Well, hope for your thrilling career -- but remember that if there is to be drama in your life somebody must pay the piper in the coin of suffering. If not you -- then someone else. -- L. M. Montgomery, Emily of New Moon

"Isn't it strange," Rigmor said thoughtfully, "that 'engage' can mean both 'promise to marry' and 'head into battle'?"

Well, there was an optimistic thought.

"Are you suggesting that we'll be constantly at each other's throats from now on?" Hjalmar asked. "Because if so, I'm leaving. Right now. I've enough to deal with as it is. Or have you forgotten that this curse of yours is going to try to kill me? And if it doesn't, your aunt will?"

There was a muffled giggle from the corner where Solvej had built a small fortress out of spell-books. Hjalmar, without even looking over at her, picked a cushion from the sofa and tossed it in her general direction. A minute later it came sailing back and landed on his head.

Rigmor watched their antics with an expression of amazement and something that curiously resembled dawning understanding.

"Oh," the Princess said. "I never realised--" She stopped herself and turned to Solvej. "You don't have to worry-- I mean, I hope you know this engagement is all a sham."

Hjalmar and Solvej exchanged puzzled looks.

"Of course we know that," Solvej said. "That's the whole point of this. But why are you telling me that?"

It was Rigmor's turn to look puzzled. "Aren't you engaged to him?"

There was a dead silence. For once, Solvej looked completed and utterly dumbstruck. Hjalmar was in no position to appreciate it, since he was just as shocked.

"Engaged?" Solvej repeated faintly. "To him? What made you think that?"

"I'd sooner marry my grandmother!" Hjalmar agreed. He contemplated adding, "No offence", but decided that Solvej would know what he meant.

Rigmor's brow creased. She looked from Solvej to Hjalmar in apparent bewilderment. "But... Your behaviour just now... I've never seen anyone but an engaged or married couple act so familiarly with each other."

Good heavens. How many wrong impressions had he and Solvej accidentally given? Did the entire royal court think they were engaged? Was that why Grand Duchess Dorthe disapproved of him so severely? Did she think he was betraying his fiancée?

Rigmor continued, blissfully unaware that Hjalmar was working himself into a minor panic. "This is a case of jumping to conclusions and making a fool of myself, isn't it?"

"Yes," Hjalmar said faintly. "Yes, it is."

Solvej crawled out of her book-fortress. "But didn't you realise that I'd hardly be asking my fiancé to get engaged to you?"

"Well, yes, but I thought-- Look, can we please just forget we ever had this conversation?"

That, Hjalmar thought, sounded like an excellent idea. The only problem was that now she had brought the subject up, he would probably never be able to forget it.

~~~~

"No, no, no! You're doing it wrong! You're supposed to bow like this!" The Grand Duchess demonstrated what she meant with a sweeping bow that nearly made her overbalance. "Now try again."

Hjalmar took a deep breath, stopped himself from saying a few most impolite things, and mimicked her as best he could. If the look on her face was any indication, the best he could do wasn't good enough.

"Are you incapable of following instructions? You're not bowing low enough!"

"If I bow any lower, I'll fall over," Hjalmar objected.

The Grand Duchess closed her eyes. Her mouth moved silently. He wondered if she was counting to ten, or praying for patience. "Then practice until you can bow without falling over."

That was her solution to everything. His accent wasn't refined enough for her tastes? She made him repeat a sentence over and over until she was satisfied. He didn't walk, stand, or sit down in the way that apparently all royals did? She made him do all of those things repeatedly until he was practically falling asleep on his feet. He didn't hold his cutlery in a way that suited her? Dinner would be held up until he got it right or she grew tired of shouting at him -- whichever came first.

In all the novels about how much fun it was to be royalty, Hjalmar thought, no one ever mentioned this sort of thing. They were all about fancy clothes and big palaces and sitting around doing nothing all day long. There was nothing in them about how many rules royalty had to abide by. Royalty, Hjalmar had discovered, had rules on how long one was allowed to talk to someone without spreading rumours; on how one was supposed to speak to someone they had never met before; on where one was to sit at a dinner attended mostly by one's peers; and even on when and how one was allowed to shake hands.

Really, it was a wonder that no one had come up with rules on how one was allowed to breathe.

Either the Grand Duchess was satisfied with his attempts at bowing, or she was so fed up with him that she couldn't be bothered correcting him any more. Now she moved on to another of her favourite subjects: genealogy. More specifically, the genealogy that Hjalmar would have if he really was the Duke of Gøbiilå.

"Who is your great-grandmother?" she demanded, circling him like a predator about to go for the kill.

Hjalmar tried to remember the family tree he had been shown. "Er... Duchess Yrsa?"

"Wrong. She's your grandmother. Your great-grandmother was Baroness Gerda. How many brothers do you have?"

"Five." It seemed downright odd to say he had five brothers and no sisters when in reality he had two sisters and no brothers.

"Their names?"

"Hans, Morten, Rolf, Gunnar, and Bjarne."

She looked rather disappointed that he had gotten their names right, and so she had no grounds on which to criticise him -- this time. Hjalmar spared a moment to wonder what his supposed brothers would say if they knew that, as far as the majority of Vardiholm's population were concerned, a shopkeeper's son was their brother.

Well, he supposed he'd find out sooner or later. There was no way they'd be able to keep this a secret from the actual Duke of Gøbiilå. In fact, the Queen had already written to him to ask for his co-operation in this madcap scheme.

The Grand Duchess was continuing her interrogation. "What province does your cousin Lovisa rule?"

"I don't have a cousin Lovisa," Hjalmar answered without thinking. The Grand Duchess narrowed her eyes. He realised his mistake and hastily tried to correct it. "She rules the province of Čjulan in... er... Nitrezny?"

The Grand Duchess scowled at him. "Stop hesitating in your answers! It's painfully obvious you haven't a clue what the correct answer is."

"Well, how many people are going to demand I tell them how many castles some Duke's great-great-uncle owned?" Hjalmar wanted to know. "This whole thing is just a waste of time."

His protests fell on deaf ears.

"It is often the most inconsequential things that reveal a deception," the Grand Duchess said firmly. "Everything must be perfect, or it will all come crashing down."

"I don't see why it matters even if it does," Hjalmar muttered rebelliously. "This engagement fiasco is just to break Rigmor's curse. What does it matter if everyone knows the truth? They will eventually."

~~~~

On the day the engagement was publicly announced, Hjalmar woke up with a cold sense of dread. That sense stayed with him during breakfast, his morning lessons with the Grand Duchess, and dinner.

He mentioned it to Solvej when he retreated to the library after dinner. Solvej had turned a section of the library into her personal study and workroom. Presumably, the King and Queen had no objections to their property being commandeered like that. Hjalmar wondered if this was only because they had never seen what Solvej's "workroom" looked like. If they saw the dozens of open books scattered over the floor, the cauldron set up on an old, three-legged dining table, and the piles of spell-books stacked beneath the table to stop it collapsing... Well, they might have a few objections.

"Sense of dread?" Solvej repeated dubiously. "I don't feel anything. Are you sure it's not just nerves?"

"It doesn't feel like nerves," Hjalmar said. "It feels like a sword is hanging over my head and it might fall at any moment."

The ghost raised an eyebrow. "That sounds like nerves to me."

There really wasn't much Hjalmar could say to that.

"Do you think we'll know when the Magician finds out?" he asked instead.

Solvej grinned. It was a surprisingly menacing expression for her. "Oh, believe me. We'll know."

~~~~

A cold wind whistled around the Magician's mountain. It danced through canyons and around crags, making a sound like a never-ending high-pitched laugh. Inside the mountain, the Magician laughed too.

"Oh, those fools," he chuckled. "They not only find her for me, they put her right in my path. They aren't even trying to make it a challenge for me!"

He summoned one of his goblin servants with a sharp wave of his hand. The creature crept forward, bowing obsequiously.

"Ready my horse," the Magician said. "I am going to Therlund."

The goblin knew better than to ask why. "Yes, master."

The Magician's horse looked nothing like any horse known to man. It was a gigantic creature, roughly the size of a small house; skeletal, scaly and six-legged. Its teeth were more like a lion's than a horse's, its eyes were yellow and literally stood out on stalks, and instead of neighing it grunted like a pig.

Some of the Magician's more sensible servants wondered why he called it a horse when it was obviously nothing of the sort. Not even the bravest of them dared question him aloud, however. If the Magician said it was a horse, then it was a horse, all evidence to the contrary be damned.

The Magician climbed onto the back of his ignoble steed and gave it a none-too-gentle kick in the ribs. The horse grunted and took off at a gallop. It charged out of the stables carved out of rock deep within the mountain. It hurtled along a passageway that greatly resembled a mineshaft. Near one of the mountain's summits, the passage opened onto the outside world. Magician and horse rocketed out of the entrance and galloped across the evening sky.

~~~~

Solvej had problems of her own. Or more accurately, one problem. One very noisy, very irritating problem.

"Let me out let me out I'll do anything open this door!"

One very noisy, very irritating problem that went by the name of Slaugh the goblin, and which seemed intent on driving Solvej out of her mind.

"Stop that!" the ghost yelled.

The goblin, locked in a wardrobe protected by specially-prepared spells, paid no attention whatsoever to her displeasure. It continued squealing at the top of its lungs and hammering on the wardrobe door.

It was just as well Solvej had taken the precaution of casting noise-blocking spells around her rooms. Someone would have come to investigate by now if she hadn't. No matter how obliging the King and Queen had been so far, she suspected that they would be most displeased to learn there was a goblin in their castle.

She closed her spell-book with a snap. It was no use trying to concentrate while that racket was going on.

"That's enough!" she barked. Miraculously, the goblin fell silent. "I'm not going to let you out until all this is over. So shut up! You have food, water, and a nice, soft bed -- what more do you want?"

The goblin didn't answer. Solvej frowned. The most dire threats hadn't made the goblin be quiet. Screaming herself hoarse time and time again had done nothing but give her a sore throat. Explaining the situation as calmly as possible had failed repeatedly. So why had it finally fallen silent?

The room's temperature dropped abruptly. Being dead, Solvej did not feel the cold in the same way a living human would, but she sensed the change in the air. The room's atmosphere had shifted in some hard-to-define way. Now it felt like she was balanced on the edge of a knife, and someone was waiting to see her fall.

She turned round, and came face-to-face with the Magician.