“I suppose someone else might be able to transform—” Anya started to say, but was interrupted as Gotfried swooped low over her and dropped the book, almost on her head. She caught it just in time, by pure reflex. Gotfried did not stop, but looped around and headed back to the castle.
“Good luck, Princess! Recipe!”
Anya looked at the book. It was one of Gotfried’s own notebooks, and written on the front in his familiar cursive script was A Recipe: For the Making of Fairly Reliable Transmogrification Reversal Lip Balm.
Anya’s smile vanished and her face fell. “Oh,” she said. “I’d hoped Gotfried might come with me. I suppose he’s too scared of the Duke, and since it’s my Quest, I have to go … alone!”
Alone?” repeated Tanitha. “I don’t think so. Young Ardent here also happens to be overdue for a Quest, so he can accompany—”
“Me! A Quest!” barked Ardent, almost turning a somersault in excitement. “With Princess Anya! Let’s go!”
He tore off up the road for about ten yards, stopped suddenly, and raced back, barking happily.
“Though perhaps someone a little older and more sedate would serve better,” mused Tanitha.
Ardent immediately stopped barking, sat down, and assumed the position of Intently Listening Dog he’d learned at school. Paws straight in front, ears up, and head tilted slightly to the side. Anya bent down and hugged him, even letting him surreptitiously lick her ear.
“I would love Ardent to come with me,” she said. “Wherever we’re going. Oh, hello, Bounder, Jackanapes, and Flowersniffer. Thank you for bringing me … er … whatever you have brought.”
The three dogs dropped their burdens, which were revealed to be silk handkerchiefs they’d carefully grabbed by the corners to make bundles. Opening them, Anya discovered three marrowbones stolen from the kitchen; six small and very tarnished silver coins from some forgotten hoard; a dented gold-and-blue enamel snuffbox set with diamonds that Anya vaguely remembered as belonging to a duchess who had visited when Anya was small, who’d made a terrible fuss about it going missing; her own slightly torn second-best kirtle; a scrunched-up linen undershirt; a pair of woolen tights that were Morven’s and hence too big; a small sheath knife, which Anya recognized as belonging to one of last year’s visiting princes; and a leather water bottle with a black iron screw-thread stopper.
Anya put the coins and the snuffbox in her belt purse, tied on the sheath knife, and gathered up everything else except the marrowbones and put them into a bundle made with the three scarves tied together. The bones she gave to Bounder, Jackanapes, and Flowersniffer, despite Ardent’s hungry look.
Tanitha, of course, was above accepting bones in public. She took Ardent aside and talked quietly to him. Whatever she said, it took the young dog’s mind off bones. He sat completely still and listened carefully, with his tongue hanging out the corner of his mouth, indicating total concentration.
When Tanitha was finished talking to Ardent, she slowly walked over to where Anya was checking that her newly made bundle wouldn’t come apart.
“Good luck in your Quest, Princess,” said Tanitha. “We had best return to the castle.”
The old dog lumbered forward and lifted her head. Anya hugged her. Tanitha nipped her ear gently and turned away. The other dogs bowed to the princess and followed the matriarch. Ardent forgot what he was meant to be doing for a few seconds and went along with them, before suddenly remembering and whipping back to Anya’s heels.
“I suppose we’d better be off, then,” said Anya. She found it hard to look away from the dogs and the castle. She’d never really been anywhere before, certainly not beyond the borders of her small kingdom. And while she was grateful to the dogs for bringing her some things, her practical mind thought that more money and fewer bones would have been better.
“Where are we going?” asked Ardent.
Anya wrinkled her forehead and looked down at Prince Denholm in his little wicker cage.
“I think first things first. Which means returning Denholm to human shape. But as Tanitha advised, I can do several things at once. So I suppose that we might as well head towards his kingdom to start with. His parents will presumably be grateful to have him back, and might aid me against Duke Rikard. Gornish is supposed to be a bigger kingdom than Trallonia.”
Gornish was a bigger kingdom than Trallonia, but that was not saying much. Trallonia itself boasted only the royal castle, the castle village below it (known as Trallonia the Village), the fields around that, and two large expanses of forest with several small hamlets inhabited by woodcutters, foresters, and hunters.
That was it.
From what Anya could remember from Denholm’s boasts, Gornish had a bigger castle and two villages, one of them with a small fishing harbor.
Anywhere else, neither Trallonia nor Gornish would be a kingdom. They’d barely rate as baronies. But long ago the High Kingdom of Yarrow had fallen apart when Yarrow the City was inundated by a tidal wave, and the entire royal family and government drowned. The wave was the consequence of evil magic, sadly the fault of the last High King, who had been dabbling inexpertly in very dark sorcery indeed. After the wave, all the nobles of Yarrow had declared themselves to be independent. There were now scores of kingdoms in what used to be the High Kingdom of Yarrow. Most of them could be crossed on foot in less than a day.
“How … how … howl!” called out Ardent. He stopped himself and asked, “How will you turn him back? With new lip balm?”
“I guess so,” said Anya. She flipped open Gotfried’s book and read the first few pages.
“Hmmm. It’s not going to be easy,” she said. Following the text with her finger, she read out the recipe for the Fairly Reliable Transmogrification Reversal Lip Balm.
“ ‘To a pot or vessel of brass over a medium fire, add a pint of witches’ tears, two feathers fresh-pulled from a cockatrice’s tail, six pea-size stones of three-day-old hail from a mountaintop, four drops of blood from a retired druid … stir with a stirring rod made from the branch of a lightning-struck oak for four hours to reduce the mixture. After four hours, and preferably at dawn, put in lumps of beeswax until the mixture has the consistency of moat-monster snot, remove from fire, add pawpaw for flavor, continue mixing until smooth, put in a clean, dry tin lined with waxed paper, and keep out of direct sunlight. Makes sufficient for a dozen dozen applications (one gross).’ ”
Anya closed the book and frowned.
“A pint of witches’ tears sounds an awful lot. None of these things will be easy to get.”
“Moat-monster snot won’t be too difficult,” Ardent pointed out.
“We don’t need any moat-monster snot,” said Anya. “It just has to be mixed to that consistency.”
She looked at Denholm in his little wicker cage.
“Why did you have to get yourself transformed?” she asked crossly. “If I didn’t have to turn you back, this would be a much easier Quest.”
“Glop,” said Denholm, which probably wasn’t an answer to anything.
“I suppose an alchemist might know where to get this stuff,” mused Anya, after a moment’s thought. “They might even have some of it in stock … ”
“Where is there an alchemist?” asked Ardent.
“There might be one in Rolanstown,” Anya answered hesitantly. Going on a Quest was all very well, but there were numerous practical difficulties. Rolanstown was the closest settlement of any size, but she had heard it was lawless and dangerous, like most towns in the former High Kingdom of Yarrow. And she might not have enough money to buy ingredients. The enameled snuffbox with the diamonds was probably very valuable but Anya knew it would be difficult to get a fair price for it.
Besides the dangers of the town, they would need food and shelter every night, and would have to protect themselves not only from whoever or whatever Duke Rikard sent after them, but also the usual bandits, brigands, robbers, thieves, cutthroats, kidnappers, monsters, strange creatures, stranger creatures, and impossibly strang
e creatures that infested the countryside beyond and between the remnant kingdoms. Without the High King and the knights, constables, and wardens of Yarrow, the roads and byways between the small kingdoms had not been safe for decades.
Anya knew a few spells that would be useful, and Ardent was a trained fighting dog with a brave heart. But even so, this Quest might well end with both of them dead, enslaved, or seriously hurt.
But at least it offered hope. Staying home offered only transformation, or certain death on the way to school in Tarwicce.
“It’s as good a place to start as any, and it’s in the right general direction for Gornish as well,” Anya decided. “We will go to Rolanstown!”
“Where is it?” asked Ardent. He spun around in a circle, ready to go in any direction in an instant.
“West,” said Anya confidently. She liked maps and had looked at lots of them in the library. She had yet to learn that a knowledge of maps, some drawn long ago and of dubious authority, is only the first step in actually knowing how to get somewhere. “Here, I’ll show you.”
She found a patch of bare earth nearby and began to draw with her finger.
“We’re here, in Trallonia,” she said. “Rolanstown lies beyond Trallon Forest … there is a good path through there, so we won’t be getting into the ancient parts of the wood. Then I suppose we take what used to be the Royal Road that runs between Rolanstown and Edremorn, over the downs. From Rolanstown we would continue west towards the coast, and I think Gornish is somewhere here, to the north of Yarrow the City.”
She thought for a moment, then dug her finger in again several times to indicate more points of interest.
“One of the older maps said something like ‘Demesne of the Good Wizard’ here,” she said. “And I seem to remember a Blasted Heath around here. Bound to be lots of witches. I suppose I might have to get half a dozen crying to get a pint. That’s not going to be easy.”
“How far is it from here to there?” asked Ardent, indicating their current position and then Rolanstown with his nose.
“Two days’ walk to Rolanstown, I think,” said Anya. “We’ll have to find somewhere safe tonight, to sleep. We’ll still be in the forest then.”
“I like the forest!” exclaimed Ardent. “We c-c-can go hunting!”
“No,” said Anya. “We must try to be quiet and not draw attention to ourselves. Remember, Tanitha said the Duke will send enemies against us, and there are other dangers. You have to remember this. Quiet and careful at all times!”
“Quiet and c-c-careful at all times!” barked Ardent back at her, very loudly. Then, realizing what he had done, he repeated himself in a growling whisper. “I mean, quiet and c-c-careful, yes, Princess.”
Anya nodded. She packed Gotfried’s book with the other things in her bundle, picked it up, and swung it over her shoulder, then bent to lift Denholm in his frog basket.
“I’ll cut a staff in the forest to balance this lot on,” she said.
“I c-c-can c-c-arry the bag,” Ardent volunteered, jumping up at her. “I c-c-can c-c-arry it!”
Anya considered just how much dog slobber would soak through the silk if Ardent carried the makeshift bag all the way through the forest to the road. But it would also make him be quiet. He meant well, she knew, and would try to remember to be quiet. But he was still not much more than a puppy.
“All right, you take the bag,” she said, and handed it down. Ardent latched on with a snap. Anya winced as she thought of a new hole in her second-best kirtle, but let it go.
After all, a Quest was not supposed to be easy.
By the time they reached the fringe of the forest two hours later, Anya had formed even more definite views on the hardships of Quests and was missing the cool quiet of the library. She had decided to stay off the road, but that had meant going through the fields by whatever farmer’s tracks she could find, and they were winding and muddy, and the grass was destined to be hay in another month, so was already neck-high and annoying. If the field was pasture rather than grass then there were sheep, which meant she had to avoid treading on small pyramids of round droppings everywhere and also constantly remind Ardent he was not to go off and herd the sheep together. (He’d never had the chance to do so, and was quite eager to try.)
The sun was also high, and hot, and the frog basket was difficult to carry. All these things made Anya quite cross and irritable, so when they did reach the forest she almost plunged into the cool shade under the trees without looking. But fortunately her deep common sense made her stop and think about things before going on.
“We can’t risk getting lost in the forest,” she said to Ardent. “We’ll have to take the road. But we’ll walk on the side, and if we see anyone, we’ll duck into the undergrowth and hide until they’ve passed.”
“There are ducks in the undergrowth?” asked Ardent. He hadn’t really been listening, because of the excitement of the sheep and various intriguing scents coming out of the trees ahead.
Anya took a deep breath and repeated her instructions.
She had been in the forest briefly before, but only with lots of other people, and she had not visited for quite a few years. It felt odd to be alone in the green silence, with just Ardent, and to be walking along the side of the dusty road rather than riding down the middle as part of a large company. But the dappled shade was pleasant, cutting back the heat of the summer sun, though at some points the road narrowed and the tree branches almost met overhead, forming long arched-over lanes that transformed the shade from being pleasantly cooling to dark and potentially dangerous.
They were passing through one of these overgrown lanes when Ardent dropped the bundle, sniffed the air, and growled quietly, “Smoke up ahead, Princess. C-c-could be an ogre picnic.”
Anya stepped off the road and crouched down beside the pale trunk of a large ash, reviewing the few small spells she could cast. None seemed likely to be of much use against even one ogre.
“Can you smell ogres?”
“No … ” said Ardent. “I c-c-an smell pea-and-ham soup, though. Ogres particularly like pea-and-ham soup—”
“So do people,” said Anya crossly. “It’s probably one of the foresters’ cottages. There are few along this road. I thought the first one was farther away. We’ll go ahead cautiously.”
“I c-c-ould sneak ahead and take a sniff,” Ardent offered.
“No, you stay with me. And don’t forget the bundle.”
“I won’t!” Ardent turned on the spot to pick up the bundle that he had dropped and then forgotten.
The pair advanced cautiously along the edge of the road, ready to duck into the undergrowth at a moment’s notice, as previously planned. As they got closer, they saw a thin stream of smoke rising up through the forest canopy, and the smell of pea-and-ham soup got stronger, now accompanied by the sound of human voices.
“I like pea-and-ham soup myself,” said Anya, suddenly realizing that (a) she was hungry and (b) unlike at the castle, she would need to get food for herself somehow.
“So do I,” muttered Ardent out of the corner of his mouth, almost dropping the bundle.
“It’s probably foresters,” said Anya. “But be ready.”
She paused to remind herself of the two words of power used in a spell called The Withering Wind, which sounded like it would be truly fearsome but actually just caused a lot of shrieking wind noises in the ears of whoever it was cast on. Anya hoped this would be scary or distracting enough to enable her and Ardent to run away.
Creeping close, they saw there was a forester’s cottage, a tumbledown affair of planked walls with a thatched roof, both walls and roof sporting holes. The smoke was from a fire that had been laid outside the cottage, with a large bronze cauldron suspended on an iron tripod above it, the source of the delicious pea-and-ham soup smell.
A woman had just added a pinch of something to the pot, and was stirring it in with a long, blackened stick. She was gray-haired and dressed much like the castle servants, in
a plain undyed kirtle, with a rope around her middle instead of a belt. From that belt were suspended a large, somewhat battered ladle and an imposing knife in a buckskin sheath.
After they had watched for another few minutes, the smell of the soup was just too tempting. Anya stood up from her creeping crouch as they approached, and deliberately made more noise, treading on a few fallen sticks. The woman turned as she heard them, her hand falling to the handle of her knife.
“Good day, madam forester!” Anya called out.
“Good day to you,” said the woman. Her hand didn’t leave the knife.
“I was hoping we might buy a bowl of your soup,” Anya went on.
“Two bowls,” muttered Ardent, dropping the bundle. He snapped it back up before it hit the ground, this time definitely puncturing Anya’s second-best kirtle. She winced, took it out of his mouth, and hung it on the end of the staff she had cut earlier, where Denholm in his little wicker cage was already suspended.
“Who are you?” asked the woman. She looked up at a nearby ancient oak and called out, “Hedric! There’s a princess here with a frog and a dog!”
“I know,” said a voice from above. Anya peered up towards the foliage, but couldn’t see who was talking … until a large, long-bearded man in a green robe suddenly dangled from a branch, held on for a moment, then dropped to the ground.
“Ow,” he added, bending down to massage his left knee. “I should know not to do that. Greetings, Princess.”
“How do you know I’m a princess?” asked Anya.
“Anyone can tell you’re a princess,” sniffed the woman. She sounded quite unfriendly. “Fine kirtle, a belt purse, a royal dog walking alongside. And the frog. That’s just showing off. You should kiss him right away, but I suppose you want an audience? Two of us enough for you?”
“That’s enough, Martha,” said the man. He had druidic tattoos of leafy vines winding around his hands and wrists, disappearing up into the sleeves of his robe. “Things aren’t always what they seem.”
“We’d just like to buy some soup, please,” said Anya. “And I can’t transform Denholm back. He’s not the love of my life, he’s my sister’s. Well, he was … It’s complicated. Are you a druid, by the way?”