by Andre Norton
"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.
Damaris did not turn to the house but kept a course which led to the courtyard with its cluster of small buildings, all designed for special uses. There were two lighted lanterns set up on posts, but luckily the circles of radiance about them were not great.
The younger girl, still hand clasped with Saranna, made her way to the spring house. She pushed upon the door and slipped inside.
"Now," she told Saranna. "I have to feel my way, and I have to use both hands. You hold on to my skirt, tight. And we have to go slow—it's all dark here."
They shuffled along against a damp, cold wall where Saranna's shoulder brushed the stone blocks of its building. "Stop here," Damaris ordered.
That dark was so utter Saranna could not see anything of the younger girl, but she did hear a series of scratching noises. Then a faint grating sound.
"Stoop down—way down," Damaris said. "Then come up—slow."
Saranna did as she was ordered. Now both shoulders brushed against walls as she moved forward half-crouched.
"Wait here. I have to close the door."
Damaris squeezed back by her in a space so narrow that Saranna's breath came faster, her fear of being shut in some kind of box was awakening. Once more Damaris pushed past her.
Holding tightly to the girl's skirt, Saranna crept forward step by reluctant step.
"You can straighten up now,” Damans' voice echoed hollowly. "And I'll tell you when the stairs start—“
Stairs? A secret way into Tiensin?
"Right here," Damaris spoke with the confidence of one who had made this trip before. "We have to go down— twelve steps—"
Saranna felt cautiously with the toe of her shoe. She began to count in her head as she went down. Twelve—then another flat surface.
"Straight ahead now—until we go up again—" Damaris said.
"What is this—a passage?"
"A secret," Damaris replied. "It's a secret I promised not to tell. But we have to use it. Anyway, she don't know about it. Nobody in Tiensin did after the workmen went back to China, nobody but Grandfather and me. He never even told my father. Straight ahead—and it won't be too far, I promise, Saranna."
17
HUAN DISPERSION
As Saranna climbed the second flight of stairs, she was completely confused. Why had thi
s hidden way been fashioned to Captain Whaley's order? Had he feared some vengeance and so set up a way of secret escape? And where within Tiensin would they emerge?
"Wait!" Saranna had counted only five steps when Damaris' voice brought her to a halt. "Now I have to open the other door."
There were sounds probably magnified by the darkness in which they stood. Then light burst upon them. Those beams were faint enough but seemed dazzling to Saranna after her long (for it seemed very long) period in the total dark.
Against that light showed Damaris’ silhouette. Then the younger girl climbed a step or two and vanished. Saranna followed as quickly as she could, so eager to be out of that black passage that she did not fear what might lie ahead.
However, this room she entered through a trapdoor was no part of Tiensin she had ever seen. And piled around its low walls were those wicker hampers she herself had helped to pack on the night of the storm. A single lantern hung from a hook in the ceiling right above the door. This was plainly a storeroom, but how near those ordinarily used by the household, Saranna wondered?
Damans appeared fully at ease, showing no wariness. She lowered the trapdoor, which moved easily as if designed to be handled by one without great physical strength. Then she walked confidently to the door.
"You wait here—just a minute," the younger girl ordered, slipping through the narrowest crack she could manage.
As she stood there, Saranna's nose twitched. There were strange odors in this place. Not the damp of underground, nor the familiar mustiness of most storerooms. The scent she picked up was spicy, a little like perfume. She knew it of old, this was the same smell she had caught in Damaris' bedchamber. Also in its concentration was a mingling of those pleasant perfumes from the chamber behind the moon door. Had the secret way brought them so into the domain of the Fox Lady?
Saranna was given little time to speculate. The door opened as softly as Damaris had closed it. Now the child had returned followed by that old woman who so noiselessly and deftly served the tea and played the lute in the moon house. The ancient one studied Saranna and gave a tongue-clicking sound which could only express dismay.
"It is all right," Damaris said. "You must go with A-Han. The Princess cannot be disturbed while she summons the forces. But afterward, she will need us."
A-Han came to Saranna. Gently she took the girl's scratched and grimed hand, patted it reassuringly. Smiling she drew the older girl with her, out of the door into a courtyard around which stood the four walls of a building. Gleams of lanterns shown through latticed windows, diffused by those blinds to dim radiance.
With A-Han, Saranna stepped up on a narrow terrace and entered a shadowy room. The servant pushed her down on a chair, hurried to light another lantern, this covered with pale golden silk so that its light was golden, too. She scurried about at a pace which belied her age-marked face, bringing first a large but low tub, then an array of pots and jars, and lastly an armload of what could only be towels.
There was a scratching at the door, a low word. A-Han opened a sliding panel, brought m a huge pitcher from which steam curled, after that two buckets, the contents of which she splashed into the tub, adding the heated water more slowly with much testing by her fingers.
Saranna lay resting, half drowsing, on a low divan sometime later. She had been bathed as if she were a child, then her body rubbed with a fragrant oil to ease her aches. Tea had been brought her and small cakes which were not sweet but crisp and filled with a paste of meat and vegetables. She wore not her torn and shabby clothing, but rather a long robe styled much as that she had seen last on the Princess. This thick brocade was a rust-brown red in color, and it was overpatterned with fine embroidery in a design of pine branches and cones—the cones being picked out with threads of gold, so her every move awakened a spark or two of glitter.
Her hair had been smoothed with a comb dipped in scented liquid between each stroke and then formed into a soft coil at the nape of her neck into which pins with flower heads had been skillfully placed to hold safely. In all her life, even during the good days in Boston, Saranna had never known such care, or been surrounded by such luxury and beauty,
A-Han's hands had somehow driven even the ache from her head, as the old woman had kneaded and worked upon the girl's neck and shoulders. She drifted now on a sea of drowsy contentment. Those dangers and fears which had driven her for hours seemed very far away and of little matter. She did not even ask for Damaris who had vanished again. No, it was enough to lie here in the golden light of the lantern, to feel clean and safe—
Saranna's eyes drooped shut, and she must have slept. Then into that sleep came a summons which she knew she must obey.
"Younger sister, it is now the hour!”
Saranna stirred. She tried to cling to slumber; there was something waiting for her when she waked—something she dared not—
"Younger sister, wake!"
That command she could not withstand.
She opened her eyes. The golden lantern no longer glowed. Instead, sunlight struck across the floor. Full in the path of that natural light stood one she knew.
A robe of blue-green, so stiff with silver embroidery that it was like armor rather than any conventional dress, covered this woman from throat to floor. Above the high collar the fox face turned toward her, and above that an awesome headdress of what must be royal rank.
The Fox Lady raised her hand, beckoned. Saranna struggled free of the last dregs of her sleep and arose. Then she saw that a little behind the impressive figure of this ruler of the hidden garden was Damaris.
Even as Saranna, she wore an embroidered robe, her hair nearly all hidden under a small crown of filigree and flowers. She held her hands stiffly before her, carrying, as if it were a small shield for her breast, a round piece of polished metal. Nor did Damaris give any greeting as Saranna moved to join them. Her expression was one of concentration, as if she were intent upon some serious act for which she alone was responsible.
The Fox Lady passed into the courtyard beyond the room where Saranna had lain, and the girls followed behind her. They crossed a pavement between tubs m which small flowering trees and shrubs were rooted, and entered yet another door. Here was the room Saranna had seen twice before, that which was the chamber of the Fox Lady.
Incense curled before a statue in the comer, the statue of a woman who held within her arms, as she might a nursing child, a fox cub. While from the folds of her carven robe, where the long skirt trailed a little on to the base supporting her hidden feet, were the heads of other cubs, their sharp muzzles a little elevated as if they sniffed the air, something very alert and waiting about them.
Before the statue, the Fox Lady bowed her head. Her voice arose in a sing-song chant. From beneath the concealing length of sleeve, her hand advanced to pick up a small carven stick lying at the feet of the statue. With this the Fox Lady struck a jade ring hanging suspended to her right. The chime of the sound seemed to fill the room, roll out across the garden with all the power of a thunderclap, musical as the note was.
That must have been a signal, for, beyond the moon door, from the terrace without, there now began the slow beat of a drum, low, almost muffled. Saranna felt the rhythm through her body as if the soft beat kept time to the beating of her own heart. The Fox Lady bowed once more to the statue and then paced, as one heading a formal procession, through the moon door onto the terrace.
This time they walked into the full light of day; no moon helped to make the world a mystery. Yet here were also the foxes gathered in a line which extended from one end of the terrace to the other. Motionless they sat so. They might well have been carved from red stone. Save for the larger two just before where the Fox Lady came to a halt. That pair was silver-white, larger than their fellows.
There were men stationed behind that gathering of foxes —four, two on either side. They, too, had the appearance of strange dream creatures, for their bodies were entirely encased in armor. And those helms which complete
ly covered their faces were giant fox heads wrought in burnished and lifelike painted lacquer. Their hands were closed upon the staffs of banners at the folds of which the wind tugged fitfully.
Saranna could now see the drummer, a man with a face as aged as that of A-Han, a man with a whisper of white beard on his chin. He tapped out that monotonous beat with the fingers of his right hand, holding the drum before him as he sat cross-legged on the terrace. There were two others beside him, older women, one A-Han, the other even more aged and bent. Together they tended a brazier. Incense smoke arose in great gray curls from its pierced top.
Beat—beat—the drum rhythm was the only sound. The rise and fall of those fingers which induced it the only movement now among the party on the terrace. They all faced in quiet watchfulness the direction of the path down which Saranna had twice found her way.
There was a distant shout, a crashing, Saranna started, then noted that those with her betrayed no such sign of surprise. They seemed fully ready to confront what came in their own fashion. Not even one of the foxes showed any uneasiness.
A second crash, then the sound of trampling through bushes which the low beat of the drum could neither disguise nor cover. Saranna's heart beat faster than the drum now. She guessed what was happening; the men Honora had planned to bring from the city must be here, already beginning their destruction of the hidden garden. Yet those on the terrace did not move—they waited.
There followed sounds of crashing stone, of splintering and chopping, which made Saranna sick. Still the Fox Lady faced unmoved, as far as the girl could perceive, the source of those sounds. However, now her hands reached forth— pushing free of those long sleeves—one to Damaris, one to Saranna. And the older girl knew instinctively what was expected of her at this moment. She clasped the left hand of the lady with her right, those nail coverings cold and hard in her grasp. While Damaris, now holding the round piece of metal with her right hand, took the lady's with her left. So linked, they stood, still impassive.