“Of course it isn’t,” Gretsella said kindly. “Anyway, who will we pick?”
Everyone in attendance shifted around in their seats, not wanting to be the first to suggest a replacement for the king. Bradley sat up a bit straighter in his own chair. “Someone smart, I think,” he suggested, a bit tentatively. “Who do we know who’s smart?”
A few names were brought forward. All of them werenoble, and all of them were awful. Gretsella waited for the tepid discussion to die down. Then she said, very firmly, “I think that we should pick Herman.”
A murmur went around the table. It started out as a “Hmm?!” and then turned into a “Hmm!!” From this, Gretsella surmised that soon after the onset of murmuring, those assembled had all come to see the strength and reasonableness of her proposal. All except Herman himself, who went flying out of his chair like a spitball out of a straw and then stood near the door with the tense, coiled stance of a man prepared to make a break for it to save himself from a fate far worse than any that could befall him in the cozy, manure-scented haven of the stableyard. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, and forgive me if I speak out of turn, butlike hell you should.”
“We all have to make sacrifices for the cause” was Gretsella’s serene rejoinder. Gretsella was always fully prepared for other people to make noble sacrifices for her causes. “You’re sensible, so you have to understand what a good idea it is. You already know how we’ve been running things, so you’ll be able to carry on without any major disruptions. You have a good relationship with the palace staff because you’re one of them, and with the knights because you take care of their horses. You’re a man of the people, but you’re a white-haired old man who could manage to look kingly if we stuck a stupid gold hat on you. You’d be perfect.”
Bradley cleared his throat. “It’s called a crown, Mother.”
“You can call it what you like,” Gretsella said. “Only anidiot would wear a five-pound hat that gives you neck cramps and doesn’t even keep the rain off your head.”
“My thoughts exactly, ma’am,” Herman said. “You’ve hit the nail on the head there, as they say. Only an idiot would want to wear the crown, which is whyI won’t do it. I’m happy with my current position, ma’am, but thanks very much all the same for considering me for the role, et cetera.”
“Your modest reluctance to claim the throne is exactly why the people will praise your name for generations to come,” Janet said with a look in her eye that suggested she was already coming up with at least half a dozen inspiring songs about the peace, prosperity, and exciting new tax write-offs that the people would enjoy during the long and glorious reign of Good King Herman. “All in favor of Herman running for king, say aye.”
There was a chorus of ayes, the loudest of which came from Bradley, who looked genuinely delighted. “You’ll make a wonderful king, Herman! You’re very wise, and youlookwise too, which is more important to making a good king. I think I would have done a much better job at it if I could have grown a mustache like yours. People really respect a nice thick mustache.”
There was a long, tense moment as everyone was forced to consider whether this was a ridiculous comment made by a charming but rather simple young hairstylist with an inflated idea of the importance of personal appearance in national politics or, rather, an astute and accurate observation about the importance of personal appearance in national politics.Gretsella decided to resolve their collective cognitive dissonance by moving the discussion forward. “That’s settled, then,” she said, and banged her hand on the table for lack of a mallet. “Janet, we need the best propaganda campaign you can manage to make Mr. Herman into a king.”
With the initial pro-democracy educational campaign behind them, the team launched their Herman-for-king campaign with the smoothness of a more than usually oily political machine. Articles were written. Sausages were grilled. Janet gave Gretsella such detailed and regular reports about the pro-Herman poems and songs that she and her assistant jesters had been spreading throughout the land that Gretsella started using them as fire starters. Herman gave a fairly well-received speech in one of the capital’s larger market squares, then gently patted the flanks of several babies as if they were skittish young colts. The babies, fortunately, didn’t voice any particular objections.
The days hummed along. Gretsella mostly gave occasional orders and otherwise barely did anything to contribute to the electoral cause, which was just how she liked things. It did not occur to her until a humiliatingly late stage in the game that things were running with a verysuspicioussmoothness.
The problem was Janet. Or, to be more precise, the problemwasn’tJanet, which was precisely the problem. Janet was awitch, was the thing. Not in career, perhaps, but in essence. One witch knew another, and Gretsella had had Janet pegged since the day they first met. A reluctant witch, a witch in denial, but a witch all the same. And if there was one thingGretsella knew about witches, it was that there was nothing in the world a witch was less likely to do than wholeheartedly dedicate herself to furthering a cause from behind the scenes. Witches didn’t believe incauses, and if they did, they would be the faces on the posters, not the modest, self-effacing personages who spent all day pasting the posters to lampposts. A witch might bake bread and deliver it to an ailing neighbor twice a week every week for a year, but she wouldn’t volunteer to collect money for the Bread for Ailing Invalids Fund. A witch did things with her own hands to make sure they were done right, and she did them in person so that everyone knew whose debt they were in. A witch didnothold very well-organized meetings during which she reminded her junior staffers to make sure that they asked for receipts after working lunches so they could be promptly reimbursed, and that alcohol couldn’t be paid for with Propaganda Department funds. Not, that is, unless the witch was doing an excellent job of diverting attention from a cunning and extremely wicked plot.
Janet wasdefinitelyup to something. Now Gretsella just had to figure out exactly what it was, and in Gretsella’s view, there was no better way to figure out what someone was up to than by taking a few minutes to reflect, composing a list of questions, transforming oneself into a small, charmingly scruffy little dog, and then following the suspect around until they inadvertently revealed their secrets.
The first half of the day was very dull. Gretsella was forcedto lie in the hallway outside Janet’s office with her head on her paws, waiting for Janet to do something interesting. Nothing interesting happened for several days (in dog time, which counts differently). Then, finally, Janet emerged, and Gretsella went trotting after her on dirty little feet.
It didn’t take long for Janet to notice her. That was exactly the point. Following someone so subtly that they didn’t notice you was extremely difficult. Following someone so incredibly unsubtly that they noticed you, cooed in delight, tied a bow around your neck, and pranced around feeling as if they were the protagonist in a play about a scrappy little orphan was extremely easy. If you were willing to put up with being bathed, squeezed, and given some playfully ironic name, like Jaws or Bruiser, you could find out every last one of your enemy’s secrets in under a week. That is, if they weren’t a witch, of course. A real witch wouldn’t be taken in for a moment by the old scrappy-little-dog gambit.
Janet, fortunately, was a witch in firm denial. When she saw Gretsella in her doggy disguise, there was a passing moment when a peculiar expression crossed her face. It was an expression that said, simultaneously, “Is that my employer’s meddling old witch of a mother here to spy on me in disguise as a sweet little shaggy dog?” and “Of course it isn’t, don’t be absurd, only a paranoid loon would think of something like that.” Then she gave a big, stupid smile and said, “Hello, boy! Come here, come here, boy! Aren’t you a sweet little fellow!Yes, yes, you are!”
Gretsella trotted closer, allowed Janet to scratch her ears—sherefusedto admit to enjoying the sensation—and resolutely did not give Janet a thoroughly deserved bite on the ankle.Sweet little fellowindeed, when anyone with an ounce of sense would immediately realize that Gretsella was a bitch.
In any case, Janet was perfectly delighted to let Gretsella trot along at her heels as she went about her evening’s business. Her first business was at a pub, where she gave sheet music in praise of Herman to the piano player and then sat down at the bar to order a glass of beer. All perfectly in order, Gretsella thought. The piano player started up the song, which was one of several pro-Herman songs that Janet had submitted for Gretsella’s approval several weeks earlier. A general chorus of objections rippled through the room. “Thisagain,” a man said, to broad agreement. “I can’t stand this song. Who wants thisHermanwhen we’ve got our Good King Bradley already? Give us the good song, Janet! The one about the jester!”
“Yes,” someone else called out. “Give us the jester song!”
“Oh, really,” Janet said in a modest sort of way. “I don’t know why you’re all so wild for that silly little song. I suppose I can play it for you if you promise to vote tomorrow!” Then she offered her glass of beer to the piano player and claimed his place on the bench. She played a few introductory chords. Gretsella found herself impressed, after all, by Janet’s dedication to her work. Then Janet began to sing.
Our Herman is an honest man, on that you can rely,
Hardworking and dependable, a steady stand-up guy.
He’ll keep this country on its track, he won’t disrupt a thing,
Not like the chaos that you’d see if a jester were the king!
It continued in that vein. If a jester were the king, Janet informed the crowd, flower sellers would wear silk gowns and dukes would serve them tea, and common manners would soon be called true propriety—which would, of course, be dreadful, hence why they ought to vote for Herman. The patrons in the pub, who had clearly heard and enjoyed the song many times before, were pounding their fists on the tables to the beat and howling happily along to the chorus. As a bit of propaganda, it was highly effective. The fact that Janet was, probably without realizing it, applying a touch of magical influence to the crowd as she sang didn’t hurt. There was no doubt in Gretsella’s mind that a significant percentage of the people in the room had formed, somewhere in the back recesses of their brains, the half-formed thought that it might be a clever little joke to show up to vote and write in Janet’s name.
Gretsella sat down on her furry little haunches and quietly seethed, then continued to seethe as she followed Janet to several more pubs, where she watched her repeat that exact performance to increasingly rowdy and enthusiastic crowds. Janet was a sneaking, scheming, underhanded creature absolutely no better than she ought to be. Gretsella admired that. What annoyed her was that Janet had gotten away with it. The election was in the morning. If the mood Janet had created in the first pub held true in pubs across the city, then there wasno chance that Gretsella’s plan to get Herman elected would come to fruition. Gretsella could forgive many things—arson, embezzlement, when people spat a little when they talked, murder-for-hire—but what she could not forgive was another witch (an untrained one, at that!) underhandedly turning her own underhandedness into a scheme that benefited herself. Gretsella was not a woman who allowed her machinations to be machinated. If word got out among the other witches that Janet had twisted Gretsella’s well-laid plans to serve her own ends, Gretsella might as well hang up her pointy hat for good: No one would ever take her seriously again. Janet’s plan had to be disrupted. Gretsella was more than capable of that. With a few nudges, suggestions, minor spells, and veiled threats, it would be simple enough to shift the election so that the democracy enthusiasts split their votes between Janet and Herman, with the romantic traditionalist faction coming out ahead and once more choosing Bradley to be their king.
It would, of course, be awfully rough on poor Bradley if Gretsella chose to fully crush Janet’s ambitions. What he wanted wasn’t so very much: his familiar little village, and his hair salon, and a ball to kick around with the boys on the weekends. He had been so grateful to Gretsella for helping him too. Such a nice, honest, trusting boy, her Bradley. Such a loving and devoted son.
Gretsella shook herself, which, since she was in the shape of a dog, was a more than usually refreshing experience. Shewas awitch, by devil. A witch wasnothingwithout her pride. She might as well not be a witch at all. And what was Gretsella, outside of being a witch?
