The Feline Wizard Read Online Free Page B

Each courtier finds a small bag next to the plate with the money for the next day's expenses, right?”
    “It is the most unobtrusive way to deliver their stipends,” Prester John said. “Of course, I must not care only for the wealthy. Twenty-seven thousand of the poor, the lame, and the blind eat in halls throughout the city, as well as widows with children and old-age pensioners.”
    “Their tables aren't quite as magnificent as your own, though, if I remember rightly,” Matt said with a smile.
    Prester John returned the smile. “Well, perhaps not.”
    “Any particular reason why you turned the top of your high table into precious emerald and its legs into amethyst?”
    “Of course,” Prester John said, surprised. “The magic of the stone prevents anyone sitting there from falling into drunkenness, Lord Wizard. Did you not know?”
    “I'll make a note of it,” Matt assured him. “Let's see—as I remember, you dine with Prince Tashih at your right hand and the Archbishop of Maracanda at your left.”
    “Well recalled,” Prester John said with a smile. “Now, however, Princess Balkis sits at my left.”
    “Of course,” Matt said, chagrined. “How'd the archbishop take to losing his place?”
    “With Christian patience,” Prester John said, still with a smile. “He may have hidden indignation at first, but Balkis soon charmed him.”
    Matt didn't doubt it. Still, he knew that with some men, ambition outweighed personal feelings. He added the archbishop to his list of suspects. “Next to him sits the Patriarch of St. Thomas, then the Protopapas of Samarkand, right?”
    “You remember the order well,” Prester John said with surprise. “It is so, and on my right, next to the prince, sit twelve more archbishops. The discussion thus engendered is both lively and enlightening.”
    Matt felt deep sympathy for Balkis, and for the first time wondered whether her disappearance was really a kidnapping. But he smiled bravely and said, “The lively part I can believe, with the heads of three different Christian sects there to argue about which one has a monopoly on truth.”
    “Oh, I have made them understand the need for tolerance,” Prester John said with a satisfied smile. “We do discuss points of doctrine now and then, but for the most part we discuss the ways of the people in each prelate's district, and the strange and wonderful sights to be seen there.”
    Matt revised his opinion of the dinner table conversation. “How can they do a decent job of managing their dioceses when they're here, so far away?”
    “Each of them returns to his dwelling every month in his turn, and another ecclesiastic takes his place.”
    So Balkis wasn't even hearing about the same old marvels every night. Matt decided she might not have been bored at all. “Doesn't the hum of conversation from the other four thousand diners make it a little hard to hear?”
    “They are sufficiently distant, and have the courtesy to keep their voices low. Then, too, the lower tables at which they dine are some of gold and some of amethyst; the columns supporting them are of ivory.”
    Matt smiled, remembering that gold was an excellent conductor. “So each table holds a spell for muting noise?”
    “That, and for restraining any other sort of rude behavior,” Prester John acknowledged.
    “So if everybody's being so polite, what happened on this one particular evening?”
    The king shook his head. “Balkis' sorrow was so deep that she could not hide it.”
    “Is that all?” Matt asked in surprise.
    “It was enough,” Prester John answered, and explained. He told Matt of his own ill-conceived idea that Balkis should travel the land and come to know the people, and of Prince Tashih's jealousy, then of the two naive courtiers' foolish attempt to curry favor with Tashih by kidnapping Balkis, and of the aftermath.

In the morning, the ladies came to wake their princess with food and drink—and found her gone. The bedclothes were