42. The plan (3)

Gio showed Hilda and William around in the museum. It wasn't a very impressive tour, as there were a full one painting and one statue per king that had ruled here, and the number of kings was quite limited.

The last room though was of particular interest. The room with the images of king Herald.

As they entered the room, the surprise was solid. Two paintings. Two statues.

Gio grinned. "I am sure you were not prepared for that."

Hilda's eyes were glued to the statue of a person wearing blue clothes and a white mask. William felt how she tensed up.

"This is king Herald," Gio pointed at the stone man in the scarlet uniform. The king looked quite small compared to the sorcerer that was standing next to him. The difference was almost a head.

"I see you are surprised that there are two statues. Well, that was by special request of the king. He, and our land too, owes so much to his powerful sorcerer that he ordered a statue and a painting made of the high Lamador, to be placed with his own image."

It was what Hilda had already been afraid of. William felt her tremble and put an arm around her shoulders, holding her tightly against him.

"Ah, I see the young lady is a bit terrified of the sorcerer. Yes," Gio babbled, "he is quite an overwhelming figure, even when just present in stone like this."

"Have you met him then?", William asked Gio.

"Met him? The high Lamador? Oh no, sir, he would not come to this village, a small nothing. No, the high Lamador will not go out of the capital and will stay near the king as much as he can, to ensure the king's safety." Gio snickered at the thought of Lamador coming to this place and shook his head.

William refrained from asking more questions. He was certain they had seen enough. Hilda was already gently pushing him, she wanted to leave, so they thanked Gio for guiding them around and quickly left the building. Outside they saw Brent again, the mouse-face, who was keeping to the side of the building, hoping the two would not see him. Alas, they did.

As Hilda and William walked away, the wicked witch snipped her fingers that were invisible under William's arm. A lot of agitation suddenly arose in the street and the couple turned round to see what it was. William seriously wondering, Hilda as she wanted to see the result of the snip. They were in time to see Brent bending down to pull his trousers back up. Laughing, they walked back to the large wall with its openings, and made for their brooms.

"It is really bad here," William noted as they were in the air again.

"Yes. Worse than I thought even. And you were right, William, he is using the king to play his games. If the king even allows his court sorcerer to have a larger statue than he has himself, then there is something very wrong." Hilda felt really uncomfortable, the more as she sensed a similar thing coming from William. But in a way it assured her that he was with her, also in that sense. He was not going to do foolish things, she was certain of that.

They flew on, not speaking much, until the capital came near. And a capital it was. It was white, so white that it hurt their eyes as the sunshine hit the giant white buildings that were in front of the even more giant mountainsides.

A wide web of roads, paths and trails was weaving itself together with one destination: the capital of king Herald's kingdom, Heraldion.

This was not a village. This was a city of serious dimensions. Even from the distance that there was between it and Hilda and William it looked huge.

"There it is," Hilda said to hide her nerves. She was not at all happy to see the place. It meant only one thing to her: Lamador. And that spooked her to no end.

They had landed their brooms several miles from the city and it felt to them as if they were in the middle of a street inside it. There were no ordinaries near, they had searched for magical people and found none either, so they were reasonably certain that their arrival so far had gone unnoticed.

Hilda looked at William. "We've come this far, let's get it over with." There was a bit of doom in the tone of her voice.

William understood, as this was literally stepping into the lion's bedroom. He touched her cheek. "We'll be fine. I don't think that Lamador will believe that we are doing this. He's gone through a lot of work to make everyone afraid of him, and it worked. So we're going to do the unbelievable thing here." He winked at the wicked witch. "Ready to do the unbelievable?" He held out his hand.

She hesitated. Then, with a feeble smile, she took his hand. "I don't know why I love you, William. You are so crazy at times that it scares me. And yet I hear what you say and somehow it makes sense." She squeezed his hand. "Just stay with me and nothing will happen to you, okay?"

William smiled. "I'm not going to let you out of my sight, Hilda."

They walked towards one of the trails that led to Heraldion and after an hour they had mingled with and merged with the crowd that was moving towards the city.

The approach towards Heraldion was more normal than getting to Frad, the first village they had visited. The web of roads they had seen was not exactly fixed on one point where they could get into the city. There were many side-trails and tracks that spread out. Carts with goods, large groups of people, they all seemed to know where they wanted to go, diverting from the large main street that led onwards. Hilda proposed they'd follow along one of the smaller, less busy tracks, but William shook his head.

"We are now hiding in the crowd. Nobody sees us. This is really the best way to do this."

Hilda sighed, as a bulky man pushed against her, trying to head on faster than the crowd allowed. It took her a lot of self-control not to whip up her wand and give him a piece of her mind. After all, they did not want to be discovered, and not reacting to this insult was the way to go.

They still progressed at a decent speed, and only half an hour after being sucked into the group of people wanting to enter the white city of Heraldion, they passed along the first white houses. The city was entirely open, William saw, nowhere were guards or soldiers. It made him feel at ease.

"There are lots of wizards, witches and warlocks going around here, so be careful what you do," said Hilda, "they walk around in ordinaries' clothes like we do, so it is hard to discover them. They're good and can hide their magic for someone like you who is not experienced."

That made him feel ill at ease.

Heraldion was magnificent. Entirely different from Frad, there were stalls on every street, places where they could sit to look at things, plenty of options to eat and drink the most exotic things in outrageous colours and shapes.

The houses were not all white, as they had looked from a distance. The roofs and top floors were white, but the sections on the ground floor had been painted in all colours of the rainbow, making the walk through the streets a very joyful one. They gazed at the colours, the signs that invited people in, mentioned events that were taking place in several parts of the town. It was a real big city atmosphere, thought William.

There were people about from many areas, Hilda recognised many of them. Some were even from king Walt's country, traders that were here for the continuous big market, as she pointed out to William.

"Want to see the market?" She remembered where it was, as she had been in this city a few times before. Before there were challenges and Lamador.

"Would be interesting," said William who almost forgot that they were here for a purpose and not for merely enjoying the sights. "And it might give us a good starting point for the plan."

Hilda nodded, her face overshadowed for a moment. "Yes. The plan." Being in the middle of Heraldion it seemed to her that the ideas William had brought up had less chance of succeeding than a broom trying to fly off on its own.

The giant stream of people was already heading for the big market, so it was very easy to get to it, they only had to go with the flow and get out of it in time. The closer they came to the market, the higher the level of noise became, and also the smells that jumped their senses became more and more varied. William was flabbergasted at the sheer amount of different scents his nose was able to discern as they were drifting along the street that led to the giant market place.

The market place was oval shaped. Every square yard was used, to accomodate stalls, tables and low carts with goods. The organised chaos that reigned there was a slight shock to William and even Hilda.

"Crappedy crap, it's gotten even worse than the last time I was here. They made it larger also," Hilda muttered. She pulled William along with her as she stepped out of the river of bodies that kept moving along.

"Going anywhere special?", he asked as he was taken by surprise.

"Yeah. Away from that crawling madness." Hilda looked around, trying to find a place even further away, but the pavement that they stood on was littered with tables, chairs and people. It looked as if there was no escape possible.

"What about that then?" William nodded to a place that looked like a restaurant. Over it hung a large banner informing the world that it was "The Great Lamador". "I'd say they have a special affection with their sorcerer." He slipped his arm around hers and started working his way by the neverending flow of people.

"William, we can't go sit there!", Hilda hissed, trying to hold him back in vain.

"Why not?"

"Because it's... it's... well, just because." Hilda pouted as she did not want to come up with the proper word.

"Do you have another suggestion?", William asked her as they were pushed and shoved by people who wanted to get past them.

"Depends on what you have in - oompf - mind. Hey, watch it okay?" Hilda yelled after someone very rude, but the person pretended to be deaf.

"How about sitting down and eat something? So far we've had a glass of beer, and I can't function on that."

Hilda was hungry also. They had come a long way, the afternoon was progressing nicely already, and there -was- food on the tables of 'The Great Lamador'.

"I hate you, just remember that," she said as she pushed herself past William and located a table as far from the crowd as possible. She dropped herself on a chair and immediately a whiff of food from the kitchen attracted her attention.

William sat down also, and he too looked into the establishment from where the smell of food came.

A woman, dressed in lightblue shirt, skirt and shoes, her black hair trimmed very short, came to their table. "Hello, dear guests," she said with a professional smile, "welcome to 'The Great Lamador'. What can I bring you?"

Hilda looked up at the young woman with a frown. William located a funny feeling in his peace of mind, Hilda looking like that usually was not a good sign.

"What food and drink do you have?"

William let his tension escape. This was good. For now.

The waitress summed up the goodies that the kitchen and the bar had for sale. Hilda then ordered a cup of tea and a chicken Great Lamador. William also ordered tea, and the ham Great Lamador. It was not possible to order any food that was not Great Lamador in this place.

The lightblue waitress returned rather quickly with the two cups of tea. Before she could rush off to another table, William asked her: "Could you please tell me why this restaurant is called the Great Lamador?"

The waitress smiled. "Certainly, sir. The owner of the restaurant has been married to a niece of no one else than the Great Sorcerer himself."

"And that is all?" William wondered.

During the entire talk he had with the woman, Hilda tried to make herself invisible. How could this man that she valued and loved so much be so silly and talk about the enemy so leisurely? Why was he attracting so much attention? Weren't they here in secret? All these and many more thoughts ran through Hilda's mind and she had the biggest fight with herself to appear calm and interested in the people walking by. None of whom, by the way, seemed in the least bit interested in any of the people at the tables.

"Mareeta!", someone yelled from the insides of the Great Lamador. The lightblue clad waitress, hearing her name, excused herself and sped off.

"I don't understand you," hissed Hilda to William.

"Relax, everything is going fine," said William, who actually felt very relaxed. Too bad that Hilda had not gotten the details of the plan, but that would straighten itself out. He was certain.

Mareeta came back, carrying large plates with food and a bowl of salad. "Enjoy," she said as she placed everything on the table very skilled. Then she was away, off to assist the next customers.

The food was excellent, as was the tea.

"I really don't know what you are doing, William," said Hilda in the quietest voice she could.

"Sweet woman, I am gathering information," he said, "and don't you love that salad. I really wish that I knew what they do to it."

"What?", asked Hilda.

"Do you really want to know?", asked Mareeta who came sailing by with a few large glasses of beer. After delivering them, she came back to the table of the magical couple.

Hilda glared at William for a moment, wishing she was able to magic herself away. Far away. To her house, for instance.

Mareeta sat on down on a chair at their table. "You know, this is a bit of a secret, so you should not tell anyone..." She looked around for new customers, but there was nobody requiring her services. "The cook was a pupil of the great sorceror. He has all kinds of magical tricks he can do with the food to make it taste as the best thing ever. He learnt that in the kitchens of king Herald's castle." Again Mareeta looked around. "He does not tell anyone why he got kicked out of the castle. But that's fine. We have a good cook because of that."

Four women, obviously ladies who sold things on the grand oval market, occupied a table. Mareeta took that as her cue and left the magical couple to their food.

"We have what we want," said William, and smiled.