"Is this your sister's place?" he asked when Karoly took the cup.
"It was."
He recalled the skulls in the courtyard, and gave the old man latitude for rudeness. He tried to think ahead of things, tried the fingers of his wounded arm to see if they worked, and they did, enough to serve. But whatever tea Karoly had just served up was the same sort as the troll's, so far as his head could witness: he could count the beats of his heart, thump, thump, thump, louder than the crackling of the fire, louder than the old man sitting with his hands between his knees and his fingers weaving cat's-cradles with a bit of yam.
He thought of slender fingers, the same game, the same tuneless humming . . . thought of the lady gran, by the fireside, the lady gran looking up at him with dark, dark eyes, and saying, "Aren't we the curious one? Spying, are we? Do you know what happens to boys who spy?"
"I was looking for Stani," he had said—to go hunting, as he recalled. Stani and he had used to do that in those days, when Stani was a gawky young man and he had been—
He had been—
"You're often about with my son," the lady gran had said. "What do you do in the woods, you? Watch the birds?"
"Yes," he had said. And:
"Look at me." The lady caught his eyes and he could not look away. A long while later she ceased to frown, and he could breathe again. "You have no lies. That's remarkable. I don't think I've ever met a boy who wouldn't lie. Are you loyal to Stani?"
"Yes, lady," he said.
She said, "You're a clever boy. Too clever to catch at lies. Don't spy on me again. Do you hear?"
"Yes, lady," he had said. And all the while watched the patterns that she wove. . . .
Karoly had said, "Let the boy go, Urzula." Urzula had been her name. But no one ever called her that. She was the Lady from the day the Old Lord had his fell until the day she died: only then had Stani become the lord and his wife Agnieszka became lady over Maggiar. and Stani had been a man with three sons by then.
The same weaving as the lady gran. He had not seen Karoly do that in years.
"What is that?" he asked muzzily, the question he ached to ask the lady—but she was dead. She had died in the storm, and it had rained continually until she was in her grave—a cold and comfortless rain, with lightnings and thunder . . .
"What do you imagine it is?" Karoly asked. The firelight caught Karoly at disadvantage, cast his face grim and his hair fire-colored. The fingers caught another loop. A cage, Nikolai thought, for no reason. A trap.
"I don't know." The years had taught him to lie, at need. "Where's the boy?"
"Asleep. He's exhausted."
"What about Bogdan and Tamas?"
"I don't know."
"Well, where were you? Where have you been the last two days?"
"Three. It's afternoon of the third."
"Where the hell were you?"
"My horse bolted," Karoly snapped. "I fell off. I went for help. As of yesterday—there wasn't any here. Is that enough?—" Zadny broke out barking again, and barrelled through the room, oversetting a bottle from the table. "Dammit!"
Zadny was scratching at the door, furiously. Nikolai bethought him of his sword, and felt for it, as Karoly abandoned his cat's-cradle and stood up.
Nikolai asked: "Where does that lead?"
"The cellars."
"Master Karoly?" Yuri stumbled from around the corner, wiping his eyes, his hair tousled. "Master Nikolai?"
"Hush," Karoly said, went and gathered up a staff standing against the door. Nikolai tried to get up, feeling around him for his sword. Yuri had his bow in hand, and strung it.
"Hush!" Karoly said again, and Zadny whimpered into silence. One could hear something being dragged, slowly, slowly, step at a time.
"It's the troll," Yuri whispered. "It's Krukczy!"
"Krukczy, is it?"
"Where's my sword?" Nikolai hissed, but Karoly shot the bolt back and shoved the door open.
It was a troll, that was sure. It looked as if someone had deposited a brash heap on the steps: it stood there covered with twigs, with two great eyes in the shag of its mane. And Zadny, loyal hound that he was, leapt into its arms, licking it and wagging his tail.
"That's Krukczy, for sure," Yuri said.
"Oh, hell,'" Nikolai breathed, sank back against the support of the corner and watched the troll and the hound come inside.
The sun was a green brightness in the canopy. "I never saw trees so tall," Tamas said, and added, "I never heard a forest so quiet," because there was not the least sound now but their movement, not the sound of birds or insects, not the scamper of a rabbit across the leaves. "Do you still see a path? I don't."
"I can see it," Ela said, following whatever she had been following, and for all her claims that he had wizardry of his own it only seemed to him a spookier and spookier place, a place that gave him a feeling—he could not quite surround the idea with a thought—that the woods had no definite edges from here. That was a peculiar kind of impression to have, as if it could be different from inside than out. But that was the way he saw it. And it looked darker ahead than anywhere left or right, while Ela steadfastly maintained she knew her way, and that when they got to the right place, she would know it, and use the mirror, and have all the magic of the woods at her command. The horses trod a brown mottled carpet, the leaves of many summers, and the trunks of the trees were huge beyond anything he had ever seen—as if they and the horses had shrunk or the scale of the world had changed. Only the dead leaves were of ordinary size, and very thick, as if winds seldom reached here. The horses trod carefully in places where the packed leaves concealed uneven slopes or hid the roots of trees—the ground was full of deceptions and traps. And from green above them, there gradually seemed more brush and tangles, in a premature twilight that persuaded the eye that the sun was setting.
But it could not be. It had only just been noon, and they rode now in such shadow that it seemed the sun itself had failed, or the hours had slipped away toward dark and night in furtive haste. The eye believed it. The body did. Tamas found himself fighting a yawn, and arguing that it was not that late, that he was sleepy from too long last night goblin-watching. With Lwi walking sedately at Skory's tail in this tangled undergrowth, with Ela sunk in thought or magic the while, he found it harder and harder to keep his eyes open.
His body swayed to Lwi's gentle motion. Why resist? the leaves seemed to whisper.
"How long do you suppose to sundown?" he asked, if only for the sound of his own voice above the sleepy sigh of leaves. "I can't think it's that late."
"I don't know," Ela murmured. He had only her back for a view, but a downhill slope encouraged Lwi to overtake Skory, step by slow step, so that for a while they rode side by side. Ela herself repressed a yawn, the back of her hand to her mouth, and he shook his head, because it made him have to.
"I can't keep awake," he said. "It's this place. It's this woods. Damn!" A third yawn. It was beyond foolish. He shook his head.
"It's very old," Ela said. "That's all. It's an old place. Mistress said—"
She stifled a yawn of her own and he could not resist. It was ridiculous and frightening at once. The shadow was luce a blanket coming down on them, and the air beneath the aged trees should have been cold with that shadow, but it had no feeling at all. He could not remember now what their immediate aim was, but he recalled it was important and they dared not stop—there had been too many deer and too many wolves, and he had given his bow to his brother, back in the yard. A girl had given him a cake and they had had it that night at the fire—Lwi caught-step of a sudden, over a fallen branch or his own feet, and shook him off his balance.