"What did she eat?" Oliver asked, but Deanna gave him another good hard nudge in the ribs.
Sir Henri didn't seem to notice. "She got one of her sick headaches and had to leave supper and go to bed early. It happened quite suddenly. Right in the middle of Baylen telling how he won last year's tournament at Whitney Castle." He scratched his head as a thought occurred. "Strange. She's heard Baylen tell the story at least a dozen times and she's never gotten a headache before."
"Oh, well," Deanna said. "You never can tell."
"I suppose not," Sir Henri agreed. "Good night." He started down the corridor but then turned back. "By the way, you haven't seen Baylen recently, have you? Or Leonard?"
"Recently?" Deanna repeated. "Not real recently." It had been ... what? At least two minutes.
"Hmm," their father said. "It's just that sometimes, left alone, the two of them can get into trouble."
"Perhaps Leonard's in the garden," Oliver suggested. He turned to Deanna. "He did seem fond of the garden that one time."
"What one time?" Deanna asked.
"When the two of you went there together and he was rolling around in the grass under the wooden bench."
Maybe she'd get lucky and the earth would open up and swallow her.
"Well," Sir Henri said, "they're sure to turn up eventually. Nobody disappears forever. Good night."
Deanna waved. As soon as he was out of sight she muttered, "It's eleven o'clock: Do you know where your children are?"
"I have no children," Oliver explained patiently.
"Oh, Oliver. What am I going to do with you?"
She had noticed, however, that he hadn't asked about Lady Marguerite's condition or indicated any concern. Neither had he suggested that they go to her room to make sure she was all right. Deanna didn't know if that made her feel better or worse, that Oliver showed no more loyalty to Lady Marguerite than to Deanna herself. Wasn't that just like a cat? she asked herself.
They waited for Baylen in her room.
This high up in the castle the window openings were much wider than those closer to the ground, so she sat on the windowsill and asked Oliver to sit with her. She hoped that if Leonard was out there, watching in the dark, he'd become discouraged, seeing Oliver with her.
Deanna sat with her knees drawn up to her chin, thinking. What she was thinking was that the fair folk were idiots for not getting to her sooner with the message about the pigman. But it was her world, her life on the line, not theirs. And, in all fairness, there was no telling how long the ivy on the wall had been exhorting her to action before she'd noticed it. She couldn't, in good conscience, blame it entirely on them.
She sighed. She wasn't supposed to be trying to find someone to blame this situation on; she was supposed to be trying to find a way out of it.
Facing her on the ledge, Oliver was in much the same pose as she, chin resting on knee, arms circling legs. As always he was wearing his long-sleeved shirt and the fur vest; despite the August heat, he always seemed to feel cold. In the flickering candlelight, she could see that his face had gotten the beginnings of a sunburn, just from being out this afternoon. It was as though his fair skin had never seen the sun, she thought—before she remembered. The color was very becoming, she had to admit to herself—even if he had failed her this afternoon by going off with Baylen and Sir Henri.
Deanna became aware that all the while she had been thinking, Oliver was watching her with those eyes which were so pretty in a cat but disturbing in a young man. Back home, sometimes, Deanna had been afraid that there wasn't as much to her as there was to other people, that her emotions were too near the surface and that she missed the undercurrents of life. It had nothing to do with intelligence, but with feelings, and what she felt, occasionally, was that she didn't have as many as other people, that she was without substance and merely role-playing at life. Now, looking at Oliver, at those big green eyes that seemed to be constantly evaluating, she feared she was a disappointment to him as well as to herself.
"What are you thinking?" she asked.
He shook his head, apparently unwilling to share. Or perhaps he wasn't thinking at all. Perhaps it was no more than the same thoughtful expression of any cat sitting in any window. She didn't believe that for a moment.
She looked away from him, into the darkness outside. Where was Baylen? His plan had better be a good one, for there'd be little time left for second tries. Eventually—eventually? How late was it? Eleven-thirty, twelve o'clock in the normal world? Deanna had never realized before how used she was to being able to glance at her wrist or a nearby wall to check the passing of time—eventually she saw Baylen crossing the lawn. He stood below the window and beckoned. Her anxious anticipation turned to a more quiet desperation.
Starting. It was finally starting.
"All set?" she asked Oliver.
He slid off the windowsill without a word.
They made it only as far as the hall outside her bedroom door. "My hat," she said. Once they were gone, that might turn back into her ponytail fastener and who knew what the people here would make of that? She stopped with her hand to the door and turned to Oliver. "Is there anything you..."
She suddenly felt as though all the air had been knocked out of her. Oliver didn't have any things from the twentieth century. He had only what the fair folk had given him: the sword, the clothes he was wearing. His humanity. Things which would disappear upon their return to the real world. Deanna had known that all along. She just hadn't thought about it before.
And she'd never have guessed how much it would hurt.
"I have everything I brought," Oliver said, his voice, as ever, giving her no hint to his thoughts.
They had bickered and snarled and snapped at each other and she had never anticipated missing him, but there it was. He's just a cat, she thought. She'd thought it before. No use making things any worse than they were. Any regrets, any sadness would be on her part only. Wouldn't they?
She didn't ask, and he didn't say. He waited outside her room while she fastened the hat securely. She looked down at her slippers, one palest lilac, one blueberry-stained. (Purpleberry did make more sense.) Still..., she thought, and sighed.
Outside it had gotten quite dark. Deanna wouldn't have been able to see anything if there hadn't been torches placed in sconces every several hundred feet the entire inside length of the wall that surrounded Castle Belesse. The nights here seemed clearer but much blacker than the nights in Greeley or Chalon, where the city lights always cast up into the sky, obliterating stars but giving a gray glow overhead. Somehow, despite the additional stars visible this way, the night felt more forbidding, more likely to close in on them.
A figure jumped out of the shadows at her.
Deanna gasped, too startled to scream.
The shadow creature kissed her hand. "Go, go," he commanded, waving an arm at other shadows behind him.
Music started, like the moan of a humpback whale.
"Leonard!" Deanna was shaking, unable to pull her hand away. "Are you trying to kill me with a heart attack or what?"
Leonard waved impatiently at another clump of shadow.
"Hey, hey, up! One, two, three, over!" Tumblers sprinted, somersaulted, cartwheeled out of the darkness. "Hey, ho, ooop-la!" They jumped on each other's shoulders, then leapt or somersaulted off. One rolled like a tumbleweed, weaving in and out among Deanna, Oliver, and Leonard. Another did a high jump between Deanna and Leonard, over their still-clasped hands. "Yip, yip, ha!"
Deanna felt like a stage prop as the acrobats dived and cavorted among them. Oliver wasn't helping. He looked as though he was enjoying the show. "Leonard," she shouted over the noise of the performers, "Leonard—"
"My love is like a cold, cold frost," Leonard warbled.
"Leonard." It was Baylen who stepped out of the shadows this time. "Leonard, that's enough now."
Leonard raised his hand and made a slashing gesture. The music stopped as abruptly as lifting a needle from a recor
d. The tumblers ceased half a heartbeat later, with the exception of one man who was hanging by his knees from his fellows' extended arms and had obviously missed the signal. He flipped over, where there was nobody to check his momentum, and he landed on his back with a muffled "Umph."
"Sorry, my lady." Baylen kissed her hand. "Leonard had this little performance planned, and I had to agree to it in order to get his promise that he'd help us with our little plan." He wiggled his eyebrows conspiratorially at her.
Leonard shooed the servants away, then dropped to his knees and began kissing her hand. "Ah, fairest desiring of my heart," he murmured between kisses, "you have no idea how happy you've made me."
Deanna was having trouble remembering how to breathe. She'd been wrong: she wasn't going to die of a heart attack, she was going to die of embarrassment In front of Oliver, no less. "What—" She was panting, watching the tumblers leave, afraid they'd come back and start up again."—help?"
"See," Baylen said to Leonard. "You've got her so upset, she can't even remember the plan."
In a perfectly un-upset voice, Oliver repeated her question: "What help?"
Baylen cast him a dirty look, a watch-out-or-you'll-spoil-everything look. He spoke between clenched teeth, his tone saying, I'm not used to dealing with fools. "Help getting Lady Deanna's watch back from Uncle Algernon, of course," he said. "Since it can turn lead to gold, she needs it back."
Deanna looked from Baylen to Leonard. What was going on? Baylen had never said anything about getting help from Leonard. And if Leonard was going to help them, why hadn't Baylen told him that the lead-to-gold story was only for Algernon's benefit?
"Trust me, my lady," Baylen said. "I'll get your watch back for you."
"I'll get your watch," Leonard protested smoothly.
"We'll get your watch," Baylen corrected even more smoothly.
She tried to swallow down the lump in her throat.
"Deanna?" Oliver said.
But it was too late to call things off, if Algerlion had already been convinced to place the watch at the crossroads.
"Oh," she said. "That help."
Baylen grinned, his teeth gleaming in the light of the torches. "This is going to be so much fun," he said.
THIRTEEN
Complications
"We'd better get started," Baylen said.
All the questions Deanna had to ask him, and she couldn't ask any. There was no telling how much Leonard knew, or how much Leonard knew that she knew, or how much he guessed ... Her head was beginning to spin again. Presumably Algernon had believed Baylen's story about the watch having the power to change lead to gold. That much she was fairly certain of, or why would there be any need to get started at all? But if Baylen had changed the plan by including—sort of—Leonard, she couldn't be certain what he had told Algernon either. Idiot, she scolded herself for ever asking Baylen for help. But she said nothing and only kept alert for some sign of his intentions as Baylen led them out through the gate of the castle wall and over the moat and across a field.
However, Leonard rose to the occasion. "All right," he demanded. "So what's this so-called plan of yours?"
Baylen made an expansive gesture. "Deanna's watch."
"What about it?"
"She entrusted me with the secret meaning behind it."
"So what?" Leonard said. "She entrusted all of us."
"Yes, but she told me first."
"Did not"
"Did too."
"Did not"
"Did too."
With a smirk, Leonard pointed out: "Obviously she told Oliver first."
"Oh yeah?" Baylen stopped, scowling, while he tried to come up with a better answer. "Oh yeah?"
Deanna stamped her foot. "Baylen! Leonard!"
"Anyway," Baylen lied, "she told me what ingredients this alchemy spell needs for the watch to work, and she entrusted me to gather those materials."
"So how come you came crawling to me for help?" Leonard sneered.
Deanna could read Baylen's emotional struggle on his face: the conflicting desires to prove his superiority to Leonard or to pacify him so that he would help. "Well," Baylen admitted, "there was one thing I couldn't get, which I knew you could."
Amazing. What was going on?
Leonard beamed at her. "See? Helpless without me. Pray tell me, Baylen—" He made a sweeping bow. "—how can I help you?"
Don't overdo it, Deanna thought, estimating that Baylen would make him pay later for each squirm he caused now.
Baylen said, "One thing I couldn't get. Uncle Algernon is waiting at the gallows crossroads for the final ingredient which we're hoping you can get."
"Which is?"
"Seawater."
"Seawater?" Leonard said.
"Seawater?" Deanna said.
"Seawater," Baylen said.
Oh, good grief. They weren't anywhere near the sea.
"Now you might be thinking that we aren't anywhere near the sea," Baylen said.
"No," Leonard proclaimed in sarcastic disbelief that Deanna mentally echoed.
"But we are closer than you think."
Oliver looked at Deanna with raised eyebrows. How did I let myself get talked into this? she asked herself. Couldn't Baylen have come up with something more sensible?
"There is an underground stream," Baylen told them, "that leads from the sea to the pond in serf Guillaume's holding."
"The pond has seawater?" Leonard asked incredulously.
"You see, that was the problem—"
"The pond has seawater?" Leonard interrupted.
"—Lady Deanna knew that she needed seawater, but didn't know where to get any near here—"
"The pond has seawater?" Leonard persisted.
"Will you shut up and let me finish?"
Between clenched teeth, Leonard said, "There is no such thing as a stream, underground or not, leading from the sea to Guillaume's pond."
"Uncle Algernon found it," Baylen said smugly.
"How?"
"Uncle Algernon has his ways."
"Hmmm." Apparently that wasn't something Leonard was going to argue with. He looked at Deanna, who looked at Oliver, who looked as though everything they were saying was perfectly reasonable. Leonard snorted. "So we get some water from the pond. So what?"
"No, no, no, no," Baylen said in that condescending way that set Deanna's teeth on edge. "We don't get some water from the pond. We get some water from the stream."
"So," Leonard repeated, "what?"
"It's an underground stream. You need to go to the mouth of the stream, at the bottom of the pond."
"Ah," Leonard said. "That's one deep pond."
"That's why we need you," Baylen told him. "You're the best swimmer in the family."
"Yes, I am, though I'm surprised you finally admit it. But how will I know where this seawater comes in?"
"Uncle Algernon says it's in the middle of the pond. He says the water's warmer there. You'll be able to tell."
"I don't know," Leonard said thoughtfully.
"Please, Leonard," Deanna begged, for although she resented getting caught up in Baylen's intrigues, obviously he was set on this. "We can't even start unless you say yes."
"Well," Leonard said slowly, basking in all the attention. "All right. Yes."
FOURTEEN
Alchemy
The pond Baylen had chosen was, of course, in the opposite direction from the crossroads he had chosen. It was about the size and shape of a soccer field and, according to the brothers, about five times as deep as a man was tall. It was surrounded by small cultivated fields belonging to various serfs who owed allegiance to Sir Henri—holdings, Baylen and Leonard called them. Baylen and Leonard had fought with and teased each other all the way there, and Deanna was ready to pull her hair out.
"Well," said Baylen, "we're here."
"Thank you for pointing that out for us," Leonard said, standing at the edge of the pond. "We're so lucky to have an expert with us."
Baylen smirked. "Do you plan on actually entering the water, or do you intend to stand here and tell us how good you're going to be at it?" He held out the stoppered vial Leonard was supposed to fill with seawater. But then, as though on second thought, he said, "Come to think of it, you'd probably do better to get undressed. You don't want to be walking around in wet clothes for the rest of the night."
Leonard glanced at Deanna.
"You don't mind waiting behind those bushes, do you, Deanna? To spare our Leonard's modesty?"
Deanna shrugged helplessly and went behind the bushes that separated two of the holdings. She sat down wearily and rested her head against her knees. Someone had planted mint among the bushes. The biting scent was so pungent that, had she more energy, Deanna would have moved away. "I can't believe we're doing this," she told Oliver.
He stooped down beside her and asked, "What exactly are we doing?"
Deanna shook her head. "I wish I knew."
They were close enough that she could hear the splash as Leonard entered the water, then the slap-slap sound of his swimming out to the center of the pond.
She sat listening to that, and to the crickets, until Baylen came around the bushes and grinned. He held his finger to his lips to caution silence and asked in hushed tones, "Ready to go?"
It was only then that she noticed Leonard's clothes tucked under his arm. "Oh, that's common, Baylen," Deanna snapped. "Common and nasty and juvenile."
Again he made the shushing gesture. "Yes, I'm rather pleased with it myself."
"Baylen—"
"Shh. If he hears you, he'll come out. If he comes out, he'll ruin the plan. If he ruins the plan, you'll never get your watch back."
"But..." She couldn't see how abandoning Leonard out in the middle of nowhere without any clothes was going to get her the watch back. This was pure be-rotten-to-Leonard nastiness on Baylen's part.
"Listen, we can call this off now," Baylen offered. "Do you want to do this or not?"
Actually not. But Baylen was her best choice. In the dark, she couldn't even tell where they were, much less how to get to wherever Algernon had left the watch. If Baylen had gotten him to leave the watch. If Baylen had ever even talked to him about the watch. She had to admit—despite the fact that she hated the trite sound of it—that her fate was in Baylen's hands. Baylen wasn't her best chance, he was her only chance.
A Well-Timed Enchantment Page 8
