When we left the field, it was littered with the corpses of fifty-five goblins. The rest of their unit had completely dispersed. I felt utterly invigorated. Once the battle had begun, my fear left me and I never felt threatened or in serious danger. We were-as Garnet had said-like storm gods, unassailable, righteous, and potent beyond imagining. It was a good feeling.
We returned to the city as heroes. Women cheered and blew kisses and men applauded, promising to be with us next time. Garnet slapped me on the back and told me I had done well. His arm had been gashed by a goblin cleaver, but it was, he said, a minor injury. And the goblins had lived, but briefly, to regret doing him harm. Then he laughed and cheered with the rest. We were taken into the palace for a banquet, apparently the customary end to such raids. All damaged weapons, including my sword, which had been notched near the tip when I killed that first goblin, were collected and sent to the smith for reforging.
Here I made my excuses. Garnet was surprised that I did not want to indulge in this part of the proceedings, but he was also clearly impressed by the fact that I would fight and then not wait around to be wined, dined, and praised. His admiration, however problematic, came in my direction rarely, so I said nothing of my proposed rendezvous with the mysterious court lady.
Instead I bathed, dressed, and picked over the colorful, dainty, and tasteless morsels set aside for my private supper and went out, leaving the world of the palace behind. It was still light outside and the sky was pale and blue. The wind was fresh, and the city’s towers, columns, and graceful, curving walls looked-it has to be said-astonishingly lovely, like something out of an old tale.
Well, so much for that. I had more immediate adventures on my mind. I crossed the sentried bridge where the goblins had led their feint and found workmen studying the small spots of damage where catapulted stones had chipped and cracked the masonry. Unlike the burly and rude types who labored on the streets in Cresdon when someone finally decided it was worth doing repairs, these men were as tall, slender, and clean as the guards, shopkeepers or, for that matter, the courtiers. They were strong, no doubt, in that understated but powerful way that the men of their race seemed to have, but they looked more like bakers than builders. They wore long tunics of a pale, sandy color and stood around looking grave and doing, to my mind, very little. At the far end I came upon some spots that had already been repaired and noted the pretty shoddy job the workers had apparently done. The stone blocks that had been shattered by the impact of the monster had just been packed back into the crater in the wall, and one of the laborers was in the process of painstakingly plastering over the damage. The finished job looked just about perfect, but the wall was structurally no stronger than before the “repair.” Were they so short of materials that they could not do a better job? Were they expecting another assault imminently and merely wanted to cheat the goblins into thinking that the walls were as solid as they had been?
I approached the wall and looked closer, still riding a wave of confidence after my excursion with the cavalry. Almost immediately one of the masons came over to see what I was doing.
“Just looking at the repairs,” I said, lamely. “Rushed job, was it?”
He gave me an odd look and shook his head.
“It just looks,” I said, “a little, well, flimsy. No. I don’t mean flimsy, exactly. I mean, well, I’m not sure. Not as strong as the rest.”
“We have used a slightly different technique,” the mason said, unoffended, “but the wall is as strong as when my great-grandfather first hewed and shaped the stone which was laid as the foundation of this structure. You see those columns by the gate? He carved those himself with nothing but a chisel and mallet. He worked until his hands bled, refusing to rest until the job was done to the best of his ability. The intricacy of their carving is unmatched and, a hundred years later, they are still as straight and flawless as the day they were finished. Since then the goblin armies have broken upon this fortress like waves against cliffs and it stands still. He taught the trade to my grandfather who taught it to my father and my father taught it to me. This hammer,” he said, hefting the steel tool thoughtfully, “has been passed down through our family since the days of my great-grandfather, who used it to shape these stones and cut those pillars. We set a diamond into its handle to remember him by, see? You need not worry about the strength of the walls.”
I thanked him for his insight and moved on hurriedly, wondering at how quick people here were to give you personal history lessons. Beyond the barbican was a broad, paved road which skirted the edge of the city in what looked like a circle. Presumably it led somewhere other than simply round the badly patched walls of Phasdreille, but I had heard so little about the immediate environs that I could not begin to speculate where it might go. When I met my secret assignation, would I be led into the city? And, if not, what else was there round here other than the forest, which was the domain of goblins and dead friends?
A coach drew up as I was mulling this over. My heart leaped and I tried to look conspicuous. It was drawn by a pair of white mares with red ribbons plaited into their manes and tails. A slender white hand parted the curtained window and stretched out, dangling a flounce of red-tasseled silk: a handkerchief, perhaps. Was this a sign for me? I faltered uncertainly. The coach and its offered invitation remained where they were. I took a hesitant step and then, quite out of the blue, a gentleman appeared from the bushes at the bridgehead. He wore a small mask spangled with glittering stones and a pale coat with forked tails and hemmed with gold. He strode up to the coach, took the handkerchief and stepped back as the door swung open in admittance. He climbed up and disappeared inside. The door clicked shut and the coach rattled away.
As it trundled out of sight I looked back to where the stranger had come from. Around the barbican grew dense laurel bushes and a scattering of sculpted bay trees. If I was not mistaken, these bushes were alive with casually hidden courtiers. Indeed, now that I looked, they weren’t really hidden at all. Any attempt at concealment was purely token and, while they all wore elaborate masks, there was a similarly minimal effort to actually hide their identity. Clothes are expensive, and even a wealthy courtier can only run to a few suits of the kind of luxuriance that these blokes sported, so I could recognize several of them at a glance. One of them had been one of the principal players in the love debate we had witnessed while waiting to meet the king, and another had ridden with us earlier in the afternoon.
After another few minutes a different carriage rolled up and stopped. A lady’s satin glove was dropped nonchalantly by the cloaked driver, and a masked dandy emerged from the shrubbery, returned it to the invisible lady inside, and was admitted. The whole thing took no more than thirty seconds. Then they were off to whatever prearranged pleasures they had in store-though whether this would consist of more than courtly wordplay, I could not guess.
For about a half hour this bizarre pantomime went on. Coaches would draw up, display their appointed signs, and collect their respective gallants. Passersby seemed used to the huddle of half-hidden lovers awaiting their trysts and would occasionally stop to chat with one or more of them. More often, however, they would simply watch from an admiring distance. On several occasions the masked courtier would make a courteous bow to the audience before climbing into the carriage. This invariably produced a little smattering of applause from those around, including those halfheartedly ensconced in the shrubbery.