They reached London. They struggled through the traffic, which was already mounting toward the evening rush. They stopped to do some shopping for supper and came at last to her flat.
As always, her hand was trembling when she unlocked the door. The day's post lay on the mat, where it had fallen through the slot. She snatched it up and peered at the envelopes. What she dreaded was not there, and she was another day closer to the end of the war.
The official notice would not come to her, of course—it would go to the bitch in Notting Hill—but D'Arcy had taken his sister into his confidence before he was posted overseas, and Anabel had promised faithfully that she would notify Alice if the dread announcement ever came. Alice could not bring herself to trust that arrangement. Every day she read the obituaries and casualty lists in the Times, although no one knew how outof-date those might be. On Sundays she would sometimes go up to Notting Hill and walk past the house, looking for the drawn blinds that would be evidence of mourning. That was how she knew about the chauffeur.
She made tea and prepared a drab meal. She suggested that Jones take a nap, in preparation for a sleepless night, but he was too anxious about the coming ordeal to relax. They must be out of town before dark, he insisted. He dare not try to drive in traffic in the dark.
Alice prepared some sandwiches from the ugly wartime bread. She dressed in the warmest tweeds she possessed. She took the precious key from her bottom drawer, and pressed a kiss on D'Arcy's photograph. Then she went back into the sitting room and found Jones nodding before the gas fire. He looked up with a guilty start.
"Come, my lord!” she said. “We must embark upon our pilgrimage to Canterbury, as in days of yore. You shall be my verray, parfit gentil knyght!"
He hauled himself out of the chair, blinking behind his pince-nez. “And you, my lady? The prioresse?"
"The wif of Bathe, I think, is more my role. Shall I tell you a tale upon the way to lighten the journey?"
Mr. Jones looked deeply shocked that she should even know that story.
They sallied out into the streets again. They took the tube, and then a bus, and so they came to Notting Hill. It seemed a very mundane way to embark on a mission of romance and high adventure. And all those long miles must be retraced.
The lockup was one of six, in what had been a stable until five or six years ago. There was no one else about in the gloomy little yard. The rain had ended, but the skies remained gray and gravid.
The key still worked. Jones groaned loudly when he saw the size of the motorcar. The great black dragon almost filled its kennel, so that there was hardly room to move around it. Alice had only been here two or three times, and she could not recall why D'Arcy had ever given her the key. She could remember every drive she had ever had in the car, though—wonderful, intoxicating journeys out of town with her lover, stolen hours of happiness together.
Jones inspected every inch of the monster. Alice fidgeted, fearing that some neighbor would come driving in and think to investigate the strangers, although it was more than probable that the cars in the other lockups had been abandoned for the duration of the war. Adjacent houses overlooked the yard. Would some kind friend think to telephone Lady Devers and inform her that her car was being stolen?
Jones checked the fuel tank with the dipstick and examined the jerry can chained on the running board. Both seemed to be full, he said glumly. He had been hoping for a last-minute stay of execution, perhaps. The oil in the lamps was low, he said, and he could find no spare oil. They must stop somewhere and buy some before the garages closed.
That was not enough excuse to give up the expedition. Alice found a motoring rug in the back. She adjusted it over her knees as she settled herself in the seat next the driver's. Jones turned the crank. The motor caught at once. He backed the car out of the lockup and went to shut the doors. The adventure had begun.
Sometime in the small hours, Julian Smedley would set off the fire alarm in Staffles. Edward, who would not be expecting the signal this night, would be jerked out of his sleep by bells ringing to signal his escape....
III
IIIegaI Move
10
ESCAPE! ESCAPE!
Edward Exeter had escaped from Sussvale.
He stalked along happily, encrusted in red dust. His boots were rubbing his toes, but the ache in his legs was almost pleasurable. Rothpass was one of the easier passes in the Vales, and now the road led downward. He matched strides with Goathoth Peddler, who was also on his way to Nagvale and enjoyed company on the road. Ahead of them trudged the peddler's packbeast, to whom Edward had not been introduced, but which generally resembled a jackass designed by a committee of iguana. Goathoth was expounding on his daughter-in-law's childbearing problems in a Sussian accent like a knife on a tin plate, quite unaware how little his young friend understood. Neither of them was particularly worried by trivia on such a fine morning.
"—,” said the peddler, “another miscarriage. That made three. A few fortnights later they went to—and sacrificed a—to—"
"A very wise decision,” Edward remarked.
Jagged peaks towered on either hand. Once in a while the trail would emerge from forest and offer a glimpse of scenery ahead. From that height the world stretched out forever. Nagvale was another intermontane basin, of course. It seemed narrower than Sussvale, but he could not discern the end of it; the bordering ranges trailed away into hazy distance.
He was enjoying himself, although his conscience said he should not be. He had betrayed little Eleal, who had befriended him and saved his life. He had left a trail of dead friends and would-be helpers—Bagpipe, Creighton, Gover, Onica—not to mention an unknown number of slain foes, one of whom he had dispatched personally.
By all rights, he should have died in Sussland. Zath had been waiting for him to arrive there, as the Filoby Testament prophesied he would. The god of death had set his deadly reapers to trap the expected Liberator. Julius Creighton and Gover Envoy had died, but Edward had escaped. Zath's killers had set another ambush for him, and Onica Mason had died; but again Edward had beaten the odds and escaped. Tion, Suss's patron god, had let him go, which he had never expected either.
He could claim very little credit for himself, but he had escaped from Sussvale. He was going Home. In a few more weeks, he would be back in England, ready to fight for King and Country—under an assumed name, of course, but in time to help humble the Prussian Bully. Nextdoor would be nothing but an incredible memory, a month missing from his life.
A party of pilgrims came riding up the western slope, taking it easy to spare their moas. They waved cheerily at the two men heading down but did not break off their conversation. Clearly they had seen nothing odd in either of the two. They had probably not noticed the younger one taking an unusually hard look at their mounts.
Edward, for his part, was amused at how easily he now accepted the idea of creatures that had hooves and fur and yet looked like birds. In less than two weeks, he had already adjusted to the lesser oddities of Nextdoor. It was a fascinating place. Perhaps one day, after the war was over, he might try to come back, to explore it in detail—or even fulfill a prophecy or two.
"—-” Goathoth announced triumphantly, “bouncing baby boy! Named him—after his—!"
"May the gods be praised!"
Tangles of purple and bronze creepers in the woods sent out waves of pungent scents, while shrieking birds fluttered and stalked around—feathery birds and furry birds also, for Nextdoor had a wide variety of bipeds.