Bride of the Castle

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

A doorway magically appeared in a stone wall and out walked a king wearing a jogging suit. (One could tell he was a king: the jogging suit was purple.)

"Your Majesty! Why, we thought something had happened-!"

"Sorry. I purposely picked an aspect with a big negative time differential. I wanted things to settle down here… Hey."

Incarnadine stopped just short of the desk. His double was still hard at work signing papers.

Tremaine said, "Something wrong, sire?"

Incarnadine sniffed the air. "Thought I got a whiff of strange magic. Something's always different when I return to the castle." He sniffed again. "It's probably nothing."

"Greetings!" The king's double said.

"How's it going?"

"Fine, fine. No problems. Enjoy your jog?"

"Well, I napped under a shade tree for most of the afternoon."

"Several days have gone by here in the castle," Tremaine said.

"Yes, and I hope my absence didn't discommode you any, Tremaine."

Tremaine smiled broadly. "Not in the least, sire. Think nothing of it."

"Good, good. Well…" Incarnadine shrugged at his twin.

The ersatz Incarnadine grinned. "Looks like I'm out of a job."

"Hope you don't mind."

"Not at all. Glad to be of service."

"Thanks."

Incarnadine waved his hand. The doppelganger disappeared with a puff of green smoke.

"Astonishing, sire," Tremaine said admiringly.

"I am good, aren't I?" Incarnadine grinned devilishly.

"Indubitably, sire. Now, my lord, if I may broach the subject of the audit of the royal granary-"

The king raised a hand. "Sorry, have to be off again."

"Sire, you just returned."

"I have pressing business in no less than four different aspects. The audit of the royal granary will have to wait." Incarnadine began to walk off, but stopped.

"Damn, there is something screwy. Not anything major, just a tinge of mischief. I think… Hmmm. I haven't checked up at Jeremy Hochstader's shop lately. Think I'll drop in on him."

Incarnadine's gaze wandered back to his executive assistant. "Tremaine, you look a bit dejected."

"It's nothing, sire."

"You're working too hard."

Tremaine sniffed. "Someone must see to the workaday drudgery necessary to run your kingdom, sire."

"I suppose so," Incarnadine said guiltily. He gave Tremaine a small wave of the hand. "Bye-bye."

"The gods be with you, Your Majesty." Tremaine bowed deeply.

"Later."

"So nothing's new?" Linda asked Jeremy Hochstader.

"Not much," Jeremy said. "I've just been fiddling, trying out some ideas."

"Like what?"

"Oh, moving the Earth portal around, for one."

"I thought you had the ability to move it anywhere you wanted to in the castle, or on Earth."

"Yeah, I can pretty much do that. But I wanted to do a few more exotic things with it. And theoretically with any portal, to any world."

The door to the laboratory opened and in walked Lord Incarnadine.

"Hey, it's the boss." He took his feet down from the countertop.

"What's new, Jeremy?" Incarnadine asked.

"I was just talking to Linda about that."

"Linda, hello!"

"Your Majesty."

Incarnadine looked at her for a bit longer than necessary. Had he caught something strange in her eye?

"Jeremy, I wanted to ask you. Have you been doing any experiments lately?"

"Experiments? Not really. I've been thinking of things I wanted to try. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, when I got back to the castle I thought I caught a hint of something cockeyed. Nothing big, no problems, but- Uh, what were you thinking of doing?"

"Well, I got this notion that if you fiddled with the frequency of a portal a little, you could-"

"Whoa!" Incarnadine waved a hand. "Wait a minute, you don't want to do that."

"No?"

"No way, Jose."

Jeremy looked sheepish. "Ooops. I didn't realize it was that big a no-no."

"It is a major no-no. You don't want to get into probability states, close variants of the same universe, that sort of thing. We've already had a few bouts of everybody's double running around the castle causing mischief. Remember?"

"Boy, do I. Actually, I was going to talk to you about it first."

"Glad you did. No, that's totally verboten. I should pass an edict about that. It's just about as bad as trying time travel. Paradoxes, closed loops… weird stuff. No, it's all bad business."

"I'll take your word for it."

"Jeez, just your thinking about it may be causing problems."

"Huh? How?"

"Because if you're thinking about it, one of your alternate selves might be actually doing it, off in some strange variant castle somewhere."

Jeremy whistled. "Wow. That's, like, really bizarre."

"An unsettling notion, isn't it? So don't even daydream about it."

"That's a tough order, sir."

"I know. But do your best."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Good. YE FLIPPING GODS!" Both Linda and Jeremy jumped.

"What is it?" Linda said.

The king looked stricken. "Linda, I completely forgot about your wedding!"

Linda let loose a relieved breath. "Oh, you scared me." She began to giggle.

"What?" Incarnadine looked back and forth between his two guests. "What, what?"

"You didn't miss much," Jeremy said, laughing.

"No? It completely slipped my mind. I am abjectly sorry, Linda. Did you get the gift?"

"I gave them all back. There was no wedding. Gene didn't show up."

Incarnadine regarded her in all seriousness for a moment. Then he broke into laughter.

"I'm sorry," he said finally.

"No, go ahead. Laugh all you want."

"I didn't think that Don Juan would ever… Oh, but you must feel terrible."

"Not at all. Uh, Your Majesty, could I speak to you in private for a moment?"

"Eh? Well, certainly."

"See you later, Jeremy," Linda said.

"Bye!"

"And no monkey business," the king warned him.

"Yes, sir!"

"Remember, this place still has a torture chamber, down in the cellar."

"Yikes."

"Look, it's about… you know, my official position around here," Linda said when they were out in the corridor.

"Your… official position." lncarnadine narrowed his eyes.

"Yeah. It was nice, you know, what happened. And though I really like you a lot- I mean, I'm… oh, hell, you know I'm in love with you. Despite that, I don't want to be your royal mistress. Or whatever you call it, on a permanent basis."

Incarnadine opened his mouth. He closed it without saying anything.

"So, listen." Linda ran a hand over the velure of his jogging suit. "It was nice. I just wanted you to know that. And if you ever show up in my bedroom again, I'm going to have a hell of a time turning you down. In fact, I don't think I'd want to turn you down. I probably wouldn't. But this thing about-Oh, I don't know. I just don't want to be a little niche in your life. I want-"

Incarnadine nodded, smiling blandly.

Linda took a deep breath. "You know, I really don't know what the hell I want. I never have."

Incarnadine shook his head, frowning.

"I guess I should really do something about that. Soon. Shouldn't I?"

Incarnadine nodded, and again his smile was noncommittal.

She kissed him. "Thanks again. Inky." She walked off down the hall.

He stood there for a long moment, reflecting on the world, the flesh, and various impish things.

"Right," he said.

He walked slowly in the opposite direction, down the long stone corridor, still thinking, taking his time. A man should do this now and then. Most people hurry to early graves.

He stopped dead in his tracks. "Uh-oh."