House of Many Ways (Howl's Moving Castle 3)

“Oh, good,” said the King, looking up from a pile of thin leather books. “Come in and sit down, my dear. I found an absolute heap of papers for you last night. I’d no idea we had so many.”

Charmain felt as if she had never been away. Waif settled down, rolled tummy upward in the heat from the brazier. Charmain settled down also, in front of a toppling heap of different-sized papers, found pen and paper, and started in. It was very companionable.

After a while, the King said, “This ancestor of mine, who wrote these diaries, fancied himself as a poet. What do you think of this one? To his lady love, of course.

‘You dance with the grace of a goat, my love,

And you sing soft like a cow on the mountains.’

“Would you call that romantic, my dear?”

Charmain laughed. “It’s dreadful. I hope she threw him over. Er…Your Majesty, who is the color…er…the gentleman who showed me in just now?”

“You mean my steward?” the King said. “Do you know, he’s been with us for years and years and years—and I can never remember the poor fellow’s name. You’ll have to ask the Princess, my dear. She remembers things like that.”

Oh, well, Charmain thought. I shall just have to think of him as the colorless gentleman, then.

The day passed peacefully. It made, Charmain felt, a pleasant change after such a hectic start. She sorted out, and made notes about, bills from two hundred years ago, bills from one hundred years ago, and bills from a mere forty years back. Oddly enough, the older bills were for much larger sums of money than the newer ones. It looked as if the Royal Mansion was spending less and less. Charmain also sorted out letters from four hundred years back and more recent reports from ambassadors, from Strangia, Ingary, and even Rajpuht. Some ambassadors sent poems. Charmain read the worst ones out to the King. Farther down the stack, she came upon receipts. Papers saying things like “In payment for portrait of a lady, reputed to be by a grand master, 200 guineas” began to turn up more and more frequently, all from the last sixty years. It looked to Charmain as if the Royal Mansion had been selling its pictures for most of the King’s reign. She decided not to ask the King about it.

Lunch arrived, more of Jamal’s delicious spicy things. When Sim brought them, Waif jumped up, wagging her tail, stopped, looked disappointed, and trotted away out of the library. Charmain had no idea if it was the cook’s dog or lunch that Waif wanted. Lunch, probably.

As Sim put the platter on the table, the King asked jovially, “How are things going out there now, Sim?”

“A little noisily, Sire,” Sim replied. “We have just received our sixth rocking horse. Master Morgan seems desirous of a live monkey, which, I am glad to report, Mrs. Pendragon has refused to allow him to have. A certain uproar resulted. In addition, Master Twinkle seems convinced that someone is denying him a pair of stripey trousers. He has been very loud on the subject all morning, Sire. And the fire demon has adopted the fire in the front parlor as his roosting place of choice. Will you be taking tea with us in the front parlor today, Sire?”

“I think not,” the King said. “I’ve nothing against the fire demon, but it gets a bit crowded in there with all those rocking horses. Be good enough to fetch us some crumpets here to the library, if you will, Sim.”

“Certainly, Sire,” Sim said, shakily backing from the room.

When the door was shut, the King said to Charmain, “It’s not the rocking horses, really. And I quite like the noise. But it all makes me think how much I’d have enjoyed being a grandfather. Pity, that.”

“Er…,” said Charmain, “people in town always say that Princess Hilda was disappointed in love. Is that why she never married?”

The King seemed surprised. “Not that I know of,” he said. “She had princes and dukes lining up to marry her for years when she was younger. But she’s not the marrying kind. Never fancied the idea, so she tells me. Prefers her life here, helping me. It’s a pity, though. Here’s my heir having to be Prince Ludovic, my fool of a cousin’s son. You’ll meet him soon, if we can only move a rocking horse or so—or maybe she’ll use the Grand Parlor instead. But the real pity is that there are no more youngsters around the Mansion nowadays. I miss that.”

The King did not seem too unhappy. He looked matter-of-fact rather than mournful, but Charmain was suddenly struck by what a sad place the Royal Mansion really was. Huge, empty, and sad. “I understand, Your Majesty,” she said.

The King grinned and bit into a Jamal tasty. “I know you do,” he said. “You’re a very intelligent young lady. You’ll do your Great-Uncle William great credit one day.”

Charmain blinked a bit at this description. But before she could get too uncomfortable at being praised, she realized what the King had left out. I may be clever, she thought, quite sadly, but I’m not in the least kind or sympathetic. I think I may even be hard-hearted. Look at the way I treat Peter.

She brooded on this for the rest of the afternoon. The result was that, when it was time to stop for the day and Sim reappeared with Waif wandering along after him, Charmain stood up and said, “Thank you for being so good to me, Your Majesty.”

The King seemed surprised and told her to think nothing of it. But I do, Charmain thought. He’s been so kind that it should be a lesson to me. As she followed Sim’s slow totter, with Waif, who seemed very sleepy and fat, toiling along behind both of them, Charmain made a resolution to be kind to Peter when she got back to Great-Uncle William’s house.

Sim had almost reached the front door, when Twinkle came rushing past from somewhere, energetically bowling a large hoop. He was followed at speed by Morgan, holding both arms out and bellowing, “Oop, oop, OOP!” Sim was sent reeling. Charmain tried to flatten herself against the wall as Twinkle shot past. There was an instant when she thought that Twinkle gave her a strange, searching look as he whipped by, but a yelp from Waif sent her speeding to the rescue and she thought no more about it. Waif had been knocked upside down and was very upset about it. Charmain scooped her up and nearly ran into Sophie Pendragon, chasing after Morgan.

“Which way?” Sophie panted.

Charmain pointed. Sophie hauled her skirts high and raced off, muttering something about guts and garters as she ran.

Princess Hilda appeared in the distance and stopped to drag Sim to his feet. “I really do apologize, Miss Charming,” she said as Charmain reached her. “That child is like an eel—well, they both are, actually. I shall have to take steps, or poor Sophie will have no attention left for our problems. Are you steady now, Sim?”

“Perfectly, ma’am,” said Sim. He bowed to Charmain and let her out through the front door into bright afternoon sunlight, as if nothing had happened.

If I ever marry, Charmain thought, striding across Royal Square with Waif in her arms, I shall never have children. They would make me cruel and hard-hearted after a week. Perhaps I shall be like Princess Hilda and never marry. That way, I might stand a chance of learning to be kind. Anyway, I shall practice on Peter, because he’s truly hard work.

She was full of sternly kind resolve when she reached Great-Uncle William’s house. It helped, as she marched up the path between the ranks of blue hydrangeas, that there was no sign of Rollo. Being kind to Rollo was something Charmain was sure she could never do.