Seraphina(52)

I watched the Ardmagar’s slow procession from atop the barbican, along with most of our musicians. Comonot had flown to Southgate before the sun was up so as to minimize alarm at his scaly presence, but everyone in town knew he was coming and a crowd had been gathered there since last night. Representatives of the Crown had been on hand to greet the Ardmagar and to provide him and his entourage with clothing once they transformed. Comonot partook of a leisurely breakfast; it was midmorning before he set out for the palace with his entourage. Comonot refused a horse and insisted on traversing the city on foot, personally greeting the people—cheering and otherwise—who lined the streets.

Apparently he arrived at the cathedral plaza just as the Countdown Clock chimed for the last time. They say it played an eerie, mechanized hurdy-gurdy tune, and that the Queen and the dragon danced a jig together. People who saw it insisted that it was not a machine but a puppet performance. No machine could have put on such a show.

I’d have bet a Lars-built machine could, but alas I didn’t get to see it for myself.

Though the Ardmagar was dressed in bright blue, he was hard to spot among the milling throngs and waving flags; his saarantras was not a tall man. Those of us shivering on the barbican did not find ourselves unduly impressed. “He’s so tiny!” cooed the scrawny sackbutist. “I could squish him under my boot heel!”

“Who’s a cockroach now, Ard-bugger?” cried one of my drummers, not quietly.

I cringed, hoping no one who mattered had heard. How did word move so quickly at court? I said: “Not one more disrespectful word—any of you!—or you will find yourself playing for your supper on street corners.” They flashed me any number of skeptical looks. “Viridius has given me full discretion in this,” I assured them. “Push me, if you imagine I don’t mean it.”

They looked at their shoes. I thanked St. Loola, patroness of children and fools, that no one seemed inclined to call my bluff.

Those of us responsible for the fanfare took off for the reception hall and found it packed to the rafters with the aggregate nobility of the Southlands. From my perch in the gallery, I saw that Count Pesavolta of Ninys and the Regent of Samsam had each colonized a quarter of the room, the former flamboyant and noisy, the latter dour and severe. I spotted Dame Okra among the Ninysh; she was more subdued than most, but then, she had lived a long time in Goredd.

The Ardmagar stepped into the doorway, and the room went instantly silent. He was as stout and as jowly as Viridius. His dark hair looked like it had been wetted and combed severely straight; it was threatening to burst into unruliness as it dried. Nevertheless, his hawkish nose and piercing stare gave him a formidable presence. He radiated intensity, as if compelled by some inner fire he could barely contain; the very air around him seemed to shimmer, like the heat off city streets in summertime. He wore his bell like a medal, on a heavy gold chain around his thick neck. He raised an arm in salutation; the room held its breath. The Queen rose; Princess Dionne rose with her, looking awed. Glisselda and Kiggs, together on the left, were mere shadows playing at the periphery of history.

We gallery rats were supposed to burst forth in fanfare at exactly this point, but we were all struck dumb. My musicians must have found Comonot a bit more impressive up close.

I, on the other hand, had broken into a cold sweat.

I shook all over, filled with a rancorous cacophony of emotions: fear, anger, disgust. The stew of emotions wasn’t mine, though.

I closed my eyes and saw the tin box of memories sitting in a puddle, leaking. Fat pearls of condensation rolled down its sides. I couldn’t do my job with my mother’s feelings about Comonot leaking into my consciousness. I cast around inside my head for a … a towel. One appeared at my thought. I mopped up underneath and then wrapped the box in it.

The mess of emotions dissipated, and I opened my eyes. Comonot had proceeded no further up the carpet toward the dais. His arm was still raised; he looked like a plaster statue of himself.

“Wake up, you louts!” I hissed to my musicians. They startled as if they’d been entranced, hoisted their instruments into position, and burst into music on my mark.

At the blare of his tardy fanfare, the general began the long walk toward the dais, leaving a glamour in the air behind him as he passed, waving and smiling. He seemed to wink at every single one of us individually.

He stepped up, kissed the Queen’s jeweled hand, and addressed the crowd in a resounding basso: “Queen Lavonda. Princesses. Gathered people of quality. I come to honor forty years of peace between our peoples.”

He waited for the clapping to subside, his expression as self-satisfied as a cat’s. “Do you know why dragons learned to take human form? We change that we might speak with you. In our natural form, our throats are so rough with smoke that we cannot make your words. You, on your side, fail to recognize our Mootya as speech. It was the dragon sage Golya, or Golymos, as they call him in Porphyry, who discovered how to effect this change almost a millennium ago. He wished to speak with the Porphyrian philosophers and found a mighty university for our people. That was the first incidence of dragons looking to humans for something good and useful, but not the last. Golya has gone down in history as one of our greats—and so shall I.”

Applause again shook the hall. Comonot waited it out, wedging his left hand into the gap between buttons at the front of his satin doublet as if he intended to surreptitiously scratch his stomach.