Unexpected Magic (45 page)

“Of course,” the Count went on, “no one who is mad will admit they are so. That is to be expected. But I assure you, Your Highness, you are mad. We restrained you from killing the Outsider, naturally, but in spite of all our efforts, you killed poor young Lord Arbard here.”

“What?” said the Prince. Alex saw Lord Arbard, biting his lip, make the sign of the cross on himself.

“You heard me,” said the Count. “Come on, Your Highness. Draw your sword. Kill him.”

“I shall do no such thing!” exclaimed the Prince. “What do you think I am?”

“You say,” said the Count, “you are one who has the power to make and break every law in the land. But”—he laughed—“if you will not kill my lord here, I shall have to do your own bad deed for you.” Alex, appalled, watched him slowly draw his sword. “Where did you wound him, Your Highness? Through the heart? In the throat?”

“No!” whispered Lord Arbard desperately, watching the red sunlight on the Count's sword. He was drawing his own sword, but a soldier brought his spear point quickly down and held it against Lord Arbard's wrist.

Alex lost his temper then. He had never met anything so unfair as this. He was not sure he understood half of what was going on, but it was plain that this poor idiot of a young lord was really going to be killed.

“Stop it!” he shrieked at the Count. “How dare you!” He ran at the tall brown horse with his stick raised. At once six spear points descended on him, and he was brought up short with cold sharp steel at his throat. The Count calmly leaned down and took the quarterstaff away from him.

“Ah yes,” he said. “You are mad too. No one doubts that. I see you have a temperament very similar to poor Everard's. Now get out of my way, boy.”

Then he killed Lord Arbard. Alex shut his eyes and heard a gasp, a groan, and the heavy sound of Lord Arbard dropping down on the snow. He opened his eyes and saw blood on the Count's sword and the Prince's black eye stark and lurid in his white face.

“Now let us go,” said the Count.

Soldiers dismounted. Alex, sick and horrified, stood while they tied his hands together and could not resist when they threw his cape round him and lifted him onto a horse in front of a soldier. Prince Everard, he saw, looked much as he felt, staring down to where Lord Arbard's blood was making a spreading red patch in the trampled snow.

Then they rode off. “Where are you taking us?” demanded the Prince.

“You will see soon enough,” said the Count.

The horses went fast across uplands for a long way. Alex looked down at hoofs churning snow and thought that they were leaving prints which would be easy to follow. “And there must
be
someone who will try to follow us,” he thought. “After all, he
is
the Prince.”

The sun began to go down. The riders turned toward it and went down to cross a road. Then they went up into hills again, and rode until the sun was a great red disc, level with their eyes. Alex was frozen by this time. The keen winter wind came straight across the hills from the sea with nothing to stop it. He was relieved when they began to go down again, until they reached the shelter of a dim, snow-filled road, winding between hills beside a strong brown river. Here, there were many hoof-prints in the snow. Alex feared that they had joined the road so that their own tracks would be hidden among the others.

Then at last they came to a place where another road turned off to the left. It went over a low stone bridge and then plunged into a high break in the hills. It was almost a gorge, Alex thought. The horsemen turned down this way, and as their hoofs thundered on the bridge, drowning the sound of the river, he heard Prince Everard cry out:

“Oh, not to Endwait! For God's sake not to Endwait, my lord!”

“What better place than Endwait?” asked the Count, “since your father died there too?”

C
ecilia followed Robert Lord Howeforce out of the little room. She was not sure anymore that she trusted him, but she could not see what else she could do. It was quite likely, too, that he was risking his life, coming into the Prince's mansion to rescue her and Alex. What he said about Alex terrified her. She prayed for his safety as she followed the outlaw softly along passages and down stairs. She was so fearful for Alex, that she forgot to be frightened for herself. So she had an immense shock when a strange lady stepped out of an alcove and took hold of Robert's arm.

“What is it?” she heard him whisper.

“You must see her. She knows you are here and she wishes to see you.”

“Why should she wish to see me?”

“She is frightened. She is afraid you wish her ill.”

Cecilia did not like this talk of “she.” Nor did she much care for the lady, who was young and rather pretty, and took not the slightest bit of notice of Cecilia.

“Come,” said the lady, pulling at Robert's arm.

“But, Phillippa,” he answered, “I must bring Cecilia. I cannot leave her alone.”

“That is your affair,” the lady said. “Come.” She rustled away down a side passage. Robert took Cecilia's hand and they both followed, into a large empty room full of comfortable silk chairs and then, beyond a curtain, into a much richer room, light and loaded with silks, tapestries, jewels, and crystal ornaments. There, on low chairs, sat Robert's mother and the other, younger lady. Cecilia realized that this younger lady would be the Princess, wife of the dead Prince and mother of the boy in black.

The Princess was crying. “What have you done now, you wicked man?” she said to Robert. “Where have you taken my son? Why do you persecute us like this? Why not proclaim yourself Prince at once and have done?”

“Madam,” answered Lord Howeforce, “I have not seen your son. I am as concerned as you to know where he may be.”

“How you lie,” said the Princess. “How you lie! You have him prisoner, or you have killed him, and tomorrow you will cry yourself Prince through the whole country—just as you cried yourself wronged on Christmas Day.”

“Madam,” repeated Lord Howeforce, “I have not seen your son. I have no knowledge of his whereabouts. If I had, I assure you—”

“—You would have killed him before this,” the Princess finished for him, and put her face in her hands.

Robert's mother looked up at him. “It is impossible to persuade her,” she said. “Robert, it is true you do not know where Everard is, is it?”

“Quite true, I assure you.”

“Then,” she answered, “you must have spies out and inquiries made and not rest till you have found him, and the Outsider. She will not believe your innocence, nor will anyone, until the Prince is found.”

“I will try to find him.”

“We can guess where he is,” answered his mother. “Now go, please, and make sure at least that this girl is safe.” And as Cecilia, who had stood by a little resentfully all the while, curtsied to her, the lady smiled. “We are in your debt for a night's lodging,” she said, and held out a small dog-eared piece of paper with the little orange seal stamped on it.

After this, Cecilia again crept after the outlaw through corridors and courts in the great mansion. As she went, she thought how strange the outlaw's position was. If she had been the Princess, she would have called soldiers and had him arrested even though he was her nephew. “So all I can think,” she said to herself, “is that the Princess is not as sure as she pretends that he
is
so wicked. I wish I knew all there was to be known about how the Prince was killed. I think there must be much more to it than we have learned.”

They came to a tiny side gate, outside in a bitter frost. There was a chilly guard there in green livery who raised his lantern to look at them. Cecilia was terrified, but the outlaw smiled and clapped the guard on the shoulder.

“Many thanks, Tom. Has the true guard come to his senses yet?”

“Aye, my lord. Had to gag him.”

“Then ungag him. He may shout all he likes now. Then follow us where you may wear your own livery again.”

“I have it underneath this, my lord. Comes warmer like that.” Then the man, whistling merrily, and not at all secretive, went over to where Cecilia could see the wriggling shape of the real guard. “Come on, you,” he said. “I'll give you five minutes to get clear, my lord.” As Robert unbolted the gate, Cecilia saw the false guard heaving the real one along to where he would be seen in a white bar of moonlight.

Beyond the gate were empty fields of snow, hardening in the frost. In the great black shadow of the walls was a clinking and movements. Robert took her that way. There was a group of horses, breathing out steam, with riders in steel and a faintly glowing orange livery—Cecilia thought it was orange, but in the moonlight it could have been brown.

“I fear we have no side-saddle for you,” Robert whispered.

Cecilia laughed. “I prefer riding astride. It is easier. But you must not stare at me.”

He seemed relieved. Cecilia was helped into her saddle by a soldier, while the outlaw mounted the same blue-gray horse they had seen him ride across the bay. Then the group set off at a sharp trot, over the frozen fields, westwards, and up into the hills.

Everyone was very gay, even Cecilia, despite her fears for Alex. She was thankful to be out of Falleyfell and delighted at the moonlight ride. The men around sang and whistled and were plainly heartily pleased to have their leader back out of the mansion. After about a quarter of an hour, Tom, the false guard, caught them up, and he was merrier than any of them. Cecilia took to him completely. He had a little curly black beard which thoroughly caught her fancy.

“I can turn Hornet again now, my lady,” he said to her, twirling his mustache.

“Whatever is a Hornet?” asked Cecilia.

They all exclaimed that she did not know. “Us—we be Hornets.”

“The orange livery,” Robert explained, “with the two black stripes. It is the true Gairne livery, and famous in the Principality. It is as old and honored as the Prince's green, or the Darron white and red.”

“And we be honored to wear it,” said Tom. “So all of us turn outlaw too.”

“Oh, I see,” said Cecilia, and thought how nice they all were to go as far as that.

They rode on, and after a while, Robert asked her seriously: “Did the Prince give no indication of his intentions toward your brother? If we knew what he meant to do, we could more easily discover where they are.”

“Well,” said Cecilia, “he looked daggers at Alex out of his black eye—Alex had blacked his eye on the island, you know.”

Robert laughed. “No, I did not know. Poor Everard! He would take that very ill. Then I begin to see something of what happened. There would be a return fight, I am sure, but it need not have been far from Falleyfell. This makes me certain that Towerwood left in order to follow them, though I was told he had gone to Gairne.”

“Oh, no!” said Cecilia.

“I fear so,” said Robert. “I will send spies down to Gairne and Towerwood as soon as we reach our camp. They should discover something. I am glad you told me of this fight, since I had been wondering if Everard had not gone to Landerness—he went in that direction, it seems.”

This spoiled the rest of the ride for Cecilia, though they rode where they seemed on top of the world and the soldiers were as merry as ever.

She revived a little when they came to the camp. It was where an outcrop of rock leaned over a high, shallow valley. There were caves in the rock, with lights in them, and tents pitched near the caves. Fires melted circles of snow and flickered on lines of picketed horses. Several young men in long cloaks came running out to meet them beside their own strange blue shadows. They ran back with the horses, calling greetings, and asking for news. When the riders stopped near the tents and Cecilia had dismounted, Robert introduced the young men to her. Cecilia was a little bewildered by them all, but she gathered that the one with the long nose was called Rupert Lord Strass, and that the very young dark one was Robert's squire, and that his name was James of March. Robert went with them all to one of the caves, talking as he went. They seemed very dismayed to hear that the Prince had vanished.