“Are you sure Sir Renel really wanted to stay at Malvern after all?”

Jim nodded, then realized the ridiculousness of this in his dragon body.

“We hope. No, I shouldn’t say that,” said Angie, as they began to circle upward on another thermal. “Things will mend. I’m sure they will.”

He winced a little internally, thinking of the shock to Geronde-to learn that her father had been ready to accept leprosy for himself, rather than inflict it on her. Particularly after the way she had been thinking of him for years.

In any case, she understood him better, now. He and Angie had never had to suffer that way; and right now, for both of them, the world was good. Warm in their dragon bodies, riding the air currents together, it seemed to Jim that the sun had a special brightness.

Above, the sky was almost cloudless. Below them, a little of the rawness of winter still survived in the leaves that were still curled up tight in buds-too tight to show green on the dark limbs of the trees; and even farther down on the ground black patches of wet earth still showed through the drab carpet of soggy leaves revealed by the melted snow of a winter now vanquished. But the whole world, nevertheless, seemed to be demanding summer just as soon as it could get there; and birds called loudly. The smell of early spring was in the rushing air around them. Jim snuffed it through his dragon nostrils with pleasure.

He was happy Sir Renel had decided finally that he would remain at Malvern, even if it had only been after everybody thoroughly assured him he would offend nobody by staying; and Geronde would echo that assurance if she was with them.

So, with no reason for Jim and Angie to go home on horseback, as they would have if they had taken Sir Renel with them, it was a natural decision to bedragon themselves and fly. The others had waved them off from Malvern’s tower.

“I’m going to be really glad to be home,” Jim said to Angie.

“Me too,” she said. “I hope everything’s been all right with Robert.”

“I’m sure it has,” said Jim, and a moment later, they were landing on the tower roof. The man-at-arms on lookout gave what sounded more like a whoop than the usual ritual shout, on seeing them; but by the time they had changed back into their human bodies, clothes and all, his face was unusually rigid.

“Well, we’re back, Harold,” said Jim to him.

“Yes, m’lord,” said the guard, without giving up a bit of the stiffness of his expression.

“Super-formal!” said Jim under his breath to Angie, grinning once his back was safely turned to the guard and they were going down the flight of stairs into the solar. There was no one on duty at the outside door; and inside there was a fire in the fireplace that was a very low fire indeed- just enough to “air the cloth,” as the servants put it, coming from a profound belief that clothes hung in a room without a fireplace would overnight become damp and mildewed.

Actually, there was some reason for it, since many castles were afflicted with dampness most of the year around. Jim stood, gazing about himself with pleasure. What a homelike sort of space it was, he told himself.

“I’ll go see Robert,” Angie said, vanishing out the door toward the separate room created for Robert out of the solar floor.

“Oh, yes,” said Jim, suddenly reminded that people would be along to take care of this in a moment-in fact, the man-at-arms overhead could be heard shouting something from the top of the tower down to the courtyard below right now.

Undoubtedly, the message was being passed that the Lord and Lady of the castle were back. The servants would be very upset if Jim had needed to pick up a log with his own hands to lay it on a fire. Indeed, there was only time for Jim to take off the mail shirt he had practically lived in these last weeks and settle himself in one of the comfortable chairs he had caused to be made for the solar, while Angie also got rid of her traveling cloak and sat down, before there was a scratching at the door.

It was opened without waiting for the order to come in; several servants entered, one of whom rebuilt the fire, another who went around straightening and dusting things, and a third who was already carrying a tray with wine and cakes into the room.

“Put it on the table, Beth,” said Jim. He was still too full from the meal at Malvern to want anything more; and he suspected that Angie was in exactly the same condition. But to simply send the food and drink back could hurt servant feelings.

“Yes, m’lord,” said Beth, a serving woman in her late twenties, her lips now thinned a little bit. She spoke without looking directly at him.

The others finished their tasks and they all went out, backing through the door, saying with the same odd stiffness the sentry had shown, “With your permission, m’lord!” and “Crave pardon, m’lord and lady, for the disturbance!”

After the door was shut behind them Jim looked at Angie.

“Did you notice anything?” he asked Angie. “It seems to me they’re all acting unusually strange. I thought they were just being extra correct. But it’s something more than that.”

“It is,” said Angie. “I don’t know why.”

“If this is their way of welcoming us back,” said Jim, “I wish they’d get over it. You don’t suppose they were upset by both of us being gone?”

“I don’t know why they should be-“ Angie was interrupted by another scratching at the door.

“What is it?” called Jim.

“Crave pardon, m’lord.” The voice of a male servant came back, loudly. “John Steward is here to speak with you, m’lord. If your Lordship permits.”

“Send him in!” said Jim. He looked at Angle. “Whatever’s going on here, we ought to get a handle on it from John.”

The door opened and John Steward came in. They had inherited him, as they had the blacksmith and nearly all the other servants, when they had taken ownership of Malencontri. He was a tall, rectangular-framed, stern-looking man in his forties.

He had been steward here during the times of the last three owners of the castle; and he was proud of having most of his teeth, though two of these were missing in front. He smiled seldom, either to hide the gap, or simply because he believed his air of unquestionable authority required it. His black hair, still untouched with gray, was combed straight back; and even indoors he always wore a hat that was shaped like a loaf of bread, and a cast-off robe from the castle’s former lord that had once been a dark blue in color. He was heavily boned and broad shouldered enough to make a good man-at-arms, rather than a steward; but of course, from his present position he looked down on all men-at-arms below the rank of squire.

“I hope I am not intruding, m’lord, m’lady,” he said, once he was in and the door was closed behind him. He stood a good eight feet from them, upright as a post, and frowning down on them like a schoolteacher at a couple of pupils.

“Not at all, John,” said Jim genially. “We’re glad to be home and to see you all. How have things been? Happily, your Lady was not gone long, so I suppose there isn’t much to tell.”

“Yes, m’lord,” he said flatly. “If your Lordship so desires it.”

“Desire?” said Jim. “What’s my desire got to do with it?”

“Has something been changed, for all of you, here at the castle?” he asked.

“I would not say so, m’lord,” pronounced John.

The suspicion in Jim of something being badly wrong, which had been faintly woken by the manner of the tower sentry’s greeting, suddenly blossomed. Jim’s happiness at being home was rapidly evaporating. He knew John well enough by this time to read in the other’s voice that the answer he had just heard had hinted at things unsaid.

“No nonsense, now, John!” said Jim. “If it’s been different for you people, I want to know about it. How long did it seem to you that m’lady Angela was gone, for example?”

“Since you asked, m’lord,” said John Steward, “it has been ten days.”

“Ten days!” Jim stared at the steward, then got himself under control. “Is that so? Well, that’s something I hadn’t expected. But it may have been because of what we were doing. Anyway, the people of the castle shouldn’t be surprised if we’re gone for any length of time. We’ll always come back. Now, if we were gone ten days, perhaps you’ve got things to tell us. What happened while we were gone?”

John looked at him for a moment, like a physician considering whether a patient was strong enough to be told bad news.

“Well, m’lord,” he said deliberately, “Mistress Gwynneth Plyseth, who as your Lordship knows has charge of the serving room, spilled a great jug of your lordship’s finest French red wine.”

This was not exactly earth-shaking news. The wine John was talking about was something normally reserved for their most special guests, and brought out only on special occasions even then. The loss of a great jugful was at least a gallon and a half, which was certainly regrettable, but not the sort of thing to send either Jim or Angie into fits, and John knew it There was something behind all this.

“What else?” he asked.

“She was clearly at fault, m’lord,” went on John, inexorably, “but she had some reason. Mage Carolinus had just appeared beside her.”

“You mean Rrrnlf!” said Jim.

“Yes, m’lord,” said John. “He wished to speak to you; but I spoke to him myself and told him you were not here. And when he would speak with the Lady Angela, I must needs tell him that she was not here either. So he settled down in the courtyard to wait for your return, like he did before when the serpents attacked-you remember, m’lord. A terrible time the stablemen had getting horses in and out, for he fell asleep in such a position that there was only a little space to get past his arm into the stables with the horses; and the horses grew very skittish when led close to him.”

“I’ll bet,” said Jim. “Well, I’m back. I can see him now.”

“Now, m’lord, he has left,” said John. “Crave pardon if I exceeded my duty. But in desperation I had sent one of the men-at-arms to the cottage of the Mage Carolinus, to ask if something could be done. The Mage returned, bringing the man-at-arms with him-both carried back by magical ways-so that they suddenly appeared in the courtyard. The devil was still asleep, but Carolinus told me and all else to go inside the castle. He would speak privily with the devil. He did so and then disappeared. The devil was still here, so I went to see what had occurred; and the devil said that he had looked for you in Cyprus and not found you and then come here and not found you; but he would return to speak to you at a later time.”

“Oh,” said Jim, sinking back into his chair. “That’s all right, then. And it explains Carolinus being here. Carolinus didn’t say anything to you about me or anything else, did he?”

“He did not, m’lord.”

“Oh, by the way, John-“ Jim began, and then changed his mind. “No, on second thought that’s all right. Thank you. You may go now.”

“Yes, m’lord.”

John Steward bowed himself out. He was the one person in the castle who could bow properly; although Theoluf, the man-at-arms who had become Jim’s squire, had gotten better at it since his promotion. Jim suspected him of practicing privately.

“I was going to ask him directly about the way people are acting,” Jim said, looking at Angie. “But it wouldn’t have been any use. He’d never tell us right out, whatever it is. We’ll just have to wait and see what develops.”

He stared into the flames of the fireplace.

“Not that it matters...” he said to the flames in a low voice.

“You’ve been through a lot,” said Angie, getting up to go to the fireplace and kissing him as she passed his chair. She took the poker and jabbed at the logs. Sparks flew upward and the flames reached higher. She put the poker back and came down and sat in her chair. Jim was still staring into the flames.

“Tell me,” Angie said, after a moment, in a conversational voice, “where did you go just before you got your staff?”

“Go?” Jim started as if he had been woken out of sleep. “Staff?”

“You told me once that Carolinus said he had to go a long way for his staff when he helped you at the Loathly Tower to rescue me,” went on Angie in the same gentle voice. “You must have gone a long way too.”

“What made you think I went at all?” asked Jim. “Did I disappear?”

“No,” said Angie. “But I could feel you were gone. The you wasn’t there. It was more than a moment for you, wasn’t it? What did you have to do to get the staff?”

“Climb a mountain,” said Jim. “It was...”

He looked at her, wanting very much to tell her, but unable.

“I don’t think I can tell you about it right now,” he said finally. “Let me have a little time. Get away from it so that I can think about it differently; then I’ll tell you all about it.”

“But I’m right, aren’t I?” said Angie. “You had to go a long way too, like Carolinus, didn’t you?”

Jim nodded.

They sat in silence for a little while and the fire crackled as another small burst of sparks went up.

“It’s all part of a whole,” said Jim, looking at the fire again. “It’s like this business now with the servants acting so funny. You know as well as I do they wouldn’t do that with any Lord or Lady of the castle who was born and raised here in the fourteenth century. We may dress like they dress in this time, we may use their manners and talk the way they talk; but we’re different and these people who have to live with us feel it”

He looked over at Angie again, grimly now.

“We just wanted to stay in this time because we liked it,” he said to Angie. “Remember? We didn’t want to change anything. But that’s what I’ve been doing. I never planned to be a magician, either. But I’m a magician whether I like it or not; and I’m doing things to their magic. I’m twisting it in twentieth-century ways, using it with twentieth-century twists, just like we’re infecting these people in the castle here with us with our twentieth-century attitudes.”

He paused but Angie said nothing. There was, he thought, nothing much she actually could say to what he’d just said.

“We can’t help it and they can’t help it-but it’s happening,” he went on. “I’m like something put in the oil of an engine that was running smoothly, but now with me there, it runs differently. I think I can tell you what’s bothering everyone in the castle right now. They resent our leaving them.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Angie.

“That-or something just as bad,” said Jim. “They’ve got all sorts of advantages having us here-they can boast about having a magician for a Lord; and we’re the most easygoing superiors that any fourteenth-century castle help ever had. They can twist us around their finger, and they do that all the time. Now they’re letting us know that we shouldn’t have done anything like going away without checking with them first and getting their permission.”

“Jim-“ said Angie.

“No,” said Jim strongly, “I’m right about this. The way we make them feel-things like the hypocaust that warms this room from underneath its floor, all the things that I thought I was so clever about changing around the castle-all these have to have been going against the grain for them. And they’re right. They should have their world the way they made it, without me messing it up. I think secretly they’ve come to hate us. They won’t even admit it to themselves, probably, but that’s how they feel; and now it’s beginning to show. Wait and see if that isn’t what we find out behind this new attitude of theirs.”

“Your Lord will see her,” said Angie before Jim could answer.

“Very good, m’lady,” said John, going out and closing the door behind him. There was a little pause and then the door opened again and John ushered in Gwynneth Plyseth, with a tear-streaked face and wringing her hands. She made directly for Jim and started to fall on her knees before him.

“Stand up!” said Jim harshly.

Gwynneth Plyseth caught her balance with an effort and remained upright.

“M’lord,” she said in one fast, garbled string of words, “the - fault -was - all - my - own - and - I - acknowledge - it - freely. Whatever -your - Lordship - feels - should - be - done - to - me - is - only - right. Yet - for - all - these - years -1 - have - served - you - may -1 - crave -your - mercy - and - your - pardon?”

It was a set speech, but Jim was in no mood to pick on that fact.

“It’s all right. Mistress Plyseth,” he said, still harshly. “That’s all. We’ll say no more about it. You can go now.”

“Wait a minute!” Angie’s voice cut in. Only a month or so earlier, in addition to Robert’s room being partitioned off from the solar, the remaining, still large, circular area had been divided into two lesser rooms- there was plenty of space in it to do so, since the original space had occupied one complete floor of the tower-and now there was a living room and separate bedroom, with an extra fireplace in the bedroom. Angie pointed at the door of the bedroom, now. “Go in there and wait for me, Gwynneth. I’ll be in in a moment. John, you can go now.”

She went into the bedroom, closing the door behind her. Jim sat where he was. After a while, mechanically, he got up, poured himself some wine, sat down again and sipped at it. The division between the rooms had been made with stone blocks like those that made up the rest of the castle. These, in fact, had been stolen from lower levels to make the partition wall. They were effectively soundproof; but through the door, which was just an ordinary door of wood, Jim could hear Angle’s and Gwynneth’s voices, without being able to make out what was being said.

Not that it mattered, he told himself. He had never been cut out to be a fourteenth-century knight and magician. He should have realized that from the start.

Anyway, his mind was not really on what he was hearing from the other room, which could make no difference in what he now understood. He sat staring at the fire and thinking black thoughts.

After a little while, the sound of someone weeping roused him from these, however. It was almost certainly Gwynneth. Angie did not weep easily, like that, on the rare occasions when she wept at all.

“The whole thing’s a charade,” he muttered to himself, sipping at the wine and staring at the fire. “I’m just playing the part of Lord of the castle. I don’t belong here and everybody knows it. The hell of it is, it’s become home-and I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

He felt bleak inside. Whether he even had enough magic available now, to take Angie and himself back to the twentieth century, he did not know. He doubted it, after what he must have spent to get the staff. But right now, his mind refused to come up with any other possibility but magic transfer back to the twentieth century, where at least the most damage he could do to anyone else was what he could do as his ordinary, nonmagical self in his native time.

The door opened suddenly and Angie came out, followed by Gwynneth. Gwynneth’s face was still wet, but happy.

“It’s so good to have you and m’lady back!” she said to him, bobbed a curtsy, hurried to the outer door and let herself out. Jim stared at Angie, who had not sat down again but was standing over him.

“What happened in there?” he asked.

“I found out what’s going on,” said Angie. “She couldn’t keep up the act with me-just as I thought. Jim, our people here didn’t resent our being gone. It never occurred to them they had any right to resent it. Jim- they love us! But they thought it’d be presumptuous of them to show it. They were very happy to have us back safe-when people leave you in this time, remember, you’re lucky to see them safe and sound again.”

Jim stared at her. He was having trouble adjusting to everything she said. He started at the first unbelievable statement.

“Love us?” he said. “What for?”

“What does it matter what for?” said Angie. “They love us because they love us. And we like them-we love them, too. We love it here. Here loves us. You must’ve been carrying this worry around with you for months now, haven’t you?”

“As a matter of fact...” said Jim, his voice trailing off into silence for a moment. “Maybe it began when I first started to feel that Brian and Dafydd and Giles and all our other friends were giving me way too much credit... I don’t know. And then, gradually they were all seeming to be so glad to have us around because they had a false idea of what I-I don’t know. It’s been upsetting, sometimes. Angie, you know what I am. All I am-all I’ve ever been-is myself.”

“I do beg pardon, m’lord and lady,” he said, apologetically, “but the Devil is back. He’s in the courtyard right now and wants to talk with you. And he’s got an ugly little man with him.”

“Maybe you better go take care of your Devil before he decides to take another nap,” she said, wiping her eyes.