Close Kin (30 page)

The
street urchin shook his head and kept his eyes shut.

"No, you're talking like a real gentleman," he
said dolefully, "but
it's best if I just
go. I'll go back to the life I'm used to. I'd rather."

"You'd
rather?" The voice was closer. "You'd rather not have a home or a
King?"

"No."
The boy gave a sigh. "I'd rather not even think about
them."

"That's unfortunate because you
have them anyway." A firm
hand pulled
him around, and he looked into two piercing eyes.
Richard burst into
tears.

"I'm sorry!" he wailed.
"For everything! Don't send me away! I
couldn't
bear it, I tell you. You'd kill me! Please don't send me away!"
He
wrapped his skinny arms around his King and wept noisily on his shirtfront.

"That's better," commented
Marak, patting the sobbing boy on
the head.
"So you were running away before I could send you away."

"It's the worst thing I
know," explained the boy tearfully. "I couldn't bear it happening
again."

"No, you couldn't," agreed
his monarch. "I'm surprised you survived it before. Being alone is the
worst thing that can happen to a goblin, and it shouldn't ever have a chance to
happen. That's why I
was so angry when I
heard about you all alone out there. I certainly
wasn't angry at you.

Richard
considered this through his tears.

"I don't know what you're going
to do with me, Your Majesty,"
he said
sadly. "All I know is picking pockets and scaring people in a
show.
I can't do anything but steal and lift handkerchiefs and wallets. Except -- I do
know how to make beans jump into a pot."

Marak
laughed. "You have one honest pursuit, anyway! With a
talent like that, you'll never go hungry. Come
along. Tomorrow, I'll
take you to
the pages' floor, and you can meet the other children, but
tonight you
can stay with my family."

The urchin wiped his streaming eyes
with the back of his hand. "Bless me!" he exclaimed in wonder.
"Me stay with a king and queen and all, just like I was somebody!"

"And a
prince, too," pointed out Marak. "I don't mind if you
teach my son how to pick pockets, but keep that bean
trick to your
self. He would
love it, and Kate's very particular about his manners.
Let's go wake her up now, Richard. She's been anxious to
meet
you." And the King of the ugly people
led his new subject away in search of a place to belong.

Sable and Tinsel
went through the endless halls and stairwells of the
palace,
and one long, thin, bright cave replaced another before the
apprehensive woman's field of view. Somehow, she
was supposed to
find a way to live in this strange series of boxes upon
boxes.

But when they
opened the door of their new living quarters,
Sable didn't see a sterile box. The large, open room had
been
designed to look as
much like a stretch of forest as possible. A number of artificial trees stood
here and there, and green mats and hang
ings
simulated the ferns and vines of a woodland scene. Over it all stretched a dull
black ceiling so high that it failed to attract notice.
An ornamental pool sparkled by the door under the shadow of some
green
hung saplings. A little fountain bubbled at one end of it, and small silver
fish flashed through the water beneath polished stone water-lilies.

The elf woman found that she was able
to breathe freely for the
first time since
coming underground. It wasn't that the pretend trees
fooled her. They
just made the place look right to her. In the same
way that Tinsel would have recognized a chair whether it was wood,
stone, or metal, Sable recognized the organic clutter and jumble that
belonged to a proper forest camp. And when they
climbed the steps
notched into the short cliff face that led up to their
sleeping area, there stood a tent. The goblin studied it with a puzzled smile,
won
dering at a tent indoors, but Sable
crawled into it to test the thickness
of the pallet and crawled back out
again, her face shining. She had never slept anywhere except inside a tent.
Sleeping in a bed would have made her feel very unsafe.

They went back downstairs to the
ornamental pool and discovered that supper had been left there in a basket.
Tinsel opened a bottle of beer while Sable contemplated the enormous bun that
he
had handed her. Mindful of his gaze, she
tried to eat it slowly, but the food only worried and upset her. For years, she
had existed from one
meal to the next. Life was a fragile, precarious
thing.

"Maybe I'll
be happy here," she said, not looking at her new hus
band.
She rose and began to walk about, pausing to run her hand over the cloth
greenery.

"Of course
you will," agreed Tinsel in an encouraging tone.
"You
know the goblin King wants you to."

"But should
I be happy?" demanded Sable. "My father taught
me
to hate goblins. Now I'm doing what they want." She thought about the goblin
King, with his brilliance and learning. Her enemy seemed to know everything.
Maybe he even knew at this moment
that she
was considering defying him. "What do you think he
would do to me,
Tinsel, if I'm not happy here?"

"Marak? I don't know. He has books
to help him with that kind of thing, but I'm sure he wouldn't hurt you."

Sable imagined the goblin King poring
over his books, looking
up the perfect
remedy for a rebellious elf She shuddered. It wouldn't
matter whether he
hurt her or not; she knew she didn't have the courage to stand against him. She
thought about her father, strong and brave, and felt again the pain of breaking
faith with him. She knelt by the little pool to watch the silver fish.

"My father said that the goblins
took the cowards. That's why I'm here," she whispered.

"That's not
true." Her goblin came to put an arm around her.

"You were
right not to marry. Your father was wrong about a
woman's
life. No woman should feel it's her duty to die having a child."

"I was right about that, wasn't
I?" Sable studied her reflection.
"The
men lied to us for years and years. My father told me elf women
were
supposed to die. He probably lied to me about goblins, too."

"I'm sure he did," said
Tinsel. "You don't have to hate us." But Sable didn't respond. She
knew her father hadn't really lied about
goblins.
He just hadn't known how clever they were. He would
never have given in like this and done what the
goblin King wanted.
She felt discouraged and overwhelmed.

"I don't care if he lied or
not!" she cried bitterly. "I don't care what he taught me to do. I
want to be happy. I want to learn magic, and I want to learn about numbers.
Tinsel, would you teach me?"

The silver
goblin hugged her reassuringly. "If that's what makes
you
happy," he promised.

Sable looked at
him with new understanding. "I heard the goblin
King
tell you that I'm more important than your other work. You're j
ust like me. If we're not happy, he'll look up
remedies for you, too."

"I suppose so." Tinsel gave
a rueful smile. "They might not be pleasant, either. He wouldn't worry so
much about hurting me."

Sable smiled
back, feeling a surge of sympathy and gratitude. It
felt
good to share her captivity with a fellow pawn.

"Then we'll
have to look after each other," she concluded, "and
make sure he doesn't need his books. I'm thirsty,
Tinsel. Is cave water
safe to drink?"

∗ ∗ ∗

Next
morning, Seylin went to see the goblin King to discuss his new
employment, but he
had a question to ask first.

"Why did
it fulfill your fondest hopes when Em and I married?"
he
wanted to know. Marak gave him a sidelong glance.

"It isn't enough that you two
have always loved each other and that I myself am very fond of you both?"

The young man
considered this for a minute. Then he shook his
head.
"Not to make it a fondest hope," he declared.

"Then perhaps I
should add," remarked the goblin King cheer,
fully, "that, with your overpowering elf blood and M's
overpowering
human blood, you'll
have far more children than in a normal goblin
marriage. My hope is that your children will have practically no goblin
blood in them, and I'd say there will be seven or eight at least."

"You want me to have eight children?"
demanded Seylin, considerably startled. His King fixed him with a stern glance.

"Don't be a
coward, boy! Your kingdom needs you," he admon
ished.
"You'll strengthen the high families for generations."

"When you told me to see you
about new employment," said Seylin bitterly, "I had no idea it would
be fatherhood."

"Don't be
silly," Marak laughed. "Fatherhood is just a hobby.
No, I want you to become Catspaw's tutor. You and Em
will move to
the tutor's quarters, on the floor below the royal
rooms."

Seylin stared at him
in complete amazement.

"You want me to tutor the new
King?" he breathed. "But -- I'm not too young for that?"

"Tutoring a King takes the
better part of thirty years," observed Marak. "You won't be that
young when you finish."

"King's magic!"
exulted Seylin, his dark eyes shining. "Of
course,
I'll have to practice it before I teach it."

"Yes, the tutor
has a workroom, too," said the King. "But you can't neglect the other
subjects: elvish, dwarvish, English, history, strategy, economy, mathematics.
I'll help, of course, but I can't do more than oversee and guide you."

"A King! What a pupil!"
gloated Seylin. "He'll be able to learn anything!"

"He'll be
able to learn anything and do it even better than you
do," said Marak with a smile. "Catspaw's not
quite six, but his
magic is already
much stronger than yours."

∗ ∗ ∗

That
afternoon, Tinsel slept soundly inside his indoor tent, but
Sable
roamed the large apartment in a state of near-panic. Her quar
ters had no balcony
or terrace, a precaution against an important elf
bride's attempting to throw herself to her death, and Tinsel had
locked the door with magic so that she couldn't
wander off while he
slept. Sable had
never been locked inside anything before. She found
it completely unnerving.
Even though her elf senses told her it was day outside, she paced her luxurious
quarters like a caged animal, unable to sleep.

She wanted to
get a drink and wash her face and hands, and she
stood for several minutes in front of the shallow basin
in her dressing
room,
unsure about what to do. Tinsel had shown her how the shiny
metal
knob made water gush out, but Sable was afraid of that fast-flowing water. Even
if she had enough power to deal with it, she
hadn't
had a single magic lesson yet. What if she was able to start the
water but not stop it? Perhaps the cave would
flood. So she went back
up the
pathway and washed her face in the ornamental pool instead,
while all the silver fish huddled in the shadows
of their stone lily-pads.

A thumping noise startled her, and
she scrambled to her feet.
Someone was
banging nearby. Sable crept noiselessly to the locked
door of the apartment and found that the thumping
came from it.
She wished with all
her heart that Tinsel were there with her, but he
was still sleeping,
and she was afraid to wake him up.

"Hello?"
said a woman's voice through the door. It wasn't Irina's
voice
or Emily's. Sable breathed very quietly.

"Sable, are you there?" the
voice continued. "I'm the goblin King's Wife. May I come in?"