One for the Morning Glory (25 page)

He wished instantly he had not said that last, for it caused Amatus to wince with pain and look at Psyche. For a long time the only sound was old Euripides gulping and slobbering at his soup, for, spending as much time as he did away from hot food and other people, his table manners were as bad as his scouting was acute.

"Oh, well, then," Amatus said at last, "since it all sounds like common sense, I imagine you've a way of allocating us to those duties. I had at first thought that I ought to be on the quest, but questing is really a prince's game, and I am a king now, so I shall have to lead the army. Psyche travels with me, always, and I would not dream of leading the army without having along the two men who everyone in this north country is going to trust as my lieutenants—that is, Deacon Dick Thunder and Captain Palaestrio. So that leaves the rest of you for the other two purposes . . ."

"Ahem," Sir John coughed. "Er, I had a thought. Sort of a thought, you might say . . . er, well, you know, with one thing and another in the city, it happens that I never did a proper knight-candidate's quest. No one raised any, er, objections, because at first I was wild and bad and no one expected me to do anything expected of me, you know, and then after that I was in one adventure after another with my Prince, and so I think most folk thought I had, but . . ." his voice trailed off hopefully.

"Of course, Sir John!" Amatus said, clapping his hands together, and then lurching backward in surprise because it had never made a noise before. "That's exactly what you will do, then."

"Er, that wasn't the whole thought," Slitgizzard said, looking down and nearly blushing. They waited for him to go on. "It seems to me that, well, perhaps . . . well, you all know I am not very clever. That seems to be widely agreed upon. And looking for things requires some cleverness, rather than mere skill, which I have in abundance. So I thought rather than look for the heart directly, I might go seek out the Riddling Beast, and ask him where to look."

"You've no business saying you aren't clever," Calliope said, beaming at him. "That's a very sensible idea."

Sir John did blush, then, and they thought it was embarrassment at the compliment, but it was relief that he had not made a fool of himself. Perhaps Calliope sensed this, a little, for she hastened to change the subject. "Well, that leaves me, and Cedric, and Euripides, if you can spare him, Amatus, to make the diversion. And I've got a fine one in mind."

Amatus nodded. "I think up in this country we can rely on Dick Thunder's men to do our scouting without much danger. And much as I will miss Cedric's good advice, I think a wily and experienced old head put to the job of making trouble can probably make a great deal where we need it and when we need it."

"Who are you calling old?" Cedric said, but he beamed at the compliment, which reassured Amatus a great deal. He had not especially wanted to have Cedric looking over his shoulder during his first great battle as King, but he had not wanted him to realize that.

"Why, good old Calliope, of course," Amatus said, smiling in a way more innocent than any innocent person has ever achieved.

"Be that as it may," Calliope said, "here's the diversion I have in mind. To do what he did, I'm quite sure that Waldo stripped Overhill bare. And though the commoners there may be twenty years more borne down and worn out, they are also that much angrier. I think I might stir up a rebellion there—and perhaps if luck were with me, might free my family's citadel at Oppidum Optimum myself. That ought to make Waldo start moving—so he's likely to be most of the way to Iron Lake before he hears the city has fallen behind him."

"Promise you will be cautious," Amatus said.

"Yes, dearie," Calliope said, much too sweetly, and despite knowing that Amatus was King, the rest could hardly avoid laughing, so Amatus could not resist laughing either.

"Well, then, be reckless and do foolish things and endanger yourself needlessly, if you really must, but for all the gods' sake come back safe," Amatus said. "I think we have a strategy here, and had best get about carrying it through."

Of Sir John Slitgizzard's hardships on his quest, perhaps we ought to say nothing, for he scorned to complain, and perhaps in deference to him no one wrote any record of it. But in fairness we must say that his courage and endurance must have been considerable.

We do know that he chose to go the quick rather than the easy way. The longer way round would have been arduous enough, for it would have meant descending the Long River, crossing where the bridge was down, descending through the foothills, taking the fork in the road to the Great North Woods, following that dark, little-traveled, and sorcery-ridden road three or four days through the Great North Woods until he came to Iron Lake, finding a boat or more likely walking around the lake some days more until he found the road that ran along the lake north from the Ironic Gap, and then finally hiking up into the mountains along the Iron River into the wild and dangerous country where the Irons themselves lived. They were an often inexplicable people, hard to see precisely, and though they were not always dangerous, they were never entirely safe either.

Passing through Irony would eventually take him among the highest peaks, where nothing much lived—except various monsters, goblins, gazebo, and now the Riddling Beast.

But this was the easy way and it was
not
the way he went. Sir John knew that there was one high pass—so high that anywhere else in the lands known to the Kingdom it would have been counted as a mountain in its own right—between the Northern Mountains, which rose above the Lake of Winter, and the nameless mountains north of Iron Lake where the Riddling Beast had gone. In another month, there would be perhaps half a chance of finding that pass clear of snow, but there was no month to wait, so Sir John set forth, "and don't worry about it," he said to Amatus, before Sceledrus took him across the lake and up the little river to where his journey was to begin, "it's one thing to set a quest for some shavetail wet-behind-the-ears youngster who's never proven himself at anything, and quite another to set a quest for a man with some experience, eh? A quest is supposed to be a challenge."

Sceledrus reported that Sir John had seemed cheerful as he led off the two pack mules whom he had purchased from the area's wealthiest potato farmer. He had been offered them as a loan, and had refused to take it, "for I don't expect them to make the journey all the way, and if by some miracle one or other should survive, well, I can at least give him an honorable retirement."

The last Sceledrus had seen of him, Sir John Slitgizzard had been on his way, whistling "The Codwalloper's Daughter" off-key (and as loudly as possible, to compensate).

It was only the day after Sceledrus reported this that Calliope set forth. She would proceed down the Long River, then take the Great North Woods Road west to Iron Lake, and finally enter Overhill through the Ironic Gap.

Amatus was surprised at his concern for her. It was a dangerous journey, but not more dangerous than other things she had done. It was important, but not as important as either Sir John's mission or his own. Yet he felt sorrier than ever before to see her go.

He realized his feelings were entirely consonant with a happy ending, and for just a moment he had to find Psyche and make sure she was still there.

Calliope's journey through the Great North Woods with Cedric and Euripides was as uneventful as any riding vacation. The Great North Woods had been a royal preserve for ages untold, never touched by settler's ax or soldier's boot, and it was filled with things that might make other quests, or with things that in another sort of quest might have to be overcome, and there was hardly a clearing without a knight's grave, a hill without an ogre, or a dark copse without dark doings in its dark past. The Great North Woods Road was said to have been there before the Kingdom, and perhaps before the Great North Woods, but nothing was known of how it had been made, nor even of what kept it open. For though it saw little enough traffic, it was always in reasonable repair, ready for any traveler who needed it—though, since it ran without branching from a road through a wilderness to a great flat stone on an unpopulated shore, there were few who did.

And this time, despite all the adventures waiting for other travelers, nothing happened during the four days' journey along the road. Euripides was heard to mutter regularly that it was "too quiet," but almost always, shortly after he did, animals in the woods would begin to make noises, as if they wanted him to be more comfortable.

When they were not silent they argued about why there had never been any goblins in the Great North Woods. Euripides thought it was because goblins could only go where at least one goblin had been before, which Calliope thought rather begged the question, but her own hypothesis that whatever the Great North Woods was, was older and stronger than what the goblins were, was by her own admission no better. It gave them something to debate when they felt like talking, which was not often.

Now and then a view or vista opened up and they saw some ruin or mountain, old and encrusted with history, but more often they saw only the great arch of trees above the road.

Each night, just as they became tired, there was an opening adequate for them to camp on, with dead branches lying there for a fire. They ate from their packs, dining well enough on pan bread made from piecemeal, jerked gazebo, and other simple fare.

Finally, just before noon of the fourth day, they came to the Flat Rock, a piece of stone broad enough for a thousand men to stand on that stuck into Iron Lake at the very northwest corner of the Great North Woods for no particular reason except that it had to be somewhere. They ate a quick lunch on the Flat Rock.

Calliope never knew just what impelled her to walk to the end of the Flat Rock. But as she reached the point farthest out into the water, something glowed on the horizon.

As Cedric described it later, the glow became something you knew would be in the corner of your eye if you looked away. Then it grew, and Calliope stood as straight and still as if a million people were watching her.

A ship heaved above the horizon, her great brown sail painted with deep blue stripes, an indescribable flag flying at her mast, making for the Flat Rock with swift dignity. Cedric and Euripides ran forward to join Calliope, for Cedric's first thought was that Waldo must have built a navy, and Euripides's was of pirates.

So softly you would not have known she was there with your eyes closed, the ship slid up beside the Flat Rock in the bright sunlight, as solid as the Rock itself and yet strangely cut into the air around her, as if she were a trifle more real than anything else around her. She rocked gently there, not an arm span from the Rock (for the water was deep on that side). A gangplank swung down from the side of the ship to crash onto the Rock.

No hand rested on the tiller, no sheet or line had a hand upon it, no one raced across the deck to make anything happen; it all just happened, and now the ship rested there, as if waiting for them. "What do you suppose—?" Calliope whispered.

"I suppose as little as I can manage," Cedric replied, his voice low. "This is the sort of thing that every story assures us cannot be ignored. A ship like this is going to take us to somewhere we need to be, rest assured of that. The gangplank, there, looks uncommonly solid and stable; do you suppose we might see if we can lead the horses and mules up it?"

"We'll need fodder for 'em," Euripides pointed out.

"I doubt that. At the pace with which this ship sails, there is no doubt in my mind that she can be at any corner of Iron Lake in a matter of a few hours."

"How do we know she's for us?" Calliope whispered, again, gingerly placing a foot on the gangplank.

"She's for you," Euripides said, firmly.

"How do you know?"

"Because when you touched her just now, the flag at the mast, which had been indescribable, became the Raven and Rooster, the flag of your family," Euripides said, pointing upward. They looked and it was so.

A little later they led the last mule up the gangplank, and everything was off the Flat Rock. Calliope asked, "Now, do we raise the gangplank or—"

The gangplank slowly raised itself and knots formed in the lines to make it fast. There was a subtle shifting underfoot, and first the ship was drifting sideways, and then her sails caught a wind that had not been blowing an instant before, and they were racing across the water, far faster than a galloping horse ever goes, all in a deep silence.

Calliope was still trying to make sense of the ship's arrival. "You say it came to serve me, because it started to fly the Raven and Rooster, but I've been to Iron Lake, oh, dozens of times, and I've never seen this ship before."

Cedric grinned; little would discourage him now, for the arrival of ancient, unknown, and obviously beneficent magic must mean that Waldo had at last gone too far and was about to bear the consequences. "It was never time before. Things will draw on swiftly now. This is an excellent sign."

The ship had arrived at the Flat Rock just after they had finished their lunch, and they had spent perhaps the better part of an hour boarding her; but long before they had any thought of being hungry again, or of stretching out for a nap, the western shore of Iron Lake was drawing near, and there, among the scrub brush, they saw another rock, not unlike a smaller Flat Rock, with a ruined stone wall rising above it and a road winding up into the trees above.

"Where are we?" Cedric asked.

"I have seen this place," Euripides said, "as I have seen most places. The fishermen in these parts often call it the Old Port, so I have always assumed at one time it was such. That grassy road—which never outgrows, though there is no traffic on it, much like the Great North Woods Road—winds up to join the Royal Road not more than a double dozen furuncles above us in the hills, just where the Royal Road bends and heads up into the Ironic Gap. This ship has saved us some days' travel and danger."

Even as Euripides spoke, the ship brought herself, as delicately as a cat finds a favored spot on a pillow, to the side of the rock. The gangplank came down, and presently they had disembarked their horses and mules.

They had expected almost anything of the ship—that she might then sink, or transform into something else, or perhaps sail back over the horizon—but it was only that as they looked at her, wondering what she would do, she ceased to be there. In a long breath more of the water flowed together where she had been.

Headed up into the mountains, they made splendid time. By late afternoon, they were encamped not far from the fort at the top of the pass. They built no fire, and lay well back from the road, everything made as silent as it might be, for the fort must be held by Waldo's soldiers, and they planned to rise well before the dawn to see if they might find a quiet way around it.

Long before dawn the next morning, as Calliope and Cedric yawned and gulped cold water from their bottles, old Euripides, making less noise than a shadow on dark moss, crept forth to see what he might find. As he went, Cedric and Calliope got matters in order, muffling the hooves of the horses and mules, whispering gently to the animals to keep them quiet, making sure more by feel than sight that nothing was left behind. When they finished they sat silently together on a log for a cold breakfast of jerked gazebo and piecemeal biscuit.

Euripides should have been back by now, and yet he was not. Undoubtedly he had encountered some difficulty and would be here soon.

Calliope whispered that he might as well nap, she would stand the short watch until Euripides returned, so Cedric spread his cloak on the ground and lay down. She could barely see him, and she was alone in the dark with her thoughts. She thought of Amatus, and of how Boniface had fallen and the Duke had died, and the passing of the first three Companions. It was strange how Psyche had at first seemed merely charming, and then had become a friend, but when Calliope had come to understand more of the nature of the Companions, she had realized her friend was a force in the world like wind, truth, gravity, or levity.

Now the morning stars were beginning to fade, and there was only the Morning Star itself, bright and glorious, burning down through a hole in the fir boughs. Euripides was now hours late from a half-hour mission, and if he did not come immediately they would have to wait till the following night.

The gray false dawn came and went, and took the Morning Star with it, and still there was no sound, and no sign of Euripides. A low red sunrise, portending storms, came up, and then the gray clouds frothed over the blue of the sky, so that it was gloomy and gray and nearly as dark as it had been before sunrise, and still there was no trace of the scout. She thought of waking Cedric, but saw little benefit; if Euripides was captured, they must hope that he did not talk, for they could not move without detection until dark fell again that night.

Cedric woke when the hoofbeats came from the road, and then they both stood when they heard Euripides's voice call for them. They glanced at each other sharply, and Cedric stopped knocking leaves and dirt from his cloak and beard just long enough to whisper, "It might be a —"

But he did not sav "trap" for at that moment Euripides came out of the brush, and with him were three men. who all knelt before Cedric. The old General and Prime Minister—still with a leaf or two sticking to him, and his thin hair an unkempt mess—had the courtier's gift of instant dignity, so he raised each of them with a gentle hand, and as he brought the last one up, he exclaimed, "Captain Pseudolus! Gods and more gods, I'd have thought the fort fallen and all of you dead!"

"Then there
was
a war," Pseudolus said. "We hear little up here in the Ironic Gap, and what we do hear is old. One absurd fellow did come up to tell us that someone named Waldo was now in charge of the Kingdom and to give us a set of ridiculous orders. Obviously a prank, or perhaps something garbled from that other Waldo, the one that lives in Overhill. So since what he said was not bad enough (and we thought not true enough) to hang him for, we beat the messenger till he could just manage to stand, and put him on the road in a nightshirt with a sign about his neck that said 'Fool.' I suppose if I see that little man again I owe him some sort of an apology."