'Yes, yes, I know!' the king snapped pettishly.'All right. I'll see them.' 'Today?'
'No. Tomorrow. I'll not have them thinking I'm a pushover!'
The princess frowned, apparently consulting an inner diary. 'In the afternoon? Say three o'clock?'
'If I must,' the king said with a martyred sigh. 'But I'll not see them without a wizard!'
'You've got a wizard, Lional! He's standing right in front of you!'
Lional the Forty-third threw up his hands. 'Well, something is standing in front of me, I grant you! But I'm yet to be convinced it's a wizard. Good God, Melissande, look at him! He's even younger than that daft idiot Rupert! He's almost as young as youV
'So? What's age got to do with it?' the princess replied. 'You sacked your entire privy council because they refused to accept that anybody under the age of sixty can rule a kingdom then turned round and made me prime minister, so how can you say that Gerald's too young to be a wizard? What would you know about it anyway? You're not a wizard!'
The king's eyes narrowed. 'Oh, so it's Gerald now, is it?'
'Professor Dunwoody, I mean,' said the princess. She was blushing. 'And he absolutely is a wizard. Aren't you, Professor?'
'What?' said Gerald. It'd been so long since they'd noticed him he'd almost forgotten he was standing there. 'I mean, yes, Your Highness! I absolutely am a wizard.'
'A deaf one, from the looks of it,' the king snapped. 'You've brought your qualifications, I take it?'
He nudged the carpet-bag at his feet. 'Yes, Your Majesty.'
King Lional held out a hand, his expression long-suffering. Gerald dropped to one knee, rummaged inside the carpet-bag and pulled out his certificate of registration, complete with its impressive Department of Thaumaturgy crimson seal. Straightening, he proffered it to the king.
New Ottosland's monarch inspected the certificate. Then he looked up, frowning. 'Is this your idea of a joke?' He blinked.'Joke? Ah — no, Your Majesty' 'You're a Third Grade wizard?' 'Yes, Your Majesty.'
'Third Grade? Not First — or even Second? Third?'
He risked a nervous glance at the princess, who was chewing on her lip. 'Yes, Your Majesty. I'm sorry Is that a problem? Only the Positions Vacant piece said grading wasn't relevant. But as it happens I do have a little First Grade experience. Sort of. If that helps.'
King Lional stared, his golden eyebrows shooting up. The orange cat yowled. 'No, it does not! Melissande — '
'He's the only one who answered the ad, Lional!' the princess cried.'Nobody else was interested!'
'What do you mean, nobody', the king said, after an awful silence. 'There must be hundreds of wizards in the world.'
'Thousands,' said his sister. 'But not one of them put his hand up to be your new royal court wizard. And can you blame them, after all the ads we've placed lately? Did you think nobody would notice we've got a revolving door exclusively for royal court wizards in New Ottosland?'
'But a Tliird Grader?' the king shouted, and threw the certificate onto the floor. 'You might as well have hired me a toy wizard! One of those silly wind-up dolls with the battery-operated staff]'
Gerald looked up from retrieving his qualifications. 'I assure you, Your Majesty, I'm a trifle more magical than a doll!'
'Oh, bugger,' muttered Reg. 'Now you've done it.'
King Lional the Forty-third sat back on his throne, smiling. His teeth were ice-white and immaculately even.'Really?' he drawled.
To hell with being intimidated by good dentistry. 'Really'
The king's smile widened. 'How exciting. Prove it.'
Without meaning to, Gerald took a backwards step. Oh, hell. He really had done it, hadn't he? Prove it? Prove it how?
Still smiling, the king continued. 'You have sixty seconds, Professor, by the end of which you'll have demonstrated one of two things: why I should keep you here as my royal court wizard, or why you'll be discovering first hand the joys of traversing the Kallarapi Desert on foot. Do I make myself clear?'
Horrified, he looked at Princess Melissande. She lifted her shoulders in a tiny shrug, mute.
The king cleared his throat. 'Tick tock, tick tock, Professor.'
'Yes, Your Majesty!' he said.'Please — if I might have a moment to think?'
'You have fifty moments, Professor,' said King Lional. 'What you do with them is entirely your own affair.'
Gerald shoved the certificate back in his carpetbag and turned away, hunching his shoulder. 'Okay, Reg,' he whispered. 'What do I do now? I can't walk across a desert! I'll fry!'
'Calm down,' Reg whispered back. 'This won't be solved by panicking.'
'It won't be solved by magic, either! A simple Third Grade incant won't save me! You heard him, he wants a First Grade wizard!'
'Then a First Grade wizard's what you'd better give him, Gerald,' hissed Reg.'And quick!'
'Professor,' said the king, 'am I imagining things or are you consulting with that fusty heap of feathers on your shoulder?'
He spun around, struggling not to glance guiltily at the princess. 'Consulting? With Reg? Oh, no, Your Majesty. Why would I do that? Reg is a bird. No. I was just — thinking out loud.'
'Then I suggest you think more quietly,' said the king. 'And faster.'
The royal smile was by this time unsettling. 'Yes, Your Majesty. Sorry, Your Majesty.'
But it was easier said than done. His mind felt like cold molasses. All the incantations he'd ever learned whether he was supposed to or not stirred sluggishly, unwilling to be examined, and he couldn't feel so much as a twinkle of the power that had burst from him at Stuttley's. A dream, a dream, it was all a mad dream.
Obdurately immune to King Lional's menace, Reg leaned close. 'Come on, Gerald, you're running out of time! For the love of serendipity do something! Anything1.'
With a fire-flashing of jewels in the bright chandelier light the king stood, tossing his fat orange cat unceremoniously to the floor. It dived beneath the throne and crouched there, swearing gruesomely under its breath.
'Well, Professor, this has been somewhat less than entertaining,' he said briskly. 'Such a pity you've come all this way for nothing but you can blame my sister for that. Melissande, do be sure to meet me in my privy chamber an hour from now so that we can discuss this little contretemps in delightful, private and uninterrupted detail. As for you, Professor, I'll have someone provide you with a map and a little bottle of water and show you the way to the kingdom's border. Such a pity but — '
As Princess Melissande leapt forward, protesting, Gerald threw caution to the winds and shouted at royalty. 'No, Your Majesty! Wait!'
Encouraged by the pin-dropping silence, Lional's cat inched itself out from under the throne and began washing one chubby leg, still grumbling. Astonished, the king stared.
'You raised your voice to me,' he said, wonderingly. 'Are you deranged?'
Gerald winced.'No, Your Majesty. Just desperate. You see I really, really want this job.'Well. Needed it. But want sounded better.
The king's eyebrows shot up.'Of course you do. But your desires are hardly relevant. What is relevant, Mister Third Grade Wizard, is whether / want you!
The cat snickered in the back of its throat. Hating it, Gerald felt his fingers itch to conjure a resounding case of feline scabby-arse. Feeling his hot gaze the cat looked up and smirked.
A nugget of an idea rolled to the surface of his stunned mind and glinted, briefly.
The fat, obnoxious cat. King Lional's ego. The memory of a First Grade wizard's power coursing through his veins. All those mysterious, forbidden incantations Reg had bullied him into learning… and one in particular…
'Yes, Your Majesty,' he said.'You do. And if you'll give me a moment to prepare, I'll show you why'