The air was very still and crisp, and the huge stars of the Secret Country sprinkled the darkening sky. Ted looked at the circle around the fire, and grinned despite himself. They were arranged in such a way as to make everybody unhappy. He was sitting between Andrew and Randolph. Ruth was on Andrew’s other side, but Andrew couldn’t bother her because on Ruth’s other side was Dittany, who had noticed that Ruth disliked Andrew, and seemed to take pleasure in getting in his way. Ted couldn’t talk to Randolph about anything important because on Randolph’s other side was Julian; Julian was made uncomfortable by having to sit next to Stephen, who had annoyed him the first day out with some theory of farming. Stephen had to put up with Julian’s refusal to discuss his theory, and also with the presence of Dittany, who called him “Boggy”—presumably because mallows grow in marshes—and only laughed in genuine delight when Stephen snarlingly addressed her as “Dropsy”—presumably because peonies fall over in midsummer. But Dittany had to put up with Jerome, who didn’t think there was any dignity in the entire exchange; while Jerome had to put up with the exchange on one side, and a lack of attention from Dittany on the other, because Dittany was keeping Andrew from bothering Ruth.

Ted laughed. Everybody instantly looked at him. He watched them formulating various ways of saying “What’s so funny?” and decided to forestall them. “Look at us!” he said. “We ought to be hung on a wall to scare the crows. We were merrier than this when we rode to lose our lives.”

“We’ve sent all the musicians north, that’s it,” said Ruth.

“You rate yourself too low, my lady,” said Andrew.

“You’ve brought your flute, haven’t you?” said Ted.

Ruth shot him a furious look. He wondered too late if it would be better, on principle, not to fall in with anything Andrew wanted, no matter how innocent.

“That flute’s for messages,” Ruth said, flatly, “and all my musical talent is for magic. You’d rather—you’d rather hear your dog bark at a crow,” she finished, somewhat hysterically, “than me play a song that’s not a spell.”

“What of ‘King Conrad’s Last Journey’?” said Andrew. His voice was pleasant, his tone helpful. But there was something in it more than friendly; Ted’s mother would sometimes say mundane things to his father in a tone like that. He had the awful feeling that Ruth had been right about Lady Ruth; certainly she was right about Andrew’s attitude toward that enigmatic person.

Ruth sat absolutely still, staring at Andrew. Ted could see her face quite well in the firelight; she had no expression at all. Then, slowly, the corner of her mouth curved up, in a smile Ted had never seen in all the years of their acquaintance.

“That’s true, my lord,” she said, lightly. “I had forgot. I’ll play that tune, an all do will it.”

There was a chorus of assent, half-polite and half-eager. Ruth started to get up to fetch the flute and was forestalled by Andrew. Andrew was then beaten to the baggage by Stephen, who either was developing a crush on Ruth himself or had heard that tone in Andrew’s voice and decided, like Dittany, that Ruth didn’t care for it. Ted groaned inwardly. Why, oh, why, had they ever wanted to put any romantic complications in the blasted game? And what the hell did Ruth think she was going to play on that flute? He didn’t know any song called “King Conrad’s Last Journey,” and he would bet that Ruth didn’t either. Ted put his face in his hands suddenly; he was going to laugh or shriek, he wasn’t sure which. Ruth might not know that song; but Lady Ruth would. Had that smile been hers? Were these dribs and drabs of knowledge broadening into some insidious possession?

Randolph laid a hand on Ted’s knee, and Ted almost jumped out of his skin. “What’s amiss?” said Randolph, very quietly. Andrew had not sat back down, but was looking thoughtfully after Stephen.

“Didn’t you see her look at him?” breathed Ted. “Ruthie never looked like that in her life; that was Lady Ruth in the back of her head.”

Randolph raised both eyebrows, but was prevented from saying anything else. Stephen had come back with the flute, which returned Andrew’s attention to Ted’s immediate vicinity.

Ruth unwrapped the flute, put it together, warmed it briefly, and, without any other preliminary, began to play “Good King Wenceslas.” Ted, confounded, looked around the circle. Nobody seemed surprised. Eventually they all began to sing.

The song went on forever. If Andrew had really wanted to cheer people up, he had chosen a good way to do it. They were all singing; and though the song didn’t have a chorus, it used three repeating verses, which came not at regular intervals, but rather on some cue Ted could not figure out. The singers themselves were always guessing wrong or coming in late, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves hugely. Even Randolph was smiling, although he sang only when nobody else could remember the words.

Ted couldn’t decide what the song was about. It was a rambling tale of various adventures, but the main point of it seemed to be that, once King Conrad became enraged about whatever it was that had made him spurn his kingdom, it was impossible for anybody he knew to talk to him. He was followed in all his doings by pages and messengers from his court, asking advice on how to run the country; but he wouldn’t answer them, or they were plagued by interruptions whenever they seemed to have worn him down, or they couldn’t find him at all. And as soon as the people he met became friends instead of strangers, they would decide that he really ought to go back and run his kingdom, whereupon he would refuse to speak to them and they too would fall prey to the misfortunes that dogged his messengers. The crowd of people trying to follow him became larger and larger, and they began to quarrel among themselves. It was an amusing song, but there was something disquieting about it.

He looked at Randolph, who was sitting with his arms around his knees. His hood hid his face, but the moment Ted moved he leaned over and said, “What’s the matter now?” He was not exasperated; he sounded as if things being the matter was the way of the world and it was to Ted’s credit to have noticed.

“This song bothers me,” said Ted, speaking softly.

“Which of your play-makers now?”

“None of them. I know the tune, and some of the lines, but not the story. Is this a normal kind of song for the Hidden Land?”

“No,” said Randolph; “but Conrad was no normal kind of king.”

Somebody touched Ted on the shoulder; he looked around wildly, and Andrew let go of him and laid one finger across his own mouth in a gesture that any parent might have used.

“Sorry,” whispered Ted. He turned back to Randolph and said, “Our talk’s a trial to Lord Andrew; will you walk apart with me?”

Randolph grinned at him, the grin that made you feel pleased and clever and as if the world were not in such bad shape after all. “Gladly,” said Randolph, and got up, and gave his hand to Ted. Ted needed the help; one of his feet had fallen asleep, and he felt, of a sudden, shaky inside, as if Andrew had given him an ominous look instead of a mildly rebuking one.

They walked away from the fire, following a little path in the grass that the army had made when it camped here, and that animals, or perhaps other human wanderers, had kept clear until now. Ted trudged all the way to the quarry, Randolph behind him. Their breath steamed in the starlight. A few late insects creaked industriously. The quarry was a circle of quivering silver surrounded by ghostly white rocks. Ted sat down on one of these, and Randolph sat down beside him.

“What was the matter with Conrad?” said Ted. He added, “Which Conrad was this? The one who wouldn’t mend the Great South Door?”

“Nay; his grandson,” said Randolph. “The fourth of that name. He was King when Melanie and her brothers did murder the unicorn.”

“Did he think it was his fault?”

Randolph nodded inside his hood. “Some had warned him; but he so trusted the brothers of Melanie that he did summon and ask them if this were truth. And they said it was not; and so the Hunt was held as always, and the unicorn killed.”

“So,” said Ted, “he decided he would never listen to anybody he knew? That’s just like somebody in a fairy tale.”

“Knowing he had given his trust amiss,” said Randolph, rather sharply, “how could he bestow it again?”

So that was what was the matter with him. “That’s foolish,” said Ted. “Did he expect never to make any mistakes?”

“Some must not be made,” said Randolph, with finality.

Ted did not have the courage to argue further. “Why did Andrew want Ruth to play the song?”

“He trusted the Lady Ruth, and thinketh now that she doth betray him,” said Randolph, slowly. “Also, very like, to sting me. He knows the King did trust me and I did betray him.”

Ted reflected that a great many kings seemed to have been betrayed in the Hidden Land, one way or another. He said, “Ruth’s afraid we’ll meet the King in the land of the dead.”

“Her fear is my hope.”

“Are you mad?”

“Not now,” said Randolph.

“Fence told you—” began Ted, and stopped.

“Oh, I may do nothing; I have promised,” said Randolph. “Wherefore my hope lieth in thy mischance.”

“Thanks a lot.”

Randolph did not trouble to answer this, which was probably just as well. Ted looked at him, but there was nothing to see. He sat still, as he had sat beside the fire, his hands laced around his knees and his hood half over his face.

If Ted had still been Edward—if Randolph had thought he was, he amended quickly—he would have had no qualms about telling Randolph that he was on no account to so much as wish for death. As Ted, he felt he had no rights one way or the other. And it was painful to speak of Edward, who might come back and might not. And who, if he did, might very well kill Randolph. Ted stared gloomily across the shining surface of the water to the high white cliffs opposite, muffled in starlight and a little mist. It looked like the land of the dead here and now. If he closed his eyes halfway, he would see the shapes of the rocks waver and grow familiar, and would meet himself and the counterparts of his four relations.

“Jesus Christ!” said Ted, and grabbed Randolph’s arm. “We can’t take Andrew down there! He may or may not see the dead King and ask him awkward questions; but he’s bound to see the dead children; we need to talk to them. Oh, criminy, what a dull pupil you’ve got yourself. When do you suppose I’ll bethink myself what to do about it?”

“They’re singing still,” said Randolph.

Ted took a deep breath. “All right,” he said, trying to think like Patrick. “Either we come up with a good reason to keep him out, or—or we tell him the truth. Why is it, Randolph, that in the Hidden Land one is always faced with such wonderful choices?”

“Is it otherwise in your country?”

“Well, probably not. But it was for me, except in the game.” Ted shoved his hood back. “Except in the damn game,” he repeated, bitterly.

“An this were yet thy game, what wouldst thou choose?”

“Oh, if it were the game, it would be easy. We’d think of an ingenious excuse to keep Andrew outside, but something would happen that would oblige him to disobey, and he’d come and figure everything out and be mad as hell.”

“Truly?”

“Truly, my lord. Because that would be more interesting.”

“And now?”

“And now,” said Ted, “I think we’d better tell Andrew the truth.”

“There’s no interest in that course, then?” Randolph sounded as if he were about to laugh.

“Less, anyway. He’ll want to come to the land of the dead just so he can sneer at it. He’d hate making the discovery down there and being made to look like a fool. And he’s already suspicious; if we tell him now, and let him think this is what everybody is nervous about, maybe he’ll let his suspicions about the King’s death lie quiet a little longer.”

“That he discover my crime is a greater evil than that he discover thy nature?”

“Damn right,” said Ted.

Randolph was silent.

“Well, isn’t it? What would he do?”

“Refuse thy orders.”

“Fine. He has to take yours, doesn’t he?”

“So long as he proveth not my crime.”

“Well, he can’t prove it, can he?”

“I know not. He hath with him on this journey, by his own request, Julian and Jerome, who do not love me.”

“Well, if he won’t take my orders and he won’t take yours, whose would he have to take?”

Randolph pushed his own hood back and shoved both hands through his hair, exactly as Ellen would do. “His own.”

“Which is all right, or not, depending on whether he is in fact spying for the Dragon King.”

“Aye. We might do better to let him discover the truth by seeing those children below the earth.”

“Well, if they tell him his sister killed them, maybe he’ll think again about whatever plots he has with her.”

Randolph looked thoughtful. “Aye. Our word would not suffice. He and Claudia are very fond.”

“How the hell can they be very fond when she’s the most powerful sorcerer in the entire place and he doesn’t even believe—oh, never mind,” said Ted. “I don’t want to know. All right, let him find out the hard way.”

“What troubleth thee else?”

“Ruth,” said Ted. “Why did she smile like that? Did Lady Ruth ever smile like that?”

“I never saw her so,” said Randolph.

“Do you know anything about this contriving of Melanie’s, this stuff in the back of the head?”

“How should I?” said Randolph. “When in all our history have we had strangers that are the doubles of our dead to walk among us?”

“I’ll talk to Ruth, then; I want to know what she thinks happened.”

There was a meditative and uncomfortable pause.

“Well,” said Ted, “now you know what all I’m worrying about. What are you worrying about?”

“We’ve heard naught from Fence,” said Randolph, at once.

“Could our message have gone astray? Should we send it again?”

“There’s little harm in the trying,” said Randolph.

They sat on amid the cold rocks. The nearby singing broke up in laughter. Somewhere in the distances of Ted’s mind, Edward said, I will friend you, if I may, in the dark and cloudy day. The singing began again.

“Don’t call us,” said Ted, a little wildly, “we’ll call you.”

“What’s that?” said Randolph.

“Edward just offered to friend me in the dark and cloudy day.”

“I knew not he spoke to thee as well as in thee.”

“Well, that’s a recent development. And, having watched Ruthie’s face this evening, I don’t think I like it.”

Randolph pushed his hood back and looked at Ted for a moment. His pale face was all angles in the moonlight, and the curling black hair stuck to his forehead as it would stick to Ruth’s or Ellen’s. His eyes were shadowed. He said, “Spoke Edward thus? ‘I will friend you, if I may, in the dark and cloudy day’?”

“Yes, exactly,” said Ted, rather unsettled.

“That’s from a song,” said Randolph. “Canst tell Edward from the other voices in thy mind?”

“I never had any voices in my mind until I came to this mad country!” said Ted.

“Thou canst not, then?”

“No,” said Ted, ashamed of his irritation. “I thought it was all Edward. What else could it be?”

“When we come to Gray Lake,” said Randolph, “I will know.”

“And when thou knowest, oh counselor, wilt thou tell me?”

“Of a certainty,” said Randolph; and in his voice was something Ted found very comforting, and something he found fearful. Neither of them said anything more.