Along toward evening a very beautiful woman and a Herald rode into Bannerwell escorted by guardsmen. Swallow saw them, though they did not see Swallow. The beautiful woman demanded an audience with Prince Mandor, and she spoke of Silkhands. The hook set and Peter rose. I said to Swallow, “When night falls, get up into those vines along the side of the hall and find a window.” Then I went away again. Swallow listened. He heard me, but showed no signs of having done so. He went on his gap-toothed way, spitting and scratching and slobbering over his food as though the evening bowl had been the last he would ever receive, then off to his hay loft to fail into empty sleep.
When the moon had risen, and the place was quiet except for the pacing of the guardsmen upon the battlements, Swallow woke, and sneaked through black shadow into the vines on the castle wall, century old vines with trunks thick as his body. He was hidden within them as he climbed, empty-headed, high above the paved courtyard into a night land of roofs and across silvered slates to a high window which looked down into the great hall. He picked out pieces of bent lead to make a gap in that window larger, pulling out fragments of glass, softly, softly, a thief in the night. Then he could see and hear what went on below.
Silkhands was there, and Peter rose to that hook, fished up out of liquid darkness to watch and listen.
“I have come, Prince Mandor, because the Wizard Himaggery has traced a young friend of his here, Peter, former student of King Mertyn at Mertyn’s House. You knew him there.” It was not precisely a question.
I heard Mandor’s gargle and wondered how Silkhands understood it. Then I found that if I listened, without looking at him, letting the sound enter my ears without judging it, I, too could almost understand it. Almost it was the voice of someone I had once cared for…But Silkhands went on, “The Wizard, Himaggery, believes that the boy may not have come to Bannerwell of his own will. He sends me to ascertain whether he is well.”
“Oh, he is well. Quite well. He is not here just now, gone off for a day or two on a hunting expedition. He’ll undoubtedly be back within a few days. You are welcome to wait for him, Healer. You need not worry about Peter. He’s well taken care of.”
If Silkhands had spoken with the Elator who saw me in the dungeons, she knew Mandor lied. If she had spoken with that Elator then she would not have come to Bannerwell with this transparent story, for she would know that Mandor’s Demons would Read her. No. She knew I was in Bannerwell, but she did not know under what conditions. She did not know exactly where I was, or she would not have dared come to ask for me in such innocence.
Another voice floated up to the high window from which I watched, silvery sweet and deadly. “Oh, Sister, why do you tell such lies? You know that you were not sent for any such reason. The Wizard cares nothing for the boy, nothing. If he has sent you, it is for some treacherous purpose of his own.”
It was Dazzle. I peered down to see her standing against a tapestry, posed there like a statue. Her pose was almost exactly the one which Mandor had assumed when I first saw him in his rooms, profile limned against a background, pale, graceful hands displayed to advantage. Mandor was regarding her with fixed attention.
Silkhands had become as still as some small wild thing, surprised too much by a predator to move. When she spoke, her voice was tight with strain. “The Wizard cares much for Peter, Dazzle. As he has cared for you, and for Borold, and for all who have come to the Bright Demesne. The Prince needs only have his Gamesmen Read my thought to know I do not lie…”
“Or to know you have found some way to hide a lie, Sister. I am of the opinion that the Wizard is clever enough to have found such a way. He is very clever, and ambitious…” She cast a lingering look at Mandor, turning away from him so that the look came over her shoulder. It was all pose, pose, pose, each posture more perfect than the last. Only I could see the horror of her skull’s head, her ravaged features confronting that other skull’s head across the room. Mandor did not see. Dazzle did not see. Oh, Gamelords, I thought, they are using beguilement on one another, and neither sees what is there. She went on in that voice of poisonous sweetness, “Borold will bear me out. He, too, is of the same opinion.” As, of course, he was. Borold had no opinion Dazzle had not given him.
“Well,” Mandor said, his voice cold and hard, “Time will undoubtedly make all plain. Until then, you will be my guest, Healer. And you, Priestess. Both. If there is some Game at large in the countryside, we would not want to risk your lovely lives by letting you leave these protecting walls untimely.”
From the height I saw Silkhands shiver. Dazzle only preened, posed, ran long fingers through her hair. “As you will, Prince Mandor. I appreciate such hospitality, as would anyone who had come for any honest reason…”
Mandor gestured to servants who led them both away, each in a different direction. I watched the way Silkhands went. I might need to find her later. Then Mandor was joined by Huld, and the two of them spoke together while I still listened.
“Have the guardsmen found the Divulger? Any sign of him?”
“Only the boots in the moat, Lord. There is no discernible reason he should have made off with the boy.”
“Oh, don’t be a fool, Huld. He didn’t make off with the boy. He killed the boy. That’s why he fled, in fear of his life.”
“We’ve found no body.”
“When the moat is drained, the body may appear. Or, he may have hidden it deep, Huld, in the Caves of Bannerwell. If you wanted to hide a body, or yourself, what better place than the tombs and catacombs of Bannerwell. Things lost there may never be found again…”
I sneaked away across the slates, summoning Swallow back and telling him to do this and that and then another thing. Which he did. He went to the kitchens and sat about within hearing of the cooks and stewards until one entered the place saying that the Healer in the corner rooms on the third floor had had no evening meal and needed food. There was tsking from the cooks, kind words about Healers in general, and vying between two sufferers as to which of them should take the meal to her when it was ready. Enough.
The two pawns who had come with her were still in the courtyard, crouched along the wall. Swallow slouched toward them, spoke to the guard nearby.
“They c’n sleep in the stable hay along of me if they’d mind to…” The guard ignored him. He had not been told to watch these two inconsiderable creatures. Swallow kicked at Chance’s boots. “Softer there than here, and you c’n bring your things.”
The two rose and followed him to the loft to lay themselves wearily down, with many grunts and sighs. Swallow sat in the dark away from them, letting the sight of their faces fish Peter up out of the dark waters to whisper, “Yarrel. Yarrel, listen to me. It’s Peter.”
He sat up, staring wildly about. “Peter? Where are you?’
“Shhh. I am here in the shadow.”
“Come out here, into the moonlight. We expected to find you in the dungeons.” I did not move, and he said warily, “Is this some trickery?”
I was very tired. I did not want to use any more of Windlow’s herb, there was so little left. At that moment I could not remember the “how” of changing back, and I was too tired to try. Instead I said, “No trick, Yarrel. Listen, you and I stood on the parapet of Mertyn’s House and saw a Demon and two Tragamors riding to Festival. You said the horses came from Bannerwell, remember? You said it to me. No one would know of that but us.”
“A Demon might have Read it,” he said coldly.
“Oh, a Demon might, but wouldn’t. Think of something to ask me, then…”