TEN
QUESTIONS

“Tell us,” Ravenna said, and Garth did. He explained how he had found Maximilian, and he explained about Maximilian’s doubts, his denial of his own identity and his insistence that there was nothing beyond the hanging wall.

Both Venetia and Ravenna turned aside at that, obviously distressed at the thought of the man trapped for so long within the darkness of the earth.

Garth repeated the riddle Maximilian had told him. “Do you know what it means, Venetia?”

Venetia chewed her lip thoughtfully, her eyes guarded as she shared a glance with her daughter.

Garth shifted impatiently, both irritated and unnerved by the glances between mother and daughter. That they knew something was obvious, yet Garth feared they might just shake their heads and turn away.

But eventually Venetia replied. “The first two lines obviously refer to a time when need is great—and if it is Maximilian trapped beneath the hanging wall—”

“It is,” said Garth, low and fierce.

“If it is Maximilian trapped beneath the hanging wall,” Venetia repeated, irritated herself now, “then the need must necessarily be great.”

“And you were right to say that the Manteceros is a dream,” Ravenna said, her grey eyes steady on Garth’s face, “for he is nothing but.”

Venetia nodded. “And the last two lines, Garth Baxtor, indicate that we must set the dream free—”

“Set him free into this world,” Ravenna murmured. Now her eyes were distant and dreamy, and after a minute she lowered them and averted her face.

“So he can test the king’s true worth.” Venetia finished, and took a deep breath, adding almost to herself, “Is Maximilian a changeling, or is he true? And what form is the test?”

“An ordeal, the scroll said,” Garth explained, and told Venetia and Ravenna what little he had discovered in the library. “If there is more than one claimant to the throne, then the Manteceros must administer an ordeal.”

Venetia shuddered, and her face became very still.

Garth hesitated. “Will you help me?” he asked again, looking between the two. “Can you find the Manteceros?”

Venetia stared at him, then nodded her head.

“Perhaps, boy. Come,” her tone turned brisk, and she turned to the table.

Garth blinked. He could have sworn that when last he looked the table held nothing but the saddlebags and the packages of herbs. Now bread, cheese and sausage were spread across thick white platters, while mugs of frothy ale stood to one side.

He jumped. Venetia had placed her hand in the small of his back and was gently pushing him towards the benches that had appeared as mysteriously as the food.

“I would that you share a meal with us, Garth,” she said gently.

“My father—” Garth began.

“Your father will not fuss if you stay the afternoon. Now, sit.”

Garth sat.

“And while we eat, Ravenna and I will attempt to explain the marshes to you.”

Venetia sat herself on a bench on the opposite side of the table, but Ravenna slid onto the bench that Garth sat on. He slid a little self-consciously to its far end. Neither Venetia nor Ravenna paid him any heed.

Venetia carved up the sausage and cheese, heaping generous portions on three plates, while Ravenna handed the mugs of ale around.

“Thank you,” Garth murmured as he accepted both food and ale, and took a quick sip from his mug. The ale was rich and foamy and soothing, and Garth relaxed. “What is it that I saw in this hut, Venetia?” There was no trace of mist or cavernous space left.

“You only saw the marsh, boy.” Venetia put down the piece of sausage she held and nodded at her daughter.

“The marsh is halfway land, a border land,” Ravenna said quietly to Garth’s side. “It lies halfway between the sea and the land, and is composed of both. Sometimes the land seems dominant, sometimes the sea.”

“And the marsh is also a border land between the land of wakefulness and the land of dreams.”

Garth swallowed his piece of bread and cheese. “There is a land of dreams?”

“Assuredly,” both marsh women said together.

“And I could reach the land of dreams through the marsh?” he said slowly.

Ravenna took a sharp breath and looked at her mother.

“You would find it hard, boy,” Venetia said softly. “You could see into the land of dreams—and did, when you saw the hut dissolve into mist—but you would find it all but impossible to walk alone into the land of dreams.”

“It is his Touch,” Ravenna said, and refilled Garth’s mug from a jug.

Garth frowned. “What?”

“Ravenna means that whatever gives you the ability to Touch probably also allows you to see into the land of dreams.”

“But you said that my father never saw the dream land.”

Venetia smiled, and Garth felt his shoulders tense again. “Your father commands not a fraction of the Touch you will one day, boy.”

Garth ran his tongue about his lips and pushed his plate away. “Will you take me into the land of dreams, Venetia? I must find the Manteceros and bring him out.”

Venetia laughed merrily at the vehemence in Garth’s voice. “You will not find that so easy, methinks, boy.”

Garth’s face set into determined lines. “Will you take me, Venetia?”

She waved a hand airily, and smiled a little at her daughter. “Perhaps, Garth Baxtor, but I would ask you a question or two first.”

Yet it was Ravenna who asked the first question, and when she did, it was not a question at all. She swivelled on the bench so that she faced Garth fully, and her face was expressionless and her eyes fathomless. “Your life seems full of coincidences, Garth Baxtor.”

Garth wondered why they were unable to ever refer to him simply as Garth. “What do you mean?”

Her expression did not change. “How strange that Maximilian has been down the Veins for some seventeen years, and yet none have discovered his identity until you went down.”

“And how strange,” Venetia continued quietly, “that within hours of your going down the Veins for the very first time you should find yourself with your hands wrapped about Maximilian’s arm.”

“When Joseph, as you have informed us, knew Maximilian in childhood and yet has never met him after some twenty years of attending those trapped down the Veins,” Ravenna murmured, her stare relentless.

“I—” Garth began, but Venetia gave him no chance to finish.

“And, stranger yet, methinks, that this street trader should press the medallion on you and speak of the dream. Who is he, I wonder?”

“Stranger still,” Ravenna whispered, and now her eyes were almost febrile, “that your father should send you out into the marshes this day. Send you to the only one who can find the Manteceros for you.”

Garth’s eyes shifted back to Venetia. “Venetia, I cannot explain these coincidences, and I had not even realised them myself until you voiced them for me. Venetia, will you take me?”

Again she interrupted, as if she had not heard him. Her eyes were as feverish as those of her daughter now. “He is caught up in some web, some plot, that I cannot see, Ravenna.”

“Nor I,” her daughter whispered. “Is he dangerous?”

Venetia’s hand suddenly snaked across the table and caught Garth’s wrist in a vice-like grip that belied her fragile bones.

Garth gasped, and instinctively pulled his hand back. But Venetia’s grip held firm. She took a slow, deep breath, her gaze riveted on Garth’s face. “No,” she eventually said slowly, “no, I think not. He is a good boy. And, as you said when you held his hand, Ravenna, he has a warm and courageous heart. I think that I like him, too.”

Garth could feel Ravenna relax at his side, but he did not look away from her mother. “Please,” he said softly, “will you help me find the Manteceros?”

Venetia held his eyes, her own light grey eyes unreadable. Then her lip curled slightly. “No.”

Garth recoiled, and this time he did manage to tear his wrist from her grasp. “No?”

Venetia’s mouth curled into a full smile now. “No. I am not able to find the Manteceros for you. Wait, boy. Let me explain. I have not the power for it. But—”

The walls and ceiling about her dissolved back into mist. “But my beautiful, powerful daughter can. And that, boy, is the supreme coincidence. Among the marsh women there has not been one as powerful as Ravenna for three, perhaps four hundred years. A generation to either side, Garth Baxtor, and you would never have found the Manteceros and Maximilian would have mouldered to his death in the Veins.”