Free Ariadne's Diadem by Sandra Heath

and rocks. Sylvanus saw a gorge with white rapids, a dell with a stone-edged spring, then a house in grounds where there was a maze that was laid out in the same pattern as Gervase’s buttons. In the very center of the maze stood the sort of little white rotunda that cried out for the finishing touch of a statue, and Sylvanus knew instinctively where Bacchus intended them to end their journey.
    They plummeted downward, spinning and swinging wildly from side to side as if some great power were trying to pinpoint an exact spot. In the final moments the faun looked upstream and dimly saw a young woman in a nasturtium riding habit, lying on the very lip of the riverbank, then to the east he saw two bobbing lanterns as old Joseph, Martin, and the lurcher set out in the wrong direction toward the bluebell woods to look for Anne, whose riderless horse had returned only moments before.
    Gervase and Sylvanus arrived with a thud on the floor of the rotunda. After the rushing of air, suddenly everything was silent. Beyond the maze rose the moonlit rooftops and battlements of Llandower Castle, and in the distance they could hear the searchers calling Anne’s name.
     

Chapter Seven
     
    The rotunda consisted of a domed roof supported on elegant Corinthian columns, between two of which it was walled to provide some protection from the prevailing southwesterly winds. Otherwise it was open to the elements, which Sylvanus knew only too well as he slithered down from Gervase’s back.
    For an English spring evening, the temperature was mild and pleasant, but a faun from the Mediterranean found it disagreeably damp and cold. His teeth chattered as he hastily donned Gervase’s greatcoat, which was far too big for him, before taking the rest of the clothes and throwing them across an ivy-covered stone bench that stood in the shelter of the walled portion of the rotunda. Then he paused for a moment, sniffing the air a little curiously before he turned to Gervase and brought him to life by reversing the magic words he’d used in the grove.
    “Come on, for your Miss Willowby is in danger. I saw where she is, so I know which way to go,” the faun said, and trotted to the edge of the rotunda, where he waited impatiently for Gervase to dress in the now rather crumpled pine green riding coat and cream breeches.
    Gervase felt oddly normal as he pulled on his top boots. He wasn’t stiff or awkward; indeed it was as if he hadn’t been marble at all. He straightened at last and looked in dismay at the high, seemingly impenetrable hedges of the maze. “Miss Willowby may be in danger, but fast we have to find our way out of this damned puzzle.”
    “It’s no problem to me because I’m familiar with the defenses of Troy, but I must say I’m surprised that anyone can wear a plan of the maze on his buttons and not know it by heart.”
    “I don’t spend my time contemplating my buttons,” Gervase pointed out a little testily, fumbling with the tying of his neckcloth, which was not at all easy in the dark and without a mirror.
    Sylvanus’s lips twitched, but he said nothing more.
    “Before we go,” Gervase said then, “there’s one thing I’d like to ask.”
    “What?”
    “Why has Bacchus put Miss Willowby in such unnecessary danger?”
    The faun shrugged. “I have no idea, but my master never does anything without a purpose.” With that he turned up the collar of the coat and left the rotunda. His hooves crunched on the gravel, and as the hem of the costly greatcoat dragged on the ground behind him, Gervase pictured his Bond Street tailor’s reaction to such sacrilege. There wouldn’t be sufficient sal volatile in the whole of London to bring the poor fellow out of his swoon.
    Sylvanus’s sense of direction was unerring, and a few minutes later they emerged from the maze close to the archway into the castle courtyard. The castle was quiet because old Joseph and Martin were out searching for Anne, and Mrs. Jenkins had yet to return