bow smile.
Then Margareta whirled around, the doll swinging from one hand, and stormed from the room. Queen Margarithia’s porcelain head struck the table leg and shattered explosively. A number of people turned at the sound, but Margareta, almost running, did not seem to notice.
Neither did Paul, although Justinia glanced briefly over her shoulder. “Who do you think then my choice should be, my lady?” he asked. My liege lord’s expression was so intense and so vulnerable that I felt almost ashamed to be eavesdropping.
“The choice is thine to make, O King,” she said, looking at him from under long lashes. “But I believe there is a heart in the castle that loves truly, has loved thee a very long time, with a care thou hast ignored for far too long.”
I turned away. The queen, frowning, was looking toward Paul and Justinia, but this was something the king would have to take care of by himself. The Lady Justinia might think she was pleading Gwennie’s cause, but to me it looked only as though she were advancing her own.
Gwennie had reasserted her authority as arranger of accommodations in the castle and had told me that a little girl could not possibly stay in my chambers with two wizards, and instead would sleep with her in her own room until the twins returned. That was fine with me-it kept her away from Elerius. Antonia had been quite smug earlier about this opportunity to sleep in three different rooms in a castle and said she could hardly wait to tell her friend Jen.
This evening, however, she kept referring to the smashing of Queen Margarithia. Antonia thought Margareta must be especially upset because she had destroyed her beloved doll herself, and when I explained that my magic would not put broken porcelain back together, she suggested earnestly that we send at once for the Dog-Man. I took her to Gwennie’s room and sat holding her hand until she fell asleep.
The room was reached from the courtyard by an outside staircase. Gwennie was waiting when I came out. “Could I talk to you for a moment, Wizard?”
We sat side by side on the stone steps, still warm from the day’s sun although it was now twilight. The castle around us was growing quiet, but from the stables came faint sounds of restless horses who had yet to reconcile themselves to the company of an elephant. The last swallows darted high overhead.
I looked at Gwennie from the corner of my eye while waiting for her to begin. She had a finely-shaped nose and brow-line, if a rather firm chin marked by a slight cleft, and straight dark blonde hair that was always escaping its pins. I myself thought she was as lovely as the Lady Justinia.
“All the years my father was constable,” she said with strained cheer after a few minutes, “I never realized how difficult his duties must be! Keeping the castle accounts, hiring new servants, assigning them their duties and ascertaining that they carry them out, making decisions ranging from when to whitewash the walls to when to buy new table linens to whether we should plant barley or rye this spring-”
“I’m sure everyone appreciates how smoothly the castle runs under your direction,” I said and waited again, knowing this was not what she wanted to talk about. For that matter, I had never really thought myself about the merits of barley versus rye. Gwennie was again silent as shadow filled the castle courtyard.
“This morning,” she said at last in a low voice, not looking at me. “Did you hear what that eastern princess tried to tell me?”
It didn’t seem worth denying. “I’m afraid I couldn’t help overhearing.”
“The worst of it is,” she said, so quietly I had to strain to follow, “I almost found myself agreeing with her.”
“Ahh,” I said as noncommittally as possible. This sounded more like something for which a castle employed a Royal Chaplain than an issue for the Royal Wizard. But then I wouldn’t have taken a moral dilemma to our chaplain either.