The Secret Country (31 page)

Fence put both hands through his hair, but he could not make it look much worse. Ted wondered who had cut it that way, and why. Fence turned the mirror around, tilting it, and sighed. “Of a certainty,” he said. “Is that the South Tower?”

Randolph nodded.

“Go we there,” said Fence to Ruth. He looked at Randolph. “Canst deal with this miscreant?”

“Better than thou,” said Randolph, with an emphasis Ted did not care for.

Fence gripped the edge of the table and started to stand up, and Randolph moved quickly and almost lifted him out of his chair. Fence looked at him reproachfully. Randolph shook his head, and Fence laughed.

“Thou wilt be my greatest comfort in mine old age,” he said, “if only thou dost not tire of cosseting me sooner. My lady,” he said to Ruth. Ruth stood up.

“Wait!” said Ted.

“Be quick,” said Fence.

“Ruthie,” said Ted, using the pet name and trying to catch her eye and strengthen his speech with significant gestures so she would know that it was he, Ted, and not a besotted Edward worried for her safety, who was talking. “You can’t use that spell on Claudia.”

“Why?” said Ruth, warily, in her sorcerer voice.

“It’s very dangerous!”

All three of them stared at him. Their expressions were exactly alike: the condescending and slightly impatient look of an expert faced with a wrongheaded amateur. Ted felt as if he had told his French teacher that
oeuf
meant
ear.

“I know what I’m doing,” Ruth told him, making faces so that he would know that it was she, not Lady Ruth, who spoke. She seemed quite irritated and a little frightened, and Ted was not reassured. She was probably just afraid that he would give her away, or make her give herself away, to Fence and Randolph.

“I know what I’m doing too,” he said.

“Time arrays itself against us,” said Fence to Ruth.

“Calm down,” said Ruth to Ted.

Ted felt desperate, and decided to beat her at their own game. “I command you not to do this thing!”

Ruth burst out laughing. Fence’s mouth quirked.

Randolph, looking acutely unhappy, said in a constrained tone, “I beg to remind Your Highness that no worker of magic is at your command.”

“You stop them, then!”

Randolph’s face set in formidable lines, but his voice was very gentle. “I am an apprentice,” he said. “In all earthly matters I obey you, my lord, but in the matter of magic even I am no servant of yours. I earnestly regret it.”

Fence by this time looked actually sick. “And I,” he said.

“Go,” said Randolph, and opened the door for them. When they had gone and he had bolted it, he swung on Ted like a cat pouncing.

“Are you mad?”

Ted opened his mouth to reply, and a hot tear slid into the corner of it, startling him. He had been aware of no emotion save wrath. He swallowed, felt his face crumpling up, and turned around hastily. Standing up to Andrew, who was a villain, or even to the King, who was wrongheaded, was one thing. But he hated fighting with Fence and Randolph. He hated losing to them even more.

He wrapped both arms around himself and stared at the watery rug. His vision cleared gradually, and he saw that the rug really was watery. It depicted a fountain crowded about with animals. Ted wanted to be intrigued by it, but that would have been an excuse. He had to face Randolph sooner or later.

He turned slowly, still hugging himself. Randolph stood just where Ted had left him, his grave and troubled gaze bent steadily on Ted. Ted refrained from backing away.

“Now, Edward, what’s the matter?” said Randolph.

“What isn’t?” said Ted, stalling.

Randolph sat down on the edge of the table and reached for his cup. “Art thou still my rival, then?”

“No, it’s not that,” said Ted, so miserably that he could tell at once how very unconvincing Randolph found this assertion.

He wondered if he should simply tell Randolph the truth, but all his instincts rebelled. In the first place, the others should approve such a drastic step: It was their game, or their adventure, or their necks too. After all, if Shan’s Ring did what he thought it might, they would all be in terrible trouble for using it. And if they were not really the royal children, there was nothing to stop everyone from deciding that they were spies. They might be just the people Andrew was looking for.

“My God,” said Ted.

“I beg your pardon?” said Randolph.

“Sorry,” said Ted. “Nothing.”

His knees were so shaky that he sat down across from Randolph. He felt as if someone had just hit him in the stomach. He could not imagine why none of them had thought of this sooner. If the Secret Country were real, then where were the real princes and princesses? Back with the Barretts, wreaking havoc? No, of course not, or the Barretts would have had something to say about it when he and Laura got back. Where, then?

Ted felt suffocated. He had to talk to the others immediately. But Randolph still regarded him gravely, and would have to have some sort of explanation.

“Andrew bothers me,” Ted told him. “I don’t like the way he’s disrupting everything. How did he get the King to pay so much attention to him anyway?”

Randolph put his cup down. “Perhaps because thou hast paid so little to the King?”

Ted was confounded, and said nothing. He supposed that if Prince Edward were as shy and bookish as they had made him in the Secret, he would have been too scared and too absorbed to pay much attention to the King.

“Not thou alone,” said Randolph. “He is a warrior, and his favorites wizards all: Benjamin, Conrad, and even I. Thou art no wizard, but thou preferrest thy books to thy sword. No man likes a wizard, who hath not some magic himself, and William hath none. ’Tis said it passeth from grandsire to grandchild, missing the son.” He had sounded more and more as if he were thinking aloud; now he shrugged and smiled. “Thou seest,” he said.

Ted was not sure either that he saw or that he did not. “Anyway, that’s not the point,” he said. “You know he’ll do it Andrew’s way, and you know what’ll happen if he does. What are we going to do to make him change his mind?”

“It may be that we cannot,” said Randolph. “But if we can, the answer lies in just such things as I have said. Reason hath little power here. If thou wouldst thy father thought well of wizards, ’twere well thou see to’t that he thinks well of thee.”

“So maybe it was a good idea to jump on Andrew?” said Ted.

“Didst not know when thou didst it?” demanded Randolph.

“Know what?” said Ted, confused.

Randolph pulled the circlet from his head, turned it in his fingers, and jammed it back onto his head as if he were slamming a door he knew would pop open again. “When you flung yourself upon Andrew,” he said carefully, “did you not think it was wise to do so?”

“I didn’t think it was anything to do so,” said Ted, irritated. Part of him still itched to go after Ruth and stop her from using Shan’s Ring, and this conversation no longer had anything in it to make up for wasting that opportunity.

“Angels and ministers of grace defend us,” said Randolph, and something in the quality of his voice told Ted that he was quoting Benjamin.

“He made me angry,” said Ted.

“What hath come over thee?” Randolph asked him. “Time was when neither taunts nor blows could make thee angry.”

“Isn’t it better this way?” said Ted.

“Not if thou must show it thus. Answer Andrew with worse words—draw and challenge and be done with it—but this starting what thou wilt not finish is madness. Besides, ’twere better not to quarrel with Andrew, who has thy father’s ear, and is useful in his fashion. And furthermore,” said Randolph, gesturing with both hands as if he would have liked to take Ted and shake him, “if thou must flout what hath been taught thee, I prithee flout not what I have taught thee so that thy father cast an angry eye on me as well.”

“Oh,” said Ted. “Sorry.”

“Flouting what I taught thee,” added Randolph, “in defense of a wizard. Oh, Edward, when follies come they come not single spies but in battalions.”

Ted wished he had not mentioned spies, even in a figure of speech. “But what are we going to do about Andrew?” he said. “It’s a bit late for me to start being a model son.”

“How late?” said Randolph.

“Well, Benjamin said—”

“Ah,” said Randolph. “To win quickly, cleanly, easily, and with small loss, far from our borders, we must indeed do as Benjamin says. To win a bloodier battle perilously close, we have yet a few months.”

“Well,” said Ted, “I’ll do what I can.” He hesitated. “I’m really sorry, Randolph, but everything’s just falling apart.”

Randolph frowned, but his voice was kinder. “Make shift to gather the pieces together, then, and kick them not asunder like a child with a frozen puddle,” he said.

“May I go now, please?” said Ted.

Randolph nodded. “And ease thy mind,” he said. “All may yet be very well.”

As Ted left he saw Randolph settling himself by the fire to wait for Fence.

Fence’s living room had not been warm, but the stairwell was like stepping into cold water. Ted’s breath steamed away from him and made an eerie mist in the purple light. It seemed to be growing warmer as he went on down. Ted was not sure that this made sense, because warm air rises. He was pondering this problem and wondering if the knowledge he could gain would be worth the trouble of asking Patrick for it, when quite abruptly the stairwell became warm.

Ted almost fell down the steps. He was not sure he liked the change. Presumably it was better for a castle to be warm in the middle of the summer, but it could hardly be natural for it to change so fast from being cold. He wondered if using Shan’s Ring could do that.

“Claudia,” he said aloud. If Claudia had been making the cold, and Ruth had used Shan’s Ring on her, Claudia would not be able to make the cold anymore, and things would go back to normal.

Ted almost fell down the steps again, as the tower shook itself and made grinding noises. Ted moved faster. He had half thought of waiting for Fence in the stairwell, but now he wanted nothing to do with it.

“Why would Claudia make it cold anyway?” he asked the gray walls. He found it hard to think without the others clamoring at him. They were a nuisance, but at least they asked the right questions.

The tower shook again, more gently. Ted burst through the door at the bottom and ran along the passage. He stopped at the next door and looked back. He knew that in an earthquake one was supposed to go outside, but he was not sure that there had been an earthquake. The torches still burned in their sockets, and now all was quiet. If he went outside he might miss Fence returning.

He perched himself on the sill of one of the windows that looked upon the inner courtyard. The stone was cold, but in the new heat of the air this was pleasant. A green smell came through the window, and behind it a faint scent of lilac. It seemed to go well with the purple torches.

Ted was almost asleep when Fence came trudging along the passage. Nobody looked his best in that light, but Ted, knuckling his eyes and shaking the blood back into the foot he had been sitting on, thought that Fence looked as though he were sleepwalking.

“Sir?” said Ted.

Fence blinked, and focused on him. “Where is Randolph?”

“He’s upstairs,” said Ted. “I wanted to speak with you alone.”

Fence came and sat next to Ted. “Well, then?”

“Did Ruth take care of Claudia?”

“Oh, aye.” Fence fixed him with a glare. “Hast forgotten all thy courtesy?”

Ted, who could make no sense of this remark, suppressed the desire to ask whether Shan’s Ring was part of the Green Caves magic. In the first place, Fence might think that rude too; in the second, it might give everything away.

“Is there aught else, my lord?” Fence asked him. Ted could not tell whether he was being polite to soften the fact that he wanted to get away, or whether he was angry and therefore being formal.

“Yes,” said Ted, recklessly.

Fence nodded at him.

“I fear me,” said Ted, “that if we do not convince the King that Andrew is wrong, that he must make sorcerous preparations, then Randolph will kill the King to keep us all from being destroyed.”

Fence did not move for what seemed a very long time. Ted became aware of the singing of summer insects in the courtyard, and of the autumnal smell that hung about Fence.

“Are you mad?” said Fence at last. Randolph, asking the same question, had sounded furious; Fence sounded stricken.

“No,” said Ted, wondering how Patrick would answer that.

“Hath he spoken of this, then?”

“Well, no. I tried to bring up the subject, but he put me off.”

“So,” said Fence.

“He did say we probably
couldn’t
convince the King.”

“Probably we cannot.”

“But Fence, if we can’t, what else is there to do but kill him?”

“What is the matter with you? We will do our best in the battle, and live or die as it falls to us. There was never kingdom that did not end at last, and to hear you, one would think this one’s ending delayed o’er long.” His look at Ted, even in the uncertain light, was formidable.

“But—”

“Why Randolph?” asked Fence.

“Claudia,” said Ted.

“Well, you are not so mad as you might be,” said Fence. “She hath no doubt embittered him and may have dulled his wits, but none could so change him that he would do what you accuse him of planning. Lords of darkness,” said Fence, vehemently, “I am weary of accusations.” He put out a hand, suddenly, and took hold of Ted’s chin to make Ted look at him. “Why Randolph?” he repeated.

“He’s my regent, isn’t he?” said Ted, feeling on firmer ground. “He’d have the power to do what he wants done, then. He’s my teacher—he knows I’m safe—and not a match for him,” said Ted, grumpily. More and more he chafed under the restraints of Edward’s personality.