The Whim of the Dragon (15 page)

“The flute’s to be played,” said Celia, mildly.

“Sorry,” said Ruth. “I am
not
looking forward to this trip. Sorry, Laura.”

Laura felt better, but by the time she had swallowed her oatmeal and could say so, Patrick sat himself down at the end of the table and attacked his pile of food. He was dressed exactly as he had been when they first saw him in Australia, including the green pack, and the stocking-cap falling out of his jacket pocket. Now that, thought Laura, was stupid. They were supposed to be playing their parts, and Prince Patrick would never have worn any such garments.

“Wilt thou find that warm enough?” said Celia.

“I’ve got a cloak too,” said Patrick. He grinned at his older sister. “Any last-minute lectures?”

Ruth sat up straight and glowered at him; Celia looked ready to intervene to prevent violence; and Ted said, “Yes.”

Patrick looked at him with interest, and with neither fear nor affront that Laura could see. Ted went on. “Patrick, you are pushing things right to the edge. Fence is going to hate that outfit. You can get what you deserve, as far as I’m concerned. But I bid you remember that you are the oldest of us in your party. I make you responsible for the well-being of your little sister and my little sister. And you’ll answer to the King of the Hidden Land, not to your cousin, if anything happens to either of them that you could have prevented.”

This speech aroused more indignation in Ellen than in Patrick. Laura, when Ellen caught her eye with an exasperated face, shook her head hard and pointed her spoon at Patrick. Ellen should realize that Ted’s purpose was to prevent Patrick’s doing what Patrick did best. Asking Patrick to take care of Laura and Ellen was not an insult to them.

Patrick seemed less than pleased, and then he grinned. “You’ve really got it down pat, haven’t you?” he said. “Your Majesty.” He said that with an inclination of his head just short of sarcastic.

“It’s easy when you know how,” said Ted, peaceably. This line had been a joke between the two of them for an entire summer. Laura had never figured it out, but it could still make Patrick laugh. He did laugh. Laura stopped worrying about what trouble he might get into, and began wondering what it would be like to be under his merciless supervision. Well, at least she wouldn’t drown. She might not even fall off her horse.

Celia got up abruptly. “Say your farewells,” she said. “We’ll leave anon.”

The five of them sat and looked at one another. Laura was no longer worried, but she felt depressed. They had always been together in the Secret Country. The Hidden Land was separating them.

“Laura,” said Ted, “don’t kill yourself, and don’t forget to tell Fence all your visions. Ellen, don’t you get yourself killed pretending you can do anything.”

“Ruth,” said Ellen, “don’t forget to practice your flute.”

“And don’t get all mushy,” said Patrick to Ruth. “No misadventured piteous overthrows.”

“Fear me not,” said Ruth, with the utmost seriousness. “I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow.” Patrick stared at her, and she grinned. “It’ll come to you,” she said.

Laura gave them a moment to explain themselves, and then said to Ted, “Don’t kill Lord Randolph.”

“I don’t intend to,” said Ted. He stood up. “Have we delivered our instructions all around? Let’s go, then.”

Andrew’s party, the embassy to the Dragon King, was leaving from the main door of High Castle. Fence’s party, which was smaller and burdened with less baggage, would be departing from a little postern that gave onto Stillman’s Wood. High Castle was fond of ceremonies of leave-taking, and of conducting matters in their proper order; the greater embassy was seen off first. Everybody in Andrew’s party, everybody in Fence’s, and a great many who were staying home, jostled through High Castle’s three sets of gates: across the paved yard shining with rain; through the gardens, with their drooping roses and their bare, muddy patches where the beans had been pulled up; over the moat all pocked and dimpled with raindrops; across the drenched grass, where Andrew’s party stopped to collect its horses; through the roofless, pink-paved tunnel to the last gate, and outside.

It was pouring. Ted came up to Laura where she crouched against the wall with Ellen. “Stand under the archway of the gate,” he said, rather irritably. He pulled Ellen’s hair, gave Laura a very hard hug that almost undid her, and disappeared into the surging crowd.

Laura swallowed with great force and pretended it was the rain making her eyes hurt. She and Ellen moved back under the archway, where one was subjected to large, discrete drips instead of a steady sheet of water. They almost collided with Ruth.

“Oh, good,” Ruth said. Her fuzzy black hair was misted with damp and stood out in all directions except straight up. “Ellen, behave, and don’t kill Patrick, we’d never be able to explain it to Mom and Daddy. Laura, don’t you kill him either. Your father likes him.” She knelt in the soaking grass, hugged each of them with one arm, stood up with mud on Lady Ruth’s black skirt, and said, “Don’t you dare cry. All may yet be very well.” And she, too, made for the center of the confusion.

“Make way!” called a voice from inside.

Laura and Ellen looked around and saw several wagons rumbling over the drawbridge. With one accord they darted back through the tunnel, ran along the inner side of the pink wall, and took shelter in the overhang of the nearest tower. The wagons went ponderously by them, mud clogging the red and yellow paint of their wheels, the rain sheeting off the leather covers tied lumpily over their contents. Laura and Ellen, shivering, stayed where they were, and thus missed whatever ceremony Andrew departed from High Castle with, and did not say good-bye to Randolph. Laura didn’t care. Her hair was dripping down the back of her neck, inside all the layers of good dry clothes, and they had not even begun their own journey.

She looked at Ellen, whose pale face was beaded with water and whose hair was so wet that it was almost flat. “The rain it raineth every day,” said Princess Laura.

T
ED belatedly pulled his hood over his dripping head and pushed through the crowd. On the way he passed the blue-clad trumpeters with their horns as long as a yardstick. He must have missed whatever leave-taking ceremony there had been. Andrew and Randolph were already mounted. Benjamin was holding the reins of Andrew’s horse and talking to him intently. Fence was holding the reins of the unoccupied horse, an inoffensive-looking white one that was not Prince Edward’s stallion and should suit Ted much better than that cantankerous beast. Randolph was holding his own reins. Fence was looking at Randolph, and neither of them was saying anything.

“Does it always do this in September?” said Ted, coming up behind Fence.

Fence turned, a little twitchily. He had put a black cloak of thick felt on over his wizard’s robe, and its hood hid his face. His voice was as usual. “Not so early as this,” he said. He nodded at the horse. “This one’s fast but biddable.”

“Thank you,” said Ted. It—she, he ascertained—might be biddable, but she was still extremely large, and Benjamin was here. He thought of Edward and mounted competently.

“I wish you were coming with us,” Ted said to the top of Fence’s hood. It had a little tassel on it, like the ones on the seniors’ graduation caps.

Fence tilted his head; the hood fell back, and Fence produced a rather unconvincing grin. “I’m better with the young ones,” he said. “And with yon Patrick’s meddlings. You’ll be well enough. Randolph hath promised it.”

That word was a dangerous one just now. Ted looked over at Randolph, who wiped the rain out of his eyes and said, “Fence, no more.”

Fence looked startled and then rueful. “Nay, I cry you mercy,” he said. “That was ill done, in Ruth’s chamber.”

“It was as well done as may be,” said Randolph, with extreme grimness. “Wherefore I say to you, lean not on me.”

“There’s no one else,” said Fence.

Randolph smiled at him, with a perfect naturalness that made Ted feel cold. “And that was ever the doom upon us,” he said.

Fence held his gaze and said nothing. Randolph gradually stopped smiling, until he looked very sober indeed, but neither chagrined nor angry. Ted, his burning eyes braced wide open, felt something hotter than the beating rain slide down his face, but could not look away.

“Rest you merry,” said Randolph.

“Not until thou art,” said Fence. He reached up a hand. Randolph gathered the reins in his left hand, leaned down, and closed his right hand over Fence’s wrist. Ted blinked, since no one was regarding him, and looked down at the mare’s ears.

“So, then,” said Fence; his voice trembled a little, and if Ted could have escaped without being noticed, he would have been gone. As it was, he sat still, and the mare was quiet under him, and the rain slid down the coarse, pale hair of her mane like beads on a broken string. Randolph was silent, and Fence said, “As well cut off mine own hand. As well have done the deed. An thou but keep safe, we shall yet read this riddle.”

“I can read it,” said Randolph; his tone had sharpened, and Ted looked up involuntarily. “It means death,” said Randolph.

“That is a faulty reading,” said Fence, quite steadily this time. “Edward being dead, this is a matter to settle between us. Not in solitude. Dost thou understand me?”

“Oh, aye,” said Randolph.

“And wilt obey?”

“How not?” said Randolph, and let go of Fence’s hand.

Fence came back to Ted. “Be not o’er-hasty,” he said. “We’ll meet again.” And he pulled the hood over his head again and went away through the crowd, back into High Castle.

Ted would not have looked at Randolph for anything. He carefully pulled the mare around until his back was to Randolph and he was looking at Andrew’s profile. Andrew was staring down his straight nose at Benjamin, and Benjamin was glaring back. Ted did not want to know what they had been saying; but he might need to. He started to speak, and stopped. He had managed to avoid an encounter with Benjamin so far; what was the point in saying good-bye when you had not yet said hello? He tried to back the horse, but either she felt stubborn or he hadn’t given her the right signals. She moved neatly three steps to the left, bringing her head level with Benjamin’s, and Benjamin put his hand on her nose and looked up at Ted.

Benjamin couldn’t say anything much in front of Andrew, of course; and, to Ted’s relief, he managed to school his face as well. “I wish you were coming with us,” Ted said, and immediately regretted it. In the first place it wasn’t true, and in the second it probably constituted an insult to Andrew.

Benjamin rubbed the mare’s head; then he rummaged inside his cloak and came out with two pieces of carrot, and fed one to each horse. Over the sound of crunching he said, “My prince, I wish so also. But consider High Castle in the grip of Celia’s children, and none to say them nay.”

Ted could not help grinning. “We couldn’t have that, could we?” He thought, and ventured, “Prosper well, then.”

“And you,” said Benjamin. He looked at Andrew. “Fare well, my lord,” he said, and left them.

Andrew gazed after him with a less than pleased expression. It occurred to Ted that he and Andrew were going to have to endure one another’s company for several weeks. He said, “Was Benjamin haranguing you?”

Andrew whipped his head around so fast that a strand of wet hair fell over his forehead. Ted could not tell if he was angry, or just startled. “Not above the usual,” said Andrew, in his pleasant, neutral voice.

So much for that, thought Ted. He looked over his shoulder for Randolph, but Randolph wasn’t there. Ted scanned the crowd, which had diminished greatly, probably because of the rain. Randolph was over by the wagons, talking to the little cluster of soldiers that Andrew had chosen to accompany the embassy. One of them rode off a little way and then waited; the wagons followed, each with a soldier riding beside it. Andrew moved his horse off after the wagons, and so did Randolph.

Ted and Ruth followed them. The white horse had a nice gait; Ted blessed whoever had thought to give her to him, and spared some attention for the rain-sodden plain. Nothing moved in the brown grass. The road was covered with a thin layer of water, but there was no mud, and the horses’ hooves sounded on it as sharply as on concrete. Patrick would have wondered what technology had produced such a surface on what looked like a dirt road. Ted was merely grateful for it. He sat up straighter and wiped the rain off his face.

Ruth called across to him, “With an host of furious fancies Whereof I am commander, / With a burning spear—”

“And a horse of air,” Ted answered her, out of his own memory, “To the wilderness I wander—”

“By a knight of ghosts and shadows,” said Andrew’s clear, carrying voice, to Ted’s immense discomfiture, “I summoned am to tourney / Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end. / Methinks it is no journey.”

There was a brief silence, and it began to rain harder.

“Well,” said Andrew, who had fallen back and was now riding on the other side of Ruth, “we go not even half so far as that.”

“Thank God,” said Ruth, in the dry voice she had never used to use, “for small favors.”

Andrew looked vaguely puzzled. Ted said nothing. This was the long, straight road that led to the Well of the White Witch, and Claudia’s house, to the mountains of the border and through them, south and west to the lands of the Dragon King. And to the Gray Lake. There, in some sense, Ted thought suddenly, was the wide world’s end. Or at least Edward thought so. Ted wished that Edward would either come in or go out; this hanging around with the door open was disconcerting. Edward promptly faded out. Ted put his hood back on.

 

Laura and Ellen waited until they saw Fence come back through the pink tunnel. His face was not encouraging; they fell in a few feet behind him and were quiet. He led them to the little postern in the southeast corner from which the five of them had escaped their first day in this country. There was a great clutter of horses and baggage and milling people. Patrick was there, leaning on the damp pink wall and watching the chaos as if it were a movie for which he was considering requesting the return of his money.