Heir Apparent (10 page)

Like an actress momentarily stepping out of character, she put one hand on her hip and said in a chirpy little voice totally unlike her normal hazy tone, "Definitely not, because—of course—our intent is not to offend anyone," which was probably a Rasmussem programmer's idea of humor. Sister Mary Ursula resumed her slightly foggy manner. "I am," she said, "of the Sisterhood of One."

"That's a regular order here?" I asked.

"No," she said. "I'm the only one. We are
all
the only one."

Of course. How silly of me.

She said, "I'm afraid King Cynric and his family have not always been quite so One as they might have been."

"Well..." I said. I wasn't sure what to answer, but that made no difference, for Sister Mary Ursula had only paused to take a breath.

"But you are obviously someone who takes Oneness seriously. You're a true treasure, like rain on a plain of drought, or like a peach without a pit." Sister Mary Ursula patted my hand. "You and I are going to get along wonderfully well, I can tell. Together we shall unite this kingdom into Oneness with the universe."

Since she obviously wasn't going to give me a chance to get a word in edgewise, I just smiled at her.

But apparently she was through. "Come, come," she said, starting for the castle, moving at a slow waddle. "If the sun is singing in your marrow, tell it to whisper to the acorns instead. We have work before us."

Not knowing what else to do, I followed her.

In the castle we ran into Wulfgar, who was walking with Counselor Rawdon.

"Yes," Rawdon was saying, "if we send a rider to contact Uldemar, he can use his scrying glass to tell the others, and that will certainly save time with trying to track them all down."

"Oooo," Sister Mary Ursula interrupted, "scrying." She shook her head disapprovingly. As far as I could tell, she was totally oblivious to the annoyed looks she was getting from both men. "Not a good thing. Not a good thing at all. Disrupts the cosmic harmonies. Throws off the balance of One—it's like a fat woman trying to stand on one foot. No, not a good idea at all." She placed her fingertips to her temples and hummed, then shuddered as though she'd had a sudden chill. "Good thing we met you in time to stop you."

"You are not," Wulfgar said, "stopping us." To me he explained, "If you want Orielle and Xenos to attend your meeting, having Uldemar use his scrying glass is the most efficient way to reach them."

This made sense to me, but "Oooo," Sister Mary Ursula said as though Wulfgar had said the one thing she dreaded more than hearing that scrying was about to take place. "Wizard, witch, necromancer. They are
so
strayed from One, you might just as well count them as Other. No, no, no, no—not a good way to start your good work, Princess Janine, definitely not."

No magic?
Was that what she was saying: There should be no magic? "Surely that can't be right," I said, remembering the promos I'd seen, which included a wizard and a dragon. Were they only in the dead ends? No magic? What kind of fantasy role-playing game had no magic?

But Sister Mary Ursula was shaking her head. "Of course I'm right," she said. "Right and truth are One with pinochle and rye bread."

Rawdon shook his head.

Wulfgar said, "Princess Janine, haven't you listened to enough of this woman's rantings?"

As though Wulfgar wasn't standing only about two feet farther away from her than I was, Sister Mary Ursula whispered loudly, "He's not to be trusted. He was raised by Others, you know." To Wulfgar and Rawdon she said, "Princess Janine and I dance to the same rhythms of the cosmos. She has chosen me to be her counselor, and we are now as two bodies sharing one mind."

That
was a scary thought.

And, anyway,
had
I chosen her? All I'd done was pardon the poacher boy, an action she happened to approve. Did that make her my official choice of counselor?

"Princess Janine," Rawdon said, "are you really planning to dismiss me?"

"I never said anything about dismissing..." I started.

But Wulfgar, who'd been looking from me to Sister Mary Ursula, crossed his arms over his chest and demanded of me, "
What
is she talking about?"

Sister Mary Ursula answered for me, and I realized I was getting pretty tired of that. She said, "The princess showed Oneness with a poor peasant boy."

Wulfgar homed in on what she must be talking about. "The poacher?" he asked. "You let the poacher off? Is that what she's saying? Didn't you hear my mother warn you about the peasant unrest?"

"Yes," I said before Sister Mary Ursula could tell me what I thought about this. "I thought the unrest could be due to the severity of the laws over minor matters."

"'Minor matters'?" Wulfgar snarled at me. "The laws of the land are a minor matter?"

How could every conversation get so far beyond me? I said, "Well, this particular one is."

We glowered at each other, until Sister Mary Ursula finally said, "See? One mind."

"You're welcome to each other," Wulfgar said, and he stormed off down the hall.

Rawdon threw his hands up in the air in frustration. "Princess—" he started.

Sister Mary Ursula put her fingers to her temples and said, "No, no, no Rawdon."

And Rawdon, too, left in a huff.

"Can't I have two counselors?" I called after him.

He didn't answer. And Sister Mary Ursula told me, "One. One sun. One underlying song to the universe. One best way to prepare eggplant. One counselor. We must sit down and discuss all that needs to be changed. I am a much better person than Rawdon."

"Counselor Rawdon." I raised my voice and I was pretty sure he could hear me. "I haven't said no, about those magic-users coming. I just"—I sighed and finished lamely—"need to talk to my counselor about it first."

And of course he didn't answer that, either.

"Now." Sister Mary Ursula said, "the first thing you must do is cleanse yourself."

How kind of her to notice. "Yeah," I said, checking out the skirt of my dress, "I
am
pretty disgusting."

She sighed. Loudly. "Physical appearance is not what is important."

Yeah, right. Tell that to any girl who hasn't bothered to put on a presentable shirt or fix her hair because she's only running into the grocery store to get a quart of milk for her grandmother, and who does she see tending the 7-
I
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S
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O
R
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L
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S
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cash register but the guy of her dreams, except she can't even say hi—much less try to develop a meaningful relationship—since she looks like the poster child for the terminally geeky.

But Sister Mary Ursula came from a different world from me. I suspected Sister Mary Ursula came from a different world from the other people in
this
world, too, but I didn't say so. She told me, "You need to cleanse your soul—make it One with the world."

"How do I do that?" I asked.

"Solitude. Fasting. Meditation. Skinny-dipping in the moonlight."

"I think I'll wait until my second week as king for that," I said, willing to risk that I was skipping something I was supposed to do.

Sister Mary Ursula didn't argue. "All ways lead to the One," she said, "though some ways get you there faster."

"Speaking of getting places," I said, "what I want are people to deliver messages for me. Who would I talk to about that?"

"You could talk to me," Sister Mary Ursula said. "But in all honesty, I don't know much about it. Probably the one you need to speak to is Penrod, captain of the guard."

"Fine," I said. "Thank you. I'll see you later."

"Don't you want to discuss the meaning of life?" Sister Mary Ursula took a few steps after me.

But she stopped following when I said, "In a little bit." She was obviously a dead end. I had chosen the wrong counselor, that was all there was to it. There was no way the game was supposed to be played with me spending my first afternoon here cleansing my soul and listening to Sister Mary Ursula philosophize about life. Or, at least, I didn't think so.

I was sure the ceiling would come crashing down on me at any moment now. Or maybe there would be an earthquake or a tidal wave, something to kill me off and set me down at the beginning again. But in the meanwhile, there was no reason I couldn't try to find out information that would be useful for my next try.

I went back out into the courtyard. No guards this time; if they weren't terrorizing the local citizenry, they were probably huddled somewhere conspiring to kill me. I stopped a servant woman who was carrying a basket of laundry. "Any idea where I would find Captain Penrod?" I asked her.

"He might be in the guardhouse." She pointed to one of the doorways.

Luckily, the door was wide open, because I didn't know if—as a princess-about-to-be-appointed-king—I was supposed to knock. I mean, obviously I outranked them, but I didn't want to walk in on a group of guys who might be in the process of getting dressed or undressed, or who might be sitting around scratching or belching and farting or doing whatever it is guys do when there aren't any civilized folk around. But with the door already open, I rapped my knuckles against the doorframe, called, "Hello!" and walked in.

There were about a half-dozen guards, who were neither walking around naked nor conspiring against me—at least not obviously so. Apparently this wasn't where they slept but just where they hung around. A pair of them were seated at a table, playing a game my subconscious identified as knucklebones. Most of the others were clustered around them, and I gathered, from the snatch of conversation I caught before they saw me and stopped, that they were betting on the outcome of the game. One man was napping on a cot in the corner, and another was making some sort of adjustment to his sword belt. All of the men, except the napper, jumped to attention when they saw me. Not guiltily, I thought, just wary.

"Captain Penrod?" I said.

"Yeah?" The man who answered was the one who had been fiddling with his belt. He was also the guard I'd talked to several times this morning—the one who had arrested the poacher. The one who had killed me two or three games back.

I decided not to hold that against him. "I need to invite the magic-users of the realm to a meeting," I said.

"Done," the man said.

Did he mean, "I will do your bidding so quickly, you might as well consider it done already"? Because he certainly wasn't moving, quickly or otherwise.

"'Done'?" I repeated.

"Prince Wulfgar already gave that order."

"Oh," I said, because—excuse me, but—the way Prince Wulfgar and I had left things, Sister Mary Ursula was my adviser, and she had advised me to steer clear of magic, and he had no reason to believe I wouldn't take her recommendation. Sure, that was what I had decided. But
after
he left. I had certainly not told him to go ahead and give the order.

Some of this—not the details but the surprise and annoyance—must have shown on my face. Captain Penrod gave an unpleasant smile and said, "You and Prince Wulfgar need to consult more to get your stories straight."

I took that as indication the captain had found out I'd misled him regarding the poacher. I didn't like the way the other men had moved in closer—even the guy who earlier had been lying down. I braced myself, but so far their weapons were still sheathed.

"You're right," I told Penrod, told all of them. "As I'm starting my rule, I'm sure to make many mistakes. But I want you to know: You and your men are very important to me. I realize you perform some of the hardest, most dangerous, most thankless jobs in the realm." I had no idea what their duties were, but doesn't everybody feel that describes their jobs? I figured it couldn't hurt for me to be sympathetic.

They
did
seem to—well, not mellow or relax, but maybe loosen a bit at my words.

"I want all of you to feel free to come to me with any of your concerns. And I want you to go ahead and give me advice if you think anything in the way this kingdom is being run is wrong."

Well, that was a mistake.

They started complaining to me about everything from my being too soft on the peasants to the fact that they weren't paid enough and weren't paid regularly, and the food was pretty generally lousy, and they really didn't like the way the queen had a tendency to hit on the younger men.

"Wow," I said the instant there was a pause, "I'm going to look into all of those things. First..." I was going to apologize for undermining their authority with the poacher boy; but on second thought, they might take that as permission to enact harsher measures on the nearest peasants. Besides, I didn't think a king should start her reign by apologizing. "First," I said, "the money owed you."

That certainly seemed the right choice for getting their attention. They all spoke at once, their words tumbling over one another, but I gathered that they'd been shorted their salaries several times over the past months.

"Who's in charge of paying you?" I asked.

"Counselor Rawdon," they all said, seven voices speaking as one.

Rawdon, of course, had walked off in a huff. Had he simply left my presence or had he left the castle? "I will get to the bottom of this," I promised. "Who can take me to Counselor Rawdon's room, or..." I still didn't have a clear idea what I was supposed to be doing in this game. "Or, well, to all the places I need to go?"

They all looked ready to volunteer, which was a distinct improvement to their earlier mood. But it was Penrod who said, "I will accompany you, Highness."

"Good. Thank you." I nodded to the other men. "At ease," I said, which was about all the military-speak I knew.

Penrod and I walked back out into the courtyard. "Any idea how soon before the magic-users will be here?" I asked.

"Uldemar is the only one with a regular house in a town, and that's about a half-day's ride from here. The messenger Prince Wulfgar sent should be there by late afternoon. Uldemar has wizardly ways to contact the others. Depending on where they are and if they can come immediately, I should think they'd be here sometime between noon tomorrow and..." He trailed off, indicating no upper limit for how long it could take.