Characters this chapter: Howell, Rolland, King of Ingary, the Princess Valeria

Rating: K

Warning: Spoilers for DWJ's Howl's Moving Castle

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Chapter 10: The Princess and the Ponce

Howell had never particularly cared for King Rolland. It was not that he disliked him; the King was a nice enough man. But that was just the trouble. He was a generally kind, somewhat capable, decidedly stubborn man who just happened to be the King of Ingary. There was nothing particularly royal or authoritative about him. In fact, he had an open, friendly, doughy sort of face one would expect to find on the village baker, not the King. It was difficult to summon the proper respect for such a face. Mrs. Pentstemmon had more regality in her little finger than the King possessed in his entire body. Then again, with her pedigree, Mrs. Pentstemmon could have claimed a right to the throne of Ingary herself had she ever been remotely interested in ruling the country. All the same, King Rolland made Prince Charles look like Henry V.

Howell entered the King's military study to find him standing over a large table map of the world – well, this one, at any rate. He was staring nervously at a number of flags and counters in the vicinity of Ingary on the map, and looking rather befuddled. Howell waited to be officially announced before flourishing the most elabourate bow in his repertoire. "What a richly-deserved, yet unexpected honour! Such unmitigated, scintillating delight to be summoned before Your Majesty once again."

The King merely nodded and waved Howell to a seat on one side of an unnecessarily large desk. The Wizard bowed a second time before taking it. "Thank you, Sire." As King Rolland made his way over to the other side of the desk, managing to look uncertain, bored, and nervous all at once, Howell was reminded of the interview Gareth had negotiated for him at the factory that once. The foreman had sat behind a desk rather like this, glowering down at Howell from his intentionally taller chair and telling him all about the carefully-regimented and reliable job he was going to have with them. The foreman had been far more intimidating than King Rolland would ever be, and Howell had still walked out in the middle. With a bit of effort, he kept his natural reflex to sneak off in check this time.

The King took his throne-like seat and placed folded hands on the table, merely looking at Howell for several moments with a rather blank expression on his face, as if he had not yet prepared what he was going to say. Amateur, Howell scoffed, inwardly. He should have decided on what approach he was going take long before the actual meeting, but that was King Rolland all over. Howell was careful to gaze back at the King blandly and indirectly, so as not to turn this interview into a staring contest. He did not think it wise to best the King in such a contest of wills, and Howell would surely do so without even trying; a child could have done it.

As he waited patiently for the King to begin speaking, he felt a gentle tug on his trouser leg. Sitting back in his chair so that he might cast a discreet glance under the desk, Howell spied a miniscule fist, shiny with saliva, clamped to the cuff of his pant leg. The rest of the royal urchin quickly followed into his line of sight as she crawled forward to peep up at Howell from between his ankles. For someone who looked rather like a miniature version of Winston Churchill, she was surprisingly cute. "Wizard Howl," King Rolland finally began, and Howell was forced to look up and pay attention. "As you know, my brother, Prince Justin, has been missing for some weeks now."

Oh bugger, thought Howell. He's going to ask me to find the Prince. It was a royal assignation he had been both expecting and dreading for some time. Looking for the Prince of his own volition was one thing. Howell could do so in his own time, in his own way, without fear of failure affecting his reputation. But he had too much on his plate, currently -- turning Sophie young again so that he could properly court her, for example, not to mention saving his own skin from the curse his most unfortunate former acquaintance had sent after him -- to be saddled with an arduous full-time job like locating the Prince.

Howell showed none of these reservations as he replied to the opening King Rolland had intentionally left him to respond. "Yes, Your Majesty. Very distressing indeed."

"The fact of the matter is, Justin and I had a bit of a…a falling out before he left."

"Oh?" Howell pretended to be ignorant. According to the gossip Jasper had just shared with him, this so-called 'falling out' had been one hair short of a royal brawl. Prince Justin had very publicly called King Rolland a jackass for sending Wizard Suliman into the Waste alone to vanquish the Witch. The King's brother had never been the sort to mince words. Old sibling rivalry wounds had been reopened, and a heated exchange had taken place in front of the Court before continuing in private, where it had nearly come to blows.

"It doesn't look good," the King continued, "with his being gone so long."

"Oh dear," Howell said, projecting sympathy and a bit of ignorance. He knew full well what people were saying about the King regarding the Prince's disappearance.

"This isn't Strangia," the King said, looking hurt and distressed. "Ingary's nobility doesn't make a game of poisoning one another."

Howell felt a weight on his shoe and glanced down to see the Princess teething on his once-pristine, shiny shoe buckle. He feared for the silk ribbon tied through it, as her mouth already looked to be smeared with some sort of chocolate. But Howell had learned, through past experience with nephew and niece, that it was best not to take an object away from a teething toddler once they'd set their gums to it. He couldn't have reached her now without alerting the King to what he was doing in any case, so Howell simply wrote his shoes off as ruined and promised himself a new pair in their stead. Thus provided with a valid excuse to shop for more clothes, both he and the Princess were happy with the arrangement.

"Still, some people are accusing me – in private, naturally -- of having done away with my own brother." King Rolland looked both martyred and bemused.

Howell recognised bad acting when he saw it. So the King was trying to play on his sympathies in order to get him to volunteer to look for the Prince. Little did he know, Howell was a man devoid of sympathy – there were certain advantages to having no heart -- and he was very good at playing dumb. He had not worn his hair bleached blond this long without having picked up a trick or two. "But that's terrible! Who would possibly believe such a scurrilous and obviously false accusation?"

"Who indeed?"

Howell watched, transfixed, as the Princess carefully untied the ribbon on his left shoe and attempted to take it with her as she crawled away.

"Unpleasant as these rumours are, the fact of the matter is, I need Justin back for far more crucial reasons right now.

"Oh?" Howell encouraged him to continue, though he already knew everything the King was going to say. At least two of the countries adjacent to Ingary were preparing for war. And King Rolland was an abysmal tactician. There was a reason the Royal Chess Tournaments had been cancelled after he'd ascended the throne.

Howell found what was going on beneath the desk to be far more interesting than listening to the King explain dull and ultimately meaningless information he already knew. Valeria had given up on his ribbon with a frustrated grunt when it refused to cooperate and go with her. She sat now on her bulging, diapered little bum, looking peevishly up at Howell as if it were all his fault. Her baby lip protruded in a pout, and the Princess looked as though she might be considering tears. She was really quite beguiling. As King Rolland droned on and on about political matters, his eyes roaming distractedly around the room, Howell offered a playful, innocent smile to the sullen urchin under the desk. After a few moments of deliberation, the Princess Valeria sucked her lip back in and smiled back, an endearing, toothless gesture which somehow made the smudge of chocolate on her face grow even larger.

"If only Wizard Ben had not marched off into the Waste." This blatantly rewritten history of the King's predicament shocked Howell enough to get his attention, but he kept his expression carefully neutral as he watched the King for some tell-tale sign of the whopping lie he'd just told. It was a good thing, too, because King Rolland was discreetly watching Howell for any signs of disbelief. As if Sullivan would have gone off into the Waste alone of his own accord! But Howell said not a word, did not make even so much as an eyebrow quirk of protest.

"And now we have lost him." The King looked unconvincingly tragic as he continued. "And are left without a Royal Magician in these hard and dangerous times." Howell could see exactly where this talk was headed. He had to say something and distract the King before he reached the inevitable verbal destination.

"If I may say so, Sire," Howell interrupted, as the King had kindly left him space to do so. "I don't believe Wizard Suliman to be dead."

"No?" The King turned to him in surprise. "What makes you say that?" He leaned forward on the desktop, looking eagerly at the Wizard for an explanation. Howell realised he had perhaps not chosen the best topic for distraction. He thought quickly to come up with an explanation which would take the pressure and focus off of himself.

"You see, Your Majesty, when a powerful wizard dies, all of the other wizards in the vicinity can sense it."

The King did not look convinced. "Sense it? I don't follow."

"To be honest, it's difficult to explain to someone who doesn't work magic…" Howell could see from King Rolland's expression that he was not going to settle for this explanation, or lack thereof. So he improvised, borrowing from a bit of popular mythology from his own world in order to amuse himself. "Well you see, there's a sort of...invisible force in the universe which wraps and surrounds all living things." The King looked as though he was concentrating very hard in order to understand. "Powerful wizards are strong in this...Force. So when a wizard dies, it's as if…a million voices suddenly cry out in terror, and then, suddenly, silence." Howell thought his Alec Guinness impression first rate, and congratulated himself on it.

"I see," said the King, eyeing him as if he thought the Wizard was a bit mad. The important part, however, was that King Rolland had accepted his laughable explanation. Then the King looked thoughtful for a moment, which was never a good sign. "Let me ask you this, then," he began, and Howell had a sinking feeling about what he was going to say next. "If you powerful wizards can...sense one another within this…Force, is there a way you might be able to track Suliman using that…wizard's sense?"

Howell just seemed to keep digging himself in deeper and deeper. Holding off panic, he very politely explained to the King that it did not work that way, and he was terribly sorry, because he wanted very much to help, but he could not possibly do that. The King's expression darkened, and his thick eyebrows drew down in thought. "Well then," he said at last. "Knowing that Suliman is still alive doesn't do me a bit of good." Howell shrugged and looked regretful, feeling a touch nervous at having made the King unhappy.

King Rolland quickly returned to the topic of his brother. As he spoke, he continued to drop hints that were subtle as an elephant's footsteps that he expected Howell to volunteer for the task of finding him. Howell was carefully oblivious. But in spite of the imminent danger of his being royally appointed the task whether he wanted it or not, he quickly grew bored of the game they were playing. Any other monarch would surely have ended it hours ago. Fortunately, the King was not the only source of entertainment in the room.

Howell peeped discreetly under the desk again to see what his little friend was up to. The Princess had settled herself in an odd shape which looked more like a heap of laundry than a baby and was cheerfully and determinedly attempting to stick her entire fist into her mouth. Howell had to try very hard not to chuckle at this intrepid endeavor. When she saw he was looking at her, Valeria favoured him with another gummy, drooling smile. Howell wiggled his fingers at her under the desk in greeting. The Princess looked as though she wanted to wave back, but it seemed she was having some difficulty dislodging her fist in order to do so.

"...so many wizards in this country." The King continued to drone on. He seemed to have bored even himself, for he rose from the desk and began pacing the room, fiddling with various royal knickknacks along the way. "But this is a very delicate matter, and requires the touch of someone both trustworthy and expert."

The Princess finally did manage to free her fist, but she'd grown so upset by then, her face was bunching up like an unhappy raisin, preparing for a good cry. Fortunately, Howell knew just what to do. He had learnt a thing or two during all of the unjustly unpaid hours he had spent babysitting instead of writing his thesis while Megan had been working part time. Howell quietly snapped his fingers to get the unhappy urchin's attention before pulling a funny face. In the middle of taking a breath to let loose a good wail, Valeria paused and looked up at Howell uncertainly. King Rolland's back was turned, and he was moving flags around on the map distractedly, as he spoke. Howell winked down at his tiny captive audience before cheerfully sticking his tongue out at her. The Princess smiled, her chocolate-smudged, chubby cheeks dimpling angelically.

"I've thought long and hard," the King was saying. "In the end, there were only two options."

Howell smiled back. Then he put his hands on either side of his head, like antlers, and waggled them at her. This seemed to erase all memory of the unpleasant fist incident. Dimpling from ear to ear, the Princess Valeria grabbed hold of Howell's trouser leg and pulled herself into a slightly wobbly but upright position.

"...thought to myself, 'Which one would be best to help with such a sensitive business?'" The King was rearranging a pen and ink set on an antique writing desk in the corner of the room, looking somewhat perplexed, as he continued.

Meanwhile, Howell had covered his face with his hands and was entertaining the Princess with a game of peek-a-boo. She was propped up against his knee now, watching the show, rapt. When Howell quickly took his hands away and revealed crossed eyes before sticking his tongue out again, Valeria giggled. Unfortunately, the King heard and turned round. Howell had to hurriedly lean his elbow on the desk, hiding the Princess behind one long sleeve, and do his best to look as though he had been paying close attention the entire time.

"Valeria," the King called, looking around the room, rather lost. "Where have you got to, poppet?" The Princess crept forward, using Howell's thigh for support, and poked her head out from under the desk and Howell's dangling grey and scarlet sleeve, which he hurriedly and innocently swept out of the way.

"Waa waa daaah!" she declared happily in that foreign language known only to very young children.

"Oh no! You did get into the ink again," the King said, looking at her in dismay. Curious, Howell looked down to see what he meant and noticed what it had taken a father's eye to discern: the toddler's left hand was black with ink, along with the lower half of her dress. Howell began to think the smudges around her mouth might not be chocolate after all. "Oh, bother!" The King swore, rushing over. "Mummy will have our head for this. Two weeks in a row!" He picked his daughter up and paced the office, muttering to himself in a nervous, distracted fashion.

"Your Majesty," Howell suggested kindly. "Perhaps this is not the best time to discuss these matters?"

"Ohhh, must call Nurse--" the King was still busy talking to himself. "No--can't call Nurse, she'll tell Amelia."

Howell stood and bowed, beginning to edge toward the door. "In that case, Sire, I'll just await further instructions."

"Yes, thank you," King Rolland said, eyes roving restlessly around the room, as if searching for some means of escape. "We shall call for you again soon. Yes. Er..."

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Howell bowed himself to the nearest door. "And if there is anything I might do to help you in these matters, please do not hesitate to ask." He felt it was safe to offer now that the King was no longer paying attention. "I remain Your Majesty's faithful and devoted servant."

King Rolland didn't even look up as Howell left, busily attempting to wash the ink off his daughter's face with only a glass of water and a handkerchief. One of the royal personages, however, did take note of Howell's departure. "Dye!" Princess Valeria waved cheerfully at him over the distressed royal parent's shoulder. Howell smiled, utterly charmed, and waved back before the King's Guard shut the door behind him.

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Author's Note: DWJ never did give the King of Ingary a name. So I did.