Дэйв Дункан - Magic Casement

A long while… but it took all that time to remove the grease, even with soap and sand and hot water. Little Chicken resisted and argued, complying only when Rap explained that the smell would be investigated, and then the townsfolk would find Rap and kill him.

For the first time since Winterfest, Rap found a mirror. His own face was a shock to him, the face of a stranger. He did not think it was a boy looking back at him as he wielded Hononin’s razor against some quite impressive stubble; illogically, he was pleased by the stubble and yet disgusted to see how furry fauns' legs could be when they were not smeared with grease. They were not the legs he had departed on. These were hairier and much thicker, while his face was hairier and thinner.

Fleabag had discovered Hononin’s breakfast and eaten all of it except the butter, which Little Chicken had rescued. He wanted to smear Rap with it.

Then the hostler thrust his gnarled face around the door to warn his guests that he had a lady with him; but the guests already knew that and had taken cover in the bedroom. So he tossed a bundle of clothes in at Rap and went back to the front room to wait until they appeared. That took time, also, as Little Chicken would neither let Rap dress himself nor listen to an explanation of how hose worked. Little Chicken was going to be a large liability in Krasnegar.

At last Rap was ready and could go in. He had already identified the visitor—Mother Unonini, the palace chaplain. Rap knew her, but they had never spoken. Under a trickle of morning daylight, she seemed as forbidding as midnight.

She was a tall, stern woman in her black gown, sitting as straight as was possible in the overstuffed chair by the fireplace, her hands folded in her lap. She returned a nod to Rap’s clumsy bow and looked him over without revealing her conclusions.

“Eat first, talk later.” The hostler pointed to the table. Rap had already scented the hot loaves and his mouth was watering. Bread! He sat down and began to gorge. In a few minutes Little Chicken came in and scowled horribly at the sight of a woman with her head bared. Mother Unonini flinched at a man with his shirt open which was not the goblin’s fault, for all the buttons had already popped off. Rap managed a two-dialect introduction with his mouth full.

Little Chicken did not approve of bread, but he was hungry, also. He helped himself to a meal and sat on the floor to eat it. The hostler chuckled and took the third chair.

“Perhaps you can eat and listen, though.” The chaplain had a hard, masculine voice. “I shall bring you up to date first, Master Rap, and then…” She frowned. “I do not care for nicknames. What is that short for?”

“Just Rap,” said Rap.

That was not strictly true, for his real name was a great, long incomprehensible chant that he never used. He supposed it was a Sysanasso name. “Never tell your real name to anyone,” his mother had said when she had told it to him, “because a sorcerer may learn it and use it to do you harm.” He had believed her then, of course, because he had been only ten or so at the time, and ten-year-olds believe most of what their mothers tell them; but now he knew much more about sorcerers, and he could see that that had been only another of his mother’s strange superstitions, like a south wind bringing rain. His friends would have laughed at such a name, though, so he had never told it to anyone, even Inos.

The chaplain pursed her lips disapprovingly. “Very well—Master Rap. The king is alive, but every day seems like to be his last, poor man. Even the cordials that Doctor Sagorn left will barely ease his pain now. We who are close to him pray for his release. It seems astonishing that he has survived so long.”

“He has a word,” Rap mumbled.

She raised her eyebrows and paused. “Perhaps! What do you know of… But, of course, you must have one, also. Foolish of me.” She fell silent, reconsidering. The old hostler grinned fiendishly —a rare and unpleasant sight—and helped himself to some of the bread before it all vanished.

Mother Unonini continued, seeming now to choose her words more carefully. At times Rap had trouble understanding her—like most Krasnegarians, he spoke a pidgin of impish and jotunnish. Inos could switch from that to pure impish and back again. So did the king and his senior officials, but they did not sound as prissy as the chaplain, who had a southerner’s accent worse than Rap had ever heard, even from sailors.

“The city is badly divided—between imps and jotnar, of course. The imps believe that the princess went to Kinvale to marry her cousin the duke, who has a good claim to the throne. They expect him to return with her. But the imps themselves are divided; many would prefer that the city be annexed as a province of the Impire. The jotnar are unhappy at either prospect. They talk of Thane Kalkor of Nordland, who has a claim at least equal to the duke’s.”

“Foronod is their leader,” Hononin interjected. “Some want to put him on the throne himself, but he seems to be supporting Kalkor. He’s written to him, they say.”

The chaplain frowned, as if she were giving away too much.

“Rap ought to know,” the old man snarled. “Foronod was howling for his heart over the horses. If he hears that Rap summoned the princess back, then he will be even worse.”

She nodded. “Certainly we must smuggle Master Rap and his friend back out of the city tonight. As soon as possible.”

Rap stopped eating. After coming so far he was expected to leave?

Hononin cackled suddenly and they all looked at him. “I should warn you, Mother. When you see that jaw set like that, you might as well save breath. Obviously Master Rap is not leaving.”

“He must!”

Hononin shook his head. “Perhaps, but he won’t. Even when he was this high, that jaw was the signal.”

Rap grinned suddenly. He had been right to come to the cantankerous old hostler, and it was good to find a friend at last.

“We shall see!” Mother Unonini set her own jaw.

“And you?” Rap glanced from her to the hostler and back. “Where are your loyalties?”

He was being presumptuous; the chaplain frowned again. “My objective must always be the greatest good. Civil war would be a great evil—life is precarious enough here without that.” She considered for a moment and added, “If I had the power to impose a settlement… Inosolan is not yet of age. A regency council would be a fair solution—Factor Foronod and Chancellor Yaltauri, perhaps.”

Lukewarm at best, Rap thought. He turned to the hostler.

“I’ll try to keep your neck its present length, lad,” the old man said, “even if it was my horses you took. But I’m staying out of politics. Too dangerous at my age.”

Was no one loyal to Inos, then?

“Can you speak between gulps now, young man?” the chaplain inquired.

“I think so, Mother. It’s a long story. You knew the man called Andor?”

She nodded. “A fine gentleman.”

“No! I thought so, also, and I trusted him when he suggested that the two of us go and tell Inos–”

“Stop right there! Only two of you went?”

Rap nodded, surprised. She glanced at the hostler.

“I told you there were only two bedrolls missing,” he said. “And the tent was too small for three.”

“Three?” Rap echoed.

“Doctor Sagorn,” Unonini said. “He left, also. It did not matter, for he had trained the nurses in the use of the cordial, but he went with you, we thought.”

Sagorn, also?

Of course!

And Darad.

Rap pushed the remains of his meal away and started to talk. He was interrupted no more. In the corner Little Chicken ate steadily, while watching the incomprehensible talk with suspicious eyes, but it was a long tale, and even the goblin’s appetite was satisfied before Rap finished.