“So that you could learn — you thought—from something that isn’t the same and doesn’t have the same causes,” Gladys said. “What you did to my world was physical, and it’s not going to help you, whatever we do. One idea takes the-gods-know how many physical tons to balance it—”
She broke off and thought, with her face wrinkled gloomily. “Oh, Mother!” To the High Head, it sounded like a prayer. “Oh Mother! If none of you had that idea before, then I’ve just fed this world another dose of poison. Let’s hope someone did.”
“I—” the High Head began to say, and then stopped. He did not believe a word of this. The whole physically based teaching of Arth was behind him, not her. And Arth worked. Or it had, he thought angrily, until six alien witches arrived in a rogue capsule. “I take it, madam, that you had some hand in the recent invasion of Arth.”
“Well, we had to do something,” Gladys said. “Did you expect us just to sit there while you played games with our climate?”
And she blandly admits it! the High Head thought. I rest my case! His anger grew, but he centered himself and controlled it. Meanwhile Hugon turned off into another lane, this one without hedges. The High Head saw stretching ahead of him the familiar straight causeway that led to a Goddess grove. The grove itself, a small, gracefully rustling clump of birches, was a bare hundred yards off. What a glad sight, he thought — a first real touch of home! Soon he would be rid of this creature. He looked at it, trudging along with its extraordinary woolly feet stained with grass and mud and its beads clacking, and permitted himself a thought as to where he would send it. Somewhere in north Trenjen where the white bears roamed. It would fit in there. And the ether monkey could go with it.
They reached the small clump of trees in silence. Hugon backed aside as they came up. “I’m not going in there,” he announced. “I’ve had my fill of gods.”
“That’s all right, dear,” Gladys said. “They only used you because you were the nearest one. I expect they were rather annoyed that you were the best they could do.”
The centaur glowered at her.
“Thank you anyway,” she said.
He grunted. Dust spurted and his hooves drummed as he made off back along the causeway.
“Well, that’s that,” Gladys said. “I hope your other way to get to the king really works, because the gods are going to throw fits if it doesn’t.”
The High Head strode among the trees. “It’s quite simple,” he explained. “The Goddess permits travel between any of her groves, and the king maintains a Royal Grove outside Ludlin. It does, however, take the power of at least two adepts to move from grove to grove.”
“Ah,” Gladys said to Jimbo as she gathered him into her arms, “I knew he needed us for something.”
Within the trees, a spring dripped into a mossy stone bowl.
“That’s pretty,” Gladys murmured. “Peaceful. Nothing fancy.”
Primitive place, the High Head thought. Bowl cracked and full of moss. “I’m going to put into your head my memory of the Royal Grove,” he said, “and you must will us there. Is that something you can do?”
“I should hope!” said Gladys.
The High Head smiled and envisaged in professional detail the Royal Grove, such a contrast to this one, with its beautifully tended turf, marble bowl and statue, and its noble trees. Gladys took it at once and held it steady. In some ways, he thought, the creature would be a pleasure to work with. He smiled again and willed her sharply to a frosty grove in the north.
To Gladys, it seemed that the quiet little grove tipped about in a fuzzy turmoil. No matter. Working with Len had sometimes been like this too. She clutched Jimbo and held her will steady. Jimbo chittered and, almost certainly, put his contribution in. After a moment, everything settled down as it should. Gladys gazed around with pleasure at the large and beautifully tended grove. The trees tall and healthy, she noted, and that statue of the Goddess as Mother was truly lovely. It gave Her quite a look of Amanda’s sister Zillah. And where was that girl?
Gladys wondered worriedly. She just had to hope Tod had found her.
“I see all this has to be royal,” she remarked to the High Head.
He whirled around irately. She saw, with sadness, that he had meant to get rid of her. “There’s no need,” she told him. “I really could get quite fond of you if you’d let me. After all, I married you once.”
The dark blood of fury suffused the High Head’s face. He glared. Perhaps it was lucky that the Grove Guard arrived then. They advanced precisely from all sides, twenty or so men and one or two tall women in red and gold livery. Strong-eyed they all were, Gladys saw. A lot of power among them. The man — captain? — who came up to the High Head looked at least as much of an adept as he did.
“Your names, and your business in the Royal Grove,” this man said coldly.
“I am the High Head of Arth, and I need to see the king urgently,” the High Head told him. “There is a crisis in Arth.”
The captain did not seem precisely impressed. “And I’m Gladys, dear,” Gladys said. “And this is Jimbo. I’m from otherworld, and he’s from — well, let’s just say down below — but he’s been with me for years, almost ever since my poor husband died. We have to see the king too. Your gods want us to.”
As she had expected, they were a good deal more interested in her, and very impressed indeed by Jimbo. But it took nearly twenty minutes of explaining and some arguing, during which time Gladys was fairly sure a number of hidden tests were performed, before the captain consented to let them set foot outside the grove.
“It’s by no means certain the king will grant you an audience,” he said. “I’ll send you to the palace, but my responsibility stops there.”
3
Outside the grove was a driveway through more well-tended turf, leading down to a tree-bordered road where a large car was waiting for them. It was, Gladys thought, settling gladly into it, newer and far more comfortable than her faithful taxi, though its appearance was that of a car fifty years older. She thought she would enjoy the drive.
The High Head was by now seething for various new reasons. “These gualdians!” he said, flinging himself in beside her. “Think they own the entire Pentarchy! They look down their noses at me — the whole squad did — because I’m only a half-breed gualdian!”
“No, that thought came from you,” Gladys told him. “But from the way they went on, I got an idea that Arth may not be too popular here. Is that right?”
The High Head remembered that consignment of servicemen — all those delinquents, one peculiar gualdian, and that sickly centaur. “That could be so,” he admitted gloomily. “I fear the king indicated as much a little while back. How did you guess?”
“I keep my eyes open,” Gladys said.
The car sped upward into the town piled on a hill beside a river. The style of the houses was no style Gladys knew — narrow and fairy-tale or thick and low, with great doors — but, she thought, you did not have to know a style to like it. Steep-pitched roofs, blue or red, a chunky bridge and a spidery one, towers like mad Chinese Gothic shooting up among the houses, all of it rising to the grayish towered building at the top. “What a lovely city!”
“It’s not changed much,” said the High Head, “but they’ve put up far too many centaur dwellings since I was last here. It’s quite spoilt the East Quarter.”