horse, or the eagle. The Yellow Sorcerers might tame the lesser hawks, the squirrel, or the black bear. And the Red Sorcerers had made intelligent, useful, and unchancy the red deer, certain finches, and the cardinal.
Ruth stuck her feet, which had gone to sleep some time ago, ungracefully out in front of her. “Oh, Lord ,” she said. She had thought the cardinals were servants of the Green Caves. The Green Caves people, however mysterious and testy, were benevolent. The Red Sorcerers were another thing entirely. Several centuries ago, they had made themselves so unpopular that the quarreling, backbiting, bitterly independent members of the other three schools had ganged up on them and tossed them out of the middle lands. Red Sorcerers were said to infest the seacoast countries, and to be allowed grudgingly in the Outer Isles. But not in the Hidden Land.
But Claudia wore red. Ruth jumped up, scattering books; and then made herself sit down again. Fence and Randolph must know this already. And Benjamin; what had Benjamin said to Ted? “I would not come between the cardinal and its charges. If thou art one.” Those were not the words of someone who had discovered that the messengers of an outcast school of sorcery were abroad in his adopted country. And Randolph had said to Patrick, when a cardinal’s interruption saved him from having to practice fencing, “I knew ’twas folly to allow rival magics in this castle.” But the rival magics were the Green Caves and the Blue Sorcery. And these rooms were for Dwarves, who were not Red Sorcerers; and yet there was a cardinal on the hearthrug.
“You are about as dumb as they make them,” Ruth said aloud. There was no need to sneak around like this. All she had to do was ask Fence and Randolph.
Except that Fence and Randolph either had not known or had not wanted to tell her. To her suggestion that she prowl around a little, trying if she might discover more about the cardinals, they had returned only the bland silence that implies consent.
“Jerks,” said Ruth, bitterly. She shoved the three books back into their place, stood up, and, leaning on the marble mantelpiece with its useless candles in their silver holders, she said, “O’Driscoll drove with a song / The wild duck and the drake / From the tall and the tufted reeds / Of the drear Hart Lake. / And he saw how the reeds grew dark / At the coming of night tide, / And dreamed of the long dim hair / Of Bridget his bride.”
And walked, with the brisk thoughtless stride of habit, across the room, and stretched her arm up as far as she could, and tipped down a thin volume minus its binding, tied up with blue ribbon.
All of the books were copied by hand; the Secret Country had not yet discovered the glories of moveable type. The copyists, for the most part, had a tidy and invariable script; you often forgot, reading it, that somebody had painstakingly traced every letter with the sharpened quill of a goose feather. But this book was written in longhand, rather cramped and spiky. Ruth sat down in the nearest chair and began to read.
It began in the midst of a sentence. “. . . air is fulle of Voyces,” it said. The spelling was abominable here, too, but it was consistent. If the writer spelled “only” as “onlie,” he did so every time.
Ruth found neither enlightenment nor much entertainment in this work; but she plodded through all of it. “To banish such Voyces,” she read, “it is above all Else necessarie that thou banishest wordes from the threshold of thy mind and heart. These Voyces do gain their powre from chance wordes thy mind or mouth shall let fall.”
As she read on, it seemed likely that it was some lesson of the Blue Sorcerers; it spoke of the habits of cats and dogs and horses and eagles, and how to address them with one’s Inmost Voice. That subject exhausted, the writer began a dissertation on the nature of enchanted weapons, and ended suddenly in the middle of a
Ruth stuck her feet, which had gone to sleep some time ago, ungracefully out in front of her. “Oh, Lord ,” she said. She had thought the cardinals were servants of the Green Caves. The Green Caves people, however mysterious and testy, were benevolent. The Red Sorcerers were another thing entirely. Several centuries ago, they had made themselves so unpopular that the quarreling, backbiting, bitterly independent members of the other three schools had ganged up on them and tossed them out of the middle lands. Red Sorcerers were said to infest the seacoast countries, and to be allowed grudgingly in the Outer Isles. But not in the Hidden Land.
But Claudia wore red. Ruth jumped up, scattering books; and then made herself sit down again. Fence and Randolph must know this already. And Benjamin; what had Benjamin said to Ted? “I would not come between the cardinal and its charges. If thou art one.” Those were not the words of someone who had discovered that the messengers of an outcast school of sorcery were abroad in his adopted country. And Randolph had said to Patrick, when a cardinal’s interruption saved him from having to practice fencing, “I knew ’twas folly to allow rival magics in this castle.” But the rival magics were the Green Caves and the Blue Sorcery. And these rooms were for Dwarves, who were not Red Sorcerers; and yet there was a cardinal on the hearthrug.
“You are about as dumb as they make them,” Ruth said aloud. There was no need to sneak around like this. All she had to do was ask Fence and Randolph.
Except that Fence and Randolph either had not known or had not wanted to tell her. To her suggestion that she prowl around a little, trying if she might discover more about the cardinals, they had returned only the bland silence that implies consent.
“Jerks,” said Ruth, bitterly. She shoved the three books back into their place, stood up, and, leaning on the marble mantelpiece with its useless candles in their silver holders, she said, “O’Driscoll drove with a song / The wild duck and the drake / From the tall and the tufted reeds / Of the drear Hart Lake. / And he saw how the reeds grew dark / At the coming of night tide, / And dreamed of the long dim hair / Of Bridget his bride.”
And walked, with the brisk thoughtless stride of habit, across the room, and stretched her arm up as far as she could, and tipped down a thin volume minus its binding, tied up with blue ribbon.
All of the books were copied by hand; the Secret Country had not yet discovered the glories of moveable type. The copyists, for the most part, had a tidy and invariable script; you often forgot, reading it, that somebody had painstakingly traced every letter with the sharpened quill of a goose feather. But this book was written in longhand, rather cramped and spiky. Ruth sat down in the nearest chair and began to read.
It began in the midst of a sentence. “. . . air is fulle of Voyces,” it said. The spelling was abominable here, too, but it was consistent. If the writer spelled “only” as “onlie,” he did so every time.
Ruth found neither enlightenment nor much entertainment in this work; but she plodded through all of it. “To banish such Voyces,” she read, “it is above all Else necessarie that thou banishest wordes from the threshold of thy mind and heart. These Voyces do gain their powre from chance wordes thy mind or mouth shall let fall.”
As she read on, it seemed likely that it was some lesson of the Blue Sorcerers; it spoke of the habits of cats and dogs and horses and eagles, and how to address them with one’s Inmost Voice. That subject exhausted, the writer began a dissertation on the nature of enchanted weapons, and ended suddenly in the middle of a
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