The Hidden Land by PAMELA DEAN Read Free Book Online

threw up.
    They came up the last flight of stairs. It was colder than ever. The man-at-arms had his sword out and held it to block the stairway. He, too, looked sick. Seeing Fence seemed to make him feel sicker; he did not move the sword, nor did he speak when they came up to him.
    “I have an errand to the King,” said Fence, formally.
    “You are too late,” said the guard.
    “That,” said Fence, “is for the King to say.”
    The guard opened his mouth, looked at Ted, shut it, and moved out of their way.
    “You must learn to speak for yourself,” said Fence, as they went down the hall. “You are no sorcerer’s puppet; give none cause to say you are.”
    Ted could not answer him. He had forgotten that by failing to stop Randolph he had made himself King.
    Both doors of the Council Chamber stood open, but two people with swords barred their way. One of them was the yellow-haired woman with the scarred forehead who had sat next to Matthew at the Banquet of Midsummer’s Eve. She looked peculiar with a mail-shirt dragged on a little askew over her red dress, but the sword suited her well enough. Her companion’s mail half-covered what looked remarkably like a nightgown, insofar, among the odd fashions of High Castle, as you could tell a fancy nightgown from a plain dress; her red hair was mussed and her sharp face a little bleary. But she, too, looked quite at home with her sword. Ted wondered what in the world was going on.
    “What hath been accomplished?” Fence asked the yellow-haired woman.
    “All save Randolph and Matthew have been taken under guard, ’til they give account of what hath occurred. Jerome awaits you, at your leisure.”
    “The King?”
    She looked at Ted for a moment, and then back at Fence. “Within,” she said.
    “Thanks,” said Fence, imbuing the single word with more formality than Ted would have believed possible.
    The guards lowered their swords and Fence went between them into the Council Chamber. Ted had no desire to go back into that room. He looked at the yellow-haired woman, who had been kind at the banquet. She saluted him with her sword and stood a little more aside. Ted sighed and went in.
    Someone had straightened out the King’s body and spread a dark-blue cloth over it. Randolph sat on the floor with his head on his knees. Matthew leaned on the table between him and the body of the King. He looked exasperated and helpless, and his whole face lit up when he saw Fence.
    Fence got to his knees beside Randolph with a swiftness most people achieve only in jumping up, and put his arms around him.
    “He, too?” he asked Matthew.
    “He says not,” said Matthew; “he says ’tis but some gaingiving as might perhaps trouble a woman.”
    Ted thought that the women at the door had no gaingivings troubling them. Then he thought that Randolph must know that, too. Some such gaingiving, he thought, as might perhaps trouble a woman who has poisoned the King. Or anybody with any sense.
    “A looketh ill to me,” said Matthew.
    “So do you,” said Ted. “So do I, I bet.”
    “Matthew,” said Fence, still holding Randolph, “what happened?”
    Matthew said slowly, “Many came early, thinking this the feast where all must serve. We set bottles and napkins and cups in place; Andrew had the opening of the bottles; ’tis some joke a hath with Conrad.”
    He looked at the top of Randolph’s head. “As befitted the feast, we were all helter-skelter when the King arrived. Each of us, Fence, hath polished a glass, set a napkin or a plate. The King spoke to us and we saw he had mistook the feast.” He cleared his throat. “Randolph was on the King’s right; Edward to his; I to his; Conrad to his; Andrew to his. Now, when we saw the King was wrong, I put a napkin along Randolph’s arm; the King could not see for that Randolph was between us. Andrew had all the bottles before him, and he did push one past Conrad, and me, and Edward, to Randolph, who began to pour, the King’s cup