He blinked—and everything was exactly the same. But he was no longer desperate for slumber.
"—Come in then," Pellinore was saying. "QB, I know you do not sleep; and I have slept but little this last hundred years and more. I had hoped we could talk. It has been some time since we did. But the chance may come later."
The light faded ever more swiftly, even as he talked and opened the door, standing aside for Dafydd and the young King to enter. The candlelight within shone out around them in the almost total darkness as if it had the intensity of a searchlight; and as the door closed behind them, the last of the outside light went also; and those outside were apart and invisible in the dark.
"Hob," said Jim, "you're still on my shoulder."
"Yes, m'Lord," said the voice in his right ear. "I'd go to my Lord QB, but I can't see him now."
"Do not try to move, any of you. I will take us where we need to go," said the QB's voice, approaching Jim. "Hob"—and Hob's minute weight was suddenly gone—"I have you now. Sir James, Sir Brian, merely stand as you are."
For a few seconds there was that familiar feel of a slight breeze in Jim's face; and then the unrelieved blackness was suddenly invaded by the odors of the encampment. The next instant brought the sight of a string of tents stretching away ahead of them—all lit from within by candlelight or other illumination, showing through the cloth walls; so that with the ground invisible beneath them and no sky above nor anything else visible around them, the tents were like inhabited structures floating in space.
It was hard to think of them as the tents of dangerous enemies. Their interior lights seemed to give them a sort of glow—like a glow of warmth and welcome. Jim knew that the contrast of their brightness with the darkness hid all their dirt and threadbare patches, that daylight had so unsparingly shown.
But here they were again—there was no doubt about it.
"Sir James, Sir Brian," said the voice of the QB, "have no fear of speaking out. These cannot hear us, any more than they can see us. What is your wish? Do you stay here and wait for Hob and myself; or do you want to go elsewhere, without waiting?"
"We can't get anything done until we have light again," said Jim. "But what Brian and I are going to be after is the place where those Harpies come from. It would have to be in Lyonesse—the Dark Powers need a place that either has magic, or had it in the past, to make their creatures, Carolinus told me once. It can be as little and unimportant as the den of some Natural, who's used his or her instinctive magic in it. But there must have been some magic at that place. In one that never had magic—good or bad, black or white—the Dark Powers couldn't work."
"God send such a day when the whole world is so!" said the voice of Brian beside him.
"He may," said Jim, "in the long run. We'll see. But for now, QB, isn't that tent nearest to us, the big one where the Earl and Agatha were, and Modred came?"
"I believe so," said the QB.
"I'd like to have a look inside it, if possible."
"I'll take you to it, Sir James. I suggest Hob can best be the one to look inside and tell us what he sees."
"I don't have any smoke!"—Hob's voice.
"There must be fires around a camp like this," said the QB. "Can't you smell them?"
"Oh, yes," said Hob. "But they're out where the men are sleeping on the ground—the ones not in tents. I could just go toward any one of them that's making smoke; but I'd probably walk on one or more of the sleeping men in the dark. Don't you smell the smoke?"
"Yes. I'll carry you to it. Would you wish the nearest one to us here?"
"Yes," said Hob, "and I can ride on your back to it?"
"Certainly," said the QB graciously. "As a Lord of Lyonesse, though I seldom make a point of it, I do not usually carry anyone on my back. But if a great Magickian and Knight such as Sir James does not cavil at carrying you on his back, I cannot."
Silence fell. It stretched out.
"Tell me, QB—" began Brian's voice; then hesitated, waiting. There was no answer. "Ah, well. Gone already. James, what had you in mind—"
"Sir James, Sir Brian," said the QB's voice, beside them. "All has been dealt with. Hob is even now examining the large tent, which is not empty. I came to take you to it."
"Good," said Brian. "It's time we were doing something."
There was no sensation of movement, but suddenly they were facing the closed entry flaps of the large tent they had been in before. Enough light shone through the fabric that they could see its shape and dimensions.
"M'Lord! Sir Brian!" Hob's voice came to them in a half whisper. "Three of them. Look inside."
"We cannot," whispered back Brian. "If one of us steps within, we are revealed to whoever is there. Who are they?"
"The Lady Agatha and the Loud Lord."
"Cumberland?" Jim asked—they were all whispering. He was a little annoyed with himself for needing to ask, but he wanted to make sure. Hob had called Robert, Earl of Cumberland and, in this world, half brother to Edward the King of England, the "Loud Lord," ever since Cumberland had made his visit to Malencontri. "You only named two of them. Who's the other one?"
"A Lady."
"There isn't any man there with a bushy mustache and a bushy chin-beard?" Jim asked.
"No, m'Lord. Just the three."
"And this other one's a Lady, too? Not just some serving wench?" demanded Brian.
"Yes, Sir Brian. She was sitting at table with them."
That settled it, of course. A man of the gentry might sit at a table with a serving wench—but only where no one he knew would be likely to see him. But none would sit so if there were a legitimate Lady also at the same table. Some social rules were almost reflexive in the fourteenth century.
"And you don't recognize her at all?" asked Jim.
"No, m'Lord."
"What're they talking about?"
"I don't really know, m'Lord. None of them seem to like each other."
Not an unusual situation around the Loud Lord, Jim told himself. He looked at the tent in frustration. From where they stood, they could hear the murmur of voices, but not make out what was being said.
"Wait a minute, Hob. Could you hear what they were saying?"
"Oh, yes, m'Lord. I was right by the table."
"And they didn't see you?"
"I was up near the top pole that runs the length of the tent. There was lots of candle smoke up there. Anyhow, none of them looked up."
"Yes, but—"
"If you'll forgive me, Sir James"—the voice of the QB was still right next to them—"I went around the back of the tent myself, just now, to see what I might smell or hear. I could not hear; but a suspicion I had was confirmed. One of those in there is indeed Queen Morgan le Fay."
"Morgan—" Jim checked himself, his mind suddenly galloping. The thought that came first was that if Morgan was here in the Borderland, which technically was a part of the Drowned Land, and outside Lyonesse, her magic should not work any better than his.
Or would it? He had managed to concept his magic fruits here in Drowned Land territory.
But then, he reminded himself, he had produced the fruits inside his expanded ward. Perhaps she could ward her own powers as well as Kineteté had warded his.
In any case, warded or not, Morgan's magic would not be easily available to her at the moment, and that meant he ought to be able to go right up, close enough to touch her, as long as she did not see or hear him. He needed to hear for himself what was going on right now between her, Agatha, and Cumberland.
"Hob," he said.
"Yes, m'Lord?"
"Come here to me."
"I'm right in front of you now, m'Lord."
"Good. Now I'm going to work a little magic on me and you. It won't hurt and you shouldn't be scared."
"I have no fear of anything, m'Lord," answered Hob's voice, quavering a little nonetheless on the last two words.
"Believe me," said Jim, "this will be interesting magic. Fun magic. You're going back
into that tent; and I'm going with you. Only, this time I'll be inside you—you won't feel me there, but you'll know I'm with you, and I'll be moving your body around to where I want to go. Most of the time I'll just be riding in you, listening. Then we'll come back out and I'll leave you. You understand? I don't want you to be frightened if you find me there; don't try to fight my taking charge of what you do. All right?"
"My Lord," said Hob with dignity, "I am your Hob."—
"I know. But a magician is required to say what he's going to do in a case like this. It's an obligation, like the obligations of being a Knight."
"I understand, m'Lord! It sounds like great sport. I wasn't worried, of course. Just interested!"
"Well, see how you like it. Brian? QB? Hob's going to go into the tent again; and—Hob, how are you going to get in? You don't want to open the tent flap, or anything like that, to alert the people inside."
"You forget, m'Lord. I just came out," said Hob reproachfully. "I showed you at King Edward's Court once. Any space smoke can go through, I can go through."
"Right. I remember. You did show me. Here I come, then."
He reached into his purse for a fruit and came up with the pear, this time; biting into it, he visualized himself like an invisible presence in the general vicinity of Hob's brain—and there he was, a second later, looking out through the little hobgoblin's eyes. They two were now oozing between the stained white cloth of the two tent flaps, which did not part as they passed.
M'Lord, are you there? Hob's thoughts echoed strangely in his mind. I thought I'd start us out—since you'd never done this before.
Fine, Hob, he thought back. Very thoughtful of you. Yes, I'm here and I'm fine. How are you?
Just the way I always am, m'Lord.
They were inside the tent, still close to the door. Jim looked around him, and saw that Hob had been right: a smelly fog, of candle smoke and perhaps other things, had gathered directly under the highest part of the tent, which was over the central pole that ran the length of it, to hold the sloping cloth sides up. The smoke was thickest directly above the table at which sat a man and two women. Hob's coloring blended in with the smoke, making him obscure enough that anyone catching sight of him in that haze would have to look again, and look closely, to make him out.
"I'm taking over," Jim said; and moved Hob's body down along the center of the roof and just beneath it, until they were only about six feet from the table, looking down through the fog of smoke at those seated there.
The man was Cumberland, all right; and next to his angular face was the narrow one of Agatha Falon, attemptive murderer of her baby half brother. She sat at the Earl's left, her face as merciless as ever; however, it was a strong face in its own way—as strong as the Earl's.
Jim noticed, though, that she looked thinner than when he had seen her in the past; and in spite of the heat that multiple candles gave to the tent's atmosphere, she wore a white, knitted something like a shawl about her narrow shoulders.
On Cumberland's other side, seated as if he would keep the two women apart, at the far end of the table was Morgan le Fay. A pitcher of wine and one of water, with metal wine cups, sat on the table between her and the Earl. No such tableware between the Earl and Agatha.
Still, the Earl dominated the table. That was in character for him. The day he did not dominate would undoubtedly be the day he was dead.
"—and I can't keep coming to see you every Dark!" Morgan was saying in an acid voice. "If you think I'm at your beck and call, think again."
"What else?" said Cumberland, easily enough. "We must needs get together; and I decide when my men will move, Lady."
"I am a Queen! Address me as one!"
"And I am a King, in all but name. We should call each other 'cousin' as Royalty does."
"Fire will take the world before I call you 'cousin,' Cumberland!"
"I am content to wait."
The Earl was obviously in an unusually good mood. Otherwise, he was unchanged, as far as Jim could tell—as much at home here where he should have been out of place, as he would have been in Windsor Castle. The same voice, the same attitude, the same tall, burly, middle-aged body, the same readiness to anger still seeming to lurk just under the surface of his present pleasantness. The same hard-boned, rectangular, long-nosed, Plantagenate face. "You will learn to live in my world, Lady—"
"Highness, rot you, Cumberland!" flared Morgan. "I am a Queen, I say, and down here you are nothing!"
The Earl laughed harshly. The pleasantness was wearing thin.
"Save your breath, le Fay!" he said. "You have things exactly turned about. You may be a Queen in Lyonesse; but here in the Drowned Land you are nothing, and powerless to boot! Whereas I come here with an army that can take both these lands. Moreover, we can return at will by the Witches' Gate to the land above, where you cannot go. You have bought your bull in the marketplace. Now learn to live with it!"
"You are a fool, and sleeping; but I've no wish to wake you, until you have done me the service I require. But ware! Anger me more like this and I will rid myself of you and do without you."
"How?" The Earl laughed again. "Will you lead these men I've gathered here for you? I warn you, they are the sweepings of our Western World: bloodstained villains and rascals—not to be led by a woman. In especial, by a woman who has no magick!"
"I have Modred to lead them!"
"Modred!" The Earl laughed again, filling his wine cup from the pitcher; and Jim began to suspect that he was the only one of the three who had been drinking here. Clearly, he seemed to think he was amusing himself in this cross-talk with Morgan le Fay. But Morgan—and surely Agatha must realize it, if the Earl did not—was in deadly earnest.
"Yes, Modred!" she spat out now. "He was one of Arthur's once—how else, being Arthur's son? But all who were once of Arthur's Court are risen from wherever they were put in earth—I know not how, except it is the workings of the Old Magic, and the why of what that does is never fully understood—and they all are returning to Lyonesse. But those who would oppose me, there and here, do not stop to think that half of them fought with Modred, before, in the final battles between him and Arthur. These will go with Modred again!"
"Go? Oh, they will go—or they will not go. It makes no difference which. Resurrected knights out of old stories will never win the Drowned Land for your private kingdom. It takes men such as I have outside. Aye, they have good archers in this Drowned Land—but archers alone never won a battle. Only when together with horse and foot, heavy in armor, weapons, and experience, do archers see a victory! But men of that sort, like those I have gathered, need a war-captain to head them—and Modred is none such!"
He laughed again, drinking.
"You plowboy!" said Morgan with icy venom. "You plowboy in prince's clothing!"
Cumberland's face was abruptly sober. He stared at Morgan and flung the remaining contents of his wine cup into her face.
She stared back at him, motionless, with the wine dripping from her. She said nothing. Only her face went as white as the face of a harpy.
But Agatha was already on her feet, whipping off the shawl from around her shoulders, on her way to Morgan.
"Highness!" she said. "Forgive him, I beg and plead. He has taken his wine too fast. We must not quarrel among ourselves like this, when we are all so necessary to each other; in especial if there is a hope of anything to be done for any one of us. Surely you will not give up your chance for a separate kingdom of your own—all for the sake of one thoughtless gesture on my Lord's part? And even if you did, what of the Dark Powers if we fail in your bargain with them?"
Morgan snatched the shawl from Agatha, and wiped her face with her own hands.
"None can do that to me!" she said in a voice so choked with emotion that she could hardly speak above a whisper. "I will keep my bargains, all of them. But I will have my payments also!"
"Robert—my Lord!" said Agatha, turning on Cumberland. "You have gone too far. Say so!"
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Cumberland's big hands were two fists sitting on the table before him. His face was without expression; but with an expressionlessness like that of a cornered animal pausing in its wildness of fighting to be free, and gathering its strength to fight on.
"The blood of kings runs in my veins," he said slowly and deeply. "That blood can never lie quiet under naming such as I have just heard here. I, too, keep my bargains and have my payments—but perhaps I forgot for a moment that it was not a man who spoke me so!"
He and Morgan sat looking at each other, neither averting his or her eyes. There was silence.
"I think we have spoken enough for this time," said Agatha. "I have explained to Your Highness that I am only part-witch; but that part of me that is, now smells the lifting of the Dark very shortly. My Queen, your men and horses are at the end of the tunnel by which you came to this tent. We will be better off with no more words this time."
Hob, Jim said mentally, if the Dark is nearly over, we need to get out, too. I think I've learned about as much as I can this trip.
Yes, m'Lord.
They left the tent.
"Good! You're back," the QB said, as they appeared in their proper, separate bodies, before him outside the tent; which was now a misty gray shape, its angles blurred by the faint light of a sky beginning to lighten. "While enough of the Dark still lasts, I can take us all out swiftly. Come, Sir Brian."
Chapter Thirty-Four
The remains of the Dark flowed about them like the rags and tatters of some heavy obscuring mist for the few moments it took the QB to move them back to the home of King Pellinore. When they stopped, the murk had vanished. It was full daylight, though the nearby trees still hid the face of the white sun of Lyonesse.
Jim felt an odd pressure like something heavy leaning against his shoulder, and turned his head to look.
Something was indeed leaning there. It was Brian, totally unconscious but still standing, thanks to the fact of Jim's presence; and now that Jim listened, he could hear a faint but unusually audible sound that was breathing—Brian was asleep and on the very verge of snoring.
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