“I was looking at the border.”
“While you were carrying it?”
“I noticed,” said Laura, upon the verge of tears, “that it’s like that tapestry again.”
“Huh,” said Ellen. “Does it have the sun or the hole?”
“The sun,” said Laura. “Fence’ll kill me.”
“I bet he can fix it.”
Ellen was finishing the table, and Laura was still crouched over the broken plate to see whether it might be mended, when Fence came back.
He did not look like Ellen after all. He had the same coloring, but his face was rounder, his nose shorter, and his hair both shorter and much straighter. It was still damp, and it looked as if he had cut it himself in the dark.
Laura gaped at him, however, not because of how he looked but because of what he was wearing. He had put on black robes embroidered with stars and comets and constellations and galaxies and universes. They were every color you could think of, and they drew your eye into themselves until you had forgotten what you were looking at and wandered lost in glory.
Laura, who was nervous enough when she did know what she was looking at, jerked suddenly back from these marvels and discovered that she had cut her finger on the broken plate.
“Dear heaven,” said Fence. “What an omen. Clear we it up, child, before Randolph sees it. He will conceive that it spells his doom and commit some rash act.”
It was impossible to tell from his tone if he was joking. Laura put the cut finger in her mouth and gingerly began to stack the jagged pieces. “Can’t we fix it?”
Fence, moving in a swirl of fire and darkness, came across the room to look, and Ellen blinked and dropped a cup onto the bearskin.
Laura glared at her. “How come you’re so lucky?”
“Clean living,” said Ellen, staring at Fence.
Fence knelt beside Laura, gathering his robes out of the way, and inspected the remains of the plate. He smelled faintly of burning leaves. Laura wondered if it was the robes.
“I think not,” said Fence after a moment. “The pattern is broken here, you see.” He put a finger on a cracked border, where the stylized sun from which the animals fled was split across its center. He took the pieces upstairs with him and came back with a broom for Laura.
She knocked two mugs from the table with its handle, but neither of them broke. Fence favored her with precisely the same look Patrick had given her when she tripped on the bridge. That Fence had far more right to give it did not make it any easier to stand up under.
Fence gave them some mulled wine. Laura did not think it tasted as good as it had smelled when he was heating it, but it was better than cold wine. Ellen gulped it as if it were hot chocolate, and grinned at Laura. The firelight made her look a little wild.
When they heard footsteps on the stairs, Fence stood up from the hearth like a flurry of fireworks, and there was a dagger in his hand. It was silver, with the blue stones. He did not put it away until Randolph and Patrick had come in, set down their burdens, and closed the door behind them.
“You,” said Patrick to Ellen and Laura, “can carry what’s left back down.” He sat on the floor and breathed.
“You need not have brought so much,” said Fence.
“Children have great appetites, and thou art half starved,” Randolph told him.
“Not starved,” said Fence. “Say rather, burnt away.”
Their eyes met across the sparkling table, and held. Laura stared at them, fascinated. Randolph looked like a cat which is seeing things that aren’t there. Fence looked like someone who has been sick for a long time.
“Didst thou lock the stairway door?” Fence asked Randolph.
“Aye.”
“Hath any other the key to’t?”
“What?”
“’Twas unlocked when I came to’t. These say ’twas so this morning.”
“Three demons,” said Randolph, abstractedly. He pushed a hand through his hair, righted the circlet again, and scowled. “Well, sit we down regardless. Our wits will not suffer from food, and thine of a certainty suffer for its lack—nay, say not again. I know the look of magic, and I know the look of hunger.”
He began pulling things from the hampers and thumping them down upon the table. He seemed nervous to the edge of irritation. Fence came around the table and sat down at the end of it.
“Fence,” said Randolph, “I prithee, set not thy back to the door.”
“There speaks the warrior,” said Fence, and smiled at him.
“Oh, no,” said Randolph, “here speaketh the wizard. I never feared what might come through a door till thou hadst me in thy keeping.”
Fence smiled again, and stayed where he was. Randolph jerked his head at the children and sat down at the other end of the table. Laura sat on Fence’s right, Ellen on his left. Patrick sat between Laura and Randolph.
Laura, as usual, found one or two things she liked and one or two she could stand, and ate a great deal of them. She noticed that Fence ate steadily, but not as if he were interested, and that Randolph ate almost nothing. His gaze slid about the room, always returning to the door behind Fence. Patrick and Ellen ate a great deal of everything and got very sticky.
About halfway through the meal, Fence spoke over the crackle of the fire and the sound of crunching.
“What is the temper of the court?” he asked.
“Uncertain,” said Randolph.
Fence looked at Laura, who said what she had been wanting to say for some time. “Who was that snake lady?”
Randolph laughed. “Well put,” he said. “She is the Lady Claudia, sister to Lord Andrew. I had thought thou knew’st her.”
“Well, I’ve seen her,” said Laura.
Fence looked at Randolph. “What did she want with thee?”
Randolph looked back at him amused.
“Apart from the obvious,” said Fence.
Laura nearly dropped her knife. She wondered when one of them would say, “Not in front of the children.” This was clearly one of the conversations in which that would be said just as you began to understand what they were talking about.
“Well,” said Randolph, “she wants that, when the time comes, I should vote with her brother on the matter of dragons.”
Laura, seeing the conversation drift of itself away from intriguing subjects, leaned over to Patrick and whispered, “Do you remember any Lady Claudia?”
“Shut up,” said Patrick, quietly but forcefully.
“Vote!” said Fence, scornfully. “The council is an advisory body, no more. What needs the King thy vote, or any man’s? A wilt do as a wilt.”
“So I told Claudia.”
“And?”
“Still she stayed.”
Fence grinned, and Laura’s ears pricked up.
“No,” said Randolph. “Do not flatter me. Still she seeks to persuade me that her brother hath the right of it; not for my vote, but for that she thinks I have the King’s ear.”
“Doesn’t he?” said Laura to Patrick.
“She?” said Fence. “She? She knows better than any the power of magic.”
“She knows nothing of it,” said Randolph, staring; “she thinks it a matter for fools and children.”
“And so she should,” said Fence, “if thou, a magician, hast believed she thinketh so.”
“What?”
Fence stood up, staring in his turn. “Do you not know?” he said. “She was my apprentice, and she failed.”
Nobody moved, and the fire hissed. Randolph was looking at Fence as if he thought Fence was crazy. “No,” he said, as if Fence had given him the wrong answer to a problem in arithmetic. Fence looked at him. “When?” said Randolph.
“Four summers ago.”
“And where was I?”
“Feren,” said Fence. Laura had never heard the name before, but it seemed to satisfy Randolph.
“Why did not the court buzz with it on my return?”
“Claudia is a secretive ch
ild,” said Fence. Laura blinked; Fence looked closer to being a child than Claudia had.
“Well,” said Randolph.
Fence pushed his chair back and went to the hearth for more wine. Randolph looked into his own cup, shook his head, and put his hand to his forehead. The stone in his ring caught the firelight and dazzled Laura’s eyes. Vague shapes fled across her vision, purple and white and green. Looming over them all like a monstrous setting sun was the face of Claudia. Laura realized that it was the same face she had seen in the sword when they roasted marshmallows by the Well of the White Witch. She blinked, and the sight was gone. Fence was sitting down again, and Randolph had picked up his cup.
“Perhaps we should speak of this later,” said Fence to Randolph, and Laura sighed.
“No doubt,” said Randolph. “Matthew hath manuscripts of Shan which need thy skill, and thou hast not yet spoken to thy spies.”
He smiled at Laura, who felt a qualm. Across the table she saw Ellen’s eyes get big.
“I thought to feed them first,” said Fence. He looked at their empty plates, and Laura stifled an urge to grab the nearest food and start gnawing. She was afraid she knew what was coming.
“Who shall begin?” said Fence. “Ellen?”
There was a pounding on the door.
“Oh, come on,” said Ellen. Laura jumped. Patrick picked up his knife and looked grim. Randolph leaped up, jarring the table and spilling his wine exactly as Laura would have if she had jumped up. His dagger was in his hand.
Fence stood up slowly and went to the door, holding his hands a little out from his sides as if he were doing a balancing act. “Who goes there?”
“The King commands your presence,” said a voice, loud but a little breathless.
Fence’s hands fell to his sides. He shrugged. Then he opened the door. Lord Andrew stood there. He was flushed from his climb, but he seemed pleased. What now, thought Laura.
“When do lords run errands?” Fence asked him. Laura knew that this was half of a proverb, or riddle, or something of the sort, but Andrew did not seem to know it. It would be just like Andrew not to.
“I do the King’s will,” he said.
Andrew looked over Fence’s shoulder at Ellen, and at Laura, and at Patrick. Laura felt like a spilled ashtray. Then Andrew looked at Randolph. “Strange company, my lord,” he said.
“ ’Tis strange to thee,” said Randolph.
“Where doth the King await me?” Fence asked Andrew.
Andrew looked at him as if he had forgotten who he was. Then he smiled. “In the Council Chamber,” he said.
“I will attend him with what dispatch I may command,” said Fence.
“Thou wilt come with me.”
“I will not come with you,” said Fence, and shut the door on him. Laura giggled.
“This is not a jest,” said Randolph. “Fence, let me come with you. It is far more likely that there is a trap on the stairs than that the King awaits you in the Council Chamber.”
“He doesn’t even know you’re here,” added Ellen. “Those kids could’ve told—” said Patrick
“Or Claudia,” said Randolph. “Marjorie and her brothers will not speak to the King at banquet, but Claudia—”
“They’ll have told their father,” said Fence.
“Matthew will let you announce yourself when you will.”
“True,” said Fence. He picked up his mug and finished his wine. “Have we a look, then.”
He went to one of the chests Laura and Ellen had not been able to open, and took out of it a round mirror. The wooden frame was carved with a scene that Laura expected even before she recognized it. Fence came to where Randolph still stood with his dagger drawn, and each of them took a side of the mirror. They looked into it, frowning a little.
Laura, with no compunction, came around behind them and peered between them at the mirror. It did not reflect them, or her. It held an empty stone staircase dimly lit with purple light. Fence tilted the mirror a bit. The scene in it swirled in on itself as the purple beast had done, and then swirled out again. It looked the same, except that there was an arrow slit in the wall. It had grown dark outside, and one star shone through the arrow slit.
Fence and Randolph followed the stairs down to the bottom and back up again. Laura grew bored. Ellen put her head on the table and fell asleep. Patrick watched Randolph.
“So,” said Fence, and laid the mirror on Randolph’s chair. “Better you stay here with these.”
“Fence,” said Randolph, shifting his grip upon his dagger, “I beg you to do me the honor of remembering that I am not a fool. Then consider that this Claudia has been by me night and day these three months, and I never divined what she was. Then consider that Andrew is her brother.”
Fence let his breath out. “And what of my spies?”
Laura backed away a few steps.
“They will be safest here,” said Randolph.
Fence rounded on Laura. “Lock the door behind us,” he said to her, fiercely, “and abide till I come, or Randolph, or Benjamin.”
Fence went to the door, Randolph right behind him. Fence looked at him, and shrugged, and stepped aside. Randolph, still holding the dagger, went down the stairs, Fence behind him. Laura, hurrying to shut and bar the door, saw that Fence was not holding up the skirts of his robe; they seemed to be getting out of his way by themselves. Laura pushed the door closed and slid the bolt home.
“Wake Ellen up,” said Patrick as she came back to the table. “I want to know what’s going on.”
They heard a faint sound from the stairway, perhaps the echo of the echo of a voice, and then the clash of metal. Patrick and Laura flung themselves at the door, dragged the bolt free, and pushed the door open.
Laura ducked under Patrick’s arm and ran down the stairs. She got safely around two turns of the spiral, but then she tripped and went rolling around the next. She cracked an elbow on the wall as she went by, scraped both hands in an effort to stop herself, and brought herself up suddenly and painfully against Randolph’s legs. Randolph plucked her off the step as if she were a wet sock, turned them both around, and sat her down at his feet. He still had his dagger out.
Fence was standing two steps down from Laura and Randolph, with his back to them. Both hands were buried in the folds of his robe, end his head was bent. Facing him, two more steps lower, was Claudia. She had a knife in her hand, but she had let the hand fall to her side, and she stared at Fence with eyes so wide and empty that she did not seem to be there at all.
Patrick came clattering around the turn with Ellen behind him. Randolph put his dagger back into its sheath and thrust his arm in front of them to keep them from falling over Laura. Laura risked a glance at his face; the look he gave them was eloquent of many things, all of them unpleasant.
“Randolph,” said Fence, without turning around.
“Well?” said Randolph.
“This is a most powerful sorcerer.”
Laura felt Randolph stiffen. “If she failed with thee,” he said, “who hath taught her?”
“She herself,” said Fence.
Randolph said something explosive and unintelligible.
“Keep thy dagger to hand,” said Fence, and took hold of Claudia’s wrist.
She did not move. Fence pried the knife out of her hand and held it up to Randolph without looking around. Laura’s eyes winced away from it. It was twisted. The hilt held two red stones and one blue. The colors were quite clear in the dim light.
“And she hath fashioned this,” said Randolph, holding it as if it were sticky.
“We will hope so,” said Fence. “If another did so then we have two of them to deal with.”
Laura knew she should keep quiet, but she was too curious. “What’d you do to her?”
“I entranced her,” said Fence, shortly, in what Laura recognized as an adult I-dare-you-to-make-a-joke-out-of-that voice. She could not think what the joke would be anyway.
It seemed that Randolph cou
ld. “And will it endure so long as the spell she held me under?”
“No,” said Fence. “I think we must have Ruth.”
“Ruth?” said Laura, appalled.
“ ’Twill wait on the ending of her ceremony,” said Randolph, luckily misunderstanding her. Fence, however, finally turned around, and looked at her sharply, as if he wondered what she knew.
“That is still two hours off,” was all he said.
“The interim is ours,” said Randolph.
Fence’s mouth quirked, and then he grinned. “Wherein,” he said, “we may finish the wine, and I may hear from my spies.” Laura and Ellen looked at each other. “And thou, my apprentice,” said Fence to Randolph, “shalt tell me all strange wonders that befell thee.”
“And swear,” said Laura and Ellen, looking at each other and taking the dare, “nowhere lives a woman true, and fair.”
“Go along with you,” said Randolph, pulling Laura’s braids.
“Are we going to leave her there?” asked Laura.
“She will be safe,” said Fence. “She has taken the road back, but ’tis a long way out of the simplest of these spells, and I have put that in her way which will make her wonder if ’twere not better she stay where she is.” He sounded a little grim, and quite pleased. Laura looked at his pleasant round face, and shivered.
Randolph looked at him, too, but he did not shiver. “Thou art better suited to these matters than I had thought,” he said.
“Never doubt it,” said Fence. “Now come your ways,” he said to all of them.
They trooped upstairs, laughing. But Laura could not help looking over her shoulder at where the stiff form of Claudia stared. The red stone of her ring caught the purple torchlight and made a color which almost hurt. Laura turned from it and hurried after the others.
CHAPTER 13
TED did not have a pleasant evening. He trailed around after the King, who seemed to be pursuing some plan. The King would look around the bewildering shift of gold and velvet and jeweled daggers and laughing faces and flying hair, until he spotted someone he wanted. Then he would pounce.
He talked to some people about their children, to some about their dogs. He talked to one, whom Ted would dearly have loved to talk to himself, about a sword he was making, and to some about why the falcons were not eating. He asked where the six dozen nails he had ordered from the dwarves had gotten to, and why it would be as bad to oil the hinges of the Old South Door as it would have been to mend the break.