The trouble was, Mara was not expecting them yet. Blade cleared his throat and stroked his beard importantly. “Our first clue lies within that hidden house,” he said, “and we must go there. But great danger lies within as well. It is the Lair of an evil Enchantress. Perchance she is away from home. I will go ahead and scout. The rest of you follow slowly—Geoffrey, make sure they do.” Geoffrey nodded cheerfully, and Blade knew his orders would be obeyed. “Be prepared to flee if I shout,” he warned them as he set off.
He rode down the vale at a canter, throwing up divots of moist turf, and slowed up only when he came to the little gate into the wood. The village mayor met him there, looking most magnificent in a sort of priestly cope of silver and blue.
“It’s all right. We saw you coming,” he told Blade. “You’re not the only ones to come at the wrong time. The last lot are just leaving, so she says you might as well bring yours in now. But bring them this way, so they don’t see the other lot.”
“Right. Thanks.” Blade turned and made glad beckonings. The group of people cautiously approaching across the pastures broke into an eager gallop, even Mother Poole, who actually stayed in her saddle, so anxious was she to get to civilization.
The mayor solemnly bowed each of them through the gate and led them among the trees to spacious stables that Blade did not remember ever being there before. Here boys and girls from the village, also dressed in blue and silver, led the horses away. Every one of them was trying not to laugh at the sight of Blade in his beard. Blade glowered as he followed the mayor into—He looked up at what had been Aunt’s house. Wow! he thought. The place was a small fairy palace with tinsel towers.
His mother stood in the hallway in a dress that made Blade ashamed to look at her. Everyone else goggled. He heard Shona murmur, “Honestly! Mother!”
Mara smiled and welcomed everyone. And, as Blade knew because he could feel a sharp, headachy tingling, she bespelled every soul who trooped in past her, except Blade himself. “Why did you do Shona, too?” he whispered.
“She was going to give trouble. I could see it in her eye,” Mara said. “What’s the matter with her? Why is she here, anyway?”
Blade explained about the scroll from the bards. “But I think it’s Geoffrey Sleightholm who’s the matter with her now,” he said.
“Ah. Well, I can look into that while she’s here. Poor Shona!” Mara said. “And you look damp and tired out, my love. Go upstairs and get dry and clean and rested, and come down when you’re ready for something to eat. Then you can see what all this is about. You can take that beard off if you want. No one’s going to notice.”
Blade went without thinking to the room he usually had when they stayed in Aunt’s house, and it was still there, looking just as usual in the midst of the fairy palace. Fran’s cousin Greta from the village was just finishing changing the sheets on the bed. “It’s like running an inn, this,” she told Blade. “One person out, next person in, and hardly time to get sheets washed in between. But it’s all in a good cause. Your mother’s a wonderful woman, Blade.”
“Yes, but that dress!” said Blade.
Greta laughed. “That! That’s her modest one! She said to me, she said, ‘Oh, dear, Blade’s on his way here now,’ she said, ‘and I don’t want him to see any of the usual dresses. Where’s the one that covers the top of me got to?’ And we couldn’t find it at first. We had a right panic on, I can tell you!”
“Oh.” Blade could not help wondering about Mara’s other dresses then.
After Greta left, he fell on the bed and slept. It was early evening when he woke. His first act was to get rid of the beard. That was such a relief that he almost decided not to have a bath—until he realized that his reason was that Sukey had whined on about needing a bath, and knew that this was childish of him. So he got clean and dressed in the ordinary clothes that Greta had hung over a chair for him. They were some of his own old clothes that Mara had obviously brought along here specially. Blade was pleased that she had remembered, but a bit rueful that the clothes still fitted him. Two years ago, when Kit and Callette were growing so big, Mara had promised Blade that he would shoot up to be taller than Derk when he was fourteen. But this still had not happened.
Feeling very hungry by then, he went downstairs. Down here the whole house was different. Blade made his way toward the place where, by the sounds, there seemed to be a party going on. He could hear a continuous, humming roar of voices, mixed with singing and someone playing the flute, and the clinks of glasses and plates. Blade thought he recognized the flute playing as Shona’s, and sure enough, as soon as he entered the vast, draped, glittering saloon that had once been Aunt’s drawing room, the first person he saw was Shona. Shona was standing on a dais, looking flushed and happy and very pretty in her best dress, playing her flute as if nothing else mattered in the world. The village choir, in blue and silver, was on the dais behind her, doing the singing. The rest of the room was full of people sitting in pairs at little gilded tables, talking and eating.
One of the village girls grabbed Blade’s arm. “Here you are. This table’s you. Your mum says eat first and then go around and listen to what they’re all saying. It’s a scream, really. They don’t notice a thing, with all the spells she’s got on them. But I wish you’d kept that beard. I wanted to see it.”
“You’ll see it tomorrow.” There was a huge meal steaming on the little table, all Blade’s favorite foods. Blade sat on the one little gilded chair and became very busy for a while. He could tell as he ate that Lydda had not cooked this food—though someone had done it quite well—which saddened Blade, because it meant that Lydda was still not back from planting the clues. But he could hear Elda’s voice ringing out from somewhere across the saloon.
Elda was the first person he looked for when he was finally satisfied. The days of traveling had left him hungrier than he had thought possible. But he was done at last. Elda was right on the other side of the huge room, couched opposite one of the straight-haired serious Pilgrim girls that Blade still could not tell apart. Elda was very pleased with herself. She had a small twinkling tiara fixed across her crest and other long twinkling threads streaming across her wings and her back. Her coat and feathers gleamed with care, rich gold and smooth, right down to the tuft on her tail, which, with Elda, was usually a mucky blob, but was now an elegant fluffy tassel. Blade could see it whisking excitedly above Elda’s gleaming back.
To get to her, Blade had to go past most of the other tables in the room. There was a Pilgrim at each table, facing someone from Mara’s household. Most of them were people from the village, but some were people Blade had never seen in his life. The nearest table held a rather majestic lady in crimson, sitting across from Miss Ledbury. At first he thought he had never seen her before. But as he passed, he heard her say, “Oh, no, my dear. I’m afraid I was more ruthless than that. When I realized that my husband was going to let the city be destroyed and keep all the money himself, I put him in a dungeon and took over.”
Miss Ledbury seemed quite unusually bemused. Her notebook was lying beside her plate, but she seemed to have forgotten it. She leaned forward and asked anxiously, “Is he still in the dungeon?”
The lady in crimson picked the notebook up and put it into Miss Ledbury’s hand. “No, my dear. The elves let him out. Do remember to take notes, won’t you? We want this all down in black and white. He’s not duke anymore, and I don’t think the people will have him back.”
The Duchess of Chell! Blade thought, edging past. Well, I never!
Miss Ledbury was scribbling industriously, and the Duchess was saying, “But it was quite an operation to make sure all the citizens were safe,” as Blade moved on to the next table, where the mayor was describing to Dad Poole how they had had to dismantle the village in order to meet Mr. Chesney’s requirements. Mother Poole, at the next table, was listening to Old George’s son, Young George, who was telling her exactly how much everyone who assisted with the tours got paid. “It’s no
t equal pay by any means,” Blade heard Young George say, “when you think that King Luther is getting two hundred gold this year and the dragons are only getting their one gold goblet each every five years.” Beyond this, Blade edged past Sukey, who was listening to a lady dressed in the same sort of doeskins as the Horselady describing what happened to horses in the battles. To Blade’s surprise, tears were pouring down Sukey’s face. At the table after that, Reville had his face wryly twisted as he listened to the death rate among the legions. By now Blade had seen what was going on, so it did not surprise him, when he reached Elda, to hear Elda saying to the long-haired girl, “No, you still seem to think Dad keeps me like something in a zoo. I’m a person, not a teddy bear or a savage beast.”
Elda shot Blade a friendly, talk-to-you-later look, and went straight on talking. “Anyway, I was telling you. Kit had just got over the top of the big tree when he yelled out that his strength had gone and he let go—just like that. And Blade and the swing fell straight down into the tree.” Blade shot Elda a look at that. He remembered this only too well. Elda swung her beak around defiantly at him and continued. “I was ever so small then—I was only six—and I yelled, but there was no one else anywhere near, and Blade was coming down through the tree, sort of bouncing on his back and screaming, and I had to do something. So I flew up into the tree and tried to catch him. And then we both came down through the tree, but much slower, and my wings didn’t seem to help much. Dad said that was because they weren’t properly developed yet. He was furious with me as well as Kit and Blade. And Kit made an idiot of himself going up and down over the tree howling out that it was an accident all afternoon, and Dad told him to pull himself together, but he couldn’t. Anyway, we were two griffins and one human, and Dad treated us just the same, that’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
Blade made another face at Elda. “Just the same?” he asked. “You got off lightly compared to Kit and me.”
“Hush,” said Elda. “I’m telling it.” She tossed her tiaraed head at him and turned back to the Pilgrim girl.
Beyond Elda, Mara was reclining on a couch. Geoffrey was perched on a stool beside the couch, and Mara and he were talking, very seriously. Blade did not want to interrupt them, any more than he wanted to listen to Elda’s memories. He went over to the dais and listened to the music.
But it all went on for hours. Every so often Shona and the choir took a rest, sitting on the edge of the platform with filled rolls and drinks. Whenever they did, the Pilgrims all got up and changed tables. By the end of that long, long evening, each Pilgrim had listened to all the speakers, Miss Ledbury’s notebook was three-quarters full, and every one of Blade’s party had had a talk with Mara herself, though none for so long as Geoffrey. Blade’s head ached, and he was sick of the rumble of voices and the sweet scents that seemed to come from the draperies. They are working hard, he thought, if they do all this every day.
Finally, however, the Pilgrims and Shona suddenly got up and went to bed, moving like sleepwalkers. Everyone else stretched and relaxed. Mara fished a dressing gown from under her couch, wrapped it around her, and came to hug Blade. Elda bounded up and pressed against the back of him.
“That was exhausting!” Mara said. “It’s the double spell that makes it so tiring. You have to make sure they go away thinking they’ve been thoroughly seduced but still remembering all the things we’ve told them. It was a great help that you’ve got one who takes notes, Blade. Querida reckons that if we send everyone home knowing the real facts, some of them are going to make trouble there for Mr. Chesney. And I really think that some of this lot of yours might, Blade. You’ve got some rather interesting people here. Do you understand what we’re trying to do?”
“Yes,” Blade said, although he still did not think it justified the clothes under Mara’s dressing gown.
“And it’s fun,” Elda said.
“I had a long talk with the young man Shona seems to have fallen for,” Mara said.
“Geoffrey. I saw,” said Blade.
“He’s fallen for her, too. He seems very nice,” Mara said, and hesitated, as if she was wondering whether or not to say something else.
“But, Mum,” Blade protested, “it’s not just that he’s a Pilgrim; he’s down as expendable!”
“Oh,” said Mara. “That … makes a difference. Then I think, for Shona’s sake, you’d better make sure he survives.”
Blade thought of Prince Talithan efficiently running his sword into that Pilgrim during the battle. “How can I, Mum?”
“Do you know how to put protections around a person?” Mara asked.
“No!” Blade said crossly. “Nobody’s taught me anything useful—you know that!”
“All right. I’ll do it. I’ll go and do it now,” Mara said wearily. “And I suppose while I’m at it, I’d better do the same for his odious little sister.”
“Sukey’s not expendable,” Blade said. “I wish she were.”
Mara sighed. “Yes, but from what Geoffrey was telling me, she shouldn’t be here. Her parents think she’s on holiday in her own world. She seems to have twisted Geoffrey’s arm to make him bring her with him.”
Blade went to bed thinking that this was entirely typical of Sukey. He could not understand why Reville seemed to like her so much.
In the morning Blade glumly regrew his beard while he was consulting the black book and the pamphlet to see where he was supposed to go next. Around by the Emirates on the way to the Inland Sea, he discovered. All right. He put his robes on and went to the kitchen, where Elda found some scissors and Mara cut him a hole in the beard for his mouth. Then they hung over him, making sure he had a large breakfast and enough food packed in his blanket to last a week. Mara told him what to do next. Blade said a reluctant good-bye and went out into the paddock, where all the horses were waiting, ready saddled. There, as Mara had told him, he raised both arms in a dramatic, wizardly gesture.
That side of Aunt’s house rolled up like a blind, revealing the saloon, where all the Pilgrims and Shona were just finishing breakfast.
“Be thankful I am here to rescue you from vile enchantment!” Blade shouted.
They sprang up as if he had pricked them and came streaming sheepishly outside.
“Get mounted,” Blade told them. “We must hurry away.” And he rushed about making sure of everyone’s girths, trying to avoid Shona. But it did no good. She waited by Blade’s horse and grabbed his arm before he could mount.
“Was I enchanted, too? Mother did that to me?” she whispered angrily.
Blade could not think of anything to say but the truth. “She said you were going to make trouble.”
Shona was furious. Her cheeks colored, her mouth pursed, and she looked around into the opened-up saloon as if she had half a mind to storm back inside. But for some reason she changed her mind and marched away to her horse in a manner Blade knew was ominous.
He watched her anxiously all that day. He knew what Shona was like. She had waited weeks once to revenge herself on Don, and by the time she did, Don had forgotten the quarrel entirely and felt very surprised and injured. But this time Shona seemed to do nothing but chat happily to Geoffrey and sing songs for the Pilgrims. It never occurred to Blade that Shona might have grown up since then. By the end of the day he had decided that Shona must be plotting a long-term revenge of some kind. Maybe she was waiting until she saw Mara again, but she was quite as likely to be angry with Blade, too. Blade knew he had to be very wary. So he went on watching and made plans for what he would do in case Shona pushed him into a river or gave him something horrible to eat—or, worse, told the Pilgrims what age he really was.
The trouble was that Blade was so preoccupied with Shona that he had very little attention for the route. He relied on the way he knew where to go when he translocated. It never occurred to him that this might be an entirely different sort of sense of direction. He led the Pilgrims toward where he thought the Emirates were, with the result that he led them steadily in
the wrong direction for the next three days. True, they arrived at a camp on the first two nights, but as Shona told Derk when he came looking for them, these were almost certainly the camps that were intended for tours on the other two routes. By the end of the third day they were crossing country that no Pilgrim Party had ever crossed before.
Some days after that Scales came coasting down into Derk’s camp by the river and told him that Blade had disappeared.
TWENTY-TWO
NOTHING SEEMED TO BE going right for Derk. He was now so busy that he had not thought about his new homing pigeon for days.
Prince Talithan had found three more cities deserted when he tried to sack them, and he was, to Derk’s mind, being extravagantly upset about it. “I have failed you, Lord,” he kept saying. And three angry wizards translocated in. One said that the pirates had demanded higher pay before they captured a single Pilgrim more, and the second wanted to know why the dragons had deliberately dropped his Pilgrims in the snow a day’s walk from the dragon with the gizmos. The third complained that the Emir had no slave girls. “And my Pilgrims were expecting them,” he said. “They’re talking of suing me.”
“How did they know what to expect?” Derk asked wearily. “Unless you told them.”
“They’d heard things from last year,” the wizard defended himself. “I may have dropped a hint or so, but they knew what I meant.”
“I’ll take it up with Querida,” Derk promised. He sent the daylight owls to Querida with a message about it and also, hopelessly, asking whether Querida had invented a god yet. He came back from interviewing pirates and arguing with dragons to find, as he had half expected, that the owls had returned with a note signed by someone else, saying that Querida was very busy just now and would get in touch later. Derk glumly faced the fact that Querida had no intention of helping him.
He was tired. Any spare time he had was taken up with journeys to Derkholm, where at least two Pilgrim Parties arrived every day to confront him and push him into the balefire. The day after a battle, there were often as many as seven parties waiting for him. Derk was sick of falling backward into his trench, but he never had time to invent a different way of being killed.