All of a sudden, the lady sounded just like Mama: “I'll bet you're going to tell me to eat my vegetables,” Mouse said mischievously.
The lady laughed out loud. “Yes, you'll have to eat your vegetables,” she said. She tweaked Mouse affectionately on the ear. “And when you do grow up, you'll have a Jewel of your very own. You will be a Witch, just like the rest of us, and you'll live for many, many years.”
III
The next morning, Mouse and the other girls met Leaf, the lady who was going to take them to the Place of Wisdom. Leaf and Bee both had breakfast with the children.
“I hope you have better luck with this lot than I did,” Bee said. She used the tone of voice that told the girls she was teasing, pretending to be displeased with them. “They are quite impossible, and haven't learned any manners at all, despite my best efforts to teach them.”
Leaf smiled. The corners of her eyes crinkled in such a way that Mouse realized she was very kind. “Oh, I don't think we'll have much trouble. Will, we, ladies?”
“Oh, no, Leaf,” the girls answered, almost in chorus.
“I'm sure we'll all be on our very best behavior with you, Leaf,” Cricket added irrepressibly. The rest of the girls giggled.
“Do you see what I mean?” Bee said. “Full of mischief, every one of them.”
“Full of life, and that's what we need just now,” Leaf said. “Well, come, ladies, finish your breakfast. We must get on our way.”
“Will we ride our ponies?” Flame asked.
“And will we have guards like last time?” Bird wanted to know.
“Yes, to both,” Leaf said, “though we won't need as many guards here in the middle of Estcarp. Two ought to be plenty.”
“Shall we wear our old clothes?” That was Star, the practical one.
“Oh, no!” Cricket said. “Please, let us wear our new ones. We'll be very very very good, and stay clean, and not get muddy or anything.”
Leaf pursed her lips, thinking. “Perhaps you should,” she said. “No reason why you shouldn't begin acting as much like Witches as possible.”
“Then Lisper's hopeless!” Cricket said, nudging her in the ribs and giggling. “I never heard of a Witch who couldn't even talk right!”
“That'th becauth you don't know everything even if you think you do,” Lisper retorted, nudging her in return. Leaf leaned forward to break up the scuffle.
“I've heard of Witches who lisped, and Witches who were hard of hearing, and even Witches who couldn't see with their physical eyes,” she said. She glanced up at Bee. “I'm beginning to see what you meant.”
“Well, I'll leave you to it now,” Bee said. “I have other duties waiting.”
“Yes. The Guardian is very pleased and wants to have another Incalling as soon as we get these girls settled. If we are lucky, you won't have long to rest.”
The two women clasped hands and kissed each other on the cheek. Mouse turned a spoonful of porridge over in her bowl, watching wide-eyed, hastily putting the spoon in her mouth when Leaf turned back to her charges.
“When you are finished,” she said, “we will depart.”
Cheerfully, the children scraped their bowls and stacked them for servants to attend to. Then they lined up for Leaf’s inspection.
“You do need cloaks,” she said. “It is still cool in the mornings. Why don't you all go in and look on your beds?”
The little girls rushed squealing back into their dormitory. Mouse discovered that while she had been having breakfast, someone had placed a warm gray cloak on each bed. Her old cloak was gone, taken away somewhere. But she didn't even miss it; it had grown too short on her by now anyway. In her pleasure at the fine new garment, she forgot that it had been Mama who had sewed the old one for her. Delighted, she picked it up and held it to her face, enjoying the wonderful, unique smell of an article that had never been worn before. And it was long, like the ones grown-up ladies wore! Almost long enough to brush the ground. Only the tips of her new gray slippers would show. What could the fabric be woven of? It wasn't wool, though it was warm under her hands. Instead, the texture was what she had always imagined silk would feel like. And it was feather-light.
Quickly, she put her cloak on. The other children donned their new garments as well, sliding their feet into their new sandals. With that, they were ready to depart. Dressed all in grey from top to toe, they looked as demure as a covey of quail as they followed Leaf out of the castle and into the courtyard where their ponies waited for them. Two Guardsmen, neither of whom were among the ones who had accompanied them on their journey to Es City, stood nearby, horses saddled and ready. One of the Guards led a third horse forward for Leaf and very courteously helped her climb into the saddle.
“Fair morning, Lady,” he said.
“Fair morning indeed,” she replied, “when we have precious cargo like this to convey!” She gazed at the children proudly.
Mouse sat very straight and still on her pony, hands folded over the reins the way she had seen Papa sit on Rangin. She wondered if she would be allowed to keep her pony when they got to the Place of Wisdom or if Leaf and the two Guardsmen would take the ponies back for other little girls to ride when they came to Es City to be Witches. She rather hoped she would be allowed to keep the pony; she had grown fond of the fat, dappled animal on their journey. But she remembered one of Bee's lessons—Witches cared nothing for material possessions, for things of the world. All they cared about was magic, each other, and their Jewels.
IV
Mouse had come almost to believe that Estcarp was grayish-green throughout, that where one saw this color of the land, there was Estcarp. But gradually, the hues and tones of the landscape began to change as they rode north and west, becoming gray-green mixed with buff brown. Mouse realized this must be because they were coming closer to the sea, and the sandy shores that edged it.
The road bent. There was an island of isolated gray-green rocks erupting from buff brown soil, the foot of a low mountainous area, and rather than go through, those who had built the road veered from their straight path to skirt around it. This area looked like a wild place, where no one but a huntsman would ever go. Mouse wondered what Papa would think of a spot like this. He liked hunting and mountains, even if these weren't much, as mountains go.
They rode through a notch cut through the rocks at the very toe of the ridge. There were high places on either side. Just as they reached the middle of the notch, there was a scrabble of claws on rock. Mouse gasped as a pack of white dogs leaped out of hiding, swarming down onto the roadway and surrounding the riders. The air filled with their savage barking and snarling. The dogs nipped at the hooves of the ponies and horses, and jumped at their throats. The animals whinnied and shied away, trying to avoid the dogs and almost unseating their riders. A band of armed men came leaping out of hiding places in the rocks, following on the very heels of the dogs. From somewhere a hunting horn sounded and a man's voice rose, urging them on.
Leaf fought for control of her horse. The animal reared and plunged, panicked, threatening to throw her to the ground. The two Guardsmen fought their mounts under control. They spurred forward at once, scattering dogs in their wake as they drew their weapons. From someplace up in the rocks came two flat, hissing zwwats!, the second hard upon the first. One of the Guardsmen gave a cry and fell backward, caught in the trappings of his saddle. An ugly, stubby shaft, like an arrow only shorter and thicker, protruded from his chest. At almost the same moment something whizzed by Mouse's cheek, so close she blinked and flinched, crying out at its passing.
“Watch your aim!” one of the attackers shouted.
The girls clustered together, screaming in terror, their wild-eyed ponies shuffling aimlessly, out of control. The ponies weren't bred for combat and they didn't know what to do, or how to react. Quickly, Leaf got her mount under control.
“Get back, girls!” she cried. She snatched the sword from the body of the man who had been killed and rode forward to the othe
r Guardsman's side. He was in danger of being pulled down by the attackers who rushed at him from both sides. Leaf scattered the men as she hurled her horse straight at them. Her sword rose and fell, and one of the attackers fell with it.
Though they dug their heels into their ponies’ flanks and struck them with their reins, none of the girls could make the animals stir from that spot. A flash of movement from above caught Mouse's eye. She looked up. Another man now stood high on a point of rock where he had a commanding view of the struggle going on below. He had removed his crested helmet so he could take better aim with the crossbow he held. Mouse stared, unable to move, unable to cry out, while every detail of the man's appearance etched itself on her mind.
His blue-green jacket laced from throat to waist, and over it he wore a wide belt. There was a device on the right breast of the jacket, something white. He wore skin-tight breeches of the same color as his jacket, and his boots rose in high peaks on the outside of his legs. Sidearms and pouches hung from his belt. His white hair blew in the wind. Calmly, as if he were shooting at a target, he aimed the crossbow and squeezed the trigger. A third zwwat! sounded and the remaining Guardsman fell. The skinny white dogs yapped and howled and snarled, leaping at Leaf as if they wanted to pull her down into the dust as well. Some of the hounds broke away from the turmoil and rushed at the children.
Then, as abruptly as it had all begun, it was over. Before the hounds could do them harm, the white-haired men strode forward, slapping the dogs away, avoiding Leaf's futile efforts to strike with her sword, pulling the struggling Witch from her horse. Other men gathered the ponies, brooking no nonsense from the frightened beasts. They lifted the children to the ground and shoved them to one side. A couple of the men stood guard over them, ready to grab any who looked as if she might run away.
“Well done!” shouted the leader up in the rocks. He started down, jumping from foothold to foothold. Mouse hoped he would fall and break his neck. But he didn't even slip, not once.
“Kill us and you'll never live to reach the Alizon border,” Leaf said fiercely. She still struggled in the grip of the men who held her, and one of them slapped her sharply across the face. Blood oozed from her lip.
The man leaped the last few feet to level ground and walked arrogantly toward Leaf. “True enough, we don't have the luxury of tarrying to enjoy, ah, Estcarp hospitality. But you needn't worry about us killing your charges. We're under other orders about them. But you—Well, we can spare a few minutes, eh, men?” He looked around, grinning, and other grimly smiling faces answered him.
Leaf’s struggles seemed not to be so much to free herself from the men who held her as attempts to grasp the Jewel that hung around her neck. The leader watched for a moment. Then, without haste, he stepped forward, grasped the gem, and pulled sharply. The chain broke. Leaf cried out, and blood trickled from her neck where the thin chain had cut her skin.
“None of that, now, Witch,” the leader said. “We know all about your tricks.” He turned and threw the Jewel away, high into the spot where the ambushers had lain hidden. It clattered against some rocks. He nodded to the men. “We'll have to hurry, in case she managed to get a message back before we caught her. But we can make sure she won't send another. Ever again.”
At once, Leaf’s captors dragged her off the road toward a spot where stakes had already been hammered into the ground. They flung her down and tied her arms and legs so she couldn't move at all. She screamed and tried to bite them, using the only weapons remaining to her, her teeth, so when they ripped her gray robe from her body, they took part of it and stuffed it into her mouth.
“Leaf!” cried Cricket. It was a shout of pure despair.
“Are we going to be next?” Flame said fearfully.
“No,” Star said. “They have other plans for us.”
“I can't watch,” Bird said. “I think I'm going to be sick.”
Cricket was clinging to Mouse; she managed to put one arm around Bird as well. All the girls huddled even closer together, beginning to cry. But nothing would blot out the sounds coming from the spot by the side of the road. Men jostled with one another, making coarse jokes. Leaf moaned and screamed through the gag in her mouth.
Some of the dogs had come back to the men who commanded them and a few sat nearby on thin haunches, panting, regarding the children with curious eyes. Mouse thought she had never seen anything so ugly as those pale, skinny hounds with their narrow, snake-like heads. Bird's frail body shuddered. Then she leaned forward, retching. Mouse pushed aside her own nausea, finding the strength to help Bird.
The noises around Leaf ceased and Mouse looked up, hoping to find that the men had let her loose. Instead, one of the men stood over her, sword upraised. Leaf spat out the gag in her mouth. Her gaze and Mouse's locked. Something went tingling through the air between them and Mouse reeled back as if she had been struck.
“It's yours, Mouse! Use it to—”
The sword fell. Leaf gave a great shudder, and was still.
Mouse stared and stared, numb with shock, unable to speak, unable to move. She scarcely knew when she was bundled up and slung across the front of somebody's saddle. She lay half conscious, wanting only to find some place to hide until she could cleanse that horrible picture from her mind. But those last few moments when Leaf died repeated themselves over and over, a second image overriding what she must think of as reality. The scene sprang out like a moving tapestry embroidered on the backs of her eyelids if she slept or tried to blot out the sight of the white-haired men and their gaunt hounds by squeezing her eyes shut. That first terrible day passed, finally ended, and another. And still another.
She knew it was day only because she was on somebody's horse, riding, riding, riding to somewhere unknown. She knew it was night only when she was tossed onto the ground with the other girls to huddle together, tearful and afraid. Mouse lost count of the days and nights that had passed before she came back to herself enough to realize that the other girls were in almost as bad shape as she, though only Star had happened to be looking in that direction when the man had slain Leaf.
“It really happened, didn't it?” she asked Star tremulously.
“Yes,” the other girl said. “It really did. Are you all right now? I was afraid we were going to lose you.”
“She spoke my name.”
“I know. I heard.”
“I don't think I'll ever be the same. But I'm better.”
“None of us will ever be the same.” Star's voice was somber. She moved closer to Lisper, who cuddled against her, glassy-eyed, thumb in mouth.
For the first time Mouse felt strong enough to try to call out to her Mama, from inside, to make her hear the way she had used to. Mama had never known why she always knew to come when Mouse needed her, and Mouse had never told her. But something told her now that she could call and call but it wouldn't be any use. Mama was too far away.
“I want to go home,” Bird said. Her face was dirty, streaked with lines where tears had washed some of the grime away.
“We all want to go home,” Flame said.
“But we can't.” Cricket wiped her nose on her sleeve.
“We can't yet," Mouse said. Cricket and Bird stared at her.
“Not yet,” she repeated a little more strongly. She knew—she just knew her Mama and Papa would come and find her and her friends and take her home.
Then, with a pang that made her catch her breath she realized that she had no idea which home she wanted to go to—home home, with Mama and Papa, or the home with the Witches of Estcarp where she knew she belonged.
Five
I
All too clearly, the tragedy at the foot of the mountain revealed itself even to the eyes of someone who didn't know how to read trail-sign, like Eirran. Loric and Dunnis hurried forward to untie the Witch's body. The Hounds had simply left it there, abandoned, when they tired of the atrocities that had killed the woman. Loric took off his cloak and covered the broken corpse until such time as t
hey could bury it. Ranal and Hirl, grim-faced, set themselves the task of gathering their comrades’ bodies and placing the dead all together in one spot. Eirran forced herself to go and help.
I am disguised as Kernon, she reminded herself, so I must be Kernon. I must not get sick, I must not cry, I must not get the hiccups.
Yareth and Weldyn sent their falcons aloft to keep watch lest the enemy still be near and return to fall upon the small band of would-be rescuers. Then the two Falconers prowled through the immediate area, noting each detail of the ambush and subsequent battle with great care.
“There must have been twenty men,” Weldyn said. “And as many dogs.”
Hirl exhaled sharply through his nose. “They didn't want to take any chances, then. Those are strong odds.”
“They left the bodies of the Witch and the Guards,” Loric said. “But we see no children's bodies.”
“That is because they must have stolen the children,” Girvan said. He stared northward, frowning.
“Yes. By their tracks, the horses were carrying heavier burdens away with them than they brought.” Weldyn followed Girvan's gaze, and an even deeper scowl settled on his features. It was more an expression of concentrated thought, however, than of outrage and contemplated vengeance.
Hirl shook his head. “If only we could have come in time. We could have evened those odds a little, I think. Saved our comrades. Perhaps the lady would not have suffered.”
“And perhaps we would have died in the effort,” Dunnis said. “Twenty Hounds, with their hell-dogs, to our eight—ten if you think our dead comrades might have lived past the ambush. Even those aren't odds I'm comfortable with.”
Weldyn returned from searching the heights to either side of the ambush site. Something dangled from his hand. “Now we know why the Witch didn't get a more detailed message back,” he said. “They tore this off her before she could use it properly.” He stared at the pendant in his hand. “Might as well bury this with her body. They say the things are worthless after their owner dies.”