A Slight Case of Mistaken Identity

Word count: Approx. 5,400
Notes/Warnings: None.
Summary: Written for the prompt(s): The King, Queen, Prince, and Princess appear at your doorstep, having mistaken your address for someone else’s.


I was just finishing setting the table for dinner when there was a knock on the door.

“Get that, will you, Elisha?” Uncle Kane called distractedly from the small library off the front hallway. I sighed and set the last fork in its place. Something always came along to interrupt dinner—which was, by the smell, something excellent . . . but then, with Mrs. Hodgins as Cook, it always was—whether it was Uncle Kane absorbed in his studies in the library so that we had to hold dinner for him, or Uncle Kane’s strange friends showing up just when dinner was to be served. . . .

Which was what it seemed was happening now. And it certainly won’t be the last time, I thought wryly as I exited the dining room and walked down the front hall. I hurried my sedate pace when the knocking started again, this time louder and more insistent.

“I’m coming!” I called, breaking into a light jog for the last ten meters of hallway. When I got to the door, I paused to straighten my clothes and hair—a gentleman never looks like one o’clock half-struck, if he can help it was one of Uncle Kane’s many useful pieces of advice—before swinging the heavy wooden door open.

Standing on the doorstep was a tall figure wearing a white and dun burnoose and an indigo turban and alasho, the latter of which covered the bottom two-thirds of his face. What little skin was visible around eyes and bridge of nose was tanned and weathered. Dark, dark eyes regarded me unreadably and the only other part of the stranger that was visible—work-roughened hands—were held out in a gesture of welcome, as if I’d come knocking on his door.

“Talcott residence. Er . . . may I help you?” I asked uncertainly, and the tall figure bowed deeply, easily.

“Greetings and good evening to you, young sir,” he said in a low, strangely-accented tenor. “I hope I have not arrived on your doorstep at an inconvenient time.”

“Er, well,” I began delicately, but the stranger went on smoothly, making another, shallower bow.

“This is the home of El-Kanaah el-Mujahid, is it not?”

I blinked. Then smiled apologetically. “Er. Ah. No. You have the wrong residence,” I replied, starting to close the door. But the stranger held out his hand to touch the door lightly, and that was enough to stay my own hasty hand. “I’m sorry, but you really have the wrong residence, sir. And truthfully, there’s no one by that name within a square mile of this Hawthorne Street.”

But the stranger shook his head and reached up to pull down his alasho. The face revealed—an ascetic’s face, long, lean, solemn, and intelligent—was indeed tanned and weather-beaten, though not as much as around his eyes. Eyes that were intent and intense as they met mine.

“Please. It is imperative that I speak with El-Kanaah el-Mujahid,” he insisted in a near-whisper. “Quite imperative.”

“I understand that, sir, but he does not live here,” I assured him, my own impatience to have this accidental meeting over with shining through, I’m ashamed to say. Then I started to close the door again. This time, the hand on the door was a bit more forceful, and the door stopped.

“Then who does live here, if not El-Kanaah el-Mujahid?”

I stiffened, debating whether or not to call for my uncle to put this stranger off our doorstep. It was then that I noticed that the person this stranger was looking for had a name that, if said in an accent more like the ones I was used to, could be said to be similar. . . .

But of course, that was nonsense. Uncle Kane had strange friends, indeed. Foreign friends. But none so foreign as this.

Or so I told myself as I proudly said my uncle’s full name, never mind what this stranger thought of the coincidence. “This is the residence,” I began haughtily, “of the great explorer and archaeologist Elkanah Richard Talcott.”

At this the stranger’s eyes lit up. “Yes!” he said, smiling and revealing white, even teeth. “El-Kanaah, bin Talcott el-Mujahid! This is who we have come here to see!”

“We?” I said belatedly as the stranger looked over his shoulder and waved to our hedges. A moment later, four people in similar dress—burnooses of the same coarse white and dun wool, and indigo turbans and alashos—stepped onto our walk.

“Er,” I said again, intelligently, and the stranger turned to me, smiling, still.

“May we come in to see him?”

I opened my mouth then shut it as the four other strangers joined the first on the front step. Their faces were covered by their alashos, but that could not hide the fact that these people—three of the four, anyway—were much darker than anyone I’d ever met, the skin between alashos and turbans running the gamut between rich earth, milk-chocolate, and caramel. Of the fourth, I could make out skin only slightly darker than Uncle Kane’s—which was fairly tanned from months spent exploring and excavating—and unnervingly pale brown eyes.

One of the other four—the one with the milk chocolate complexion and startlingly golden eyes a few shades darker than the lighter-skinned one—leaned over to whisper to the one with the earthen complexion. The burnoose did little to hide the fact that she was a woman. Wide, round, dark eyes took my measure and she nodded at whatever was whispered to her.

I flushed, certain it was about me.

Then I blanched.

Who were these people, to cause me to blush so on the threshold of my own home?

It was time to call my uncle to deal with this.

“UNCLE KANE!”

*

Uncle Kane’s reaction was not what I expected.

He came out of the library with a mildly annoyed but resigned look on his face, only for that look to disappear in the biggest smile I’d ever seen him wear.

Then he was hurrying forward speaking in a strange language—he spoke many strange languages—and opening his arms wide. The first stranger, the one who’d knocked on the door made a startled exclamation and shoved his way past me to rush into Uncle Kane’s waiting embrace. The two hugged for long moments, laughing and speaking so fast that even had I spoken that language I likely would have been at a loss.

Finally, Uncle Kane held the stranger back at arm’s length and looked him over, still grinning.

“Amazzal el-Zeddgan! My word!” He laughed a little and there were tears in his eyes. “After all these years!”

“It has indeed been long, my friend. Far too long,” the stranger, Amazzal el-Zeddgan, said warmly. He looked my uncle up and down and nodded, seemingly pleased with what he saw. “You have led no sedentary life since last we saw each other!”

Sighing, my uncle stood a little straighter. He was not nearly as tall as Amazzal el-Zeddgan. The Talcott men are known for many things, including intelligence and a love of adventure—myself excluded for that latter. I liked my routines and the banal sights that spoke of home and safety—but not for their prodigious height. At seventeen, I was small—what some of my uncle’s friends called “scrappy”—and wiry, all knees and elbows, as I had been for most of my life. I was unlikely to shoot up the extra centimeters that would make me even my uncle’s middling height. Nor, I feared, would I ever be handsome. I bore the Talcott hallmark dark grey eyes, and narrow, angular features topped by straight, fine, mouse-brown hair. A keen enough face, but not a beautiful one.

My uncle now ran his hand back through the same mouse-brown, revealing the Talcott widow’s peak, and laughed again. “My good friend,” he said wonderingly, clapping Amazzal el-Zeddgan’s shoulder. “What brings you here after all this time?”

And the other man’s enthusiastic smile slowly faded. Then he looked toward the door—which I still leaned against—and the other four strangers on the doorstep. My uncle followed his gaze and his mouth dropped open in complete shock.

Then he was bowing deeply to the strangers as Amazzal el-Zeggdan had to me, arms and hands spread open in welcome.

He said something in that other language . . . Amazigh, I believed it to be—he’d tried to teach me several over the course of my life with him but I was dreadfully bad at languages. My strong-suits were maths and music, and to a lesser extent history—then bid me: “Step aside and allow our honored guests to come in out of the weather, Elisha.”

I immediately did so, opening the door wider so they could enter. The first to enter was the woman, sedately and with some gravitas. Her bearing, even despite the coverings of burnoose and alasho was quite regal and assured. She stepped past me with an almost deferential nod of acknowledgement that made me blush for my earlier stilted and unwelcoming politeness. She smelt of something musky and darkly sweet.

She was followed by the one with the caramel complexion—another woman, from the way she moved, though she must have been awfully slender under her burnoose. Dramatic, dark eyes met mine briefly, seeming wary and amused at the same time. Then she was past me, looking around the front hall curiously, leaving the scent of some flowery, but light perfume in her wake.

Immediately following her was the one with the milk-chocolate complexion and golden eyes. He, like the girl before him, met my eyes squarely. His own were wary and not exactly friendly. He passed me and only looked around cursorily, as if for obvious enemies. I noted that he smelt of incense and something else strong and undeniably masculine.

Finally the last stranger was stepping past me with a nod, as well, his pale eyes taking my measure and dismissing me almost instantly. His scent was that of water in a rocky place and faintly of sweat.

I stared after them for long moments then belatedly closed the door and locked it off my uncle’s raised eyebrows.

Then we were, all of us, standing around awkwardly and avoiding gazes.

Finally, my uncle cleared his throat and bowed again, gesturing to me. “May I present my nephew, Elisha Talcott III. Elisha, this is the Qasa Iassana Keita—Queen Iassana Keita, that is –of the Mandenka Empire, and the prince-consort, Amastan el-Hinan. And this strapping lad and lovely young lady are the Prince Amenzu el-Amastan and the Princess Tamilla. Your majesty, your highnesses, this is my brother’s son, Elisha.”

My jaw had quite dropped by this point, and I stood there gaping while all four luminaries bowed to me. “We greet you, Elisha son of Elisha, with a heavy, but open heart,” the regal woman said in a low, smoky alto. I fear I’d have stood there all night, still gaping, had my uncle not cleared his throat and smiled wryly.

“Will you be so kind as to inform Mrs. Hodgins that we’re to have five extra guests, and ask her if she might whip something up for them—something without pork of any kind in it?” he said to me, his eyes resting almost yearningly on the woman who’d led the way into our home. He bowed again, and said something to her in that other language. She nodded once, and he smiled. “And when you’ve done that, Elisha, you may join us in the drawing room.”

“Yes, uncle,” I said, nearly bowing, myself. Then I caught myself—even if the relationship between uncle and I had been a reserved and formal one, it wouldn’t have been that formal—and simply nodded once.

As I eased past the five strangers and my uncle, excusing myself, I felt eyes on me. When I looked up from my contemplation of the Oriental rug under my feet as it went by, I stumbled and tripped on the damned thing. Not an infrequent occurrence, as I was as clumsy as I was short. But a strong hand caught me by the arm and kept me from going sprawling, then righted me easily enough.

“Oh, dear! Are you alright, Elisha?” My uncle asked, finally moving his gaze from the woman briefly to glance at me. Fiercely flushed and somewhat mortified, I looked up to see who’d caught and steadied me. I found myself looking into golden eyes—lion’s eyes—that were wary, but less unfriendly, now. Bordering on amused.

I freed my arm from his grip and looked away. “I’m fine, uncle. The Oriental strikes again,” I muttered, hurrying away from my distracted uncle and his guests. All the way down the hall I could feel those lion’s eyes upon me.

*

When I entered the drawing room, after having informed Mrs. Hodgins of the change in plans, it was to see my uncle and his guests seated—my uncle in his favorite chair near the fireplace. (The table next to it was of course laden with more books than any self-respecting end-table should ever have to bear.)

All the royal visitors and Amazzal el-Zeggdan were arranged in this fashion: the calmly dignified Qasa with the rich-earth skin was seated in the chair opposite my uncle’s, the one I usually sat in of an evening. She had removed her alasho and the face it revealed was strong-featured and regal as her bearing had suggested.

Amazzal el-Zeggdan was standing near the door, and nodded when I came in. He closed the doors to the drawing room behind me—the first time they had ever been closed the entire time I’d been in residence at my uncle’s house.

The pale-eyed prince-consort had also removed his alasho, revealing a face as darkly handsome as that of any Gipsy. His unnerving eyes were on the fire at the hearth, his expression stubbornly brooding and troubled.

On the sofa behind and between my uncle’s chair and what was normally my own, the prince with the golden eyes—though I should say princeling, for without his alasho, he looked to be no older than I—sat watching me cross the spacious drawing room like a lion watches . . . well, anything that isn’t another lion, I suppose. His features were strong and regal, as those of his mother, though they spoke of his father’s brooding stubbornness, as well.

Next to him was the young princess—perhaps a few years younger than me—with the caramel skin and the same darkly handsome features as the man with the pale eyes. She smiled as she saw me and moved over on the sofa in silent invitation.

Sighing—I wanted my chair, not the uncomfortable and hideous brocade sofa—I made my way to the pair and perched gingerly on the edge of the sofa next to her, hands folded in my lap. For eternal moments I sat stiffly, staring into the fire and wishing I could not only make out what my uncle and the dark queen were saying, but that I could understand the language in which they were saying it.

Sighing again, I glanced at the prince and princess to find them both watching me, one pair of dark, dove-soft eyes and one pair of fierce, golden, lion-eyes. I flushed again and remembered my manners.

“Has your journey been long?” I asked, attempting to make small talk. And my attempt must have been quite transparent for the princess laughed and the prince rolled his eyes.

“It has indeed been a long journey, with many stops along the way,” Princess Tamilla said, with only a faint accent. Her voice was lovely and light: a pretty soprano that I would have enjoyed hearing sing. “Many dangers there were between our home, Niani, and this city of Northaven. But ever were my mother and I safe, thanks to the efforts of Amazzal, and my father and brother.”

I tried to imagine such a journey—fraught with brigands and highwaymen, thieves and bandits . . . and could not. Not even with a caravan’s worth of protectors to ease the way of such a trip. For I knew little about the Mandenka people—not for my uncle’s lack of trying, but due to my own lack of interest in anything resembling travel or adventure—but I knew that the capital of the Mandenka Empire was indeed far south and east. Farther south than I ever had or ever would travel, for certain.

After that, silence fell between the three of us, and we semi-covertly studied each other. The princess had opened her burnoose and under it, she was wearing a purple and gold pagne of many yards of elaborately wrapped George cloth and travel-worn boots.

The prince had also opened his burnoose revealing plain, grey linen clothes of takatkat (a shirt) and akerbay (trousers) and boots similar to his sister’s. At his side, strapped on by a belt and in a scabbard, was a scimitar that hung to the floor, where it rested on the rug.

I momentarily wondered what they made of me: my pale skin, and comparatively bland clothes of brown trousers, green vest, and white shirt. And my shoes had not seen the miles that theirs had.

I looked down at my hands for a few moments before I hit upon an idea. Something to distract us all until dinner arrived and our guardians once more started paying attention to us. “Would you like a tour of the house?” I asked, looking up at the princess, then the prince. She had been watching her mother, but he had been watching me. For the umpteenth time that evening I blushed. “My uncle has many relics and souvenirs from his adventures all over the world, and maps and . . . other things that might interest you.”

The prince frowned. “No,” he said, his accent much heavier than his sister’s, and quite intriguing. His voice was markedly lower than mine. “We may be needed here.”

The princess snorted and stood, smiling at me. “That is doubtful. The only reason we’re along in the first place is because mother and father didn’t want to leave us in Niani without Amazzal to protect us,” she said to me and to her brother, glancing at him before turning back to me. “We would greatly enjoy a tour of your home, Elisha ben-Elisha.”

“Tamilla—”

“Yes, Elisha,” my uncle said suddenly, startling all three of us into looking over at the adults, who were all looking at us. “Please escort their royal highnesses on a tour of the house until Mrs. Hodgins calls us for dinner.”

And looking into Uncle Kane’s dark grey eyes, I knew that unsubtle command for what it was: Get gone and stay gone so that we can get down to the real meat of the reason for their visit without worrying about what you’ll hear.

Sighing yet again, I stood and bowed to the princess, then the prince, who looked put-out and offended, but stood as well.

“Right this way,” I murmured, leading the way to the doors—past Amazzal—and through them. The princess was on my heels and, stalking along sullenly, silently after her, the prince.

The doors to the drawing room were immediately shut behind us.

*

As I led the princess and prince upstairs and through the rooms uncle had converted to galleries and small museums, I spoke rather long-windedly of my uncle’s extensive travels—which had been much more extensive before I’d come to live with him after my parents died in the Pandemic ten years ago—and his work with the National Science Academy.

Then, as we concluded the upstairs portion of the tour and made our way back to the staircase—thence to the library, where there were a few rather remarkable pieces, including a few from the infamous Airship Titanic—I realized I’d been speaking nonstop, if distractedly, without giving either the princess or prince a chance to ask questions.

“I apologize. I’ve been chattering on, so . . . did you have any questions about any of the pieces we’ve seen?” I asked, glancing back at them before starting down the stairs. The prince’s eyes had glazed over but the princess was still smiling her amused smile. “I’d be happy to answer any questions you have.”

“Is that so?” The prince snorted almost ruefully. “Then perhaps you might tell us why my parents have brought us here.”

I faltered on the step and clenched my hand around the bannister. “I had been hoping you might tell me, your highness.”

As we reached the first floor landing together, Princess Tamilla’s smile turned sad. “All we know is that in the middle of the night, nearly three months ago, our parents woke us and bid us dress plainly and pack sparely, but for a long journey north. Then Amazzal was sneaking us out of the palace and to a cheap caravansary on the outskirts of Niani. He and our parents cautioned us that no one must know who or what we were. That if any found out, nowhere would be safe for us.”

“But, supposedly, there was safety here,” Prince Amenzu said quietly, joining us on the landing and stepping in front of me to search my eyes. Looking into his golden ones, I shivered and flushed. “The legendary El-Kanaah el-Mujahid could make miracles happen where no one else could, we were reassured.”

“I would say that’s true.” I nodded, thinking of all my uncle’s adventures and clashes with death and danger. Things he would speak of only in generalities, obviously for fear of frightening me. And indeed, just the thought of his brushes with death—the thought of losing the last of my family to misadventure—was quite horrifying to me.

I shivered again, this time for a much different reason, and Prince Amenzu frowned, his brow furrowing. He reached out and put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently. “Fear not that we have brought danger to your doorstep, El-Isha. For my father and Amazzal have . . . covered our tracks quite well,” he said softly. And looking into his eyes in that moment I believed him, and felt some of my fear evaporate.

I nodded once more, my face heating up under the prince’s no longer wary regard, and we stood like that for a few moments till the prince’s brow furrowed again and he suddenly looked confused. Though not nearly as confused as I felt.

“Er,” I began, backing away from him as he let go of my shoulder. I instantly missed the warmth of his hand and turned away, starting abruptly for the library. “I don’t know what troubles have brought you here, but I do know that my uncle is ever loyal to his friends, and clearly he holds your family in high regard. He will help you as best he may,” I promised, for I knew it to be true.

Prince Amenzu caught up with me, walking on my right side. Princess Tamilla drew up even on my left. I glanced at each of them: the prince still looked slightly confused and the princess looked merely thoughtful, that smile nowhere in evidence.

“What if even the great El-Kanaah cannot help us?” she murmured lowly. “What if. . . ?”

“There’s never been a problem so insurmountable that my uncle could not find a way over, around, or straight through it,” I said—which was again the truth as I saw it. “He is, as you say, a great man. And a clever one.”

“How is it that you have come to live with him, if I may ask?” Prince Amenzu was obviously trying to distract himself and the princess from a worry that they not only couldn’t do anything about, but of which they did not even know the exact nature. In a moment of empathy, I was more than happy to assist him to that end.

“When I was seven, my parents died in the Great Pandemic of ’18,” I said, and Princess Tamilla gasped, stopping and putting her hand on my arm. Her eyes were wide and shining.

“Iwichken, she said with genuine sympathy. I knew the word meant condolences. It was one word of a few dozen I remembered from uncle’s ill-fated attempts to teach me another language. And though I’d always found language to be difficult—even my own native one—none had stymied me as much as Amazigh, the language of the nomadic peoples among which my uncle and my father had spent several years. I’ve never had a knack for language or its particulars and construction. Ever had my language arts tutors despaired of me.

“My Uncle Kane was father’s younger brother. When he received word that my parents were dead . . . he immediately dropped what he was doing, took the very next airship to Croft, where my parents had settled some years before I was born, and brought me here, to his home in Northaven.” I smiled a little, remembering that confusing, awful time, and how, in the midst of all the change—most of it quite terrible—I had delighted in seeing the world from an airship. Something I knew my parents had ridden several times, but which I had never yet been on, had bewitched and enthralled me. Uncle Kane hadn’t been able to drag me away from the windows long enough to eat a full meal. And I’d been quite bereft once our flight ended all too soon.

But Uncle Kane had assured me that when I was old enough to come with him on his adventures, I’d have many more chances to ride in an airship. Maybe even one of the great ones, like the Titanic had been, or the Nostromo still was.

“He was kind enough to spend the next three years at home, instead of gallivanting off anywhere and everywhere, as had been his wont. He taught at the University for those three years, until adventure called again, and I was old enough to go off to boarding school. Though that didn’t last very long.” My smile faded. I had not liked that experience, and it’d ended after the first year, my uncle choosing to have me tutored at home instead. Though he’d worried that I wouldn’t learn to socialize with peers my own age. But it wasn’t to be helped. I had been so miserable, and when it came down to it, uncle could deny me nothing. And he wouldn’t force me to stay someplace I so hated.

The princess gasped again while I was wool-gathering and when I looked up, she was stepping past me into the library, eyes so wide they looked to be in danger of falling out. I followed her gaze and smiled.

The library was wall to wall, floor to vaulted ceiling with books. And uncle’s tastes were eclectic and very widely varied. I did not doubt he had at one time or another read every book in that library. I, myself, had sadly only read a quarter of them at most, choosing to spend my free time playing and writing music. Indeed, there was a small pianoforte in the library that I spent so much of my time on. Even when uncle was in the library, for he loved to listen to me play. He said I always played the perfect accompaniment to whatever he happened to be reading or working on.

“So many books,” Princess Tamilla said, turning in a circle, still wide-eyed and clearly awed. “Even the library at the palace is not so fully stocked. And I’m not allowed to go to the one at the Niani Public University . . . not yet, anyway.”

And such was the determination in her voice that I knew uncle would find her a kindred spirit.

“Feel free to examine anything you like—just remember where you found it or uncle will lecture you most grievously,” I said, grinning, and Princess Tamilla laughed.

“I should soon lose my head in such a library. I would never find myself again, let alone where I’d picked up a specific book! Oh! How wonderful to grow up here!”

“It was, that, indeed,” I agreed, glancing at the prince. He was watching his sister with fondness. “And you, your highness? Are you as fond of books as well?”

“That depends very much upon the book,” Prince Amenzu admitted, clearing his throat and looking at me, echoes of that former confusion quite readable in his golden eyes. “I like reading about history. And war. And swordplay. Everything else is above me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.” I blushed under his direct gaze and cleared my own throat. “I’m certain that you have a fine mind once you really apply it.” Something my tutors had forever been telling me.

“Tell that to mother and father.” Prince Amenzu snorted and stepped into the library proper, glancing around, too. He nodded with grudging approval, then looked back at me and smiled rather suddenly, and I felt it like a blow to the head and to the stomach. “Anyone who has read so much and so widely can surely help us, do you not think so, El-Isha?”

I opened my mouth to say: I certainly hope so, your highness, when just then the discreet chime that signaled supper rang throughout the house. Mrs. Hodgins worked quickly.

“That’ll be supper,” I said brightly, and Prince Amenzu nodded, approaching me. My heart began to beat very quickly for no reason whatsoever that I could tell. But I know I turned the bright, awful red of the very pale and very uncomfortable, and looked away. At Princess Tamilla. She was at the nearest shelves to the left, running her hands gently long the spines of the books and murmuring their names.

A kindred spirit, indeed.

And, quite suddenly, I felt for the first time that I might actually miss having a friend or two of my own age. At least if my peers had been more like the princess and the prince.

“Come, ‘Milla,” Prince Amenzu said, holding out a hand to his sister. “There will be time to look around after dinner. No doubt our parents, Amazzal, and El-Kanaah will want to speak more without us underfoot.”

Princess Tamilla looked over at us and sighed. “I suppose you’re right, ‘Menzu.” And taking one last look at the shelf, she quickly joined us back at the threshold of the library, taking her brother’s hand. Then we were, the three of us, making our way back down the front hall to where their parents and my guardian waited outside the drawing room for us to join them.

Even from that distance, I could read the look of steely determination on my uncle’s face, and the relief writ large on the Qasa’s regal features.

In that moment I had a feeling—both frightened and excited—that uncle would be heading off on another of his adventures quite soon. And this time. . . .

I found myself glancing over at Prince Amenzu, who’d been watching me and quickly looked away. I flushed yet again, looking down at my feet and smiling for no reason.

. . . this time, I’d be going with him.

END