‘I’ll take care of it, mother,’ I replied. ‘I’ve come up with a way to head off all those tiresome arguments.’
‘You have? Some day you’ll have to share that with me.’
‘Just listen, mother,’ I suggested. ‘Listen and learn.’
‘That was tacky, Pol, very tacky.’
‘I’m glad you liked it.’.
Father was squinting off toward the west. ‘We’ll lose the light before long,’ he noted. ‘Oh, well, there aren’t any mountain ranges between here and Vo Mimbre, so we’re not likely to crash into anything in the dark.’
‘You’re not going to like this, father,’ I warned him, ‘but I’ve been instructed to use the form of that snowy owl between now and the EVENT, so you’ll have to grit your teeth and accept it. I am going to follow my instructions, whether you like it or not.’
‘Am I permitted to ask who’s giving you those instructions?’ he grated.
‘Of course you can ask, father,’ I said graciously. ‘Don’t hold your breath waiting for an answer, though–’
‘I hate this,’ he complained.
I patted his cheek. ‘Be brave, Old Man,’ I said.
Then I shimmered into that familiar form.
It was well past midnight when the two of us came to roost atop the battlements of Aldorigen’s palace in the center of Vo Mimbre. The sentries pacing the battlements may have noticed a pair of birds soaring in, but they didn’t pay much attention. They were on the lookout for men, not birds. We settled in some deep shadows near the head of a flight of stairs, and as soon as a plodding sentry had passed, we resumed our natural forms, went on down the stairs, and proceeded directly to the throne-room to wait for Aldorigen. ‘Why don’t you let me handle this, father?’ I said. ‘I’m more familiar with Arends than you are, so I won’t offend them. Besides, Aldorigen’s already afraid of me, so he’ll pay closer attention if I’m the one who’s talking.’
‘Feel free, Pol. Trying to talk with Arends always makes me want to start screaming, for some reason.’
‘Oh, father!’ I said wearily. ‘Here,’ I said, then, willing a small scroll into existence and handing it to him. ‘Just look wise and pretend to be reading this while I do all the talking.’
He looked at the scroll. ‘This is blank, Pol,’ he objected.
‘So what? Were you expecting a bed-time story? You’re the performer, father. Improvise. Simulate reading something of earth-shaking importance. Try to keep your exclamations of astonishment and wonder to a minimum, though. If you get too excited, Aldorigen might want to look at the scroll.’
‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you, Pol?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.’ I gave him that smug little look, and he knew what that meant.
Dawn was turning the cloud-bank piled up on the eastern horizon a fiery red when Aldorigen and his now-grown son Korodullin entered the throne-room in the midst of an argument. ‘He is a miscreant, sire,’ Korodullin asserted, ‘an outlaw. His presence here would profane the most sacred place in all Arendia.’
‘I know that he is a scoundrel and a rogue, Korodullin,’ Aldorigen replied, trying to placate his hot-headed son, ‘but I have given mine oath. Thou shalt not speak disparagingly unto him, nor offer any impertinence whilst he is within the confines of Vo Mimbre. If thou canst not restrain thine ire, remain in thy chambers until he doth depart. I will have thy pledge to that effect, or I shall have thee confined.’
The archaic language immediately took me back to the third millennium, and when I spoke, it seemed almost that I was taking up a conversation that’d broken off two thousand or so years back. ‘Good morrow, your Majesty,’ I greeted Aldorigen with a curtsey. ‘Mine aged father and I have but recently arrived from Tol Honeth, and, though all bemused by the splendor of this most renowned of cities, have we come straightway hither to consult with thee and to divulge unto thee certain information concerning that which hath come to pass and which doth concern thee and thy realm most poignantly.’
Aldorigen responded with fairly typical Mimbrate long-windedness, and we exchanged pleasantries for the obligatory half hour or so, and then we got down to business. My message – instruction, if you’d prefer – was simple. I was there to prohibit a Mimbrate assault on the Angaraks who’d soon be camped outside Vo Mimbre until we were ready for them to come out of the city. That took a while. It’s very hard to persuade someone who believes that he’s invincible that a bit of prudence might be in order.
While I was pounding this into his head, he advised me that his Asturian counterpart, Eldallan of Asturia, was coming to Vo Mimbre for a council of war. I saw an enormous potential for disaster in that plan, given a thousand or so years of senseless slaughter in the Asturian forest. Putting a Mimbrate and an Asturian in the same room was very likely to be hard on the furniture, if not the entire building. Korodullin was already well on the way to a number of quaint forms of greeting, darkly hinting that the rascally Asturian duke would most probably seize the opportunity to defect to the Angarak side in the attack on Vo Mimbre to insure the city’s destruction.
Father threw a quick thought at me, but I was already well ahead of him. I. don’t think father ever fully comprehended the significance of my title, ‘Duchess of Erat’, nor the persistence of old traditions in Arendia. I had been – and still was – the equal of Aldorigen and Eldallan. They both knew that, and they also knew that I could make them very uncomfortable if I chose.
I proceeded then to shame A iorigen and his hot-headed son into a semblance of good nanners. When you throw words such as ‘timid’ and ‘womanish’ into a Mimbrate’s teeth, you’ll definitely get his attention.
It was precisely at noon when Duke Eldallan and his very pretty daughter, Mayaserana, arrived and were rather coldly escorted into Aldorigen’s throne-room.
Then I heard that internal bell again, and when I saw the looks of hereditary hatred Mayaserana and Korodullin were exchanging, I almost laughed aloud. This promised to be a very interesting – and noisy – courtship.
‘You’re getting more perceptive, Pol,’ mother’s voice complimented me.
‘Perhaps so, but how am I going to keep them from killing each other before the ceremony?’
‘I’m sure you’ll think of something.’