Дэйв Дункан - Magic Casement

He was right, she thought. And then he had gone down on one knee before her. “Queen Inosolon, will you marry me?”

Her first, insane, thought was that she was filthy and bedraggled and wearing riding clothes, shivering in an icy stairwell lighted by one spluttering candle. All those wonderful gowns she had worn at Kinvale, in ballrooms, on terraces under moonlight—none of them had provoked a proposal. And her father… Then she told her mind to stop evading the question. With Andor she could face all of them.

“Yes,” she whispered.

He jumped up and this time he did kiss her. Oh, Andor! Why had she not called him in to meet Father? Andor, Andor! Strong, and reliable, and—

“Quick, then!” He glanced up the stairs, so he also must be wondering what was keeping the soldier. “Now, my darling? Right now?”

“Yes!” She pushed open the door and marched in, holding Andor’s hand. All across the big circular chamber, the spectators started in surprise. Those who were sitting on those flimsy gold and rosewood chairs rose slowly to their feet.

“Your Highness, your Holiness, Mother Unonini, gentlemen,” Andor said. “Queen Inosolan has consented to become my wife.”

She tried to see everyone’s reaction at once, but they were too spread out. The imps, she thought, all looked pleased. Certainly Chancellor Yaltauri beamed. Bishop Havyili was asleep. Foronod frowned, but then he often did that. He did not speak. Aunt Kade… Aunt Kade was not smiling as she should be.

Queen or not, Aunt Kade was her guardian now, until she came of age. Or did that not apply to queens? How could she be a minor and reign as a queen at the same time? Inos led Andor over to her aunt.

“Well? Aren’t you going to congratulate us?”

Flustered, Aunt Kade glanced at Andor and then back to Inos. “You are quite sure, my dear? It just seems… so soon…”

“Quite sure!”

Her aunt managed a smile. “Well, then certainly I congratulate you.” But she did not look certainly —she looked perhapsly.

They hugged.

Still no Yggingi? Maybe they could manage what Andor had suggested—marry at once, before the proconsul came storming down to stop them. “Chaplain?” Inos said. “Marry us!”

That provoked some reaction. Aunt Kade’s rosy complexion turned almost as pale as her silver gown, and Inos had never seen that before. Mother Unonini went as black as her robe. The men muttered.

“That seems even more, well, unseemly,” Aunt Kade said. “Your father is barely… It is very soon. Surely you could wait a while, my dear.”

Inos glanced at the closed door. “I am sorry that it must be this way, but Andor and I think it would be advisable. Very quickly! A matter of state. Chaplain?”

Mother Unonini did not move from where she was standing. She pouted, bleaker than ever. “Inosolan, do you recall what the God told you? Remember love! Are you remembering love?”

Inos looked up at Andor. He looked down at her. They smiled.

“Oh, yes!” she said.

“I think you should wait a—”

Inos did not let the chaplain finish. “No!” she shouted. “Now! Before the proconsul comes back! Quickly!”

Mother Unonini flinched and sought support from Aunt Kade, who bit her lip and muttered, “It might be… a reasonable precaution.”

The chaplain shook her head vigorously. The men were mostly still frowning at this improper and irreverent haste. Inos wondered if she should be asking her council’s permission, but if they did not suggest it, then she certainly would not.

Of course! Inos did not need the horrid chaplain. Indeed, she had been making a serious error. Gripping Andor’s wrist, she dragged him across to Bishop Havyili, who was nodding peacefully on a sofa. The bishop was notorious for sleeping anywhere—even on horseback, her father had said.

“Your Holiness!”

“Mmm?” His Holiness opened his eyes.

“Marry me!”

“What?” Bewildered, the bishop struggled to his feet—old and dumpy and pathetically unimpressive for a bishop.

“Marry us!” Inos shouted, stamping her foot. “A matter of state! It’s urgent! Now! At once!”

Blinking, but obedient, the bishop mumbled, “Dearly beloved friends—”

“Oh, never mind all that!” Inos stormed. Yggingi must be on his way now. “Get to the important part!”

The audience muttered again. The bishop spluttered and for a moment seemed about to argue. Then he changed his mind. “Are there any here among you present who know cause why this man and this woman should not be united in sacred matrimony?” Mercifully he did not pause for answers, “Then do you, er…”

“Andor.”

“Andor, take this . .”

His voice trailed off. His gaze went past Inos. The door creaked, and she swung around in terror.

Slowly it swung open.

In came…

Impossible!

That was the second worst shock of that terrible day.

He bowed stiffly in her direction, across the whole width of the room. He swallowed, hesitated. “Sorry about your father, Inos—your Majesty,” he said hoarsely. “Very sorry.”

He was holding Yggingi’s sword of office.

Foronod said, “The horse thief!” and it was certainly Rap.

He was no longer the filthy goblin of the forest. He was shaved and clean. His tangle of brown hair might have been cut with a saw, but it was as tidy as it could ever be. He wore an ancient, ill-fitting brown doublet and very patched gray wool hose. Only the sword he was holding and the ludicrous raccoon tattoos around his eyes marked him as anything other than some commonplace flunky in the quaintly rustic palace of Krasnegar. But he did have a nervous, rather sick expression on his very plain face.

And he did have the proconsul’s sword.

Inos felt supernatural fingers stroking her scalp—a wraith? Why would Rap’s ghost haunt her, of all people?

Everyone else in the room seemed to have been turned to stone.

“Where is Proconsul Yggingi?” Foronod demanded.

Rap glanced down at the inexplicable sword. “Was that his name?” He coughed, as if feeling nauseated. “He’s dead.”

No, he was no ghost. Inos gasped with relief. It was Rap.

A mutter of shock was followed by a flickering of eyes as everyone tried to work out what his news meant—two thousand Imperial soldiers in town and their leader murdered?

“Rap!” Inos said. “You didn’t!”

He shook his head angrily. “But I helped!”

And another youth stepped through the door behind Rap, a young goblin, shorter and heavyset, with dark khaki skin and short black hair, big ears and a long nose. He wore boots, hose, and pants, but from the waist up he was bare, and the company hissed in disgust at this vulgarity.

He grinned widely, showing long white teeth. He held up a stone dagger—proudly, like a child bragging. Hand and blade glistened with fresh blood.

“This is Little Chicken of Raven Totem,” Rap said. “He just avenged that village your proconsul slaughtered.”

“I thought goblins preferred their victims tied up,” Andor remarked coldly.

Rap seemed to notice Andor for the first time, and his gaze slid down to where Andor and Inos were holding hands, and back again. “This one made an exception. And I don’t blame him.”

Foronod moved to the downstairs door.

“Stop!” Rap shouted, lifting his sword slightly.

Inos glanced around the room. Only Andor had a weapon. The imps had disarmed the city.

The factor did stop. He turned to glare at Rap, who blushed.

“Sir… Sir, I guided your wagons for you once, didn’t I? And that messed up my life. I need your help now… Sir?”