“Ah,” said the tree.
Anya wasn’t sure what this meant. Or if it had even been the ex-druid responding, because a slight breeze had come up, and now the branches of all the trees were moving and whispering.
“Just four drops,” she said. “That’s all. Please.”
There was a long silence. Shrub cleared his throat as if to say something, but subsided as Anya gestured at him again.
“Go away,” said the tree. Even via the whisper of branches, it sounded petulant.
“It is very important,” said Anya beseechingly, still in a louder-than-normal voice.
“What’s very important?”
That didn’t come from tree branches rustling. Anya turned around. A green-skinned figure wearing a loose robe made from many different autumn leaves was coming towards them. She had a long back-scrubbing brush in one hand, once simply a fallen branch with just the right sticking-out twiglets, and her hair was done up inside a towel made from plaited grasses.
Clearly a dryad, come from her bath.
“I thought dryads were supposed to look like beautiful women,” whispered Anya to Shrub as the tree sprite approached. Elisandria might be mistaken for a human female from a distance, but up close she looked more like someone had roughly carved a tree to resemble a woman and it had somehow got a life of its own.
“She is beautiful,” said Shrub. “If you like trees.”
“I like trees,” said Ardent. “They hold the scent very well when you—”
“Quiet, Ardent,” commanded Anya. She bowed as the dryad came up to them.
“You must be Elisandria. I’m Princess Anya of Trallonia, this is Ardent the royal dog, the frog in the cage is Prince Denholm, and … ah … Shrub, you know.”
“Charmed, darlings,” said Elisandria airily. “What’s so important you need to talk to Dannith? You do know he became a tree to get out of the whole human business?”
“Uh, no,” said Anya. “I didn’t know why he became a tree. I don’t really know anything about why druids become trees—”
“Peace and quiet,” said Elisandria matter-of-factly. “Abdication of responsibility. A good long sleep. All of that.”
“Well, all I wanted was four drops of blood from a retired druid,” said Anya. “Sap, I guess. It’s one of the ingredients to make a lip balm to turn Denholm and Shrub back into humans.”
“Four drops of sap?” asked Elisandria. “Got a knife? Just make a cut on the diagonal and let it drip into the collecting vessel.”
“Uh, Dannith said to go away,” Anya said uncomfortably.
“Oh, don’t ask him again. He won’t even notice!” cried Elisandria. “He’s more tree than person at the moment—I doubt he would have woken at all for anyone but Shrub. I mean, if it was a big branch or something, that’d be different, but four drops of sap? Here, I’ll do it for you. Give me your knife and the bottle.”
“Oh,” said Anya. “I’ve only got a water bottle … ”
She hesitated, wondering what to do, once again regretting that she’d had to go forth on her Quest without proper preparation.
“I guess we’ll have to use that.”
She put down her burdens and opened the water bottle to splash some of the precious fluid over Denholm, who croaked in gratitude. Then she poured more into her cupped hand for Ardent and drank the last of it herself, before handing over the empty bottle and her knife to the dryad.
“This won’t take long,” said Elisandria. She cut through the bark expertly and held the bottle underneath, quickly collecting the required four drops. “There we are.”
Anya took the bottle and adjusted all her belongings along the staff.
“Nice to meet you all,” said Elisandria. She yawned, revealing that the interior of her mouth was a lighter shade of green, and her teeth a kind of greenish-white. “Time for me to have a nap too.”
She touched the trunk of the tree and suddenly became insubstantial, more like a waft of green smoke than a solid being. Anya could see the forest through her rapidly vanishing body and she watched in fascination as Elisandria—robe, scrubbing brush, towel-wrapped hair, and all—drifted into the chestnut tree and disappeared.
Where do we go now?” asked Ardent.
Anya looked around. She was hungry, and thirsty as well, despite her mouthful from the bottle. Both feelings were exacerbated by knowing she had neither food nor drink.
“Bert did say to wait for her,” said Anya, but not as if she thought that was the best thing to do.
“To rob us?” asked Ardent.
“I don’t think so,” said Anya. “Probably to talk me into their whole big Quest to restore the Bill thingie and the High Kingdom and everything.”
She thought about that for a moment. Bert and Dehlia had planted the seed of thought in her mind, and it was growing away busily and putting out new shoots of thought, all of which were quite bothersome, because they were about things like responsibility and fairness, and thinking about others, and why being a princess perhaps should be about more than just having a nice library and three meals a day, particularly when other people didn’t have these things …
Anya grimaced, forcing these thoughts back into the lower depths of her mind. But more bubbled up. Part of her wanted to wait for Bert, because then she wouldn’t have to make decisions and could relax. But if she did that then they would keep on at her about the Bill of Rights and Wrongs, and she had a very guilty feeling already that she ought to be doing whatever she could to help reestablish the laws.
But that would complicate everything, would make her Quest even more difficult than it was already. If she just moved on, Anya thought, she could still be in charge and forget about the Bill of Rights and Wrongs.
She could keep her Quest simple. Or relatively simple.