Angelique stared, startled to be told to do something for which she'd had no training; but she turned, gamely stepping in with her upbringing as a proper hostess, and sat gracefully by the pot.
"One hand keeps the lid on," I whispered. Angelique took the cue as if she hadn't even noticed it, pouring tea into a cup and burbling, "How pleasant the weather is! Quite cool for August, do you not think? Lemon, Sir, or milk?" The Bull looked up, sighting an island< staring at the service like a shipwrecked sailor.
"Sweetening, perchance?" Angelique prompted, "One lump, or two?"
"She picked up on that awfully fast," I muttered at the Gremlin with a hint of accusation.
The little monster looked up at me with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "There are more ways than one to put a notion into a body's head, Wizard."
"Two lumps," the Bull rumbled, pulling himself up to sit cross-legged.
Frisson and Gilbert exchanged a look of amazement, but Angelique didn't even bat an eye. She dropped two lumps of sugar into the cup with silver tongs. "Will you take milk, or lemon?"
"Milk, if you please, the Bull answered, with a good public-school accent. "And perhaps a scone?"
"Surely."
"Angelique presented him with a cup and saucer, then turned to take a bit of scone from the basket. "Butter?"
"Of course."
"So I had thought." Angelique spread butter, set the cake on a plate, and handed it to him, then looked up at me. "Saul?"
"Milk and sugar." I folded myself into a tailor's seat, surprised to find I was hungry. "And a scone, if You please."
"Most certainly."
Angelique poured, chattering, "I think we will have an early fall, do you not? And you, Sir Bull, what fine chance brings you our way?"
The Bull frowned. "I might have asked the same."
"Then do, I prithee! And might you have a name?"
"John," the Bull said.
Of course.
Then, obligingly, "And what chance brings You my way?"
Slowly, Frisson and Gilbert came up and sat down. Angelique poured tea with milk and sugar for them as she answered, "We flee a wicked tyrant, who would imprison us, abuse each of us in ways as foul as she can imagine, then slay us by slow torture. And yourself?"
"I have been here as long as I may remember," the Bull answered slowly, "and that is long, maiden, very long."
"Centuries," the Gremlin breathed.
"Even so." The Bull bowed his head to the monster in acknowledgment. "I know not who sent me here - only that his voice did echo all around me as I woke, saying, 'Here you stand, and here you must remain, slaying all who seek to pass until fair Chance may send you they who seek to rise for good."
Angelique exchanged a glance with me. "Mayhap we are they."
"Mayhap," the Bull said slowly, trying to throttle hope. "Where do you seek to go, and why?"
"To the castle of the Spider King," Angelique answered. "We seek his aid in defeating a foul sorceress who has laid a whole land 'neath a grid of rules and clerks. Indeed, her people scarcely dare to stir out of doors without her say-so."
The Bull frowned. "Why should the Spider King aid you?"
"Why," Angelique said, "we have heard that he is a good man, who aids those who seek to help the poor, and yearn for justice."
"He does that, aye, does both. Yet what advantage is there for him in thus aiding you to give aid?"
"I do not know," Angelique admitted.
"Maybe we could tell, if we knew what he wants," I said slowly.
"Do you know?"
"He lacks nothing," the Bull said.
I shook my head. "If that were the case, he'd either help people just for the fun of it, or he'd be getting something out of it. A sense of purpose, maybe?"
"How old is he?" Frisson said.
"Centuries," the Bull said firmly. "As long as I have been here, at the least."
"Mayhap, then," the poet offered, "he has need to justify his continued existence?"
I looked up, startled. Where had this country bumpkin taken his philosophy course?
But the Bull was nodding. "I could think that, aye. Why else does he constantly seek out human misery and invent ways to assuage it?"
"Does he so?" Frisson fastened on the words, his eyes keen. I wondered at it, but the poet didn't seem inclined to expand upon the point, so I said, "If that's his motivation, why does he have you here to keep people out?"
"I cannot say with any surety that 'twas he who set me here," the Bull said slowly. "As to the 'why' of it, I cannot so much as conjecture."
"Not without knowing the 'who,' no," I said dryly. "Well, let's assume for the moment that we're the ones you're supposed to let through."
"Let us not!" the Bull said sternly. "And let us recall that, when this teatime is ended, we shall war again, you and I."
Inside, I went cold, but my mouth kept going. "But what if we are the ones you're supposed to help?"
"If you are, why, you shall defeat me, and I shall go on to the Spider King's palace with you." The Bull sounded angry, and I could imagine the anguish he was feeling at the moment of decision. "If you are not, then you shall die in the attempt."
But Frisson had fastened to the first sentence. "If you are to go with us, can you guide us? Have you been to the palace before?"
"No," the Bull said slowly, "yet I have a memory of the route. 'Tis as if I were made with it in me."
"DNA can do such wonderful things," I murmured. Then, louder, "Trust the inborn hunch - and take a gamble on us. After all, how many other groups have ever come this way?"
"Only three," the Bull admitted.
I felt another chill, trying to imagine what the last questers must have been.
"Yet they were all men," the Bull continued, "and wore the black robes of sorcery. There was a reek of evil about them, which there is not about you."
"We are a force of right," Gilbert said with total conviction. The Bull gave him the jaundiced eye, but I said, "At least we're fighting evil . . ."
"And each of us has suffered from it," Gilbert stated.
"Well, yes," I said, shifting uncomfortably as I remembered a few of my less glorious deeds, then shifting back with apprehension as I remembered my encounter with my guardian angel. "I have to admit I'm out for my own ends, though."
The Bull's head snapped about to stare at me. "How so?"
"I'm trying to find a friend," I explained, "and after that, I'm out to get back home." But I glanced at Angelique as I said it, and suddenly found the issue much less pressing than it had been. "It just seems that I'm going to have to defeat the evil queen before I can do either. "
"His gain will be the people's salvation," Gilbert said quickly.
The Bull ignored him, eyes still on me. "That is not the most noble motive for a quest."
"It's better than a lot of 'em," I answered, reddening, "and its side effects would benefit the people of Allustria. Couldn't very well be worse than what they've got."
"There is that," the Bull admitted. "And, mayhap, it would be less of a bore to assist you, than to guard this gate interminably. It would, at the least, be adventure."
My hopes soared. "Oh, I guarantee it wouldn't be boring!"
"Indeed it will not," the Bull admitted, "for we must pass mine enemy. Will you aid me in fighting him?"
I felt sudden interior brakes slamming on. If this monster felt the need of help confronting the next one, how horrible did it have to be?
"Just what kind of beastie is this?"
"His name is Ussrus Major," the Bull answered, "and he is the Bear.
The tone in which he said it was enough to chill the blood, but Frisson murmured, "Saul, you are a great wizard, surely."
"Yeah, with your verses." I remembered a poem, took a deep breath, and said, "Okay. Count us in."
"I may indeed," the Bull answered, "for the Bear blocks the way to the Spider King."