Rosalind rolled her eyes at Grayson. "She simply agreed— with great enthusiasm—with everything my Uncle Douglas said. I had some ideas, but do you think anyone listened to me, the future bride? No, not even the assistant with the tape measure."
Nicholas laughed. "Your Uncle Douglas told me you have unfortunate taste in gowns, Rosalind , and that is why he has selected nearly all your clothes for your season. He then questioned me about my own taste. I told him I had never had the opportunity to select a woman's gown and thus I didn't know if I was gifted with this special talent. However, I told him that Lee Po assured me I have very fine taste indeed, so we would see. I do have a bit of news for you, Rosalind."
She was grumbling under her breath, but not under enough. "Here I am a grown woman with taste, good taste, I tell you, and yet it's a gentleman who has the final word in what I wear. It's not fair. And now here you are claiming Lee Po worships your bloody taste."
"I understand. Now, I said I had some news for you, along the lines of taste as a matter of fact." At her raised eyebrow, he said, "I'm to accompany you to Madame Fouquet's shop. Your Uncle Douglas wishes to test me."
Grayson burst into laughter. "Test you? Ah, and will you let Nicholas measure you, Rosalind ?"
But Rosalind was studying him, her fingertips tapping her chin. "I fear we will see, Grayson, that his lordship is a toady."
Grayson laughed, shook his head. "Uncle Douglas doesn't like toadying. Only agree with him two out of three times, Nicholas, no more than that or he will blight you. Now, we need to finish up the Rules. Hopefully Sarimund will spin us more than just a fine ending to this tale." They heard the front door to the suite close.
"Where is Lee Po going?"
"He is visiting an ap o thecary shop in Spitalfields, at my request."
"And what request was that?" Rosalind asked. "You are not ill, are you?"
"Never you mind. Read, Rosalind ."
Rosalind frowned at him as she carefully opened the book, cleared her throat, and read:
I realized I hadn't been much of a wizard here in the Pale and so I cast a spell upon a red Lasis. To my surprise, it turned great eyes to me, came up and butted my shoulder, and sang to me, soft and sweet, its voice rather high. The red Lasis said his name was Bifrost, and he was the oldest red Lasis in the Pale. He had waited for a very long time for me to speak to him, since, of course, a red Lasis never spoke first. It was considered rude. He told me I was a mighty wizard, despite the fact that I'd let those boneheaded wizards and witches in Blood Rock roll my brain around like an empty gourd. He sang to me that it was time for me to leave, that I had left my seed in Epona, which was why they had wanted me to come in the first place. A good thing, he sang to me.
Left my seed? He saw that I was both appalled and disbelieving, though faint memories stirred, memories I'd forgotten, truth be told. He told me the tea they served me had left me senseless save the most important part of me. It was foretold, the red Lasis sang in his lovely airy voice, that Epona would birth a wizard who would be the greatest ever known and he would rule in the Pale until Mount Olyvan sank into dust.
I would have a son—only I would nev
er see him. I knew it would hurt me deeply, but not until later when the reality of it sank into me. I told Bifrost that I was ready to leave but I didn't know how I'd arrived in the first place, only that I'd awakened and I was here, but I had no idea of where the door—or whatever it was that got me here—was located so I could get back. He sang a laugh, which was very pleasing to the ear. He then sang that the Dragons of the Sallas Pond had brought me to the Pale, that this was how they judged possible new brethren for that vipers' nest of wizards and witches upon Mount Olyvan. He sang they didn't want me, however, that I was too set in my ways, but my son would do, a son I would never know. Bifrost sang to me that he would ensure my son knew about me. Then Bifrost sang that he would show me how to leave. But he did nothing at all. I saw him trap a Tiber in a pit and kill it with a fire spear through its big neck, and set to his meal ferociously. Then he left me. I felt abandoned. I did not understand Bifrost or anything else in this outlandish place. And I was leaving my son here.
When I finally fell asleep beneath a sharp-toothed angle tree I dreamed I was in a mighty desert storm, sand whipping around me, choking me, blinding me. There was no escape and I knew I would die. Then the storm stopped and I saw I was back in the Bulgar. I felt wonderful. I had no idea what Bifrost had done, but I knew it was magic, ancient magic from a strange otherworld. And Rennat, the Titled Wizard of the East, was there standing over me, and he kindly asked me if I had slept well the previous night, and I nodded. The previous night? He said even a single night spent away from all the other gray beard wizards was good for the spirit. Only a single night?
Is the Pale naught but a dream? Did this mean I also had no son? That none of it really happened, that my stay in the Pale was spun from my fevered brain? I told no one about this. What would I say?
It was on the following day when I was bathing that I saw the healed scars from a Tiber's claws on my leg and knew the Pale was real and yet, and yet—how could I believe in a place that seemed to be someplace else, perhaps sometime else as well?
Rosalind turned the page. She suddenly stopped talking. She stared at the book, turned another page, studied it closely, then turned another and yet another. She finally closed the book and held it close to her chest for a moment. She felt her heart thudding against the book, fast strokes because she was afraid.
Nicholas said, "Rosalind, what is wrong?"
"There is more," she said, drawing a steadying breath. "About six more pages. However, I am unable to read any of them."
Nicholas stared at her. "No, that is not possible, you must be able to."
"I am sorry, my lord, but it makes no sense to me either. It appears to be in the very same code, but the meaning of it is gone to me."
Grayson struck his fist on his thigh. "What is the game Sarimund is playing?" He took the book from Rosalind and opened it to the final six pages. Then he turned back to the beginning and compared the pages. He raised his head, frowning deeply. "She is right, they look exactly alike, but— you really can't make any sense of them, Rosalind ?"
She shook her head. "It's rather scary," she said finally. "It's scary being able to read most of it so easily, but then to have it stop—that scares me more, I think. It's as if there had been magic at work in me but now it's gone. Nicholas, why don't you look at the final pages, see if you can read them."
He took the book and gently turned each of the final pages and studied them a long time. His lips moved but he didn't say anything. Finally, he looked up. "Sorry, it's like the beginning, nothing but a series of jumbled letters to me."
Grayson had to study the book again himself, comparing the final pages to all the others. "Nothing," he said at last. He cursed, which surprised Rosalind , for, as with his father, it was a rare thing, except for "blessed hell," of course, the Sherbrooke curse of many generations. "Forgive me," he said, "but I cannot bear it to end like this."
Rosalind said, "But would it not be something to travel to the Bulgar and see if the Dragons of the Sallas Pond would whisk us away to this magical place? I wonder who named this place the Pale and why? A pale is only a blockade, after all, to protect those within it? So why that name?" She sighed. "I surely would like to meet Sarimund's son in Blood Rock."
"I wonder if the son is still alive," Grayson said. "After all, Sarimund wrote this in the sixteenth century."