I’ll be happy to do your little wish, if you’ll come nigh that I may hear.”
Smail glared. “Stand fast,” he told Rupert. Crabwise, to keep the giant covered, he approached the locomotive.
Will simpered at him. “Look, I unbuckle my zaber in earnest o’ faith,” he called. The weapon dropped on the stones. He leaned far over the side. “Pray, zir, cloase an’ loud.”
He has a thought, Rupert knew. When the Round-head’s gone as near as he will, I’ll make distraction… “Ha, beware!” He roared from full lungs. In the instant when eyes flickered, Will Fair-weather whirled over the rail. His boots spurned it, he soared through a meteor’s arc, he struck Smail and they went down together. The blunder-buss crashed.
Rupert sprang across the paving. Dragoon and stationmaster rolled about at each other’s throats.
Rupert got hold of an ear, dragged Smail’s head around, drove fist to chin. The man went boneless. Will crawled from beneath. “What a snock!” he gasped. “It shivered me too. Did you kill tha lout?”
“Nay, he’ll but sleep awhile. Thou—” Rupert seized the narrow shoulders. “Oh, Will, thou couldst’a been slain!”
“Tha blast did tickle my whiskers, zir.” A shrug. “ ’A be a fool, him. Never zaw that for me’twould’a been better indeed, gettin’ blown oapen right off, than wai’tin’ to dangle.” A grin. “Think o’ tha mess I’d’ve left for him to scrub.”
Rupert remained grave; nor did he let go his clasp. He spoke slowly: “My valiant friend, say no more ‘lord’ to me. From this day forth, I would be ‘thou’ to thee.”
“What? H’m? I doan’t follow your Highness nohow.”
“Is’t not English usage? When two of German kind would be dear comrades, they agree they’ll henceforward call each other du—’thou,’ not’you’ on either side. I’d fain make it thus between us twain.”
The dragoon blushed and shuffled his feet. “Oh really, zir, thic ben’t riaght. I’d never bend this tongue’round zuch a way o’ speakin’ to your Highness.”
Rupert frowned. “I want it so.” Will snapped to attention. “Aye, zir. If you… thou zay’st zo. I zuppoase tha order doan’t hoald whan we be with other great loards like, like thy Highness?” He pulled loose. “Zir, we’ve no time to spill on speeches. Tha bang o’ thic gun be bound to draw onlookers.”
Rupert nodded. “Right thou art. Don thy saber again. Reload the blunderbuss—there must be powder and shot in the stationhouse—bind mine host here inside—shoo off whoever comes, telling them our business is secret, urgent, and official. I doubt any’ll be armed. Nevertheless, we need haste as we need air. I’ll uncouple the wagons, turn the engine, signal ahead that we’re on a special mission—clear tracks for us, have refills for man and machine alike ready in Stoke—then disable the semaphore. God willing, I can get it done in an hour.”
“I hoape I fiand a cup,” Will said. “After thic zort of hour, my gullet’ll be too parched for practicin’ these thous o’ thine till’tis had a princely rinse. Be that why tha Germans drink on it?”
Rain-brooding weather had slowly been driving eastward, and now the locomotive was headed straight into it. The afternoon was blue-gray, sun-beams which slipped past ponderous cloud masses a brazen color which, despite its hardness, pervaded the green of meadows and leaves until they seemed to glow by their own light. Farmsteads huddled widely strewn across ever steeper hills, hamlets were rare along the serpentine railbed. Wind shrilled chilly through chug and clatter. Sometimes it bore a few drops; they stung.
Will hunched to warm his hands at the filled firebox. “Brrrr!” he said. “Why’ve we not walls an’ a roof around us?”
“Has a helmsman shelter at sea?” Rupert answered from where he stood. “On zome ships’a do.”
“A wooden cab would too likely catch fire from stray sparks.”
“An’ an ieron one’d cost.’Tis cheaper to replaece men as tha’ get cough an’ fever. Though o’ coua’se your Puritan measter will tell you’a leaves’em out in tha oapen for to strengthen their moaral fiber.”
Rupert adjusted a valve. “Have cheer. We ought to be in Llangollen about nightfall.”
“Couldn’t we wait till tomorrow, an’ meanwhile fiand dry quarters? It ben’t zeemly tha Prince Palatine arrive like what might be called a drowned rat, zave that rats got better zense.”
Rupert shook his head. “We met a surprise in Buxton, well-nigh lethal. Recall how suspicious they were in Stoke—”
“Tha’ stoaked us, though. What a ham!”
“—no matter that they’d received our message. Were’t not that Cromwell’s conquered so widely around, making it hard to imagine anyone defying him still, they might well have tried to hold us for investigation. Sithence… thou’st seen the burnt-out shells of houses. I know not how far the Round-head sway extends. Too chancy, stopping to inquire anywhere short of Wales.”
Will clanged the furnace door shut and rose to stand beside his leader. “Canst thou not ask o’ thy ring?”
Rupert turned a whetted glance upon him. “What mean’st thou?”
The dragoon gestured at the asp circlet. Its jewel glinted wan. “Thic, what Queen Titania gaeve. Aim it at a buildin’ along our way. If help’s within for us, tha stone’ll light up.” He hugged himself and sneezed. “True, maybe’twoan’t reckon just keepin’ us dry o’ernight, with a posset or a cup o’ mulled wine inzide, be worthy of its tellin’ us about. Howsomever, no harm tryin’, hey?” He yawned prodigiously. “We’ve had no rest zince yesterday morn. Thy Highness be young, an’ made o’ well-oiled steel; but take pity on an oaldster who’d dearly love a nap if’a didn’t keep gettin’ roused by tha clunkin’ o’ his eyelids.”
Rupert scowled at the facets and rubbed a bristly cheek. “Um-m-m… the further in hours and miles from yonder moon-dream, the less real it seems. What did truly happen? And why?”
“ ’Twar real enough to maeke thy ring a beacon this mornin’, when thou drew’st near tha train what delivered us.”
“Indeed? I saw not.”
“I did, my loard. But than, beliake I be in tha habit o’ heedin’ zuch winks, an’ thou not.”
“No doubt. Which one of us does right? How far dare I obey this thing around my finger? A single inch?”
“Hoy, theare! You’d not cast the treasure away, dwould you?”
Rupert’s shoulders slumped beneath their own weariness. His voice dropped likewise. “I’m duly grateful to thee, trusty Will, and… Jennifer… and, well, well, perhaps those others. Yet what can we be safe in thinking of them? They could be gaudy lures, mere will-o’-the-wisps above a thin-decked pit—the Pit itself.
Or tricksters, stirring us to rush about as boys may stir an anthill; they’re not human. Or, if well-meaning, fools who toy with flame. Or fools more shallow still, too worldly-wise to bear in mind the next world.”
His companion stared aghast. “Highness Rupert! You’ll not now let tha Calvinist in you o’erriede tha Cavalier?”
“I do not know.” Torment filled the words. “I do not know, forgive me.” Then suddenly the prince drew himself erect. “Aye, I do! Take it howe’er thou wilt, this much is certain: we cannot go astray if we but follow the Word of God and duty of a soldier.”
“Too strait a road, if straight-aimed at defeat.”
“But free of snares and mire. God’s will be done, for laurels here on earth or crowns in heaven. Meanwhile, I swore an oath to serve my King, not chase a moonbeam when he needs me most. We’ll seek his court.”