Free The Whim of the Dragon by PAMELA DEAN Page A

his train. So have a care.”
    He looked at Ted until Ted nodded, and then looked at Randolph until Randolph put his head back and said to the ceiling, “Fear me not.”
    Ted remembered, suddenly and unpleasantly, that there was another secret here they had not spoken of. Only the five children, Randolph, and Fence knew that Randolph had killed the King. Andrew suspected it, but had seemed unwilling to enter any accusation because of some plot of his, or of his sister Claudia, that he did not want to call attention to. Matthew and the other members of the King’s Council had all the information they needed to discover Randolph’s crime, but they had not discovered it yet.
    “How,” said Ruth, rather diffidently, “did Andrew like the notion of having me along?”
    “That pleased him also,” said Fence, “that thou, and Randolph and Ted, that he thinks are both besotted on thee, should be made to travel all together and endure one another’s company.”
    “Do we have to keep up that masquerade?” demanded Ruth.
    “In small things only,” said Fence. “A hasty withdrawing on thy part, or a gaingiving in thy look, those will serve.”
    “I can hardly wait,” said Ruth, gloomily.
    Ted could not look at Randolph, who had been betrothed to a girl he now knew was dead; and who had, when the present Ruth appeared, been treating Lady Ruth with distant courtesy and dancing every dance at the Banquet of Midsummer Eve with Claudia. Then Claudia tried to kill Fence, and Randolph avoided both her and Ruth. On the journey back from the battle, Randolph began, cautiously, treating Ruth as an affianced bride who had reason to be angry with him. Ted thought that Randolph hoped that Lady Ruth, who unlike their own Ruth had great pride and a hasty temper, would refuse to take him back after his dallying with Claudia. Randolph had told Ted that he did not, as a regicide shortly to be so proclaimed before the court, wish to encourage anybody to marry him. Ruth had been driven almost to distraction by this state of affairs. At least now both of them would be playing a part.
    “Andrew,” said Fence, having considered Ruth and apparently decided not to comment on her remark, “doth require that those accompanying him be prepared to depart four days hence.”
    “Oh, good,” said Ruth. “There’s an enormous Green Caves ceremony six days hence.”
    Fence frowned. “’Twere better not delay our speech to Meredith,” he said. “She’ll need one can take thy place.”
    “Give me today to poke around,” said Ruth, “and then you can tell her I’m resigning. I’m still in disgrace, you know, so the place she’ll have to fill won’t be very exalted.”
    Fence nodded. “Well,” he said. “Matthew and I will also make ready to depart four days hence. We must devise some means of exchanging news.” His glance brushed Randolph and moved to Ruth. “What training hast thou?” he said to her. “Canst read a message in the grasses, or the stones along thy way?”
    “Of a certainty I cannot,” said Ruth; she did not sound sorry.
    “No matter,” said Fence. “We will send by music. Laura, wilt thou bring thy flute?”
    “Yes,” said Laura, staring a little but seeming more pleased than otherwise.
    “Dost thou play also?” said Fence to Ruth.
    “Pretty well,” said Ruth. “On an ordinary flute.”
    “Excellent,” said Fence. “Celia, who goes north with us, will aid Laura, and before we depart also will instruct thee.”
    “On the subject of instruction,” said Celia, “we have brought somewhat. Edward, hand thy lady cousin the undermost book. ’Twere best she read it before the Green Caves are barred to her. Thou and Patrick will profit most from the scrolls and the blue books.”
    Ted slid the dusty volume from his stack and handed it down the table to Ruth. Its dark green cover was stamped in silver: The Book of the Seven Wizards. It sounded like something they would all have enjoyed reading, before they