“Watch what?”
Sophora said nothing, but waved to the musicians.
At the wailing of the pipes minor and the nose-flutes, Dorcas and Eulalie began to dance “In Your Hat,” their limbs describing fluid arcs and volutes, though their still-reluctant substitute bellies came nowhere near the movements required.
“This is disgusting,” the queen said. “In our court—!”
“Well, it’s not up to standard,” the king said, without taking his eyes off the dancers, “but worth watching nonetheless…” The queen glared.
The observers gasped suddenly. Two of the court ladies were jerking spasmodically, clutching at themselves with both arms.
“What’s wrong with them?” the king asked. “Are they sick?”
“They’re trying to dance,” Dorcas said, without missing a beat of the dance. “That’s my belly—”
“No, that one’s mine,” Eulalia said. “It’s got that little extra spiralling wiggle…”
Some of the guards had begun to make enthusiastic noises, and now they burst into cheers: “Eulalia! Eulalia!” and “Dorcas! Dorcas!” as they pointed at their candidates for those respective abs among the court ladies twitching and writhing.
Sophora held up one massive hand, and the courtyard fell silent.
“It’s clear,” she said, “that terrible things have been done to your people, your majesty, but I don’t believe that these ladies had evil intent.”
“Ha!” muttered Mirabel.
“I believe they were deluded by the enchantments of a black plastic wizard—” A gasp of horror swept the yard. “—who posed as a dancing master.” She pointed.
The dancing master attempted a fast reverse shuffle, but found himself up against the bronze breastplates of a half-dozen Royal Guard, several of them women.
“See his gray hair!” Sophora thundered. Several small bits of masonry fell from the castle walls and shattered on the pavement. “That is no natural hair—that is a wizard’s choice.” She waved, and Feristax came forward. “You all know this wizard, long a respected practitioner in our fair city. Let him now examine this imposter.”
“He’s not even a licensed wizard,” Feristax said confidently. A night’s work on the informational plane of the multiverse had located the man’s own identity codes. “He’s a supplier of magical components for real wizards… In fact, he is the fellow who shipped me that very imperfect random access storage device which caused so much trouble last year. I’ve been told that he lost his franchise with several reputable manufacturers recently, that he has been suspected of tampering with network traces and virtual watermarks.”
“It’s all a stupid conspiracy!” the man—dancing master or black plastic wizard—yelled. “It’s just a way to keep down the talented and let lazy fools like you—” He stopped, a dagger at his throat.
“Gilfort, he calls himself,” Feristax said. “If it pleases your majesty, I can reverse his iniquitous and illegal spells.”
“Perhaps in a more private place,” Sophora murmured in the king’s other ear. “These ladies have been foolish and gullible, but you would not want to humiliate them…”
“Oh… no…” the king looked bewildered, his habitual expression. The queen glared at Sophora, who smiled back.
“For your own benefit, your majesty,” Sophora said.
At the end of the speedy trial—the judge, with Sophora leaning over his shoulder, did not delay proceedings in any way—all body parts were restored to their original owners, except for one: a shepherd girl in the Stormy Hills, slowed by Lady Alicia’s flabby legs, had not outrun a wolf. Alicia got to keep the girl’s legs, but had to send twenty gold crowns in compensation… or choose to spend the summer herding sheep for the girl’s family. She sent the money.
Because the Ladies’ Aid & Armor Society had incurred unreasonable expense in acquiring exercise equipment for the court ladies to use, the ladies had to agree to three classes a week for the next year, by which time the step-stools, mirrors, and showers would be paid off.
And, as a special reward for their discovery and solution of the problem, the Ladies’ Aid & Armor Society received a unique contribution to their annual Iron Jill retreat.
Thirty sulky ladies in silk tunics stepped smartly up and down the flower-painted stools to the rhythm of mallet on shield, and the brusque commands of the LA&AS top instructors.
“Aaaall right, ladies… and FIVE and FOUR and THREE and TWO and ONE… now the other foot and EIGHT and SEVEN and SIX and FIVE…”
“Let’s see those smiles, ladies! A proper court lady always smiles!”
“More GLOW, ladies! Let’s see some GLOW!”
Gilfort the Great, Dancing Master to the Royal Court and (privy) black plastic wizard, sat on the rock in the middle of the clearing, hands bound to the ring thereon, and wished he had never left Technolalia. Twenty-seven of the women of the Ladies’ Aid & Armor Society had shown up for the annual Iron Jill retreat, at which (so he had heard) terrible rituals were performed. No male had seen them and lived to tell about it.
The corresponding male-bonding ceremonies he knew about, having been taken to the fire-circle to drum and dance by his father and uncles. He had been forced to down raw fish and even a luckless mouse; he had run naked through the meadows and woods screaming the worst words he knew.
But this? Around the rock, the women swirled, seeming to ignore him, as they stripped off armor, kicked off heavy boots, and unpacked provisions for the first nights dinner.
“Hunting tomorrow,” said the tall muscly one who had prodded him in the back most of the way here. Tonight’s the last night for this boughten stuff.”
“Yeah…” breathed the others, and then they did look at him, and he wished they hadn’t.
“By the time we find and kill, we’ll be ravenous,” a perky blonde said, growling a little. “If the Mother sent us off as usual, we won’t really have much of a supper tonight…”
He could see that they didn’t. Bread, cheese—not much of it—some pickles. To his surprise, they brought him a pot of stew, and urged him to eat his fill.
“It’s all right for you,” they said. He wasn’t hungry, but the menace of their swords suggested he had better obey, and he forced the stew into a reluctant belly. Later, he hardly slept—it was amazingly difficult to sleep on a hard rock, with his hands tied, and the knowledge that twenty-seven hungry women had plans for him the next day.
Just as the first gray light seeped into the clearing, the women began to wake. First one then another stopped snoring, rolled to her feet, spat, and let out a loud yell. Birds took off, wings clapping, in all directions. Twenty-seven yells, in everything from lyric soprano (with a fine vibrato) to tenor, and afterwards they all looked at him again.
“Now didn’t that feel good?” asked the brown-haired brawny one. “Let’s do it again, and this time let all the tension out. Iron… JILLLL!”
Twenty-seven women yelling Iron Jill at the tops of their lungs sent all remaining birds thrashing out of the trees at high speed, and in the echoing silence afterwards he could hear distant hoofbeats becoming ever more distant.
“Ahhh,” said the brawny one, stretching. “Usually we can’t do that right away, not if we want any breakfast, because it scares the game, but this time…” She smiled. Gilfort the Great fainted.
When he woke up, he was being slapped gently enough by several of the women.
“Oh goodie! He’s awake,” said the perky blonde.
“Now, what you have to do,” said another, “is this: we point you away from the castle and city, and then you run. And then we chase you.”