“I’m waiting for you… at the bottom of the sea,” his voice echoed in the murmuring of the water. Did the peacock hear it?
The seneschal grudgingly turned his nose up at the fountains and flapped his wings very aggressively.
“When things are thrown about like that, provided they are not old and unwanted, they want to do bad things,” he explained businesslike. “I wonder if you have a rival at Court who went to the witch doctor and told her to put on the necklace and make you ugly by wearing it.”
“And how did she know that I would walk down this corridor without someone else taking the necklace before me?”
“A fool would know. Your father’s office is next door. Only those closest to him go in here.”
“You can’t take a joke.”
“But your rivals, knowing your passion for shiny things, know what to lure you to.”
“One of them would like to go to the harem instead of me,” she joked again.
“What if they do?” The peacock replied seriously.
“They say there’s enough room in harems for everyone.”
“But there is competition there, too.”
“You’ll tell me later,” Lilophea wished she could cover his beak with her fingers. The peacock was flying too high under the arabesques of the ceiling and crackling about very unpleasant things.
“Don’t start talking about the harem and life in it again if you want to remain my friend,” she asked. Then the peacock understood and nodded. There, even he can be negotiated with. One has only to beat for pity.
“It’s a pity that Aquilania is so dependent on sea trade that my father will eventually have to give me in marriage to someone from the partner states. All the kings are already married, there’s only a chance of ending up in the sultan’s harem.”
“There are still kings of the sea, they’re not married.” The peacock didn’t say that. Lilothea looked around. There seemed to be someone hiding in the fountain. She spotted someone’s head behind the marble curb. It looked like a child who had decided to go for a ride and bathe in the wrong place. He had green hair on his head, too, so his actual color was impossible to see.
“Hey!” the princess called out to the prankster, but he only chuckled in response. Or was it a splash of water? She couldn’t tell if it was the child’s head or the shiny, scaly fishtail, which swung up and disappeared.
“They are cheeky creatures!” The peacock barked.
“Who are they?”
“They are sea creatures!”
“Don’t worry about them,” Lilophea gripped the coral in her hand. “It’s a fountain, not the sea. Learn to understand the difference.”
The peacock wanted to mutter something angry in return, but Lilophea sped forward down the corridor. She lingered at the door to the king’s study. There were no guards standing here with halberds. This was most unusual. Concerned voices came from within. The princess was tempted and put her ear to the door.
“What are you doing? The princess should not behave like a spy,” the peacock murmured concernedly over her head, but he himself also listened warily to the sounds of conversation.
The king was speaking to his advisors. Lilothea could distinguish them by their voices. Some had a bass, some a baritone, others pleasant tenors. By the coloring of their voices even a blind man could guess who was involved in the conversation.
“Things got too bad! It is all because of them!” complained the bass of the senior counselor. “I had to give them my daughter. They put poor Katarina not even on the ship, but on the back of a monster whale. We haven’t seen her since, but recently a sea gull brought a message from her in its beak. They won’t let her go. They even chained her with a gold chain to keep her from escaping. Back to the land… well, I mean our island nation.”
The older man was evidently shy, afraid to speak directly.
“There are more important matters,” the Second Minister’s amiable tenor contradicted him. “The first is trade, the second is the threat of war. On one side is the Sultan’s fleet, on the other a more powerful enemy. If we decide on an alliance with the stronger side, putting aside the unpleasant memory of the experience with Katharina, we will have an ally who will easily sink not only the Sultan’s fleet for us, but also the armadas of all the capricious kingdoms trading with us. We must choose the strongest. Then we will not be at a disadvantage.”
“It is too risky,” said the king. “We don’t know who we’re dealing with. If he sinks the enemy, he’ll destroy us.”
“I know how devious he is, and how dangerous and treacherous his people are,” said one of the advisors.
“It is exactly.” The others nodded. “He is a risky man to be around.”
“But it’s more risky to refuse him,” said the other minister again, and there was a silence in the room. Evidently there was nothing to object to.
“You shouldn’t have built so many fountains. They’re so easy to get through to the world,” the chattering advisers began. “Maybe we should fill them all with sand.”
“But that would leave lakes and rivers.”
“We’ll enclose them with high dams, fences, grates. Anything to make sure no one from the water gets in.”
“And where will people get drinking water?”
“That’s the problem. They come from the water. They can only be destroyed along with water, and without water, people can’t survive. So we are cornered, and they are free to go everywhere.”
Lilophea could no longer tell whose voice she was hearing. Everyone was talking at once.
“Be quiet!” the king pounded his fist on some hard surface, obviously the table. “The last message says it all. It seems we have lost to them. Of course, we can no longer catch fish with a message sewn in their belly, or let strange sailors with shells for ears into port, but the messages will still come. And they are becoming more and more threatening. And calling an army is useless. You can’t fight the elements.”
Again there was a rumble of indignant voices inside.
“They come from the sea.”
“They threaten us all.”
“How do we fight them?”
“Let’s give up the princess as they want.”
“No, it is not at all,” said the king and the first minister in one voice. The latter dreamed of marrying the princess himself. Lilothea knew this, so she tried as little as possible to get in his face. He looked at her too carnivorous. Naturally, considering that with a beautiful girl he was sure to get at least half the country.
Lilothea didn’t want the First Minister to succeed in the matchmaking, but the prospect of being given to who knows who didn’t tempt her either.
“Their leader wants the princess. He believes that she is of the same blood as him.”
“He will not drown her, at least not for a while, and we will have a head start.”
“On the one hand he can sacrifice her, and on the other he can give a generous ransom for her.”
“Either way, it’s the princess he wants, or he won’t leave us alone.”
Lilophea did not understand much. There was too little information, and it was too scattered and contradictory. Could it be about the Sultan? It doesn’t sound like it.
“Do