“Oh, ple
ase get back to bed, Dad!” she squawked. “Lydda’s got you some broth.”
“No. How long have I been asleep?” Derk said, swaying a little.
“Nearly five days,” said Elda. “But you mustn’t worry. Shona’s gone with the boys to keep them sensible, and they’re seeing to the soldiers for you. Please go back to bed.”
Derk pulled a loose bandage free and used it to cover the burn on his face while he scraped hair and lather away from beside it. “Where’s your mother?”
“In her Lair,” said Elda. “The first tour gets to her tomorrow, and the second one goes around by the sacked nunnery and arrives as soon as the first one leaves.” Elda was good at learning things. She had learned Mara’s entire program while she sat on the end of Derk’s bed, guarding him from Fran. She could have told Derk about it at some length.
Derk sighed. It had been too much to hope that Mara had been looking after him while he was ill. Probably she did not want to. “Then who is that calling me?” he interrupted, raising his chin to scrape his neck. A bristle pulled. “Ouch!”
“I don’t hear anyone,” said Elda.
“Magically,” said Derk.
“It could be the elves,” Elda said.
“What elves?” said Derk, grimly shaving away.
Elda sighed, too. She could see Derk was in his most obstinate mood, and she never could deal with him when he was like that. She hopped into the empty bath and couched there while she told him everything that had been going on. Derk meanwhile hung on to the basin with one hand and then the other and managed first to shave and then to strip off most of his bandages and sponge off the ointment to see how bad the burns were. They were still quite bad.
“And Callette came back just after the elves came, and she screamed at the dragon and then went over to see Mum,” Elda said. “You ought to leave that salve, Dad. The healer said!”
“What does Callette think she’s up to?” asked Derk.
“Finding out what clues you’d put out,” Elda explained. “She says you’d hardly done half of them.”
“Then who’s feeding the animals, if anyone?” Derk asked.
“Half of them are with Shona and the boys,” Elda explained. “Mum got Old George in to do the rest. And she got Fran to do you—only I don’t like Fran. She called me an animal.”
“Tell Fran she’s one, too,” said Derk. “Gods! What a mess this is!” He left the bathroom and tottered back to his bedroom to find his clothes. Elda bounded out of the bath and rushed to get her back under his weaving right hand. Derk leaned on her gratefully, even though she kept trying to steer him back to bed. At least she knew what Fran had done with his clothes. He made her fetch them and sat on the bed to get into them.
“Do let Lydda bring you the broth,” Elda pleaded while he dressed. “You must be starving!”
“Not really. No messages have come through from my stomach,” Derk said. He was worried about whoever was calling him. They sounded urgent. He put his boots on and stood up. “Help me get downstairs, Elda. Where are these elves?”
“In the dining room eating godlike lunch,” said Elda. “You could wait.”
Derk knew that if he waited, he would crawl into bed again and the mess would only get worse. “No,” he said, and tottered toward the stairs.
Lydda had heard the activity overhead. In its present state the house creaked mightily whenever anyone walked about upstairs. She met Derk with a mug of broth halfway downstairs and sat herself squarely in his way. “Sit down and drink this, Dad, or I’ll peck your burns.”
Derk sat heavily, with one arm over Elda’s back. Lydda had left him nowhere else to go. He meekly took the mug. The broth in it smelled wonderful. He sipped. It was beautiful. “A poem in liquid,” he told Lydda; she was sitting spread over the next four steps with her wings out to make sure he came down no further. Derk managed to grin. “Everyone should have griffin daughters to keep them in order,” he said. Elda moved around to the stair above him so that he could lean against her. Derk leaned into her warm feathers and sat comfortably sipping, staring out at the greenness of the garden and the valley beyond, through the magic wall Finn and Barnabas had made. “When all this is over, I think we’ll keep this front wall transparent,” he said. “The stairs always used to be too dark. So what else has happened since Callette left?”
“Blade came,” said Lydda, “but not for long. He was soaked through because it was raining in their camp. He went and looked at you.”
“He said you were much better,” Elda protested, “but you look awful, Dad. Your cheeks are all droopy and thin.”
“Sometimes,” Derk said, “Blade talks good sense. I could do with another cup of this wonderful broth, Lydda.”
Lydda took the mug but did not budge. “I’ll get you more when you’re back in bed.”
Derk smiled, sighed, and shook his head at her. Then he translocated to the person who was calling him so urgently.
Squawks of dismay were still ringing in his ears as he landed, heavily, not in the dining room, where he had expected to be, but somewhere outside. It was beginning to rain here, too. Derk sat for a moment, sore and winded and getting wet, staring at steep green hillside and wishing he did not make so many mistakes in translocating. A cow bellowed nearby.