Дэйв Дункан - Magic Casement

Why could they not have gone by land? If a nitwit like Jalon could manage it, then anyone could. That argument did not work, either. Aunt Kade did not like horses, nor coaches.

Boxes and bales and trunks… How could they possibly have amassed so much luggage? It smelled of soap and lavender.

Ula indicated two large trunks and Aunt Kade began to cross-examine her closely on their contents. Inos did not bother to listen. She gave herself a last angry inspection in the mirror and stuck out her tongue at her ludicrous reflection, then stalked to the door. She would take a final walk through the castle and say a private good-bye to some of her friends.

The past frantic week had been so dominated by dressmakers and seamstresses that she had hardly spoken to anyone else. Since that shattering day when the God had appeared, she had been lost in a blizzard of silks and satins, of lace and lingerie. She had not ridden Lightning once, not once! Rap had vanished the next morning. The sinister Doctor Sagorn had growled a brief farewell a few days after that and disappeared as mysteriously as he had come. And now Jalon had gone riding off into the hills. By Winterfest he would probably still be going round in circles somewhere, she thought—if he had not been tortured to death by a band of ferocious goblins.

Before Inos reached the door, however, it opened to admit Mother Unonini, stark in her black chaplain’s robe, smiling with responsibilities and clutching a roll of papers. She stopped and regarded Inos with surprise, and then made a curtsy. On her absurdly short legs it was a clumsy move, but she had never done that before. Suddenly Inos did not feel quite so hostile to Mother Unonini. She was another familiar face not to be seen again for a whole interminable year.

Inos returned the curtsy.

“You look very charming, my dear,” the chaplain said. “Turn around!”

Inos decided she must look like a weathervane, the way everyone kept wanting her to turn around. She turned around.

“It does look nice,” Mother Unonini said warmly.

Inos felt temptation and succumbed. “It’s only an old tablecloth.”

Unonini frowned, then suddenly laughed and put her arms around Inos and hugged her… garlic today, not fish. “We shall miss you, my dear!” She turned hurriedly toward Aunt Kade and curtsied again.

“I brought the text of the prayer you will be reading, your Highness. I thought perhaps you would like to look it over beforehand; practice a little.”

“Oh, dear!” At once Kade was flustered. “I do hate having to read prayers! I hope you wrote it big? The light is so poor in the chapel.”

“I think so.” The chaplain fussed with her papers. “Here’s yours. You will be invoking the God of Travelers. Corporal Oopari will address the God of Storms. The ship’s captain will be doing the God of Sailors, of course, and he will have his own text. His Majesty will invoke the God of Peace… his own choice,” she added disapprovingly. “It does seem curious.”

“Diplomacy, Mother,” Aunt Kade said. “He is concerned with relationships between Krasnegar and the Impire and so on.” She held her script at arm’s length and blinked at it.

“Can the corporal read?” Inos asked. Oopari was a pleasant young man. He and his men would doubtless do a good job of protecting her on the voyage, but she could not imagine him reading.

“No,” said Mother Unonini. “But he has been rehearsed. You, Inosolan, will speak to the God of Virginity, and—”

“No!”

Inos had surprised herself as much as the others. There was a shocked silence and the two ladies both colored.

“Inos!” Aunt Kade breathed. “Surely—”

“Oh, of course not!” said Inos, aghast. “That’s not what I meant!” She was certain she had gone pinker than both of them now. She looked to the chaplain. “I want to speak to the God who appeared to us that day. They are obviously looking after me. Well, are interested…”

Mother Unonini compressed her lips. “Yes, I agree that it would be appropriate, but we don’t know who they were. I should have asked, of course…”

There was an awkward pause.

“Well,” Inos said brashly, “then we shall have to think of a name. They told me to try harder, so the God of Good Intentions, perhaps?”

Mother Unonini looked doubtful. “I’m not sure that there is one. I should have to look at the list. I mean, they all believe in good intentions—the good Gods, of course.”

“Religion is so difficult!” Aunt Kade remarked, studying her paper again. “Why can’t Inos just ask for the God I saw here in the chapel ? They would know, wouldn’t they? Is this word devote or devout ?”

“'Denote,’ “Mother Unonini said. “Yes, that is a good idea. And she can ask for help in trying harder.”

“Trying what harder?” a voice asked, and there was the king in the doorway, looking very grand in a long scarlet robe trimmed with ermine. It brought with it a scent of the cedar chest in which it snoozed away the centuries. Inos smiled at him and turned around before he could ask her to.

“Very nice! Charming!” He was carrying his crown under his arm. He did not look very well. He had been suffering from indigestion a lot lately, and the whites of his eyes had a nasty yellow tinge to them. “Trying what harder?” he repeated.

Mother Unonini explained and he nodded gravely.

Aunt Kade was studying her brother with care. “Kondoral will be saying the prayer for the palace and those who live in it?”

“Of course!” The king chuckled quietly. “We couldn’t teach him a new prayer at his age, and we can’t stop him saying it.”

“And I,” Mother Unonini proclaimed proudly, “will invoke the God of Wedlock to find a good husband for the princess.”

She flinched under a royal frown.

“I think perhaps that would not be in the best of taste, Mother. It sounds rather predatory. After all, the purpose of her visit to our ducal cousin is merely to experience courtly life and complete her education. Husbands can wait.”

Unonini looked flustered and Inos felt a sudden wash of relief. Both her father and Aunt Kade has insisted she was not being sent off to find a husband, merely to learn deportment, but she still secretly dreaded that matchmaking was behind it all. This sounded like a very firm denial, though, being made to the chaplain, and hence indirectly to the Gods. Perhaps her father was reassuring her. She must find time for another private talk before they sailed.

“Oh!” Mother Unonini was at a loss now. “Then which God should I speak to?”

“You could take the God of Virginity,” Aunt Kade suggested.

King Holindarn of Krasnegar caught his daughter’s eye momentarily, blinked a couple of times, then turned hastily away. Inos stared back blankly. Certainly that remark of Kade’s could be taken in a very catty way… but surely he had not thought that Kade had meant it like that? Anyone else…

But not Kade.

The service in the dank, dark chapel was horrible. Silk was not warm enough. Inos shivered the whole time. No Gods appeared.

The drive down to the harbor was worse. She tried to smile and wave to the politely cheering crowds while rain splashed into the open carriage. Her stupid, stupid hat wanted to blow off all the time.

All this pomp had been Aunt Kade’s idea. She had talked the king into it.

The farewell on the dock was the worst of all, saying formal good-byes to the notables of the town, being polite, smiling when she wanted to weep. None of her own friends was there. They were working in the castle, or out on the hills: Lin and Ido and Kel…

And a young man with gray eyes and a big jaw. A young man stupid enough to drive a wagon through the sea itself when he thought it was his duty.