Дэйв Дункан - Magic Casement

The royal chamber was located at the top of the great tower, known as Inisso’s Tower, and she wound her way up the spiral stairs that ran within the walls. There were far too many levels—throne room, presence chamber, robing room, antechamber… Pausing to catch her breath in the withdrawing room, Inos wondered, and not for the first time, why in the names of all the Gods her father did not move his quarters to somewhere more convenient.

The withdrawing room was her favorite, though. When Aunt Kade had returned from Kinvale two years ago, she had brought a whole roomful of furniture—not the heavy, antique, stuffing- falling-out furniture that cluttered most of the palace, but supremely elegant gilt and rosewood, with incredibly slender legs, with roses and butterflies embroidered on the cushions, and the woodwork all glossy. There was no room more gracious in all of Krasnegar. Even the rugs were works of art. While Inos would never be so disloyal to her mother’s memory as to admit the fact, she loved the withdrawing room as Aunt Kade had remade it.

Sufficiently recovered to move, she crossed the withdrawing room, went up more stairs, across what they now called the dressing room, but which had been her bedroom until quite recently, and finally—more slowly than when she had started—up the final stair to her father’s door.

It was ajar, so she walked in.

With very mixed feelings, she glanced over the clumsy, massive furnishings. She came here rarely now, and for the first time she saw how shabby they all were, the trappings of an aging widower who clung to old familiar things without regard to their state of wear. The crimsons had faded, the golds' tarnished, colors and fabrics become dull and sad. The drapes were shabby, the rugs a disgrace. Her mother’s portrait still hung over the fireplace, but it was blurred by smoke stain.

Many, many icy mornings Inos had cuddled into that great bed between her parents, under the heaped furs of winter, and yet those memories were overlain now by a last transparent image of her mother, burning away in fever when the great sickness had come on the first ship of spring and stalked all that terrible summer through the town.

Never mind that…

No one was there!

Furiously she pouted, glaring around as if the furniture itself were at fault. The drapes on the four-poster were pulled back, so her father was not in bed, and she could not imagine him going to bed in the middle of the day anyway. She eyed the wardrobe, but the chances that King Holindarn of Krasnegar would hide inside a wardrobe did not seem worth crossing a room to investigate. The windows were deeply recessed, but on those, also, the drapes were open. There was nowhere…

Uneasily Inos turned to retrace her steps and then hesitated. A vagueness niggled at the back of her mind. She took another quick glance around, shrugged, and moved toward the stair again…

And stopped again. Her scalp prickled. There was something wrong, and she could not place it.

Well! Setting her teeth firmly, she faced the room. Forcing oddly reluctant feet to move, she began to walk very slowly all around the chamber, looking suspiciously at everything, in everything, and even under everything. This was her father’s bedroom and she was a princess and there could not possibly be anything dangerous to explain this curious apprehension she—

The high dresser at the far side had been pulled forward, away from the wall.

No, that could not be important…

WHY?

Why had the dresser been moved? And why had she not noticed it at once? With goose bumps crawling over her arms, she forced herself to peer around behind this errant dresser. The door there was ajar. The shivery feeling vanished, leaving a sense of disapproval. Why had Inos never known that there was a door there? She glanced up at the horizontal beams and the planked ceiling. In all the other towers, the top room had a pointed roof, as her own chamber did. So there was another room above this one! She had never realized.

How very curious!

Procrastination was not one of her failings. Carefully holding her precious silk away from the cobwebby back of the dresser, Inos moved to that diabolically tempting door.

She saw steps, of course, as she had expected—another flight curved around inside the wall, just like all the other stairs. These were very dusty. The tiny windows set every few paces were exactly as she would have expected, also, but gray with grime and draped in cobwebs. The musty air was rank with the odor of mold.

A secret room? How very, very interesting! Now she did hesitate, but only for a couple of seconds. Curiosity overcame caution and even the silk was forgotten as she slipped through the narrow gap and started to climb.

Quietly, though.

Probably there was nothing up above here at all, and her father would welcome her just as happily as he would do anywhere else. On the other hand, it was very peculiar that she had never heard anyone ever mention this unknown room. It could not be any of her business. She was trying to be on her best behavior. She was holding a packet of silk that had cost three and half imperials. She…

“… is much too young!” said her father’s voice.

Inos froze against the icy stones of the wall. She was almost at the top and obviously the door was open. The voice had echoed as if the unseen chamber were bare and unfurnished.

“She’s not as young as all that,” another voice replied. “You take a good look at her. She’s very nearly a young lady now.”

Her father muttered something she did not catch.

“In the Impire they would regard her as old enough already,” said the other. Who could that be? She did not recognize the voice, yet it must be someone who knew her, for there could be no doubt who was being discussed.

“But who? There’s no one in the kingdom.”

“Then Angilki, perhaps?” It was a dry, elderly voice. “Or Kalkor? Those are the obvious choices.”

Now Inos could guess what was being discussed. She gasped, and for a moment considered marching straight in through the door and announcing that she had no intention of marrying either Duke Angilki or Thane Kalkor or anyone else for that matter. So there! Only the packet of silk stopped her.

“No, no, no!” her father said loudly, and Inos relaxed a fraction. “Either of those two, and the other would start a war.”

Or I shall! she thought.

An infuriating silence followed, one of those pauses when meanings pass without words, in smiles or nods or shrugs, and the speakers are not even aware that they have stopped speaking. But eavesdroppers are. It was not regal—it was not even polite—to eavesdrop. Inos knew that. But she told herself firmly that it was not polite to talk about someone when they were not there, either. So she was perfectly entitled to listen to—

“I never met Kalkor.” That was her father again, farther away.

“You can live without the experience, my friend.”

Friend? She knew of no one who addressed the king that way.

“Bad?”

“Rough!” The stranger chuckled quietly. “Typical jotunn… winter-long drinking parties, probably wrestles she-bears for exercise. Sharkskin underwear, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“That one’s out, then!”

Inos certainly agreed with her father on that.

“Angilki’s too old for her,” he said. “It will have to be a neutral. But you’re right about Kinvale. Next year, perhaps.”

The stranger spoke quite softly, so that she had to strain to hear. “You may not have that much time, friend.”

Then another pause, but not so long.

“I see!” Her father’s voice, curiously flat and expressionless.

“I am sorry.”

“Hardly your fault!” The king sighed. “It was why I sent for you—your skill and your honesty. Honesty and wisdom. And I knew you would not hold back the truth.” Another pause. “Are you sure?”