You might say I adopted Grundo as my brother. We were both on our own. I am an only child, and all the other Court wizards’ children were the same age as Alicia or older still. The other children our own age were sons and daughters of Court officials, who had no gift for magic. They were perfectly friendly—don’t get me wrong—but they just had a more normal outlook.
There were only about thirty of us young ones who traveled in the King’s Progress all the time. The rest only joined us for Christmas or for the other big religious ceremonies. Grundo and I always used to envy them. They didn’t have to wear neat clothes and remember Court manners all the time. They knew where they were going to be, instead of traveling through the nights and finding themselves suddenly in a flat field in Norfolk, or a remote Derbyshire valley, or a busy port somewhere next morning. They didn’t have to ride in buses in a heat wave. Above all, they could go for walks and explore places. We were never really in one place long enough to do any exploring. The most we got to do was look round the various castles and great houses where the King decided to stay.
We envied the princesses and the younger princes particularly. They were allowed to stay in Windsor most of the year. Court gossip said that the Queen, being foreign, had threatened to go back to Denmark unless she was allowed to stay in one place. Everyone pitied the Queen rather for not understanding that the King had to travel abou
t in order to keep the realm healthy. Some said that the whole magic of the Islands of Blest—or maybe the entire world of Blest—depended on the King’s constantly moving about and visiting every acre of England.
I asked my grandfather Hyde about this. He is a Magid and knows about the magics of countries and worlds and so on. And he said that there might be something in this, but he thought people were overstating the case. The magic of Blest was very important for all sorts of reasons, he said, but it was the Merlin who was really entrusted with keeping it healthy.
My mother did quite often talk of sending me to live with this grandfather in London. But this would have meant leaving Grundo to the mercies of Sybil and Alicia, so whenever she suggested it, I told her I was proud to be a member of Court—which was quite true—and that I was getting the best possible education—which was partly quite true—and then I sort of went heavy at her and hoped she’d forget the idea. If she got really anxious and went on about this being no sort of life for a growing girl, I went on about the way Grandad grows dahlias. I really do hate dahlias as a way of life.
Mam had her latest worry session in Northumbria, in the rain. We were all camped in a steep, heathery valley waiting for the Scottish King to pay our King a formal visit. It was so bare that there was not even a house for the King. The canvas of the royal tent was turning a wet, dismal yellow just downhill from us, and we were slithering in shiny, wet sheep droppings while I went on about the way Grandad grows dahlias.
“Besides, it’s such a stupid thing for a powerful magician to do!” I said.
“I wish you didn’t feel like this about him,” Mam said. “You know he does a great deal more than simply grow flowers. He’s a remarkable man. And he’d be glad to have you as company for your cousin Toby.”
“My cousin Toby is a wimp who doesn’t mind being ordered to do the weeding,” I said. I looked up at Mam through the wet black wriggles of my hair and realized that my dahlia ploy hadn’t worked the way it usually did. Mam continued to look anxious. She is a serious person, my mam, weighed down by her responsible job in the traveling Exchequer, but I can usually get her to laugh. When she laughs, she throws her head back and looks very like me. We both have rather long pink cheeks and a dimple in the same place, though her eyes are black and mine are blue.
I could see the rain was getting her down—having to keep the water out of her computer and having to go to the loo in a little wet flapping tent and all the rest—and I saw it was one of the times when she starts imagining me going down with rheumatic fever or pneumonia and dying of it. I realized I’d have to play my very strongest card or I’d be packed off down to London before lunch.
“Come off it, Mam!” I said. “Grandad’s not your father. He’s Dad’s. If you’re so anxious for me to be in the bosom of my family, why not send me to your father instead?”
She pulled her shiny waterproof cape around her and went back a step. “My father is Welsh,” she said. “If you went there, you’d be living in a foreign country. All right. If you feel you really can stand this awful, wandering existence, we’ll say no more.”
She went away. She always did if anyone talked about her father. I thought he must be terrifying. All I knew about my other grandfather was that Mam had had to run away from home in order to marry Dad, because her father had refused to let her marry anyone. Poor Mam. And I’d used that to send her away. I sighed with mixed relief and guilt. Then I went to find Grundo.
Grundo’s lot is always worse when we’re stopped anywhere for a while. Unless I think of an excuse to fetch him away, Sybil and Alicia haul him into Sybil’s tent and try to correct his faults. When I ducked into the dim, damp space, it was worse than usual. Sybil’s manfriend was in there, laughing his nasty, hissing laugh. “Give him to me, dear,” I heard him saying. “I’ll soon make a man of him.” Grundo was looking pale, even for him.
The only person at Court that I dislike more than Alicia is Sybil’s manfriend. His name is Sir James Spenser. He is very unpleasant. The astonishing thing is that the whole Court, including Sybil, knows he is nasty, but they pretend not to notice because Sir James is useful to the King. I don’t understand about this. But I have noticed the same thing happening with some of the businessmen who are useful to the King. The media are constantly suggesting these men are crooks, but nobody even thinks of arresting them. And it is the same with Sir James, although I have no idea in what way he is useful to the King.
He gave me a leer. “Checking that I haven’t eaten your sweetheart?” he said. “Why do you bother, Arianrhod? If I had your connections, I wouldn’t look twice at young Ambrose.”
I looked him in the face, at his big, pocky nose and the eyes too near on either side of it. “I don’t understand you,” I said in my best Court manner. Polite but stony. I didn’t think my connections were particularly aristocratic. My father is only the King’s weather wizard and much further down the order than Sybil, who is, after all, Earthmistress to England.
Sir James did his hissing laugh at me. Hs-ss-szz. “The aristocracy of magic, my dear child,” he said. “Look at your grandparents! I should think at the very least you’d be setting your sweet young adolescent cap at the next Merlin.”
Sybil said sharply, “What?” and Alicia gave a gasp. When I looked at her, she was speckled pink with indignation. Alicia has even more freckles than Grundo. Sybil’s long, jowly face was furious. Her pale blue eyes were popping at me.
I didn’t understand what made them so angry. I just thought, Bother! Now I shall have to be very polite—and rather stupid—and pretend I haven’t noticed. This was typical of Sir James. He loved making everyone around him angry. “But we’ve got a perfectly good Merlin!” I said.
“An old man, my dear,” Sir James said gleefully. “Old and frail.”
“Yes,” I said, truly puzzled. “But there’s no knowing who’ll be the next one, is there?”
He looked at me pityingly. “There are rumors, dear child. Or don’t you listen to gossip with your naïve little ears?”
“No,” I said. I’d had enough of his game, whatever it was. I turned, very politely, to Sybil. “Please would it be all right if I took Grundo to watch my father work?”
She shrugged her thick shoulders. “If Daniel wants to work in front of a staring child, that’s his funeral, I suppose. Yes, take him away. I’m sick of the sight of him. Grundo, be back here to put on Court clothing before lunch or you’ll be punished. Off you go.”
“There’s motherly love for you!” I said to Grundo as we hurried off into the rain.
He grinned. “We don’t need to go back. I’ve got Court clothes on under these. It’s warmer.”
I wished I’d thought of doing the same. It was so chilly that you wouldn’t have believed it was nearly Midsummer. Anyway, I’d got Grundo away. Now I just had to hope that Dad wouldn’t mind us watching him. He doesn’t always like being disturbed when he’s working.
When I cautiously lifted the flap of the weather tent, Dad was just getting ready. He had taken off his waterproof cape and was slipping off his heavy blue robe of office and rolling up his shirtsleeves. He looked all slim and upright like that, more like a soldier preparing for a duel than a wizard about to work on the weather.