I sat there glaring at my muffin crumbs, wondering if I ought to command Faline to use my name. What did a princess do about such things?
Faline and Sherry finished, picked up their plates, plunked them in and out of the cleaning barrel, and then stacked them on the sideboard. Utensils and glasses too, then they were gone.
I wondered if I — being a princess — was supposed to be waited on, but I couldn’t imagine Clair doing that, so I picked up my own plate and knife and went to the barrel. I looked down into the water as I dipped my plate. Sparkle! The food bits sank down to a haze at the bottom. Same with the bits on the knife. I put them away, and found Seshe right behind me.
“I take it the old food and stuff builds up at the bottom of the barrel, right?” I asked.
Seshe nodded.
“What happens then?”
“If you have the magic, you transfer it to the garden. Or you just dump it there. Get more water. The spell stays on the barrel until it needs renewing.”
“Wow.”
“I’ll be right along,” Irene called as I passed through the door. “I just want some hot chocolate.”
Hot chocolate! Where was that? Oh, I could get it later. I needed to think. Or maybe just ask Clair, except what if she was busy?
“Is there a problem?” Seshe asked.
I whirled around. We were alone in the hall, with rain slanting against the row of tall arched windows on the right. I looked out at the terrace with its potted plants, and sighed. “They don’t use my name,” I admitted. “One day, and I’ve already got a stupid nickname that sounds like PJ. Should I command them not to say it?”
We had stopped. Seshe ran her finger over the window glass, tracing the pattern made by a drop of rain. “You could ask Clair. But I think she’d leave it up to you.” She hesitated, and then said, “Want to hear what I think? I wandered some, before Clair brought me here. So I have a bit of experience.”
She was taller than I, of course — the ironic thing was, I realized, they were all taller than I. Even Sherry and Faline, though only by an inch or so. But Seshe was both oldest and tallest. At home she would have been a considered a teenager; here the division seemed to be different between child and adult, though I didn’t know how, and didn’t care, so long as I stayed safely a kid.
“Yes,” I said. “Please.”
“Well, there are two kind of commands. The ones that you make people obey by threatening them, and the ones that others want to obey because they make sense. That kind depends on a sort of mutual agreement, don’t you see? Just like we agree when we play a game. Only it’s a continuing game, or a role: you be the princess and I’ll be the common girl, forever, and not just for the length of a game.”
“So what you’re saying is, either you’re a villain, or else a command has to make sense, or do some good?”
She tipped her head to one side. “I think that’s what I’m saying.” She smiled.
“Then if I command them to call me Cherene Jennet — never mind Princess — then I’ll sound like PJ?”
“How would you feel if Clair suddenly commanded you to call her Queen Clevarlineh? That is her given name, you know, though she never uses it — thinks it pretentious because nobody has it except some very famous queens.”
“I would, but that’s because I like her. Oh. I see! I’m too new here, and nobody wants to please me yet.” I thought to myself: they accept me not because I’m me, but because they like Clair so much.
Well, I knew what being hated for myself meant. And I resolved I was not going to mess up here. So ... what to do, then?
Seshe said, in a hesitant voice, “So what anyone in a position of rank learns — if they rule the second way, without using force — is that there has to be compromise.”
“That’s not hypocrisy?” I asked. “I just learned that word before I came.” And I recognized myself in it.
“No, for hypocrisy is saying one thing and doing another. Compromise is more of a give and take and then agreement. In the little things, to make life better for everyone, and not just to get what one wants. In the important ones, it’s different.”
I looked at her, fascinated, because I strongly sensed experience behind her words. At once her considering gaze shifted to the window; once again I sensed she was hiding something, for usually she met your eyes straight on.
I asked, “And if they still won’t compromise?”
“Then you either give in. Or use force. Or leave. There’s always a choice.”
“There you are!” That was Irene. “Cherene, are you ready to go to the dressmaker? Seshe, you coming along?”
“I said I’d sort some things for Clair,” Seshe said. “Have a good time!”
Irene led the way down the hall to the front of the white palace. I hadn’t even seen the official function rooms yet. We passed large antechambers, some of them empty, some with a little furniture, but everywhere was unrelieved white, the light subtle, with curving blue shadows.
As we walked, I was alternating between looking about and thinking over Seshe’s words. I remembered what Clair had said about no one having to talk about one’s past, so I considered, then said, “Did Seshe tell everyone where she came from? She seems to know a lot about — ”
“About?” Irene asked, grinning.
“Well, royal-type things.”
“She hasn’t said, but I believe she’s a runaway duchess. At least. Or an heir to some great estate. She had such finicky manners when we first came. The others all make fun of me because I like to pretend I’m somebody. I never was, really.” She wrinkled her nose. Then the airs were back. “She Seshe really didn’t know anything about making her bed, or setting the table, or even sewing on a button, or a thousand other little things. But she changed so quickly they forgot. I never did,” Irene added finger to chin. “So I’ve made up this wonderful past for her, just for fun. I pretend she’s a lost princess, heir to a great empire.”
We crossed a great foyer just then, and I looked through two big open doors, and saw a great hall, again all white, and mostly empty.
“Throne room,” Irene said. “We’re in it once in a million years.”
She whirled around so her skirts belled, and we ran down some wide, shallow steps onto a broad tiled quad that was flower bordered, narrowing in a curve to a road. The road was short, leading between two ivy-covered walls into a broad, charming town-square. I forgot I was not on the ground, but up in the sky. Clair’s capital was small — no bigger than a market town of the old days on Earth. Several streets led off from the main square, which (I found out later) curved into one another. A kind of magic wall, invisible but unyielding, kept people from the edge. The vapor from underneath tended to drift up in fog wisps, and few went to the edges. All the focus was inward.
“There are the guild houses.” Irene waved a careless hand. “Centers for the various guilds in the kingdom. Most of the people live in the Wessets — the north and south provinces — and around the lake, down near the border. Not much in the west. Too wild. Except for the desert, which is too hot.”
“How do people get up here and down to the land again? I don’t remember seeing any road on the mountain.”
“There is a road, but mostly the only ones who use it are people who want to ride horses up to the city. There’s scarcely a horse up here, you’ll find.”
“I can see why not. Who’d want to gallop off the edge?”
“Magic keeps the edge safe. As for people sending stuff up and down, the guilds all have Destination places inside. People also go to a Destination down there somewhere, and transfer up here. Clare is putting spells on our medallions for us to transfer up and down on our own. But it’s horridly slow, with all she has to do, and I guess the magic is amazingly hard. Seshe said Clair told her it’s like building a wall, all with your mind, not with your muscles. But you have to lift every boulder with concentration.”
“Urgh.”
“That’s what I think. Find me ever lear
ning magic? I’d rather jump off a thousand cliffs! Here, down this street is the dressmaker.”
“Is this place related to Clair’s family? She told me about her great-grandmother being a seamstress.”
Irene laughed. “No. From all I could tell, Mearsieanne — she was our age, did you know? — threw down her needle and thread and never went back, and she was in turn thrown off by her family. When she managed to hold the throne, I guess they moved away. Clair can show you the records! Anyway, this dressmaker is related to Janil somehow. Everyone in the white palace is related to Janil,” she added with cheer. “The fellow who does the steward job if Clair has audiences is her nephew, only he’s doing it just until he finishes his master’s work and then he’ll be a glazier. Then probably some cousin will come along and take the steward job over.”
We walked up a short, curving street lined with houses with little gardens. It kind of reminded me of beach communities, back on Earth — smallish houses with lots of windows, and tiny garden plots. Making use of very little space. Everything was clean, and prosperous. But I was to learn that there weren’t any impoverished people in Clair’s kingdom, not any more, anyway.
It also smelled good. Clean air, and flowers, and the yummy smells of baking, and braised onions, drifting from an inn.
Flower boxes lined every window and the tiny porch. The lower door was closed, but the upper one open. We peeked inside, saw people. Stepped, into a small room filled with bolts of cloth. It smelled different from fabric stores on Earth, which I’d been in once or twice. None of the chemicals that made the cloth stiff, I guess. It was a nice smell, hard to define.
“Ah, look at this,” Irene said, holding out a length of rose-colored satin. “But that’s not very practical to run around in. How I love pretty clothes! I mean, since a person has to dress, why not in something pretty, and not ugly?”
“I like pretty dresses too,” I admitted.
“Well, you can get what you like here. They get paid somehow.” Irene shrugged.
A girl about our age came forward, asking if she could help us, and pretty soon I was surrounded by all different kinds of fabric. Irene kept distracting me at first, offering this or that color or ribbon, but when I refused to have anything yellow at all, and decided against a gown festooned with bunches of ribbons, she lost interest, and started designing a new one for herself.
So that made things go quicker. The girl briskly took my measurements, I ordered my dream dress — midnight blue velvet, square neck, wide skirt, different colors of silken sashes for different times — and then we left.
“Shoes next,” Irene said, one finger to her chin. “The cobbler is right over this way.”
“No shoes,” I said firmly.
“But what about royal functions? And winter?”
“Winter?”
She mimed astonishment. “You know. Snow? Or didn’t they have it where you lived?” Her tone was sarcastic, but when I shook my head, she forgot pretense and did look amazed. “Really? What was it, desert?”
“Pretty much. Hot most of the time, and this kind of smoky, smelly air. It was nice at the beach, though. And I’ve never seen snow, except in pictures.”
“Huh. Actually — except for the hot part — it sounds nice. I don’t even care about the smoke, if it doesn’t put black spots on your clothes. I hate mud and sleet and freezing cold, truth to tell,” Irene said cheerily.
“Maybe I’d better get one pair of nice shoes, then. And worry about winter when it comes.” I was wondering how long I could go without ever having to wear shoes when we went inside the cobbler shop, and I looked around in surprise, for instead of leather and other skins, there were long hanging strings of stiff, vaguely shiny stuff.
“What’s this?” I said.
Irene looked at me in blank surprise. “It’s weave. Um, I forget what it’s called — leddas, I think. Grows by rivers, mostly, and marshes. We just call it weave. For shoes and boots and belts and the like. You can also have slippers of satin, if you want, but those won’t last outdoors.”
“No leather?” the word didn’t translate.
“What’s leather?”
“Don’t you use cow skin?”
“Euw! No!”
It turned out that cows gave milk and cheese, and oxen pulled carts, and I already knew that pigs ate garbage and acted as watch critters. When they died, they were Disappeared — like people. In the wild there were still carnivores, but humans mostly ate chicken, turkey, and fish. Some didn’t eat any meat at all.
The stuff called weave was thick and supple and had a dull sheen from its natural waxy covering; the excess wax was boiled down for candles after leddas was picked. The weave got dyed, and the expensive stuff worked so it was smooth and supple. Thin weave was for fine shoes, thick for heavy shoes. The weave could be woven in complicated, even multi-colored patterns, soled with the same stuff, or with wooden heels. The heels were reinforced with various things, including metal, if you wanted heavy boots.
I got a pair of plain blackweave shoes ordered for winter wear, and then we left, me brooding about that CJ/PJ business, and how to solve it.
SEVEN — Nasty News
Clair greeted me with a somewhat distracted smile. “Too many things to be done today, but everything is finished. I think! So once we do a couple of things here, we can go exploring, or anything you like.” She was smiling, but I was beginning to read her a little. She was anxious about something.
“Exploring!” I repeated. “So whatcha got there?”
We were in her magic chambers, the room she’d first brought me to when she performed that extraordinary enchantment that enabled me to become me.
Now she held out two golden objects. “Here’s your medallion.” She handed me a little golden disk with six stylized flowers carved down at a slant. Those same stylized lilies that were on the silver crown. “I hope you don’t mind wearing jewelry. Diana had trouble with it, at first. But until I know more magic, this is the only way I can protect you girls from what happened to Jennet, and make it so you can get down to the ground and up here when you want to. There is a location ward on it, so if I have to, I can find you. And also, there is a transport spell, so if the Yxubarecs get you, somehow, and try to push you off their cloud, you’ll just transfer here.”
“I like jewelry,” I said, putting the necklace on. “At least, I never actually had any, but I think it’s pretty.”
“And this ring also has magic. If you’re going to be leading the girls, there’s a chance you might do things without me along. You can also summon Hreealdar with it. If you need me to come to you, you twist the stone, like this — and say words I’ll teach you — and it activates a transport spell. Later we’ll talk about what that means,” she added. “But not all at once.”
“Oh, good.” I slipped the ring onto various fingers to see which it fit best.
“So, would you be willing to learn magic?”
“Can I?” I asked, amazed. “I mean, I’d love to!”
Her smile was quick and a little relieved. “Then we’ll begin whenever you’re ready. But take time to get used to things first, and have fun,” she added, now looking at me earnestly.
“Um, question. Seshe said something about audiences in the mornings. Should I be there for those?” I asked, feeling a little conscience-stricken.
“Not until you get used to being here,” she stated firmly. “You’ll know when you’re ready. When you are, maybe together we’ll go meet the mayors.”
“You mean city leaders?”
“No ... I guess you would define them as provincial governors. They are all left from my grandfather’s time.” (At least, the word translated into my head as mayors. Later on I’d discover that there was only one major city in each province, which was probably where the words mixed up.)
I nodded, wondering what she’d meant to say.
“Two things for today. First, you should meet Hreealdar, and the second, I think you should see the Shadow.??
?
She taught me the easy spell that, working with a much more complicated spell on the medallion, would enable me to transfer myself down to the forest floor. “We’ll go down now, and I want you to fix a place in your mind. It’s important to remember that when you transfer, you have to see in your mind where you are going, unless you are transferring to someone, or to something marked with a tracer ward.”
“Tracer ward?”
“Later. Argh! I’ve been learning magic for so long, I’ve forgotten what I learned first! I keep trying to think of ways to make it simple, but no matter what I do, I seem to be starting in the middle.”
“It’s all right,” I said quickly. “I never read the instructions on games, back on Earth. I always tried to learn by playing.”
Clair grinned. “It sounds as if you learn the way I teach. Just as well, then. Anyway, if you don’t fix in your mind clearly where you are going, you could just vanish forever — not come out anywhere.”
“Ugh!”
“That’s why a lot of people won’t transfer. Now, some places will have Destinations. Those are places you can safely transfer to, once you memorize the pattern of their tiles or bricks or whatever the floor is made of.” She waited for my nod of understanding, then said, “Here we go.”
We transferred — and found ourselves in the underground Junkyard, in the main room, on the bright rug, which was what Clair used as a Destination. Dhana and Sherry were there. The others either gone or on patrol. “Cherene Jennet wants to meet Hreealdar,” Clair said. “Anyone else want to come?”
“Oh yes!” Dhana exclaimed.
We left from there, this time going out the back entrance, which was in a crooked crack of rock above a bend in one of the woodland streams. Thick creepers hung down, which everyone was careful not to break or damage as they squeezed past.
At the bottom I stopped, looked up, and fixed the place in my memory. To make certain I was doing it, I closed my eyes, tried to picture it, opened my eyes, looked for more things to memorize, and so forth.