“We could.”
“How long does the salt help after your uncle starts his razzlin’ and dazzlin’?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it only helps afterwards. And there’s the matter of Davey’s heart too, Prince. Uncle Fearchar said that after Davey gets here he was going to change you back into a man so you could sign something.”
“Writ of abdication.”
“What?”
“It’s a document, gurrrl, says I give up all title and claim to the throne. Of course, by being absent more than seven years, I’ve done that. But if, as you say, Brother Worthless is having a hard time at the kinging, Fearchar probably has a few of my old supporters lined up to accept me back as king—with his quick tongue, your uncle will have no problem substituting my son. Especially with a writ of abdication signed by me, naming Davey as my successor.”
“And Xenobia and Davey are in his power.”
“Too right. And he plans that you’ll be as well. I still say we tear ’em to pieces. I can get out of them what’s happened to young Colin, and we’ll search the castle for the heart at our leisure…”
“But after we find it, what if it doesn’t work, and my uncle is dead. Then what will we do?”
The bear narrowed his little eyes at her. “Doesn’t sound to me, gurrrl, as though you want to tear ’em to pieces anymore.”
“I suppose not. I just think we could find out more if he thinks we can’t use anything he tells us. I’ll expand my salt for the three of us ’til we can find out where the heart is, and what’s happened to Colin, and how to get off this island with no boat. I doubt Uncle Fearchar’s familiar swans would pull us.”
“You understand more about these witching things than I do, but I still think we should tear ’em to pieces.”
“Afterwards,” Maggie said.
“Afterwards, then,” the bear agreed.
18
When Colin surfaced, realizing with equal degrees of pleasure and surprise that he was not dead, the first thing he saw was his fiddle floating on the water beside him. He grabbed it and held it aloft as he swam for the rock that had nearly wrecked the Snake’s Bane.
The second thing he saw was the Snake’s Bane sailing safely away. In all the confusion they probably hadn’t even noticed when he went overboard.
The third thing he saw, as he hoisted himself up onto the rock, was a green-haired girl frantically scooting backwards on her scaly tail, being stalked farther and farther back onto land by a cat. Ching, furious at his recent dunking, was bent on having that tail for his supper.
The mermaid implored Colin with her sea-green eyes. Feeling damp and slippery and fresh out of gallantry, he took advantage of her status as a captive audience to lecture her sternly. “Madam,” he said, “do you realize that you very nearly caused the wreck of a fine sailing vessel complete with a stout and hearty crew?” She was unimpressed. Wrecking ships was, after all, what mermaids did. “Not only that, but you have given my cat a bath, to which he has an aversion, and very nearly ruined one of the finest fiddles ever made, if I do say so myself. If you have anything to say in your own defense, I advise you to do so before I allow my cat to eat you up.”
She started to cry. Colin realized, as he was supposed to, that he was being a beast, but he was really very upset about his fiddle. The tone would never be the same. Seeing she showed no sign of relenting, he stood and glared, hoping he would be in time to catch Ching, should the cat decide to take a bite out of the mermaid.
“How can you be so cruel to me? You could be my own great-great-grandson all grown up and gone to land, and come back with nasty cats to torment me.
“I didn’t come here to torment you at all. I was sailing along with my friends, minding my own business, when you start singing to us in all your different voices, and before I know it I’m floating around in the sea, my best fiddle ruined. So I ask you, who’s tormenting whom?”
“You are being impertinent, young man,” she said severely, under the circumstances. It sounded odd for her to call him young man, too, but Colin did realize that these creatures lived to great age. She might be anywhere from the eighteen years she looked to seven hundred and sixty, for all he could tell. It was typical of a creature who survived on the strength of her youthful beauty to try to pull the rank of age when confronted with difficulties.
She must have read his face, for she tossed back her long green hair from her shoulders and said, with a fetching pout, “You don’t like me.”
Colin could hardly avoid looking at what her new coiffure revealed about her stunning upper half. He blushed deeply and stammered, “Oh, no, really, I like you. I’m just annoyed with you.”
She arranged the seashell combs in her hair. “Annoyed?”
“Only a little. Less all the time, in fact.”
“I thought so. You can call your monster off, you know. I couldn’t drown you, whatever Fearchar says. You wouldn’t drown anyway, being one of us.”
He hardly knew what to ask first, but the moon was nice, the stars were bright, and the night was young. He gathered Ching onto his lap, got slapped smartly on the hand for his trouble, and settled down for conversation.
The mermaid appeared poised to dive for a moment, but after a warning look from Colin she, too, made herself comfortable on the rock, flipping her tail in the water now and then as they talked.
“Now then,” said the minstrel, staring determinedly into her eyes. “I am Colin Songsmith, Journeyman Minstrel.”
“Of course you are. Fearchar told me that.”
“And who are you? And who is Fearchar? Is he by any chance related to a family named Brown? And why do you keep saying I’m one of you?”
“I’m Lorelei, silly. Fearchar is my friend at Evil Island, and someday he will find a spell to grow a tail and come join me, he says. I think I have heard that terrible man who works for him call him by the name of Brown, but I’m not certain. And I keep saying you’re one of us because you are. Oh, not recently, and not directly—but you had an ancestress among us, you may be as sure of it as you are of your voice and the way you swim.”
Colin refused to let himself wonder how he with legs, fair hair, and no scales, had been descended of a woman with scales, tail, and green hair. It was beside the point, and stranger things happened in Argonia. It would explain his musical talent, considered by his masters to be exceptional, though he naturally wasn’t supposed to know that. It would explain how he, raised in East Headpenney with nothing but streams all around and no knowledge of water, had been able to swim just now, and perhaps it also explained why he was so frightfully clumsy on land, but perfectly at home at sea in, despite his lack of previous experience. Slowly he nodded, and she dimpled at him prettily.
“You could stay here and play with me, and I’ll teach you the loveliest songs! I get so lonely here. I think I’m the only mermaid in the Gulf right now—Fearchar wanted me to come, and he’s so handsome and clever I couldn’t wait to get here. But he doesn’t come to talk to me as much as I’d like, and he can’t swim properly, and there’s not much sport in wrecking ships with all this calm water and help so close by. A girl can’t have any fun. He’s promised me a sea serpent to liven things up, but it hasn’t been delivered yet. Oh, Colin, do stay, please. We could have the most wonderful times—” she gazed at Ching with a distinctly jaundiced eye. “We’d have to drown that, of course.”
The water did look very inviting, and she was very attractive in a green-haired sort of way, but Colin realized that though she was unable to drown him she was not above trying her other lures, and he refused to be tempted. Reluctantly, he shook his head. “It’s very kind of you to ask me, Lorelei, but I have other obligations. I think they may even include your friend. Would you show me where he lives?”
Her tail splashed the water in agitation, showering them both. “Oh, no, Colin Songsmith! Oh, no, you mustn’t. Fearchar doesn’t like men. He will rob you of your will, and surely have that awful Hugo kill you, and then you c
ould never come back to play with me either.”
Colin couldn’t help smiling. “I can’t see why that would bother you. After all, you were about to drown not only me, but all my friends as well.”
Lorelei gave him another pretty pout. “That’s different. It was nothing personal, you know. It’s what I do. Think how dull it would be for sailors if there were no perils like me to make things interesting for them—and so entertaining too! The poor things would just always be sailing aimlessly around with nothing more dangerous or intriguing than a little weather to amuse them.”
As a poet, Colin could understand her point of view, and nodded.
“But you’re one of us. I can’t let you swim into certain doom now that we’re getting to know each other better—though I’d be glad to see the end of that!” She flipped her tail in Ching’s direction and got spat at.
“I have to go see him. If you know him so well, maybe you’d tell me how to protect myself from his power. Isn’t there some plant or religious medal or something he particularly dislikes?”
“Like wolfbane, or garlic, or something like that?” she asked, cocking her head and touching her sweetly webbed middle finger to the dimple in her chin. “We-ell, yes. Come to think of it, you probably are at least partially immune. I am. I don’t really believe that story about the fishtail, you know, except that I do love him and I hope it’s true.”
“What is his power, exactly, other than changing people into bears and stealing hearts and that sort of thing?”
“Ooooh, did he do that?” the sea green eyes widened and she shook her hair again, distractingly. “I didn’t hear about that! He’s just so powerful it gives me frogbumps all over sometimes.”
Colin surmised that frogbumps were undoubtedly the aquatic equivalent of goosebumps and asked again, “But what is his main power. I have this friend who—she uh—” he searched for a way to explain Maggie’s hearthcraft to a mermaid with no fire to keep or doorstep to sweep, found none, and gave up, continuing, “Her grandmother, for instance, can change people into animals, and she has an aunt who can see into the present and—”
The mermaid was regarding him with a critical expression. “Strange company you keep, dearie. Don’t you think you’d be better off staying with me? Oh, well, then, if you insist. Fearchar’s source of power is that he is very convincing.”
“What kind of a magical power is being convincing?” Colin digested the information, scratching his head.
“A very great one. He could convince a tuna to take up tree climbing, if a tuna wasn’t a sea creature.”
“It doesn’t work on sea creatures then?”
“Only me,” she said ruefully. “But really no. It’s something to do with us swimming in the salt sea all the time. It’s salt that confounds him, I think.”
“Thank you very much, Lorelei,” Colin said slowly. “You’ve been a great help. Now could you show me how to find him?”
“We’ll have to swim, of course,” she said.
Colin found the prospect oddly inviting, but glanced at Ching. “What of my cat?”
“What of him?” With a movement so swift his eyes couldn’t follow she leapt high in the air and dived below the surface, rising again to float on her back, tail flapping leisurely at the moonlit water. “Come on, if you want to find Fearchar.”
Colin shrugged, stripped off his shirt, and apologized to Ching before he jumped into the water. He felt the cat would be safe enough on the rock until he could fetch him.
Ching, however, had other ideas. Colin was only a stone’s throw from the rock, swimming easily in tandem with Lorelei, when a killer whale, crowned with color-coordinated cat, flashed merrily past them.
19
Maggie’s jaws and neck felt tight and stiff from all the unnatural nodding and smiling she was doing, listening to her uncle’s voice drone on. Without the benefit of his magical credulity he was something of an overblown, pompous bore, she decided.
Amberwine had pleaded the weariness of pregnancy to retire to the relative seclusion of the tower room for a midday nap. She had been more than a little shocked and upset to discover that instead of the sanctuary it had promised to be while she was under Fearchar’s spell, the ancient castle was her prison, and intended to be her tomb. Maggie regretted the necessity of having to upset Amberwine with the frightening truth of their situation so far in advance of their escape, but then could scarcely risk not telling her. She might insist on an explanation of their behavior at some crucial moment, and spoil the whole plan. At least she had looked legitimately pale and wan when she retired.
His Highness was also conserving his strength for their escape by giving in to the demands of his bear’s body and getting lots of sleep. He, at least, was available if she needed him. Claiming the chamber upstairs was too warm in daylight hours for his fur-bearing form, he was curled up on the cool flagstone floor of the study, beneath Fearchar’s alchemist’s bench. The wizard had not carpeted that area of his study, for safety’s sake. Molten metal accidentally spilled on the furs could set the entire interior of the castle on fire.
Her uncle placed the scroll he had been showing her on the table and cast a critical glance over her. Her mouth went dry and she wet her lips with her tongue and smiled harder than ever, trying to look innocent and trusting. Was he able to detect when someone had eaten salt?
“Maggie, dear, you are not your usual radiant self. I had hoped you would abandon those old rags and attire yourself in the pretty things I provided as more befitting a lady of your station.”
“I’m sorry, Uncle,” she replied demurely. She had worn her woolen costume today in preparation for their escape. It was sturdier and more comfortable than any of the gowns, and had pockets to conceal her medicine bundle, the remaining bottle of love potion, and the dagger Rowan lent her. “Winnie and I were going to try to plant you a little garden in the courtyard later this afternoon, and I didn’t want to get your nice things dirty. With my craft I can grow you lovely giant melons and cabbages long before anyone else has them—then you’ll have fresh food, and some to dry for winter.”
“Your craft? Oh, yes, I believe Hugo mentioned. Hearthcrafting, is that right? That’s very considerate of you, I’m sure, to try to plant me a garden. But I would like for you to stop doing vulgar things like digging in the dirt and those other menial jobs hearthcrafting implies. I hardly think hearthcrafting, other than a little needlework, perhaps, is a fitting occupation for a queen.”
Here it comes, Maggie groaned inwardly. She tried to make her shrewd brown eyes go all wide and dewy as she asked, “Queen, Uncle Fearchar?”
“Yes, dear girl. I had planned to surprise you when your bridegroom arrives, but now seems as good a time as any.”
“Whatever are you talking about, Uncle? How can a simple village witch like me become a queen?”
“How indeed, my dear! How did a simple village wizard such as myself become the man of power and influence you see before you today? With the help of the princess, when she makes the nomination in the tribunal in a few months, I shall become king of our fair Argonia. How? Because I’ve had the foresight to anticipate my opportunities, and the courage and determination to seize them. Coupled, naturally, with a deep and abiding compassion for my fellow man.
“As king I shall change the face of this country. No longer will we bow down to foreign oppressors, accepting their emissaries or making concessions to our inferiors! And that ridiculous law claiming magical personages should be prosecuted for the same dreary offenses as the non-magical rabble will be abolished. No longer, when I am king, will the vulgar hordes be able to associate with us on equal footing—and they most certainly will not be able to intermarry with us and taint our sacred blood, sullying it so that the resulting descendants of fine old families are as relatively powerless as you are. No offense, dear girl, but it’s true.
“No longer will any of their kind be allowed to call themselves noble, or be in positions of authority which they can da
re to abuse by using our womenfolk as William Hood did when he betrayed your mother’s love to marry that foreign faery hussy.” He took a deep breath, for he was becoming overwrought and flushed beneath his dark complexion. His eyes had a look about them wilder than the bear’s had ever been. Gradually he calmed, and said, “You won’t have to go to all the trouble of being the resourceful crusader I am, of course, my dear, since you’re related to me. In order to be queen, all that’s required of you is to marry Davey.”
“But, Uncle,” she protested just enough for effect. “I think I should dislike being queen of the gypsies. And Xenobia is rather fierce.”
“I’ll worry about Xenobia. You are obviously not going to be Queen of the Gypsies. That is not my idea of wealth and nobility. You are to be Queen of Ablemarle.”
“Ablemarle has a queen.”
“Ablemarle has for a queen only the wife of Worthyman the Worthless. Believe me, they’ll be delighted to have the niece of Fearchar the First instead.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to understand, dear girl. Just leave everything to Uncle Fearchar and don’t worry your pretty little head about it. His Highness Prince Worthyman the Bear,” he jerked a thumb at the sleeping noble, “has privately expressed to me a desire to retire permanently from court life. He fears it would disagree with him after all the fresh air he has recently enjoyed. Pegeen and I just happened to research the laws of Ablemarle quite recently, and I’ve come across a convenient writ he may sign, once he is in human form, to allow him to abdicate his rightful place as crown prince to young Davey.”
“But doesn’t he have to give the heart back to Davey first?” Maggie asked.
“That’s what the spell says.”
“How can His Highness change back, then, to sign your paper, with the gypsies miles away?”
Her uncle smiled fondly at her. “Dear, dear, so many questions. Didn’t I tell you to trust your uncle, child? The swans were dispatched early this morning to fetch Davey and Xenobia.”
Song of Sorcery Page 22
