"Hah!" the Dragon roared. "Let's be off!"
RETRUANCE slanted down over the watershed of Overtide, the river-laced tidal plain on the middle Blue Ocean coast. Retruance had spent their flight time lecturing Tom about Dragon riding. There never had been time before.
"The bond between Dragon and Companion is closer than friendship or even brotherhood," Retruance told him solemnly. "We're as close to being a single being as can be." "That's how Murdan was able to call you and Furbetrance, when Overhall was taken," Tom exclaimed. "He's a Companion, too, isn't he?"
DRAGON COMPANION 261.
"His Mount is our father Arbitrance Constable. He's been far out of touch for some years, you remember. Furbetrance and I were searching for him when we heard Murdan's urgent call. We broke off our search and returned to Overhall as quickly as we could."
"Yes, I remember," said Tom thoughtfully. "Can I sum-mon you like that, too?"
"Oh, yes! As our bond grows stronger, I'll be able to sense when you need me most. Unfortunately, it wasn't yet strong enough when I was trapped inside that mountain. I tried, but you didn't know to listen, I guess."
"When this business of heirs and babies and lost princesses is over, we'll go looking for your father again," Tom promised.
"Thank you, Tom! Dragons are family people and it's unnatural that Papa would stay away so long, willingly."
He pointed down with one long claw.
"There's a Gantrell Needle! It marks the northwest comer of Gantrell's Achievement. I'd best put you down here. Peter has armed guards about his house, I'm sure."
They landed in a dense copse of oak and maple near a tall, thin stone monument that towered over the trees.
"Call me if you need me! I can be here in an hour or less. Better take off that Overhall blazon. If anyone asks, you're a freeman scholar, on your way to observe Fall Session in Lexor."
Tom replaced his emblemed jerkin with a plain sweater, then slid off the Dragon's smooth head scales, landing on his feet in a thin crust of snow. The leaves were just beginning to change colors for fall, chocolate brown oak, flaming red-gold maple, brilliant gold aspen. Within view, on a distant ridge, was a two-story, steepled building of red brick and white trim. It bristled with dozens of chimneys.
"Gantrell House," Retruance said, pointing it out. "Good luck. Companion!" he called softly and launched himself into the afternoon sky again, beating away at once to the northeast.
DRAGON COMPANION 263.
:^24^ Missing Princess A DOZEN burly soldiers blocked Tom's path with their long pikes.
"Here! You!" yelled the sergeant in charge. "Where you going, youngster?"
"I'm on my way to the capital for Fall Session," Tom told him, bowing deeply. He stopped in the middle of the road and held his hands out, palms up, to show he wasn't going to draw sword or knife. "I'd hoped for the night's hospitality of yon great house, good sirs."
"Where be you from?" asked the sergeant, squinting suspiciously at the stranger, noting the quality of clothes, and his sword.
"From Waterfields, sir, in the far south."
"A Swamp Rat!" chortled one of the soldiers. "Not many of you Swamp Rats take to dry land, do you?"
"No, sir, but my master has ordered me to carry his loyal greetings and petitions to present to the king, come Session," Tom replied. "He makes his wishes known in the matter of the young princess who would be queen."
"You haven't heard? We've a real king now, bom just three days or so ago." He obviously wasn't privy to Peter of Gantrell's innermost hopes.
"I heard rumor of it in Rainbow, gentle sir. My master says, better a baby king and a strong regent than a nighty, unmarried queen. If me regent is right, if you get his meaning, he says."
"Well, good enough for him, I say!" cried the sergeant in a more kindly tone. "Now, lad, Gantrell House is famous for its hospitality to friendly travelers."
The sergeant chuckled, waving him on. "Ask for Mistress Frabble at the kitchen door. She'll take you in, is the way it works."
262.
Tom thanked them all profusely, and walked past the squad. Once more the sergeant stopped him.
"Now, water boy, take good advice. Keep to the road. Go straight to the back after you crosses yon moat, and don't be a-wandering where you don't belong. Lord Peter of Gantrell is bloody strict about strangers on his Achievement. Lucky for you you were on the road. If we'd caught you in the forest, we'd have trussed you up like a chicken and hauled you off to our jail. Wet and foul place, even for a Water Snake!"
His men had a loud laugh at this but they did no more to hinder him. Tom walked quickly down the middle of the broad sycamore avenue toward Gantrell's manor house.
Mistress Frabble, when he arrived in the kitchen yard at the castle's back door, was a thin, mean-eyed, purse-mouthed middle-aged woman dressed in rusty black from head to toe. She interviewed him sharply there in the dooryard.
"Waterfields, eh? What town is that?"
"Chutney Canal," Tom improvised, careful to be very polite, "ma'am!"
"Chutney Canal? Never heard of it! Nobody I know ever went to Waterfields, ever."
"The king once came to Chutney Canal," Tom lied cheerfully. "He was a great, grand man! Ten feet tall, I recall. He squired a young lady of Knollwater. Pa and Ma didn't take to that."
"What do you say?" asked the sharp-tongued matron. "You folks didn't like the king?"
"Not so much the king they didn't like, ma'am, as the lazy a Beatricksy, as they call her in the tavern jokes they tell and don't want the young-uns t'hear!"
Mistresp Prabble became at once considerably more kind-ly to the visitor, and led him into the open-sided kitchen shed, where she screamed at a fat assistant cook to bring the newcomer a plate left over from the noon time meal.
"When you finish, sweet laddy," she cooed, her idea of an ingratiating tone, "I'll show you to a room over to the guesthouse. Eat well and build your strength! You can tell me those dirty jokes about the queen, eh?"
She sailed off, head high and mouth set in a grim but anticipatory smile.
264 Don Callander DRAGON COMPANION 265 "Best eat up. You'll need your strength!" joked the chub-by assistant cook, bringing a generously laden plate. "I hopes you knows what you're getting into with that ancient she-goat!"
"No, I'm not sure I do. What?" Tom asked innocently, digging at once into the cold food. The roast was badly overcooked, but tasty enough. The greens were greasy.
"Lord! She'll keep after you all night to tell her all the gossip from your parts. She'd rather gossip than eat ora-"
He scuttled off suddenly as Frabble returned.
"What was that lovely lad saying to you, sweetheart?" she asked, attempting to sound honey-tongued.
"Oh, just that you are a hard but fair overseer. Mistress Frabble. He said you were a good woman to serve under."
"Ah-ha! Well so I am, although I never thought young Spiggott would say it, the lazy-butt! Are you ready, dear one? I've much to do, or we could have a nice long talk. His Lordship is in residence now and I must be there to see to him and his important guests when they return from the hunt. Come along!"
As the housekeeper led him across the wide courtyard to the guesthouse, there came a sudden rush and flurry of horsemen through the gate beside the Great House. The hunters had returned. Hounds bayed and jumped in excitement, horses stomped, eager for a rubdown and a ration of oats, and sweaty-faced men called for a drink to wash away the dust.
Lord Peter of Gantrell was at their head, the first glimpse Tom had had of Manda's uncle. He was well built, broad of shoulder, with a hard-visaged but handsome face, which was neatly framed by a coal black beard, cut short to high-light the outline of his jaw and chin.
All the hunters were dressed alike, in scarlet coats and tight-fitting trousers. Lord Peter's were more richly and carefully tailored, and while the others looked overheated, mud spattered, and wrinkled, Peter remained fresh and clean, unmarked by the rigors of the chase.
Mistress Prabble hurried her visitor into a long, low brick guest house and showed him quickly to a room at the back, away from the gardens and the courtyard.
"Make yerself to home!" she said distractedly. "Linen's fresh. I'll send a boy with hot water if you care to bathe. The necessary is out that door. Stay here! Don't wander abroad too far!"
She rushed off without further ado, intimate gossip forgotten for the moment, to manage the homecoming of the Lord of Gantrell.
LEFT to his own devices, Tom pulled off his boots and heavy clothinga-they were getting rather too warm now that the storm had passeda-and after waiting a half-hour went off to the kitchen again, seeking the pail of hot water that Frabble had forgotten.
He bathed, changed, and lay dozing on the narrow cot for an hour, expecting the housekeeper to return for her gossip, but Frabble never reappeared. Someone sent a turnspit to call him to supper in the servants' dinning room. He sat with Spiggott, the assistant cook, while they ate.
It was by then early evening, not yet full night. Up at the Great House lights blazed and there came sounds of loud talking and laughter, the clinking of glasses, and orchestra music, full and lively, for dancing.
"Is it like this all the time?" Tom asked Spiggott.
"Ever! When the master is home, at any rate. Pretty quiet, otherwise, I admit. The food is much better when he is here, too."
"Who is here, beside the lord and his lady and their children, I mean."
"You are a bumpkin! Everybody knows Lord Peter is unmarried. He's said to be waiting for the Princess Alix Amanda to come of agea"
"I never heard that!" cried Tom. "Nor dida er, anyone else where I hail from."
"I don'it say it's true, but old Frabble swears she heard it, up at Great House. Overheard, is more like it. That woman has ears as long as a jenny's!"
He allowed as how the guests that night were magnates going up to the city, Lexor, on their way north to attend Sessions.
"All they talk of is this princess and the king's baby son, and things like that, Prabble says. I don't understand most of it."
"If His Lordship marries this princess and she becomes 266 Don Callander queen someday. Lord Peter will be king then?"
"Don't ask me! I just help cook his meals and stay out of his way!"
"He is a hard master, then?"
"It be worth my tongue to say anything against him, friend. Better to remain silent."
Tom changed the subject back to Mistress Frabble.
"She loves to gossip, I can tell. She seemed about to set down and get me to talk about my folks and what was said about the queen, but the hunters returned and she rushed off."
"She's forgotten you, I'll wager on that," said Spiggot with a laugh. "Old Frabble likes to be where His Lordship can see her. She'll rush about and order people to do this and that, as long as the quality are awake and drinking."
"They'll be at it late, then?"
"Usually are. Never hit bed until sunrise, them kind don't. You have people like that down in your swamps, don't you?"
"Oh, we have ones that'll drink and carouse, sing and shout at each other for days without rest," Tom boast-ed. "Waterfields folk raise bottomless boozers, I can tell you!"
He was grateful that Gantrell's servants were, like the soldiers on the road, ignorant of almost every aspect of Waterfields life and waysa-aside from the fact that their queen came from therea-because Tom, almost as ignorant, made it up as he went along.
Someone yelled "Time!" and the servants' supper was abruptly over. Spiggott hurried away, looking hard-pressed, but Tom dawdled on his way back to his room, studying the layout of Gantrell's country place.
Overhall was a heavily fortified dwelling, with tall towers and thick walls in concentric rings, all perched along an inaccessible ridge. Ffallmar Farm was a well-built, rangy farm home, with sturdy walls and steep-pitched roofs and rugged outbuildings of stone and timbers. Ramhold was a squat, practical, log-and-sod affair set into its protecting hill, looking as though it had not been built, but rather as if it had grown there, like a tree.
Gantrell House was grander than them all. It reminded Tom most of the mansions of wealthy Tidewater planters DRAGON COMPANION 267.
in Virginia. Begun as a plain, solid farmhouse, it still showed strong signs of farming. Its redbrick Great House, its appendage buildings, barns and storehouses, garden sheds and stables, were all set close together in careful husbandry.
The Great House may once have been a simple farmhouse, but the addition of a second floor, tall windows, wide verandas, soaring pillars and carved cornices, painted white, had made it almost a palace.
The whole was arranged sensibly in a roomy rectangle, with the Great House across the top, the kitchen, scullery, dairy, and bake house to its left, not connected to it except by a covered brick walkway, to allow serving boys to reach the dining room quickly and dry shod bearing heavy trays of food.
To the right of the House, also separate but with connecting arcades, were a chapel; then a small schoolhouse, now used for storage, it seemed; workshops for weavers, potters, and various craftsmen; and, at the far end, the guest house. All stood one story high but with tall, steep-pitched roofs, channeled to carry rainwater into deep cisterns, lined with carefully fitted stone, around the edges of the central court.
The fourth side of the square consisted of practical brick-and-wood farm buildings, centered on a lofty bam, in which were stored sweet-smelling straw and hay, against the com-ing winter.
Beyond the bam and the dairy, the pigpens and the chicken coops, was a fenced meadow for horses and another for dairy cattle. In sheltered places under a neat orchard of apple and pear, crusted snow still resisted the warmth of the fall evening.
After quietly making the rounds of the rectangle twicea- pretending to be taking an after-dinner stroll, being careful to remain fully in everyone's sighta-Tom returned at near darkness to the guest house. He undressed and lay down on the bed to wait.
A while later he heard someone try his door and open it a crack. Mistress Frabble's long, inquisitive nose poked through, sniffed in disappointment, and withdrew. The door closed silently and he heard the housekeeper cross the brick floor to the outside door.
268.
DRAGON COMPANION 269.
Don Callander He jumped from his bed, breathing a silent thank-you, and ran barefoot across the hall to where he could look from an open window after the departing woman.
He caught a glimpse of her reentering the house by a rear door. The noise and music of the party still rolled out over the otherwise quiet and peaceful scene. The clock in the tower over the front gate began to toll. He counted the strokes. Ten.
He returned to his room and lay awake atop his bed for another hour. The party showed no signs of winding down, although most of the farm hands and servants were long abed. A woman Frabble's age would not be able to resist falling into her own bed when her duties were at last completed, on toward two or three next morning, Tom guessed. He should be left to his own devices until morning.
He walked silently down the central hall of the guest house, passing the closed doors of other guests. At a few he heard low talking or snoring, but most of the rooms were quiet. He let himself out through a door facing the stables across a grassy exercise yard surrounded by white-painted fences.
If I'd captured twenty-five soldiers and fifteen servants, maids, and grooms and such, would I keep them all together? Probably not. Perhaps Lord Peter ordered the servants and soldiers held at some out-of-the-way place. Does Gantrell have holdings between Overtide and the north shore of the lake? He didn't know. Retruance might have known. The thought made him feel discouraged.
Of course, Tom mused, Gantrell would want to keep Manda close by, to produce her quickly if he needed. He'd want to supervise her captivity and Murdan's too. What better place than this vast farm?
"Manda, my princess, I bet you're close by, if I can but find you!" he muttered to himself. "But where are you?"
He found the dairy herd sound asleep, the chickens in their coops, and the ducks and geese in their hutches near the mill pond, also sleeping. Tom had sense enough to stay way from the geese. He knew from his Iowa boyhood that they made great alarm sounders.
He stole through the deepest shadowsa-No moon tonight, at least, not yet, he thoughta-to the far side of the barn-yard, guided by a faint glow from an open-sided black- smith's shed where the forge fire had been banked but still glowed.
Standing under the smithy's roof, feeling the heat of the glowing coals on his back, he studied the next building in line. It was, possibly, a large storehouse. Its doors were tightly closed, its windows barred and shuttered.
A movement caught his eye as he was about to step out into the open again. Around the comer of the storehouse marched a soldier with a pike over his shoulder, humming to himself.