His words had fallen into the artful cadence of the storyteller. The boy was enraptured. ‘And what is her purpose that you shall serve?’ Swift asked eagerly.
‘Ah!’ The Fool swept his hair back from his face, then stretched, but suddenly his long forefinger was pointing unerringly at me. ‘He knows. For he has promised to help me. Haven’t you, Badgerlock?’
Frantically, I scrambled through my memories. Had I promised to aid him? Or had I only said that I would decide when the time came for it? I smiled, and with a wittiness I did not feel, I replied, ‘When the time comes, I’ll serve my purpose.’
I knew he marked my distancing from his words, but he smiled as if I had agreed and said, ‘As shall we all. Even young Swift, Burrich’s son and Molly’s son.’
‘Why do you name me so?’ In that instant, the boy was stung. ‘My father is nothing to me. Nothing!’
‘Whatever he is to you, you are still son to him. Perhaps you can deny him, but you cannot make him deny you. Some ties cannot be severed by a word. Some ties simply are. Such ties are what bind the world and time together.’
‘Nothing binds me to him,’ the boy insisted sullenly. A little time passed. He perceived he had broken the string of the story, and that the Fool was not going to knot it back together for him. After a pause, he conceded, asking again, ‘What is the dragon’s purpose in your being here?’
‘Oh, you know what it is!’ The Fool sat up. ‘You’ve heard what was said back on the beach, and I know how swiftly gossip travels in a small group like this. You have come to slay the dragon. I am here to see that you don’t.’
‘Unless it’s a righteous battle. Unless the dragon attacks us first.’
The Fool shook his head. ‘No. I am simply here to see that the dragon survives.’
Swift’s eyes travelled from the Fool to me and back again. He spoke hesitantly. ‘Then you are our enemy here? To battle us if we try to kill the dragon? But there is only one of you! How can you think to challenge us?’
‘I challenge no one. I make no one my enemy, though some may consider me theirs. Swift, it is simply as I say it is. I am here to see that no one slays the dragon under the ice.’
The boy shifted uncomfortably. I could almost see the thought pass through his mind, and when he spoke it, he sounded so like Burrich that it near broke my heart. ‘I am sworn to serve my prince.’ He took a breath, but when he spoke his voice was still troubled. ‘If you oppose him, sir, then I must oppose you.’
The Fool had kept his eyes fixed on the boy’s face all the while. ‘I am sure you will, if you believe it is the right thing to do,’ he said quietly. ‘And if that is so when the time comes, well, that will be soon enough for us to be opponents. I am sure you will respect the duty of my heart just as I respect yours. For now, however, we travel all together in the same direction, and I see no reason why we should not share what Tom Badgerlock came to seek here. Fellowship.’
Again Swift’s eyes travelled between us. ‘Then you are friends, you two?’
‘For many years,’ I said, at almost the same instant that the Fool said, ‘Far more than friends, I would say.’
It was at precisely that moment that Civil Bresinga flung open the tent flap and thrust his head inside. ‘I feared as much!’ he declared angrily. Swift looked up at him, his mouth a round ‘O’ of surprise. The Fool gave an exasperated sigh. I was the first to find my tongue.
‘Your fears are groundless,’ I said quietly, while Swift, entirely mistaking Civil’s declaration, retorted, ‘I would never be disloyal to my prince, no matter who tempted me!’
That comment, I think, threw Civil into complete confusion. Now totally uncertain of what was going on, he contemptuously ordered, ‘Swift, come out from there, and go to bed in your own blankets.’ Then, to the Fool, ‘And don’t believe this is the end of this. I’ll be taking my concerns to the Prince.’
On the heels of his words, before the Fool or I could respond, we heard Riddle’s voice ring out in challenge. ‘Hold where you are! Who goes there?’
I thrust Swift out of the way to bolt out of the tent. I nearly knocked Civil over as I passed him, not that I would have regretted it much. I sensed him following me, and knew that Swift and the Fool would, also. By the time I reached Riddle’s sentry post, most of the camp had tumbled out of their blankets to see what the uproar was about.
‘Who goes there?’ Riddle shouted again, his uncertainty making him more angry and challenging.
‘Where?’ I demanded as I came up beside him, and he lifted a finger to point.
‘There,’ he said quietly, and then I saw the man’s shadow. Or was it the man himself? The uneven surface of the blown snow on the glacier and the feeble light of the fire quarrelled with the deep grey of the northern night, making it hard to tell substance from shade. The snowy mountains above us cast a second, deeper shadow across the reach of snow. I squinted. Someone stood at the far edge of the dwindled fire’s reach. I saw no more than his silhouette, but I was certain it was the man I had glimpsed earlier in the day. Behind me, I heard Peottre’s gasp, ‘The Black Man!’ He spoke with dread, and the spreading mutter among the Hetgurd men who had also roused was uneasy. The Fool was suddenly beside me, his long fingers gripping my forearm hard. He breathed his words, and I doubt any heard them save me. ‘What is he?’
‘Come forward and show yourself!’ Riddle commanded him. His drawn sword was in his hand as he stepped out of our circle and into the darkness. Longwick had thrust a torch into the dwindled embers of the fire. As the pitch took flame, and he lifted it aloft, however, the man simply was no longer there. Just as a shadow vanishes when light comes too close to it, so had he disappeared.
His appearance had roused the camp, but it was his disappearance that threw us into chaos. Everyone spoke at once. Riddle and the other guards ran forward to examine the place where the man had stood even as Chade shouted at them not to tread on the snow there. By the time Chade and I reached the spot, they had already trampled over whatever sign he might have left. Longwick lifted the torch higher, but we saw no definite footprints either approaching or leaving that spot. It was within the boundaries that Peottre had staked out for the camp, and our own trails crossed and over-crossed there.
One of the Outislanders was praying loudly to El. Never have I heard anything so unnerving as a hardened warrior praying to a god known for his merciless heart. It was a harsh prayer, one that promised gifts and sacrifices if El would only turn his attention elsewhere. Web looked shocked by it and Peottre’s face was pale even in the torchlight. The Narcheska looked as if she had been carved from ivory, so still and stunned were her features.