'No, you idiot! Lional's lying] If you got yourself knocked silly by falling off that pony then I'm Shugat's maiden aunty. And trust me, I'm not.'
'Reg, this is ridiculous. If Lional wanted to murder me he could've done it while I was unconscious on the ground! Why bring me all the way back to the palace? You've got this all wrong.'
'Oh, GeraldV said Reg, stamping one foot for emphasis. 'Forget about my outside and remember what I am on the inside. What I was. I know about these things, you fool, they were my meat and drink and they put me in a feathered dress for the rest of my unnaturally long life and I don't want you to end up the same way or worse! Just because I don't know why Lional wants you dead doesn't mean he doesn't] Or that he won't try again! That's why you've got to get out of here. You might not be so lucky next time.'
He frowned. He'd never seen Reg this upset before. She was really frightened. He felt an answering stab of fear. If Reg was really frightened… He brushed a fingertip across the top of her head. 'Sorry' he said gently'It's just a little hard to believe, that's all. As a rule, tailor's sons from Nether Wallop don't have kings trying to kill them.'
She rattled her tail feathers. 'Not unless they've done a very poor job with their pin tucks, no.'
It was ridiculous. But Reg was so convinced… 'Oh lord,' he groaned. 'What's Melissande going to say when I tell her you think her brother tried to kill me?'
'Nothing useful,' Reg said briskly. 'She probably won't believe you. Lional's got her well and truly hoodwinked, the cad.'
'Well, I have to tell somebody in authority here.' He screwed his eyes shut against the pounding pain inside his skull, i suppose I could tell Rupert.'
Reg laid a wing across his forehead. 'Don't look now, Gerald, but fever is making you delirious.'
He managed, just, to push the wing away. 'He's next in line for the crown, Reg. It's my duty to tell him.'
'And /f you tell him, Gerald, what is he going to do? Send his trained attack butterflies to carry Lional off the throne and put him under lock and key?'
He hardly heard her exasperated question. Suddenly there was a fuzzy kind of ringing in his ears and the world was going smeary round the edges. 'No. No, of course not,' he said vaguely. 'But something…'
'Gerald?' said Reg, sounding alarmed and querulous.'What's wrong? Gerald! Talk to me!'
He tried, but his tongue felt like a fat roll of flannel, his eyes wouldn't focus and none of his limbs would obey him. Reg was saying something else but he couldn't hear her, she sounded as though she were speaking from the opposite end of a very long tunnel.
And then all the lights went out, and he tumbled headfirst into welcome oblivion.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
When Gerald opened his eyes again, morning sunlight was streaming through the bedroom window, bathing his face in golden warmth and painting the cream bedspread butter yellow. His headache was gone, and the dull pain in his chest with it.
'Hmmph,' said Reg's slightly muffled voice from above him. 'You're awake.' He looked up: she was sitting on the bed's padded headboard, consuming a mouse.'It's about time.The clock's just struck seven.'
'Reg! How many times do I have to say it? No eating in bed!'
'Now, now, keep your underpants on,' she replied, unmoved. 'I'm not a young woman any more and a sight like that might do me a mischief.'
'So help me, Reg, if you leave the tail in the bedclothes again…'
Hopping onto a convenient pillow she slurped down the last inch of mouse and gave a genteel burp. 'Happy now? Right. The way I see it, if we get a move on we should be back through the portal to Ottosland before that murderous lunatic Lional has even opened his eyes. Do you want to start packing or shall I?' He sat up.'Neither. I'm having a bath.'
Closing the ensuite door on her outraged shrieks, he inspected himself in the mirror as the tub filled with steaming water. The lump on his skull had almost disappeared and the sore spot on his chest barely protested when he poked at it. That was the good news. The bad news was his memory still hadn't returned. And, after yesterday's hours in the saddle, the rest of his body felt like it had been racked.
Inching himself into the bath, moaning as the seeping heat began to unknot his tortured muscles, he closed his eyes and tried to make sense of the chaos that was currently his life. In the sober light of morning, and without that vicious pounding headache, the idea of Lional as a homicidal maniac seemed increasingly unlikely. Not only was the king completely without motive, wizards just weren't that easy to murder. They had in-built alarms. Extra sensitivities. Wizards got murdered by other wizards, not civilians, even if said civilians were royal.
So. That disposed of one problem. Unfortunately it still left him with several others, the most pressing ot which was the Kallarapi situation.
Even if Lional had tried to murder him, which he hadn't, he couldn't possibly leave New Ottosland before making sure he'd prevented a full-scale religious conflict with the kingdom's neighbour… or found a way to stop Melissandes unwilling marriage to Zazoor.
If Lional was so keen on asking for his advice, he'd make sure to give him some. Forget the marriage. Pay your debts. Pull your head in. And no religious hanky-panky.
Once all that was accomplished then he'd go home to Ottosland. Much cheered, he finished bathing.
Reg had made herself comfortable on his pillow and was in the middle of a half-hearted primping session. She took one look at his face as he emerged pink, damp and towel-wrapped from the bathroom and groaned. 'You're not leaving, are you?'
'I'm sorry' he said, hunting through his chest of drawers for fresh clothing. 'I know you're worried but I can't leave until I've stopped Lional from provoking a war when he doesn't have an army to protect his kingdom with.'
'He doesn't have one now! said Reg. 'But that doesn't mean he can't get one.'
He looked up from buttoning his shirt. 'How? There's no such thing as a mail-order defence force.'
'There doesn't need to be. You forget that somewhere in this drafty old pile of a palace there's a nursery with a whole battalion of tin soldiers in it.' 'So?'
'So you've got a nifty knack of turning one thing into another, haven't you?'
He gaped at her. ' What? You think I'd turn tin soldiers into real ones? That could hurt people?'
'Not willingly, no,' said Reg. 'But I think if Lional put his mind to it he could be very… persuasive.'
'I would never use my magic to make something that could hurt people, no matter what Lional said!'
Reg considered her wing tips. 'It's not his pretty speeches that worry me, sunshine.'
'So now you're saying he'd try to — to torture me? How? I'm a wizard, Reg! A damned powerful one as it turns out. He wouldn't get close enough to torture me, I'd have him flat on his back and across the other side of the room before he took one step towards me.'
Reg shrugged.'He managed to lay you out cold and get you to forget how it happened, Gerald. Right now I wouldn't put anything past him.'
'Oh, don't start that again! For Lional to do what you're suggesting he'd have to be a wizard himself, and he's not. I can smell a wizard a mile away'
She considered him steadily. 'Really? You didn't smell that tatty old Shugat, did you, till he was right under your nose.'
Damn. He didn't think she'd noticed that. 'Shugat's not a wizard. Not in the accepted sense of the word. He's a holy man. All bets are off when it comes to religion. And Lional is not a wizard. The only thing he smells of is expensive aftershave. Anyway, if he was a wizard he wouldn't need me, would he? Now can we please not talk about this any more?'
She flapped from the pillow to the chest of drawers. 'What about Humphret Bottomley?'