“Arth?” he said. “Why Arth? You were safe where you were! You’d left me — Mark — him. I was even glad in a way. I tried to be grateful.”
“Grateful!” she said. “It was so horrible, I left Earth!”
“Yes, but you set me — him — free by leaving, you know. I don’t know how it was — maybe it was the effort I had to put in before that to make sure my mother didn’t know about you — but the moment you were gone, he was practically a free agent. And I thought he might at least repair a bit of the mess over there in your world, and turned him loose with instructions to let otherworld know the way it was being exploited. She’s just found out what he’s done. She’s hard at work trying to punish him at the moment. That’s why I’m here. Zillah, why did you leave me — him?”
His face still smiled at her, but she ignored it and spoke to the face behind. “He — Mark — was so shallow somehow — it was alarming. Then one night I had a kind of vision of him — you — down a deep well with a woman feeding off you. I thought it was Paulie, but it wasn’t, of course. And I was pregnant and there seemed nothing else I could do. I knew it was hopeless. It — it was very horrible for me too. You — he — didn’t even try to find me.”
“We knew better than that,” he said jokingly. “You were safer away from him. But if I’d known about — What’s this fellow’s name?”
“Marcus.”
“Barker,” Marcus agreed sleepily.
“Marcus, I’d have warned you never to go near us — him.” The smile left Herrel’s face at last. “Zillah, you realize that if she finds out who Marcus is, you and I are both dead, don’t you? Now she knows what I— Mark’s done, she’s got very little time for me anyway. A small child of her own flesh and blood is much more malleable.”
“Then she shan’t find out.” Zillah put forth more enfoldings, around Marcus and around Herrel too. “Herrel—”
His head was on one side and he gazed at her. “Goddess!” he said. “The weirdest thing about it is that I’ve barely touched you in my own flesh.”
The stone room was dense with misery.
“Fetch Mark back,” said Zillah. “You need him. Don’t leave him there for her to punish.”
“I told you — I don’t know how. I was out cold all through the ritual.”
She was exasperated. “But you must know! You — it’s instinctive! He’s you!” Herrel was smiling again, hiding his screaming face. Zillah said furiously, “And I bet she used your own strength to cut you in two! She feeds on you all the time. How did you ever let her get that kind of hold on you?”
“I didn’t.” Herrel was entirely back to his light, joking manner. “I was Marcus’s age. There was a ritual — very pretty and impressive — in which I was circumcised and she ate the foreskin.”
“Oh, good God!” Zillah’s anger became blazing disgust. “Why is witchcraft so damn squalid! I think that’s why I’ve never — Look, Herrel, this has to be nonsense. A third of a person’s body cells change every seven years. After more than twenty-one years, she can’t have the remotest hold on you!”
Herrel laughed and jogged Marcus. He seemed hardly to have heard.
“All right,” said Zillah. “If the hold is still there, then you’ve got the same hold over her. Mustn’t that be true?”
“Perhaps Marcus can sort that one out.” Herrel turned merrily away from her. “That do for you, Mother? Full confession from both guilty parties.”
“Yes, thank you, dear. Very nice.” Lady Marceny, dressed now in crimson velvet, approached him along what seemed to be a wide stone terrace. Her train softly dragged over the flagstones behind her. “I heard your part very clearly, Herrel, and I’m quite vexed. But I see you’ve got the child. I may forgive you for that. Bring him along here, dear. The ritual’s all set up.”
Why am I not surprised? Zillah wondered. I’m not even angry. Just numb.
There were women around her, all finely dressed. Their gowns glowed in the orange-ruby light of the sunset filling the sky beyond the trees at the end of the lawn. Was the room where they had been an illusion then? Shame penetrated Zillah’s numbness. She and Marcus must have spent half the day roving about an oblong space on the open terrace. How stupid! But there was no point in thinking about that now. The lawn, about a foot below the terrace, was lit by nine tripods, each holding a blazing fire. There was a low table at their center. On it, knives caught the color of both the sunset and the flames.
5
“How far is it to Lady Marceny’s estate?” Tod asked his cousin as they hurried back along the causeway. “No distance, as the crow flies,” Michael said. “It’s just across the border, but the estuary’s in the way. Since this flooding, you have to go miles round by the road.”
“I’d no idea it was so near!” Tod said. “I’ve never thought of you living next door to a menace like that.”
“Surely you knew?” Michael said, making great booted strides. “This barony was set up to guard the border. That’s what most of the centaurs do here. Until Paul came, we had to employ a mage as well.”
“Paul? Amanda’s new man? Is he a mage then?”
“Not exactly. He’s from Hallow Isle — off the Leathe coast. The people there all get born with some sort of natural antidote to Leathe. It’s genetic.” Michael, Tod thought, sounded a bit curt about Paul.
He was glad to see his cousin was not a complete saint.
“Is that why your mother married him?”
“No,” Michael almost snapped. “Love. I thought we could leave Paul here while we—”
“No,” Tod said. “I take him. You stay.”
“Now, look—!” said Michael.
“You look,” said Tod. “The woman’s grabbed one gualdian already. You’re gualdian on one side, and on the other you’ve got Gordano birthright—”
“I’ve yet to notice either,” Michael said.
“Marceny will. Gods in hellband, she’ll want you even more than she’ll want me! My old dad will never forgive me if I let us both go.”
That seemed to shut Michael up. As they came to the centaurs milling at the end of the causeway, Tod looked up at the great yellowing bowl of the sky. Given luck, they could reach Josh by nightfall. The foremost centaur had a pale wedge of a face, like a slice of white cheese, and was clearly in some kind of authority. Tod snabbled him. “You in charge here? Good. The centaur in the grove isn’t a ghost. He’s Horgoc Anphalemos Galpetto a Cephelad — know the family? Great. And he’s stranded in Lady Marceny’s grove, in bad trouble. Can you choose me all your fastest folk? We’ll need to go in and out quick, and I don’t want anyone left on the way. Tell them to form up round my car in five minutes.”
“Quite the little Pentarch, aren’t we?” Michael murmured.
6
The king appeared entirely unhurried. He gave orders — or rather, issued mild requests to centaurs, humans, and some of the odder folk, some in uniforms and others in sober suiting — all of which, Gladys noticed, were obeyed as if they were commands with the death penalty attached. From this she conjectured that the power he could raise was formidable. It seemed hard on such a small, mild man. And she noticed he was seldom at a loss. In fact, the only time she saw him disconcerted was when he courteously asked his guests what they wished to eat before leaving for Leathe. The High Head asked for passet, Gladys for sausages.