Go on with the nearly-lie. No help for it. The eyes tried to quaff from her too. “I came to this country,” Zillah said, “to look for Marcus’s father.” She felt Herrel flinch, although he did not drop a single pebble. “I knew he came from this — the Pentarchy, but I didn’t know any more. The king was very kind to me and said of course I must look for him, and he gave me — Amphetron and Josh for guides and let me use the grove.” She kept a corner of her eye on Herrel, in case this was an unlikely thing for the king to have done — and it probably was, she thought. He’d have to be a king like King Arthur to do that. But Herrel never paused in his smooth throwing and catching. Maybe it was all right.
To her relief, Lady Marceny seemed to accept this story, although with a certain irony. “Far be it from me to go against the king,” she said dryly, “but the dear man ought to know better than to interfere in Leathe. But then perhaps our beloved king didn’t know he was. I take it the Goddess obliged, dear, by sending you here. Have you seen the little boy’s papa at all?”
I have not seen Mark, Zillah told herself, looking into those searching, searching eyes. “No. I told you. I think there must have been a mistake.”
Again her uneasiness communicated to Marcus. He shook her leg and raised a booming shout. “BILO GOD, Dillah?”
Lady Marceny frowned, a gracious crimping of pearly maquillage. “What does that little beast keep shouting about?”
Marcus might have been a dog. There was no doubt Herrel led a dog’s life. Anger fired up in Zillah. “He’s reminding me that the god of my country is here with us, my lady.”
Lady Marceny turned her eyes to Marcus, who glared up at her resentfully. “Oddy dady bake Bilo god,” he told her frankly.
“Dear, dear!” said the lady. “Whatever that means, child, you’ll have to learn to put those powers of yours respectfully to the service of ladies, or you’ll find yourself being punished. I really can’t be bothered with your god. Leathe can always speak to the dark side of him if necessary.” Her eyes returned to search Zillah again. “My dear, I can see you’re full of wonderfully strong feelings for this man of yours. I’m so sorry he seems to have let you down and run away. He must have quite a strong antipathy for you, if he went against the Goddess and got you sent to the wrong grove. But I understand why the dear king took up your cause. He’s a sentimental man, of course, but he must have seen as plainly as I can that your child has the most interesting potential. How very sad. Naturally we’ll make every effort to find your man now you’re here — I’ll lead the search myself.”
Zillah thought that this was the least reassuring assurance anyone had ever made her.
3
Gladys plodded forward through the wood muttering to herself, or to Jimbo — it was not clear to either of them which. At first the trees were wet and spilled gouts of water on her finery, but soon they became dry and tightly packed and thorny. The light was the louring storm light she had left behind in her own garden. It was light enough for her to see the thorns and, with mutter or gesture, set them aside, but it was not enough to see the way altogether clearly. Here Jimbo, as she had suspected, proved invaluable. With a scrabble here at her leg, or a pull at her dress that set all its beads clacking there, he directed her always to the easiest path, where the undergrowth was thinnest and the thorns fewest. The marvel was to Gladys that there was a path at all. Among the fierce thorns and formidable defenses it was always there, as if someone or something kept it there for a purpose.
Before long she thought she could detect hints of brighter day ahead. “Jimbo’s worth his weight in gold,” she muttered. “But don’t pull so — I’ve got to save my feathers.”
Here, quite suddenly, Jimbo ceased pulling or even moving.
“And with good reason, I’ll be bound,” Gladys muttered, and kept still too.
Somebody else, a little over to the left, was fighting through the woods as well. She could hear the crackle of feet stamping brushwood, the slashing of branches, and the dragging rasp of thorns across cloth. The sounds had considerable violence, and that was increased by a certain amount of swearing. Gladys listened. The voice was unquestionably male. She was not sure she wished to have anything to do with its owner. He sounded angry and exasperated as well as violent. The mere fact of his being here bespoke powers rather uncomfortably equivalent to her own. On the other hand—
“Missed the path, hasn’t he?” she muttered to Jimbo. Jimbo, in his own peculiar way, agreed that this was so. Gladys sighed. At her long-ago initiation she had been made to understand that power was hers only so long as she never passed by anyone in need. This was need. Her fellow traveler, though he might not yet know it, was in deep trouble.
“Over here!” she shouted. “Work your way over to your right!”
The threshing and crunching ceased. “Who are you?” the voice bellowed back. A young male voice. It reassured Gladys a little. These young fellows might surpass her in sheer strength, but she could make up for that, every time, in experience.
“Doesn’t matter!” she bawled. “Just come on over — the path’s here!”
He was desperate enough — or trusting enough — to obey her at once. His trampling and threshing changed direction. She kept him going right with a shout or so whenever she felt him veering, and it was not long before he burst out of the thorn brake beside her. He proved to be quite small. The light was not good enough for her to see more than that he was only an inch or so taller than she was, though she could tell he was chunky. But he was not as trusting as he seemed.
“If you’re some kind of interworld Lorelei mark-stepper,” he told her airily, if breathlessly, “you can just dispel. But I can accept it if you’re—” And, quite casually, he spoke a word, called her a name that made Gladys positively jump for its potency and accuracy.
She approved of that. She chuckled. “Well spoken, young man. And I am, in my way. We can take it we’re no harm to one another. I’m Gladys. Who are you, and what are you doing in this neck of the woods?”
“Trying to get home, of course,” the young man answered. His manner was still airy, but a strong quiver of indignation now underlay it. “People have been pushing me about lately, all over the place, and I got sick of it. And what are you doing here?”
Gladys replied without hesitation, “I’m on my way to look for the sister of a friend of mine.” Her sense was that it was important for her to be open with this young man — although she noticed he was not quite so open with her: he had cautiously avoided giving her his name. “A young woman called Zillah and her—”
“Zillah!” he exclaimed eagerly. “Zillah Green?”
It had been important, she thought. “Yes, Zillah and her Marcus. Her Marcus and I took a fancy to one another when his auntie brought him over to tea. He calls me Ardy Baddish. So you’re a friend of Zillah’s, are you?”
He laughed a little. “Probably — I think I still am, even though I got shoved into otherworld just for kissing her.”
“Thereby hangs a tale, I guess,” Gladys said, moving forward along the way Jimbo was indicating. “Suppose you tell Auntie Gladys.”
He had, as she could see, a lot to get off his chest, and he proved, too, to have a naturally chatty disposition. He talked, merrily and freely, as he pushed through the wood beside her. As he talked, he fended aside, almost absentmindedly, thorns, boughs, and creepers, and went forging through the resistance that although it did not come from trees or undergrowth, was part of the very nature of this place — all almost as if he did not notice it at all.