“Is it…Hatter?” Alyss asked, spying his top hat in the crowd. The Alyssians parted to let him through.
“I am pleased to find you well, Princess.”
Alyss looked at her surroundings. “Am I well? I shouldn’t say so.”
Hatter lowered his head. “Yes, there is no excuse for my losing you and I accept full responsibility. If you choose to demote me to an inferior post as a result of my failure, I hope I may accept it with grace. But Princess, there is much to do if you are to be successful against Redd.”
Alyss sighed, and when she spoke next she sounded more like a monarch than she would have thought possible. “It’s not surprising, Hatter, that you blame yourself for this ‘failure,’ as you call it. But I do not blame you. Who’s to say it wasn’t I who lost you so many years ago? I just meant that all of this”-with a gesture she indicated the Alyssian headquarters-“is a bit of a shock to me after so long a time away.”
Hatter stepped aside as General Doppelganger bustled up to her, bowing repeatedly, then splitting in two. “Princess Alyss!” Generals Doppel and Ganger simultaneously cried. “We are ecstatic to find you safely returned to us! Welcome, Welcome!”
The assembled throng was too busy celebrating to notice the cloud that had darkened Jack of Diamonds’ brow at the sight of the long-lost princess. But Jack was nothing if not willing to turn an unforeseen circumstance to his advantage. He worked his lips into a smile and, sensing a lull in the greetings, butted his way through the crowd.
“Ranking fellow coming through,” he said. “Out of the way, out of the way.”
His prodigious rear knocked people left and right with every stride. He presented himself to Alyss. “Ah, Princess! Surely, you remember your favorite childhood playmate, Jack of Diamonds?”
Alyss glanced at Dodge, who fell to picking at the edge of his sword with great intensity.
Jack took her hand and kissed it. “I have been pining after you for ages, my princess. I’m sure you recall that we were to be married? I have not taken a wife in honor of your memory, and I flatter myself that
you will still have me, provided you are as pleased as I am with my manly figure.” He turned this way and that, modeling his physique for her.
Whether it was the unappetizing figure of Jack of Diamonds twirling around like a fairy, the expectant, joyous faces crowding around her, or both, Alyss herself couldn’t say. But she suddenly felt that it was all too much.
“I think…if I could just lie down for a short while,” she said. “The princess wants a bed!” a nearby gwynook shouted.
“Princess wants a bed!” echoed a Two Card and, as the white knight and his pawn bustled off to make a bed for Alyss, Alyssian after Alyssian repeated this fact as if it were cause for celebration in itself, yet another remarkable happening for which they hadn’t dared hope.
CHAPTER 33
W ITH ALYSS resting in his tent, General Doppelganger organized a meeting to discuss tactics. Bibwit
Harte, the white knight, Jack of Diamonds, Dodge, and Hatter Madigan assembled in the Alyssian War Room, which wasn’t so much a room as a patch of ground in the thickest part of the forest headquarters, furnished with a crystal-topped Hovering Table™ and matching chairs, as well as four EZ-Erase® gemstone writing boards that served as walls, on which every Alyssian military campaign of the last several years had been drawn up, hashed out, organized.
“But can she lead us?” General Doppelganger was asking. “She must,” said Hatter.
“What lunacy!” boomed Jack of Diamonds. But after seeing Hatter’s expressionless stare, he added, “I
mean…what lunacy, with all disrespect, sir.”
“There is no doubt she will need as much training and education as can be had in the short time we have,”
said Bibwit Harte.
“All I see is a young woman unprepared to conjure even a jollyjelly with her imagination, let alone battle
Redd for control of the queendom,” said Jack of Diamonds. The general nodded, thoughtful. “Knight, what do you say?”
“She is the princess. The line of succession rightfully ends with her. If she is willing to lead us-” “If she’s able, you mean,” muttered Jack.
“-then we must let her, if we are truly to be called Alyssians.”
Dodge, when present at these meetings, usually kept silent and listened to the exchange of strategies, disagreements over protocol, and interpretations of intel reports with stifled exasperation and anger: They were the self-proclaimed saviors of the queendom; they should have been engaging Redd in battle, not talking about it.
“I’m wondering,” he said, gazing at nothing in particular, and the mere fact that he had volunteered to speak caused a sudden hush, “how Redd knew where Alyss was.” He fixed his look on Jack of Diamonds.
“Are you accusing me of something?” “Suppose I am.”
“Gentlemen!” the general started.
“Then I need not suppose you’re a simpleton,” said Jack of Diamonds, “because I’ll have it for a certainty.”
Dodge stood, hand at his sword.
“We have enough trouble fighting Redd,” interposed Bibwit Harte. “It won’t help our chances if we are fighting among ourselves.”
Jack of Diamonds chortled, smug and dismissive. “Gentlemen, I don’t wish to fight. I have great respect for Mr. Anders’ accomplishments on the field of battle, but he knows nothing about politics. He is, as I’m sure you’ll agree, too apt to use his sword when he might better employ his tongue.”
“And you are too apt to powder that wig instead of fighting alongside us when it counts.”
Jack waved him off. “Let Mr. Anders believe what he wants. My only concern is Alyss. There’s no doubt in my mind that she is our lost princess, but I don’t think her mentally or physically capable of leading a charge against Redd.”
“It will take time,” Bibwit concurred.
“It will take the Looking Glass Maze,” said Hatter. “And that,” Bibwit agreed.
Jack of Diamonds slapped his forehead in disbelief. “Not that old bunk. The Looking Glass Maze was proven pointless long ago. Redd herself never went through any maze.”
“All the more reason why she can be defeated,” said Bibwit.
“General, I urge you…let us agree to the summit and stop this idiocy before it goes any further. An opportunity such as the one Redd is offering won’t come again.”
“No queen can reach her full strength and power without passing through the maze,” said Bibwit.