The Secret Country

by PAMELA DEAN

  “On top of everything else,” said Ted, “I got a lecture on proper attire which I was told to pass to you all. Benjamin never wants to see any of these garments again.”

  “What’s wrong with us?” said Ellen belligerently.

  “You,” said Ted, “are wearing very dirty blue jeans with holes in both knees, and a blouse I guess is Ruth’s, because it sure is too big for you. Also it has chocolate stains on it. Your brother has red paint all over his jeans.”

  Laura stared at him. This was not like Ted, who didn’t care what anyone wore, and it was not like Prince Edward, who did care but was much too shy to say anything about it.

  “Laurie,” said Ted, staring back at her, “is wearing one of David’s T-shirts that David slid down the dirt slide in yesterday and there are gravy stains on her shorts. Under this stuff”—he plucked at the shining folds of his robe—“I have this T-shirt my mother hates because it’s only got one sleeve, and old patched blue jeans. Benjamin wants to know where in the world we found this stuff and how we could possibly want to wear it.”

  “What did you tell him?” asked Laura, fascinated.

  “We have to get home,” said Patrick.

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” said Ted. “We were here before we were here, if you know what I mean. So maybe we’re back home too, doing just what we’re supposed to do, and nobody is worried.”

  “The only way to find out is to go home and see,” said Patrick, “and if you’re wrong then the sooner we get home the better.”

  “But we have to have a conference,” said Ted. “That council—” He shook himself a little.

  “Was it like the well?” said Ellen. “Not quite right?”

  “Worse,” said Ted, thoughtfully; “some of it was too right.”

  “Let’s have our conference tomorrow, then,” said Patrick.

  “Oh, all right.” Ted stood up and clambered out of his robe. “I found a sheath for the sword,” he said, patting it.

  “Me too,” said Patrick. “Come on.”

  “You do look grubby in those other clothes,” said Ellen to Ted. “How’d you get Benjamin to let you keep them?”

  “You should talk. He was in a hurry.”

  Patrick stood up. “Let’s go.”

  “Go how?” said Ellen.

  “Just come on,” said Patrick. They trailed him out of the room, muttering at one another.

  They had trouble finding their way out of the castle. They were acquainted with its floor plan, but they were used to certain landmarks which did not exist here, such as the rose trellis, the doghouse, and the hammock, and they were not used to having things be as big as they had said the things were.

  Laura, whose legs were the shortest, scrambled behind the other four, tripping only occasionally and wondering how it could be so cold in here when it was so hot outside. This was better than the Barretts’ stuffy house, but there was no time to enjoy it. Laura tried to decide whether she preferred the Barretts without horses or the Secret Country with the horses, tripped on a spot where a paving stone was missing, and gave up trying to think.

  It was very dim in the passages; torches burned in brackets on the walls, but not many and not bright. Finally they found the door that would take them down to the south side of High Castle. It creaked. It was supposed to, so that the vigilant guards of the Crown might discover Lord Randolph as he tried to sneak through it. It had never occurred to any of them that they might one day need to sneak through it themselves.

  “I hate this,” said Ellen.

  “Shut up!” said Patrick, patiently easing the door open and drawing its squeaks out so long that they were hardly noticeable.

  “You don’t have to open it all the way,” said Laura, who by now was in a fever to be gone. “We can squeeze through.”

  “No we can’t,” said Patrick. “We don’t want somebody falling down the stairs.” Laura knew whom he meant by “somebody.”

  “We need a flashlight,” said Ted.

  “Be quiet,” said Ruth.

  They huddled against the wall and let Patrick finish opening the door. Laura wanted to ask Ellen whose idea it had been to make the halls so drafty. She thought of the vast spaces of High Castle above them, and wondered where all the guards had gone, and kept still.

  “All right,” said Patrick finally. Colder air came out of the open doorway at them. The stairs were not lit at all.

  “Keep close to the walls,” said Ted.

  “And not too close together,” said Patrick.

  “Ted,” said Ruth, “you should go first and I last.”

  Nobody contradicted this, so Ted put a foot out and felt cautiously for the first step. Laura cringed, expecting it to creak as the door had. Then she remembered that the steps were stone, and felt foolish. Ted meanwhile had felt his way down two more steps.

  “All right,” he said, his voice a little hollow in the stairwell, “first Laurie, and then Patrick, and then Ellen.”

  Laura heard Patrick grumbling under his breath as she started after Ted, and she wished he were not behind her. She started cautiously down the stairs. There was no banister or handrail, and the wall was cold. When the wall stopped she knew she was at the bottom. The lower hall was not lit either. She took two more steps so she would be out of Patrick’s way when he got there, and bumped into Ted.

  “Dammit, you made me blink!”

  “You’d better watch your language,” said Laura automatically.

  “Oh, shut up. Look—do you see light?”

  “No.”

  “Look. Here. Patrick, don’t bump into her,” said Ted over her head. “Turn and look down the hall to the right.”

  “Yes!” said Patrick immediately, in Laura’s ear. “It must be moonlight through the crack in the door.”

  “What crack?” demanded Laura.

  “That’s the Great South Door,” said Patrick, “and the crack is where the Dragon King hit it with his battering ram. He had a bet with King Conrad, you know, which is why they never mended the door and why it’s not guarded—ow!”

  “Well,” said Ellen, “your foot was where my foot had to go next.”

  “Be quiet,” said Ruth, behind Ellen.

  They blundered down the hall toward the faint splinter of light until Laura found the door by hitting her head on it. She was glad it was a plain door, not carved. Ted moved her out of the way and fumbled with the bolts. “How many of these are there?” he asked.

  “Three,” said Ellen.

  Ted drew the first two back with nothing worse than a little rattling, but the third one screamed. They all froze. This was the worst noise yet. Nothing happened. Ted finally pushed the door open to a rush of pale warm air and the smells of mud and herbs.

  “Careful down the steps,” he said.

  They stumbled down the steps and stood in the shadow of the castle wall. A wide path, probably pink by day, but pleasantly pearly in the moonlight, ran from the south door to an open gate in the far wall of the garden. Through the gate they saw the shift and glint of moonlight on the water of the moat, with the shadow of the next wall black at its far side.

  “The stables should be through there, across the moat, and to the left,” said Patrick.

  “Stay on the path,” said Ted. “There are snares for rabbits in there.”

  “Rabbit snares?” said Ellen.

  “They eat everything,” said Ted patiently, and began to lead the way along the path. The moon was lopsided, not quite full, but it gave more light than was comfortable. Laura felt like a strayed hamster in a flashlight beam. She took hold of Ellen’s blouse and was towed along in her wake as Ellen, crowding behind Ted and stepping on his heels, demanded, “Did you put those rabbit snares in that garden?”

  “The gardener did, dummy . . . what’s his name, anyway?”

  “Timothy,” said Ellen. “You know what I mean. Did you put those rabbit snares in that garden? Because that is my garden and if I want rabbits kept out, I will—”

>   “Ellen,” said Patrick wearily, “we don’t even know for sure if there are rabbit snares. We’d just rather be safe than sorry.”

  They crowded through the open gate and stared across a little lawn at the broad waters of the moat.

  “Laurie can’t swim,” said Ted.

  “Conrad’s Bridge,” said Patrick, herding them all to the left along the outside of the garden wall. “It should be right before the moat empties into the lake.”

  They followed the wall as it curved around to form the eastern boundary of the garden. Something splashed in the moat, and Laura was grateful she could not swim. Then again, walking wasn’t pleasant either; she had stumbled over every stone and stick for the past ten yards.

  “How long is this wall?” she asked.

  Ted stopped, letting Ellen bump into him and Laura into Ellen. Patrick and Ruth managed to stop without bumping.

  “Do you people suppose you could possibly be just a little bit quieter?” said Ruth.

  “Yes,” said Patrick, quietly enough. “Where are the great skilled catlike guards that are supposed to be lurking all over the place?”

  “So how long is this wall?” whispered Laura.

  Ted pointed along the white lumpy line of the wall to a bright patch about twenty yards ahead of them. “That is the lake. Now come on and be quiet.”

  They came on, being quiet. There had been a path of sorts when they started, but it kept getting rockier and weedier, and they had not gotten very much farther when it turned into wet knee-high grass.

  “Oh, criminy,” said Ted, in a startled tone.

  “Shhh!” said Laura, stepping into the grass behind him. A cold and wet and horribly close sensation overtook her, as if she were in a slimy cave. She shook her head and looked up, and shrieked.

  Of what really happened next she missed almost all. Of what she thought happened next she remembered almost all and wished she did not. Discussing it later, they found that Patrick, Ted, and Ellen were in similar straits. Only Ruth knew what had really happened, and this is what she said it was.

  “What’s the matter!” bellowed Ellen.

  “Shut up!” hissed Patrick, but it was too late. Right above them torches flared upon the moon-silvered battlements of High Castle. Ellen shoved Patrick, who stepped into the grass.

  “Run!” cried Ellen.

  “Not that way!” shouted Patrick. Ruth watched him swing his sword at the empty air, duck away from nothing, and deliver to Ellen a push in the stomach that knocked the breath out of her and sent her right into Ruth.

  “Will you move!” said Ruth, pushing her back the other way.

  Ellen fell flat on her stomach into the grass, and then she yelled. Ruth picked her up and ascertained that she was not bleeding or dead. Ellen went on yelling. Ruth looked over her shoulder. More torches were coming to light on the walls, and people were shouting up there now. Ruth looked for the rest of them. Ted and Laura were running, but not very well. Ted was flailing his arms around his head as if to keep off flying things, and Laura kept screaming “Go away!” to the moonlit air. Ellen suddenly kicked Ruth in the shin, and Ruth dropped her. Ellen screamed again.

  Ruth took two steps into the grass, which twined itself around her ankles with blades as sharp as swords and began climbing up her legs. Ruth flung herself backward out of the grass, landing painfully on several inconvenient stones. She looked at her legs, and felt them for blood, and stood up, looking across the grass at the others. None of them seemed to be afflicted with climbing plants, although they were certainly afflicted with something.

  “Oh,” said Ruth. She had remembered a piece of the Secret Country’s history that might account for all this. Then she heard the grate of wood on stone as the Great South Door was opened, and the clank of mail as men-at-arms came out of it.

  Ruth caught Ellen, who was wrestling on the ground with nothing in particular, by the collar of her blouse, and dragged her into the grass. The grass sank itself into her legs again, and every time she took a step she felt as if it were cutting her legs to ribbons. But she went on being able to walk on them long after they should have been hacked to mincemeat, and after a few strides she was able to ignore the feeling. A more serious problem was Ellen, who was kicking and scratching and seemed inclined to bite as well. Ruth clutched her harder, which produced a lull, and grabbed Patrick with her free hand. He was dangerous; he had the sword.

  “Patrick,” said Ruth urgently, “cut it out. It’s me. You know what this is, you idiot, this was part of your coming-of-age, stop it!”

  Patrick immediately closed his eyes. “You’re right,” he said. “Come on.” He took one of Ellen’s arms, and he and Ruth dragged her along.

  “What’s it doing to you?” asked Ruth, who thought that fighting a sturdy twelve-year-old was hard enough without being aided only by someone who refused to open his eyes. “Can’t you look where we’re going?”

  “Never mind,” said Patrick.

  They caught up with Ted and Laura. Ted had his sword out now. Laura was engaged in a vicious battle with her own hair. Patrick looked behind and saw the guards, the great skulking catlike guards, reach the edge of the grass.

  He clamped his arms around Ellen as Ruth let go of her, and was rewarded by being bitten in the shoulder. He pushed her away.

  “Ellie, if you don’t cut it out I’ll trample your broccoli when we get home. I swear it. Close your eyes!”

  Ellen did so. “Oh,” she said. “They aren’t roaring after all.”

  “Ted,” said Ruth, catching at Ted’s sword arm, “you made this up, it’s not real, stop it! Close your eyes,” she added hopefully.

  Ted closed his eyes, and opened them again immediately. “It’s worse that way,” he said, “but now that you mention it, it’s not so bad.” He collared his sister. “Shut your eyes!” he commanded.

  “They are!”

  “Well, open them, then! This isn’t real!”

  Laura did as she was told. “Are you sure? Watch out, it’s coming at you!”

  The guards stepped into the grass and roared.

  All five children ran.

  “Keep your eyes closed!” hollered Patrick as he stumbled out of the grass and tripped over something at the edge of the lake. Laura fell over him and began beating on him with both fists.

  Ruth stepped into the cold water of the lake and involuntarily opened her eyes. Ted came up beside her and attempted to deal with Laura. “That’s Patrick,” he told Laura, “leave him alone.” He tried to pick her up, and she hit him in the eye.

  Ellen staggered up in time to help Ruth prevent Ted from hitting Laura back.

  “It’s you?” said Laura. “Your bones aren’t coming out?”

  “Not yet,” said Ted, trying to get his eye open.

  They all stared at one another for a moment, panting. The guards were yelling and cursing on the other side of the field.

  “Here’s the bridge!” called Patrick.

  They pounded across the bridge, slithered through a muddy space covered inadequately with straw, and leaned on the back wall of the stables, gasping. The noise of the guards did not seem to be coming any closer.

  “What was that?” said Laura, wrapping her arms around herself and shivering.

  “Why are you cold?” demanded Ellen. “It was like a volcano and the grasses burned our feet.”

  “It was wet,” said Laura, “and I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “How do we deal with Benjamin?” said Patrick.

  “And all the undergrooms and stable boys and all that,” added Ellen.

  “I’ll bet you they’ve gone to see what all the noise is about,” said Laura, more hopefully than firmly. She could not break the habit of deciding what would happen according to the necessity of the moment.

  They went to find out, and Benjamin and everyone else had done just that, leaving the stable door wide open.

  “He’s not supposed to do that,” said Ellen as they struggled with saddling the ho
rses, which did not like the noise from outside and were not inclined to be forgiving of incompetence. Only Patrick had been taught to saddle a horse, and he was not forgiving either.

  “Maybe he recognized our voices,” said Laura, who was standing as far away from the horses as she could get. “He always comes if we’re in trouble.”

  “He ought to be right here, then,” said Ellen. “Where does this go?”

  “Never mind the saddles, there isn’t time,” said Patrick. “Just do the bridles. Here, Ellie, like this.”

  “It’s all slobbery!” said Ellen.

  From outside came three splashes and renewed cursing. It sounded much too near. Laura considered hiding in an empty stall.

  “Hurry up,” said Ruth.

  Patrick got four horses bridled, and Laura watched the other four manage to get themselves onto the horses. Then Ted had to dismount and boost Laura, whom everybody had forgotten, up behind Patrick, who was the only one among them with any real claim to horsemanship. They clattered and jingled and creaked out of the stable. The noise from the guards was still going on, but it came from the garden now.

  “I bet there were rabbit snares in that garden,” said Ted. “Listen to them swear!”

  Feet pounded across the stableyard. They took their horses out the southern door of the stable and stopped, staring at the outermost walls that still towered above them.

  “There’s a postern at the southeast corner,” said Patrick, neatly turning his horse in that direction. Laura suspected that the other horses followed him because they felt sociable rather than because anybody else knew how to tell a horse what to do. She was already having difficulty staying on the horse, and felt that being caught, even by furious guards, would be more a relief than otherwise.

  Patrick’s postern was right where he had said it was. It was bolted on the inside and not very large, but Patrick dismounted and got it unbolted and they all got the horses through it without mishap. The horses needed no encouragement to gallop across the plain, and since Patrick had managed to head his in the right direction, they all went that way. They heard no new outcry behind them, and began to feel hopeful. After a few horrible jolting moments, Patrick even convinced his and Laura’s horse to assume a smoother gait, and Laura thought she might manage not to fall off after all.