Mashkent laid his hand on her arm, restraining her from rising to see more of the picture. “I consult the pool as a courtesy to a guest. If you wish to consult it yourself, there will be the standard fee, of course.” He accepted the boy’s report that the Prince looked very comfortable indeed. He settled back onto his own cushion, calling for a pipe attached by a long tube to an ornate bottle filled with colored water. “Now then, perhaps you had better tell me of this matter which weighs so heavily on your mind. Tell me of your part in this and of what you intend to do. Thus I can better determine what terms we might negotiate between us.”
Carole shifted, the backs of her legs and her sweat-soaked gown sticking to the silken cushion. Now what? It was all very well for Rupert to be peacefully napping, but he was the trained diplomat, not she. Setting terms and negotiating was supposed to be his bailiwick. “First,” she said, “I would like to see the baby.”
“No doubt,” he replied. “But I am afraid that is quite out of the question.”
“There was nothing in the agreement forbidding visiting rights,” she pointed out, “and we have come a very long way.”
“You should have made an appointment,” he said, and she sensed beneath his firmness a certain squirming. “Many regrettable matters could have been avoided had you not failed to do so.”
“The same could be said of your firm,” she replied calmly. “The question of timing I referred to revolves around just such an omission of securing a convenient time for all concerned. My cousin says you took the baby without announcing your intention to do so. Whatever your opinion of Bronwyn, your methods strike me as a singularly callous way to treat a new mother and child. I would think that even your people share with us certain human feelings that would—”
“Even my people? You have an unfortunate way of expressing yourself. Naturally we have a high regard for human sentiments of all varieties—births, deaths, marriages, love affairs. All of these experiences not only affect us in the usual personal aspects of our lives but are also sacred to us for reasons far deeper than your own. All such happenings are highly profitable. People lose their senses under the influence of strong emotion. They throw caution to the wind. They would do anything to gain this or that. So yes, assuredly we share those human feelings of which you are so fond and revere them, but in the case of your cousin, a deal is, you understand, a deal.” He shrugged. “Surely as a fellow vendor of magic, you can see that. Among my people, it is written, ‘He who fails to collect a debt shall himself soon be a debtor.’ It is one of the most fundamental laws of the Profit.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” Carole said. “I don’t consider myself a vendor of magic at all. I use my magic to help others. They pay me only by providing me with things I haven’t the time or skill to provide for myself.”
“Even if you believe such drivel as you are telling me, it is fundamentally the same thing,” he said.
“It is not. I’d never demand someone’s baby, even on loan. But if I did I would certainly give them a chance to practice their own birthing rites on it first, so they’d be sure it was safe and protected from harm, and wouldn’t worry themselves sick over it.”
“I thought you said this rite would enhance the value of the child. Now you tell me its function is protective. And you have yet to mention what your role in the affair is.”
“Very well,” she said. “The rite would enhance the child’s value by providing her with protective personal attributes, but it is difficult to explain to an outsider. I was depending on my cousin for that. He is representing the child’s parents. I am a priestess of the Mother, authorized to perform the rite.”
“Ah, a functionary of your faith, rather like our own accountants?”
“Rather like an… uh, well, I suppose you could put it that way.” She didn’t wish to demur on what would be a minor point to the old man and thereby break the fragile thread of understanding so perilously spun between them. “Truly, I think I’ve said enough that you can understand why Rupert should be fetched and we should be allowed to see the baby. Christening is very important for Argonian children.”
“All Argonian children?”
“Yes, but particularly those of royal or magical lineage. It is the chief source of influence in early life, affecting personality, physical development, interests in matters both mundane and magical, skills, character, and the Mother only knows what else. If the child is properly christened, she will be much more valuable to you. From the family’s standpoint, she will have the protection of the gifts presented to her by her kinsmen and their allies. There are so many forces automatically aligned against a child born to power, you see, that protection is a matter of primary importance.”
“I find this difficult to comprehend. Can you give me examples of these valuable gifts? What were your own, for instance, and how do they affect you today? And which are you bringing for the child?”
The fireflies in Mashkent’s eyes danced anxiously and Carole flinched from them.
“I’m afraid I can’t, actually. I will not learn what the baby’s gifts are until I perform the ceremony. As for my own gifts, why, that was very long ago. Perhaps by the time my cousin can be fetched I’ll think of some to discuss with you. I can tell you, however, that the gifts are so important to our lives that if the child is not christened, you may find that inadvertently it will be you and your firm who violate the terms of the agreement. For without the protection of the gifts and the rite, the child may not survive her fifteen years with you to return to her parents.”
If she had hoped this was a clinching argument, she was disappointed, for he waved the last statement away as if it nullified the parts to which he had been listening so avidly. “That would be sad for your cousin Bronwyn,” he said. “She owes us fifteen years of the service of her child. If this one does not fulfill the requirement, we will be forced to collect her next one. Now then, I think it is time you retired to a place conducive to your meditations.”
So saying, he clapped his hands and the two guards reappeared beside her. “Do not waste your breath on these employees of mine, my dear,” Mashkent cautioned. “They have been given protection against your charms. We can arrange for them to place you in irons if you prove uncooperative, but that seems so inhospitable. I trust you’ll find your quarters comfortable.”
* * *
Alireza Mukbar’s spells went for naught with Rupert, who had strapped his rowan shield around his chest to ward off any possible blows or spells from the hostile Miragenian populace. Instead, it was primarily prosaic if pleasant occurrences that brought about his captivity.
He had followed Alireza’s green hem through a rabbit warren of alleys until she passed through a gate. He thought it would not amaze her greatly that he followed. He was surprised, however, when a young girl locked the gate fast behind him and thrust the key deep into the bodice of her gown. Then she giggled. Her giggle was echoed by seven or eight others as a vast array of black-haired girls poured into the garden and arranged themselves around him, laughing and talking and—as they grew accustomed to him—touching.
When his green-gowned beauty reappeared with a goblet of wine for him and one for herself, and looked deeply into his eyes as they drank, he thought perhaps he had done something to transfer him prematurely into that happy land where the Mother sent all of her best children upon their demise. As the ladies pressed closer, touching, tittering, and gazing moonily up at him from big dewy eyes, he decided, on the basis of some of the touching, that he was far from deceased. Besides, he couldn’t recall anything that might have put him in such a sadly permanent condition.
He accepted the wine. The women spoke to each other in a language different from that of the marketplace, one he found impossible to understand, although when his original prize addressed him, her purring voice was in a language he could follow, little more than a variation on Argonian, spoken with a slight accent, which he found utterly charming.
They settled him in a
cool, breezy room, with a fountain singing in the middle and delicious things to eat and drink. Then they began haggling over him, sending daggered looks and shrill exclamations over his person, while pinching and patting him for emphasis. Even in his wine-soaked haze he began to grow alarmed. His green-gowned temptress returned just as he was about to rise to his noodle-like legs and bolt. She no longer wore a green gown or much of anything else except two long narrow handkerchiefs of sheer pink fabrics suspended from a golden belt, covering the center of her buttocks in the back and shifting alluringly from one thigh, to the other. A lacy vest of gold cloth might have been made for her when she was eight years old, now totally inadequate for its task, strained to cover her gleaming cleavage, which gleamed all the more fascinatingly when she clapped her hands, sending the other girls scurrying from the room. She lowered herself beside him.
“Do not think too harshly of my sisters,” she said. “They are passionate and hungry for affection. They find you pleasing as I knew they would.” Her fingers slid beneath the strap of the rowan shield planted awkwardly in the middle of his chest. She felt for the buckle, tickling, so that he involuntarily pulled her hand back.
“Very nice girls,” he agreed. “As you say, affectionate. I’m glad they like me.”
“I don’t know why they were so greedy tonight. We will have to make out a schedule.” She licked her lips appreciatively and ran her eyes from his own, down across his torso, lingeringly, to his toes and back up again. “I am sure there is enough of you to go around.”
“Enough to… ?” His tongue was thick. Speech was made more difficult as she sought to impede his tongue with her own. She succeeded, for quite some time. “Enough to go around? I’m sorry. I don’t quite understand. I believe we need to talk about this… ahhh, yes—well, then—perhaps not.…” and forgot to protest again for a dangerously long time. Nonetheless, he lacked neither honor nor will to such an extent that he failed to intervene when her nimble fingers, seeking to encounter something else altogether, closed on the mermaid’s comb hanging inside his belt. He clasped her slender arm from wrist to elbow in his large hand and with the fingers of the other hand gently removed the comb from her grasp. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid your family wouldn’t like what might happen to you if you handle this comb. Perhaps we should talk, after all.”
Her sweet musky perfume grew a tinge headier, her skin under his hand a touch more velvety, and her voice purred more compellingly than ever, punctuated by moist flickers of her tongue tip against his earlobe. “You will be my family. My love. My husband. Our husband.” Her fingers curled toward the comb again playfully. “Now. That’s settled. Since it’s all in the family, what is that? A gift for some other sweetheart? You’ll find enough here to keep you busy, my darling. Give it to me instead and I promise you’ll need none of the others to make you forget her.”
He moaned.
“Don’t you trust me to keep my promise?” she said, pouting.
“It’s not… that,” he said thickly, trying to unwind his tongue from the roof of his mouth where it seemed wont to curl from sheer ecstasy. He continued manfully. “It’s just that the fact is, now that you mention promise, I have one to keep.”
“Forget her,” she breathed huskily into his ear.
“I can’t.”
“I will make you do so,” she threatened, tickling the hairs beneath the rowan shield.
“You will not, for I can tell that you are a tender and loving lady. You would not wish me to forsake the poor little infant whose protector I am to, um, that is…” His tongue was cleaving to the roof of his mouth again and his diplomatic training was as if it had never been.
“For the sake of a dalliance? But a dalliance is hardly what we—I—have in mind. You are a splendid man, my love, a superb man, a man who, with a little work, will be worthy of me, of my dear little sisters. You must stay and be ours.…”
“Nothing would make me happier, I assure you,” he said, his tongue coming unstuck the moment she reintroduced the subject of himself at the mercy of her voracious sisters—plus the little work and worthiness business. “But I must do so with a heart and mind free of distractions.”
“Your heart and mind may do as they please,” she said, laughing, gleaming again. “But the rest of you must remain here with us.”
“Yes, but you don’t understand. I must see to the safety of my infant niece, only child of my sister Bronwyn, to whom I have sworn a vow.”
“Silly boy. You must not let your concern for some child prevent you from following your more adult inclinations. I happen to know that the child is quite safe and is being spoiled and pampered in accordance with her station.”
“You know where she is? You can take me to her?”
“No, I cannot. She is no longer here and we emphatically desire that you be.”
“Where is she? What has become of her?”
“Don’t bellow so, darling, they’ll think we’re quarreling. Why, the little dear is being a first-born royal highness, as she was meant to be. Oh, my love, must we talk business?” She ruffled his hair and favored him with a petulant expression. “I know so many more interesting things to do.”
He lay motionless, though it was a challenge worthy of a religious hero on the rack, and stared coldly at her until she continued. He decided that later perhaps he would discuss this incident with Sir Cyril Perchingbird and see if inaction under duress did not sometimes constitute sufficient merit to qualify one for a medal of some sort.
“But it’s so dull, really. A barren queen wanted a baby and since the Company had a perfectly good new baby owed to them, with no one able to tell the difference if quick action were taken, it was a simple matter of transferring the child from the debtor to the client, who took it from there.”
“But the child has a family. She was only to stay here fifteen years.”
“The clients who asked us—I mean, the Company—to procure the child are renting her services. So you see, it’s nothing for you to get tense about. It’s not as if she’s a slave or anything dismal like that which might have occurred if with my tender heart, I hadn’t searched and searched to find just the right opening. I’m very good at my work. Gore… the country where the child now lives in splendor and luxury is a very affluent one, one of our chief exporters of magical goods, and the King and Queen will spoil the brat rotten.” She flopped herself down, folding her arms under her breasts and pouting in earnest.
He turned and stroked her hair. “You have relieved my mind considerably,” he told her, then added casually, “What was the name of this place again? It must be close by.”
She was very good at her work; it took him a long time to learn the rest of what he wanted to know from her, and a great deal of effort, which was how he came to be sleeping so soundly when Mashkent’s servant saw him in the pool of visions.
* * *
Carole found one commendable aspect of the Miragenian way of life: It apparently excluded the idea of dungeons. She was locked in a room that must have been no less luxurious than Mashkent’s own quarters, and perhaps more so. Looking it over, she decided that it might be a showroom for the firm’s products. This she deduced by the way the mattress floated in midair, lying upon a rug hovering above the multitude of jewel-bright carpets strewn one atop the other in colorful profusion on the patterned floor. A small cascade of colored water spilled down one wall. The soft light of the waxen tapers shining from various nooks and crannies in the carved recesses of the walls reflected from the satiny tumult quick glimpses of faces and figures, people, animals, and landscapes. The falls formed a pretty stream bisecting the room. The stream was bridged at intervals by steps or little arches with golden rails, in which the reflected candle flames danced with their own shadows. Huge windows in ornamental shapes faced the garden in which Carole had spoken to Mashkent, but the view could only be seen through a deeply carved lattice. In every row of lattices sat a row of colored bottles, each row a different hue, each bottle the
prism-like crystal of the peridot-colored one from the river near outer Frostingdung.
A young woman, veiled and obsequious, bowed her way into the room just as Carole dropped onto one of the cushions.
“If madam does not wish to retire at once, perhaps I could explain a few of the distinctive features of this chamber,” the young woman said, and, without waiting for an answer, continued in a persuasive voice undertoned with what seemed to be great excitement at the opportunity of sharing the information with Carole. Either she had not been informed that Carole was other than a rich customer or else she was so used to giving this particular pitch that she was unable to vary the routine to suit the circumstances.
“The bed will lull madam to sleep with a gentle rocking motion once madam has mounted it by means of uttering a simple command that will cause it to sweep you off your feet and onto your back as smoothly as the most adroit lover.”
Oh. Marvelous. Just what she needed. An amorous inanimate object. Silently, Carole vowed to remain on the cushions for the brief time she intended to rest before deciding how best to find Rupert, grab the child (for if the Miragenians didn’t care whether or not the baby survived her first fifteen years, it was quite out of the question to leave her with them), and go.
“In the window,” the maid continued, “you will notice the display of finely-crafted Gorequartzian vessels. These vessels will explode into flames and poisonous gases the moment they are touched by unauthorized hands, instantly immolating the intruder in the most painful fashion.”
Ah, so the maid did know Carole was a prisoner. And the bottles were there to detain her. Not the same as the ones in the river then?
“Lastly,” the woman continued, “I am required to explain to you that the firm disclaims any responsibility for damage to yourself or your property if you fail to heed our warning and will also hold you responsible for any damages occurring to company holdings resulting from said failure. Peaceful sleep, madam.” She finished, and bowed out.
The Christening Quest Page 8
