A trio of ghostly figures appeared. Two were pawn-squires garbed in black suits with obsidian buttons. One occupied the queen’s pawn square, the other a prince-pawn square. The third figure was a young bearded knight in black armour.

  “Three!” exclaimed Sir Brian. “Three have already moved!”

  “They’re probably just exercising,” said Sara. “See: the queen’s pawn frees Queen Boola and her bishop to move. The prince’s pawn frees the prince. The knight has leapfrogged out for a canter.”

  “Young lady,” said Roque, “we can hardly rely on the diagnosis of a Chorny renegade! Their queen and prince and bishop are now free to advance, as you rightly point out.”

  Adama appeared to have recovered her poise. She spoke crisply. “We must immediately advance my own squire to free myself and Vax. Also, Prince Roque’s squire.” “She has made a move,” said Roque.

  Quite true: Sara was squire to Roque-I recalled this fact-falsely but indisputably.

  “Maybe not far enough,” said Adama.

  “Hang on,” broke in bluff Sir Brian, “oughtn’t we to check the white eidolons, Majesty? To confirm Sara’s move?”

  The queen sang again, more slowly in a lower key. Our side of the chequerboard remained totally bare. No eidolon of Sara appeared.

  “How do you account for this, Vax?”

  Vax pursed his lips. “Hmm. Sara jumped to Piazza Market and back. She possesses pawnmagic. We all saw that. She certainly isn’t a black squire. So she must somehow be of neither side-or of both sides! No eidolon can adequately represent her. Magically she’s invisible.”

  “That’s useful,” said Roque. “The enemy can’t identify her.”

  “A simple test should settle the matter, Prince. You yourself should jump. Jump anywhere you wish. If Sara is truly your squire, your leap won’t be blocked. If she isn’t, you’ll remain here.”

  “Right, I’ll do it.” Roque spoke journey-magic and promptly disappeared.

  He returned a few minutes later clutching a handful of white powder. “Snow,” he announced, “from the top of Mount Planina” He cast the evidence aside to melt on the floor.

  “Now, Majesty,” urged Vax, “sing the white eidolons once again.”

  Adama sang, and behold: Prince Roque’s eidolon stood on its proper square.

  Sir Brian rubbed his hands gleefully, as though it was he who had handled snow. “When Queen Boola next summons our eidolons, she’ll know that a pawn-squire moved-because the prince is on show. She’ll assume the squire met some fatal accident. Ha! Damn it, now we can learn how that previous war went. We can avoid mistakes, if any. Who won, anyhow?” Evidently Sir Brian accepted my revelation pragmatically.

  “Chorny won,” I told him. “Really, neither side won. Both kingdoms lost everything. They lost existence itself. Do we have to fight this wretched, repetitious war all over again?”

  Albertini chipped in unwelcomely. “We mus’ fight yer war. Can’t not fight. You two said it’s magic war sustains a world. Gives i’ energy. No war, no world. World goes stale, dry as sticks, no blood in its veins. Rots.”

  Unfortunately, so far as we knew, Albertini was spot on.

  Vax came to my aid. Perhaps. “To all intents, Majesty,” he said to Adama, “the war has begun. Moves have been made, though no blood has yet been shed. Surely sufficient has been accomplished for one day?”

  “No, it hasn’t. I want my own squire to move, to free me. Squire Peterlin.”

  “Hmm, that seems a reasonable request.”

  “A command, Vax. It’s a command.”

  “Ah. Yes. Of course. But then let’s call a halt. We do need time to analyse the previous war. We must also focus our wits on the magical nature of existence, to which we now hold a key. It may be ages before Chorny moves again. We shouldn’t act precipitately. I’m sure you’ll agree.”

  “Oh very well.”

  Consequently Squire Peterlin jumped to Bresh Hill, and returned exhilarated.

  “I shall nobly refrain from jumping,” said Adama. “My eidolon would be visible afterwards. Chorny might panic.” She sailed towards me and offered her arm. “Come, husband mine.”

  “But...”

  “Are we not married? Are we not man and wife?”

  “Yes. No.”

  “Yes! Bishop Vax, you wedded us. Are we not doting husband and faithful wife? Arbitrate!”

  Vax licked his lips-while Sara stared anxiously at him. “I recall so, madam. On the other hand.”

  “What other hand? A wife in one hand, a second wife in the other? Two wives in the same bed with a single husband?” Adama uttered a laugh of derision. “What would our loyal subjects think of such an arrangement? I ask you, is this Chorny?”

  “In point of fact,” I remarked, “Chorny is-was-distinctly strait-laced. Almost repressive! Apart from Queen Babula, whom I happen to have met, in Chorny itself! Queen Boola, that’s to say.”

  “Whom you wish me to emulate?”

  “No, she wasn’t particularly likable.”

  “Come along then, Peddypoo. The bishop has spoken.”

  “He didn’t say much. Whereas I just said that I visited Chorny. I’ve been there. Aren’t you interested?” “It will make a pretty bedtime tale.”

  Vax spoke again. “Might I suggest a compromise? King Pedino could stay in bachelor accommodation while we, er, consider his exact marital status.”

  “Live as a bachelor? What a ridiculous arrangement! How should I trust it? Shall we employ chaperones? Do I not have legitimate desires?”

  Sara darted me a desperate glance but I was fresh out of ideas. Adama was such a glamorous, overpowering woman. I experienced a brief phantom glimpse of myself sinking into Adama, body and soul, forgetting my real past, maybe taking to wearing pantoufles and puffing a magic pipe. One of the bubbles which I blew would imprison Sara. She would implore me to release her. Later she would threaten me with her knife so that I would feel glad she was safely locked inside that bubble.

  “Yer Majesty!” chirped Albertini.

  “What is it, wee sprat?”

  Albertini glowered but checked his temper.

  “Mebbe yerself an’ Sara should share a bed. Getta know each other like sisters. Leave Pedino outa it.”

  Squire Irina began sniggering, and the queen rounded on her, freezing with a glare. Adama’s gaze drifted onward, musingly, to her “rival”.

  “Yer’d be sure nuthin’ woz goin’ on behind yer back. Yer might getta like each other. Yer might even.”

  “Yes, yes, I follow your drift. The wisdom of Suleiman, no less! Why not? Why not indeed?” Adama regarded me with rueful amusement. “Why should I share my sheets with someone who doesn’t honestly adore me? Yet to share them with the object of that adoration.. .there’s an equation that almost makes sense. Sara and I must have much in common. We could cultivate our mutual interests.”

  I could see it clearly written on Adama’s face: she intended to seduce Sara. I directed a helpless shrug in Sara’s direction. To my consternation she smirked at me. Something in the proposal attracted her!

  Recollecting her former life on Groody Lane, it struck me forcibly that Sara had chosen that particular role for her cover as a spy and saboteur. It was a role which must imply a cynicism about men, a certain contempt, even a measure of hatred. Her choice was surely not unconnected with the fact that Lovats had fathered her as a magical exercise on a mother bought by coin and rank, as much as by joy. Then her father had abandoned her to the state, and only acknowledged her because she was a success-only to commit experimental incest with her.

  Had Sara told me the truth about her stepfather, that metallurgist at the Chorny Mint? Such a fellow must have been comparatively young and in good health. How could he and his wife both have died of flu? Now that I thought back, this part of Sara’s story seemed implausible. A lie. A fantasy. Those two “decent” parents, one of whom happened to have a pre-marital affair with a bishop.no, no, no. But who both conveniently died.no. Sara never did have a stepfather who died of flu. She never had kindly foster-parents, thoughtfully provided by Lovats, which of course made her special amongst the army of orphans.

  Lovats wouldn’t have risked farming out his experiment to strangers. He would have wanted the baby- and any other sibling products of his flesh-reared from the outset in his orphanage where he could keep an eye on them, be sure they were cared for efficiently. In Chorny there were no regular “ladies of Groody Lane”. Nevertheless! Something along such lines had surely been the arrangement.

  By allying with me Sara had turned her back on her fatherland as surely as her own father had turned his back on her during her formative years. (Or, if not his back exactly, he had only presented an official face.) True, Sara had seemed fond of Lovats-“he isn’t evil!” she had begged me to believe-but how could she have denounced her own father, even to herself? Did she decide to love me, not because I loved her and spared her life-not for myself alone-but because by loving me, a squire of Bellogard, she avenged herself on all forms of fathers, whether biological or political? And fathers, of course, were men.

  My mind and heart churned. I felt lonely and betrayed. Punished, for circumstances which had nothing to do with me (beyond the fact that I’d chosen to stroll down Groody Lane and tap on a window). Now that Sara had saved my own bacon by magicking me back to Bellogard, perhaps we were quits.

  The next time I saw Sara-the day after-she was arm in arm with Adama. Both women greeted me gaily, with the complicity of those who share a private joke which excludes outsiders.

  Disconsolate, I spent the best part of the day closeted with Vax in the Bibliotek. A restless Albertini was also corralled with us for a couple of hours. Vax plied us with questions about the other magic worlds while a silent amanuensis-possibly dumb but certainly not deaf-wrote our answers into one of the blank books. After Albertini was dismissed-given his leave to caper around the palace poking his nose into kitchens, courtyards, galleries-a cold mutton salad was served, and Vax’s questions turned to the subject of the previous war. Periodically one or other of us paced the room to stretch our limbs. The amanuensis seemed professionally immune to cramp.

  Later that afternoon a flunkey brought ham sandwiches and wine. Vax kept harking back to my description of old king Karol’s magic bubbles.

  “So the king could create whole landscapes.”

  “Twisted ones.” “Twisted by his own mentality! I repeat: whole landscapes, with eidolons, imprisoned inside a magical bubble-sphere. Our own world seems reminiscent of one of those bubbles, albeit on a vaster scale. Far grander, to those of us who dwell within! Tell me: did King Karol concentrate intently? Or did he let his fancy roam so that images welled up unbidden? Did he ever nod off with his pipe still in his mouth, and dream a magic bubble? To awaken and find it there before him, nestled upon the blankets?”

  “I doubt if his valet let him smoke in bed!”

  “Ah, but a bubble is made from soapy water, not tobacco fumes.”

  “Sorry, I’m tired.” I gulped some wine, which was hardly the best medicine.

  “Did Karol’s imagination ever produce a bubble while he was busy with something else entirely?”

  “I’ve no idea. Why?”

  “I wonder whether magic worlds might be bubbles which someone dreams contingently- as a byproduct of some other activity? Maybe the dreamer is a great magician; I don’t know. I wonder if soapy water is the best substance to use? Did King Karol fix on soapy water by trial and error? Or did he happen to drop his pipe in the royal bathtub one day? Did he discover the efficacy of soapy water by sheer accident? And never try to improve on it? Never experiment. How about milk? Milky bubbles might be too opaque.. .How about various oils?”

  “What are you getting at, Vax?”

  “I think you should commission a royal pipe of the design you mentioned.” The bishop took the book which the secretary had almost filled and flipped through earlier pages. “Here we are. The arc of a hyperbola. The bowl, a fractional ellipsoid. Et cetera.”

  “With what aim, Vax? To turn me into a double of the old buffoon? That silly prospect already haunts me.”

  “Does it indeed? One should heed the promptings of hunches. You ought to blow some bubbles, using a variety of substances. You should try to dream a bubble showing the true origin of our world. A bubble which contains, and captures, the dreamer who dreams us. Or at least an eidolon of our benefactor/malefactor.”

  “Shall we worship the image of our creator and destroyer?”

  “No, we examine it. Paradoxically that bubble might enclose our universe-even though to us it seems the other way around. I have the germ of an idea, Sire. We might.be able to break through into that bubble. We might open a gateway.”

  This project distracted my attention to some degree from the galling affair of Sara and Adama.

  Vax and I decided to organize a royal progress for myself the following afternoon, which was the first day of the Jubilation. En route to the Samostan we would visit a certain pipemaker’s in Chalk Street-if the said establishment existed in the present world. Our discreet amanuensis-who could speak perfectly well when addressed directly-would be sent that very evening to find out, and to forewarn the proprietors.

  As soon as the man set out, Vax and I hastened to consult Adama-who appeared delighted by my spontaneous show of regal responsibility. This would keep me out of her hair at a sensitive time and give her more opportunity to dally with Sara in the delicate early stages-the honeymoon period-of their relationship. The queen promised to put in a similar appearance on the streets the day after, no doubt with my love by her side, dazzled by applause and pomp.

  We took our leave of the queen; and Vax took his leave of me, to make all the necessary arrangements.

  Tired out by talking all day long I retired early to a lonely, if splendid bedchamber. My sleep was interrupted once, by the guard outside my door admitting.no, not Sara. Of course not. It was the amanuensis, lantern in hand. He looked as tired as I felt.

  “Excuse me, Sire.”

  “’S all right.”

  “The shop is there.”

  After lunch the next day Vax and Albertini and I set out in an open, gilded carriage drawn by four fine white geldings ridden by grooms. A second carriage conveyed Prince Krasno and Sir Jerebet, as our magical escort. A company of guards in scarlet tunics and plumed helmets rode along with us.

  Our two carriages were soon purling through the streets, to loyal, often tipsy outcries of excitement and much waving of flags and streamers.

  Bellogard was as I remembered it, give or take petty differences. The Spomenik Monument celebrated our frothy, vivacious composer of champagne-music, as ever, from a shifted vantage-point. Cafes around Terga Square were doing a humming, if elegant trade; however, I saw no flower-beds. The square was paved with cobbles. In the centre a fountain sprayed red wine as if from a severed artery.

  I muttered to Albertini, “That wasn’t a very bright idea of yours, Sara and the queen bedding down together.”

  “Wozn’t it?”

  “Not really.”

  “Sorry, Yer Majesty.” Albertini sounded like the soul of innocence. But if it came to a choice did he owe real allegiance to me-or to Sara?

  Our carriage and escort crowded along Chalk Street. We halted outside my old home, my former birthplace. While a groom unfolded the carriage steps for me I was gazing at the shop-window. Much the same display of briars, clays, and lulus, jars of shag and ambershred, snuff tubs, boxes of cheroots. Trepidation filled my heart. Who would I find inside? My mother and father? My kid sister? Myself?

  When the groom thrust the door open a familiar little bell jangled. As if in sympathy mightier bells began clonging from campaniles all around the city. I walked in.

  A merry, fresh-faced woman and a gaunt man stood blushing with pride, embarrassment, and eager awkwardness. The woman curtsied. The man bowed jerkily. Both were in their middle thirties. They were strangers to me.

  Total strangers? Their faces looked unfamiliar but in an evocative kind of way-as though this couple might be my grandparents, or great-grandparents, in their youth. Early days, yet, in Bellogard!

  “Excellent fellow,” I addressed the pipe-maker. “We have come in person to commission a very special pipe; and to bestow our royal warrant upon your establishment.” Nothing like supporting home industries.

  Bishop Vax had followed me into the shop, increasing the delight and confusion of the couple.

  “That’s a purchase,” I emphasized. “Paid for in good crowns; I insist.”

  I realized that my pockets were empty. A king doesn’t carry money. Fortunately Vax had anticipated this. He jiggled a purse quietly. I took it, loosened the draw-string, and pulled out a gold coin. On one side was my own silhouette; on the other Adama’s, with words in the magic language: Kreditna Banka.

  I placed several gold coins on the counter and proceeded to describe the sort of pipe I needed. My “grandfather” took pencil notes. He vowed to begin work at once; he could deliver such a pipe the very next day.

  “No rush, fine fellow! Feel free to enjoy the Jubilation.”

  The man shook his head emphatically. “This job will be our Jubilation, Sire!”

  Vax and I left, to board the carriage and continue onward to the Samostan.

  A marquee had been erected on one lawn to dispense wine and special celebration ale and wholesome delicacies. The aroma of barbecued eel with hot sauce, sizzling spiced sausages, fried puff-balls teased my nostrils. On another sward a chair o’plane and a carousel were to be found, also side-shows: a fire- swallower, a knife-thrower, an equilibrist. Quite a few women were wearing carnival attire, disguised as vamps and cocottes, odalisques and pierrettes. It was as if Seveno District had spilled into Bishop Meesa’s grounds. Some of the men wore brigand or gypsy costumes. Kids rushed about, squealing. The undecapitated peacocks had taken refuge atop the boxtrees to scream their pea-brained protests.

  What better place to find a clown than at a carnival f J|? I soon spotted Koko, grinning and weeping, tottering about on his stilts while clutching an outsize sausage. Kids hooted at his wobbly efforts to balance and bite.