him.'
Miranda hissed again.
'All of you are bloody mad,' Lancelot said and threw a slice of bread across the dining room. 'I want to leave. There is no reason to stay in the same house with a murderess. And Nicholas amuses himself at our expense. He will doubtless try to kill us, or set his wife to do it.'
Rosalind was beginning to think that dispatching the lot of them wasn't a bad idea.
'Not if his precious wife stabs him first,' Aubrey said, and Rosalind saw him grinning behind a spoonful of vegetable marrow soup. 'What with all that violent red hair, I imagine she has a formidable temper, is that true, Nicholas?'
'He wouldn't have the nerve to strike her,' Lancelot said, his mouth full, 'now that he knows she'll cut his heart out. As for that heathen servant of his, I swear the fellow is cursing me whenever I chance to see him. He looks foreign. I don't like him.'
Nicholas said, 'It's true, Lancelot, that Lee Po knows many meaty curses, some of them designed to tangle up your innards so you choke on your own guts. I'd keep my distance from him.' Nicholas paused a moment, looked around the table. 'You know, perhaps Lancelot is right, all of you should return to London. Perhaps after dinner. Or after an early breakfast in the morning. Thank you, Richard, for delivering your vision message.'
Richard came right out of his chair. 'No!' Nicholas lounged back in his earl's chair, arched an eyebrow. 'No? Why ever not?'
'I cannot,' Richard said, his voice, his very posture intense. His hands were splayed on the table, his knuckles white. There was something desperate about him, Nicholas realized, but what was it?
45
Dinner dragged on with no explanation from Richard. Nicholas and Rosalind finally left his family to tea and whist. Lancelot was in a vile mood, throwing down his cards as if each one were a weapon. Aubrey baited him, said he was pretty as any girl he'd ever seen, which Nicholas thought wasn't far from the truth. Aubrey's smile never faded, his good humor seemed inexhaustible. On the other hand, Aubrey spent most of his time at Oxford. He didn't have to live with this bunch.
As for Richard, he brooded, one booted leg swinging over the arm of his chair. Nicholas didn't think he was brooding over his luck at cards. 'Why, he wondered yet again, was Richard so anxious? If Rosalind did stab him, as Richard claimed he'd seen in the vision, then why wasn't he raising a brandy glass?
It was a relief to leave the four of them behind the closed drawing room door.
'I wonder where Captain Jared is this fine night?' Rosalind said as they walked into the earl's bedchamber.
'He kept quiet and I can't say I blame him,' Nicholas said.
They drew on cloaks over their clothes. 'It might be quite cold in the Pale,' Rosalind said as she tied the black velvet tips together.
Rosalind made certain there was always a good three feet between them even though they held hands. She didn't want to fall into the Pale with the both of them naked.
Nicholas said, 'I feel bloody ridiculous, lying in bed, waiting. Waiting for what? How the devil will we get to the Pale? I have no flying carpet.'
She shook her head. 'We must be patient, and wait, no choice. Would you like me to sing to you?'
He sat up. 'No, what I want is to see if you can now read the final pages of the Rules of the Pale.'
She sat up beside him. 'I can't believe I forgot about it. You believe Sarimund has removed the veil from them as well as freed the pages from the shorter book?'
'We will shortly see, won't we?' He fetched the book from the top drawer in his dresser.
She sat in the large comfortable chair in front of the fireplace, and Nicholas stood beside her, his hands outstretched to the sluggish flame.
Her fingers trembled as she thumbed to the end of the book. She looked down at the writing, then up at Nicholas.
He said, 'You can read it now. It would make no sense if you still couldn't.'
She looked down again, cleared her throat, and read:
This is the end, I can offer no more help since I promised not to meddle.
You are a gift, Isabella, never doubt that, you are brave and true, your honor bone deep. Many times, I have found, a gift is a debt to another.
I have but to warn you not to trust anyone or anything, be it a god or a goddess, a wizard or a witch. Do not accept what you see for it may not be real at all. Those in the Pale fashion lavish illusions and violent phantasms to drive the unwary mad. Be disbelieving. Be cautious.
But know that evil cannot touch you. Good-bye, my sweet girl. You must sing, never forget to sing.
Sarimund
Rosalind stared down at the last page for a good long time before she raised her face to her husband's. 'My name is Is-abella.'
He looked at her thoughtfully, stroking his long fingers over his chin. 'It is a beautiful name. I wonder how Sarimund knew your name was Isabella some three hundred years before you were born.'
'If that is indeed my name in the present day. Why didn't he tell me my last name as well?'
'Since we are speaking of magic, then we are naturally speaking of obfuscation. I now believe that to make a proper magical pronouncement, you must be infuriatingly murky; you must litter ambiguous metaphors over the landscape; and you must spice your pronouncements with otherworldly words that don't fit into any comprehensible framework. You must unveil only half clues, a lame bit of garbled nonsense here and bit of misdirection there. And withal, we simply must accept it.
'And as for Captain Jared's dreadful rhymes-if his ghost would show himself but once, I would wring his bloody neck. Hmm, I wonder if my hands would go right through his neck. I wonder if there are more rules-vital rules-that Sarimund is still hiding from us.'
Rosalind cocked her head to one side. 'Being a wizard, you would know, now wouldn't you?'
'If I am a wizard, then you, madam, are a witch.' And he began pacing the bedchamber, his cloak billowing about his ankles. He said, 'I am a simple man. I am, I really am. And I like the name Isabella.'
'That must mean I am Italian. Oh, curse Sarimund, why didn't the moron write down my full name? Ah, yes, that would mean breaking a magic rule. You know, Nicholas, I'm thinking one must study obscure texts to think magically.'
'Leave me out of it. All I want to do is to stride over my acres, watch my lands flourish, give Clyde free rein to jump over that fence at the back of my northern border, watch the barley and rye grow tail, and make love to my wife until I am unable to move. Ah, if we are blessed, to fill the Wyverly Chase nursery.' He heaved a sigh. 'Don't look alarmed and tense upon me. I have no intention of attacking your fair person.' He brushed his fingers through his hair, making it stand straight up. 'Well, I most certainly will think about how you feel when I'm deep inside you, but not now. Now I want this over with. Behold, madam, a patient man. Come lie with me.'
And so they lay next to each other, again holding hands, a blanket pulled over their cloaks and their booted feet. Their talk dwindled. Rosalind was on the edge of sleep when she heard Nicholas say, his voice low and deep, 'If we do not survive this, Rosalind, know that I love you. Like the Dragon of the Sallas Pond, you are my mate for life. I pray we will survive this journey, that we will enjoy a nice long life.'
'I love you too, Nicholas. It would seem I've loved you all my life-no matter which life. It is amazing how you make me feel, how you make me want to skip and jump and sing and perhaps play a rousing waltz on the pianoforte.'
He basked. This incredible woman he'd dreamed of for so many years actually loved him, despite-despite what? He wondered, and frowned. But he didn't ask because suddenly, all words, all thoughts faded from his brain and he fell asleep instead.
