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What did it matter what other people thought? What passed between himself and the girl he loved was their own business.

“I’ll have to tell your father,” Grundy said, nettled.

Suddenly Dor had pause to reconsider. This was the daughter of the King!

“I’ll tell him myself, you wad of string and clay!” Irene snapped. “Did you find him?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t tell a bad girl like you.”

“Maybe I should grow a large flytrap plant and feed you to it,” Irene replied.

That fazed the golem. “I found them all. In three cells, the way the three of you were, one in each cell. Queen Iris, King Trent, and King Omen.”

Irene sat up abruptly, disengaging from Dor. “Are they all right?”

Grundy frowned. “The men are. They have been through privation before. The Queen is not pleased with her situation.”

“She wouldn’t be,” Irene agreed. “But are they all right physically? They haven’t been starved, or anything?”

“Well, they were a bit close-mouthed about that,” the golem said. “But the Queen seems to have lost weight. She was getting fat any way, so that’s all right, but I guess she hasn’t been fed much. And I saw a crust of bread she left. It was moldy. The flies are pretty thick in there, too; must be a lot of maggots around.”

Irene got angry. “They have no right to treat royalty like that!”

“Something else I picked up,” Grundy said. “The guard who feeds them-it seems he eats what he wants first, and gives them the leavings. Sometimes he spits on it, or rubs dirt in it, just to aggravate them.

“They have to cat the stuff anyway or starve. Once he even urinated in their water, right where they could see him, to be sure they knew what they were drinking. He doesn’t speak, he just shows his contempt by his actions.”

“Why is he keeping the others alive, then?” Dor asked, appalled by both the method and the rationale. Mundanes played politics in an ugly fashion.

“Well, we have seen how he operates. If he lets the three spend time together and become friends, then he can use the others as leverage against King Omen. Remember how you told me he was going to torture Irene to make you talk?”

“He’s going to torture my parents?” Irene demanded, aghast.

“I dislike formulating this notion, but it is a prospect.”

Irene was silent, smoldering. Dor decided, regretfully, to tackle the problem of freeing the prisoners. “I hoped King Trent could use his power to break out, but I’m not sure how transformation of people can unlock doors. If we can figure out a way-“

“Elementary,” Amolde said. “The King can transform the Queen to a mouse. She runs out through a crevice. Then he transforms her back, and she opens the cells from the outside. If there are guards, he can transform her to a deadly monster to dispatch them.”

So simple! Why hadn’t he, Dor, thought of that?

Irene shifted gears, in the manner of her sex, becoming instantly practical. “Who is in the cell closest to the wall?”

“The Queen.” The golem frowned. “You know, I think she’s the only one the magic aisle can reach. The wall’s pretty thick in that region.”