The nobles back in Queen Verity’s palace would have flicked their whiskers at such a rummage of decorations clumped in one room. The stuff didn’t go together: antiquey things from a dozen different ages and regions, all dating back at least a hundred years. But the pieces weren’t real antiques; they weren’t even good fakes. Every hunk of bric-a-brac looked gleaming and modern, as if Celestia had a hundred factories knocking off shiny-bright copies of old Troyenese things… whatever artwork and gewgaws the outside world happened to have pictures of.
I couldn’t help feeling sorry for these kids, how they were ready to buy anything that was sort of a kind of a teeny bit like mementos from Troyen. They didn’t mind mixing stuff together from all three continents and heaven knows how many eras of history, so long as it brought back memories of their birth world.
So lonely. So homesick.
But as much as I felt sorry for them, I felt pretty proud too… the way they hung on, trying to stay connected to a planet they only half remembered. Big red Zeeleepull had never heard the word Naizo, even though it’d been standard for centuries… but he knew the longer phrase, the original, like some cherished hand-me-down from the medieval warriors who’d invented it.
The more I thought about it, the more I saw what was really going on: the Mandasars here weren’t just twenty-year-old kids, they were children. No matter how grownup their bodies had got, their house was like a tree fort filled with a hodgepodge of valuable junk they’d pulled out of trash heaps or bought for a penny. None of this was sad and pathetic, or even noble; it was just what youngsters did while they were rehearsing to own adult things.
Even if a Queen Wisdom table was still tacky, tacky, tacky.
The other four hive-mates trooped in from outside just as Counselor started to wake. From the looks on their faces, Zeeleepull and the workers had mumbled and grumbled about what to do with me but hadn’t come to any conclusion. All Mandasars can make decisions when they have to, but if there’s a gentle handy, the other castes give her the deciding vote. I don’t know if that’s instinct or just habit; the gentles all swear it’s biologically hardwired, how other castes defer to them… but warriors and workers claim they only do it because gentles whine when they don’t get their own way.
Counselor blinked and twitched her whiskers a few times, shaking off the water I’d splashed on her face. Suddenly, she sat bolt-upright, staring at me in horror. "You smell…"
She couldn’t finish the sentence. Zeeleepull muttered, "Stinky hume," while the workers crowded in to see if Counselor was okay. They did all the standard things worried Mandasar moms do with children: patting Counselor’s face to check for fever; examining the color of her fingertips; sniffing the tiny musk glands at the base of her tail to make sure she didn’t smell injured.
I looked down at those button-sized glands myself. If Counselor had become a queen when she was little, those glands would have ballooned into huge green sacs.
"The smell on my face," I said to them all. "It’s venom. From a Mandasar queen."
That sent the five of them into another bout of whisker-twitching shock. With Zeeleepull, the shock only took half a second to swoop into outrage. "Dare you to pretend—"
"I’m not pretending," I interrupted. "It’s the truth."
"Then worse!" Zeeleepull yelled. The burning-wood odor of Battle Musk B began to pour off him like smoke. Thirty seconds of that and he’d go berserk… especially in the dining room’s enclosed space, where his own musk would fill the air and whip him to frenzy. Counselor put her hand to his cheek, and whispered, "Calm, calm," but Zeeleepull just kept yelling.
"If a hume, dirty awful you, dares to wear sacred venom like… like perfume…"
Uh-oh. It’s too complicated to explain now, but one of the causes of Troyen’s civil war was snooty-pants aliens riling the populace by dousing themselves with Mandasar pheromones. Zeeleepull obviously knew that… and in his mind, he’d suddenly identified me with the troublemakers who drove Troyen over the edge.
The workers were snorting and trembling now, half-scared to death by the Musk B in the air. That particular type of musk always terrifies nonwarrior castes. A scent specifically evolved to stimulate the fear response, a Mandasar scientist once told me. Counselor hollered, "Nai halabad tajjef su rellid puzo," but Zeeleepull was too far gone for that to have an effect. The words only work when everyone’s cool-headed, not when a warrior desperately wants to run riot.
Any second, there was going to be a fight… and a real fight this time, not just a warrior feeling testy, deciding to drive off an unwanted visitor. Now Zeeleepull had a reason to really hurt me: because he thought I’d committed the deliberate sacrilege of wearing venom as cologne.
I had no room to maneuver inside the house. Even worse, the dome had closed and sealed itself shut after everyone came inside; I couldn’t find the door to get out. Zeeleepull would try to kill me, and the only way to prevent that was to hurt him… bash him unconscious or cripple him so badly he couldn’t pincer me in half. I didn’t want to do it; I didn’t even know if I could do it, because there was so little space for ducking and dodging.
Then… while I was thinking and worrying and trying to figure out what to do, my hands reached out of their own accord. I wasn’t moving them, I swear. I had no idea what they were going to do. But they grabbed Zeeleepull’s snout like I was as strong as a tiger, and dragged his nose around till it was a hair breadth from my face.
He tried to yank away, but couldn’t. I remember thinking, I shouldn’t be able to hold him. In a straight tug-of-war, he outweighs me three to one. But I wrestled him close so that all he could smell was the fresh venom on my face; and I heard my own voice saying, "I am Blood-Consort Edward York, last and rightful husband of Verity the Second, High Queen and Supreme Ruler of all those who tread the Blessed Land. If you fear her name, you will yield; if not, be named her enemy and pay the price of your folly."
The words came out in a dream. I couldn’t tell if I was talking English or Troyenese; I’d never said such things before, never once tried to bully people by using my position. For all I knew, these Mandasars had no idea Queen Verity ever married a human husband… and even if they’d heard the story, why would they believe I was that man?
But Zeeleepull’s nostrils were full of the odor of queen’s venom: the venom on my face, stronger than the scent of battle musk, or the aroma of fear rising from Counselor and the workers.
Slowly, the warrior crossed his Cheejreth over his chest and closed his eyes. When I let go of his snout, he lowered it to the ground till his whole body was flat on the floor.
"Nai halabad tajjef su rellid puzo," he whispered.
Counselor was already lying down. Hib Nib Pib dropped prostrate too, pressing their faces tight against the chipped-wood rug. For a second I was standing high above their heads… and I could feel an unfamiliar expression twisting up my face. I didn’t know how it looked, but it scared me. Something out of nowhere was making me act like a stranger.
I pushed and pushed, trying to shift my face, my arms, anything. Suddenly, everything holding me back let go and I was in control again, able to move my body however I wanted. I dropped to my knees and nearly blurted out, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it… but I stopped myself in time. Warriors are quick to recognize signs of weakness; if I started apologizing, we might head back where we started, Zeeleepull going berserk and no way to avoid an all-out bonecrushing.