“Believe me now?”
“Yes. Now, I think even my stomach believes you.”
“Dame Mantrell!” Alisande hurried over to her, all concern. “You should not be here… especially without armor! You might be injured.”
But Mama was more concerned with the djinn. She pointed at them and cried, “They are Moorish!”
“Huh?” Matt stared at the huge humanoids, fascinated by her confirming his own guess. “How can you tell?”
“The patterns on the cloth of their turbans and trousers! Those are Moorish, not Arabian!”
Well. Matt wouldn’t have known the difference… but he wasn’t about to argue with an expert.
Mama held up a hand like a traffic cop and intoned foreign words in a stern tone.
Alisande stared, then seized Matt’s arm. “What does she say?”
“It’s Spanish,” Matt said. Wonder flashed through his mind… was this really Spanish, or only an old dialect of Ibile? Which universe claimed her discourse? “I can’t follow the words, though.”
“It is an old form of the language,” Papa told them, “an old song, a very beautiful one, in which an infanta, a princess, calls soldiers to her banner to fight for her.”
The song certainly was calling soldiers. Every guardsman on the battlements was turning to stare at Mama… and Matt was amazed to realize how thoroughly she was really worth staring at. The old words made her seem to stand straighter, to grow larger, becoming a truly commanding presence, drawing all the men. Even Saul turned to stare, and took a few involuntary steps toward her. Her own son couldn’t take his gaze from her… the flashing in her eyes, the glow in her face, compelled his total attention, binding him under her spell. She fairly glowed with beauty.
Human males weren’t the only ones she held spellbound. The djinn dropped their boulders, staring at her. Their eyes glazed. They began to drift toward her, slowly at first, then faster and faster, as though a breeze pushed them, freshening to become a gale.
Then, suddenly, they all jerked, as though someone had given each of them a good, hard shake. They stared at Mama in disbelief. Then they began to drift toward her again… but their eyes narrowed with menace.
Mama changed meters; her chanting beat with a new rhythm, a different cadence, and her tone became severe, scolding.
Papa stared.
“It’s too old a form of Spanish for me,” Matt said, low-voiced. “What’s she saying?”
“She is rebuking them for their temerity,” said Papa.
Mama snapped her hands up, shouting a command.
“She’s telling them to go away in shame,” Papa translated.
The djinn’s eyes turned glassy again. They turned about and drifted away, thinning as they went, becoming translucent, then fading from sight.
Everyone on the battlements was silent, staring in disbelief.
Then Saul uttered a long, shaky sigh. “Man,” he said to Matt, “I can’t understand how you ever resolved your Oedipal feelings.”
Matt and Papa both stared at him; Alisande frowned, puzzled. Mama blushed.
Then Papa grinned. “No man living could ever fail to see the beauty of my Jimena… except her son.”
Mama gave Papa a sly smile. “Yes, he was attracted to younger women… from the time he turned twelve.”
“Twelve?” Saul asked in surprise, and started to say something more, but Matt said firmly, “We all have to wake up sometime, and realize that girls aren’t nasty backbiting barnacles on the ship of life.”
Alisande frowned. “Did you ever truly think so?”
“When he was eight?” Mama asked. “When he was eleven? Oh, yes. You shall see, young mother. You have a son yourself.”
“Thank you for the warning,” Alisande said, but her voice still sounded with doubt, and her gaze was uncertain. She turned to Mama, and became all business again. “You amaze me, Dame Mantrell! I had not known you were a woman of power.”
“Neither had I,” Mama confessed.
Papa shook his head. “How could you ever have failed to know it?”
Mama glanced at him with exasperation. “I did not speak of my beauty alone, Ramon.”
“Neither did I.”
“You mean she’s always been able to command spirits?” Saul asked, his voice shaky.
Papa’s gaze turned remote. “Now that I think of it, the neighbors did tell us we had bought a haunted house, but no ghosts ever disturbed us there.”
“Nonsense, Ramon!” Mama said briskly. “It was all superstition!”
Papa’s gaze focused on her. “Did I not say the peace and harmony of that house were your doing? It seems I spoke more truly than I knew.”
Matt decided that his talent probably wasn’t any stronger than his parents’, after all… just differently directed.
“But now you are in peril!” Alisande stepped up to take both of Mama’s hands between her own.
“Whatever sorcerer commands these djinn knows now that there is one who can command them as surely as he himself. I fear that you will yourself be the object of their attacks now!”
“Or other kinds of magical attacks directed directly at you,” Saul said, scowling. “She’s right, Ms. Mantrell.”
“Mrs., please,” Mama said absently. “I am old-fashioned.”
“Why debate?” Alisande drew her sword. “Kneel.”
Mama stepped back in surprise, and Papa’s eyes widened in shock even as he moved to step between them… but Matt touched his arm and said softly, “Don’t worry. It’s an honor.”
Papa hesitated, but frowned at Alisande, unsure. Mama, however, squared her shoulders as she knelt.
“I create you a dame of the land of Merovence,” Alisande said, touching each shoulder in turn with the blade. “All will now address you as ‘Dame.’ ” She stepped back, sheathing her sword.
“It confers some extra abilities,” Matt told his mother as he helped her up. “Extra courage, not that you need it… but a certain kind of tactical insight, and extra power in fighting.” He grinned. “It also gets you a lot more respect.”
Alisande turned to Papa. “I doubt not you also shall be knighted, Master Mantrell… but we must wait for your deeds, then give you both all proper ceremony.” Finally she turned to her husband again. “How shall we protect them, then?”
“We’re already doing everything we can,” Matt told her. “Between Saul’s spells and mine, this castle is so thoroughly wrapped in protective enchantments that if you could see them, it would look like a cocoon.”
“That’s why all the genies can do is stand back and throw stones,” Saul explained, “plus the occasional shake.”
Alisande nodded. “But Dame Mantrell can learn how to use her magic to even greater power. See it done immediately.”
Matt nodded. “I’ll send for Friar Ignatius right away.”
“That is well. Let it be done.” Alisande turned and inclined her head to her knights and wizards. They all gave a half bow in return; then she turned and strode into the tower.
Papa released a long, pent-up breath. “So. You have no problem in taking orders from your wife, then?”
Mama looked up at him sharply.
“From my sovereign, no,” Matt corrected. “As husband and wife, we pretty much manage to talk things out between us.”
“Is the separation of the two roles so clear, then?” Mama demanded.
Matt grinned. “No, not at all… but when we’re alone, we can be pretty sure we’re just husband and wife. Come on, Mama, Papa… advanced degrees notwithstanding, it’s time for you two to go back to school.”
I am Ramon Rodrigo Mantrell. My wife, being Cuban-born, prefers to keep the old form… she was Jimena Maria Garcia y Alvarez when I met her… but I was born in Manhattan and grew up in the Bronx, so I think far more like an American than a Spaniard, and write my name as a man of New York.