Sophie was repairing the hem of a dress, pretending to concentrate very hard on her sewing while in truth paying very close attention to Howl's client.

She suspected she was paying more attention than Howl himself, given the vagueness of his answers.

Their visitor had dismissed Sophie out of hand when she answered the door, asking immediately for the wizard Howl and ignoring her completely once Howl showed his face. Thus, she was already disinclined to like him when she finally managed to guess the nature of his request from amongst the mumbles and circumlocutions and general euphemisms.

"If you please, let me check that I am truly understanding this correctly," she said, putting her mending aside and bringing herself up to her full height. Their visitor blinked at her, as if he had forgotten her presence. "In your country, the heir to the kingdom is always the first born son, and this is confirmed by a magic sword, which is too heavy to lift for all but the king and heir."

"That's correct."

"And your 'problem' is that your first-born child is not, in fact, your wife's child, but the child of your mistress, whom you had slept with before your marriage."

"Well, how was I supposed to know that would count," the hapless king blustered.

"And so you had the poor child and his mother sent away to another country, with enough gold to keep them in comfort - I suppose I should be glad you didn't have them both killed. However, now your legitimate child is thirteen, and he cannot lift your sword."

"I want you to magic it so that my son can lift the sword," said the king. "No other wizard has managed. If you can do this, you will be the most powerful wizard in the land."

Sophie barely refrained from rolling her eyes. Howl met her gaze, his eyes dancing with amusement.

"I will have to think on this," said Howl grandly. "Return to me in one day and I will let you know my decision."

The king left through the door, seeming a little deflated.

"What a complete idiot," said Sophie. "I have no sympathy whatsoever, except for the poor mistress and child, and the queen who's married to him."

"I'm not going to complete his request," said Howl. "Magic swords aren't worth bothering with; far more trouble than they're worth."

Sophie tapped her finger on Howl's workbench. "The problem is, even if we find the mistress and her child, how do we ensure that the legitimate child isn't going to resent his brother? The last thing any kingdom needs is a deposed prince staging a coup. No, we need to make certain the boys are friends."

"A quest," said Howl positively. "Learning to get along through shared peril is an important lesson for any young boy."

She snapped her fingers. "That's it. You arrange for some artifact or other from the kingdom to be stolen, and make the king send the boys to retrieve it together - I'm sure you can come up with some kind of mumbo jumbo to justify it."

Howl brightened at this. "Perhaps some kind of curse that can only be lifted if--"

Sophie cleared her throat pointedly. "Once they're friends, the legitimate child will be able to educate the true heir in all the politics and manners that he missed growing up, and once the heir becomes king he will appoint his brother as prime minister."

"That sounds like enough to start with," said Howl. "Thank you, Sophie."

And with any luck, Sophie could arrange it so she didn't have to be home when the king came back the next day.

Whistling, she returned to her mending.