This Scepter'd Isle (33 page)

That gave Denoriel an idea for a present for Harry when it would be time to leave him . . . if he dared leave him. He stood up.

"Would you like to see him?" Mwynwen asked. Her voice was uncertain as if she desperately wanted to show off her prize but was afraid seeing it would make Denoriel wish to seize it.

"I do, but I daren't take the time," Denoriel said. "Later, perhaps. And it will be better when he is more settled with you, anyway. Let him know he is cherished by you first, and become secure in the knowledge. Then I will see him."

Mwynwen nodded, but she did not move away from the door. "I hope you will not misuse what I have given you," she said. "An unlimited and quickly renewing source of power . . . That will give you a great advantage over most other Sidhe."

"I am not a quarrelsome sort," Denoriel said, smiling, knowing that he had said exactly the right thing about the poor little changeling. "And most of my time is now spent in the mortal world where even this spell cannot gather power very well." He shook his head. "I must go back at once. Can you tell Aleneil about the goblin attack for me? If the Unseleighe are so desperate to seize poor Harry, I had better be there to defend him."

"Yes, go," she urged, now looking anxious. "I cannot bear the thought of your Harry, so much like my Richey, in the hands of Vidal Dhu. And don't worry. I don't forget that they might be seeking Richey too. He is guarded by the strongest protections I can devise."

They parted better friends, but Denoriel knew the special bond they had had no longer existed. He wondered, feeling his ears grow warm as he mounted Miralys, whether Mwynwen had wanted his loving or his youth? He was
very
young for a Sidhe. Had he been desired as a lover or as a substitute for a child? It was an embarrassing question, and Denoriel pushed it aside. He had not felt this well and strong since he had started visiting the mortal world. He should be grateful for what he had, not whining over what he had lost. There were elven women enough who would look on him with favor—and anyway, he had always known that one day she would lose interest in him. Few elven passions lasted forever—nor, in truth, would most Sidhe wish them to.

He and Miralys took the Gate from Logres to Windsor, set to arrive just at the time he had left the inn. The elvensteed covered the distance from Windsor to Maidenhead in less than a quarter hour, so when Denoriel came round the corner of the inn, just enough time for a leisurely walk had passed.

Even so, the guards were glad to see him. No one had tried to enter His Grace's chamber, they reported, but one man they did not recognize had passed down the corridor. He had not paused, only glancing once at them.

Denoriel's teeth set for a moment. What had seemed to them a man passing without pausing could have meant they were blocked by a spell—but there was no lingering remnant of magic around either man. Although he was impatient, Denoriel thanked them for their alertness and urged them to let him know at once if the man passed by again. Then he hurried inside, but the shield he had set over FitzRoy showed no sign of tampering and the sleeping nurse was simply sleeping, not bespelled. He took the most comfortable chair in the room, gave it some extra padding with a pillow Harry had knocked to the floor, and sat down to watch out the night.

No further disturbance troubled Denoriel that first night, but over the weeks it took them to reach Sheriff Hutton, he had cause again and again to thank Mwynwen and the spell she had bound to his being. The tiny-goblin attack was only the first of many dangers that struck their cortege.

They found the students in Oxford rioting when they arrived in the town and had to fight their way to the castle. It was pure accident that Harry had been on Miralys with Denoriel when they entered Oxford. The road had been dull, but much less rutted than the stretch between Windsor and Maidenhead, so Harry had been riding in the carriage, playing games with his nurse. It happened that a game ended just as the town came in view, and Harry begged to be taken up on Miralys so he could see better.

Mistress Bethany was nearly injured when a group of students surged over the coach. Had FitzRoy been riding in it, worse might have befallen. As it was, she boxed the ears of one so soundly that he shrieked and let go of the white kitten's basket. She kicked a second where he was most sensitive and shoved him over the coach's low side as he howled and curled over on himself. Then FitzRoy's guards converged on the vehicle and drove the students off with the flats of their blades while the air spirit shrieked into Denoriel's mind,
:Possessed. Some are possessed:
 

It was not afraid of mortals, however, and was merely amused by their attempts to seize it. That was just as well because it was willing to roam ahead of the cortege and a few days later warned Denoriel of caltrops scattered on the road. Denoriel promptly told Nyle a sad tale of a wool trader going north with a full purse who had lost it and several members of his party to outlaws who played that kind of trick. Nyle rode forward to warn the guardsmen. If he looked a little strangely at Denoriel when the caltrops were discovered, that was a lesser problem than having half the horses disabled.

North of Leicester they were attacked by outlaws, but that might have been a normal hazard of traveling because the air spirit gave no warning. Even with Harry on his saddle, Denoriel managed to disable three. Other guards did as well. All those captured had their hands tied behind them and a rope around their necks by which they were dragged back to Leicester by four of the guardsmen.

Two more attempts were aimed at the air spirit. One was foiled by the stubborn determination of the nurse not to part with her pet for any threat or blandishment and a second by Denoriel's untrained but genuine mage sight, which disclosed some near-invisible thing's stealthy approach. Denoriel's silver sword made quick work of the formless construct, which could whip out tentacles or extend itself to envelop and draw the not-quite insubstantial air spirit into its maw.

To FitzRoy's guards, who were the only ones close enough to notice him stabbing and slashing at nothing with his sword he said he was doing some esoteric exercises. They all exchanged glances and then nodded, but they were particularly jumpy all the rest of the day and Gerrit twice asked the nurse if she felt cold or a breeze when the leaves were not moving.

As they entered Nottingham, they lost two guards from the tail of the cortege. Without explanation, the chain holding the portcullis slipped off its hook and the heavy iron gate crashed down. It killed both horses and one man and took the arm from another. Denoriel was furious. Such an attack could not result in seizing Harry. The cruelty and wastefulness was typical of the Unseleighe, but he could only clutch Harry tighter and use his strength more lavishly to create shields. After Nottingham, one man was assigned to gallop through the gates of any town or castle where they were scheduled to stay and stand guard on the portcullis winch.

No one was bored—that was for sure. The guardsmen were keenly alert, watching the road underfoot, the sides of the road, the branches of the trees overhead—from which, in a heavily wooded section past Doncaster a troop of rag-clad wild-men had dropped. FitzRoy's guards and Denoriel had borne the brunt of that attack, which was clearly aimed at the boy, but Nyle, Gerrit, Dickson, and Shaylor had given a good account of themselves and put six beyond doing any harm. Denoriel's knife put paid to another two, and Harry valiantly used his little knife to stab the hands of the one who tried to seize him.

All the attacks ceased when they reached York. Possibly that was because by then, although they were all very tired, every man and woman was prepared to fight. Sir Christopher had grown more and more wary and now rode up and down along the cortege, watching for any oddity and urging even the servants to be prepared to defend themselves. And they were prepared. Denoriel thought gratefully that it would take a full-scale army to accomplish anything against them.

Sir Christopher was not swift of wit, but once he got an idea he used it to the uttermost. At first, he had told Denoriel, as they sat over their wine one evening, he had accounted the attempts on the cortege as the natural result of riding through the overpopulated south with what was obviously a rich caravan; later, he said, he had come to realize that the attacks were aimed at the little duke of Richmond.

With that fixed in his mind, he began to wonder whether his charge would be safe in Sheriff Hutton. It had been known for months that that was where Richmond was going; what if the servants and guards of the castle had been bribed to allow the child to come to harm? Sir Christopher felt he could trust no one except the members of the cortege, who had proved themselves faithful. But the members of the cortege could not garrison a whole castle. So, from York Sir Christopher sent a message to his brother, Lord Dacre, desiring him to change the entire garrison of Sheriff Hutton.

Whether that precaution had foiled any further attempts on the boy or the Unseleighe had decided for reasons of their own to desist, Denoriel did not know. Of course when they first arrived, Harry was strictly confined to the castle itself and its immediate grounds. That was no hardship because the castle was very large.

Very, very large; even Denoriel was impressed as they rode up to it, with Harry in the coach with Sir Christopher, in order to present the proper dignified approach.

"It's big!" Harry exclaimed in surprise.

"It was built," Sir Christopher told Harry, "in 1379 by Lord Neville of Raby on the site of a twelfth-century keep built by Bertram of Bulmer. And now it is yours, and it is my opinion that a lord ought to learn every inch of the properties in his possession."

Possibly because he had learned something about FitzRoy or possibly by accident, Sir Christopher had said just the right thing to intrigue a child. Denoriel could see that Harry would be happy for weeks exploring. Not only would he have the four great towers, each four stories high, and the interconnecting buildings full of galleries, passageways, and chambers, some of which held ancient furniture; in addition he could look for the remains of the earlier keep, including the base of its donjon, which was said still to exist.

The southwest tower was given over to the boy. The top level housed his guards so that no one could come through the roof to attack him. FitzRoy's own apartment was on the third level, which was high enough for the windows to give a fine view of the countryside. They were true windows rather than arrowslits, but firmly barred with elaborate wrought iron grates. Denoriel sighed faintly as his bones began to ache and his stomach churned. However, no Sidhe was going to come in through those windows. There were two rooms to the apartment, a bedchamber and a small parlor in which the boy could eat.

Servants quarters were on the ground level, which had no entrance and no windows. The servants and everyone else had to go through the gatehouse of the main building into the garden where an outer wooden stair rose to the second level. Normally that level would not have been living quarters at all, but assigned to guards on duty, who would examine anyone who entered. However, after some negotiation with the other members of the council—who were
finally
convinced that a Hungarian lord could have no interest and no influence on the Scottish border—Sir Christopher had arranged that Lord Denno and his personal servants, who had shown themselves as good as any guardsmen in the many attacks during the journey, should occupy those rooms.

Within the four towers was an inner bailey that held the small garden. In any attack that won through the gatehouse, the guards would destroy the four flimsy wooden stairways and leave any intruder faced with unscaleable walls from which arrows and other lethal materials could be rained down.

Outside the castle was a large outer bailey within a formidable stone wall and beyond the wall, a substantial moat. The outer bailey held the stables, the pens for animals being fattened for the table, the coops for chickens, the dovecot, the kennels, a smithy, the laundry, the kitchens, many sheds for storage, and many small cottages for the army of servants needed to support the establishment. Swans and geese floated in the moat, available for dinner and a first warning and early defense against any invasion.

For the time being, FitzRoy was confined to the castle itself and the small inner garden. That suited Denoriel perfectly. He spent two weeks examining every chamber and corridor from the top of each tower to each cellar below. He took Harry and whichever two guards were on duty through all the public places in the castle; the private rooms he checked with even greater care at night. Nowhere was there a hint or a smell of magic. The air spirit also flitted through the castle and agreed—Sheriff Hutton was not tainted with magic.

After two weeks, Denoriel felt his excuse of lingering until FitzRoy was settled into his new residence was growing a trifle thin. He told Sir Christopher, who was still in charge of the castle and FitzRoy while the other commissioners attended to legal and political affairs, that he must be about the business that brought him to Yorkshire and left Sheriff Hutton, ostensibly to purchase wool. He rode with his men as far as Aldborough and then bid Miralys to look for a Gate.

The senses of an elvensteed were much keener than those of a Sidhe when it came to finding Gates. As he had suspected, there
was
one, long abandoned, in a Node-grove a quarter-hour further on by elvensteed's swift pace. Marked by druidical signs, he knew immediately it would take him through the wall between the worlds to Avalon, as most Gates that had been used by druids did. It would not do if he was to travel regularly from Sheriff Hutton, but it would serve for now.

Aleneil was very glad to see him. She had been worried about him because she had been scrying their journey and was aware of how often the cortege had been under attack. She was amazed that he was not worn to a thread as he had been while guarding FitzRoy in Windsor. Unwilling to give even Aleneil Mwynwen's secret without her permission, Denoriel bypassed discussing his unusual reservoir of power by asking urgently whether his sister knew the whereabouts of Magus Major Treowth or any other Magus Major who would be willing to build a Gate for him.