Sedenko said: "We have been travelling through snow, lady. We hardly need to wash ourselves. See? Nature's done that for us."
I bowed to the young woman. "We are grateful to you," I said. "I, for one, would like some hot water."
"It will be provided." She beckoned and led the way into the palace's cool interior. The ceilings were tow and decorated with murals, as were the walls. We passed through a kind of cloisters and here were apartments evidently prepared for guests. The young woman showed us into one of these. Heated water had already been poured into two large wooden tubs in the centre of the main room.
Sedenko sniffed the air, as if he saw sorcery in the steam.
I thanked the young woman, who smiled at me and said: "I will return in an hour to escort you to the Queen."
Refreshed, I was ready and dressed in my change of clothes when she came back. Sedenko had no change of clothes and had scarcely let the water touch his skin, but even he had deigned to shave his face, save for his moustache. He looked considerably more personable than when he had arrived.
Again we followed the young woman through a variety of corridors, cloisters and gardens, until we were led into a large-sized room with a high ceiling on which was painted a representation of the sun, the stars and the moon, what is sometimes called, I believe, a Solar Atlas.
There on a throne of green glass and carved mahogany sat a girt of perhaps fifteen years. Since she wore a crystal-and-diamond crown upon her dark red hair we naturally bowed and murmured what we hoped were the appropriate greetings.
The girt smiled sweetly. She had large brown eyes and red lips. "You are welcome to our land, strangers. I am Queen Xiombarg the Twenty-fifth and I am curious to know why you braved the eagles to visit us. You were not drawn here, as are some adventurers, by legends of gold and magic, I am sure."
Sedenko became alert. "Treasure?" he said, before he thought. Then he blushed. "Oh, no, madam."
"I am upon the Grail Search," I told the young Queen. "I seek a hermit by the name of Philander Groot and believe that Your Majesty knows where I could find him."
"I am trusted with that knowledge," she said. "But I am sworn never to reveal it. What help can Heir Groot provide?"
"I do not know. I was told to seek him out and tell him my story."
"Is your story an unusual one?"
"Many would believe it more than unusual, Your Majesty."
"And you will not tell it to me?"
"I have told it to no one. I will tell it to Philander Groot because he might be able to help me."
She nodded. "You'll trade him secret for secret, eh?"
"It seems so."
"He will be amused by that."
I inclined my head.
Sedenko burst out: "It's God's work he's on, Your Majesty. If he finds the Grail…"
I tried to interrupt him, but she raised her hand. "We are not to be persuaded or dissuaded, sir. Here we believe neither in Heaven nor in Hell. We worship no gods or devils. We believe only in moderation."
I could not disguise my scepticism and she was quick to notice.
She smiled. "We are satisfied with this state of things. Reason is not subsumed by sentiment here. The two are balanced."
"I have always found balance a nostalgic dream, Your Majesty. In reality it can be very dull."
She was not dismayed. "Oh, we amuse ourselves adequately, captain. We have music, painting, plays…"
"Surely such ideas of moderation require no true struggle. Thus they defeat human aspiration. What greatness have these arts of yours? How noble are they? What heights of feeling and intellect do they reach?"
"We live in the world," she replied quietly. "We do not ignore how it is. We send our young people out of the valley when they are eighteen. There they learn of human misery, of pain and of those who triumph over them. They bring their experience back. Here, in tranquillity, it is considered and forms the basis of our philosophy."
"You are fortunate," I said with some bitterness.
"We are."
"So justice requires good luck before it can exist?"
"Probably, captain."
"Yet you seek out experience. You tell your young people to search for danger. That is not the same as being subjected to it, willy-nilly."
"No, indeed. But it is better than not searching for it at all."
"It seems to me, madam, that you yet possess the complacency of the privileged. What if your land were to be attacked?"
"No army can reach us without our knowing of it."
"No army can march by land, perhaps. But what, for instance, if your enemies trained those eagles to come through the Golden Cloud carrying soldiers?"
"That is inconceivable," she said with a laugh.
"To those who live with danger and have no choice," I said, "nothing is inconceivable."
She shrugged. "Well, we are satisfied."
"And I am glad that you are, madam."
"You are a stimulating guest, captain. Will you stay at our Court for a few days?"
"I regret that I must find Philander Groot if I can, as soon as I can. My commission has some urgency to it."
"Very well. Take the West Road from the city. It will lead you to a wood. In the wood is a wide glade, with a dead oak in it. Philander Groot, if he pleases, will find you there."
"At what time?"
"He will choose the time. You will have to be patient. Now, captain, at least you will eat with us and tell us something of your adventures."
Sedenko and I accepted the invitation. The dinner was superb. We filled ourselves to capacity, spent the night in good beds and hi the morning went by the West Road from the young Queen's town.
The wood was easily reached and the glade found without difficulty. We made a camp there and settled down to wait for Groot. The air was warm and lazy and the flowers softened our tempers with then* beauty and their scents.
"This is a place to come home to when you are old," said Sedenko as he stretched himself on the ground and stared around at the great trees. "But I'd guess it's no place to be young in. No fighting, precious little hunting…"
"The lack of conflict could bore anyone under forty," I agreed. "I cannot quite get to the root of my irritation with this place. Perhaps there is a touch too much sanity here. If it is sanity, of course. My instincts tell me that this kind of life is in itself insane in some ways."
"Too profound for me, captain," said Sedenko. "They're rich. They're safe. They're happy. Isn't that what we all want for ourselves in the end?"
"A healthy animal," I said, "needs to exercise its body and its wits to the full."
"But not all the time, captain." Sedenko looked alarmed, as if I was about to expect some action from him.
I laughed. "Not all the time, young Kazak."
After three days of waiting in the glade neither of us was so willing to rest. We had explored every part of the surrounding country, its rivers, its meadows, its woods. We had picked flowers and plaited them. We had groomed our horses. We had swum. Sedenko had climbed every tree which could be climbed and I had studied, without much understanding, the grimoires Sabrina had given me. I had also studied all the maps and had seen that Mittelmarch territories seemed to exist in gaps between lands where, in my own world, no gaps were.
By the time the fifth morning dawned I was ready to mount my horse and leave the Valley of the Golden Cloud. "I'll find my way to the Grail without Groot's help," I said.
And these words, almost magically, seemed to conjure up the dandy who sauntered into our camp, looking around him a little fastidiously but with the good humour of self-mockery. He was all festooned lace and velvet, gold and silver buckles and embroidery. He walked with the aid of a monstrous decorated pole and he stank of Hungary Water. His hat had a huge brim weighted down with white and silver feathers and his little beard and moustache were trimmed to the perfection demanded of the most foppish French courtier. His sword, of delicate workmanship, seemed of no use to him at all as he stared at me with a quizzical eye and then made one of those elaborate bows which I have never been able to imitate.