Castle Chansany, Volume 3 by Charlotte E. English

Author:Charlotte E. English [Charlotte E. English]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Frouse Books
Published: 2023-11-16T00:00:00+00:00

She was wanted, later. They were sending people down, Garstang and the king’s chamberlain, in groups of ten or twenty: down from the clouds into the Far-Below, to wait under the oaks. Quite the crowd was gathering, above and below, and what a ruckus.

The wizard needed his Familiar, though there wasn’t much for her to do: she was there to admire the figure he cut as he wafted magic about, that was all. Baldringa, a wizard retired, had turned out to join the revelry; bodiless, still, and in the guise of a velvet hat.

She interfered. ‘They’re sideways,’ said Baldringa to Garstang, from three inches to his left. ‘They’ll be dizzy by the time they get all the way down there. Better keep them straight, that’s what I’d suggest.’

She wasn’t wrong; the gaggle of Court Ladies canted sharply, liable to invert, and people never liked being turned upon their heads, as a rule.

Garstang swatted the hat away. ‘It’s not easy,’ he said, with ice in the words. ‘You try hauling three hundred people a mile up, or down. They’d be inside out, by the end of it.’

Unwise words. Baldringa was the Court Wizard for many a year herself; she’d done her fair share of Progress, like as not. But the hat only grinned—somehow, without the teeth to smile with—and wandered off after a jongleur.

The next group assembled, mostly Wardrobe folk. They drifted off in a blare of music, buzzing merrily in time; Basling’s disputed hurdy-gurdy followed the wizard like a hound, blasting noise on cue. He’d got a lute to join it, to some troubadour’s disgust; the pair were playing in the round.

‘I suppose the music helps?’ said Jessamine, rather tart.

‘Immeasurably,’ was the answer, if absently: he was busy.

‘A Court Wizard requires a fanfare, if he’s to get any work done.’

‘Yes, and if I could just get a pipe from somewhere—there’s a three-part melody from Dandry’s Chorals and it’d be just the thing—’ He turned abruptly, marched off, leaving a seamstress and a broiderer stranded fifty feet down.

‘Don’t worry,’ Jessamine called after them. ‘There’s a hat handy, it’ll soon sort you out,’ which it did, fortunately, for Garstang was half an hour coming back.

When he did, he had three pipes along, trailing and trilling like a row of cygnets. Someone brought him a drum, most unwise; he had it pounding a beat all by itself, louder than a drum (or anything else) had much right to be. Chatter died away: there wasn’t much point, when you couldn’t hear yourself think.

Came time for Their Majesties to waft away on a tide of wizardry, musicians going fore and aft, to play the fanfare. Three grand pavilions hovered before the gates, draped in silks: two small ones for the players, and the King’s, all over velvet, in the centre.

Basling, looking mulish: ‘We aren’t going.’ They had a piper with them, a drummer, a lutist, all empty of hand; diverse others, their instruments retained, but packed and buttoned in cloths and cases. All were thunderous.

The music stopped abruptly, with a squawk.

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