At the sight of the royal palace, Merida's skin prickled with excitement. After three dusty moons travelling in a cramped carriage, the most thrilling time of her life was about to begin.

On the palace façade, banners and glazed tiles showed the bull emblem of the Queendom, and a dozen men guarded the bronze-studded entrance, standing as stiff as their spears. Yet the city clustering around smelled like a village of overripe fruit and animals. Donkeys brayed, chickens cackled, and wheels screeched. Natives in bright clothes balanced straw baskets on their shoulders.

The dust-silvered leaves on the trees curled limply, parched after prolonged drought. Merida would give the people of Quislak rain to revive their land, and the knowledge of the Virtues to nourish their souls. Here, in this primitive country, she could make a difference and gain gratitude for her generosity and skill.

She climbed out of the carriage, stretched her travel-stiff legs, and told her servants to wait. Two guards checked her pass and waved her into a cool atrium, where a further watchman demanded to see the documents again.

“Merida Karr of Hohenhegen,” the white-whiskered guard read aloud. “Personal Value 248. Female. Widowed. Age: 24 summers. Occupation: Magician. Status: Diplomat.” He squinted at the document as if he suspected it to be a fake. “I’ve never seen a magician travelling with a diplomat’s pass.”

“You have now.” She unrolled the invitation, a parchment with a huge “K” and a seal with a purple ribbon.

He muttered about magicians and diplomats and about things not being as they used to be, copied her information with a reed brush, and told her to queue at another desk.

The Queendom seemed to have more of those green-clad officials than a hive had bees. Merida yearned to wash the travel grime from her stiff limbs, and to rest in the privacy of a cool apartment, but disciplined herself to be patient. Naturally, the administration in a primitive country would be less efficient than in Riverland.

Many voices had doubted either Merida's ability, or warned her that nothing good would come of the mission. Mother had denounced the plan instantly. “Second Daughter! Mingling with primitives is not fitting for a member of the Karr family.”

“It's an honourable goodwill assignment on behalf of the government,” Merida assured her. “The poor people of Quislak have been plagued by droughts. They suffer terrible thirst, and their crops are dying. We can't let them perish. They've begged the Virtuous Republic for help, and since I'm an expert in weather magic...”

“Have you no shame, Second Daughter? Cease this boasting at once, and obey the Virtue of Modesty.” The matriarch stabbed rapidly at her embroidery. “The whole idea is short-sighted, unconsidered, foolish, immature. Instead of dispatching victuals to nourish the primitives, the government sends another development aid worker. What good will it do? The previous aid workers built wells, sowed vegetables, taught school, preached the Four Virtues. The primitives laughed at the Virtues, ignored the schools, grazed their animals on the crops, and used the wells to water the animals. Flocks increased and the overgrazing became worse. And now – a rain-dancing magician. Ha.”

“This is an opportunity to enlighten primitives and spread the wisdom of the Four Virtues.” It would also be a chance to see appreciative smiles instead of censorious frowns.

“A Karr has no need to deal with primitives. Can't you give a thought to your family, and what this will do to our value ranking? You may not care that your own will drop from 95 to 64, but you are dragging us down with you.” Her voice was as chilled as when Merida had fled from her violent husband and sought refuge with family.

“64 is not too bad.” Merida gazed at the mosaic pattern on the square table between them. “It's still more than twice what the average citizen has, and it's only for a year.”

“The year of the elections, when every point counts.” Mother's nostrils flared. “Stop staring in my face, Second Daughter! How often do I have to remind you that my personal value is 547?”

Obediently, Merida lowered her gaze to her mother's waist, but that did not prevent a tirade. “No longer having a husband does not give you the right to do what you like. A development aid worker abroad is worth no more than a middle-ranker, a tradeswoman, a schoolteacher, a commoner. Having one in the immediate family lowers everyone's points. Just when I have enough points at last to get nominated as Virtuous Vice President, you want to spoil it all. You are unbelievably selfish.”

“I'll still have my qualification points from the School of Magic,” Merida soothed. “And a foreign magic mission need not mean I'll be a development aid worker. When scholar magician Helva Hein – the Virtues bless her memory – undertook international assignments for the government, she did it with the status of special ambassador.”

Mother's eyes lit up. “Special ambassador! This will raise your value to 248, and mine to 551. The whole family will benefit.” She dropped her embroidery to rub her hands. “I shall set levers in motion to ensure you are appointed special ambassador. Our nation's greatest weather magician deserves nothing less.”

Dizzying excitement swamped Merida's heart. Never would she have dared to dream of such a high value, outranking her siblings, breaking into the top one per cent of society. Everyone would respect her; even Mother's biting contempt would cease. Although the high value applied only to the eight moons needed to travel to the Queendom, do the job and return, she might hold on to the rank, the way Helva Hein had. If Merida completed her mission with spectacular success, she could hope for more assignments and a permanent title. The government might even award honour points in recognition of her services to the Virtues.

“Next!”The official's bellow jerked her back into her the present. “Ah, Merida Karr of Hohenhegen. At last. You've been on the list for ages.” He pushed a finger under his moss-coloured turban to scratch his head. “Wait here until a servant can show you to the dormitory.”

“Dormitory?” Merida chewed on the foreign word. “You mean, bedroom?”

“The room with the beds, yes.”

“Beds? I’m not sharing my room.”

His finger slid along a list. “The ground floor dormitory. It’s very comfortable, with only a dozen women in the room, and you have your own bed.”

“This is a misunderstanding I will not sleep in a dormitory.” Merida pronounced the Quislak language carefully so that there could be no misunderstanding. “Especially not on the ground floor. I'm the special ambassador of the Virtuous Republic. My staff may sleep in dormitories, but I will not.”

He rifled through a pile of parchments on desk. “Staff? We don't house servants in the palace. And I can tell you, they won’t find a stable or roof in town. Everything’s full, with Fool’s Plea Day coming up. If they're lucky and not too fat, maybe they can squeeze on a roof in the suburbs.”

“My contract promises a two-room apartment in a quiet part of the palace, seventh storey or higher, well-lit, fully furnished with private washing facilities, and separate accommodation for my staff.” She drew the document from her shoulder bag and unrolled it for him.

He flicked away a fly. “A private apartment in the palace? During the Fool’s Plea celebrations? You foreigners have strange ideas.”

Merida counted silently to eight. Did this situation call for tolerance about foreign cultures, or for assertiveness? She decided on the latter. “Take me to the Queen.”

The man laughed. “Her Luminous Exultancy doesn't receive petitioners.”

“The Consort, then. He signed the contract.”

“Wait until he invites you for an audience.”

“When will that be?”

“Who can tell? In four days, perhaps, or in ten.” He made a gargling noise in his throat, and spat.

Merida raised her voice. “Take me to the Consort! Now!”

People spilled out of doors and corridors as if they had been waiting for entertainment, chattering like excited chickens. Their cheap jewellery clinked, and they devoured her with curious gazes.

A bronze-faced man pointed at her. “A new wife?”

Merida perused the crowd with a superior stare. “I'm the special ambassador of the Virtuous Republic of Riverland.”

They snickered until a tall woman strode down the corridor. At once, heads dropped into guilty bows.

“What’s going on?” Sharpness swung in her voice.

Since this woman seemed to hold authority, Merida explained her credentials and purpose, and waited for a return introduction.

Instead, the woman turned to the guard. “Is your duty too challenging for you?”

He pulled his head into hunching shoulders. “I crave your forgiveness, my Lady, I told her she can’t -”

She silenced him with a wave of her hand. Copper bangles clinked. “Let her see the Consort.”

“But -” the guard objected.

“You heard me. Let her. Kirral will be amused.” To Merida, the woman said, “The Consort’s study is at the end of the corridor, the one with the red door.” Before Merida could thank her, she slinked away with the fluidity of a snake.

The crowd parted, letting Merida pass. She felt their tense gazes in her back as she strode down the unlit corridor. The clacking of her boots sent tiny lizards darting for cover.

Her knock on the red door yielded no reply. When she pushed, the door whined inwards on its hinges. The temperature dropped. The cool air was thick with incense.

A man reposed cross-legged on a divan. On his head squatted a pumpkin-coloured turban like a fat hen on an egg, revealing little of his face beyond a knife-shaped moustache. Pale legs stuck out of a short tunic and ended in pink pointy slippers with big pompoms. Bent over a Siege gaming board, he did not acknowledge her arrival.

Quietly, she let the door click into its frame and spoke her rehearsed introduction in fluent Quislaki. “I am Merida, second daughter of the First Family of Karr of Hohenhegen, personal value of 248, eleventh-degree magician, special ambassador for the Virtuous Republic of Riverland.”

She waited for him to confirm his identity, but he did not glance up. After counting sixteen heartbeats, she assembled the words for her complaint. “I must inform you of a communication difficulty. Members of your staff seem to assume that I'll sleep in a dormitory.”

Still not looking up, he twisted a yellow gaming stone and clacked it into a new position.

For a further thirty-two heartbeats, Merida took in the flower-patterned chipped tiles on the walls, the mural of the map of the Queendom, the shelves untidily crammed with scrolls, the lavishly embroidered but badly stained upholstery of the divans. Then she had enough. She pushed her fists into her waist. “Am I addressing His Highness Lord Kirral, Consort to the High Queen of Quislak?”

He tilted his head at her, balancing a green gaming stone on the tip of his pinkie. “Do you play Siege?”

Could this buffoon be the Consort who ruled the nation on behalf of the Queen? Perhaps she had mistaken the door, or the woman in the corridor had played a practical joke on her. Yet an underling would not dare to play Siege against himself during work hours.

“I possess some trifling skill,” she replied stiffly. “But I'm not here to play games. If you want rain for your country, you must honour the terms of the agreement. I cannot and will not work magic unless the conditions are right, including privacy for the preparations. This contract promises a private apartment.” She waved the parchment at him.

“I am a busy man.” His voice had the low-humming hiss of a wasp hovering over rotting fruit. “I do not have time to keep promises.”

He clacked the green token down and pushed the other stones rapidly across the gaming board. His aura pulsed with blue hues of intellectual power so strong it made her skin prickle. He appeared to have forgotten her presence.

Merida stepped forward. “Are you, or aren't you, the Consort Kirral?” she demanded. “Do you, or don't you, want rain for your land?”

At last, he raised his face. His eyes flashed at her, green as polished peridots with jewel-hard brightness. His mouth spread into a smile so wide that the moustache quivered. Merida's skin crawled as if slugs were slithering up her spine.

“Yes, I am the Consort.” His voice softened to the texture of rubber. “I look forward to playing with you.”

A chill crept across her skin, but the furnace of her anger blasted it away. She would have yelled, were such display of unbridled emotion not un-Riverian. Now that she had a personal value of 248, she would always act with dignity. She dipped a curt bow and marched out, letting the door snap shut behind her.

Back in the blinding sun, she assessed what had happened. Clearly, the Consort did not mean to honour the terms of the contract. Perhaps she should return home at once, leaving the Consort to his games, and the people to drought and starvation. It meant admitting her mission had failed, and everyone would remind her they had told her so. She could already see the disdain on Mother's face, and hear her censorious voice stating that her Second Daughter would never amount to much.

To prove her worth, Merida had to stay and bring more rain than anyone could dream.

When she returned to her coach and told her servants that they would have to sleep on a roof, their stricken faces shook her resolve.

“On a roof? Under the open sky?” Her maid's voice broke into quivers. “Squeezed close to strangers?”

“That's what I'm told. For the first couple of nights, anyway.” She tried to sound confident. “Maybe things get better once this festival is over. There'll be more space then, even if it's still on a roof.”

The second woman joined the sobbing. The man buried his face in his palms.

Merida took pity. “You three go home. You need not suffer indignities for my sake.”

Hope shone from the maid's tear-veiled eyes. “Really? We may go?”

“Of course.” Merida mustered a smile. “I may even stay for a while in this country and research primitive magic.”

The coach driver said, “I don't like leaving you alone in this land.” But he was already adjusting the reins.

“I'll be fine,” Merida said with more confidence than she felt. “The Virtues will protect me.”

*

The dormitory smelled of oranges and unwashed feet. A dozen voices shrilled at once about who was wearing what for the forthcoming festival. Tension knotted the muscles across Merida's shoulders so tightly that they hurt. How could she find the refreshing sleep her mind craved tonight, and the privacy to prepare her great act of magic scheduled two moons from now?

Nothing had prepared her for the realities of this assignment. The government had sent her on courses to brush up her already fluent language skills and to learn about etiquette. She had sat through endless lessons about her own nation's history, about the diplomatic immunity of a special ambassador, and the need to set a shining example of a Virtuous lifestyle. To get a better understanding of her host country, Merida had questioned traders and travelling tumblers who had worked in Quislak, but Mother and the government soon prevented contact with such low-value people. Instead, they granted her an appointment with the government's chief ethnologist.

Merida remembered how the old man had received her in his third-floor study, at a square table with his personal value of 260 carved into the surface.

“Merida Karr, eleventh degree magician, personal value 95.” Noting that his value exceeded hers by more than a hundred points, she bowed her head to chest level before taking the proffered chair. A servant shuffled in on bowed legs to pour tea. Merida sipped gratefully.

The ethnologist stared at her forehead as he steepled his fingers under his pointed chin. "My child, you must be prepared to witness the most horrendous customs, and brace yourself against succumbing to any of them. Sins and superstitions lurk everywhere in Quislak. I hate to frighten you, but..." His eyes gleamed. "These people cook animal corpses for food. Moreover, they set aside milk to go rancid, and when it's curdled solid they squeeze it into blocks and devour that." He shuddered delicately. The chin quivered.

Merida kept her gaze lowered as befitted someone talking to a person whose value exceeded hers significantly. "What does the solid milk taste like?"

He drew up in affront. "My child, I did not eat their food! But I have seen it with my own eyes, this pale, sour-smelling substance they call cheese." He reached across the table to pour himself another mug of purifying sage tea, and swirled the brew in his mouth as if to wash away the memory of the sinful flavour. “That's not all! You will see people wearing apparel in pink, in yellow, even in red. No law prohibits sinful colours, and no spiritual refinement to curb the excess. And imagine..." Leaning forward, he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "They wear only a single outer garment, a knee-length tunic. No trousers underneath. One can see their lower legs." His tongue flicked across his lips and withdrew hastily. "Of course I always kept my eyes averted."

Merida placed her hands modestly in her lap. "I will not let the sight of legs lure me from the path of Virtues, but will model my behaviour on your example."

"They even show toes!" He threw his hands up in disgust. Tea spilled, raining green droplets on the immaculate desk. "They wear shoes especially designed to display these sinful appendages, all ten of them. Nothing but soles and a few thin straps across the instep and ankle. You must not be persuaded into such sinful fashions."

Merida promised earnestly that she would always uphold the standards required of a special ambassador of the Virtuous Republic of Riverland, neither baring her toes nor engaging in any of the other foolish native customs. But she admitted to her deepest self that she looked forward to seeing those sins.

“There’s more.” His voice drooped with sadness, as if he was breaking news of a tragic death. “The country is primitive to the extreme. No hospitals, no postal system, no sewers. In the southernmost part, the Samil, people still roam without fixed abode. They live in tents, not even square ones, but round.”

“Round!” Merida gasped, nearly forgetting to keep her gaze low. That was primitive indeed. “They haven’t even reached the threshold of civilisation?”

“In the northern part they have real houses, stone-built and rectangular. But in the south – the so-called Samil – development has not reached the civilisation stage.” He admitted he had neither been to the Samil nor seen round tents, but he had heard about them. He warned her that the country was patriarchal. “Although among the lower classes, women and men are equal, you will meet few women in active leadership roles.”

“It's a Queendom,” Merida pointed out. “Surely there's a Queen at the top.”

“The Queen's position passes from mother to daughter, but all power lies with her husband. The country's noblemen select her Consort. I regret having to shock you, but....” Leaning forward, he whispered, “The Consort keeps a harem of concubines.”

Merida clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Quislakis are idolaters who worship as many gods as the night has stars, and they don't believe in the Four Virtues.” His voice shook. “They are so un-Virtuous that djinns flourish there.”

Merida felt the blood drain from her face. “Djinns? Virtues protect us.” She had heard of those malevolent spirits which invaded humans, dulling their consciences, stirring their desires, driving them to evil deeds. She had assumed these creatures belonged to the realm of myth. Parents used them to frighten young children into submission: 'Be quiet, or the djinns will get you.' That djinns existed in reality was a chilling thought.

“How can one tell if someone is possessed?”

“As a representative of the Virtuous Republic, you will associate only with people of the highest moral standards. You will not meet djinn hosts.” He rose. “Now, if that is all?”

Merida thanked him with the phrases appropriate to his personal value.

At the School of Magic, she commissioned a scribe to copy Scroll 414 from the collected works of the Most Virtuous Scholar Magician, Helva Hein, the section that contained a treatise on Malevolent Parasitic Entities and their Threats to the Ignorant Human. When the copy arrived, she packed it into her travel trunks, together with scrolls about Visual Symmetry and its Role in the Attainment of Civilisation, The Virtue of Modesty and its Rewards, and High-Value Persons and their Moral Obligations towards Inferiors.

*

Now Merida sat on her bedstead, tried to shut the persistent chattering and human odours from her mind, and wished she had brought a treatise on Incompetent Royal Consorts and their Meaningless Promises.

When she pulled her legs into the correct position to meditate upon the Virtues, women in gaudy garments flocked around her, invading her privacy with their high-pitched giggles and perfume reek. They pelted her with questions: where was she from, what was she doing here, what was her father’s occupation? They pulled at her four plaits to test if her bronze hair was real or made from spun metal, and stared directly into her eyes as if unaware that this was discourteous and dangerous and therefore taboo.

Resigned, Merida slid from her bed and assumed the opening stance of the ritual exercise routine from the Disciplined Path. Surely they would respect that.

“Why are you standing funny?” a rotund woman demanded.

Three others tilted her top trunk, spilling the contents on the rug. With excited squeals, they fell over the boxes and garment bags.

“You have weird clothes,” the plump girl squeaked. She had her arms inserted into the legs of Merida's best trousers, and waved them about. “What’s in the cute blue box?”

Merida threw herself across her trunk before they could touch her private garments. “Please leave my things alone!”

Too late. Two women were arguing over possession of a pair of dark grey trousers, each pulling so fiercely at a leg that the crotch seam broke with a rrratch sound. Others had discovered her boots and hurled them across the room in a throw-and-catch game.

Disciplining herself into calm dignity, she picked her night suit off the ground. “Where’s the bathroom, please?”

The rotund girl pointed to a water barrel in the corner. Merida hesitated to take off her clothes in front of others. Seeing the soapy scum on the surface, she reminded herself of the water shortage, and dipped her hand into the barrel. It came out covered in a greasy-grey film. Better stay unwashed. Using the toilet, however, was an ordeal she could not avoid. Her cheeks heated like fire as she sat on the shared multi-holed bench.

When she crawled under her blanket to change into her night suit, her fingers found brittle stains on the bedding. “This is not clean.”

A woman who wore earrings so long that they dangled to her breasts examined the stain. “Don't worry. It’s only food, and not even fresh food. Nobody’s slept in this bed for over a moon.”

Merida tossed the bedding on the ground, then recoiled at the reek of decomposing straw. Only Riverian discipline stopped her from crying. With gritted teeth, she layered clothes from her trunks over the smelly straw sack. Huddled under her cloak, she said a silent prayer to the Virtues of Loyalty, Honesty, Modesty, and especially Discipline.

One day, when she was a celebrated scholar magician, she would lecture about her Quislak assignment, and reveal to her audience how she had slept in a room with other people. First, she had to make her mission a spectacular success. On the day when the Planet of Discipline and the Planet of Honesty formed a symmetrical harmony with the moon, she would summon rain.