Rayman and Ly are (c) UbiSoft Entertainment.

Chapter 2

There was no accounting for how he got into the castle or how long he was there before somebody caught up with him, but eventually he was confronted by several guards and servants.

"What are you doing here?"

"Just looking around – do you know where I can find Ly?"

The guard looked at him aghast. "Ly?"

"She does live here, doesn't she? Somewhere?"

"Do you mean the Princess?"

"Well, yes! She did say she was a princess and all."

"Just who are you?"

"An old friend... I helped her escape from the pirates a few years ago."

The servants looked at one another in consternation. "What's your name?"

"Uh – I don't think you'd know me – Rayman."

"You're Rayman?" To his astonishment he was abruptly faced with half a dozen lance points. He stood still, eyebrows raised, while one of the servants raced out of the room.

The servant arrived panting at the throne room where the princess was being prepared for her first audience of the day. "Some strange-looking little person claiming to be Rayman is asking to see you."

Her head snapped around, she went pale. "'Strange-looking'?"

And she lunged out of the grip of her dressers before the description was complete. "Oh my god! It's him!"

Into the antechamber where Rayman was being held swept a tall, slender, regal figure. At the door, she halted with an audible gasp. Rayman, standing very relaxed, surrounded by lances, looked up at her with the trace of a sarcastic grin.

She hurtled herself towards him – and halted abruptly almost in midair, in a swirl of purple robes and ermine. She took a deep breath.

Rayman, who had leaned forward to meet her, eyes bright, mouth half-open in a smile, slowly straightened up. The tenderness faded from his eyes. He looked at her with almost no expression, a look she didn't meet.

To the room at large she announced, "I will receive him for an audience at 2:00. See that he's prepared." And she turned and walked out.

The guards lowered their lances, but Rayman just stood there. Then, eyes lowered, shaking his head, he privately smiled.

An unnecessarily large group of servants, or perhaps they were guards, marched him off to a big, shiny, elegant bathroom, where he was shown, indeed virtually shoved into, an enormous bathtub full of hot water and soap bubbles. They then imprisoned him there by taking away his clothes. Dutifully he scrubbed for a while, then, since he was both clean and bored, he wrapped a huge fluffy towel around himself and sneaked out to explore the neighbouring guest rooms. In the process, he inadvertently terrified several housemaids, causing a number of dropped food trays, smashed crockery, and mismade beds.

His guards tracked him down by following the trail of intermittent screams – not that he was doing anything, but he was a rather unexpected sight – and found him at last sitting perched in a huge stone window frame, overlooking the village below.

"Nice little town you have there," he said.

"Your clothes are ready, sir," they told him.

He followed them to a room where he was brought before a beautiful outfit in subdued, elegant gold and tan velvet and silk, with a little black, red and blue trim, all laid out on a bed – doublet, vest, padded breeches, a dramatic cape, soft long-toed shoes, and a pair of patently useless silk hose. He admired it for a moment, then asked, "So, where are my clothes?"

"Right there," he was told.

It took a while, but eventually he did stop laughing, at which point he repeated his question. "Where are my clothes?"

"They are being washed," he was icily informed.

"Good," he said, "I'll wait."

"You cannot go before the court in a getup like that."

Rayman smiled.

After some further disagreements, he eventually escaped and tracked down his clothes in the laundry room. He removed them from the line where they were hanging to dry and, since he was having some difficulty smuggling them out without being ambushed by pursuing guards, wriggled back into them still wet – while more housemaids and washerwomen fled. His shoes, which had also been washed, were rather annoyingly squishy, but their white and yellow was nice and bright again.

On his way out of the laundry room he walked over to one of the cowering maids, trying to hide in a corner. He touched her gently on the back, then pulled her hand away from where it was covering her face. She turned to look at him in horror.

"You did a very good job washing my clothes, thank you," he said, kindly, and squeezed her hand.

Then he left, squishing a little. She straightened up to watch him go.

"We won't have time for a rehearsal in the chamber, Her Highness is giving audiences all this morning, but it's very simple, you get the idea. You stop here, where the gold crown is inlaid in the floor, and bow, and then just follow the cues – keep your eyes on the seneschal in blue and purple velvet, he'll let you know what to do if you get confused."

All the while, Rayman was meditatively nibbling at the quite elegant, if skimpy, lunch he had been offered, consisting of a few cunningly arranged tiny triangular sandwiches ... carefully opening each one first, with a dubious frown, to glare suspiciously at the pink and greenish stuff inside. He was pleased to note the disapproving glower of the servants every time he peered into a sandwich, or with a shrug tossed the little scrap into his mouth afterwards. They particularly didn't like the way he picked up the decorative strands of watercress laid artistically around the plate, examined each one closely, and then ate them. They weren't too happy, either, when he guzzled off the silver cup of wine he had been given in one swallow and smilingly held it out for more. "I'm thirsty," he explained. "Got any water?"

Grumpily, the least elaborately dressed servant left the room and returned, glowering as much as his superiors, with a beautifully chased metal flagon and a cut crystal water glass, and grudgingly poured him out a cup, with an expression as though water was a precious delicacy not to be frittered away on the inferior classes. Rayman smiled at him pleasantly and drank that off as fast as he had the wine, and held out the cup for more. Then, after receiving another grudging dollop of liquid, added, "Oh, and is there any food?"

He wasn't really all that hungry, but he felt he at least owed it to them to keep them entertained.