“Rap! Oh, Rap!”
God of Fools! The stupid child had tears streaming down her cheeks. He would never have come had he not promised.
“Hello, Inos.” He was glad he had farsight, because his eyes were going blurry in sympathy. Not a child. Beautiful, gorgeous woman.
“That’s Evil! And Fleabag? You’ve been to Arakkaran?”
“I’ve been all over the place. Good to be home.” Liar!
She choked back a question—about Azak, of course—and then took a harder look at Rap himself. He cursed under his breath; he should have done something about his appearance.
“Rap! What’s wrong? Are you ill?”
“No, no. Just a little tired, is all.” You’re breaking my heart, girl. That’s what’s wrong.
“You look terrible! What’s the matter? Gods!”
Of course! “You look great, Inos. And I know you’ve been doing a great job in the monarching business.” She gave him the sort of suspicious stare his mother had given him any time he hadn’t wanted seconds. Then she faked a smile over it. “And you’ve come for the Harvesthome Dance!”
He had quite forgotten the Harvesthome Dance. “Of course,” he said.
He stayed three days and he almost went crazy.
At times he wished he’d just turned up as his old self, but then he’d have had to answer the same questions over and over, and people would have seen the way Inos looked at him and tried to hang on to him, and she would have had difficult explanations to make when he disappeared again.
So he stayed immemorable, but that meant he couldn’t talk with his old friends. He would nod to them and they would react as Jik had—familiar face, can’t place it. Boyhood pals had become tall men. Gith, and Krath, and Lin. Some had beards. All the girls were mothers now. Ufio, Fan . . . He met them all at one time or another, mostly while Inos was dragging him around the town, showing him what had been accomplished and what was left to do, talking excitedly all the time and pretending her heart wasn’t as sore and sick as his. He saw how the people smiled when they saw her, and how eagerly they saluted and hoped for her answering smile. They were proud of their young queen. Imps had always cherished romantic ideas about beautiful princesses and impresses, but here in Krasnegar the feeling had become universal. To tease one of the local jotnar about having a female ruler would be very unhealthy.
Just once Rap saw Inos meet resistance. An aged carpenter began disputing her newfangled ideas on furniture. Green eyes flashed, the ambience shivered very slightly, and the old man’s feet and tongue began stumbling in unison as he tried to bow and apologize and flee, all at the same time. Apart from that one occasion, Rap never detected her regal glamour in use or even being needed. It was a lovely piece of work, though, almost undetectable; best spell he’d ever made.
He met just about everyone again at the Harvesthome Dance, but no one met him. The Great Hall was strung with ribbons and jammed with people, and filled with noise and laughter and music.
It was sort-of music, for Krasnegar was not Hub; nobody cared about beat or key too much, as long as it was loud and cheerful. He danced twice with Inos, but the rest of the time he insisted she dance with some of those loyal subjects hovering hopefully around her. She hadn’t found a lover yet, that was obvious. She could have had hundreds, that was equally obvious. They all loved her, and every young man in town was crazy over her.
He could make her fall in love with one of them if he wanted. Then she would be happy, wouldn’t she? He stood in the shadows and wrestled with his conscience. He’d once told the imperor that he just wanted Inos to be happy. He could make her happy with sorcery. So why didn’t he? He must think hard about that before he departed.
They talked a lot, or at least Inos did. She was proud of what she’d accomplished, and with good reason, and he let her explain everything over and over, although he’d seen it all within the first few minutes. Much of it he’d seen from far away, too.
He talked less, but he told her how he’d gone to Arakkaran to fetch his dog, and how terrified Azak and Kar had been when he showed up. When he described the feast they had put on for him, with jugglers and belly dancers and goats’ eyes, and the tricks he’d played when they took him hunting, then she laughed till she cried.
“So you rescued Fleabag? How about the panther?” she asked.
“I left the panther. I never was a cat person.”
“And Azak gave you Evil?”
“I took Evil. I thought Azak owed me that much.” And he told her a little of his other travels—in Faerie and Dragon Reach, and Durthing.
“Not Thume?” she asked.
No, he said, he had not been to Thume.
They talked all around their private problem, and never mentioned it. He had tried to tell her once, and the words had not let him. Or perhaps that compulsion had come from higher authority than the word—she wasn’t sure.
Inos was plotting something. He’d known that from the moment they met on the shore. He could have worked it out, or pried it out, but he didn’t. He turned off his insight so he couldn’t read her face at all; which was unpleasant for him, but then the whole visit was one unbearable agony.
At night he left the palace so he couldn’t watch her. Near the harbor he found a comfortable garret that no one was using, and he fitted it out with a comfortable bed to lie on. He never slept now; he’d almost forgotten what sleep felt like.
6
On the fourth morning, Rap joined Inos for breakfast in the Great Hall. She was sitting alone at the high table, and he came in by the door and walked over and took a chair beside her. The sun was just rising, promising another astonishingly fine day. She was wearing a very simple pale-green dress, and her hair hung loose with just a band around it, and she was as beautiful as he had ever seen her. The smoothness of her cheek was a miracle in itself.
He was back in riding clothes.
“You’re not leaving already!” Her voice was accusing, her face paler than it should be.
“Might as well catch the weather while it lasts,” he said, not looking at her. Not with his eyes, anyway. “Morning your Majesty.” A decrepit old waiter shuffied up to Inos and laid a mug of chocolate and a silver bowl of sticky porridge in front of her. He hadn’t noticed she had company.
Before she could say anything, Rap made a bowl of porridge appear in front of himself—a golden bowl. She tried to laugh, without much success. The old man went hobbling off, having missed all that.
“I thought I might take Firedragon,” Rap said between mouthfuls. ”He and I have always been good friends, and I think he’s getting a little old for his responsibilities.”
“Of course.”
“And I’ll leave Evil. I thought you’d like having him looking after things instead; an appropriate memento of Azak.”
“Oh, very funny!”
He hadn’t told her how well Azak had been making up for lost time since he got home to Arakkaran. Terrible man!
They ate in slurping silence for a while. Krasnegarian porridge was vile stuff, really, Rap thought, and wondered why he was enjoying it so much. It was strange to eat up here at the high table, a visiting sorcerer. Always, when he’d eaten in the Great Hall he’d been down near the hearths, with the servants. There were a lot of them there now, dawdling over a hot breakfast. He knew how they felt. Most of them would be newly back from the mainland, catching up on the summer’s gossip, reveling in real beds and dry lodgings, renewing old friendships, happily sliding into the slower pace of winter. Why had he been such a fool as to come?
Inos kept staring at him, crumpling a napkin in her free hand. Yes, she was plotting something, and he stubbornly refused to let himself peek and find out what it was.
“Not Master of Horse?” she said at last wistfully. “You ought to let Hononin have the title. He’s good for another ten years at least.” The pains in the hostler’s joints had cleared up miraculously since the night the queen returned. He would die very suddenly, fourteen years from now, near Winterfest.
“And not Sergeant-at-Arms?”
Their eyes met and exchanged moist smiles.
“Not really my sort of work,” Rap said. “Oopari’s much better at it than I would ever be.”
“King, then?” she whispered. “It’s the only job vacancy I have to offer at the moment.”