Heaven Cent (34 page)

Then the remaining walls dissolved, and the entire courtroom reappeared. The audience burst into applause, which was joined by the jury, and the witnesses, and the squad of centaurs, and even Ivy who no longer looked mean at all. She had done her best to provoke him, to make him say something he did not believe in, and she did not look unhappy that she had failed. In losing his case honorably, he had won it.

Dumbfounded, Dolph tried to speak. But as he opened his mouth, the entire scene dissolved, and he was on the sand of the beach of the shore of Xanth, looking up from the peephole of the gourd. Grace’l was beside him, and Marrow across from him, and Nada and the new girl, Electra.

He realized that he had saved Grace’l, and found the way to get the Heaven Cent, but still had formidable problems to handle.

Next day they fashioned a huge basket of vine and driftwood; then Dolph became a roc and carried it the short (for a roc) distance to Castle Roogna. The folk there were expecting him, of course, for the Tapestry had remained tuned, and King Dor and Queen Irene and Ivy were all outside waving as he circled down. He made a good landing, and reverted to boy form.

Then there was a happy chaos, as everybody met everybody whom he or she had only heard about or seen on the Tapestry before, and the rest of the day disappeared in whatever.

Marrow and Grace’l and Nada and Electra were given rooms in the castle, and night shut things down. Dolph found it odd, trying to sleep alone in his room on his soft bed with only Handy his bed monster for company; he missed Marrow's bone home and the near presence of the others. He couldn't sleep; everything was too fresh.

There was a quiet knock on his door. “Yeah?” he called, hoping that maybe Marrow was there.

It was Ivy. Oh.

“Dolph, I just wanted to tell you,” she said. “I had the strangest dream yesterday. It wasn't even night time! All about this big strange trial, and—”

“I know. I was there.”

“Well, my job was to—I mean, it seems awful mean, but I had to prove that your skeleton friend, Grace’l Ossian, was—”

“I understand.”

“I really thought you did a pretty good job, but in the dream I couldn't say that. I had to—”

“I know.”"

“I mean, she is a very nice person, and it was really bad what happened to her because of that dream. But now—”

“Thank you.” This was awkward, and he didn't like it.

“But that isn't really what I came about,” she said.

Of course it wasn't. She was too devious for that. Dolph waited.

“I know you have this problem about—about Nada Naga and Electra. You can't marry them both. I can see how awkward it is, Nada being so much older than you. For you, and for Nada too.”

“She's your age,” Dolph agreed. Had she come to gloat about that?

“But of course her folk need our help with the goblins, and she's a princess, so she's doing it. And you made a deal, so you're doing it. But the way it worked out—”

“Yes.” Now it was coming; he could see her working up to it. Certainly he had gotten himself into a picklement.

“Well, I thought if you had a way to get out of it—”

“A Prince does not break his word,” Dolph snapped.

“But if she didn't have to marry you, to make that liaison and get help, then—”

“But she does. We both know it.”

“1 think there is another way, Dolph.”

She was going hit him with something that would make it even worse. He knew it. That was her way. He just wanted to get it over with. “What?”

“If another liaison was made, so the naga could get the help they need, then she wouldn't have to marry you, and you wouldn't have to marry her. The deal would not be broken, because it wouldn't matter anymore. Especially if we helped the naga sooner than it would have been with you.”

“That could only be done with another marriage,” he pointed out. “And she's their only daughter, and I'm the only—”

“I could marry her brother,” Ivy said.

“So,” he continued. “So there isn't any other way to—” He did a double take. “What?”

“Prince Naldo Nada,” she said. “He was going to marry me, only you were the one the dragon brought, so she had to fill in. That's where the trouble started. It was probably that mean Magician Murphy's doing, somehow. She didn't want to deceive you, Dolph, any more than Grace’l wanted to get you in trouble in the gourd. It just happened that way, and she had to make the best of it. She's really a very nice girl, you know.”

“I know. But—”

“So if I married Prince Naldo, then the liaison would be good, and your betrothal to Nada could be dissolved by mutual agreement. He's a handsome man, in his human guise, so it wouldn't be so bad, and—”

Dolph saw that it was true. That would honorably eliminate the need for him to marry Nada. Yet he was still astonished. “But why would you—”

“I told you: because it's a good way out. Nobody loses, and nobody gets embarrassed. And you won't be in that picklement anymore.”

“But do you love Naldo?”

“Of course not! I don't even know him! But that doesn't matter; I'm sure that in time it would happen. Good things can come of arranged marriages. Our grandparents—”

“I remember. But I mean why would you do something like that when you don't have to? It's my problem, not yours, and—”

“Because I love you, you idiot!” she flared. Then, after a shocked pause: “Oops! I didn't mean to say that.”

Dolph felt a wash of heat like that of a dragon's breath, passing through his body without hurting it. “You can take it back, then.” But now he remembered all the little things Ivy had done for him through the years, such as showing him how to get cookies from a high shelf by becoming a slug and climbing up to them, and covering for him when he accidentally broke something, and telling him secrets while not blabbing his own secrets. In a hundred little ways she had shown how she cared, if he had ever thought to notice. In the heat of their frequent arguments he had forgotten such things, but now he recognized them as tokens of the deeper reality. Love was not confined to adults, or to folk of different backgrounds; it had its family forms too.

She sighed, and he saw with surprise that there were tears on her face. “No, I can't. Because it's true. You may be a brat and all that, and we fight all the time because that's the way it's supposed to be between siblings, but you are my brother, and I do love you, even if it isn't proper to show it. I'd die for you, Dolph, if I had to, and marriage isn't nearly as bad as that. So there's no need to make a big mushy thing of it. You've got a problem I can solve. I can help you, and—”

“And I love you,” he said. “I guess I just couldn't face it, so I pretended I hated you. But when I saw you applauding in that dream, at the end, I felt—”

“That was the only part of it that was real, really,” she said. “I hated being so mean to you, when it counted, but the Night Stallion said—”

“I know. And I tried to believe that all fourteen-year-old girls were terrible, and men when Nada turned out to be—”

“Her age really doesn't matter. I like her; she's a true princess. So now I can do you both a favor—”

“I don't know. Let me think about it, Ivy.”

“But what's to think about? I told you I'd do it.”

“Just hug me,” he said, unable to hold back his tears any longer.

“Oh.” She hugged him, and he hugged her, and they both cried, which was foolish, because they were not unhappy.

In the morning he met privately with his parents, King Dor and Queen Irene. “As you know, we have been following your adventures,” Dor said. “We have noted your problem with Princess Nada and the girl from the past, Electra. We can understand how you would wish neither to abridge your agreement with Nada, nor allow Electra to perish, even if she were not needed to fashion the Heaven Cent you seek. It is an honorable dilemma.”

“Yes,” Dolph agreed.

“Certainly they are both nice girls,” Irene said. “We would not wish either of them to be hurt. But you are very young yet, and even when you are grown, you can not marry both. It is necessary to dissolve at least one betrothal.”

“Well—” Dolph began.

“As it happens, we believe we can alleviate this problem,” Dor said. “As we see it, Electra is the better match for you, because she is closer to your age and she loves you, and of course she is human, quite apart from the business aspect. We realize that this love is the result of magic, but that land is as valid as the other kind. It is also true that she will die if she does not marry you, and this spell is so deeply ingrained that we cannot alleviate it. The betrothal keeps her alive and well, but were it broken, she would fail rapidly. Certainly we would not want this to occur.”

“True,” Dolph agreed. “But—”

“So we believe the betrothal best eliminated is the one with Nada Naga,” Irene explained. “She is older than you, and does not love you, and is only partially human; it is a purely political liaison. We need only to discover a way to break it off without hurting any parties or causing any political repercussion.”

“I'm not sure—” Dolph began.

“So we have decided to extend our help to the naga folk regardless,” Dor continued. “We shall arrange to send magical weapons from the castle arsenal that they can use to hold back the goblins, and we will show them how to use these, and if that is not sufficient, your mother will go there and grow some plants that will have an effect. We shall do this without the requirement of any marriage. The marriage is only a means to an end; the end is the alliance between our folk, and that is the end we shall serve. This shall be accomplished well before you come of age to marry, so—”

“No,” Dolph said.

Both looked at him, surprised. “This is not enough?” Irene asked, “In that case, you have only to say what you consider—”

“No, I don't want to break the engagement. I want to marry Nada.”

“But Dolph,” Dor said reasonably. “If you break off with Electra—”

“I know. So I'd better keep that one too.”

“But you can't marry them both!” Irene exclaimed.

“Why not?”

Dor and Irene exchanged a parental glance. “Son, we've been trying to explain—” Dor began.

“Yes, you have,” Dolph said. “You have been explaining how you will organize my life for me, as you have always done. But you haven't been listening. Ivy wants to help too; she says she will marry Prince Naldo.”

Both parents jumped; evidently this was the first they had heard of this. “I really don't think—” Irene started.

“In the gourd, in the course of the trial, I had to find out how to fight my own battle or a battle for another person,” Dolph said. “To do that I had to get to know my own will and to understand the doctrine of ends and means. You are proposing means to the end of breaking my betrothal to Nada Naga, but that's no good, because I don't want to break it. I want to make my own decision, based on what I truly want and believe is best, even if it doesn't make much sense to you. When I become King I will have to do that, and pay for my mistakes. It is never too early to learn that kind of discipline: responsibility for my own situation.”

“What is it you really want?” Dor asked, nodding with a certain surprised approval, though Irene was grim.

“I want to marry Nada. She's a good match for me, and a princess, and I love her. So I thank you and I thank my sister for your efforts, but they are not needed. I'm staying with Nada.”

“But she's five years older than you!” Dor exclaimed.

“The same age as my sister,” Dolph agreed. “What does it matter? I learned last night that there's nothing wrong with that age. What counts is the relationship. She's a really nice person, and I love her, and I know she'll make a good wife. I'm glad to help her folk fight the goblins, but even without that, I want to marry her.”

“Dolph, you are only a child!” Irene protested. “You can't begin to know what love is!”

“I am only a child,” he agreed. “I have no idea how to summon the stork, or any of the rest of it. But I know what love is.”

Both of them shook their heads in the way that adults had. “You only think you know,” Dor said. “I realize that your feeling can seem very important, now, but—”

“Give me the test of the roses,” Dolph said.

They were stunned. “Oh, my child, my little child!” Irene breathed. “What are you saying!”

“The roses,” Dor said with equal dismay. “Those are not for you!”

“I mink they are,” Dolph said. “Because they will make you listen. Give me the roses, today. If they do not vindicate me, then you can break my betrothal to Nada.”

The parents exchanged another significant glance. “So shall it be,” Dor agreed.

The roses grew in a special courtyard by themselves. There were five bushes, and each grew roses of a different color: white, yellow, pink, red, and black. Each represented a different type of emotion: indifference, friendship, romance, love, and death. They were enchanted, so that a person could pick only a rose of the appropriate color; any other would stab his hand with its fierce thorns.

There were seats around the outer fringe of the court. The roses grew in a circle, and within the circle was a pentagonal tile just big enough for one person to stand without being scratched by the thorns on any of the bushes. No one could walk to that tile on the ground; it was necessary to descend to it by a rope ladder hanging from a balcony. The roses were seldom actually used to verify feeling; they were normally admired from a safe distance. The only person who could approach them safely was the gardener, who loved them passionately. Their mixed perfume wafted through the castle, making it pleasant throughout.

Dor and Irene sat at one end of the courtyard. Ivy was near them, and then Dolph, Nada, and Electra. Marrow and Grace’l completed the rough circle. All were solemn.

“Prince Dolph has asked for the test of the roses,” Dor said. “He will pick roses for Electra and for Nada, and then they will pick roses for him. The betrothal that has no Red Rose of Love on either side will be dissolved without prejudice, and appropriate arrangements will be made to honor all related commitments.” He glanced around, obviously not sanguine about this, and Irene was tight lipped. “Electra?”

Electra stood, smiling. She walked to the ladder under the balcony and climbed it with alacrity. She looked and acted no older than Dolph, though she was eleven. She was a cute girl, and her two brown braids whipped around as she moved.

She reached the balcony, then got on the ladder and climbed down to the central tile. She stood there amidst the roses, waiting. The bushes swayed, brushing gently by her, not scratching; they were orienting on her, for this was part of their magic.

Dolph approached. He circled the bushes once. Then he reached for one, and plucked a yellow rose of friendship. He held it up, showing it to everyone; then he held it by his face and addressed her. Her smile did not falter; she had known he did not love her. It was a situation she hoped to change, by the time they both came of age to marry.