Balkis leaped up and glared at him.
“Probably right,” Matt said judiciously. “After all, if you didn’t have any boys buzzing around you, you’d prefer the toms.”
Balkis arched her back, spitting, even as she seemed to flow and swell and writhe into an amorphous white-and-tan giant egg that pulled in on itself to take human form, Helga’s form. “A lass might also seek refuge if she suspects the boys want only her pretty body, her father’s fields, and her mother’s house!”
Matt caught his breath; fired by anger, she was beautiful indeed. “Quite right, too,” he said, “and I can see why they wouldn’t let you alone. You really are a beauty.”
Balkis stared, confused by his change in direction—and suddenly wary.
Time for a touch of fatherly reassurance, Matt decided. “I hope my little daughter will be as pretty as you when she grows up.”
Balkis eyed him uncertainly. “You do not wish her to look like her mother?”
“Oh, definitely I do,” Matt said. “After all, I married the most beautiful woman in the world.”
Balkis’ eyes sparked with jealousy—but also with reassurance. “How will you manage to return to her, then?”
“By finding out who’s threatening her, along with the rest of Europe,” Matt said, “then taking passage on a ship. Of course, I might call up a friendly dragon and hitch a ride, or even see if my transportation spells will take me halfway around the world.”
“You have not even thought of it, then.”
“Not really,” Matt admitted. “Not time to think of going home, you see—I haven’t found out what Alisande needs to know.”
Balkis stared at him in frank disbelief. “You have never doubted for a moment that you can return whenever you wish!”
Matt nodded. “I’ve had experience along those lines. How about you?”
“What of me?” Instantly, Balkis was on the defensive. “I have had very little experience of any kind, except in dealing with bumptious males!”
Matt took the warning even if it wasn’t needed. “Did you really come to Merovence to learn magic from me?”
“Even as Idris advised, aye.”
“Really must meet this Idris someday,” Matt muttered, then aloud, “Where did you come from?”
“From Allustria, as I’ve told you.”
Matt shook his head. “You’re too exotic. They don’t grow eyes like yours, or skin that tone, in southern Allustria. Where did you come from before that?”
“I—I do not know.” Balkis’ voice faltered. “Idris enchanted me and drew out memories of women with skin like bark and green hair who helped me—she called them dryads—and of others whose tresses were like seaweed and whose skin was greenly tinted. She called them nixies.”
“Water-spirits.” Matt nodded. “They have different names in different countries. They helped you?”
“Aye, nixies and dryads both. The nixies took me to the dryads, who cared for me, gave me the power to tum into a cat, and directed me to join a caravan that took me to a place called Novgorod.”
“Novgorod?” Matt stared. “That’s in Russia!”
“What is Russia?”
“A country far to the east of Merovence.” Matt frowned. “How old were you when you made this journey?”
Balkis gazed off into space, remembering. “My mother said I was two when I came to them.”
“Two years old?” Matt stared. “How did you survive?”
“As a cat,” Balkis said with irritation. “With four legs, claws, and sharp teeth, I was well enough grown to make my own way when I was only a year old.”
“Clever, clever,” Matt said, marveling. “Your dryads may have had wooden heads, but they were filled with brains.” Then another thought struck. “It was they who gave you your magical talent!”
“Aye—or so said Idris. She guessed that I had spent most of my first year in the forest, and that the dryads had stroked my fur many times …”
“And left a charge of static magic every time. Yes.” Matt nodded. “No wonder you can learn wizardry.”
“Idris said I was an apt pupil, that I learned all she knew in a year.”
Matt shuddered. “Major talent indeed. I’ll have to be careful what spells I work while you’re around.”
“Why?” Balkis’ gaze sharpened. “Do you not want me to learn?”
“No, I do want you to learn.” Matt sighed, remembering this same conversation with student after student when he’d been a teaching fellow. “But you have to learn to walk before you can learn to run.”
“What does that mean?” Balkis challenged.
“That you have to understand the intermediate spells before you try the advanced ones, because if you try to use the tougher spells right away, you’re liable to kill yourself and everyone near you.”
Balkis shrank. “Is magic so dangerous as that?”
“Oh, yes,” Matt said softly. “Very dangerous indeed.” He remembered the ocean roaring in over the land bridge between Merovence and Bretanglia when he’d made it sink by a spell the druids had given him, and shuddered. “You bet it can be dangerous. Ask me before you try anything you’ve heard me chant, okay?”
“If you wish.” Balkis’ eyes were wide and frightened.
“Hey, don’t be that put off!” Matt reached out a reassuring hand, brushed her fingers. “You shouldn’t be afraid of magic—just have a very healthy respect for it.”
Balkis stared at him a moment longer, then relaxed enough to smile.
“See? Caution doesn’t mean -fear.” Matt grinned, then turned serious again. “A caravan to Novgorod, you said? What kinds of animals?”
“Tall ones, each with two humps on its back.”
“Bactrian camels.” Matt pursed his lips. “Do you remember whether the sun was behind you when you started out in the mornings, or in front of you?”
Balkis’ eyes lost focus as she gazed back into the very early pictures Idris had called up within her. “Behind.”
“And the sunset was in front?”
Again the look back into memory, again the nod. “Aye.”
“Then you were traveling from the east toward the west.” Matt nodded. “That accounts for your skin tone and eyes—but how far east, I wonder?”
Balkis stared. “What could the east have to do with my appearance?”
“Because the people far to the east, in Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea, China, and Japan, have golden skin, and folds at the outer comers of their eyes that make them look slanted.”
Balkis touched her eyes. “Like mine!”
“Yes, but your skin has only a touch of gold to it, your eyes only a hint of a tilt, and your hair is dark brown, not black like theirs,” Matt pointed out. “At a guess, your people are hybrids between the European type of people, like me, and the Mongolian type farther east.”
He could see the excitement in Balkis’ eyes. “Can you say where I was born, then?”
Matt shook his head with a smile of regret. “Only that it was somewhere in Central Asia, I’m afraid, and that’s a very big place.”
“Oh.” Balkis lowered her gaze, crestfallen for a moment, then looked up with a brave smile. “Still, you know that I am neither from Europe nor this China you spoke of. That is a great matter, is it not?”
“Definite progress, yes.” Matt smiled, warmed by her courage. He decided not to tell her that she’d been born where the horde came from—but that reminded him of the older priest’s words. “Did you understand what they said, the priests who tried to strangle us?”
“Priests?” Balkis asked, wide-eyed. “What manner of priests seek to slay?”
“Ones who worship Kali, the destructive aspect of a great goddess,” Matt explained. “Could you understand their words?”
“Not a one! Could you?”
Matt nodded. “Back there on the galley, I recited a spell that let me understand any language spoken near me. I’ll give you the same treatment just in case we become separated.”