“Isn’t that him with Terrence? Are you two on the outs again?” She paused. “Isthatwhy we haven’t seen you all week? You know you two quibbling doesn’t affect anything with the rest of us, Sy. It never has.”
“Of course.” Far easier to let her think he’d been avoiding them over a lover’s spat. Scanning the crowd surreptitiously, he found Terrence towering over the rest, with his gleaming smile and his boring conversation and his monotone voice. With his family name and fortune. David stood close to him, laughing at something he had just said.
“I’m dying to know what Edgard thinks all this will accomplish,” Sabina was saying. “Other than provoke the neighboring countries, I mean. My theory is the last war was so unpopular, he’s trying to goad another nation into starting one. Preule in particular. Their land is very coal rich, you know. My brother says lumber’s the ticket, with shipping being what it is, but I say, what’s powering all the machines making those things they’re shipping? At any rate, they’ll be livid when they hear. His majesty has all but sworn off marriage, and they’ve been pushing their princess on him for years, saving her for him. She isn’t getting any younger.”
“She might want to get in on this venture, then,” he said, pulling his eyes back to the dais where Edgard’s clerk would give his speech.
“But phoenixes are just in storybooks. Aren’t they?” Her forehead wrinkled. “Perhaps it’s a metaphor.”
Sy’s shoulders tensed as somehow, over all the din, David’s laugh landed in his ear. “Never let it be said complete transformation is impossible,” he said, adjusting his gloves. “Evidently, Terrence has spontaneously become interesting.”
Sabina stifled a very unladylike snort with a cough, covering her mouth with her hand.
Suddenly, the prospect of a night alone was not so welcome as it had been. And Sabina was not one to linger in the mornings or wear his robes, and, to his knowledge, had never once read his mail.
Knowing he would sound desperate however he framed it, he abandoned all pretense. He leaned closer to her and spoke in a low voice. “Tell me, are you free this evening? Alone?”
She flushed and smiled slyly, but shook her head. “Thatwouldbe lovely,” she said, bobbing her head, “but I really can’t. I’ve too many affairs to sort before I set off for the country next week. My brother’s wife won’t let us stay a moment longer than necessary. Hates the city air in summer. I told her it won’t stink any more after the solstice than it does now. But, the country is refreshing.” She brightened. “I can set you up with some of my clients for the summer, if you’d like. Merchants, mostly. They’d be thrilled to have you.”
“Thank you – that’s very kind,” he managed, deciding not to mention he had every intention of being in the forest by week’s end. Nor that he anticipated, one way or another, having no need of any further affluent clientèle.
A trumpet’s sound called their attention, and a hush settled over the room as all eyes turned upon the dais. The trumpeter hurriedly slipped away.
Edgard, in full red and blue military dress uniform, complete with multiple ribbons and medals for wars in which he had not personally served, stepped up to the dais. A far more modestly dressed clerk stepped up beside him, unrolled a scroll, very quietly cleared his throat, and spoke.
“Most Honorable King’s Wizards, Honored Guests, Friends to the Crown and the Kingdom of Gescany:
“My request is not simple, but it is straightforward. I want our kingdom of Gescany to live forever. No kingdom, no nation has ever lasted more than a few centuries. I posit this is because a nation needs stability. Your king provides stability. What if your king could provide stability for all ages hence? Never again would Gescany need to worry about marriage alliances or producing heirs. We would be truly independent like no nation has ever been! Though there are many spells to prolong my life, there are none to extend it indefinitely. While such magic is not unheard of, there is only one creature capable of such a thing.”
“The phoenix,” Sabina whispered with faux gravity.
“The phoenix. I have spoken to the priests and the sages, and they all claim it is impossible to channel this magic. But I know the best innovations come to us not from the priests and the sages, nor from the old and stubborn, but from the enterprising, the young. And I know the promise of riches fuels the greatest innovations. Think, if you will, of our fabulous gunpowder factories, or our grand lumber mills, growing in number by the very day and showering our streets with gold.”
“Someof the streets,” Sy corrected under his breath.
Sabina lightly kicked his ankle. “Don’t start.”
“And so I promise vast riches to whoever can accomplish my dream. I don’t care how it is accomplished, so long as it is. If I can in fact be made into a bird, that would be ideal. I have always liked the idea of flying, almost as much as I like the idea of never dying or being reborn when I do die.”
Beside the clerk, Edgard nodded, mouthing these words along with him.
“But the most important task is ensuring Gescany has her king, forever. The first to bring me the most suitable spell will receive the promised sum of fifty-thousand gold sovereigns. I hereby excuse all King’s Wizards from royal service, so long as they extend their newfound free time in the pursuit of this goal.”
The spell on Sy’s palm seemed to tingle in relief, and he rubbed it absently. So he would be spared that concern, at least.
“Happy hunting.”
With that, as suddenly as he had appeared, Edgard left the throne room, the clerk trailing behind him. The room immediately erupted in noise.
Sabina watched him go. “That’s it?”
“What more would there be? Didn’t you hear? We’re to do all the work for him.” Sy suppressed the bitterness in his voice. “He demands, we provide.”
“He provides,” she protested, sounding almost wistful. “It is a lot of money.”
It isn’t as if you need the money, he’d said to David, and that was as true of Sabina, of anyone in this room, as it was of David. But it wasn’t true at all. They all needed money, even Edgard. That was the thing with money – it demanded to be spent.
“It is,” he agreed, turning to face David, who was approaching with Terrence in tow. “But only if you win.”
