2
Gladys had discovered the centaur’s name was Hugon, but their relationship was still far from cordial. Nor was he comfortable to ride. She reckoned that if he had been a real horse, he would have been dogmeat years ago. They were jolting across apparently interminable wide fields. Every time she spoke to him, she bit her tongue, but politeness kept her trying.
“How far — ouch—is it to the king?”
“Four days,” he said. “I don’t intend to go on through the nights.”
“Four days!” The time scheme the various Great Ones had laid on her had not allowed for that.
“What did you expect?” Hugon asked jeeringly. “Even the train takes nearly a day.”
What I am, Gladys mused, is insular. I keep thinking this country’s only about the size of Britain, even though I can feel it around me, much bigger than that.
The size of Europe with half Asia attached, Jimbo informed her.
So big? “Train?” Gladys asked aloud. “You did say train?”
“Sure. Things that go chuff-chuff,” said Hugon pityingly. He added with a surly trace of pride, “That was one of the ideas the Brotherhood of Arth handed down here — before I was born, that was.”
“Then,” said Gladys, “I think — ouch — train would be quicker. Why didn’t you mention it before?”
“Because,” Hugon snarled, “I’d have to pay, wouldn’t I? Or do you have money?”
Gladys fingered her handbag. There was only a handful of change in there. Naturally it would not look like this country’s money — though she was strongly tempted to put an illusion on the tea bags and tell him it was her train fare. But to do that, she needed to know what his money looked like. “No,” she said regretfully, “but I’m — ouch — the king would pay you back.”
“That stingy sod?” said Hugon. “Forget it.”
They argued. Gladys persuaded. Bit her tongue. Gave up. Was on the point of deciding simply to put a compulsion on this obstinate creature when he said grumpily, “All right. Who else can you get money off if the king won’t pay me?”
Easy. “Tod,” Gladys said thankfully. “The young man who was with me. Roderick Something. He told me he was heir to the Fiveir of Frinjen. That do? It sounds wealthy to me.”
“Garn!” said the centaur. “That makes him Duke of Haurbath and the gods know what-all. And he’d have to have birthright magic. He show you any?”
“Plenty,” snapped Gladys.
That seemed to work the trick. Hugon grudgingly changed direction and began to fumble defensively with the pouch slung from a belt across his shoulder. “I may not have enough,” he said, “for both of us.”
“You can put me on the train, then, and go back to whatever you were doing,” Gladys pointed out.
“Not likely,” he said. “I stick to you until someone pays me.”
Gladys sighed, bit her tongue again, and listened to her beads rattle with the uneven rhythm of his pace.
They had been going for about five minutes in the new direction when they were suddenly in a strong shower of rain. Pelting water obscured the featureless fields all around them. Jimbo whimpered. Hugon’s somewhat greasy hair was wet through in seconds. Gladys pulled her pink shawl around herself and Jimbo. The centaur slowed, trotted, walked, stopped.
“I don’t like this,” he said. As Gladys was about to agree and urge him on, he added, “I’ve never known it rain out of blue sky before. Those gods don’t want us to take the train. I know.”
Gladys looked up and found that beyond the fierce slant of rain, the sky was indeed bright, cloudless blue.
“Raining fish too,” Hugon said disgustedly. “Alive. What in hellband is this?”
Gladys bent forward and stared at the large trout flopping and twisting in the grass beyond Hugon’s gnarled front hooves. “Does this happen ofte—?”
She and Jimbo and Hugon were all hit simultaneously by something heavy traveling at speed. There was a good deal of noise, mostly from Hugon and Jimbo, but among the shouting and squealing, Gladys heard another voice crying out too. She let her natural defensive magic take over and landed on her feet in the wet grass. When her confusion had passed, she realized that the person who had hit them must also have natural magic — well, he would have, she realized — because he was also standing unhurt, towering over her. He was tall and well set up, though not young, wearing a blue uniform of some kind. Across his wet forehead and streaming hair she saw a habitual dent, as if he usually wore a headdress of some kind. But how well she knew the features beneath it!
“Leonard!” she exclaimed. “Oh no, you can’t be!”
The High Head stared at this dumpy elderly female, at the damp and drooping feather on its head, at its beaded gown the color of Arth, and particularly at its great white furry feet. The edge of his vision took in an irate centaur with an ether monkey crouching beneath its belly, and the shower of water receding across the meadows. “My name is Lawrence, madam,” he said, and wondered why she was staring at him as if he were a ghost. Probably because he had seemingly fallen out of the sky. He sensed she had power. Therefore he asked politely, “You are a Goddess Priestess, perhaps?”
“In a way.” Gladys still had her face tipped up, staring. “I’m from the place they call otherworld here.” The eyes of the High Head sped involuntarily to her white, woolly feet. “No, they are not my feet!” she told him crossly. “I’m as human as you are! And you’re the very image of Len — my husband. But Len died years ago now, so I reckon you’re just his thingummy — analogue — aren’t you? Where did you spring from?”
“Arth,” said the High Head with grim dignity. “And I take it you are another piece of the otherworld conspiracy?”
The girls, Gladys thought, have managed to pull something off, bless their hearts! “In a way,” she admitted. “But there’s no good in glowering like that at me, my friend. Len never could get the better of me, and I’ve learnt a lot since then. So who are you? Your gods and Powers set me to meet someone on my way, and you must be the someone.”
He shot her a grimmer look still and turned to the centaur. “Centaur, I’m the High Head of Arth, and I need to get to the king urgently.”
“Oh no, not another one!” Hugon growled. “Have you any money?”
“Well, naturally, not at the moment—”
“Then go whistle!” said Hugon. “I’m paying her train fare because the damn gods will have my guts if I don’t, but I’ll be raped if I pay for you too!”
The High Head, to his exasperation, was forced to look pleadingly at Gladys.
“Yes, I’ve got to get to the king too,” she said. “That’s gods for you. I’ve never known them be entirely practical. Hugon—”
“No,” said Hugon.
Surly brute, thought the High Head. He could argue all day and the centaur would probably still refuse. And he knew he had to get to the king and have him raise his royal power on behalf of Arth today. Given the time difference between here and Arth, those alien witches would have pulled the citadel apart by tomorrow. The High Head dithered for a moment, contemplating knocking the centaur out, putting the woman under stasis — which might not work, because she need not have been bluffing that she could best him — and running for the nearest train with the centaur’s pouch. But there was that ether monkey crouching between the centaur’s hooves. Its round black eyes were fixed on his, knowingly.