Spindle's End (41 page)

There was a quick scrambling noise not far from them, and then a long elegant blood-bay head with straw in its forelock was thrust out over a half door: Fast. Rosie broke into a run—thus finding out she could again do so—to open his door, and put her arms round his neck; and then they went to find Gorse. He had just finished opening his own door when they came to him:
A useful skill,
he said,
but one I have been careful not to overuse for fear of someone finding out I can do it. That is how I came to you that night, a season ago.

A prance from Fast: not a very good one, for the sleep still lay on him, but neither of the horses seemed as sick from it as those who had fallen in the Hall had been.

Fast bit her shoulder, lovingly, and not very hard, but Rosie looked at her friends in the striped twilight and thought: one reluctant princess who is really a horse-leech, two horses, a few hounds, a spaniel, a very small terrier, a fox, two mice, and a cat. And a fairy smith who says he’s better at smithing. And we are seeking to confront a wicked fairy who is planning to destroy our entire country, and the only people who might help us are asleep. I suppose it is a confrontation we want. I don’t
know
. This was what Katriona was supposed to do. Oh dear. I don’t suppose there’s any point in finding our way to the dairies or the poultry houses, and picking up a cow and a few chickens. I wonder what happened to Pernicia’s spindle when—when Woodwold threw her out of the Hall? Without her conscious volition, Rosie’s hand felt for the friendly wooden spindle end in her pocket.

She looked at Narl and saw he knew the shape of her thoughts. “Do you have any idea what we do now?”

Narl shook his head. After a moment’s silence he said: “I’m afraid it’s your call. In spite of the iron I’m carrying, the pressure of the magic here is making me stupid. Of the magics. That’s part of the problem. They strain against each other like the parts of a badly made tool you’re being forced to use—you don’t know which bit is going to fly to pieces first but you know something will. I should be able to give you a little warning if the balances shift dangerously, but that’s about all. I told you you would have been better off with Kat. But . . . there must be some way out even if I can’t think of it. Magic can’t do everything.”

Right, thought Rosie. It can only kill you or ruin your life or destroy everything that means anything to you. Fine.

It took them the rest of what might have been the morning, although the light did not change as on an ordinary day, to test the immediate boundaries of the briar hedge. Neither Narl nor Rosie believed there would be a way through, but, like trying the front doors in the Great Hall first, the venture had to be made. They asked the horses to stay where they were, just outside the stable doors, where there was a little rose-roofed clearing about the size of the Foggy Bottom wrights’ yard; the other, smaller, animals, and the two humans, pursued the inner circumference of the hedge.

There was indeed no way through. There were places a thin determined body could slide carefully along for some little distance—when it was between some wall of Woodwold and the hedge, the ancient and pitted stone facing of Woodwold was only slightly less cruel to human skin and clothing than the thorns of wild roses—but these never led anywhere. Even the mice said they could find no path that lasted more than a few dozen mouse-lengths.
There’s a
stretchy
feeling about this hedge,
said Hroc.
Like a leash made of green leather. There’s a give to it that makes you think it’s not serious, but it won’t let you go very far. It’s there to hold you in.

Several times Rosie tried to speak to Woodwold, but there was never any answer. She might, in the tension and anxiety of present circumstances, have begun to believe that she had never heard Woodwold saying
Rosie. Princess,
never felt the eerie awareness of the house watching her; but the quality of Woodwold’s silence now was not that of something that does not speak but of something that has been shut away, trapped, barricaded. Rosie stared at the impassable hedge and thought of herself during the last three months.

Then she thought: I wonder what a bird might find, flying above this—prison? Perhaps there is some answer in the fact that we have seen no birds. She sighed. It was beginning to be difficult to ignore how hungry she was, and thirsty; they would not be able to go very much longer without risking a drink of water. Her eyes went longingly to the water butt outside the stable door.

She tried to remember some of Aunt and Katriona’s conversations about spell breaking. This didn’t come up very often in a place like the Gig, but it did occasionally. “Never attack a spell head-on,” Aunt had said. “That’s where it’s strongest. You need to sniff out where the weak places are. All spells have them; it’s just a matter of finding them . . . and, of course, being able to use them. If a spell has been very powerfully made, the likes of you or I won’t be able to.”

Magic can’t do everything. Think! We cannot get out through the doors—the house doors, nor the stable doors. We cannot get through the hedge. The tunnels again? I don’t think so—none of those other passages felt more—more— Pernicia must want to find me; she must know she’s been cheated. She must know—because Peony must be still alive. Rosie’s thought faltered here. Peony is still alive, and we must find her. Pernicia—never mind Pernicia now.

But she flung the sleep over us as Woodwold threw up the hedge. We’re deadlocked.

Magic can’t do everything.

I wonder what a bird might find.

We haven’t tried up yet.

She looked at the low snaggy ceiling, at the cracks of glarey grey light; and then she looked down at Eskwa.
Eskwa both binds and cuts.
She did not want to cut Woodwold’s guard of roses; but could a gardener not bind back stems that were growing where she did not want them? She looked at the massive, formidable weave above and round her and shook her head; but she laid her hand on Eskwa nonetheless and felt it once again slide into her hand.

Bind,
she said to it.
Can you bind back a space for us to look through?

She held the blade over her head, so the tip of it slipped through the twining branches, and she felt it quiver, like a hunting dog on point. And there was a creaking noise, and a scraping, grinding noise, and the rose branches shook; and then there was a tiny hole, just over Rosie’s head, and it grew, the branches now writhing back like snakes, curling up on themselves like rope. Eskwa drew her on, tugging at her hand, its blade pressing against the hedge like a hand drawing back a fold of cloth. Rosie began to walk round in an ever-increasing circle as the space she had asked for grew larger and larger; till the courtyard in front of the stables was almost completely clear. . . .

And then Eskwa faltered, wavering in her hand, its tip falling from the circle of the hedge; and she saw that its blade was almost entirely eaten away, the crescent of it now barely wider than a tapestry needle. In astonishment she looked again at the pulled-back rose stems and saw that they were, indeed, bound, by a fine gleaming network of silver like a spiderweb.
Oh,
said Rosie.
Oh. Thank you. I’m sorry. I—I think I needed to ask. I didn’t know what else to do. I—I hope Ikor can make you fat again.
She stroked a gentle finger down the back of the long curved tapestry needle that had been a sabre, and then she went into the stables and hung it in the scabbard loop of Gorse’s parade saddle, which was the most honourable place she could think of for it.

And then she came back out to the courtyard again and stared at the sky, as everyone else was doing already; as everyone else had been doing since the gap first opened. There was a high thin cloud cover that seemed only to intensify the glare as it hid the position of the sun; and the sky itself was a funny colour, almost violet. Up is still up, she thought. And I don’t know what we might do for a ladder.

She felt small padded feet at her knee again, and Zel’s nose in her hand. She looked down at him, and he raised his nose, telling her to where to look; and then Narl’s hand was over her shoulder, pointing at a particular bit of sky, a particular odd swirl of cloud, an angular swirl, rather like a tall narrow castle with too few windows standing in a wide barren landscape. The funny colour was very noticeable just there, as if this were the place where the violet—lavender—purple—was leaking through to taint the sky.

“Even if you’re right,” said Rosie,
Even if you’re all right, and frankly, I don’t believe that even—er—the person we have to find can have conquered the sky, how would we get there?

Jump,
said Fast.

Rosie stared at the castle, which looked more and more like a castle the more she stared at it. She was beginning to get a crick in her neck. The hole works both ways, she thought. We might be able to get out. Or Pernicia might be able to get in. “But—” said Rosie.

“I don’t think that is the sky, you know,” said Narl.

“Yes,” said Rosie. “It—it feels like that to me, too. I’m not even a fairy, and it makes me feel stupid, and as if everything is about to come to bits.”

She thought for a moment, but there wasn’t much to think about. Where would she rather meet Pernicia? Here? Or somewhere else? Not here. Not with Katriona and Aunt and Barder and the queen and the king and the princes and the Prendergasts and Ikor and I suppose Sigil asleep and unrous able, protected only by a few thorns. “Fast says we can jump,” Rosie said.

“That’s as likely as anything,” replied Narl.

The best jumpers will jump,
said Fast.
That’s Gorse and me and the hounds. The others must ride. The cat has to go in a sack. Cats always use their claws, even when they promise not to.

I will jump,
said Flinx with scorn.
I jump better than any huge ugly beast with bones that are too long and whiskers that are too short and hard flat feet.

Narl was absentmindedly rubbing at a rose scratch on his cheek. “Wait a minute. We are all tired, hungry and thirsty. Tired and hungry we can go on with a little longer, but I think we have to try the water in the water butt before we—er—try anything else.”

“We don’t dare,” said Rosie. “If we fall asleep there’s no one left to—”

Spear said,
I will drink the water. I am too old to jump and too big to ride. If it sends me to sleep—well, at least I will no longer be thirsty.

Spear,
began Rosie, distressed.

He was already walking toward the water butt.
And,
he added with the dispassionate tranquillity animals assumed so easily and human egotism found almost impossible to bear,
if I am asleep, I will not have to see you leaving me behind.

Everyone watched as Spear reared up and put his forefeet on the rim of the water butt, bent his long neck and drank. The sound of his lapping in that silent courtyard was as loud as thunder. He had a long satisfying drink, and the watchers all jealously swallowed dryness and tried not to stare too fiercely for signs of drowsiness as he dropped to all fours again. He sat down, had a scratch, yawned—

Everyone held their breath.

—finished yawning. Stared back.

One minute, two minutes. Three minutes. How long do we have to wait? thought Rosie. Four minutes. Five.

I believe,
said Spear,
that this water is just water.

There was a general rush for the water butt. Rosie found the grooms’ cup for herself and Narl
—No drooling,
said Rosie, shoving Fast’s nose aside just in time. Flinx paused in his dainty sipping to give Fast a glare worthy of the Prendergast majordomo facing a footman who has just dropped a tureen.

Then they organised themselves to leap into the sky.

Gorse took Narl and Zel; the hounds—all but Spear—ranged on either side of Gorse, waiting for Rosie. Rosie knelt down in front of Spear, and put her hands on his narrow shoulders. He licked her nose.
It is all right,
he said.
I will wait for you.

We will be back soon,
said Rosie, knowing that this was the sort of useless, pretending thing that humans said; but Spear had pity on her and said only,
Yes.

Rosie stood up, turning away from her old friend; gently patted the pocket that again contained Throstle and two mice; she could feel them trembling. She patted the pocket with the spindle end to give herself courage, and then looked at Fast.
I don’t know how to ride,
she said.

I know,
said Fast.
Hold on to my mane, and let Sunflower sit within your arms. You may fall off on landing but you mustn’t fall on takeoff.

Narl looked perfectly at ease on Gorse’s back; Rosie, trying to figure out how to scramble up on Fast’s, wondered how he got there. The bigger, more muscular horse perfectly suited the bigger, burlier rider; Zel’s nose over Narl’s arm and brush under it slightly spoiled the effect, but they looked as if they might be off one of the tapestries in Woodwold’s Great Hall, illustrating the noble deeds of Prendergasts through the ages. It only then occurred to Rosie that Narl—like everyone present last night—was dressed in fine clothes (if by now a little the worse for wear and thorn rents). She didn’t know he had any fine clothes. She hadn’t noticed before, she thought, because he looked so comfortable in them—rather as he looked on Gorse’s back—unlike herself, who in three months of wearing ladies’ clothes hadn’t once felt at ease in them. Oh
well
, she thought. Who cares? But she did care. Narl’s clothing, black and brown and grey and mostly of leather, fitted him too well to be borrowed; on the proud golden Gorse, he could have been anyone. Only the smith’s chain gave him away.

She thought of Peony, who always looked graceful and serene and unwrinkled, and considered, for about the space of an inhale but before the exhale, if she could possibly learn to hate her friend; and decided she could not. I wonder if Narl is hoping that if he rescues Peony. . . . She spent a moment trying to imagine Narl as the romantic lover, kneeling at his beloved’s side, taking her hand reverently in his and covering it with kisses. . . . To her own dismay, she started to laugh.