Perilous Travels (The Southern Continent Series Book 2) (8 page)

“Why don’t you go talk to someone who can talk to the queen, and tell her that the Duchess is here?” Grange suggested.  He had pulled his knife loose, so that he held a blade in each hand, as he maneuvered to a spot that let him see all the others in the room.  The guards were eying Layreen and Shaylee speculatively, and Grange concluded that he had to act.

“Os gwelwch yn dda, ynni gyfaill pwerus, ddiogelu fy dau ffrind benywaidd,” he uttered, and watched as energy glowed for his vision alone to see, then the men in the room gasped as a green dome suddenly appeared around where Layreen and Shaylee sat.  The guards instantly backed away.

“”Are you going to send for the queen, or are we going to go out looking for her?” Grange asked in a voice that he hoped sounded deep and husky.

“Do you feel okay, Grange?” Shaylee asked, looking at him through the green dome with concern.

“Yes,” he answered quickly, his eyes not glancing at the girl, as he stared at the looks of concern on the faces of the men of the palace.  “Except I’m growing angry,” he added theatrically.

“Is someone going, or not?” he asked.

The officer from the docks tapped a guard on the shoulder, and the man went running from the hallway.

“Put your skirts back on, and I won’t set them on fire again,” he nodded to the two courtiers.

“Are the women going to be safe if I take down the dome around them?” Grange looked at the officer as he asked.

“Yes, my lord, among my people they will be safe,” the officer assured him.  The man had regained his composure, Grange could see.  He was steady, unlike the two palace officials, who had lost their arrogance and their dignity altogether as they pulled their skirts on with trembling hands and widely dilated eyes.

“Os gwelwch yn dda, cyfaill pwerus, gosod fy dau ffrind benywaidd rhad ac am ddim,” Grange said a moment later, as he composed the command to release the energy dome over his friends.  The green dome faded and disappeared.

“Take them hostage now!” one of the courtiers shouted immediately.

“Have you no honor?” the officer asked scornfully.

At that moment there was a noise in one of the connecting hallways, and a large group of people came into view, a half dozen in uniforms like the guards, and a trio of men wearing brightly colored and patterned silk shirts and silk pants.

“We hear there’s some situation here,” one of the men said as he entered the room.  His eyes roamed around, taking in Layreen and Shaylee, then Grange standing with his weapons drawn, then the two skirted men with their blackened grass skirts.

“And apparently there is,” he added drily.  “What is happening?”

“My friend is a member of the royal family, and she’s not being treated well,” Grange said, at the same time Layreen began to speak.  He stopped, and motioned for her to continue.

“I am Duchess Layreen Kwa’Graccore, lately of the village of Waters Edge, far to the east,” she said.  “I seek recognition, and then we wish simply to be housed and treated appropriately while we visit the palace.  It’s a simple matter, once you take care of the first part.”

“And you’re traveling with a fair-skinned foreigner who has the powers of the gods?” the official asked.

“We are traveling with a boy who I have treated as if he were my own son as he has lived under my own roof for many weeks,” Layreen retorted.  “He is entitled to courteous treatment as a guest in the palace.”

“My lady,” another of the palace officials spoke up, one who immediately seemed more urbane and polished. “Perhaps we should start by taking you to a more comfortable room where you can relax.  I understand you’ve just completed a long journey to get here?” he asked.

“We want to offer you the full hospitality of the palace.  We just happen to have this confounded dance going on, and our people are pre-occupied with other matters,” he gave a charming grin.

“You all may go,” he dismissed the guards that had accompanied him to the vestibule.  “And your men are dismissed to return to the docks as well, captain.   Thank you for bringing our guests to the palace,” he said.

The captain turned and winked at Grange as he led his men out of the room, and the other guards retired as well, so that only a handful of functionaries remained.

“I’ll take them to the Pearl Room, if you’ll have refreshment delivered immediately,” he turned to the two men in the burnt skirts.  “And try to find something nicer to wear,” he added.

The two scurried away, and the courtier looked at his remaining palace companions.  “Go back and enjoy the ball.  Perhaps we’ll all be there shortly.”   The others obediently drifted away.

Once there were only the four of them left, the man introduced himself to Layreen, Shaylee, and Grange.

“I am the Queen’s majordomo, Clientes,” he introduced himself.

“Thank you for your courtesy, my lord,” Layreen answered.

“I apologize for confusion.  As I said, the palace is pre-occupied with other events tonight,” he gave a smile.  “Please follow me.” He turned and began to walk back out the hallway he had entered from.

“So tell me about yourself,” he spoke to Grange as they started walking.  “I have not heard any credible explanation about you from the two or three garbled sentences that were passed along to me.”

“My name is Grange, and I was on a ship with Ambassador Bartar and others from Palmland, on my way to Kilau for treaty talks.  A storm struck our ship, and I was swept overboard,” Grange replied.

“Shaylee found me on the beach of her island, and took me to her village,” he kept his explanation short and simple.

“And what was your role in the treaty negotiations?” Clientes asked curiously.

“I’m an apprentice wizard,” Grange answered.

“Ah,” the majordomo said with satisfaction.

“Ambassador Bartar and his entourage are here in the palace tonight attending the dance.  May I invite them to become reacquainted with you?  Perhaps we can not only reunite the Duchess,” he nodded sideways towards Layreen, “with her royal family, but we can reunite you with your companions, all in one fell swoop.”

“The Palmlanders are here tonight?” Grange felt his stomach flip and his throat tighten.  He had expected that the trip to Kilau would lead to his reunion with the others from the mainland, but the prospect of meeting them that very first night had never occurred to him.

It was both a promise of joy, and also a fear of losing touch with his Waters End identity, he realized.  His time in the village had been the closest he’d ever come to feeling like a member of a real family, known and accepted by a small group of villagers, and especially by Layreen’s family.  The prospect that reuniting with Bartar would put an end to the village connection was a mixed blessing.

“I would enjoy seeing them,” he answered after a pause.  “Please invite them to join us, or let me know when I should go see them.”

“We’ll make arrangements,” Clientes said as they turned a corner.  They passed through a door, and seemingly entered the formal parts of the palace, as the walls became covered in mural scenes of forests and beachfront scenes, and the ceilings rose to much higher elevations.

“Here is a parlor where you all may wait.  It is known as the Pearl Room, as I’m sure you’ll understand.  Let me go make arrangements for your visitors, and I’ll be right back,” the official said as he opened a door and led them inside.

The room was large, as big as the rooms Grange had known in the Palmland palace, much larger than the cozy rooms of the Waters End village homes he had grown accustomed to.

Inside the room were pieces of finely-made furniture, and wall decorations that drew the viewer’s attention.  One wall was covered with a larger-than-life scene of a girl who was swimming underwater, plucking oysters.  The girl was swimming naked, as Grange had seen so many times in the far off village he had lived in.  She held a single oyster in her hand, and the shell had been pried open with the knife she held in the other hand.

Exposed in the center of the painting, resting in the center of the open oyster, was a single pearl.  The artist had found some way to create a paint that portrayed the lustrous jewel with a luminescence that seemed to glow with its own light, shining forth from the canvas and drawing the viewer’s attention.

The visitors to the room all moved instinctively across the floor to stand in front of the painting and admire it.  They heard the sound of Clientes closing the door behind them, but paid no attention as they studied the rich detail of the painting.

“We never find pearls like that when we dive for oysters,” Shaylee murmured out loud.

“And I suppose that if we did, people would come to our village and want to buy them, wouldn’t they?” she asked.

“Yes,” Layreen agreed.  “Our village would be a different place if we had pearls like that.  There would be more people, and greedy people who would live in our village, and it would change.

“It wouldn’t be the wonderful group of people that it is now,” Grange agreed.

Shaylee smiled at him, then stepped over and leaned against him, her head resting on his shoulder.

“Having you there made it even more wonderful,” she told him.

The pair of them smiled warmly at one another, just as they heard the door open behind them.

They turned to see who was entering the room, and when they did, Grange gasped in surprise.

It was Grace, his fellow apprentice wizard.

Chapter 8

“Grace?” Grange asked in astonishment.

“Grange!  It really is you!” Grace said softly.

Grange disengaged his hug with Shaylee, and stepped across the room towards his fellow apprentice.

“Bartar and the others from the ship said that you had to be dead!” Grace said, and she spread her arms wide to embrace him in a welcoming hug.

“This is wonderful!” she told him as they squeezed one another.

“Look at you!  Look how brown you are!” she exclaimed, as they separated an arm’s length apart and examined each other.  “You’re not nearly the pale sheet you were in Palmland.  You look good.

“We thought you were dead,” she repeated a moment later, and hugged him again.

“How did you get here?” he asked.  “Why aren’t you in Palmland?”

“After you disappeared at sea, Bartar’s ship sailed on to the palace here.  He decided he still needed a wizard to provide proof of Palmland’s might, so he sent a message back to Master Brieed, and the master sent me over.  I’ve been here for a fortnight, performing small duties to demonstrate what a wizard can do,” she explained as they separated again.

“Grange, who is this?” Shaylee’s voice spoke from behind him, and then the girl was beside him, snuggling under his arm and pressing against him as she looked at Grace.

“And who is this?” Grace asked with arched eyebrows, looking at the cozy pair.

“This is Shaylee; she’s the girl who found me in the water and pulled me to shore.  She saved my life, and she’s been my friend ever since,” Grange introduced the girl.  “That’s her mother,” he motioned with his free hand towards Layreen, who still stood in front of the pearl diver painting.  “Her mother is a duchess,” he added.

“And this is Grace.  She’s an apprentice wizard from Palmland, just like me.  We were training together under the same master wizard,” he told Shaylee.

“Grange would invite me into his room at night to sing with him,” Grace said.   “We make wonderful music together, don’t we Grange?” she asked.  “So good,” she didn’t wait for an answer, “there is magic in our music!

“It’s true!” Grace went on.  “When we make music together, our powers work with each other, and we can heal people who hear us.”

Shaylee stepped out from under Grange’s arm, and went back beside her mother.

“That is a great gift,” Layreen said.  “You must feel privileged.  Grange told us about your singing and healing before we started our journey here.”

“You told them about me?  I’m touched,” Grace grinned at Grange.  “I hope you kept your comments nice.”

Just then, there was a knock at the door, and a young boy in a silk outfit similar to Clientes’s entered the room.

“All bow for the entrance of her royal majesty, Queen Shajo of Kilua,” the boy piped in his high voice.

There was a pause, and then a regal woman, one who was robust in physique and opulent in dress, entered the room.  The two villagers from Waters End and the two visitors from Palmland all bowed automatically.

When they rose, the queen stood in the room with a quartet of guards, all of whom had long staffs with deadly-looking blades on the business ends.

The queen looked at the occupants of the room, then smiled.

“I remember my niece Layreen, and you look remarkably like the way I would imagine she would appear today, perhaps even better!” the queen said.

“Tell me, do you remember your cousin Stackip?” the queen asked Layreen.

“I do,” Layreen answered gravely.  “He was such a prankster.  I assume he is no longer with us?”

“Why do you say that?” the queen asked.

“Because he’s the one who put the yellow paint inside the hat you put on your head for the ceremony at the first day of the monsoon season.  I’ll never forget the look of that paint dripping down on your shoulders!” Layreen laughed.  “Surely you had him beheaded!”

“Stackip did that?!” the queen asked.  “I never could find the culprit, but it does sound like him!  I don’t know why I didn’t suspect him in the first place!”

“Because he had pretended to have a broken leg that week, so that you wouldn’t think he could get into your hat collection,” Layreen answered promptly.

The queen looked at her thoughtfully.

“If you are Layreen, how did you manage to escape from the palace without anyone noticing?” she asked.

“It was thanks to you, dear queen,” Layreen answered.  “On the night I planned to escape, I told my guard that you had a secret crush on him, and I told him you asked for him to wait for you in the top of the bell tower at the north of the island.

“He went there just before midnight, and I was able to swim across the harbor to the mainland docks, where I had a canoe ready and waiting for my escape,” Layreen said gently.

“I hope the guard didn’t suffer too greatly from my escape,” she added sincerely.

“Let us speak for a moment,” the queen said.  She turned to her guards and said something in a low voice, then stepped alone past Grange and Grace, and went to a corner of the small room.  Layreen walked over to join her, and the two spoke in hushed whispers for several seconds, then embraced and began to cry on each other’s shoulders.

“This is my niece, the rightful Duchess Layreen,” the queen said.  “She is entitled to be treated as a member of the royal family.

“As for her guest,” Queen Shajo turned to look at Grange.  “I’ll expect that Ambassador Bartar will introduce this young person to the court formally in the near future.  And in the meantime, I hope that all three of our guests will come join us at the dance tonight.”

“Thank you, my queen,” Layreen said formally, with a crooked smile on her face at odds with her voice.

“Come with me, now, back to the dance,” she motioned, then took Layreen by one hand, and motioned for Shaylee to come hold her other, before the three of them swept out of the room, accompanied by the security forces.

Grange and Grace were left alone in the room.

“What happened to you?” Grace asked after a moment’s pause.

“Why were you goading her?” Grange asked at the same time.

“Are you sweet on her?  Is she something to you?” Grace asked.

“No, I promised her mother I would not take advantage of her,” Grange answered.

“That’s too bad, she’s a pretty girl, in her own way,” Grace said nonchalantly.

“She is lovely, and she’s nice and thoughtful, and smart and funny too,” Grange said with a smile.

“And did you know,” he asked “in her village, the women don’t wear blouses?  It’s unlike any place I’ve ever lived.”

“What happened to you?” Grace ignored his comments, her face turning dark as she blushed in embarrassment, giving Grange a sense of private satisfaction to finally see someone else reveal their emotions as he did so often.

“The ship was in a storm, and the waves knocked me overboard, I think,” Grange answered.  “I woke up on the beach with Shaylee pressing my back to squeeze the water out of my lungs,” Grange told her.

“And all that time you just stayed in the village with the bare-chested women?” Grace asked in a low voice.

“They needed me.  They didn’t have a musician, so I played the flute for their ceremonies, and taught some of them to play,” he said.   “It was a wonderful village.  I wasn’t in a hurry to leave.”

“I’m surprised you came back,” Grace retorted.  “I’m sorry that being a wizard and working for the King of Palmland have gotten in the way of your good life.

“I’m going to go back to the dance now.  Astel said he’d wait for me to come back to him,” she turned towards the door.

“Astel?  Lord Bartar’s page?” Grange asked.

“The one and the same.  A bright, funny boy.  We’ve gotten along very well since I arrived here.  He’s from a noble family himself, learning about life at court by attending to the Ambassador,” Grace said.  “You can come along or you can stay here and wait for your village girl to come back to you,” she told him, then left the room, with him in close pursuit.

They walked without talking for three minutes, as the noise and music grew louder.  Grace stopped at a door and pulled it open, letting the sound come washing directly at the pair from the lively party that was underway in the large ballroom on the opposite side.

“Let’s go reintroduce you to Ambassador Bartar,” Grace said.  She reached back and grabbed his hand, then physically pulled him into the dance hall and through the crowd.  Holding hands was a practical measure, Grange realized, as the dense crowd provided a challenge to pass through.

Minutes later they veered towards a set of tables near the front of the large hall where the party was taking place.  Grange saw the Queen, sitting at a long banquet table on a raised stage, and he saw Layreen sitting at her side, as the two of them talked incessantly.  Shaylee was sitting several chairs down the table, with a pair of boys, one on either side of her, each of whom was working hard to retain her attention.

He then saw the table at the front of the floor level, where the lighter skinned Palmland delegation sat, largely uninvolved with the others at the party.  The others at the table caught glimpses of Grace and him as they approached, and he saw the attendees arise as the two wizards got closer.

“Grange!  It truly is you!  I was sure the story was false when they brought a report of a pale-skinned wizard,” Bartar exclaimed as Grange arrived at the table.  Bartar clasped Grange’s hand warmly with both of his own.

“You look good; healthier than I ever saw you look, if a bit underdressed,” the ambassador told him.

“I’m so glad you’re alive!  This is the best day we’ve had here, now that you’ve returned to us!” Bartar’s pleasure was genuine, and Grange felt warm with gratitude.  It was true, he realized, he had grown so used to not wearing a shirt that it hadn’t occurred to him that he was one of the very few people in the hall without a shirt on.

Astel greeted him as well, slapping his back and laughing delightedly as the two of them talked.

“Let’s go dance now, shall we?” Grace asked Astel, when a song ended, and the band began to strum the opening chords of the next song.

The pair left the table, and Grange sat down next to Bartar.

“How have you been, lad?” the ambassador asked.

Grange related an abbreviated story about his experiences, then turned the questions to the leader of the trade mission.

“How have your efforts been?” he asked.

“We’re making slow progress.  I’m sure we’ll do better now that you’re here with us,” Bartar said.  “Grace does well enough, but you can put on some much more impressive displays, I suspect.

“There are a few important members of the court who just seem to resist any opening of trade,” he said.

“Are they the ones that already have some outside trading arrangements?” Grange asked, recollecting Layreen’s insights into the palace politics.

“Well, we don’t know,” Bartar said bluntly.  “Even after all this time, we have to hold negotiations with different people on different days, and they tell us different things.  I’m about ready to give up and go home without a treaty,” he admitted.

“If you think you know something about the way things work here, tell me what you know,” Bartar said.

“I’ve been told there are some noblemen who already do some trading with the outside world, and they don’t want to see any extra trading,” Grange said.  “I’ll try to learn more.”

The music finished, and Grace and Astel returned to the table, both flushed slightly from the exertion of dancing in the warm hall.

“Grace tells me that the two of you were quite close in the wizard’s chambers,” Astel said as he sat down.

“We are both apprentices,” Grange agreed, uncertain of the direction of the comment.

“We did chores together in the morning, and sang and played music together at night,” Grace explained.  “Grange played his flute and I sang.”

“Perhaps the orchestra here could allow you to sing with them,” Astel said enthusiastically.

There was no further comment, and Grange turned to look up at Shaylee, who seemed to be responding politely to the boys on either side of her.   As he watched, one of them stood up and offered his hand to Shaylee.  A moment later the two of them walked down a set of steps and entered the dance floor, where they started dancing, and disappeared from Grange’s view.

“Would you like to dance?” he suddenly asked Grace, standing up.

“I just sat down,” she protested.

“Okay,” Grange turned without saying any more, and looked around at the nearby tables, where he spotted a matronly woman sitting alone, looking bored.  He walked directly over to her, and bowed as she turned to look at him.

“May I have this dance?” he asked eagerly.

The woman stared at him vacantly.

Grange looked past her at the next table, where a young  woman close to his own age sat next to an elderly man who was dozing lightly.

Grange stepped around the matronly lady and approached the girl.