Chicks in Chainmail (5 page)

"I shall poll the ladies at once, Sire," said Sophora. "But you need not worry."

"About
that"
growled the king. "But there's still an enormous shortfall. We'll have to find the money somewhere. And soon. The prince must have his spells renewed—"

"Ahem." Sophora glanced over her shoulder, and the wizard stepped forward. "As earnest of our loyalty, Sire, the Ladies' Aid & Armor Society would like to assist with that project." She waved the wizard to the fore.

"Well?" the long asked.

"Sire, my latest researchers have revealed new powers which might be of service. It seems that the later-ally-reposed interface of the multidimensional—"

"His new black box came with some free spell-ware," Sophora interrupted before the king's patience shattered.

"Not exactly
free
," said the wizard. "But in essence, yes, new spells. I would be glad to donate the first use to the crown, if it please you."

"Nigel!" the king bellowed. The prince shuffled forward, head hanging. "Here he is, wizard—let's see what you can do."

The small demon is the new black box received the prince's less appetizing morsels with surprising eagerness. In a large multitasking multiplex universe, there's always someone who wants a plague of boils, and a wicked fairy godmother who wants to give some poor infant a receding chin. Available at a reasonable price on the foreign market were a jutting chin, black moustache, and excessive body hair, recently spell-cleared from a princess tormented by just such a wicked fairy. It spit out those requirements, causing a marked change for the better in Prince Nigel's personal appearance. A tidy profit, it thought, and turned its attention to retrieving the final sets of mammary tissue.

The princess in the rose garden was as beautiful as her miniature; Nigel could hardly believe his luck. Her beauty, his handsomeness… he kept wanting to finger his new black moustache and eye himself in any reflecting surface. At the moment, that was her limpid gaze.

"I can hardly believe I never met you until this day," the princess said. "There's something about you that seems so familiar…" She reached out a delicate finger
to
stroke his moustache, and Nigel thought he would swoon.

Across the rose garden, Sophora Segundiflora smiled at the young lovers and nudged Mirabel, whose attention had wandered to her own new nose job.

Mirabel was bored, but Sophora didn't mind chaperoning the young couple. Not with the great gold chain of chancellor across her chest. The previous chancellor had made his last confession the day the wizard tried out his new spells—the other had been a Stretched Scroll, which highlighted certain questionable transactions, such as the withdrawals to the chancellor's personal treasure chest. The fool should have known better. To embezzle all that money, and then choose women warriors as the group to make up the revenues… she hoped the wizard had done something to enhance Nigel's wits. Certainly his mother's side of the family hadn't contributed anything.

Meanwhile, the Ladies' Aid & Armor Society would continue to flourish; other older warriors had decided to follow Sophora's example and
study
law. Girls who hitherto had hung around the queen pretending to embroider were now flocking to weapons demonstrations. Even Kristal had been seen cracking something other than a whip.

After reading this, I will never look at politics or opera in the same way. provided that I can tell them apart.

EXCHANGE PROGRAM

Susan Shwartz

«
^
»

A headache the size of her healthcare plan—no, better make that the size of the national deficit—was turning Hillary Rodham Clintons skull into the local percussion section. One moment, she and her staff sat reviewing policy notes as the
Washington
/New York Metroliner rattled along. There'd been some grouching that ice had grounded Air Force One, but the benefit at the Metropolitan Opera couldn't very well be called on account of weather.

Her gown was hanging up, ready for her to put on about the time the train reached Trenton; and her hairdresser was heating the rollers in what was probably another futile attempt to soften her image, if not her chin line. It wasn't as if she
cared
, mind you, but she had enough troubles without adding yet another Media Bad Hair Day to them. So far, so good. But, in the next moment, a
WHAM
that had to nave shattered every noise-pollution ordinance in the country and probably every bone in her body jolted the club car off the tracks.

In one horrible moment, she had time to review all the crazies who might want her out of the picture. Someone who probably wasn't Secret Service snatched her up.
If I see Rush Limbaugh's puffy face
,

I'll
know
I'm in hell
. On that encouraging note, she blacked out.

"Do you think she needs something to drink?" Unmistakably, the voice was female, concerned, very young, and with a lilt in it that reminded her of the president of
Iceland.

"Let her wake up first, why don't you?"

"Why'd you have to bring
her
? You're going to get us all in trouble again!"

"No one put you in charge,
so
there!"

"Stop pinching, or—"

"You can't draw that in here!"

Sounds of a scuffle followed. Hillary suppressed an undignified groan—no one from Marilyn Quayle to Empress Michiko should see her at a loss, thank you very much—and opened her eyes in time to get a face full of water, dribbled onto her by a girl hardly older than Chelsea.

Thank god it was an opera, not a ballet Hillary had been scheduled to attend at the Met, or Chelsea, ballet-mad, would have pleaded to come along, and Bill would probably have leaned on her to allow it Her eyes filled with relief. At least
Chelsea was safe. She struggled to sit up. Even a whole White House staff wouldn't be able to keep the worst of the stories of the accident away from her daughter.
Chelsea would need
her
. Maybe she hadn't been hurt that badly.

"Lie still," said the first voice.

Hillary's vision cleared. Now she would watch the scuffle—no, the
scrum
. She hadn't seen that many husky, fair-haired young women… very young women… fighting since
Wellesley and intramural field hockey. The undergraduates had worn short, pleated skirts and hacked violently at a ball with wooden sticks. These women, just as painfully energetic and noisy, had swords, not hockey sticks. And what was that thing the youngest girly had on? A bronze
training
bra?

There might be some dignity in being kidnapped by terrorists, Hillary Rodham Clinton decided. But she was damned if she'd be kidnapped by the Society for Creative Anachronism. She remembered them from
Wellesley: even longer hair than hers, a fondness for garish costumes, and not a sensible pre-law major in the bunch.

"Stop that! Can't you see she's awake?"

What had to be the weirdest field hockey team she had ever seen amused itself with a few last shoves and some nervous laughter. Having had Quite Enough of this, Hillary fixed them with the Look she had
devel
oped, perfected on her husband those painful years when he tiptoed late into the Governor's Mansion, and used to advantage on Congress. As she expected, they subsided into whispering attention, waiting for her to speak.

She sat up. Thank you very much, she was not about to perpetrate the cliche of "Where am I?" She found her back resting against a pine tree; and wouldn't that just snag hell out of her pink
St. John jacket? The countryside reminded her other visit with
Chelsea to the Olympics. How had she gotten from the
Washington
corridor to
Scandinavia?

Horsehooves stomped the snow-covered ground. A gust of wind, laden with salt, made her raise her head. She was near the sea, was she? Not too far away, rocks jutted out into great cliffs. She could not see the water of the sea, or the fjord, or whatever, for the giant rainbow that dominated the horizon.

She remembered the medievalist from
Maine
in her dorm, senior year. The woman's notion of student activism had stopped at the Children's Crusade, and she read a lot of Tolkien, but she had made junior Phi Bete and could spin a fine yarn when everyone was already giddy from pulling all-nighters. She had even conned Hillary into going to Boston Symphony Hall to hear that improbable woman with a face like Hillary's own heroine Eleanor Roosevelt and a voice like nothing on earth.

If the tact that the Met was going to put on Wagner—
Das Rheingold
, her itinerary had said—had sunk in, she'd have thought three times about going to this damned benefit. She could just see having to explain this to the FBI. "I'm not making this up, you know!" she'd tell them. That is, if she got the chance; and a terrible chill in her stomach made her realize that she wouldn't.

If place and people reminded her of Scandinavia, her old classmate, and hearing Anna Russell retell the Ring Cycle, these noisy girls had brought her to
Valhalla; and that was strictly a one-way ride.

Maybe Bill could win a second term on a sympathy vote. While that was nice, the idea of not getting to see Chelsea grow up hurt worse than the train crash that put her into this mess; and the possibility that he might set some smoking bimbo in her place
really
ticked' her off.

Give me a minute
, she wished at the seated Valkyries, who looked as if they were in their early teens.
It isn't every day that you wake up dead
.

"Those noisy girls," Anna Russell had described the Valkyries. But they weren't noisy now. They watched her with what she identified as apprehension. Chelsea had looked that way when she a made her pitch to keep Socks after her dog had been hit by a car, even though Chelsea knew that she and Bill were both allergic. Hillary was a sucker for kids in trouble, and these kids looked as if they'd bought themselves plenty.

How? By rescuing her? She'd be glad to go back; she had policy to push through. But there was no way she wanted to go back if it meant reconstruction in Walter Reed, or a sheet pulled over her face.

Hillary Rodham Clinton stood up, pulling the cloak on which they had placed her up around her shoulders. With the ease of years in public life, she smiled and gave each of them a handshake—firm enough, but careful of her fingers, which had to last the whole campaign.

"I thought your choices had to be strictly single sex," she remarked, to put them off-balance and see how they'd react. As she recalled,
Valhalla bore a remarkable resemblance to Dartmouth Winter Carnival.

The girls looked down at their booted feet. One or two fiddled with her weapons. One kicked at the snow.

The soprano chorus erupted again.

"It's happened before," one of them said.

"Brunnhilde… she brought in…"

"Oh, do you remember how she could sing?"

"They could both sing…" The youngest girl was crying.

"She looked nice, that Sieglinde. I liked her."

"She was going to have a baby, and Brunnhilde took pity on her. Even if she was supposed to bring in her brother instead."

"Wasn't he our brother too?"

"Quiet. He'll put you in a ring of fire too if you talk about that!"

"What does it matter, anyhow? It's been years since spring anyway. The hall's crowded, and do you see how Loki grins?"

Hillary almost raised a hand for quiet, but the chorus was winding up dismay loud enough to reach the highest rows of an opera house.

"If Allfather punished Brunnhilde, and she was his favorite…"

Hillary couldn't quite remember what happened next. She'd been too busy laughing at Anna Russell's words. But there was nothing funny about the tears in the youngest Valkyrie's eyes.

Hillary put her arms about the girl. Why, tor all her primitive militaristic trappings, she was scarcely older than
Chelsea.

"It's all right, honey," she said, glad that her time in
Arkansas
had softened the flatness of her Midwestern birthspeech into something more lite comfort. "You just cry it out, you can tell me, I have a daughter, too. Maybe I can help."

The girl gulped and looked up. "Oh,
could
you?"

Hillary removed the child's absurd helmet (at least it didn't have those preposterous phallic horns on it) and smoothed the tumbled blonde hair, even thicker and untidier than
Chelsea's after a soccer game.

Bad enough she'd found herself in an eternal version of the Ring, not
Peter Pan;
and she was the last person on Earth (only she wasn't on Earth now, was she?) to play Wendy to a bunch of lost boys. But these were lost girls, and she really rather thought that the Valkyries had saved her in defiance of orders—of unjust, sexist orders—to stand in for Brunnhilde, their exiled sister.