But reality was not all sorrow. It was an unfamiliar silken nightgown soft on her skin; it was gossamer sheets and a bed that could have held a family of peasants and their livestock, also; it was high-arched windows imprisoning cutouts of peacock-blue sky. Also, it was morning; she must have slept the clock around. She had vague memories of being awake in darkness, memories of fear and grief, and she repressed those quickly. Had there been a tray of food beside the bed? She raised herself on an elbow and peered. There was no food there now, if there ever had been, but there was a small bronze gong.
Palace life might be very enjoyable, but her kingdom had been stolen from her, and she must see about getting it back. Besides, she had never been more hungry in her life. Parting the draperies, she reached out and tapped the gong quietly, with a knuckle.
The reaction was immediate and almost embarrassing. A lanky woman swathed in black swept in through the doorway, hastened across the soft rugs, and sank to her knees; abasing herself as if Inos were a God.
“Good morning,” Inos said cheerfully. “This is tomorrow, isn’t it? Who are you?”
The woman raised herself to sit on her heels. She was old, her face deeply scored, and a tiny wisp of white hair peeking from below her head covering of snowy white. Her gnarled brown fingers glittered with gems, so she was no minor flunky. She might be a housekeeper, except she bore no keys.
“I am Zana, may it please your Majesty.” Majesty? Oh, Father!
“What are the chances of something to eat?” Inos inquired hastily. ”And possibly even some hot water?”
About once an hour for weeks and weeks, she had been promising herself a hot bath at the earliest possible opportunity. She might have offered half her kingdom for one, had soap and towels been included. Inos had crossed the frozen wastes on a flood of imaginary hot water, but her wildest longings had never come close to envisioning the long-delayed consummation of her dream as it now appeared.
She was conducted deferentially along a corridor to a meadow-size bathroom containing a gigantic green marble tub. A team of black-draped maidens stood ready to assist, and before Inos could explain that she was quite capable of attending to herself, they were applying soap and oil, scents, powders, and ointments. Even music! Kinvale had never approached this.
Holy writ might claim that there was evil in every good, but Inos could find no evil in that bathtub except that she was too hungry to stay in it for another month. Robed at last in cool flowing garments of ivory silk, with her hair encased in lace and her feet in golden sandals, she was led along bright, airy corridors toward a promise of breakfast. Her way wound past high arched windows offering vistas of a great city tumbling away in layers down a steep hillside. The shiny blue bay beyond was speckled with sails. Krasnegar was a fleabite compared to this place, and its palace a chicken coop . . . Crazy—given the choice, she would take that shabby little arctic rock pile every time!
Then she came to a garden, enclosed by shrubbery, high walls, and an air of secrecy. Branches overhead cast hard black shadows, dappling grass so smooth that it must in truth be a green velvet tablecloth, and the flowers could only be silk, or possibly enameled gold. The sky was a fierce blue, the sun deadly, and the swiftly swooping birds were colored like nothing Inos had ever imagined.
And talking of birds . . . in a grotesquely domed gazebo of fretted marble, Aunt Kade sat like a caged dove, calmly nibbling sliced peaches.
Gold lace lay over her snowy hair, but otherwise she, too, was enveloped in white. Inos recalled far-off days of helping Ido in the palace laundry, when sometimes they had draped themselves in sheets to play at being wraiths of evil.
Then Kade looked up. Relief flashed in her faded blue eyes and she made as if to stand.
“Don’t!” Inos said hurriedly and stooped to give her a kiss. They held each other for a moment—dear Aunt Kade, who ought not be bouncing around the world in such sinister adventuring, who should be settling in comfortably at Kinvale, good for another thirty years of fruitless knitting and conspiratorial matchmaking.
“You look very . . . austere,” Inos said, tactfully not mentioning wraiths. “I haven’t felt like this since the masquerade ball.”
“I ‘m sure you would win a prize now, dear.” Aunt Kade’s inevitable good cheer was still present, and only a very close scrutiny suggested that it might be a little forced. Her pink cheeks were perhaps not quite so pink as usual.
“Best of Breed anyway.” Inos released her. “This is a very pleasant dungeon, is it not?”
“Most genteel!” Kade in turn was carefully inspecting her niece for signs of wear. “Like something out of a fairy tale.”
“Angilki would turn green.”
“He would raze Kinvale to the ground and start over. I take it that you slept well, my deal”
Mutual scrutiny completed, Inos settled on a chair as it was moved for her by one of the tall young servants. “I must have. I don’t remember a thing.” No need to dwell on tears in the night. “And you?”
“Very well. I looked in on you a couple of times, but you were out cold as ice floes.” Just for a moment there was a hint there of an old lady who had been worried about someone. Then it had gone. “This melon is delicious. The coffee is stronger than we are used to, but there are fruits and pastries; and this fish, while unfamiliar . . .”
Inos glanced at Zana. “All of it,” she said firmly.
The garden was shaded by trees she could not identify, and enclosed by marble trellises. The dome of the sky was an incredible cobalt, the flowers much too brilliant to be genuine.
Then, just to confirm the unreality, a thing like a jeweled insect floated for a moment above the table before Inos s startled eyes. She had barely time to decide that it was a tiny bird before it had vanished in a flash of rainbow. She began her survey again, looking around, trying to adjust to this unworldly setting, trying to believe that this was all real and that she had not somehow been transmuted into a hand-tinted lithograph in a romance.
Unfamiliar delicacies were laid before her on dishes of translucent china, and she attacked them with zeal. They were all just as delicious as they looked. Yet her mind kept chewing away at her troubles. Father dead. Rap dead. Andor an imposter. An army of occupation in Krasnegar, and another about to invade. Her claim to the throne rejected by the leading citizens. And what could she possibly do about it all, stuck here at the other end of the world?
The black-clothed maidens had floated away. Zana hovered discreetly in the distance.
“We certainly cannot complain about the hospitality,” Aunt Kade remarked. Her eyes flickered a warning.
“Yes, I think I could learn to tolerate this,” Inos muttered between mouthfuls, decoding: ConWlaints may be overheard. She ate swiftly, and in thoughtful silence. Again she wished she had listened more carefully to Master Poraganu droning away her childhood. She could recall nothing of Zark, and all she knew about djinns was summed up in one piece of folklore she had overheard in Kinvale: As honest as a jinn.
But how, exactly, was that comment meant to be taken? Every race had its stereotypes, however unfair those might be in particular cases. A dirty child would be called a filthy little gnome, or a man as strong as a troll. Usually such remarks were meant to be taken literally—mean as a dwarf—but some were ironic. An imp’s secret was common knowledge. Gentle as a drunken Jotunn? And another she had learned at Kinvale: Tell it to a faun. What did Honest as a djinn really mean?
Well, Inos could hardly ask her aunt that now. “Have you . . . have you spoken with the sultana?”
“No, dear. But I expect she will be informed that you are awake now. ”
Again there was a curious rhythm in the words. Ladies at Kinvale soon learned how to pass silent messages under meaningless conversation, especially warnings. Aunt Kade was repeating her caution that a sorceress could inform herself. Talk could always be overheard—anywhere, at any time. Inos munched for a while in silence. But a sorceress could probably mead thoughts, also.
“Imagine me sleeping round the clock! I wonder what they’re doing in Kras—”
Oh, that had been stupid! She smiled apologetically at her aunt. Today in Krasnegar there would be a royal funeral. For a moment, blue eyes and green eyes communed in silence—it had been a release. His pain was over. All things include both the Evil and the Good. Inos had been able to say good-bye, and that was what mattered. That was why she and Kade had endured the terrible journey through the forest. Funerals were not very important. At the last weighing his soul would have prospered, the balance gone to join the Good. King Holindarn would have left no wraith of evil to haunt the world.