“Or… maybe Samarkarantha?” said Keru, himself puzzled. “He could he have sent a note ahead of us? Or his little woody faced servant things might have come in the night? That was clever of him–if he did it–he does seem to always be thinking ahead with things. Could’ve been him? I guess.” He didn’t sound much as if he had convinced himself.
Quinnya fell quiet. For a time she did nothing but focus on the page, screwing up her face, winking both her eyes in rapid succession. Perhaps she thought that if she wetted her eyeballs enough the offending line would simply go away. Then, evidentially reaching the conclusion that the name Caewen of Drossel was stuck where it was, and she could do no more to shift it than she could shift rock or river, she sputtered, “Fafmuir? Samarkarantha? What? Those fools. No. No. Nonsense. It is writ in my handwriting, and I do not recall it. I would recall.” Peering closer, her teeth grit now into a hard, yellow-stained line. She said, “Mnh. But I don’t recall… and how very strange is that, well?” Her gaze lit up with a lightning-glow of thought. Her eyes flicked up, and set on Caewen. “And yet, not through any mortal art, nor magic, nor cunning can this ledger be altered by any other than me.” On her next breath she seemed to come to a point of understanding. A quizzical little humorous light clouded her eyes, then spread downward, overtaking her lips and her off-white teeth. She looked around then, at the landscape, the air and the sky, squinting all the while as she did. “No mortal art. I see. Well, you may have got yourself a entry token into the maze today, but I wonder if you will get yourself out again, well? If Themselves Who Watch have added your name to my list, then, well, they will have done so with a purpose. And their purpose is seldom at alignment with the lives of we lowly mortals. I would wish you good luck, but I don’t think luck will help you much. Not one way. Not the other.”
She turned her nose up then, and with a sniff that seemed to Caewen a little too practised, she turned, and walked off towards the great stone gates. They watched her go, until at last Keru said, “What an old she-goat.” He turned to Caewen. “Don’t you worry about that. She’s clearly just mad that she’s forgotten about you. I bet it was Samarkarantha.”
Keri snorted a laugh. “Well, either way, that is the Quinnya I remember. She hasn’t changed any more than the oaks on the hill have changed. Come on. Let’s go down to the green and wait. Your names will be called. We have to wait until then. Nothing else for it.”
They couldn’t sit in the grass; it was still too wet with dew from the night, and chilled all over by a faint humid out-breath of coldness from the living green blades. A few low stones that did not seem to be part of the processional way peaked here and there, and, once Keru, Keri and Caewen were all quite sure no one was going to be angry about it, the three of them sat down, making themselves as comfortable as they could on the low slabs of gritty surfaced rock. The air smelled of coldness and dew and wet soil. Dapplegrim stood behind them, lurking, glancing around, now and then tearing at the grass, ripping it, chewing, eating distractedly.
“Oh, mlooth, ith our frienths from the wurum.”
“What was that?” said Caewen.
Dapplegrim swallowed a mouthful of grass. “Over there. It’s ours friends, the Modsarie. The kelpie fondlers. What was their lady princess’s name. Sgeirr?”
“Kelpie, what?” said Caewen.
“Fondlers,” answered Dapplegrim.
She shook her head. “I’m not going to ask.”
They all looked over, squinting. Dapplegrim had remarkable sight, but Caewen could make out the shapes of four people dressed in the Modsarie fashion, standing near the maze gate. It wasn’t all of the Modsarie contingent, just a few… the young, chieftainess Sgeirr was standing in her arrogant, haughty way, hands on hips, sneering at everything that she wasn’t scowling at. After a moment, the Modsarie seemed to notice Caewen and her friends for the first time too. Presumably they saw Dapple, who was hard to mistake for anything other than himself. When the chieftainess turned to look at them, Sgeirr’s general appearance and countenance became still harder. She gave them an irritated glare. Sunlight flickered across her distant eyes and lit up the rivermud green of her clothing. After the prickly moment passed, Sgeirr hunched her back, turned away again, and seemed to start up a renewed conversation with her companions, looking back over her shoulder every few moments.
“Dapple…” said Caewen. “Can you–?”
“No.” He twitched his ears forward. “I can make out the words, but she’s speaking in the native tongue of Modsaire. I don’t know it.”
After a while the Modsarie were called and Sgeirr and two of her retainers walked over to the great stone gates. They were beckoned over by Quinnya as a group, and they spoke to her at the doorway. Although they gathered about in a loose huddle near the door, they were seemingly directed to enter the maze one-by-one. Sgeirr went first, and the others made a show of saluting her and kneeling. The performance took a tedious few seconds and gave the impression that had trumpets been available, these would have been called for. A few of the magicians who were standing nearby seemed amused by the show, but not overly impressed. Caewen wondered the Modsarie were aware that some of the more urbane looking magicians were hiding smiles behind sleeves.
About ten minutes after Sgeirr had vanished into the dark doorway, the shorter of the two men was called by Quinnya, and then the third, and then the last of them. As the last man entered the shadows, he paused on the threshold and cast a glance back at Caewen. She was still watching, intently, so she saw him fingering a hand up and down the length of a short war-axe at his hip. He was otherwise wearing the same green-brown woollen robes as the others in his band, and the axe would not have been visible at all, except that he absentmindedly ran a palm on it.
“Did the others have weapons?” she asked.
“Maybe. I don’t recall,” answered Keri.
Keru seemed to have been paying more attention. “I think the other fellow, the one with the beard, he had a short sword. And didn’t Sgeirr have a knife? Or a knife scabbard anyway. A big, broad leaf-bladed thing. Sort of old fashioned?”
“I didn’t notice,” said Caewen, now wishing that she had been paying closer attention. “It would be punishable, to try and murder someone inside the maze, wouldn’t it? As with the rest of the moot? Right? The rules still apply?”
“Actually, that… I’m not sure.” Keri gave her an apologetic half-smile. “I don’t know if anyone is sure how deep the rules lie in there. There are the disappearances, after all. And there are always rumours of other deaths and murders in the maze too… but proof is hard to come by. Maybe it used to happen, a long time ago, and the goddesses increased their watchfulness?”
“Could be,” said Caewen, doubtful.