Close Kin (4 page)

"Do you know, Kate,"
murmured Marak after a while, "I don't believe these people have kings at
all. Not a one of them does any healing or worries about the food crops."

Kate glanced up, trying to pay
attention to her husband while
remembering
that deer health was governed by the Gilim constella
tion. She had always
thought that elf magic would be about pretty
things.
It amazed her that so many of the spells had to do with deer.

"Of course we have kings,"
she answered firmly, good English citizen that she was. "Marak, what's the
Gilim constellation? I can't place it."

"It's the Milky
Way," he replied absently. "Gilim means 'herd'; to the elves it
looked like a herd of deer crossing a glade."

"Herd." Kate digested this.
"I like 'Milky Way' better. It sounds so much more romantic."

"Really?" Marak laughed.
"I didn't know there was anything romantic about having a pan of milk
spilled over your head." With a frown, Kate went back to her spell book.

Emily hurried into the room without
knocking, and Marak put down his book.

"Finally,
M," he commented. "I've had Tinsel looking for you."

"Never mind about that,"
said Emily breathlessly. "Marak, you
have
to do something! Brindle said that Seylin went off on a trip, and
he
told Brindle he isn't coming back."

This looked like kingdom business,
Kate decided, and she left the room to prepare for the day's English classes.
Emily had gotten into plenty of scrapes and adventures over the years, and she
and Marak had had many heated discussions. Kate was glad to stay out of them
whenever she could.

"Yes,
that's true," remarked Marak calmly. "Seylin asked me for
permission
to leave."

"But you
can't let him leave like that!" said Emily. "Seylin can't
just
go away and not come back. Or maybe I could go with him," she suggested,
brightening.

"M, you are
not going with him," answered the goblin King.
"He
left the kingdom just to get away from you."

"From
me?" echoed Emily, sitting down on the couch. She stared
at
him in amazement. "But why?"

"Congratulations on your choice of
a husband," said Marak by
way of reply.
"I know how pleased Thaydar must be. I haven't
talked to him yet, but I'm sure you have. I'd like
to hold the wedding
as soon as possible."

Emily gaped at him.

"I don't want
to marry Thaydar!" she exclaimed.

The
goblin King returned her gaze impassively. "Didn't you tell
Seylin today that
you wanted to marry Thaydar?"

Emily
tried to remember their conversation.

"Well, yes
and no," she answered. "I told him that I'd rather
marry Thaydar than him, but only because he was being so
rude. He
made Brindle's little Penelope cry because
he wouldn't change into a cat."

The goblin
King's face lit up with amusement. "Seylin was prop
osing
marriage to you," he cried, "and you wanted him to change into a
cat?"

"Marriage?" gasped Emily.
"He never mentioned marriage! He
said
that he wouldn't always be a guard, and he didn't have much to
offer,
but-- Oh . . ." She trailed off, stunned.

Marak
was helpless with laughter.

"Oh," he agreed when he
recovered, wiping his eyes. "You cer
tainly
conveyed a clear refusal, anyway, as well as a clear preference
for
Thaydar. Em, I told you that you were free to choose your own husband, and it's
high time. Cats aside, which man do you want to marry?"

Emily
continued to look dazed.

"I don't
really know," she confessed. "I don't want to marry any
body.
Why do I have to?"

Her brother-in-law rested his cheek
on his hand and studied her
affectionately.
"What would you have said to Seylin if you'd known
he was
proposing?"

Emily shrugged.
"I don't know," she admitted reluctantly. "I
don't
want Seylin to go away and not come back. But he's been the worst nuisance this
year, standing around and goggling at me. He's never been less fun."

"Seylin
finally realized that he loved you," pointed out the goblin
King.

"Well, he didn't act like he
loved me," complained the young woman. "All he did was grumble at me
and act embarrassed. Why does it have to be like this? We were always such good
friends."

Because sooner or later we all grow
up, Marak reflected, and I
should have known
that Seylin would do it first. Lighthearted
Emily was showing no real
interest in growing up. It was time to give her a shove in the right direction.

"M, I have bad news," he
announced. "Seylin thinks you're marrying Thaydar, so he's left the
kingdom to find an elf bride. I'm afraid you'll have to put him completely out
of your mind."

"An
elf bride! There aren't any elves left!" protested the girl.

"Seylin
thinks there are," observed Marak. "He thinks he almost
met some, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's right. He
doesn't
intend to return, so
he's no longer a suitable choice for you. I'll give you a couple of months to
decide on a goblin man you'd prefer, and
if you can't do that, I'll marry you to Thaydar. You
expressed a pref
erence for him,
however briefly."

Emily
stared at him in astonishment.

"But
-- but -- Marak!" she spluttered.

"Seylin's quest is very
important," cautioned her brother-in-law. "I refuse to allow you to
interfere. Don't waste your time thinking about him. He has better things to do
than remember past sweethearts, and so do you."

"I'm
past?"
exclaimed Emily furiously. "Me?
Past?"

"I'm glad
that's settled," commented Marak, standing up. "Time
for court. As soon as you have that name, I'll be
pleased to hear it."

He left, and
Emily sat there, feeling completely stunned. So that was where Seylin had gone!
He wanted to find an elf girl. Someone
prettier
than she was. Someone magical and fascinating. He didn't even care about her.

Meanwhile, Seylin huddled in the
woods of Hallow Hill, in the
black cat
shape that Emily loved. Probably Marak had already perf
ormed the wedding ceremony, he thought. Probably
she was kissing
Thaydar right this minute. She'd found herself a real
goblin. She didn't even care about him.

Kate
was waiting for her husband in the hallway outside their
rooms, and they
walked downstairs together.

"What's all
this about Seylin leaving?" she wanted to know.

"Em didn't
notice that he was proposing to her," explained
Marak.
"Think of that -- she didn't even notice! Seylin wanted to follow an odd
feeling he's had and go away to hunt for elves. He thinks she's decided to
marry Thaydar."

"That doesn't
sound like a good match," said Kate unhappily.

"I don't know," mused Marak.
"It's not the one I would have
wanted,
but my military commander is amazingly patient. And he's
trained for
combat situations." Kate didn't laugh.

"Poor Seylin!" she said.
"He must be so mortified, he'll never come back home. "And he'll
certainly never consider asking her to
marry
him again. I don't think Em is at all suited to Thaydar.
They'll make
each other completely miserable."

"That's
the most likely result," agreed Marak happily. Kate gave him a surprised
glance. He was scheming again. There was nothing
the
clever goblin loved more than an impossibly tangled problem. "How's the
arm?" he asked.

"It's better," she assured
him as he felt and flexed it. "It tingles every now and then, that's
all."

"Poor
little elf! Elves who attack the goblin King never win," he
said.
"Speaking of battles, did you choose a roommate for Til? The new pages
move into their rooms in a few weeks."

"Yes, I
did," answered his wife. Her magical snake, Charm, had
named the little girl Kate had rescued from the
sorcerer's lair Matilda,
but
they had called her Til almost from the start. "We thought Bony's
oldest girl would be a good choice. It's going to be such
a hard adjust
ment for Til."

"It's going to be a hard
adjustment for the pages," remarked the goblin King. "That girl is
even worse than M was. She's a terror."

"She's
young," countered Kate. Her voice was sad. "Marak,
don't
you think she's too young to leave use"

"No, I don't, and neither do
you. Kate, every mother in the high families goes through this. All the pages
move to the pages' floor; that's how they make important friendships."

"But
Catspaw!" objected Kate, thinking of her young goblin
son.
"He'll miss her so. They've never been apart."

"They've never stopped fighting,
either. His magic's developing
so fast,
he'll probably wind up killing her if we don't separate them.
He's
already singed her hair off twice, and last week I caught him changing her into
a duck."

Kate left Marak
outside the great throne room. Court began, and
the stately room buzzed with well dressed goblins. Marak
was listen
ing patiently
to a complaint against one of the dwarves who lived in
the
palace when Emily appeared at the edge of the crowd.

"That dwarf's been moving the
wall between our apartments a little bit each day," declared a goblin.
"My bedroom keeps getting smaller and smaller. The furniture won't
fit."

"Rubbish!" scoffed the
dwarf "I never did." Emily maneuvered until she was right behind him
and began gesturing significantly to Marak.

"Did you measure your
bedroom?" the King inquired of the goblin.

"I
did, but the tape measure's metal, so it does just what he wants! The numbers
keep getting closer together, but the measurement stays
the
same. "And there's barely room for the bed now. My clothes are in the
hall!"

Marak turned to
the dwarf, but Emily had shouldered past him.
"I
have to talk to you!" she whispered frantically.

"Just a moment," the goblin
King said graciously to the crowd,
and he
escorted the young woman from the dais. He opened the door
of a small
anteroom and motioned her inside.

"Why do you
insist on interrupting me while I'm holding
court?"
he demanded.

"It's
important," pleaded Emily. "Marak, just this once!"

"It isn't just this once. Every
few weeks I look up and there you are, hopping around as if you have an
incurable twitch."

"But
it's urgent! I need to speak to you as soon as possible!"

"All right," promised the
goblin King. "I'll be back as soon as possible." He left her in the
anteroom and locked the door. Three hours later, he unlocked it again.
"Now, why did you need to speak to me?"

Emily was
sitting on the floor unraveling a gold tassel. She glared
at
her brother-in-law.

"As
soon as possible? I could have died in here!"

"I don't
see how," he remarked thoughtfully, looking around the room. "And I
couldn't possibly see you until court was over. We had
a very busy morning. You've been crying," he added,
pleased to have
noticed. He had
learned to detect these sorts of things during the eight years that the sisters
had been in his underground realm.