Spring advanced rapidly as we moved south. The woodland flowers disappeared as we moved into kingdoms where the trees had already leafed out. Here too the hills were a different shape than the hills of home, the roof-lines of the houses different, the very style of clothes worn by the people working in the fields different from those worn by the villagers of Yurt. To all of us and especially to Dominic, the newness and variety was a heady experience in itself.
After a month of traveling south on less-frequented roads, we finally picked up the main pilgrimage and commercial route that ran from the great City down toward the Central Sea. We stopped at our first pilgrimage church, a small dark structure that seemed little visited even though it stood close to a busy road. But it had vivid and complicated stone sculptures, about which Joachim read to us from the bishop’s guidebook.
“The saint here miraculously cured thousands of a disease whose name is no longer remembered. It has been forgotten because the saint cured it out of existence.”
Hugo lifted his eyebrows ironically at me. From the sculptures, it looked as though the disease was thought to have rotated men’s heads around backwards.
After two days of jostling with other travelers on the road and another night in an inn-we got two beds this time-we again left the route for the detour to visit Joachim’s family. We headed through fields and meadows swathed in fresh yellow-green toward the manor where his brother lived.
We looked at each other critically that morning. After a month of travel, we were all grubby, as well as leaner and browner than when we left home. That is, all except the chaplain himself: he had somehow managed to keep himself tidily shaved and his clothes relatively unwrinkled.
“Looking forward to someone else’s cooking?” I asked Ascelin as we lowered ourselves delicately into a stream which, even under a sunny spring sky, felt cold enough to have ice in it. I tried without much success to work up some lather to wash the smell of woodsmoke out of my hair.
He plunged his head under water and came up snorting and laughing. His dark blue eyes contrasted sharply with his tanned face. I passed him the soap. “I should ask all of you that question.” We had decided, the third day out, that Ascelin was by far the best camp cook and had made him prepare the suppers ever since. He could even make passable biscuits over the fire. “Any time you want to take a turn-”
“I wanted to ask you something,” I said as we dried ourselves off and tried to shake the wrinkles out of the only clean clothes we had left. “I’ve been wondering about this for a while. Why did you and the duchess show up at the royal castle just as the king was about to announce his quest?”
Ascelin pulled a shirt over his head. “Didn’t Diana tell you? Sir Hugo’s wife had called her that morning.”
“Sir Hugo’s wife-”
“He’s Diana’s relative as well as the queen’s uncle-just a more distant relation. His wife was, of course, very worried about him. She was hoping, I think, that he might have been in contact with us, although I don’t know why he would write us and not his own wife. But she did mention that she’d already talked to your queen. Diana guessed that at least some of you from the royal court would be planning to go look for Sir Hugo, and she had no intention of being left behind.” He chuckled. “In spite of racing up to the royal castle through a snowstorm-and me on foot! — she still couldn’t go along.”
Ascelin leaned his back against a tree to pull his boots on. “Looks as though I need new soles,” he said to himself, then gave a quick smile. “I must be in the best condition of my life, keeping up on foot with five mounted men.
“My lady Diana was very disappointed, as I’m sure you can guess,” he went on. “But Haimeric was right: we couldn’t have both gone and left the twins behind. You might have done better with her than with me, however-even if I am a better camp cook.”
He fell silent for a moment, looking out across the stream. “She is a remarkable woman, Wizard. I wouldn’t tell this to anybody but you, but after all you did help bring us together. I miss her terribly — before this we’d never been separated for more than a day or two since we were first married.”
I pulled a few words of the Hidden Language together to create an illusion, just a tiny illusion, a dark-haired woman about a foot high wearing a leather tunic and wide gold bracelets. I liked to do at least a little magic every day. Wizardry is hard enough that I was always afraid of going rusty. It wasn’t very difficult to create illusory images of people I knew, though I didn’t do it often.
Ascelin saw what I was doing and caught his breath. “That’s Diana!”
“Don’t try to touch it,” I said. “Your hand would go straight through her.”
I had expected him to be pleased, but he turned his back sharply on me. I looked at his wide shoulders thoughtfully. I didn’t even miss the queen that much. I shrugged, said the two words to end the illusion, and stood up to stamp my heels down into my own boots.
It was with neatly trimmed beards and clean-if badly creased-clothes that we rode up to the manor house. We had telephoned from the inn two days ago and were expected.
Since I knew Joachim’s brother Arnulf was involved in commerce in some way, I had expected, without really thinking about it, that his house would be something like the cramped urban house I myself had grown up in. Instead it was a gracious, two-story edifice, built of stone the color of mellow gold. Long wings encircled a courtyard, and wide lawns led down to the river. A cherry orchard bloomed beyond the house. It was big enough that it probably could shelter nearly as many people as the royal castle of Yurt. Either built after the Black Wars, I thought, looking at the tall windows, or else built by someone who could afford very good protection.
Liveried servants hurried up to meet us as we clattered into the courtyard. A few guards loitered conspicuously near the house doors. I glanced at Joachim, wondering how it felt to be back in his childhood home after more than fifteen years away. But his face, often hard to read, now seemed to have no expression at all.
The main door swung open, and Arnulf, the lord of the manor, appeared, holding out both hands in greeting. “Joachim!” he cried. “This is delightful! I’m so glad you were able to come. And King Haimeric of Yurt, I presume? You honor us!”
Joachim’s brother was a shock. He looked like the chaplain and yet not like the chaplain. He had the same hair, the same height, the same deep-set dark eyes over high cheekbones, even if he did not have the chaplain’s gauntness. But the effect was as if Joachim had been taken out of his own body and someone else put in his place.
The chaplain tossed his reins to me and went to meet him. The brothers started to shake hands and embraced instead.
“Well, Joachim, at least you don’t make me kiss your ring,” said Arnulf with a laugh. “Does that wait until you’re made bishop?”
Joachim neither laughed nor answered the comment. “It’s good to see you,” he said instead and turned to introduce his brother to the rest of us.
“Claudia’s eager to see you too,” said Arnulf, “and of course the children can’t wait to meet their Uncle Joachim.”
Joachim took a deep breath. “And I them.”
We were shown to the guest rooms and told that lunch would be served in half an hour. The rooms seemed sybaritic after our weeks on the road, feather beds covered with clean white sheets, long windows curtained in blue, and plenty of hot water. An efficient serving maid unpacked our bags and took our clothes away to the laundry.
We had been given five rooms in the guest wing, all next to each other, while the chaplain was taken off to the family wing of the house. I took the opportunity to shave my cheeks more thoroughly than I had been able to do with cold water that morning. The soap was delicately scented with lily-of-the-valley.
I stood by the window to dry my face, enjoying the light breeze coming through the open casements and the sight of birds hopping purposefully across the lawn. I was distracted from a pleasant reverie by the sound of voices.
Joachim and his brother were strolling along the outside of the house. Arnulf spoke as they came under my window. “It’s as though they’d disappeared into thin air. And nothing left-except the sign.”
They continued out of my earshot without speaking again. I looked soberly after them. Sir Hugo’s party had also disappeared into thin air.
There came a sharp knock, making me jump. “Come in!” I called, and Ascelin entered, ducking his head as he came through the doorway.
He closed the door behind him and motioned me away from the window. “What’s going on here?” he asked in a low voice. “Is everyone here under a spell?”
Startled, I probed at once for magic and found none. As my mind slid lightly along the surface of magic’s four dimensions, I could sense the presence inside the house of all our party except Joachim, as well as many minds I did not know, but none of them was a wizard. Down by the front door I found Joachim and his brother, in the courtyard the house guards, and in the stables minds I assumed belonged to the stable boys, but that was all. I came back to myself and looked up into the prince’s worried eyes. “No one’s under a spell here. Why did you think so?”
He shook his head. “It must be hunter’s instincts. This whole house feels as though something has just happened or is about to happen, and I don’t know what it is.”
I had felt nothing of the sort, but then I was no hunter. Ascelin, I knew, had many years of experience in guessing or sensing where animals were hiding and when they would break into the open. I shook my shoulders to dispel a sudden chill that could have been prescience and could have been my imagination.
“We should all stay close together,” said Ascelin, “and leave here as soon as we can.”
“But we just got here,” I protested, “and Joachim hasn’t seen his family in years!” All of us had been in high good humor this entire trip, and an onset of unprecedented caution, just when we reached such a comfortable house, seemed entirely uncalled for.
“And why did his brother want him to visit now?” demanded Ascelin.
I was suddenly reminded of the bandits, who had thought that there was something specific hidden in the silk caravan and that we too were looking for it. Arnulf, I knew, was involved in some way in the luxury trade with the East. Could there be, here in this house, something valuable enough to make a castellan turn outlaw?
“I don’t know if you overheard,” said Ascelin, “the other day when we were at that inn, but several of the merchants were talking about very strange rumors coming out of the East, and I thought I heard one of them say that they involved the kingdom of Yurt ….”
Before I could respond to this startling information, there were brisk steps in the hall outside and another knock. “My lords?” It was Arnulf’s constable, come to tell us that lunch was ready. A few minutes ago, I would have gone to the dining room with pleasant anticipation. Now as we walked down the wide, carpeted stairs I felt instead a stir of misgiving.
But nothing about lunch seemed ominous. The dining room was carpeted and curtained in green, and the view from the window was of bright flowerbeds with the river beyond. The table glistened with silver and crystal. Arnulf and Joachim were already there when we came in.
“Claudia said she and the children would be right down,” said Arnulf. “Ah, here they are.” In the hall we heard children shouting excitedly, and the door swung open with a bang. But there was immediately an abashed silence as they spotted us. For a second I saw our group as the children must see us, six strange men standing looking toward the door, three of them rather formidable warriors. Even clean and well-dressed, we felt to me like a wild and woodsy group in this delicate and gracious setting.
“Go on in, it’s all right, don’t you want to meet your Uncle Joachim and his friends?” came a laughing woman’s voice. Claudia, the lady of the manor, came through the doorway herding two boys and a girl before her.
Claudia was another shock. She was the only woman I had ever met who came close to being as beautiful as the queen.
She did not look at all like the queen, having curly russet hair, already escaping from the coiffure into which I was sure she had just combed it, and a skin so fair it was almost translucent. She had a merry sweetness of expression and yet an air of tender concern in her eyes that made someone who saw her-or at least me-feel she must be protected at all costs from anything troublesome or sad.
She came immediately across to Joachim, wearing the tiniest firm line around her mouth as though determined not to be as shy as her children. She took his hands, looked into his eyes, and gave an almost tentative smile. I would have felt her expression, both sweet and vulnerable, was devastating if it had been turned on me. “You haven’t changed at all,” she said softly.
“Nor have you,” said Joachim. “It’s been too long. So, these are my nephews and my niece.”
Claudia brought the children forward to meet their uncle, then all of us were introduced to her, and she invited us to sit down at the table. Servants came in with steaming platters.
She was the perfect hostess, serving the king first, making sure each of us had what he wanted, asking about our trip and listening attentively to our answers, and at the same time somehow keeping her children quiet and orderly and their meat cut up in bite-size pieces.
But twice, as her husband sat beaming genially at the other end of the table, I thought I saw her shoot a worried look toward him.