Reville grinned. “Leave her. You get people like that.”
Blade nodded ruefully. He and Reville sat on a bench together, but where Blade sat with his robes twisted and had to get up again to put them straight before he strangled, Reville sat with his silk-lined cloak thrown back and his rapier elegantly in a convenient position, all in one smooth movement. He saw Blade look. “I practice a lot,” he explained. “I spend an hour every—”
He broke off as Shona made her entry. Shona came down the stairs carrying her harp and wearing her green bardic robes, and she came with such an air that Blade could have sworn that not one Pilgrim noticed that the robes were creased all over and ragged where they had been unraveled to make magic reins. “Good evening,” she cried ringingly. “Ladies and gentlemen, I am the official bard to your Pilgrim Party.”
Everyone’s head turned, even Miss Ledbury’s waved helmet, and there were cries of admiration, interrupted by Mother Poole calling out, “Oh, do come and sit with me and Dad, dear!”
Shona did not leave the stairs straightaway. She stood three steps up, staring across the taproom, and seemed to Blade slowly to come alight. It was as if the life in her, which had not been there since the bard handed her the scroll, came welling back into her, and then welling up further, until Shona was twice as alive as she had been, brimming with life, glowing with it. Miss Ledbury’s lips pursed. Her head turned to look in a certain direction, disapprovingly. Blade turned to look the way Miss Ledbury and Shona were both looking and saw Geoffrey Sleightholm on the end of both gazes. He was looking back at Shona with the same sort of dawning of life.
Oh, dear! Blade thought. I wish it had been Prince Talithan now! It was not just that Mr. Chesney’s demon did not allow anyone to leave this world or any Pilgrim to stay here. It was worse. As Shona crossed the taproom and went to sit beside Geoffrey—just as if there were no one else there besides the two of them—Blade surreptitiously unfolded his list again. Yes. There it was. “G. Sleightholm X, P or E.” The X meant that Geoffrey was expendable, and the other letters meant that Blade was to arrange to have him killed either by pirates or by elves. Blade could only hope that Shona got over Geoffrey, or they found they didn’t really like one another, or quarreled, or something, before the expendable part had to happen.
Blade did not sleep well that night. It was not just Shona, although she was part of it. To his terror, Shona and Geoffrey clearly liked one another enormously. Blade kept thinking of the way Shona had been after the bard handed her the scroll and realized that she might be worse after Geoffrey was expended. And there was no Callette here to help her either. But there were many other things on his mind, too.
Some of it was the way all the Pilgrims seemed to rely on him and kept asking him things, even how to eat their suppers. He was not sure he could stand being in charge to this extent. The worst was when he had to show Dad Poole how to use the toilet.
Another difficulty was Geoffrey’s sister, Sukey. Maybe it was because her brother was suddenly only interested in Shona, or maybe she was going to do it anyway, or just because they were both small, but Sukey attached herself to Blade. She sat by him, she smiled at him, she stroked his arm, and his beard, and she wriggled herself up to him, saying, “I’ve always wanted to know a real wizard!” Apart from the fact that Blade knew he was not yet a real wizard, quite apart even from the fact that he did not like Sukey, she offended and embarrassed him. And other people. Dad Poole kept giving him troubled glances, and Miss Ledbury gave looks which raised her eyebrows up above the steel frames of her glasses.
By this time, anyway, Blade hated Miss Ledbury even more than he disliked Sukey. She had a notebook in her crochet bag. Blade knew she was the one reporting to Mr. Chesney. She made notes on everything, unclipping a pencil with efficient mauve fingers and scribbling it down whenever anything new happened or got mentioned. She scribbled in code or shorthand. Blade had looked and found he could not read a word.
“Don’t pry, young man,” Miss Ledbury said. “It’s not your place. Eldred, that’s enough beer tonight. It’s too sour. It’ll disagree with you.”
Blade hated the way she ordered her poor vague brother about, and he heartily resented the way she treated Blade himself like a servant. “Young man, fetch the landlord. This stew is uneatable.”
“You may well regard this as the best meal of your tour before it’s over,” Reville told her cheerfully.
Miss Ledbury raised eyebrows over steel glasses at Reville. “I do not intend to indulge in privations just for sport.” And she made Blade fetch the landlord and the landlord provide bread, cheese, and fruit. After that she brought out a special jar of coffee from her bag and made Blade get her a kettle of boiling water and some cream. “No, Eldred, not for you. Coffee keeps you awake.”
Miss Ledbury keeps you awake! Blade thought, tossing fretfully in bed. And Shona and Sukey, not to speak of Dad Poole peering anxiously into the earth closet. But in addition to all this, he kept finding himself doing sums as well. Mother Poole had set him off by telling everyone again that they had sold their house to afford the tour. Someone replied to this, “And I suppose you had to find another thousand credits each for the insurance?”
“Two thousand each,” said Mother Poole, “because we’re older, you see, dear.”
From what the others said to this, Blade was astonished to learn that all the tourists had had to pay Mr. Chesney from one thousand to six thousand credits each in case of accidents, even expendable Geoffrey, and that they did not even get it back if they arrived home unhurt. As he tossed and turned, Blade found himself adding up what Mother Poole had sold her house for—he did not know what a credit was worth, so he called it a gold piece—multiplying that amount by 20 for the rest of the Pilgrims … then by 125, for the other tours … adding in this insurance thing … multiplying that by 125 … then remembering that people paid more thousands of these credits to have Prince Talithan put his sword through Pilgrims … adding that in, too, at an average of two expendables a party … then putting a value on all that gold eleven parties of dwarfs brought in each year … and the answer came out with so many naughts on the end that Blade thought he must have gone to sleep in the middle and multiplied it all by 1,000 by mistake.
He turned over on his pillow and did the sum again. And it was the same huge number of gold pieces. Then he compared this figure with the money that wizards and kings got paid and remembered that Mara was not getting paid at all. It did not take much thinking to work out that Mr. Chesney was making more money in a year than there was in Blade’s whole world. And Blade’s people were the ones who did the work.
“But that’s not fair!” he murmured, and went to sleep at last, as if his mind had been waiting for him to arrive at saying that before it would let him stop thinking.
TWENTY
IN THE MORNING BLADE had to run after kettles for Miss Ledbury again. Then he consulted the pamphlet and discovered they were supposed to be leaving in two hours. But all the Pilgrims had rushed off to look at the market. “How am I going to get them back in time?” he asked Shona despairingly.
“If we have all the horses waiting for them when they get back, we can set off the moment they turn up,” she said. “Why does the exact time matter?”
Because Miss Ledbury is taking notes, Blade thought. “Because we’re traveling with a merchant until the bandits attack,” he told Shona, “and we have to meet him at midday.”
“Let’s go to the horse market then,” Shona said.
The horse market was an enclosure on the edge of town. The banner hanging over the main street now read GRAYNASH HATES THE TOURS, Blade noticed as they went. There was another banner saying the same nailed to the fence of the horse market. Otherwise there was nothing much there except a huddle of horses in the middle of the enclosure and Geoffrey and Sukey Sleightholm leaning on the rails looking at them. Shona’s face lit. Blade’s heart sank. Sure enough, Sukey gripped him by his sleeve and stared into his eyes so intense
ly that he wished he had grown his beard all over his face.
“Oh, Wizard—” Sukey began in the sweet voice she used specially for Blade.
To Blade’s relief, she was interrupted by the Horselady, who came striding out from among the horses. “Here, Wizard—Oh, it’s you under all that hair, is it? Twenty horses for you.”
“Well, really we need twenty-three,” Blade said. “My sister’s here as bard.”
He had to wrestle his sleeve loose from Sukey and show the Horselady his list before she would believe him. “Two more than I was told, even without your sister,” she said, when she had counted the names. “Why can’t they get it right? Very well. I’ll bring them around to the inn. With feed. And the reason I’m doing this myself is that I want to make it quite clear that if anyone mistreats a horse or hurts one in any way, I shall call them all in and you can do the rest on foot. Have you got that? I’m going around all the tours saying this. I’m giving warning.”
“Right,” said Blade. “By the way, how much do they pay you for the horses?”
“Not enough,” the Horselady replied over her shoulder as she strode away.
It wouldn’t be, Blade thought. He went back to the inn with Sukey skipping beside him as if she were half her real age. The other Pilgrims straggled happily back an hour or so later. They had all, except Miss Ledbury, bought themselves swords. Even Professor Ledbury had acquired a mighty old twisted iron broadsword which he would keep whirling around his head. Blade winced every time he heard it whistle.
“Harmless high spirits,” Miss Ledbury said. “Much better exercise than weighted clubs, young man.”
With Sukey dogging his steps and Shona concentrating on Geoffrey and being no help at all, Blade got them all to load their horses and buckle everything where it should be. This led to another set-to with Miss Ledbury. The tour had provided each person with a rolled blanket, a cloak, and two leather water bottles. Miss Ledbury would have none of these. Instead, she and the professor had scarlet sleeping bags, neat Windcheaters, and backpacks to carry plastic water bottles and Miss Ledbury’s coffee.
“I do not care what your black book says, young man,” she told Blade. “I am not on this tour to do penance, and my brother is in poor health. Our equipment is far more efficient.”
The trouble was, Blade rather agreed with her. But he did not like to see good blankets and water bottles wasted. He strapped them on his own horse instead.
“Oh, Wizard, take mine as well,” Sukey said. “They’re such a nuisance.”
“You’ll be cold,” Blade said.
“You can give me them tonight,” she said, archly smiling.
The result was that when everyone finally mounted up, Blade was strung about with bundles and not in the best of tempers. When he realized he had forgotten his walking-stick staff, he ground his teeth and decided to leave it behind. But Reville hurried out of the inn, carrying it. Bracelets flashed on his arm as he held it up to Blade, smiling. “Oh, you needn—” Blade began.
Here Mother Poole fell off her horse. She did it with a wild shriek and a laugh and lay on the ground gasping, “Every picture tells a story!” It was, in fact, only the first of many, many falls, and Mother Poole always shrieked and always laughed and always said, “Every picture tells a story!” but Blade did not know that then, and he felt dreadfully anxious and responsible.
“Let’s get moving, shall we?” Geoffrey suggested in a calm, carrying voice.
Everyone, to Blade’s mortification, instantly obeyed Geoffrey. Mother Poole floundered aboard again, Reville got on his horse, and the procession straggled out of town, pursued by barking dogs and children shouting, “Go home, tourists!” and “Piss off, Pilgrims!” Miss Ledbury managed to make a note about this as she rode.
The merchant, waiting in the highway with his line of covered wagons and mounted guards, received them impatiently. “About time, too! Thank the gods this is the last party! I’m real sick of going from here to nowhere and pretending to run away from bandits. And I don’t envy you having this lot for another six weeks, Wizard. They look a right bunch of idiots.”
They did, too, Blade thought, surveying his party, what with Sukey’s baby blue outfit, the Ledburys’ outlandish gear, and the innocent, eager looks on all the faces except Reville’s and Geoffrey’s. Those two at least looked as if they knew what they were in for.
They journeyed on rather slowly, with frequent pauses to collect Mother Poole off the ground, and everyone seemed in high good spirits. Even old Professor Ledbury rode beaming vaguely around at fields and woods and the distant hills. Blade was glad that the bandits were not going to attack until the next day. His Pilgrims seemed to need time to take things more seriously.
They were very merry that night around the campfire, listening to Shona sing. The exceptions were Miss Ledbury, Sukey, and Blade. Miss Ledbury had gone around asking the merchant and the guards all sorts of searching questions about where they were from and how much they earned and how they felt about their work, and now she was writing it all down by the light of an efficient little electric torch on a stand. She had a little black cassette thing whirring, too, that she said was recording Shona’s songs. Blade knew he should tell her that the black book said she should use a candle and not have the recorder at all, but he knew she would take no notice. Besides, he was gloomily wondering what to do about Sukey.
Sukey had come up to him while he was unloading his horse, beguilingly shaking her wood-shaving curls. Blade thought she had come for her blanket and turned around to give it to her. He found the baby blue tunic pressed against him and Sukey once again staring into his eyes. “Oh, Wizard, is it true that a special magic happens when a wizard kisses you?”
Blade felt hot under his beard and wholly trapped. He did not know what it was about Sukey—a smell, or a look, or something—but every time she came close to him she seemed to remind him of someone else he disliked very much, though he could not for life of him think who. “Wizards are forbidden to kiss,” he told her sternly. “Here’s your blanket. Now leave me alone.”
Sukey took the blanket and turned to look over her shoulder at him. “I don’t believe you. It’s not in any of the rules I’ve seen.”
“It’s a secret rule for wizards. Go away!” Blade barked at her. To his embarrassment, his voice came out like a griffin’s squawk. His hairy face felt hotter than ever.
“There’s no need to be rude,” she said huffily. He watched her go up to her brother, Geoffrey, and tell him how rude Blade had been. But Geoffrey was helping Shona unload her horse, and he simply said something brief and sarcastic. Sukey had been sulking ever since. Blade stared at her pouting profile in the firelight and wondered what to do about her.
Miss Ledbury snapped off her torch. “Bedtime, Eldred. Don’t forget to remove your rainproof trousers before you get into your sleeping bag.”
“Up the wooden hill to beddie-byes!” Mother Poole laughed.
“Down on the stone floor, you mean!” someone else joked.
The Pilgrims began unrolling blankets and preparing for the night. Blade watched Professor Ledbury obediently climbing out of his trousers and was glad to see the poor old man wore long white woolen pants underneath. Reville was watching, too, and at the sight of those long, skinny legs in white wrinkly wool, he turned to Blade with his eyebrows up humorously.
At that, or maybe at the set of Reville’s head as he turned round in the firelight, Blade almost recognized Reville. He knew—even more than he knew over Sukey—that he had seen someone exactly like Reville not so long ago. Blade lay awake on the damp and lumpy ground, wishing he had dared bring his sleeping bag like the Ledburys, going doggedly over in his mind everyone he had met in these last crowded months. Reville was not tall, so he could not be that obnoxious bard or the man on the camel. But some of the Emir’s ladies—could Reville be a woman? No. There were hairs on his chin that had picked up the firelight as golden bristle. Was he a wizard? No, most of the wizards were tall, t
oo, and so was King Luther. But some of King Luther’s men—no. So why was he thinking of the times he had seen King Luther? Then Blade had it. He chuckled incredulously and went to sleep.
In the morning he took Reville aside, well aside and out of hearing from anywhere, a hundred yards up the road. “What’s all this about?” Reville laughed. “Make it quick. I want my breakfast.”
“You’re an impostor,” said Blade. “You’re from this world. You shouldn’t be a Pilgrim at all.”
To Blade’s secret relief—because he suspected Reville was rather good with that rapier of his—Reville was simply amused. “And how do you make that out?”
“I’ve seen you before. You were with Querida and King Luther and High Priest Umru when Dad and I visited the White Oracle,” Blade explained.
Reville’s brows went down, and his lips pursed, though—again to Blade’s relief—he was still amused. “Score one to you!” he said. “And here was I, trained never to forget a face, and I’d clean forgotten you! After you put that cold spell on us, too! I’m slipping. Blame that awful beard. What do you want from me?”
“What are you doing here with this Pilgrim Party?” Blade asked.
Reville grinned and pulled up his left sleeve. Fastened all the way up his arm was a row of wristwatches, nearly twenty of them as far as Blade could tell. “Thieves Guild,” Reville explained. “These little clocks can fetch as much as a thousand gold each. People don’t have them here. The Pilgrims take them off with their other offworld gear and give them to the landlord to put back across the portal for them. He leaves them in his strong-cupboard until he’s got the lot. I walk in pretending to be another Pilgrim and pay the cupboard a visit. Bingo. Boringly easy—except that this time you gave me a bad moment looking me up on your list. I had to do some quick faking while your back was turned. And then I spot those two who refuse to be parted from their offworld stuff. She’s got that torch and that recorder and a hot flask, and I think she’s got a weapon, too. I haven’t discovered what he’s got yet, but you can understand the challenge, can’t you?”