The Secret Country by PAMELA DEAN Read Free Book Online Page A

became simply a line of pink barring the way before them. Behind it the land rose again in long slopes of dark green forest, and beyond those were misty humps that Laura at first took for clouds on the horizon. It was not until Ruth said in her ear, “The Mountains of Dusk” that she realized what they were. She had never seen mountains, and these did not look as they ought to. She had imagined sharp dark triangles standing up out of a flat green plain like something in a pop-up book. She squinted at the betraying cloudy masses, and thought she saw hints of blue and purple in them, and an underlying solidity not owned by clouds; she was not comforted.
    That first pink wall of High Castle turned out to be immense, six stories tall or more. Most of the stones that made it were longer than Laura was tall. They were smooth and sharp edged, and looked very new. The wall had a tower on each corner and three more along its length, and two smaller ones flanking its gate. The gate was open, which confounded Laura almost as much as the color of the walls. They passed into a short, wide tunnel lit from above and paved in the pink granite, with another gate at its far end, which was also open. There were, at least, two guards at this gate, and they even had long spears. They did not, however, leap up and bar the way with these spears. On second reflection, Laura was just as glad that they had not.
    They did stand up, looking remarkably as if they were trying not to laugh, and bowed briefly. Benjamin got down from his horse. So did Ted and Ellen. Ruth gave Laura a small shove, so Laura slid down haphazardly and sat down hard on the cold stone. Ted picked her up quickly. Patrick dismounted with a show of ease that made Laura want to hit him. A number of young men who had appeared through the gate took the horses away. Benjamin marched between the guards as if he were daring them to say a word, and the five children followed him onto a wide space of short grass.
    This looked a little more like High Castle. There was the moat, just as it ought to be, sailed on by white swans and cluttered with lily pads, and holding upside-down a perfect glassy image of the white walls and towers on its far side. The drawbridge was directly before them; it was down. Patrick muttered something about this, but nobody cared to answer him with Benjamin so close. There were still too many towers in the white wall, and it was circular, not square.
    They went over the drawbridge, past two more amused and easy guards, and were confronted by yet another pink wall. The stones of this one were rough and pitted, but the wall itself was, at least, properly square, and had towers only at its corners. Between it and the previous white wall was a huge and somewhat untidy rose garden, on the left, and on the right a herb and vegetable garden that looked as if it had been laid out on a gigantic piece of graph paper.
    Laura wondered if the respective gardeners glared at one another over the pink marble path that separated their domains. As far as she knew, High Castle had only one gardener, a dour and silent man named Timothy. But one look at the vast stretch of these gardens told her that there must be more than one person to care for them. Even in the rose garden, the grass had been mowed and most of the weeds hacked from around the white stone seats. Laura craned her neck longingly after the rose garden, with its mossy paths and mysterious nooks, but the thought of being lost in this enormous and unfamiliar labyrinth of castle walls made her hurry after the others.
    They went through the open gate in the pink wall and into a small paved yard. And there before them, finally, was the High Castle of Laura’s mind, white towers and red roofs and bright banners flying.
    “Page!” shouted Benjamin, at the top of his considerable voice.
    Laura saw Ellen leap forward, then stop and look furious. Benjamin had not noticed her. A yellow-haired boy perhaps a few years younger than