The flat plain was not really flat, but full of small rises and falls of ground. As they came down the rise from which Laura had first seen High Castle, it lost its aspect of peppermint and became simply a line of pink barring the way before them. Behind it the land rose again in long slopes of dark green forest, and beyond those were misty humps that Laura at first took for clouds on the horizon. It was not until Ruth said in her ear, “The Mountains of Dusk” that she realized what they were. She had never seen mountains, and these did not look as they ought to. She had imagined sharp dark triangles standing up out of a flat green plain like something in a pop-up book. She squinted at the betraying cloudy masses, and thought she saw hints of blue and purple in them, and an underlying solidity not owned by clouds; she was not comforted.
That first pink wall of High Castle turned out to be immense, six stories tall or more. Most of the stones that made it were longer than Laura was tall. They were smooth and sharp edged, and looked very new. The wall had a tower on each corner and three more along its length, and two smaller ones flanking its gate. The gate was open, which confounded Laura almost as much as the color of the walls. They passed into a short, wide tunnel lit from above and paved in the pink granite, with another gate at its far end, which was also open. There were, at least, two guards at this gate, and they even had long spears. They did not, however, leap up and bar the way with these spears. On second reflection, Laura was just as glad that they had not.
They did stand up, looking remarkably as if they were trying not to laugh, and bowed briefly. Benjamin got down from his horse. So did Ted and Ellen. Ruth gave Laura a small shove, so Laura slid down haphazardly and sat down hard on the cold stone. Ted picked her up quickly. Patrick dismounted with a show of ease that made Laura want to hit him. A number of young men who had appeared through the gate took the horses away. Benjamin marched between the guards as if he were daring them to say a word, and the five children followed him onto a wide space of short grass.
This looked a little more like High Castle. There was the moat, just as it ought to be, sailed on by white swans and cluttered with lily pads, and holding upside-down a perfect glassy image of the white walls and towers on its far side. The drawbridge was directly before them; it was down. Patrick muttered something about this, but nobody cared to answer him with Benjamin so close. There were still too many towers in the white wall, and it was circular, not square.
They went over the drawbridge, past two more amused and easy guards, and were confronted by yet another pink wall. The stones of this one were rough and pitted, but the wall itself was, at least, properly square, and had towers only at its corners. Between it and the previous white wall was a huge and somewhat untidy rose garden, on the left, and on the right a herb and vegetable garden that looked as if it had been laid out on a gigantic piece of graph paper.
Laura wondered if the respective gardeners glared at one another over the pink marble path that separated their domains. As far as she knew, High Castle had only one gardener, a dour and silent man named Timothy. But one look at the vast stretch of these gardens told her that there must be more than one person to care for them. Even in the rose garden, the grass had been mowed and most of the weeds hacked from around the white stone seats. Laura craned her neck longingly after the rose garden, with its mossy paths and mysterious nooks, but the thought of being lost in this enormous and unfamiliar labyrinth of castle walls made her hurry after the others.
They went through the open gate in the pink wall and into a small paved yard. And there before them, finally, was the High Castle of Laura’s mind, white towers and red roofs and bright banners flying.
“Page!” shouted Benjamin, at the top of his considerable voice.
Laura saw Ellen leap forward, then stop and look furious. Benjamin had not noticed her. A yellow-haired boy perhaps a few years younger than Laura came hurrying across the yard to them, and bowed to Benjamin.
“Fetch me Agatha,” said Benjamin, much more kindly than he had spoken to any of the five of them.
“My lord,” said the page, and went away again.
There followed a very uncomfortable interval. Benjamin had turned his back on them, but was far too close to permit the kind of outraged conversation they needed to have. Laura occupied herself with staring at High Castle, and almost forgot to worry. Aside from the moat’s being two walls back, everything was perfect. She admired the narrow windows, the moss growing between the cobbles of the yard they stood in, and even the distant blue of the mountains still visible over the wall. The lake that fed the moat was on the other side of the castle, and so was the room shared by the princesses Laura and Ellen. Ted and Patrick’s room, though, should look out on this very courtyard, and Ruth’s—
“Suffering, deception, and mercy!” said a vigorous voice behind them.
Laura jumped, bumping Ruth, who took no notice of her. They all turned around, and there, larger than life and half as natural, stood Agatha. There was nothing right about her except her voice and her gray dress. She was plump where she should have been bony, young where she should have been old, pretty where she should have been dignified, and she had a great deal of straight, smooth black hair that ought to have been white.
“You may well say so,” said Benjamin to Agatha, over their five heads. “Take you these four, and I’ll manage His Highness.”
“Come then, my lords and ladies,” said Agatha, in a tone of faint mockery. And she ushered Ruth, Patrick, Ellen, and Laura into High Castle, leaving Ted to stand with Benjamin in the courtyard.
CHAPTER 3
BY the time Benjamin got the five of them back to High Castle, Ted was too battered to be exasperated and too tired to be thoughtful. He was beginning to be afraid instead. Benjamin was too big, the horse was too big, High Castle itself was too big, too high, and too grim. Benjamin had said they were all treacherous, and he had sounded as if he meant it. Ted kept remembering that this was a country in which a page could be hanged for mouthing off. Nobody had mouthed off to Benjamin on the way back, but Benjamin had looked at Laura every time she fell off that pony as if he would have liked to hang her for that. And as Agatha led the other four off into High Castle, Benjamin stood looking at Ted as if he would still like to hang somebody.
“I’d give thee worse than bed without supper,” he said, “hadst thou chosen thy time differently.”
“What?” said Ted. Benjamin’s face took on an expression common to grown-ups everywhere, and Ted added, “Sir.”
“What is the date, then?” Benjamin asked him.
“I think—I think it’s June the fourteenth. Sir.”
“Think!” said Benjamin. “If thinking made things so, things would be otherwise.”
Ted, trying to remember what date it was and why it should matter, only looked at him, and wished he would back away a little. He was taller than Ted’s father, who was not a small man.
“Has that child bewitched all of you?” demanded Benjamin.
“What?” asked Ted, giving up.
Benjamin flung up his hands. “The King thy father,” he said, “was to hold a council at midday today, and thou wast summoned to’t.”
Already, thought Ted. We’ve missed the whole beginning of the game. While Laurie and I were playing tag and everybody else was running around looking for us, they started the game. That doesn’t make any sense; how could they start it without us? It is us. “Heh,” he said.
“Didst remember, then?”
“No! I mean—”
“She hath bewitched thee.”
“Who has?”
“Thy spitfire cousin!”
Who’s my cousin here? he thought. Laura and Ellen. My spitfire cousin. Does he mean Ellen? Ruth’s the only one who can bewitch anybody, but she’s not my cousin. Minions of the Green Caves have no family save the leaves.
Benjamin, in a tempestuous motion like that of a startled man trying to catch a falling vase, came to his knees in front of Ted and took him by the shoulders
. “Look at me,” he said.
Ted blinked at him.
Benjamin stared him in the eyes for much too long. Eyes like Benjamin’s could find out anything. Ted tried to back into the cold stone of the wall, and a cardinal whistled the first three notes of its call somewhere over his head. Ted jumped; Benjamin let go of him, but did not get up. Ted looked gratefully at Benjamin’s shirt lacings.
“I never thought to say so,” said Benjamin, still too close for comfort, “but I would Fence were here. I have sorcery in my blood and my bones, but none in my learning; I will not come between the cardinal and its charges. If thou art one. If thou art.” He put a hand under Ted’s chin and made Ted look at him again. “Edward—”
“Benjamin,” said Ted, who understood none of this and was not sure he wanted to, “you’re getting all muddy.”
“I am fresh laundered next to thee,” said Benjamin, “and the King’s council is in a quarter of an hour. Come away.”
He let go of Ted and stood up, and they started across the yard.
“I thought it was this morning?” said Ted, too bewildered to be cautious.
“It was planned so,” said Benjamin, “till I found thee gone. I contrived to change the time and came ahunting thee. Thy father knows nothing of this, yet.”
“Oh,” said Ted.
“I would not trouble him with more troubles than he hath withal,” said Benjamin.
“Oh.”
“But I can deal with thee myself if the occasion warrants.”
“I don’t think it warrants nearly as much as you think it does,” said Ted.
“No doubt,” said Benjamin, dryly.
“Ruth hasn’t bewitched me,” said Ted, “and I don’t want to marry her.”
“Oh, excellent,” said Benjamin. “ ’Twill do thee no great hurt to forgo her company, then.”
Ted was furious, and speechless. He was afraid to say too much. Benjamin might ask just what the five of them had been doing out by the Well of the White Witch, if they had not been arranging a secret meeting between Ted and Ruth.
They came through the last set of doors, past yet two more unconcerned guards, and into a high dim drafty hall strewn with what Ted supposed were rushes. Three dogs lay by the fire, and Ted almost tripped over a cat, but there were no people there, and almost no furniture. It felt like a place where you waited.
“Well,” said Benjamin, “go dress thyself as well as thou canst, and I will do likewise.”
Ted froze. He had only a vague idea of where his room was, or wherever it was he should go to dress himself. Nor was he sure what he should dress himself in. He looked at Benjamin hopelessly, and Benjamin scowled at him.
“Now, Edward, what’s the matter?”
“Well.”
“Last time,” said Benjamin, “’twas stuffing it up the chimney to stop the draft. And the time before that ’twas using it as a lake for thy sister’s dolls to play at swimming in. What is it now?”
“What?” said Ted.
“Plague take thee!” said Benjamin, and catching his arm, hustled him through the hall into an even draftier stair. “I thought as much! An it were not my ears as well as thine would ring with thy father’s wrath, I’d leave thee to it.”
“But what are you going to do?” said Ted feebly.
“Hide thy scrapes, as always,” said Benjamin; he sounded cross, but not actually furious anymore. “Thou shalt wear one of the robes i’ the West Tower, and drown in it, and look a fool, and serve thee right.”
“The dolls didn’t drown,” said Ted, tentatively.
Benjamin cuffed the side of his head, and Ted shut up. The blow did not feel unfriendly, but it did hurt. He began to wonder whether, when Benjamin had said their ears would ring with the King’s wrath, Benjamin meant more than that the King would yell at them.
“While I have thine ear,” said Benjamin over his shoulder, “how didst thou come by that outlandish garb, and what perversity led thee to wear and not burn it?”
Ted produced the reason which explained more sins than any other. “We were playing a game,” he said, “about people who wear outlandish garb.”
“ ’Twas sweet and commendable in thee,” said Benjamin, in a tone Ted did not like, “to find time to play with thy cousins.”
“Thank you,” said Ted, trying not to grin.
“The devil damn thee black,” said Benjamin. He said it mildly, about in the tone Ted’s mother might have used to say “You are a nuisance,” but Ted was shocked into stopping. This was what the lady with the broom had said, back at the secret house.
“What?” he said.
“I do not want,” said Benjamin, stopping, turning, and taking hold of Ted’s T-shirt as if it were a dead spider, “to see any of these garments again.”
“Yes, sir.” Wonderful. We can go back home in whatever they give us to wear here. And they may not tell us they never want to see those garments again, but they’ll sure want to know where they came from. Or we can—
“Tell thy brother and thy cousins likewise.”
“Even Ruth?” said Ted, daring.
“The Lady Ruth is not dressed so. The Lady Ruth,” said Benjamin grimly, “knoweth better than to irk me in small matters.”
“She doesn’t mean to irk you in large ones,” said Ted.
Benjamin snorted. “Do not tell me,” he said, “that any minion of the Green Caves doth what he meaneth not.”
Ted decided that anything he said would make things worse.
Benjamin hurried him down several windy passages, up a winding staircase, and into a high room which even in the dim dregs of the sunset glowed with color. It was hung and draped and piled with clothes. Ted could see a sleeve here or a collar there, but for the most part nothing looked like anything he had ever worn or seen worn or imagined wearing. The room smelled of cloves and dust. Ted sneezed.
Benjamin turned his back on him and began burrowing in a mound of blue. He shook out several massive robes of velvet, scowled at them, and flung them down again. Finally he thrust one at Ted, who pulled it over his head, sneezed again, and sat down on the floor, the weight of the material having upset his balance. He sat there in the stuffy spicy dark, feeling the cold of the stone floor seep through his jeans, and wished he were playing tag.
“One would think,” grumbled Benjamin’s voice above him, “that thou hadst never worn a robe in thy life. Up with thee.” He parted the material and briskly thrust it down over Ted’s shoulders, and Ted blinked at him and stood up, staggering a little. “Thank you,” he said.
Benjamin jerked and tugged at the heavy folds of the garment, straightening it on Ted’s shoulders and turning up the sleeves for him. Ted stood meekly, trying not to sneeze again as Benjamin stirred up more dust from the velvet, and feeling as if he were Laura’s age and being dressed for Halloween. If only that were all it was.
“This was Lord Justin’s robe,” said Benjamin, shaking a sleeve, “and even when thou hast thy full growth, ’twill be too large for thee.”
Ted scowled. Who had Lord Justin been? He could not remember. Maybe Ellen would. She was the one who had written down all the history.
He watched Benjamin pull a robe over his own head. Why would Benjamin keep his robe up here in the dust, even if people didn’t sneeze here?
“Hey,” said Ted. “Where’s your robe?”
“Lord Randolph hath the loan of it,” said Benjamin shortly.
“And where’s his?”
Benjamin did not smile. “He hath lent it to thy cousins—”
“For their dolls to play at swimming in?”
“E’en so.”
Benjamin still did not smile. Ted tried not to. He was delighted and afraid at once. He had gotten the better of Benjamin. But this was no scene he had ever played in the nine summers of the Secret. He had never thought of Lord Randolph, brilliant counselor, apprentice wizard, King’s man, and murderer, as the sort of person who would lend his counselor’s robe to anybody to play dolls with.
Ted felt that things were getting away from him.
“Why can’t he have one of these old dusty ones, then, and you wear your own?”
“What will pass muster in me and thee, my young lord, will not so in Randolph. Come away; by now the council stays for us.”
Outside it was dark now, and although Ted saw sockets for torches set in the walls every few feet, most of them were empty. Benjamin strode along as if he were in broad daylight, his robe floating behind him, and Ted stumbled in his wake, clutching handsful of his own heavy velvet, and fuming. The floors and steps near the tower room were rough, and invited one to trip. As they came back to the central part of the castle, the floors, worn with greater use, became smooth, and invited one to slip. Ted began to feel like Laura.
They came up one last flight of stairs. There was a door at the top of it, and a man-at-arms before the door. There was a torch above his head and a short sword in his hand. His shadow, in the pulsing light of the torch, clawed at the ceiling. Ted gaped at him under Benjamin’s elbow. He had never seen a man-at-arms—the casual guards at the gates did not count—and he wished the light were better.
“Good even,” said Benjamin to the man-at-arms. “Is the King before us?”
“No, my lord,” said the man, “you’re safe. Neither the King nor Lord Randolph is there yet.” He did not speak as Benjamin did, which Ted found a relief. Benjamin was hard to keep up with; if everyone talked like that, things here would be even harder than they already were.
The guard pushed the heavy door open for them, standing aside to let them through. Light and a clamor of voices poured down the stairs and engulfed them. It was much warmer in this hall, and torches blazed from every socket. Ted noticed for the first time that they smelled like turpentine.