The lightning looked at him.
“You were right,” she said. “There’s no spell I couldn’t power, now. Nothing I couldn’t do. Nowhere we can’t go.”
“ … We,” he said.
Very slowly, she put her whiskers forward.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go practice …” She passed, a long time—four breaths, five—then said it: ” … brother. We’re going to have a busy night.”
And the vision faded … and in her sleep, Rhiow put her whiskers forward, and knew that a tide had turned.
EIGHT
It was the morning of 6 June 1874: sunny and hot, one more baking hot day in the middle of one of the most prolonged hot spells to manifest itself in the British Isles for nearly fifty years. Temperatures had been in the eighties every day for the past two weeks. The Times reported that a stationary high was in place over the Isles and showed no signs of moving in the immediate future.
A small stout woman on horseback came riding sedately up through Windsor Home Park at an easy canter. She wore a long black riding dress, and rode sidesaddle with some grace and ease. She rode around the path that skirted the East Terrace Garden, and came up to the George the Sixth Gateway, clattering through under the archway and into the wide, graveled space of the Upper Ward. Grooms ran forward to take her horse as she stopped near the little circular tower which marked the entrance to the State Apartments. One groom bent down to offer his back as a step to the woman dismounting: another took her by the hand and helped her down.
“He is breathing better this morning, Rackham,” she said to one of the grooms. “Perhaps he will not need the mash any more this week.”
“Yes, your Majesty.”
She swept in through the entrance to the State Apartments and up the stairs, then bustled down along the hallway which ran down the length of the first floor, making for the day room attached to her own apartments there. Maids curtsied low and footmen bowed as she passed: one of them rose to open the door to the day room for her.
The Queen stepped into the room, and then stopped, very surprised. Tumbling about on the carpet were two small cats, one mostly white with black patches, one more black with white patches, wrestling with each other. As the Queen looked at them, they rolled over and gazed at her with big innocent golden eyes.
“Meow,” said one of them.
The Queen’s mouth dropped open, and she clapped her hands for delight. One of the maids appeared immediately. “Siddons,” said Queen Victoria, “wherever did these darling kittens come from?”
“Please, your Majesty, I don’t know,” said Siddons, a beautifully dressed young woman who immediately began to wonder if she was going to get in trouble for this. “Maybe they came in from outside, your Majesty.”
“Well, we must make inquiries and see if we can discover to whom they belong,” said the Queen, “but they are certainly very welcome here.”
She went over to them, knelt down on one knee and stroked one of them, the kitten with more black than white. They were really a little larger than kittens, but were not yet full grown cats. The one she was stroking caught her hand in soft paws and gave it a little lick, then looked up at her with big eyes again.
“Darling thing!” said the Queen, and picked the little cat up in her arms, holding it so that it lay on its back. The small cat patted her face gently with one paw and gazed up at her adoringly.
“What was that you said? ‘Meow’?” said Siffha’h, still rolling and stretching on the floor. “Look at you, squirming around like you’ve still got your milk teeth. How shameless can you get?”
“Well, it says here that a cat may look at a King,” Arhu said. “So I’m looking.”
“Well, this is a Queen. And it doesn’t say anything about being truly sickeningly sweet to the point where Iau Herself will come down from broad Heaven and tell you you’re overdoing it. You’re going to do bad things to my blood sugar.”
“You’re a wizard: adjust it. Meanwhile, at least she smells nice. Some of the ehhif around here could use a scrub.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Well, come on, don’t just lie there. We’ve got to get ourselves well settled in. Find something to be cute with.”
Siffha’h got up and headed for a thick velvet bell-pull with tassels. “All right, but I’m not sure this isn’t going to stunt my growth.” She started to play with the tassels.
The Queen burst out laughing and put Arhu down. “Oh, my dear little kitties,” said the Queen, “would you like something to eat?” She turned to look over her shoulder, toward the butler standing in the doorway. “Fownes, bring some milk. And some cold chicken from the buffet.”
“Yes, your Majesty.”
“Now for once Urruah was right about something,” Arhu said. “Milk and cold chicken. I don’t suppose they’ve invented pastrami yet …”
Siffha’h inclined her head slightly to listen to the Whispering. “You’re on the wrong side of the Atlantic. They do have it in New York …”
“Dear Mr. Disraeli is coming to see me before lunch,” she said to the cats. “You must be kind to him and not scratch his legs. Mr. Disraeli is not a cat person.”
“Uh oh,” Arhu said.
“I wish she hadn’t said that,” Siffha’h said. “I won’t be able to resist, now …”
“Don’t do it,” Arhu said. “He might nuke something.”
“Please,” Siffha’h said. However pleasant the surroundings, none of them had been able to stop looking up at the sky for that quiet reminder of which Power seemed to be busiest in this universe at the moment.
“Have you been in the bedroom yet?” Arhu said.
“No.”
“Better take a look, then.”
“OK.”
“Hey! Don’t walk—scamper.”
Siffha’h scampered, producing another trill of laughter from the Queen. Arhu went after her the same way. A door opened out of the day room into the anteroom, and from the anteroom, to the right, into the royal bedroom. The bed was quite large, and beautifully covered all in white linen.
Siffha’h looked it over critically, walking around it. “It’s a good size,” she said to Arhu. “But not so big that we can’t put a forcefield over it that would stop a raging elephant, not to mention a guy with a knife.”
“We’ll have to be careful how we trigger it, though. If she gets up for something in the middle of the night, she’ll bang herself on it and get upset.”
“Wouldn’t want that,” Siffha’h said. She walked around to look at the elaborately carved headboard. “Hey, look at the nibble marks. She’s had mice in here.”
“Yeah, well, we need to make sure she doesn’t have another one,” Arhu said. “With much bigger teeth.”
“Your Majesty,” said a servant who appeared at the day-room door and bowed, “the Prime Minister has arrived.”
“Very good. Bring his usual tea. Where is the cats’ chicken?”
“Coming, your Majesty.”
“Here, kitties,” the Queen called, “come and have some milk!”
They glanced at each other. “I am not used to this kind of thing,” said Siffha’h. “Let her wait a few minutes.”
“Why? You’re hungry.”
“If we come when she calls us, she’s going to get the idea that we’ll do that all the time. We’re People, for Iau’s sake.”
“Well, she’s a Queen, and she’s used to people coming when she calls. All kinds of people. Come on, Sif, humor her a little.”