The Magician King (10 page)

The little girl’s name was Eleanor. She was five and very adept at drawing bunny-pegasi, which were like regular pegasi except instead of horses with wings they were rabbits with wings. Quentin wasn’t clear on whether they were real or made up; you could never be totally sure about stuff like that in Fillory. Mommy was in her late thirties or thereabouts, pretty with thin lips and a pale untropical complexion. She descended the stairs smartly, in high heels and a vaguely official-looking jacket and skirt, and shifted Eleanor roughly out of her chair, which Eleanor accepted. She took her pictures and coloring things and ran up the stairs.

“Welcome to the Kingdom of Fillory,” the woman said, in a throaty alto. “I am the Customs Agent. Please state your names and countries of origin.”

She opened a very official-looking ledger and held a large purpleinked stamp at the ready.

“I’m Quentin,” Quentin said. “Coldwater. I’m king of Fillory.”

She paused, eyebrows arched, with her hand poised to stamp. She was making a good thing out of this routine: businesslike but sexy, with some nicely judged irony in there. There was something of the vamp about the Customs Agent.

“You’re the king of Fillory?”

“I’m a king of Fillory. There are two.”

She put down the stamp. In the column marked OCCUPATION she wrote:
king
.

“In that case—from Fillory?”

“Well, yes.”

She made another note.

“Ah, well.” She sighed and closed the ledger. She didn’t get to use her stamp. “There isn’t much paperwork if you’re from Fillory. I thought you might have come from overseas.”

“Address His Highness with respect,” Bingle snapped. “You’re talking to the king, not some wandering fisherman.”

“I know he’s the king,” she said. “He said that.”

“Then address him as ‘Your Highness’!”

“Sorry.” She turned to Quentin, trying, but not very hard, to suppress her amusement. “Your Highness. We don’t get a lot of kings here. It takes getting used to.”

“Well, all right.” Quentin let it go. “Look, Bingle, I’ll take care of guarding my dignity, thanks.” Then to the Customs Agent: “You can still stamp my form if you want to.”

Bingle shot Quentin a glance to the effect of, you have no idea how to be a king, literally none.

The Customs Agent’s name turned out to be Elaine, and once she’d satisfied herself as to their immigration status she was a gracious host. It was usual on the Outer Island to have cocktails in about an hour, she explained, but before then would they like to see something of the island? They certainly would. By all means, as long as they were here. Only they should be warned that someone would wind up carrying Eleanor on his shoulders. She was a sweet child but easily distracted and very lazy.

“She’s a terrible flirt. She goes straight for the men of the party, and if she figures out you’re an easy mark, you’ll be carrying her around for the rest of the day.”

They followed Elaine through the embassy, which was what the grand building turned out to be. It was dim and surprisingly elegant, with lots of club chairs and dark wood, something like an English gentlemen’s club. It was hard to picture the opulent age in which all this stuff had been shipped out here and assembled. The Outer Island must have had a heyday. They walked out the back gate and along a cart track hacked out of the tropical greenery. Elaine picked a tangy sweet-sour fruit from a low-hanging branch and offered it to Quentin.

“Try this,” she purred. It had dense nests of seeds inside that one spat out into the weeds.

The spicy scent of the seaside gave way to the dense green chlorophyl fug of the jungle. Here and there they passed a wrought-iron gate, painted white but rusting, with a path curving away back into the underbrush. Elaine discoursed about the various histories and scandals of the families that lived in the houses at the ends of the paths. She was handsome and had a bright, appealing manner. Though Quentin wondered why she wasn’t more affectionate to her daughter, the helpful little Eleanor. It didn’t jibe with her otherwise hospitable manner. Bingle stalked ahead of them, sword out, ready to slash or grapple any malefactors who might spring out of the jungle with designs on the king’s person. Quentin thought he was being rude, but Elaine didn’t seem to notice.

They stopped to admire a tropical clock-tree, which took the form of a palm tree instead of an oak. Quentin asked Eleanor if she could tell time, and she said that she couldn’t and what’s more she didn’t want to.

“Aren’t we being a little princess for the king,” said Elaine. Benedict sketched effortfully as they walked, trying not to blot his notebook with sweat. Julia stopped to study a weed, or maybe talk to it, and they left her behind. How much trouble could she get into? Quentin had had some half-formed idea of flirting with Elaine as a way of arousing Julia’s competitive spirit, but if such a spirit dwelled within her it remained unaroused.

After a half mile they came to the center of town. The cart track performed a wobbly loop and rejoined itself. There was a market here, or at least some market stalls, with a fishy reek and a few discarded, trampled fruit of the kind they’d picked on the way there. At the head of the loop stood a grand official building of the town hall variety with a stopped clock on its pediment like a blind Cyclops eye and a faded but still recognizable Fillorian flag hanging limp and exhausted in the damp heat.

In the center of the loop stood a stone monument, a granite obelisk with a statue of a man on top. Monsoons had weathered it badly, and tropical weeds had managed to crack off a corner of the base, but you could still make out the man’s heroic attitude, stoic in the face of what looked like impending misfortune.

“That is Captain Banks,” Elaine said. “He founded the Fillorian settlement on the Outer Island, by which I mean he ran his ship into it.”

Quentin wondered if there was a joke to be made about “founder” and “founder.” If there was it had probably already made the rounds of the Outer Island.

“Where is everybody?”

“Oh, they’re around,” she said. “We keep to ourselves here, mostly.”

Eleanor tried Elaine and was cuffed away. She held up her arms to Quentin, and he hoisted her up onto his shoulders. Elaine rolled her eyes as if to say, don’t say I didn’t warn you. The sun was setting in an absolute bloodbath of a sunset behind the trees, and the evening insects were growing bolder.

Eleanor squealed with delight at how tall Quentin was compared with her usual mount. She pulled the edge of her skirt down over his eyes. He gently lifted it up and she squealed again and pushed it back down. It was a game. She was surprisingly strong. Quentin supposed that there were worse things to be than an easy mark.

He stood there for a long moment, in the tropical darkness that lay beneath the hem of Eleanor’s skirt. Here I am, noble leader of the bold expedition to the Outer Island. King of all I survey. This was it, there really would be no surprise twist, no big reveal. The feeling of resignation was almost pleasurable, a mellow, numbing pleasure, like the first good, stiff drink of the evening.

He sighed. It wasn’t an unhappy sigh, but it included the thought: as soon as I have those taxes I am so out of here.

“You said something before about cocktails,” he said.

 

 

Dinner at the embassy was surprisingly good: a frighteningly toothy local fish served whole in a sweet preparation with some kind of mangolike local fruit. Eleanor waited on the guests with towering dignity, conveying salt shakers and glasses and other incidental items from kitchen to table with a straight back and slow, deliberate steps, toe-heel, as if she were walking a balance beam. Around eight thirty she dropped a crystal wineglass.

“For God’s sake, Eleanor,” Elaine said. “Go to bed. No dessert, just go to bed.” The accused wept and demanded cake, but Elaine was unmoved.

Afterward they all sat on wicker couches and chairs on an upper porch and took cautious sips of some appallingly sugary local liquor. The bay was spread out in the darkness below them, with the
Muntjac
afloat in it, illuminated by lanterns at bow and stern and at the tops of the masts. Julia contrived a spell to keep the bugs away.

Quentin asked where the bathroom was and excused himself. It was a cover story: he stopped by the kitchen, where he found what was left of the cake sitting underneath a glass dome. He cut a slice and took it up to Eleanor’s bedroom.

“Shhhhhh,” he said, closing the door behind him. She nodded seriously, as if he were a spy delivering a wartime communiqué. He waited while she ate the cake, then returned the evidence—the empty plate and the fork—to the kitchen.

When he got back to the veranda Elaine was alone. Julia had gone to bed. If she felt anything about him, she wasn’t about to fight over him for the sake of it. His grand outing with Julia was slipping away from him. Fine if nothing happened between them—at this point he’d be happy if he could just get her to talk to him. He was worried about her.

“I apologize about earlier,” Elaine said. “Your Highness. About your being king.”

“Forget about it.” He refocused his attention on her with an effort and smiled. “I’m still getting used to it myself.”

“It would have been easier if you were wearing a crown.”

“I did for a while, but it was incredibly uncomfortable. And it always fell off at the most inappropriate moments.”

“I can imagine.”

“Christenings. Cavalry charges.”

Under the influence of the local moonshine he was beginning to find himself insouciantly charming.
Le roi s’amuse.

“It sounds like a public nuisance.”

“It was practically an enemy of the state. Now I just maintain a kingly bearing. I’m sure you noticed
that
.”

It was difficult to make out her expression in the twilight. Mobs of exotic eastern stars were filling in the black sky overhead.

“Oh, it was unmistakable.”

She began rolling a cigarette. Were they flirting? She had to be at least fifteen years older than Quentin. Here he was afloat in the wild magical tropics of Fillory and he’d stumbled on the only cougar within 477 nautical miles. He wondered who Eleanor’s daddy was.

“Did you grow up here?” he asked.

“Oh, no. My parents were from the mainland—down around the Southern Orchard. I never knew my father. I’ve been in the diplomatic service forever. This is just another posting for me, I’ve been all over the empire.”

Quentin nodded sagely. He wasn’t aware that Fillory had a diplomatic service. He’d have to look into that when he got back.

“So do you get a lot of people coming through here? I mean from outside Fillory? Over the sea?”

“Sadly no. Actually I’ll tell you a terrible secret: no one has ever come through here, not as long as I’ve been at the embassy. In fact in the whole history of this office, three centuries of it, nobody has ever once passed through customs from across the Eastern Ocean. The records are completely blank. In that respect I suppose you’d have to call it a bit of a sinecure.”

“Well, what with there being no work and all.”

“It’s a shame, you should see the customs forms, they’re really magnificent. The letterhead alone. You should take some. And the stamp—I’ll stamp something for you in the morning. The stamp is an absolute masterpiece.”

The tip of her cigarette glowed in the dimness. Quentin was reminded of the last time he’d smoked, during the brief but vigorously hedonistic period when he’d lived in New York, three years ago. Her cigarette was sweet and fragrant. He asked for one. She had to roll it for him, he’d forgotten how. Or had he ever known? No, Eliot had a clever silver device that rolled them for you.

“I hate to bring this up,” Quentin said. “But there’s a reason why I’m here.”

“I thought as much. Is it that magic key business?”

“What? Oh. No, it’s not the magic key.”

She leaned back and put her feet up on a chest she used for a table.

“What then?”

“It’s about the money. The taxes. You didn’t send any last year. I mean the island didn’t.”

She burst out laughing—a big, openmouthed laugh. She leaned back and clapped her hands together once.

“And they sent you? They sent the king?”

“They didn’t send me. I’m the king. I sent myself.”

“Right.” She dabbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands. “You’re a bit of a micromanager, aren’t you? Well, I suppose you’re wondering where the money is. We should have sent it. We could have, no one’s in any danger of starving on the Outer Island. Tomorrow I’ll take you out to see the gold beetles. They’re amazing: they eat dirt and poop out gold ore. Their nests are made of gold!” She kicked the chest their feet were resting on. “Take this. It’s full of gold. I’ll throw in the chest for free.”

“Great,” Quentin said. “Thanks. It’s a deal.”

Mission accomplished. He took a drag on the cigarette and stifled a cough. It had been a very brief phase, his smoking period. Maybe he’d had too much of whatever this was. Rum? It was sweet, and they were on a tropical island, so let’s call it rum.

“We hadn’t heard from you for years. There didn’t seem to be any point. I mean, what do you actually do with the stuff?”

Quentin could have answered that, but even he had to admit that the answer wouldn’t have been a very good one. Probably they used it to regild Eliot’s scepter. Taxation without representation. She could start a revolution. She was right. It was all so unreal.

“Anyway look what happened. They sent us a king. I think we might be forgiven for feeling a little pleased with ourselves. But why are you really here? Don’t tell me that’s the whole reason, it’s too, too disappointing. Are you on a quest?”

“I’m afraid I am going to disappoint you. I’m not on a quest.”

“I was sure you were looking for the magic key,” she said. “The one that winds up the world.”