But it all went on for hours. Every so often Shona and the choir took a rest, sitting on the edge of the platform with filled rolls and drinks. Whenever they did, the Pilgrims all got up and changed tables. By the end of that long, long evening, each Pilgrim had listened to all the speakers, Miss Ledbury’s notebook was three-quarters full, and every one of Blade’s party had had a talk with Mara herself, though none for so long as Geoffrey. Blade’s head ached, and he was sick of the rumble of voices and the sweet scents that seemed to come from the draperies. They are working hard, he thought, if they do all this every day.

Finally, however, the Pilgrims and Shona suddenly got up and went to bed, moving like sleepwalkers. Everyone else stretched and relaxed. Mara fished a dressing gown from under her couch, wrapped it around her, and came to hug Blade. Elda bounded up and pressed against the back of him.

“That was exhausting!” Mara said. “It’s the double spell that makes it so tiring. You have to make sure they go away thinking they’ve been thoroughly seduced but still remembering all the things we’ve told them. It was a great help that you’ve got one who takes notes, Blade. Querida reckons that if we send everyone home knowing the real facts, some of them are going to make trouble there for Mr. Chesney. And I really think that some of this lot of yours might, Blade. You’ve got some rather interesting people here. Do you understand what we’re trying to do?”

“Yes,” Blade said, although he still did not think it justified the clothes under Mara’s dressing gown.

“And it’s fun,” Elda said.

“I had a long talk with the young man Shona seems to have fallen for,” Mara said.

“Geoffrey. I saw,” said Blade.

“He’s fallen for her, too. He seems very nice,” Mara said, and hesitated, as if she was wondering whether or not to say something else.

“But, Mum,” Blade protested, “it’s not just that he’s a Pilgrim; he’s down as expendable!”

“Oh,” said Mara. “That … makes a difference. Then I think, for Shona’s sake, you’d better make sure he survives.”

Blade thought of Prince Talithan efficiently running his sword into that Pilgrim during the battle. “How can I, Mum?”

“Do you know how to put protections around a person?” Mara asked.

“No!” Blade said crossly. “Nobody’s taught me anything useful—you know that!”

“All right. I’ll do it. I’ll go and do it now,” Mara said wearily. “And I suppose while I’m at it, I’d better do the same for his odious little sister.”

“Sukey’s not expendable,” Blade said. “I wish she were.”

Mara sighed. “Yes, but from what Geoffrey was telling me, she shouldn’t be here. Her parents think she’s on holiday in her own world. She seems to have twisted Geoffrey’s arm to make him bring her with him.”

Blade went to bed thinking that this was entirely typical of Sukey. He could not understand why Reville seemed to like her so much.

In the morning Blade glumly regrew his beard while he was consulting the black book and the pamphlet to see where he was supposed to go next. Around by the Emirates on the way to the Inland Sea, he discovered. All right. He put his robes on and went to the kitchen, where Elda found some scissors and Mara cut him a hole in the beard for his mouth. Then they hung over him, making sure he had a large breakfast and enough food packed in his blanket to last a week. Mara told him what to do next. Blade said a reluctant good-bye and went out into the paddock, where all the horses were waiting, ready saddled. There, as Mara had told him, he raised both arms in a dramatic, wizardly gesture.

That side of Aunt’s house rolled up like a blind, revealing the saloon, where all the Pilgrims and Shona were just finishing breakfast.

“Be thankful I am here to rescue you from vile enchantment!” Blade shouted.

They sprang up as if he had pricked them and came streaming sheepishly outside.

“Get mounted,” Blade told them. “We must hurry away.” And he rushed about making sure of everyone’s girths, trying to avoid Shona. But it did no good. She waited by Blade’s horse and grabbed his arm before he could mount.

“Was I enchanted, too? Mother did that to me?” she whispered angrily.

Blade could not think of anything to say but the truth. “She said you were going to make trouble.”

Shona was furious. Her cheeks colored, her mouth pursed, and she looked around into the opened-up saloon as if she had half a mind to storm back inside. But for some reason she changed her mind and marched away to her horse in a manner Blade knew was ominous.

He watched her anxiously all that day. He knew what Shona was like. She had waited weeks once to revenge herself on Don, and by the time she did, Don had forgotten the quarrel entirely and felt very surprised and injured. But this time Shona seemed to do nothing but chat happily to Geoffrey and sing songs for the Pilgrims. It never occurred to Blade that Shona might have grown up since then. By the end of the day he had decided that Shona must be plotting a long-term revenge of some kind. Maybe she was waiting until she saw Mara again, but she was quite as likely to be angry with Blade, too. Blade knew he had to be very wary. So he went on watching and made plans for what he would do in case Shona pushed him into a river or gave him something horrible to eat—or, worse, told the Pilgrims what age he really was.

The trouble was that Blade was so preoccupied with Shona that he had very little attention for the route. He relied on the way he knew where to go when he translocated. It never occurred to him that this might be an entirely different sort of sense of direction. He led the Pilgrims toward where he thought the Emirates were, with the result that he led them steadily in

the wrong direction for the next three days. True, they arrived at a camp on the first two nights, but as Shona told Derk when he came looking for them, these were almost certainly the camps that were intended for tours on the other two routes. By the end of the third day they were crossing country that no Pilgrim Party had ever crossed before.

Some days after that Scales came coasting down into Derk’s camp by the river and told him that Blade had disappeared.

TWENTY-TWO

Tags: Diana Wynne Jones Derkholm Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net