“Your Royal Highness,” prompted Keli.
“But… yes… Highness,” he muttered. There was a heavy pause.
Then, as if switched back on, he turned his back on her and resumed his conversation.
Keli sat for a while, white with shock and anger, then pushed the chair back and stormed away to her chambers. A couple of servants sharing a quick rollup in the passage outside were knocked sideways by something they couldn’t quite see.
Keli ran into her room and hauled on the rope that should have sent the duty maid running in from the sitting room at the end of the corridor. Nothing happened for some time, and then the door was pushed open slowly and a face peered in at her.
She recognised the look this time, and was ready for it. She grabbed the maid by the shoulders and hauled her bodily into the room, slamming the door shut behind her. As the frightened woman stared everywhere but at Keli she hauled off and fetched her a stinging slap across the cheek.
“Did you feel that? Did you feel it?” she shrieked.
“But… you…” the maid whimpered, staggering backwards until she hit the bed and sitting down heavily on it.
“Look at me! Look at me when I talk to you!” yelled Keli, advancing on her. “You can see me, can’t you? Tell me you can see me or I’ll have you executed!”
The maid stared into her terrified eyes.
“I can see you,” she said, “but…”
“But what? But what?”
“Surely you’re… I heard… I thought…”
“What did you think?” snapped Keli. She wasn’t shouting any more. Her words came out like white-hot whips.
The maid collapsed into a sobbing heap. Keli stood tapping her foot for a moment, and then shook the woman gently.
“Is there a wizard in the city?” she said. “Look at me,
“Uh… wizard, yes… Cutwell, in Wall Street.”
Keli’s lips compressed into a thin smile. She wondered where her cloaks were kept, but cold reason told her it was going to be a damn sight easier to find them herself than try to make her presence felt to the maid. She waited, watching closely, as the woman stopped sobbing, looked around her in vague bewilderment, and hurried out of the room.
She’s forgotten me already, she thought. She looked at her hands. She seemed solid enough.
It had to be magic.
She wandered into her robing room and experimentally opened a few cupboards until she found a black cloak and hood. She slipped them on and darted out into the corridor and down the servants’ stairs.
She hadn’t been this way since she was little. This was the world of linen cupboards, bare floors and dumb-waiters. It smelled of slightly stale crusts.
Keli moved through it like an earthbound spook. She was aware of the servants’ quarters, of course, in the same way that people are aware at some level in their minds of the drains or the guttering, and she would be quite prepared to concede that although servants all looked pretty much alike they must have some distinguishing features by which their nearest and dearest could, presumably, identify them. But she was not prepared for sights like Moghedron the wine butler, whom she had hitherto seen only as a stately presence moving like a galleon under full sail, sitting in his pantry with his jacket undone and smoking a pipe.
A couple of maids ran past her without a second glance, giggling. She hurried on, aware that in some strange way she was trespassing in her own castle.
And that, she realised, was because it wasn’t her castle at all. The noisy world around her, with its steaming laundries and chilly stillrooms, was its own world. She couldn’t own it. Possibly it owned her.
She took a chicken leg from the table in the biggest kitchen, a cavern lined with so many pots that by the light of its fires it looked like an armoury for tortoises, and felt the unfamiliar thrill of theft. Theft! In her own kingdom! And the cook looked straight through her, eyes as glazed as jugged ham.
Keli ran across the stable yards and out of the back gate, past a couple of sentries whose stern gaze quite failed to notice her.
Out in the streets it wasn’t so creepy, but she still felt oddly naked. It was unnerving, being among people who were going about their own affairs and not bothering to look at one, when one’s entire experience of the world hitherto was that it revolved around one. Pedestrians bumped into one and rebounded away, wondering briefly what it was they had hit, and one several times had to scurry away out of the path of wagons.
The chicken leg hadn’t gone far to fill the hole left by the absence of lunch, and she filched a couple of apples from a stall, making a mental note to have the chamberlain find out how much apples cost and send some money down to the stallholder.
Dishevelled, rather grubby and smelling slightly of horse dung, she came at last to Cutwell’s door. The knocker gave her some trouble. In her experience doors opened for you; there were special people to arrange it.
She was so distraught she didn’t even notice that the knocker winked at her.
She tried again, and thought she heard a distant crash. After some time the door opened a few inches and she caught a glimpse of a round flustered face topped with curly hair. Her right foot surprised her by intelligently inserting itself in the crack.
“I demand to see the wizard,” she announced. “Pray admit me this instant.”
“He’s rather busy at present,” said the face. “Were you after a love potion?”
“A what?”
“I’ve—we’ve got a special on Cutwell’s Shield of Passion ointment,” said the face, and winked in a startling fashion. “Provides your wild oats while guaranteeing a crop failure, if you know what I mean.”
Keli bridled. “No,” she lied coldly, “I do not.”
“Ramrub? Maidens’ Longstop? Belladonna eyedrops?”
“I demand—”
“Sorry, we’re closed,” said the face, and shut the door. Keli withdrew her foot just in time.
She muttered some words that would have amazed and shocked her tutors, and thumped on the woodwork.
The tattoo of her hammering suddenly slowed as realisation dawned.
He’d seen her! He’d heard her!
She beat on the door with renewed vigour, yelling with all the power in her lungs.
A voice by her ear said, “It won’t work. He ’eef very fstubborn.”
She looked around slowly and met the impertinent gaze of the doorknocker. It waggled its metal eyebrows at her and spoke indistinctly through its wrought-iron ring.
“I am Princess Keli, heir to the throne of Sto Lat,” she said haughtily, holding down the lid on her terror. “And I don’t talk to door furniture.”
“Fwell,
“Magic word? What’s the magic word?”
The knocker perceptibly sneered. “Haff you been taught nothing, miss?”
She drew herself up to her full height, which wasn’t really worth the effort. She felt she’d had a trying day too. Her father had personally executed a hundred enemies in battle. She should be able to manage a doorknocker.
“I have been
The doorknocker did not appear to be impressed.
“Iff they didn’t teach you the magic word,” it said calmly, “they couldn’t haff fbeen all that fine.”
Keli reached out, grabbed the heavy ring, and pounded it on the door. The knocker leered at her.
“Ftreat me rough,” it lisped. “That’f the way I like it!”
“You’re disgusting!”
“Yeff. Ooo, that waff nife, do it again…”
The door opened a crack. There was a shadowy glimpse of curly hair.
“Madam, I said we’re cl—”
Keli sagged.
“
“See?” said the doorknocker triumphantly. “Sooner or later
In fact there are fashions in wizardry as in more mundane arts, and this tendency to look like elderly aldermen was only temporary. Previous generations had gone in for looking pale and interesting, or druidical and grubby, or mysterious and saturnine. But Keli was used to wizards as a sort of fur-trimmed small mountain with a wheezy voice, and Igneous Cutwell didn’t quite fit the mage image.
He was young. Well, that couldn’t be helped; presumably even wizards had to start off young. He didn’t have a beard, and the only thing his rather grubby robe was trimmed with was frayed edges.
“Would you like a drink or something?” he said, surreptitiously kicking a discarded vest under the table.
Keli looked around for somewhere to sit that wasn’t occupied with laundry or used crockery, and shook her head. Cutwell noticed her expression.
“It’s a bit alfresco, I’m afraid,” he added hurriedly, elbowing the remains of a garlic sausage on to the floor. “Mrs Nugent usually comes in twice a week and does for me but she’s gone to see her sister who’s had one of her turns. Are you sure? It’s no trouble. I saw a spare cup here only yesterday.”
“I have a problem, Mr Cutwell,” said Keli.
“Hang on a moment.” He reached up to a hook over the fireplace and took down a pointy hat that had seen better days, although from the look of it they hadn’t been
“Oh, it’s very essential. You’ve got to have the proper hat for wizarding. We wizards know about this sort of thing.”
“If you say so. Look, can you see me?”
He peered at her. “Yes. Yes, I would definitely say I can see you.”
“And hear me? You can hear me, can you?”
“Loud and clear. Yes. Every syllable tinkling into place. No problems.”
“Then would you be surprised if I told you that no-one else in this city can?”
“Except me?”
Keli snorted. “And your doorknocker.”
Cutwell pulled out a chair and sat down. He squirmed a little. A thoughtful expression passed over his face. He stood up, reached behind him and produced a flat reddish mass which might have once been half a pizza. He stared at it sorrowfully.
“I’ve been looking for that all morning, would you believe?” he said. “It was an All-On with extra peppers, too.” He picked sadly at the squashed shape, and suddenly remembered Keli.
“Gosh, sorry,” he said, “where’s my manners? Whatever will you think of me? Here. Have an anchovy. Please.”
“Have you been listening to me?” snapped Keli.
“Do you feel invisible? In yourself, I mean?” said Cutwell, indistinctly.
“Of course not. I just feel angry. So I want you to tell my fortune.”
“Well, I don’t know about that, it all sounds rather
“It’s illegal, you see,” said Cutwell wretchedly. “The old king expressly forbade fortune telling in Sto Lat. He didn’t like wizards much.”
“I can pay a
Keli smiled. Members of the court who had seen that smile before would have hastened to drag Cutwell out of the way and into a place of safety, like the next continent, but he just sat there trying to pick bits of mushroom out of his robe.
“I understand she’s got a foul temper on her,” said Keli. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t turn you out of the city anyway.”
“Oh dear,” said Cutwell, “do you really think so?”
“Look,” said Keli, “you don’t have to tell my future, just my present. Even she couldn’t object to that. I’ll have a word with her if you like,” she added magnanimously.
Cutwell brightened. “Oh, do you know her?” he said.
“Yes. But sometimes, I think, not very well.”
Cutwell sighed and burrowed around in the debris on the table, dislodging cascades of elderly plates and the long-mummified remains of several meals. Eventually he unearthed a fat leather wallet, stuck to a cheese slice.
“Well,” he said doubtfully, “these are Caroc cards. Distilled wisdom of the Ancients and all that. Or there’s the Ching Aling of the Hublandish. It’s all the rage in the smart set. I don’t do tealeaves.”
“I’ll try the Ching thing.”
“You throw these yarrow stalks in the air, then.”
She did. They looked at the ensuing pattern.
“Hmm,” said Cutwell after a while. “Well, that’s one in the fireplace, one in the cocoa mug, one in the street, shame about the window, one on the table, and one, no,
“You didn’t say how hard. Shall I do it again?”
“No-ooo, I don’t think so.” Cutwell thumbed through the pages of a yellowed book that had previously been supporting the table leg. “The pattern seems to make sense. Yes, here we are, Octogram 8,887: Illegality, the Unatoning Goose. Which we cross reference here… hold on… hold on… yes. Got it.”
“Well?”
“
”
“Yes?” said Keli, respectfully. “What does that mean?”
“Unless you’re a mollusc, probably not a lot,” said Cutwell. “I think perhaps it lost something in translation.”
“Are you sure you know how to do this?”
“Let’s try the cards,” said Cutwell hurriedly, fanning them out. “Pick a card. Any card.”
“It’s Death,” said Keli.
“Ah. Well. Of course, the Death card doesn’t actually mean
“No. Shall I take another card?”
“May as well.”
“Well, there’s a coincidence!”
“Death number three?”
“Right. Is this a special pack for conjuring tricks?” Keli tried to sound composed, but even she could detect the faint tinkle of hysteria in her voice.
Cutwell frowned at her and carefully put the cards back in the pack, shuffled it, and dealt them out on to the table. There was only one Death.
“Oh dear,” he said, “I think this is going to be serious. May I see the palm of your hand, please?”
He examined it for a long time. After a while he went to the dresser, took a jeweller’s eyeglass out of a drawer, wiped the porridge off it with the sleeve of his robe, and spent another few minutes examining her hand in minutest detail. Eventually he sat back, removed the glass, and stared at her.
“You’re dead,” he said.
Keli waited. She couldn’t think of any suitable reply. “I’m not” lacked a certain style, while “Is it serious?” seemed somehow too frivolous.
“Did I say I thought this was going to be serious?” said Cutwell.
“I think you did,” said Keli carefully, keeping her tone totally level.
“I was right.”
“Oh.”
“It could be fatal.”
“How much more fatal,” said Keli, “than being dead?”
“I didn’t mean for you.”
“Oh.”
“Something very fundamental seems to have gone wrong, you see. You’re dead in every sense but the, er, actual. I mean, the cards think you’re dead. Your lifeline thinks you’re dead. Everything and everyone thinks you’re dead.”
“
“But people can see and hear me!”
“The first thing you learn when you enroll at Unseen University, I’m afraid, is that people don’t pay much attention to that sort of thing. It’s what their minds tell them that’s important.”
“You mean people don’t see me because their minds tell them not to?”
“’Fraid so. It’s called predestination, or something.” Cutwell looked at her wretchedly. “I’m a wizard. We know about these things.”
“Actually it’s not the
Keli drummed her fingers on the table, or tried to. It turned out to be difficult. She stared down in vague horror.
Cutwell hurried forward and wiped the table with his sleeve.
“Sorry,” he muttered, “I had treacle sandwiches for supper last night.”
“What can I
lèse majesté
He gave an apologetic grin. “You’re a lot luckier than most dead people, if you look at it objectively,” he said. “You’re alive to enjoy it.”
“I don’t want to accept it. Why should I accept it? It’s not my fault!”
“You don’t understand. History is moving on. You can’t get involved in it any more. There isn’t a part in it for you, don’t you see? Best to let things take their course.” He patted her hand again. She looked at him. He withdrew his hand.
“What am I supposed to do then?” she said. “Not eat, because the food wasn’t destined to be eaten by me? Go and live in a crypt somewhere?”