The Faeman Quest

Eleven

Henry blinked, rubbed his eyes and looked again. The girl – woman really: he’d have to stop calling her a girl since it only seemed to make her cross – sitting at the dressing table was Blue. She looked like Blue. She was dressed like Blue. She spoke like Blue. Her reflection in the mirror was Blue’s reflection. But she couldn’t be Blue, because Blue was standing beside him.

‘What do you think?’ asked the Blue beside him. Despite her worry about Mella she was smiling a little.

Henry looked at Blue a third time, then at the girl – woman – beside him. She was the one who’d accompanied him to their private quarters. Actually she was the one who’d demanded he stop what he’d been doing and accompany her to their private quarters, which sounded like the real Blue all right. But it would also be like the real Blue to try to trick him – she had a wicked sense of humour.

‘Which of you…?’ he asked helplessly.

‘I am,’ said the Blue beside him.

‘I am,’ said the Blue at the dressing table.

Henry looked from one to the other. They were absolutely, positively identical and he felt as if he were drowning. The thought passed through his mind that Blue might be one of twins. But why had she never told him this before? And anyway, the Blue at the dressing table claimed to be Blue as did the Blue beside him. That wouldn’t happen with identical twins. One of them would be called Lizzie or Maud or whatever. What he had here were two versions of Blue and he didn’t know which of them he’d married.

The girl (woman!) beside him leaned across to whisper in his ear. ‘You have a little heart-shaped birthmark on your bottom; she won’t know about that. I like to kiss it when we’re -’

Henry coughed. ‘Quite,’ he said quickly. He felt a flush rising from his neck. All the same, the resemblance was so uncanny, he thought he’d better make sure. ‘Can you tell me where I have my birthmark?’ he asked the Blue by the dressing table.

She gave him one of Blue’s delightful smiles. ‘On your ear?’ she asked.

Henry shook his head in slow amazement. ‘What is it – an illusion spell?’

‘Doppleganger,’ Blue told him, the real Blue by his side. ‘I couldn’t trust an illusion spell, not for this.’

‘I thought dopplegangers were dangerous,’ Henry said. Actually, what he really thought was that you died if you met yours.

‘They’re supposed to be bad luck, but that’s just an old superstition. Isn’t she great?’

She was great all right, Henry thought. She was Blue down to the very finest detail. The way she held her head, the way she moved her hand, that look in her eye when she was weighing up a situation…

‘Where did you get her?’ he asked. ‘I thought dopplegangers just turned up, as portents of doom.’

‘I arranged it with Madame Cardui,’ Blue said. ‘I was with her earlier to talk about Mella.’

Henry wanted to know how that meeting went, but he could ask her about it in a minute. At the moment he was even more interested in the doppleganger. ‘Where did Madame Cardui find her?’

‘I didn’t ask. But it’s all right: she’ll have taken all the necessary precautions. You know what she’s like.’

Scary, that’s what Madame Cardui was like. As was Blue when the mood took her. Dopplegangers were dangerous. It wasn’t just an old superstition. And now this one was loose in the Purple Palace. The question was why.

‘What’s it all about, Blue?’ he asked.

‘Well, I can’t go off looking for Mella and leave the Realm to look after itself, can I?’

‘You’re going off looking for Mella?’ Henry echoed in his trademark turning-a-statement-into-a-question.

‘You don’t think I’d leave that to anyone else, do you?’

Now she came to mention it, he didn’t. Even though they both knew Madame Cardui would leave no stone unturned in her search for their daughter, there was not the slightest chance Blue would leave something like that to anybody other than herself.

‘So you’re going to look for Mella and your doppleganger will…?’

‘Rule the Realm in my place,’ Blue said triumphantly. ‘Well, sort of. She’ll keep people from thinking I’ve gone off and left the Palace unattended. Then, when I get back, I’ll get rid of her and take over again and nobody will be any the wiser.’

That just raised so many questions he hardly knew where to start. Eventually he said, ‘She’s going – she’ll be – I don’t even know her name -’

‘Blue,’ Blue said. ‘Her name is Blue. Same as mine.’ She gave him a kindly look. ‘If you’re getting confused, you can call her Orange.’

Henry looked at her, frowning. ‘Why Orange?’

‘Complementary colour.’ Blue grinned at him.

‘How?’ Henry asked. ‘How is she going to rule the Realm?’

‘She’s not really,’ Blue said patiently. ‘She’ll just be a figurehead until I get back. She’s perfectly fine for that job – she knows everything I do.’

‘She doesn’t know where I keep my birthmark,’ Henry muttered.

‘Not intimate things like that. She won’t know about birthmarks. But all the important things, how to wave from an ouklo, how to shake hands with visiting dignitaries – she knows those sort of things.’

‘How are you going to get rid of her?’

Blue looked puzzled. ‘I don’t want to get rid of her. I’ve only just managed to get hold of her.’

‘When you’ve finished and you want to take over ruling the Realm again. How are you going to get rid of her then?’

Blue shrugged. ‘I’ll just tell her to go.’

Henry leaned towards her. ‘And what happens if she doesn’t want to go?’ he whispered. ‘What happens if she likes being Queen? What are you going to do then – kill her?’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Blue told him sharply. All the same, he knew from her expression the question had shaken her.

Henry moved to press home his advantage. ‘Suppose she decides to have you put in jail? The Palace guards will do what she tells them. They may be a bit confused, but they’ll obey her, especially if she’s sitting on the throne or wearing your crown. She could take the whole Realm away from you just like that!’ He clicked his fingers.

Blue stared at him. After a moment, she said, ‘We can set up safeguards. I’ll talk to Madame Cardui.’

‘There’s another thing,’ Henry told her.

‘What?’ Blue asked impatiently. She clearly disliked being brought down to earth about her little scheme.

‘While you’re off looking for Mella,’ Henry said carefully, ‘what am I supposed to do about my… ah… duties?’

‘Your duties?’

‘Keep your voice down!’ Henry whispered. ‘You know, my… duties. ’ He cleared his throat and swallowed. ‘My… marital duties.’

Blue was looking at him in astonishment. ‘Your marital duties?’ The look dissolved into a grin and she giggled. ‘Your marital duties?’

‘Will you keep your voice down!’ Henry hissed. ‘If we’re to pretend your doppleganger is you, if we’re to do that and nobody is to suspect, then she and I would have to… you know…’

‘No, I don’t know,’ Blue said loudly. ‘What would you and she have to do?’

‘Share the same quarters,’ Henry told her. ‘Share the same bedroom. For heaven’s sake, Blue, you haven’t thought this through at all!’

‘Henry, there’s no way you and she are going to share the same bed, even if she looks like me.’

‘I didn’t say bed, I said bedroom. ’

‘Yes, but you meant bed, didn’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Henry said. ‘Yes, I did. If this lunati-’ He caught himself in time and hurriedly amended, ‘- if this idea of yours is going to work, I will have to behave towards your doppleganger exactly the same way I behave to you. Exactly. Otherwise people will notice, start asking questions, start wondering what’s going on. So she and I would have to be… you know… affectionate with one another. Kiss each other occasionally, like we do. Hug and stuff. Sleep… sleep together. With one another. The way we do.’

Blue looked at him innocently. ‘And you think of all that as your marital duty? ’

‘Well, not duty, exactly. That’s just a turn of phrase. But it’s the sort of thing that would be expected.’ He looked at her soberly, then ended piously, ‘And I don’t want to sleep with anybody but you.’

‘Relax, superstud,’ Blue said cheerfully. ‘All that’s been taken care of.’

‘Yes, but people will expect -’ He stopped as a man walked out of the adjoining dressing room, wearing Henry’s dressing gown.

‘It won’t be just me looking for Mella,’ Blue told him. ‘It will be the two of us. Together.’

The man smiled and gave a little wave. Henry stared at his doppleganger. ‘Oh my God!’ he said.