The Whim of the Dragon (24 page)

Ted reflected that a great many kings seemed to have been betrayed in the Hidden Land, one way or another. He said, “Ruth’s afraid we’ll meet the King in the land of the dead.”

“Her fear is my hope.”

“Are you mad?”

“Not now,” said Randolph.

“Fence told you—” began Ted, and stopped.

“Oh, I may do nothing; I have promised,” said Randolph. “Wherefore my hope lieth in thy mischance.”

“Thanks a lot.”

Randolph did not trouble to answer this, which was probably just as well. Ted looked at him, but there was nothing to see. He sat still, as he had sat beside the fire, his hands laced around his knees and his hood half over his face.

If Ted had still been Edward—if Randolph had thought he was, he amended quickly—he would have had no qualms about telling Randolph that he was on no account to so much as wish for death. As Ted, he felt he had no rights one way or the other. And it was painful to speak of Edward, who might come back and might not. And who, if he did, might very well kill Randolph. Ted stared gloomily across the shining surface of the water to the high white cliffs opposite, muffled in starlight and a little mist. It looked like the land of the dead here and now. If he closed his eyes halfway, he would see the shapes of the rocks waver and grow familiar, and would meet himself and the counterparts of his four relations.

“Jesus Christ!” said Ted, and grabbed Randolph’s arm. “We can’t take Andrew down there! He may or may not see the dead King and ask him awkward questions; but he’s bound to see the dead children; we need to talk to them. Oh, criminy, what a dull pupil you’ve got yourself. When do you suppose I’ll bethink myself what to do about it?”

“They’re singing still,” said Randolph.

Ted took a deep breath. “All right,” he said, trying to think like Patrick. “Either we come up with a good reason to keep him out, or—or we tell him the truth. Why is it, Randolph, that in the Hidden Land one is always faced with such wonderful choices?”

“Is it otherwise in your country?”

“Well, probably not. But it was for
me
, except in the game.” Ted shoved his hood back. “Except in the damn game,” he repeated, bitterly.

“An this were yet thy game, what wouldst thou choose?”

“Oh, if it were the game, it would be easy. We’d think of an ingenious excuse to keep Andrew outside, but something would happen that would oblige him to disobey, and he’d come and figure everything out and be mad as hell.”

“Truly?”

“Truly, my lord. Because that would be more interesting.”

“And now?”

“And now,” said Ted, “I think we’d better tell Andrew the truth.”

“There’s no interest in that course, then?” Randolph sounded as if he were about to laugh.

“Less, anyway. He’ll want to come to the land of the dead just so he can sneer at it. He’d hate making the discovery down there and being made to look like a fool. And he’s already suspicious; if we tell him now, and let him think this is what everybody is nervous about, maybe he’ll let his suspicions about the King’s death lie quiet a little longer.”

“That he discover my crime is a greater evil than that he discover thy nature?”

“Damn right,” said Ted.

Randolph was silent.

“Well, isn’t it? What would he do?”

“Refuse thy orders.”

“Fine. He has to take yours, doesn’t he?”

“So long as he proveth not my crime.”

“Well, he can’t prove it, can he?”

“I know not. He hath with him on this journey, by his own request, Julian and Jerome, who do not love me.”

“Well, if he won’t take my orders and he won’t take yours, whose would he have to take?”

Randolph pushed his own hood back and shoved both hands through his hair, exactly as Ellen would do. “His own.”

“Which is all right, or not, depending on whether he is in fact spying for the Dragon King.”

“Aye. We might do better to let him discover the truth by seeing those children below the earth.”

“Well, if they tell him his sister killed them, maybe he’ll think again about whatever plots he has with her.”

Randolph looked thoughtful. “Aye. Our word would not suffice. He and Claudia are very fond.”

“How the hell can they be very fond when she’s the most powerful sorcerer in the entire place and he doesn’t even believe—oh, never mind,” said Ted. “I don’t want to know. All right, let him find out the hard way.”

“What troubleth thee else?”

“Ruth,” said Ted. “Why did she smile like that? Did Lady Ruth ever smile like that?”

“I never saw her so,” said Randolph.

“Do you know anything about this contriving of Melanie’s, this stuff in the back of the head?”

“How should I?” said Randolph. “When in all our history have we had strangers that are the doubles of our dead to walk among us?”

“I’ll talk to Ruth, then; I want to know what she thinks happened.”

There was a meditative and uncomfortable pause.

“Well,” said Ted, “now you know what all I’m worrying about. What are you worrying about?”

“We’ve heard naught from Fence,” said Randolph, at once.

“Could our message have gone astray? Should we send it again?”

“There’s little harm in the trying,” said Randolph.

They sat on amid the cold rocks. The nearby singing broke up in laughter. Somewhere in the distances of Ted’s mind, Edward said,
I will friend you, if I may, in the dark and cloudy day.
The singing began again.

“Don’t call us,” said Ted, a little wildly, “we’ll call you.”

“What’s that?” said Randolph.

“Edward just offered to friend me in the dark and cloudy day.”

“I knew not he spoke to thee as well as in thee.”

“Well, that’s a recent development. And, having watched Ruthie’s face this evening, I don’t think I like it.”

Randolph pushed his hood back and looked at Ted for a moment. His pale face was all angles in the moonlight, and the curling black hair stuck to his forehead as it would stick to Ruth’s or Ellen’s. His eyes were shadowed. He said, “Spoke Edward thus? ‘I will friend you, if I may, in the dark and cloudy day’?”

“Yes, exactly,” said Ted, rather unsettled.

“That’s from a song,” said Randolph. “Canst tell Edward from the other voices in thy mind?”

“I never
had
any voices in my mind until I came to this mad country!” said Ted.

“Thou canst not, then?”

“No,” said Ted, ashamed of his irritation. “I thought it was all Edward. What else could it be?”

“When we come to Gray Lake,” said Randolph, “I will know.”

“And when thou knowest, oh counselor, wilt thou tell me?”

“Of a certainty,” said Randolph; and in his voice was something Ted found very comforting, and something he found fearful. Neither of them said anything more.

O
N the northern party’s third day of travel, they descended into Fence’s Country. Laura squinted at the trees, the smooth, sharp green of the pines, the violent red of the fire-maples, the deeper red and sullen brown of the oaks, the paleness of birch branches from which the yellow leaves hung like coins. Princess Laura had been here once. They went down and up and down again, for three hours, leading the horses, and then struck a road. It was narrow, its cracked slabs of stone wedged in lopsidedly between the hills and the river. They were able to ride again, which was a mixed blessing. In another hour the road brought them to a town.

Laura was astonished. She had never in all the Secret Country seen a town. This one had a grim-looking wall around it on three sides; on the fourth was the river. The hills above the wall were striped with stubble fields and tidy rows of grotesque apple trees. The wall had a gatehouse with a tower. The town was three streets wide and four long, with two wooden piers and small boats moored to them. Its houses were of stone, some with thatched roofs, some with slate. Laura could see a man working in a bed of dark red flowers; and two children throwing a stick for a dog; and a cat sitting atop one of the crenellations of the gatehouse, washing its foot.

“What’s that?” said Ellen.

“Feren,” said Fence.

They rode up the road toward the gate. Fence stopped them about ten feet away from it, rummaging in his belt-pouch. While they waited, the heavy door of the gatehouse creaked its way up, and a man ran out. He wore a brown tunic and breeches and a red cape. He had brown hair, and a brown beard, and very large blue eyes. To Laura’s relief, he did not remind her of anyone.

“Milord Fence!” he called. “What’s amiss? Hath—” He stopped, staring not at any of the party, but at their horses. “Who are you?”

“Your lord Fence,” said Fence, and held out the ring he had taken from his pouch. It was of twisted silver, with a blue stone that, just at the moment, glowed faintly. The sun had disappeared behind the trees, and the ring in Fence’s grimy hand looked like the first star of evening wandered from its appointed rounds.

The man in the road must have thought it looked like something else. His face was sick. “We have your horses within,” he said. “You took the boats and rowed upriver two hours since.”

“And had I this ring then?” said Fence.

“Milord, you did not. Your—their answers came so pat; they knew my name, they knew of your letters.”

“And,” said Celia, “there was a kind of glamour on them that so pleased you, you considered not, but obeyed them.”

The man’s face relaxed, as if he recognized in Celia somebody who could put matters right. “You know our weakness,” he said.

Celia smiled. “Everyone born in this country were well advised to spend a century outside it. Exile sharpeneth the eyes.”

“And the wits,” said the man in the road, as if he were capping a quotation. He looked back at Fence. “Milord, I am sorry for our carelessness. I think your foes are very great. Will you take their horses?”

“I’ll take my boats,” said Fence.

“You’ll take your money, an it please you,” said the man; “but the boats are taken already.”

Fence pressed one palm to his forehead and let his breath out. “Matthew?” he said. “Celia?”

“I think we must ride,” said Matthew.

“The road’s good,” said the man. “’Twill take you halfway to the house of Belaparthalion.”

“Have you lodging for the night,” said Fence, “or is that taken also?”

“That we have,” said the man.

“Deliver it, then,” said Fence.

“Is there time for this?” said Matthew.

“The horses need rest, if we do not,” said Fence.

Matthew smiled. “Take the horses of those that removed our boats.”

“Take them by all means,” said the man in the road. “We have little enough fodder for our own beasts; and though we’re well paid to house these, neither we nor they can eat silver.”

“Celia?” said Fence.

“I don’t advise it,” said Celia. “They’re too like to turn to sticks and land us in the river; or worse, drown all our victuals there.”

“We could send our message, if we’re somewhere Laura’s fingers can thaw out,” said Ellen.

Laura’s fingers were not so much cold as sore and swollen, but she supposed they would perform better in a heated room.

Matthew looked at his wife; she raised her eyebrows; Matthew sighed heavily and turned to Fence. “Know you this man?” he said, gesturing at the man in the road, who stood comfortably with the air of somebody watching a medium-good magic show.

“As well as he knoweth me.”

“Which is to say, not well enough?”

If anybody had spoken about Laura in that tone of voice, she would have been indignant, whether she understood what was being said or not. The man in the road looked resigned. Fence said to him, “Will you, of your courtesy, bring the horses to us here?”

“An you take them away, aye.”

“Until I see them, I know not or I shall or I shall not take them.”

“Why are you so eager to get rid of them?” said Patrick to the man in the road.

Laura thought this was a shrewd question. The man in the road said, “As I did say, we have not their maintenance.”

“Why’d you take them, then?” said Patrick.

“For that they did, we thought, belong to your party, toward whom we have some obligation.”

Fence said, “An we take them not, I’ll leave you a letter wherewith you may have from High Castle the fodder to maintain those beasts the winter.”

The man moved his thoughtful blue gaze from Matthew’s irate countenance to Celia’s judicious face, past Patrick’s considering expression and Ellen’s delighted grin. He glanced briefly at Laura, who tried to look alert but feared it had come out startled. Finally, last of all, he looked at Fence. Fence quirked the corner of his mouth.

“I’ll bring them,” said the man, turned smartly, and went back through the gate.

“All right,
quickly
,” said Patrick. “What is going on here?”

“I sent letters,” said Fence, “asking for the hire of three boats. A party in our likeness hath come before us and taken the boats, leaving behind their horses, which belike are no horses at all.”

“And do you think you know who this party was?”

“I know what they were,” said Fence.

“Shape-changers,” said Ellen. “Since they came in our likeness, you know,” she added to Laura.

“Does that mean the Dragon King sent them?” said Patrick.

Laura didn’t want to think about it. Apparently Fence didn’t either; he got down off his horse and handed his reins to Celia. Matthew did the same. Laura wondered what Celia could be expected to do if one of the four horses she was suddenly in charge of took fright or felt perverse. But the horses just nosed about the road and bit off the grass in its cracks, seeming far more disposed to go to sleep than to cause trouble. Perhaps Celia had been taking lessons from Benjamin.