The Hidden Land (14 page)

Randolph let go of him, turned, and walked away.

“Well!”
said Ellen.

“Very well,” said Fence.

Ted, turning Shan’s red cap over and over in his fingers, wondered what he had done.

“Fence?” he said.

“Oh, thou didst choose wisely,” said Fence. “But consider, didst thou so out of wisdom, or for that thy father’s choice was the other?”

“Edward’s very wise,” said Ellen, with every evidence of sincerity. Ted suspected her of making a joke that only the members of the Secret could appreciate: Prince Edward was indeed wise, whoever and wherever he was; but Ted was not Prince Edward.

“So was Shan,” said Fence.

Neither Ted nor Ellen chose to respond to this. The three of them went silently inside.

T
HE day after the coronation found Ted hustled by Benjamin from one council to another. Most of them consisted of endless reports from officers and artisans of what they had been doing to get ready for the battle. Ted wondered fleetingly why they always spoke of a battle rather than of a war. Then, with a jolt like coming to the end of a flight of stairs one step sooner than you expect, he remembered the Border Magic.

It became clear to Ted that what Randolph called the mundane army had been mustering for weeks. Probably the old King had ordered that; he had believed that
something
was happening down on the southern border. The sorcerers, on the other hand, were in a state of vast disarray. Some of them had been quietly persuaded by Fence or Randolph to prepare as they would for a battle with monsters, and the division this had created between those who agreed with Fence and those who did not had cut right down to the apprentices and made a tangle of political and personal grudges and alliances such as Ted had never imagined in his wariest moments. And even the mundane army was not entirely ready for this battle: the great strength of the old King’s army had been the cavalry, and horses, said Fence, were afraid of all sorcerous creatures. Ted found himself hoping Randolph had killed the King in time, and was appalled.

Nobody asked for Ted’s orders. He found this both a relief and an irritation. He would not have known what orders to give, but, being King, he ought to have been allowed to give some. Besides, it would be a poor present to the real Edward, if they found him, to turn over to him a bunch of minions who always got their own way.

He was therefore rather testy when Benjamin told him, in the early evening, after five councils but before supper, to come along to the armory and choose his sword.

“Fence has my sword,” said Ted.

Benjamin’s face darkened. “Thou art not trained to an enchanted weapon,” he said, “and it is overlate to change thy choice. Now come.”

Oh well, thought Ted, following him, it was worth a try. Fence must have told him all about it.

The armory was under the Banquet Hall, and seemed even larger, for it was half underground and its slits of windows let in little light. Dim aisles, lined with racks of swords, spears, shields, stretched into darkness. Ted thought at first that there were enchanted weapons there; everything was so well polished that it glowed even in so little light. But he remembered Patrick’s description of the room under Fence’s Tower: weapons shining with their own light in every color. No, these were only mundane weapons. He could smell the polish that kept them so bright.

“They are making shield and helmet for thee,” said Benjamin, “but for thy first battle thou must choose thy sword.”

Ted wondered how. Quite apart from wanting to get Shan’s sword back from Fence so they could go home, he remembered the bout he and Patrick had fought in the rose garden. Shan’s and Melanie’s swords had known what they were doing. It would have been a comfort to have them for the battle. He put no particular trust in the swords Patrick and Laura had stolen. Those were magical, but not, he would bet,
that
magical.

He wandered down the long aisles, Benjamin at his heel. He fingered a grip now and again, but was not moved to do more. Perhaps he could find the sword he had had in his dream, the one that had fit his hand as one piece of a jigsaw puzzle fits into another. That would be a comfort, too. He wished he knew what it looked like. The dream-Edward had been thinking of other things.

In the middle of the third aisle he found it. It slid into his questing hand—the right hand—as if it had been waiting for him. Ted pulled it from the rack, saluted no one, and lunged with it down the empty aisle. Oh, yes, this was it. He stopped in mid-lunge, wrenched his knee, recovered, and stood staring. He had, in the dream, used this sword to try to kill Randolph. He had failed in the dream, but now he knew why, and if in fact they did fight he would not make that mistake. He looked along the blade. Should he play so into the dream’s hands, into the game’s hands? Did taking this sword mean he would kill Randolph?

Ted parried an imaginary attack and sighed. With this sword he might not fall in battle. He could save himself a trip to the land of the dead and Ruth a great deal of worry. That part had been fun to act out, but he saw no prospect of fun in the reality. After all, he thought, in the dream I was surprised at the mistake, so maybe I’d make it anyway. And I can refuse to fight Randolph. I do refuse.

He turned to Benjamin. “This one,” he said.

Benjamin came closer and looked without touching. “Ah,” he said. “That was John’s.”

“I thought he was a sorcerer,” said Ted.

“Not he. He but knew when to employ them. Well, come: this may be a good omen. This sword was a curse to the Dragon King when last he came.” Benjamin’s voice was not as pleased as his words, and Ted looked at him thoughtfully.

“Benjamin,” he said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you for ages. What are the Outside Powers?”

Benjamin shook his head. “That question meeteth a different answer in every mouth. I will say only, their color is red, their power beyond sorcery, their hearts not kindly.”

“Claudia,” said Ted.

Benjamin laughed. “No need to jape with fogs and daggers, were she such.” He turned to go.

“What does it mean if they’re rising again?”

Benjamin did not answer him directly. “When last they rose, the Border Magic kept them from us,” he said. “They are not our sworn enemies, as the Dragon King is, but are yet inimical to us by their nature. I can tell thee no more.”

“But I thought you said, at the council before Fence came back, that they
made
the Border Magic?”

“Wherefore should it not therefore keep them from us? I say again, their nature is inimical to us. They might hurt us as a man in a hurry trampleth the grass. And they might undo the Border Magic as a man in desperate need will destroy his own fences to get at his foe.”

“Who’s their foe?”

“I have said, I can tell thee no more.”

That tone brooked no argument. “Benjamin,” said Ted, struck with a sudden thought, “what about my dwarf-armor?”

“Randolph,” said Benjamin, dangerously, “hath told me it did fit thee but by a trick.”

“Oh, well,” said Ted, wondering whether he had grown since Randolph measured him, but not caring to make an issue of it. “We march tomorrow, then?” he said.

“At dawn.”

Ted thought he would take a nap after supper, to prepare and to compensate for the midnight meeting with his relations in the rose garden.

The nap made him late, of course. He found the others by the blue and green glow. For an instant he thought they had their swords back. Then he remembered the ones Patrick and Laura had stolen.

“We’re trying to decide who should have these,” Patrick told him when he joined them.

“We haven’t even decided if we’re going yet!” said Ted. He sat down by Laura on a stone bench, brushing a wet spray of roses aside. Petals drifted down the sword-beams, dyed purple and orange. “And put those things away; what if somebody sees the light?”

“Well,” said Patrick, sheathing the green sword with an uncharacteristic lack of argument, “I think, if we can do it without being noticed, we should try these swords and see if they get us home. But we shouldn’t count on it.”

“Ruth,” said Ted. “What do you think? Can you bring me back?”

Ruth nodded, and her hair swung in the sword-glow. “It’s a very simple spell,” she said. “They call it advanced sorcery because they don’t want just anybody doing it. You’re supposed to save it for special cases. The sorcerers don’t want the Lord of the Dead mad at them.”

“Laurie, will you put that thing away? Are kings special cases?”

“Well, not any king. But a young one, who doesn’t have an heir yet, and dies fighting the Dragon King, yes. It sounds like the Judge of the Dead and the Dragon King are enemies from way back. The Judge of the Dead made the Lords of the Dead let John come back to life, Meredith says.”

Ted stumbled for a moment over the idea of having an heir, considered the rest of what Ruth had said, and nodded. “I’m okay, then. What about everybody else?”

“Sorcerers of the Green Caves don’t fight,” said Ruth, “and Meredith says I’m to come along to watch, so I guess they won’t try to make me do anything I can’t.”

“Did Benjamin take you to choose your sword, Pat?”

“Younger sons don’t get taken,” said Patrick, without rancor. “He just told me to go and choose, and not, in my overweening ambition, to take one too long for me.”

“I didn’t know Prince Patrick had any ambition,” said Ellen.

“He said he didn’t altogether like my conduct at the coronation,” said Patrick.

“Well, it
was
weird,” said Ellen. “What were you doing, anyway?”

“We were discussing the oath,” said Ted, “and I want to know about Patrick’s sword.”

“Well,” said Patrick, “I’d like an enchanted one, but then I thought, maybe we should give them to the girls.”

Ted looked at his sister, who looked away, but did at last sheathe the blue glow of the sword she held. “Are they going to let you guys come?”

“Agatha’s been packing for us,” said Ellen after a moment. “We even get to wear boys’ clothes.” She paused. “I want to take our jeans.”

“Don’t,” said Ted. “I don’t know what they’d say around here if they got a good look at those zippers.”

“They have running water,” remarked Ellen.

“So did the ancient Romans,” said Patrick.

Ted said to Ellen, “Are you and Laurie supposed to fight?”

“I’m going to,” said Ellen. “And take the jeans.”

“We’ll need them to go home in, anyway,” said Ruth.

Laura pulled a ribbon from one of her braids and addressed the ground. “Agatha says we should see war in case there’s a change in fortunes and we get to be more than door wardens. Whatever that means.”

“I’m going to fight,” said Ellen.

“If you wanted to fight,” Ted told her, “you should have been out in that yard every morning with Patrick and me. You don’t know how. You’ll get killed.”

“I will not.”

“Ellen. I forbid you to fight.”

“Who do you think you are?”

“I’m Edward,” said Ted. “You swore me an oath.”

“Now look,” said Ellen, and paused, and said, “now look,” and was quiet.

Nobody else said anything. The fountain bubbled like one of the purple beasts, and thin in the background some night insect creaked. Laura snarled the ribbon up, and Ted untangled it and tied it back onto the braid for her. She still would not look at him.

“If you can do
that,
how come you wouldn’t let
me
swear to you?” Patrick said.

“You did swear to him,” said Ruth. “I heard you.”

“Yeah, but he made me qualify the oath first, so I was really swearing to the King of the Secret Country.”

“What?”
said Ellen. “You whoreson dogs!”

“Ellen!” said Ruth.

“The undercooks say it!”

“They don’t insult their own mother when they say it!”

“What?”

“Well?” said Patrick.

“You wouldn’t keep the real oath if you didn’t want to,” said Ted, “because you’d think it wasn’t serious. And then you’d get in trouble for breaking an oath. But if I made you
think
about it, and swear a limited oath, then you’d keep that.”

“There, Ellie,” said Ruth, “you and I have been complimented.”

“And I’ve been insulted, I suppose,” said Patrick cheerfully. “Now, who gets these swords?”

“I think you’re right; we should give them to Laura and Ellen,” said Ted. “Not to fight with, but just in case things go wrong.”

“Wish I’d thought to steal more,” said Patrick. He made a figure eight in the air with the green sword, and sighed. “You’re right, I guess. They’ll need all the help they can get.” He put the sword away as Ted drew breath to yell at him. “Come on down to the armory with me,” said Patrick in his friendliest tones, “and help me pick out a normal one.”

 

They left at dawn. The morning was clear again. In the mill before everyone was organized, Laura looked for Claudia. Laura and Ellen and Agatha were to walk behind Ruth and the other students of the Green Caves, among the pages and cooks. Claudia, if she were coming, would hardly be with them.

Laura climbed up the wall that overhung the moat, and watched High Castle empty itself, but she saw no one with black hair and a weasel’s walk. As she began to climb down, she saw a group of women with spears, standing on the bridge over the moat. They were talking to Ted and Benjamin and Patrick. Laura was not sure she was speaking to Ted yet, but when the three of them came by she scrambled down the wall, tore her tunic, and caught Patrick by the sleeve.

“Who were those people?”

“Ted thinks they were the Queen’s Council when there was a Queen,” said Patrick, “and now they hang around waiting for another Queen and doing what nobody else wants to do. Like staying home from the battle.”