Waking in Dreamland (22 page)

“Incognito! Surely not,” the mayor said gallantly. “How could one disguise such a regal beauty as yourself—if I do not offend by saying so?”

“Why, no, you don’t offend at all,” Leonora assured him, with a sly look toward Roan, who kept his face politely blank. “Thank you.”

“Ah, well, since we have penetrated your disguise, we can’t let such an opportunity as this one be missed. You must come to lunch. It won’t be as fancy as we’d like,” the mayor said, with a touch of understandable chagrin. His face brightened. “Perhaps one day you will return to us, and we can give you the banquet you do deserve. . . .”

Leonora seemed on the edge of accepting, but she was mindful of the embarrassment of the morning. Roan saw her disappointment as she shook her head.

“I am so sorry. We can’t stay.”

“Oh, but, please, Your Highness!” Georgeton protested, and the councillors added their prayers. “Tea? Champagne? Anything?
Please
allow us this honor.”

Roan caught her eye, and gave a nod and a rueful shrug. He knew that maintaining good public relations with her subjects was just as important a function as any they might fulfill, such as saving the world from destruction. Leonora smiled like the sun coming up, and turned to the mayor.

“Very well, your honor. My friends and I would be most delighted to have tea with the kind citizens of Hark,” she said. Georgeton was elated.

“Thank you, Your Highness! This way! This way!” Georgeton said, with sweeping gestures toward the north end of the square. “Preparations have already begun!”

Roan joined Leonora and offered an elbow to her. She put her hand through it, and leaned close, still smiling at the rejoicing townsfolk who romped around them like a crowd of puppies.

“Can’t we tell them why we’re here?” she asked in a low voice. “Don’t they have a right to know they may be in danger?”

“Do we have a right to tell them, and disrupt their lives?” Roan looked around him. For all the careful Victorian character of the town, the houses were made of oddments. “These people aren’t in charge of their destinies. They are the ones to whom things happen. If we tell them, the warning will do nothing but worry them, and nothing at all might happen.”

“Only frighten them,” Bergold added. His mayorlike face appeared beside them and made Leonora jump. “And if we fail—they’ll never know, that’s all.”

“These are the ones we have to save,” Roan said.

“We will,” Leonora vowed, setting her chin. “I swear it.”

In the next square a table had been set up. It was long enough, Roan guessed, to accommodate the entire population of the town. On a long white cloth huge bouquets of blue periwinkle flowers were piled around the place setting in the center of the table at one side, where beaming townsfolk in their best clothes were waiting to seat the princess. Her tastes were well known throughout her father’s kingdom. The immaculate china didn’t match, but some effort had been made to disguise the fact with a sprig of blue flowers on each plate.

“Your Highness, pray sit here,” the mayor urged, gesturing her toward the place of honor. He put out an arm for her to take, judged himself too bold, and jumped away again before her fingertips touched him. With a backwards smile to Roan, Leonora allowed the silly straw hat to become a genteel tiara, which looked wonderful on her inflated hairstyle.

Roan was ushered to a far end of the table by a uniformed maid, as the townsfolk sought to sit as close to the princess as protocol allowed. The scrimmage left the traveling party all together. Felan, parcels in a huge shopping bag at his side, was herded down the queue. He grabbed Roan’s arm.

“What is going on?” he asked.

“Her Highness has graciously allowed Hark to have her to tea,” Roan said.

“But we’ve got to be on our way,” Felan said.

“I know,” Roan said, “but this should not take too long.” Their companions found them, and sat down. Colenna settled between Bergold and Roan, and enjoyed herself as waiters in short white coats poured tea, coffee, and lemonade from silver pitchers, and dispensed sandwiches and pastries with silver tongs.

“Look!” she said. “They’re serving Her Highness with gold. How dear of them. It’s nice to see these old customs haven’t died out everywhere.” She nodded as the server’s tongs hovered above a cream cake, a chocolate cylinder filled with raspberries, and a snowy white meringue. “Glorious! Look at these!”

Roan accepted a plate of delicacies and a cup of tea, then he and the others waited. From where he sat he couldn’t see the town officials, who would consider it a breach of manners if anyone took a bite before the guest of honor. Gradually, like a wave, diners in turn raised forkfuls of food to their mouths. Roan gratefully cut into the wedge of cheesecake on his plate, and took a hearty bite. He looked at Bergold out of the corner of his eye. The historian swallowed his portion of lemon sabayon.

“Interesting, isn’t it?” Bergold said, carefully.

“Most unusual,” Roan said. The cheesecake had tasted like mashed potatoes. He broke off a portion of croissant and ate it. It looked like butter pastry, but it had the distinct flavor of soda bread. Roan and the others exchanged glances. In order to honor their guests, the citizens of Hark had changed whatever they had to look like fine foods, but they lacked the strength to add the flavors, too. Colenna shrugged.

“It’s a fine spread, and nice of them, don’t you think?” she said, taking another sandwich from the hovering waiter’s platter. “Food’s food, after all.”

“Yes, of course,” Roan said. After the first shock, the mashed-potato cheesecake wasn’t at all bad to eat; the hasty cook had used plenty of butter and milk in the recipe. The soda-croissant was a trifle dry, and required lashings of jam from the china bowls on the table. The jam did taste like jam, although it was ordinary grape and apple rather than the exotic fruits the bright colors suggested. Roan was reminded again that this was not a rich or powerful community, yet they had gone to a great deal of trouble to do their best for unexpected guests. He felt a twinge of guilt for not appreciating the food, and a deep affection for these people. They tried. It was for their sake that he was making his effort to stop Brom.

All at once, he was impatient to resume his journey. Brom and the Alarm Clock were getting farther ahead with every second’s tick. The others must have felt the same, because they finished their meals as quickly as they could, and signed that they were ready to rise when Roan gave the word. He started to push back his chair.

Then the toasting began.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” the mayor shouted, rising to his feet with a glass in his hand. “Ladies and gentlemen, raise your glasses! To His Ephemeral Majesty!”

“To the King!” everyone chorused. Roan joined in, and drank the toast. The wine, at least, was real.

“To Her Luminescent Majesty!”

“To the Queen!” came the roar from three hundred throats.

“And to our illustrious guest, Her Highness, the Princess Leonora!”

“To Princess Leonora!” Everyone drained their glasses and set them down on the white tablecloth. The mayor, his goblet empty, snapped his fingers, and three servers hurried towards him with pitchers. Now members of the council rose to offer their toasts, echoed by the townsfolk. When a toaster couldn’t think of something to say, he or she would roar out, “To the King!”

While the glasses were being refilled for the second time, Roan slipped out of his chair and made his way down the long table to the princess’s side. The mayor and the councilors were making small talk with her. Roan could see Leonora smiling and nodding politely, although he couldn’t hear her replies. The townsfolk nearest them stayed silent and wide-eyed, breathing in excited short gasps, at their proximity to the heir to the throne.

Or perhaps it was lack of oxygen. As Roan approached the place of honor, the air did seem to grow thinner and more rarefied until by the time he reached the princess’s side, he could hardly breathe. The mayor turned to look at him as he knelt down beside Leonora’s chair.

“Oh, my lord mayor, may I present Master Roan? He is the King’s Investigator,” Leonora said. Roan nodded, concentrating on taking in enough oxygen without gasping openly.

“How very interesting,” Mayor Georgeton said, not caring much at all for the interloper’s presence. “Your Highness, som prenoply venre dimal simcot lomp ital.”

Leonora laughed. “Venitre dimal midgal nomig silomp. Roan moktu benek op lur.”

“Som poplu vog, dewep?” Georgeton turned to his council, who nodded wisely.

“I beg your pardon?” Roan asked. He was dismayed to realize he couldn’t understand a word they were saying. Georgeton was deliberately speaking too loftily for anyone not of his echelon or higher to comprehend. Leonora glanced at him apologetically.

“Don’t you agree that it is more pleasant to travel so you can really experience the Dreamland, instead of simply taking the train?” she said, rather slowly and carefully, trying to draw him into the conversation. “I said that you had traveled widely over the last several years, and used many different means of transport.”

“Yes, indeed, I have,” Roan said, struggling for air.

“You could tell them scov batiluh sminit combulon da ena, virdo?” Leonora had lost him again, as she turned to include the others. “Vobla bam dininat moper waga.”

“Somibuno,” Georgeton agreed politely.

“Well,” Roan began, trying to think of a tale that would amuse them.

“Pofi nipt jabal!” a blonde female councillor in her middle years interrupted him, and launched vivaciously into an anecdote of her own. What she was saying sounded interesting, and Roan struggled to understand. He felt as if all he had to do was turn his perception sideways, and the jumble of words would become clear. Also, every time he took a breath, he got a stitch in his side from lack of oxygen. He was afraid if he had to reply at length to anyone, he might black out. He stood up to go away. The princess laid a hand on his arm.

“Sami peh,” she said, imploringly. He didn’t know the words, but the meaning was clear.
Don’t go
. With a sigh, Roan sank to his haunches again.

“Roan!”

He heard a shout from the edge of the square, and stood up. Misha and his two escorts came pedaling out of the narrow lane. The young man, breathless and red-faced, leaped off his bicycle and ran it to a stop beside the table. Roan pulled him aside and gestured him to keep his voice down.

“We’ve found where they left town,” Misha gasped, his long legs almost collapsing under him. Leonora watched them from her place at the table, her eyebrows telegraphing a question. Roan put up one finger, asking her to wait a moment. “We ought to hurry and get on the trail before it moves again. It’s a very busy road. It goes all over the place. Heading north.”

“Are you sure it’s their trail?”

“Yes, sir,” Lum said, definitely. “They crossed the railroad tracks, sir.”

“How can you tell?” Roan asked, curiously.

“We mean they
crossed
them,” Misha said. “One’s lying over the other like ‘X marks the spot.’ ”

“The Alarm Clock’s perverting nature more and more as it goes,” Roan said. “I’ll get the others.”

But their companions at the end of the table had already seen the advance party return, and hurried to join them. Spar, too, had seen the scouts from his end of the high street, and led the steeds down to meet them. Roan took a deep breath and went back into the airfree zone around the princess.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, bowing deeply to the mayor and his councillors. “Your Highness, at your pleasure?”

Leonora telegraphed a question with her eyebrows, and Roan nodded, tilting his head back towards Misha and the others. She looked over at them, then turned to the Mayor and extended her fingers to him.

“My lord, it has been an honor to receive this gift of hospitality and kindness from you. The break to our journey was most welcome. I feel renewed. I do hope I may return someday soon.”

The mayor and the others scrambled to their feet as Leonora arose from her place. The rest of the townsfolk rose from their seats in an outward moving wave.

“Your Highness, we are the ones who are honored,” Georgeton said, beaming at her, but not before looking ruefully at Roan. He bowed over her hand. “Thank you for giving us this chance to show our appreciation of you and your most royal father. Are you sure you can’t stay longer? We have some more toasting we’d like to do.”

“No!” Leonora said, withdrawing her hand. “Thank you so much. Goodbye.”

“And may I say,” Roan said, shaking hands with the mayor, “it has been schmati gobbledigook binreeta.”

“What?” asked one of the councillors. “What did he say?”

With a regal smile, Leonora allowed Roan to escort her to Golden Schwinn and assist her in mounting to the saddle.

“Farewell!” Georgeton said, waving a handkerchief after them as they rode out of the square.

“Goodbye!” the townspeople called. “Sweet dreams!” “Be careful!” “Don’t let the bedbugs bite!”

“Would it was only bedbugs,” said Bergold.

“What was Misha so excited about?” Leonora asked Roan in a low voice, pedaling alongside him through the deserted streets. As soon as she was out of sight of the Harkians, she parted the irritating dress into long, light trousers of bright white silk, and dismissed the bustle. The tiara she kept as it was, and she added a wristband to Roan’s posy so she could wear it on her sleeve.

“You’ll see in a moment, Your Highness,” Misha said, behind them. “There, look!”

Flags and raised bars marked the place where the level crossing passed over the road that led out of town. The stationmaster, a thin, old man in a dark blue uniform tunic, stood amidst the weeds with his cap off, scratching his head as he stared at the tracks at his feet.

“I’ve put the red signal up,” he said, as Roan and the others braked to a stop near him. “This’ll make a terrible mess of the schedule. That will never do.”

Roan got off for a good look. As Misha had said, one enormous silver band lay over the other. The metal was smooth and bright and unmarked. Everything looked perfectly normal except that the tracks were crossed, without a clue to show how the trick had been done.