Norton, Andre - Novel 23 (31 page)

 
          
 
After the gloom of the cabin, the bright light
of day half-blinded her. But the air—the good air! Saranna staggered forward,
out into the sun. For a moment, she was so glad to be free that she was unaware
of anything else save that fact.

 
          
 
And she had been right in her guess. The sloop
was tied up at a wharf. As she tottered around to face landward, she saw the
hedge-walled alley which led from the water to Tiensin. At least she was still
in familiar territory. But she was not safe.

 
          
 
No, those who had taken her from her
bedchamber were of Tiensin, or at least they had been given full run of that
house. They need only sight her again and—

 
          
 
Saranna crept forward along the deck, watching
feverishly for any sign of life ashore. She edged down the plank walk to the
wharf. Could she hide out in the garden? She must—! Perhaps she could even
reach the hidden garden where the Fox Lady might grant her some refuge. But
there were gardeners ever at work around the estate. If she were sighted—

 
          
 
She made the best speed she could to the
shadow of the hedge, then edged along that, trying to be alert to any sound,
any glimpse of someone at work here. Should she try to reach the road beyond
the orchard, and, with that as a guide, head to Queen's Pleasure?

 
          
 
But with Honora here—

 
          
 
That odd strength which had come to her during
that moment in the cabin when she had envisioned the Fox Lady seemed to be now fast
ebbing. Her head was once more aching cruelly, and her body was so weak she
could barely keep on her feet and moving. No, she must discover some hiding
place until she was stronger. She could not hope to round the house in the open
to reach the hidden garden, not in the full light of day.

 
          
 
In the end she fell and so found a hollow
beneath the low spreading limbs of a clipped shrub. There she lay, crouching as
small as she might in a dark huddle. Perhaps she fainted; perhaps she slept.
But she did not remember much of what followed.

 
          
 
There was something pulling at her shoulder, a
voice whispering in her ear:

 
          
 
"Please, Saranna—please! Wake up—wake
up!"

 
          
 
Saranna tried to twitch away from that hold,
close her ears to that voice. But, both were insistent, and would not let her
rest

 
          
 
"Saranna!”

 
          
 
She choked, coughed. Her nose was full of a
pungent scent. She opened her eyes. In the dark, someone crouched beside her.
She tried to brush away the scent, and her hand struck against that of another.
Saranna seized upon a small wrist.

 
          
 
"What—what are you doing?" She
sniffed and coughed again. But the irritating scent was waking her, clearing
her head.
"Damaris?"

 
          
 
"Yes. Oh, Saranna, where were you? They
said—I heard them—you went away with Rufus. Mr. Fowke came and they told him
that. He—he was very angry, I think. He would not talk to her after she had
Mrs. Parton and Millie out to tell him it was so. And when I went to your room—
everything was gone.
Except your new dresses.
Millie
said you gave them to her. But I didn't believe her at all. Millie was awfully
afraid. She says she's going to sell Millie, sell her
deep
South! Then—the Princess—she sent one of her people, told me to hunt in the
garden. Saranna, what happened to you?"

 
          
 
"I'm not sure." At least that
headache did not wrack her, as it had at her first waking. Rather the pain had
subsided into a low throb which was bearable. But she had to gather her wits
with firm purpose to understand Damaris' fast gabble of recent events.

 
          
 
"I was on a boat—" Saranna tried to
make sense of what had happened. "First—I went to the garden and the Fox
Lady. She threw wands and read something about the future." Through the
dark, she heard a small gasp from Damaris. "Then we drank tea. And
after—there is a queer dream about people dressing me—leading me to a door after
they made me drink something nasty. I woke up in the boat and I was sick—"

 
          
 
"How did you get here?"

 
          
 
"I—I don't really know. The pendant—there
was something about the pendant made me think in spite of my being so sick. So
I got out of the cabin—and then I hid—" At that moment her adventures had
once more begun to take on the aura of a dream—rather a nightmare. Yet she was
out in the garden in the dark with Damaris crouching beside her.

 
          
 
"She's awfully angry," Damaris
whispered. ''She put off the company that was coming. I think she wants to tear
down the garden before she has anyone here. Rufus is gone. Maybe downriver to
meet those men she sent for. I’ve been listening all I can. She thinks I'm
locked up." Damaris gave a soft laugh. "I—I called the Princess and
told her about your being gone. It was she who had her people
look
for you. She said you are part of what must come."

 
          
 
"Who is the Princess?" Saranna had
loosed Damaris and crawled out of the hollow which had hidden her. She was very
hungry, even
more thirsty
. "Do we go to her
now?"

 
          
 
"Not yet," Damaris returned
promptly. "She is drawing her forces, I think. When she does that she can
only have her own people, the ones who know her, around her."

 
          
 
"I have to have something to eat,
drink." Saranna was not sure she dared trust her cramped legs as yet.
Where would she find shelter if she could not reach the hidden garden which now
took on the semblance of an island of safety in a world where she could not
trust anyone save Damaris? Mr. Fowke—for the first time in her life Saranna
found herself crying without being aware of her tears until their salt-flow
down her cheeks dripped upon her lips.

 
          
 
Mr. Fowke believed she had gone with Rufus
Parton. Their lies must have seemed overwhelming evidence or he would not have
left. Her painfully composed message had been worth nothing.

 
          
 
"I can't get into the kitchen,"
Damaris stood to her full height. "They would see me. Listen, Saranna, you
can get a drink at the fountain. They cleaned that out and started it running,
'cause they thought company was coming. If you stay there I can go to the quarters.
Old Jane, they don't watch by her nights now, she sleeps so much. I can get
some com bread, something there—"

 
          
 
At the thought of water, of any kind of food,
Saranna was ready to move. But she found that she staggered when she tried to
walk, and Damaris had to half-support as well as lead her. There was no moon
tonight, even a waning one. And Saranna did not know how the younger girl found
so direct a path through the hedges, until they emerged in a round open space,
in which a fountain did play, and there were benches placed here and there
among the greenery.

 
          
 
The water brought her stumbling forward to
fall to her knees while she scooped it up with both hands, sucking avidly at a
portion cupped to reach her lips. Then she splashed droplets over her face and
down the front of her already ill-treated dress. When they had clothed her in
that dream time, they had made no attempt to fasten up her hair. And her
braids, half-undone, fell down her back, leaves and twigs caught in them.

 
          
 
Altogether, she decided, she must look like
some road-tramping beggar.

 
          
 
"Damaris—" Drinking left her voice
less of a croak. But, as she looked over her shoulder, she could see no other
beside her. The younger girl must have already slipped away on her try at
getting some rations from the old nurse's cabin. Saranna drank again.

 
          
 
When she wiped her face with the hem of her
bedraggled skirt, she suddenly sighted the creature which had come noiselessly
out of the darkness to face her from the other side of the fountain basin. In
spite of the darkness this ghostly form had lines she could distinguish, one of
those large white foxes, the like of which had attacked Rufus.

 
          
 
However, Saranna felt no fear. Doglike, the
fox sat on its haunches. The longer she surveyed it, the clearer she could make
out its form, as if the white fur had some glow of its own. Its head might have
provided the artist who had carved the jade piece she wore as a model. Was it a
sentry, a guard, dispatched through another's will to make certain that she
remained safe? Saranna no longer questioned whether such things could be. The
Fox Lady, somehow she was above and beyond the limitations of Saranna's
reality.

 
          
 
She remembered now that Damaris had not
answered her first question as to the identity of the Princess. How had the Fox
Lady found her way to this land? With the Old Captain who had loved the
beautiful things of
China
so completely that he also had collected
her in some fashion as his crowning treasure?

 
          
 
Yet Saranna, having had even so small a
contact with the dweller in the garden, was certain that the Fox Lady obeyed
only her own will, and that if she lived in the shadow of Tiensin, behind her
own moon door, it was because she would have it so.

 
          
 
The white fox arose, faced a little away from
Saranna, pointing its muzzle to the left. However, the beast did not growl or
show any signs of uneasiness. So warned, Saranna lost no time in crawling on
her hands and knees, not even taking a moment to rise to her feet, back to the
nearest bench. There was a rustling in the shrubbery.

 
          
 
Saranna, breathless, tried to watch the fox
and also the space from whence that noise came. Still the fox showed no sign of
more than just interest. She could only depend upon the animal's warning—

 
          
 
"Saranna?”

 
          
 
"Damaris!"

 
          
 
"Here!" Thankfully she answered
whisper with whisper. The small figure slipped out of a narrow space between
two of the high-growing shrubs and came to her.

 
          
 
"Com bread and
it's
all cold. But I dabbed some honey on it." She thrust a crumbling mass into
Saranna's hands, "It's the best I could do."

 
          
 
Saranna, lost to all thought of manners,
crammed the sticky, dry stuff into her mouth in as large bites as she could
manage. She chewed and swallowed, and then had to seek the fountain side again
for a drink to help that mess down. But when she had eaten the cold slab to the
last crumb she could lick from her fingers, she felt much better.

 
          
 
"I saw the Poker. She was going down to
the wharf. She had a basket." Damaris had seated herself beside Saranna.
"Maybe she was going to take you some food—"

 
          
 
Saranna started up. It would need only one
glance at that open cabin door and the alarm would be out. They would realize
very well that she could not have gone far. Which meant the garden must be
searched. Where—? Damaris' hand closed upon hers.

 
          
 
"You've got to hide," she stated the
obvious. "I guess promises sometimes have to be broken. Grandfather would
do this if he were here. You come with me."

 
          
 
Once more they made a circuitous way from one
piece of shelter, under tree, bush, or shrub to the next. Saranna saw that
white shape slipping along in their wake, and then the first fox was joined by
a second.