Matthias allowed the silence to stretch as long as the fish that got away and no longer, before he began to speak. ‘Perhaps I might begin our conversation, Yolande. I was on my way to work this morning when I encountered a delegation of Westrigonian gentlemen who informed me that I have been elected King of Westrigonia. I came here immediately, of course, only to find that you wished to place me under arrest. So that’s been my day so far. How has your day been?’
Her Royal Highness the Crown Princess Eleanor of Westrigonia sat despondently in her elegantly carved wooden chair before the five-petalled rose window of her Palace Chambers.
Like many a heroine of fable Eleanor was now in considerable personal danger.
It can be seen, then, that to be the owner of the Kader of Dalibor was such a fabulous fate as to make anyone straightaway into the happiest person in the world. From such goodness, however, can come the darkest of outcomes, given the clashing of desires that can thereby arise. After all, everyone wants to be the happiest person in the world, and many people will do anything, even dark deeds, to have a happy life. But nothing dark ever happened in the Kader of Dalibor, until Sarkis came along.
‘I have seen the Witch face to face, and yet I have escaped the darkness,’ Lady Godelric said as sonorously as if she were reciting poetry.
‘The Witch?’
‘Do not suppose me not to know of the Witch of Trentland.’
‘Who? No, I’ve never heard of, ah, anyone like that. Does she live in Trentland?’
‘She lives in the Palace calling herself Her Royal Highness the Princess Eleanor, and she is known to practice witchcraft.’
The worst of it all was that she had never even wanted to be here in this country in the best of times. Queen Yolande of Westrigonia had never liked Westrigonia. Even on the sunniest of days, this foreign country seemed dark to her; the people and their culture frequently baffled her, while to learn their impossible language was a task she could never even approach. How on earth they even managed to produce such speech sounds was a puzzle. Every day was a temporary transition in the middle of nowhere. She knew full well how foreign she was here in Westrigonia. Her true home lay abroad in Trentland, the land of her forebears, the land of her childhood, the land of Anglashian civilisation.
Alaric wondered why the universe was suddenly throwing beautiful women at him. His luck with women up till now had been like anyone else’s: a girlfriend here and there, even a sweetheart with whom he had exchanged the traditional pledges of eternal love; that romance had lasted a whole two months! Still, others could say the same. It was true that he was good-looking and rich, but he lacked the smooth talk and the predatory instincts of the playboy. Alaric was too much of a romantic at heart to be a predator, believing as he did in the One.
