Balkis turned back into a cat and stayed on the main road. There were no more dogs in the streets—they all seemed to be chained inside the yards of the great houses—so as dusk turned into night, she came unscathed to the broad park that fronted the castle’s lower wall. She felt terribly exposed crossing it, even in darkness, but she came to the wall without incident. She followed it until she came to a wooden gate, climbed it when the sentry was looking the other way, and cat-footed her way along the top of the wall until she came to a cherry tree espaliered against the stones. She climbed down it and sprinted across the garden it contained—and nearly fell into the moat.
She managed to claw her way to a stop, heart thudding, and looked about her in the moonlight, wondering if she might fare better as a girl now. But no one seemed to be about, except for the occasional sentry strolling his rounds, so she followed the moat, reasoning that there had to be a bridge somewhere.
There was, and it was down. All she had to do was wait until the sentries were looking the other way again, then sprint across the wood and into the shadows of the gatehouse. As she was catching her breath, she saw a small portal at the end of the passage open. Half a dozen guards came out to relieve the sentries. Quick as thought, she darted through the portal; it closed half an inch behind the tip of her tail.
She crouched in the shadows by the wall. The light of a torch high above showed her a spiral staircase. She sniffed, drinking in the smells of people washed too seldom, and of rats and mice sneaking about their nighttime business. She resisted the urge to go hunting and fairly flowed up the stone steps.
On the second floor she caught a whiff of a distant but familiar aroma, or a mixture of them, more accurately—cow’s milk, soiled diapers, and sweet soap: the scent of a human baby. Nose twitching, she followed the aroma down halls and around comers until she came to a closed door. The baby-smell coming between the wood and the stone was quite strong, but there was also the scent of a grown woman—a nurse, no doubt. She padded along, identifying the aromas that went with a little boy—twigs and string, and the definite scent of a frog hidden somewhere—then past to a door that smelled of perfume. The one beyond reeked of leather and some sort of herb that evoked a memory from infancy, too evanescent to pin down, and Balkis knew better than to waste time trying, the more so because she saw an open door ahead of her at the end of the hallway.
She darted through it and found it a glare of moonlight. Instantly, her cat-eyes contracted until the light was comfortable, and she looked about her with interest, at a Persian carpet on the floor, oaken table and chairs, and clerestory windows filling a whole wall. She had never seen such a chamber, but had heard of them—it was a solar, a room that would be filled with the morning sun in a few hours, a place where people of the nobility passed their time when they were neither abed nor at work out of doors. The traces of perfume, baby-smell, boy-smell, leather, and that strange herb, told her, as clearly as though she could see them before her, that this was where the queen, the prince and princess, and the Lord Wizard gathered away from the public eye, to relax and be a family for a few hours each day.
What better place for a feline ambush? Balkis looked about her—and froze, astonished at the sight of a set of shelves eight feet wide that stretched to the ceiling, filled with books, real books! She had never seen so many in a single place, never more than a few together, and that only in the parsonage of the forest chapel. Whether they were about magic or not, she felt a sharp desire to read every one.
She would find a way to stay with this family, one way or another.
There were also tapestries hung as high as the bookcase, lower fringes brushing the floor. Balkis crept behind one to hide—and suddenly realized how tired she was. She kneaded the stone floor with her claws as she turned about and about, despaired of the flags growing any softer, and curled up in a ball to wait until daylight, and her chance to enchant the enchanter—or, at least, his wife and children.
Ramon Mantrell gazed fondly at his wife—fondly, and with something more than admiration, enough to make her lower her eyes demurely. “Ramon! Thirty years married, and still you stare?”
“I was only thinking how splendidly Renaissance gowns become you, my dear.”
“And show a bit more bosom than is decent?” Jimena challenged him.
“Never too much,” her husband assured her, “and our daughter-in-law’s solar sets off your brocade perfectly. How many confirmed wives still glow in sunlight?”
Flooded by the sun, the whole room seemed vibrant and alive, as though it resonated with the vitality of the family that passed most of its free hours within it. The books seemed to radiate the spell of great stories, the tapestries almost to come to life, and even the granite blocks to warm with the morning’s light. The wood of the table, chairs, and chest seemed to live in some fashion, and to delight in their part in the living gestalt that was the family.
“And I must say that doublet and hose become you.” Jimena reached out a hand to caress his. “Enough to make me think most ungrandmotherly thoughts. Have you not heard of a grandfather’s only regret?”
“What, that he is married to a grandmother?” Ramon’s grin widened. “There can never be regret, if the grandmother is you.”
Footsteps sounded in the hall, and voices in earnest discussion, with smaller voices raised in salute to the dawn behind them.
“Hush, now.” Jimena patted his hand. “Here come the children. Behave.”
Their son Matthew and his wife, Queen Alisande, swept into the solar, followed by two nursemaids, a small boy and smaller girl, and a butler and two footmen. The queen was saying, “Yes, it is far away, but the presence of so many barbarians coming closer and closer to Europe concerns me.”
“And if it concerns you, it concerns Merovence.” Matt nodded. “But they’re still far away, dear, and we can take half an hour away from them to enjoy breakfast with our family.”
“Oh, of course!” Alisande said with chagrin, and turned to her parents-in-law contritely. “Good morning, lord and lady.”
“Good morning, Your Majesty.” Ramon gave a little bow, sure that she would be calling him “Father” in a few minutes.
Jimena didn’t seem disturbed by Alisande’s early morning formalities, either. She clasped her daughter-in-law’s hand and said, “I am so glad you have accepted our custom of the family’s dining together, my dear.”
“It is wise council, my lady mother,” Alisande said, “and I thank you for it.”
They took their seats in hourglass chairs, and two small ones with very long legs, around an octagonal table set for breakfast. Sunlight filled them all with the morning’s glow.
“Some of your fellow monarchs may sneer at our living like peasants in such a manner,” Ramon cautioned her.
“True,” Alisande agreed, “but it will endear us to the common folk, and what are we without their support?”
“A good point,” said Papa, thinking of the last czar.
“Besides,” Alisande said, “when we have so little time to be a family, we must make the most of each minute … Kaprin, your spoon!”
“Yes, Mama,” the little boy grumbled, picking up his spoon and abandoning his dream of fistfuls of porridge. He dug the spoon in and eyed his sister as though estimating the range.
“It’s for putting the food in your mouth,” Matt said quickly, and Kaprin cast his father a guilty look, then brought the spoon to his lips, all injured innocence.