‘You simply knock on the door,’ Ysabeau told her, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘All security spells are tailored to the protected individual. You are completely in charge at all times.’
‘Oh,’ Mella said.
‘You see?’ Aisling chipped in brightly. ‘Didn’t I tell you there would be a perfectly reasonable explanation?’ She turned to Ysabeau with a positively unbearable simper. ‘I’m afraid my niece is a little young to understand the finer points of etiquette. So please allow me to express our thanks – on behalf of both of us – for your extraordinary hospitality. Our rooms are an absolute delight and the clothes and services you have provided… well, I simply can’t imagine how I shall cope without them when we leave.’
Ysabeau made a depreciating gesture with her hand. ‘The shoes and clothing are a small gift,’ she said. ‘You must take anything you please when you leave. We shall provide you with filament cases, of course. Now,’ she added briskly, ‘we have a small State reception and banquet arranged in your honour.’ She glanced disapprovingly at Mella. ‘Formal dress won’t be absolutely necessary, Your Serene Highness, and my colleagues are waiting, so there’s no time for you to change in any case. And you must be hungry at this time of day, so perhaps you would like to accompany me…’ She took Aisling’s arm, not Princess Mella’s, Mella noticed, probably sensing a kinded spirit. Aisling continued to simper and chat and smarm and behave like a perfect crawlcroop, bought off with a few dresses and some shoes that would disappear the moment she got them home: everybody knew that trick. Mella hoped Aunt Aisling would be wearing them when they vanished, including the underwear. In public. It would serve her right.
The dining chamber was small and heavily lacquered. Mella found it more gloomy than intimate and all the shiny surfaces made her nauseous. But at least the rest of the Table of Seven had also changed out of their creepy red robes and were managing to look almost normal, or as normal as wizards ever looked. Ysabeau made the formal introductions and at least these were done the way they should be.
‘Princess Culmella,’ Ysabeau said, ‘may I present Companion Oudine
…’ A small, bird-like woman with greying hair surveyed Mella with nasty, glittery eyes.
‘… Companion Amela…’ Amela was tall and slender and for some reason chose to dress like a man. She had one of those long, lugubrious faces that reminded Mella of a bloodhound. Her magical headwear seemed to be short-circuiting, since it occasionally crackled and sparked, but this might just have been a current fashion in Haleklind.
‘… Companion Marshal Houndstooth…’ Mella knew he was military even before Ysabeau said his name, would have known he was military even if he hadn’t been wearing uniform. She could tell by the short hair and the straight back and the heavy moustache (almost certainly dyed, if Mella was any judge). He’d probably been fit in his younger days, but now he was carrying a paunch that sailed in front of him like a battleship.
‘… Companion Aubertin…’ The tall, thin man, who might have been Amela’s brother – who might actually have been Amela’s brother: there was a decided family resemblance now Mella came to notice it – stared at Mella with dead-fish eyes. Mella decided she really didn’t like Companion Aubertin.
‘… Companion Naudin…’ He reminded Mella of one of the gnomish accountants in the Purple Palace: small, fat, balding and very precise. Of all the Companions in the Table of Seven, he was the most oddly dressed. He wore a suit that was a fraction too small for him, but somehow contrived to look extraordinarily neat. The whole impression was of a small boy who’d been dressed by his mother and sent off to school.
‘… and Companion Senestre.’ At last, Mella thought, a wizard who actually looked like a wizard, with his deep-set eyes and goatee beard. She could easily imagine him in flowing robes throwing fireballs in the heat of battle. If he’d been twenty years younger, she might even have fancied him.
‘How do you do?’ Princess Culmella enquired politely as she shook hands with each Companion. ‘How do you do?’ they asked her in return. It was all very civilised and hypocritical, but Aunt Aisling seemed to be enjoying the experience when it came to her turn.
With the formalities over, Companion Ysabeau seated herself at the head of the table with Mella on her right and Aisling on her left. She waited until the remaining Companions took their seats, then rang a tiny silver bell. The chimes floated visibly upwards and circled the heads of the diners before rushing explosively from the chamber in all directions. At once, a pair of white gloves floated into the room carrying what proved to be an inexhaustible bottle of wine. Beginning with Mella, they floated round the table filling glasses, then moved back discreetly to hover in a corner. Mella, who wasn’t allowed wine at home, took a quick sip and found she still didn’t like it very much, although that wasn’t going to stop her drinking now she had the chance. Aisling half emptied her glass, closed her eyes and murmured ‘ Divine! ’ The white gloves floated over to refill her.
In the Purple Palace, dinners tended to follow a simple Analogue World pattern – starter, main course, pud, then perhaps tea or coffee substitutes – but that was just to make her father feel at home. Elsewhere in the Faerie Realm, meals were more elaborate: three starters, a small cup of ambrosia, salad leaves with fish, roast game, a boiled vegetable course, then a pause for digestion and a hearty song of thanks, finishing with bread and honey. In Haleklind, it transpired, the wizards followed a different pattern still. Two thimble-sized cups were placed before each diner by uniformed flunkies. In one, Mella discovered drops of silver liquid, in the other, golden, both clearly alchemical distillates. She watched from the corner of her eye to see what Companion Ysabeau would do and discovered the correct procedure was to drink the silver followed by the gold. The silver made her feel instantly replete, while the gold reversed the effect to make her feel ravenous. The few drops of liquid in each cup renewed themselves, she noticed, each time she drank them.
What followed was course after course, alternating sweet with savoury, in portions that were neither particularly generous nor particularly mean. By watching her hostess, Mella soon realised how the meal was to be eaten and the alchemical potions used. If a particular course was too small and left you wanting more, you sipped the silver and felt satisfied. If it proved too big, you sipped the gold and were at once hungry enough to finish it. Taking both potions at once changed your palate in such a way that food you disliked became instantly delicious. There were alchemical subtleties as well – silver followed by gold within three heartbeats made you thirsty, for example – but Mella had discovered only a few of them before Companion Ysabeau distracted her attention.
‘Perhaps, Serene Highness,’ Ysabeau said casually, ‘you might like to tell us how we come to be honoured by this visit from yourself and your illustrious aunt?’ She paused for a single heartbeat, then added, ‘And how you managed to get here…?’
Mella carefully set aside a forkful of seaweed. It was an obvious question and one she’d been anticipating: indeed she was surprised it had taken so long. She’d thought hard about it in the interim and could see no reason why she should not tell the truth. Suitably embroidered, of course, to suit the diplomatic niceties. She gave Companion Ysabeau an inscruitable smile.
‘It has long been our wish,’ she said, deftly employing the royal ‘we’ that sounded so effective when her mother used it, ‘to visit your delightful country and see for ourselves the fruits of your glorious revolution.’
‘Indeed?’ Ysabeau murmured, equally inscrutably.
‘We had not had the opportunity,’ Mella went on, ‘of arranging an official visit, however.’ She took an inadvertent sip of the golden potion and had to fight hard to stop herself savaging the seaweed again. ‘So we are delighted to be here now,’ she added hurriedly. It was a less satisfying explanation than the one she’d rehearsed, but it would just have to do. She speared the seaweed and forked it liberally into her mouth.