Modwis snatched off his hat, a tear running down his cheek.
But Lady Bountiful jumped to her feet and ran toward the winding downward path.
"Whoa, there!" Rod leaped, and caught her arm. "No, milady! The rocks haven't stopped falling! You could still be crushed!"
"Yet we must search to aid any who may still be living!"
"They couldn't be," Rod assured her. "That was a hundred feet, straight down. No one could have survived it, even without the castle falling on top of them."
"What a horrible death!"
"Yes. It would have been, if any of it had been real."
"How sayest thou, sir! How can they have been otherwise?"
"He doth speak so because all have no substance, who build themselves up through false pride," Modwis answered. "Is't not so, Lord Gallowglass?"
"Or false modesty, either," Rod agreed. "Either way, what little there was of them that might have been genuine is lost. Come away, Sir Knight and Fair Lady—this is no place for such virtuous folk as yourselves."
And slowly, they turned their eyes from the sight of the ruins of High Dudgeon, and came down to a less exalted, but also less spurious, world.
Chapter Twelve
Beaubras's horse was as good as his master's word, and came at his whistle. Fess, of course, had already arrived, holding the reins of Modwis's donkey in his teeth. So, horsed again, and with Lady Bountiful riding pillion, they set off into the sunrise.
Unfortunately, the sun never quite made it that morning, and the rooster lived up to his name. The reason hit them in midafternoon, hit them by the gallon—or a gallon a minute, more likely. The wind lashed them with rain and howled in delight at their discomfiture, without the slightest impediment—they were on an open moor, and the wind was bound and determined to drive them out of its domain.
Modwis gasped, "Wizard! Canst thou not find shelter?"
"Yeah—right over there!" Rod pointed toward a dim glow in the murk. "Sir Beaubras! Lady Bountiful! Head for the light!"
They looked up, saw him veering away, and saw the glow beyond him, too. They turned to follow.
It seemed a lot farther than it was, but finally they found themselves pounding on the door of a ramshackle cottage. Rod waited, then pounded again and, finally, the door creaked open a crack, revealing a suspicious yellowed eyeball surmounted by off-white fuzz.
"We're travelers, caught in the storm!" Rod called. "Can you let us in till it's over?"
The eye seemed to snarl something like, "Into the sea with 'ee," and the crack narrowed; but Rod had shoved the toe of his boot in, and kept enough room to call out, "Our party includes a knight and his lady!"
The pressure on his toe eased, and the yellowed eye widened. So did the crack, revealing a mate to the yellowed eye, a whetstone of a nose, and all around both of them, a wealth of wild, disordered hair that would have been white if it had been washed within the last month. It was hard to tell where the beard left off and the mane began, and the mouth was hidden in a curve between moustache and beard.
The eye locked onto Beaubras and Bountiful, and the door opened all the way, revealing an emaciated, wrinkled form inside a long tunic, almost long enough to be called a robe, with two lumps of rags showing under it. "Aye, then. Come in, come in from the damp."
Rod streamed in thankfully, wondering what the old man considered "wet," and very much misliking the gleam in the eye as Lady Bountiful passed in front of it.
"Blessing on thee, goodman," Beaubras said, taking off his helmet.
"I've no robes to offer ye, but there be fire." The old man turned away to throw some more peat on the single flame. The fire licked up, and the knight and lady came to it. Rod stepped up beside them. "Are there but the three of ye, then?"
"We have another comrade, who said he would take our beasts around to thy shed. Wilt thou permit it?"
"Aye," said the hermit, looking distinctly unhappy about it. "Yet there be grain within; let them not eat of it too greatly."
"We shall pay for whatsoever they eat, and that with gold," Beaubras assured him, and the hermit's eye lit with a gleam that was almost a blaze. Rod resolved to keep his own eye on their host.
The door creaked, and Modwis stamped in, streaming buckets. He saw his friends and moved over toward the hearth, holding out his hands to the flames with a sigh. "Bless thee, goodman, for thine hospitality!"
Rod could have sworn he saw the hermit wince, possibly due to the reminder that he was a host, which in turn reminded him that he was supposed to offer food to his guests. "I've little enough, gentles, yet thou art welcome to what I have." His tone belied the statement. "There is beer and barley, and a sack of turnips. An egg, too, if the fowl is right-minded."
Rod suppressed a shudder, and Beaubras said delicately, "We have provision, goodman. Wilt thou share our provender?''
"Wine." Modwis held up a pair of saddlebags. "Salt beef and biscuit."
The hermit's mouth watered. "Aye, certes that will be welcome! And now that I think on't, I may have a tuber or two laid by. Shall we fill the kettle, then?"
The stew brewed stronger as the daylight faded, and they ate from wooden bowls (from the saddlebags) by firelight. It made the squalid hut seem almost cozy, chiefly by hiding the worst of the grime and filth.
"Meat and drink do ever cheer the heart." Beaubras sighed, setting down his bowl.
"Yes." Rod smiled. "A full stomach and a warm fire always do make the future seem more rosy."
Modwis sighed and leaned back. "Who can look to tomorrow, when the day is long and the body weary?"
"Do ye not ken yer fortunes, then?" asked the old hermit, a gleam in his eye again.
His eye spent a lot of time gleaming, Rod thought—too much time. He sat forward, deciding to give the man all the rope he wanted. "No, I don't, matter of fact. Seeing the future is one gift I lack." Strictly true, on the face of it, though he could have made arrangements…
" 'Tis one I do not lack," the old man said, sitting rock-still.
The hovel was quiet for a moment.
Then Lady Bountiful smiled, eyes bright. "Hast thou truly the Sight?"
"In very fact," the hermit averred. "Give me thine hand, and I shall tell thy fortune."
"Tell, then!" Lady Bountiful held out her hand with a merry smile.
The hermit took it, caressed the back long and lovingly as he turned her palm up, then stroked it twice, a rapt smile coming over his face.
Rod frowned and glanced at Beaubras, but the knight was leaning back with a genial smile, apparently seeing nothing amiss. Rod turned again to Lady Bountiful, who was managing not to shudder at the hermit's touch.
"Thou shalt have wealth and happiness," the old man claimed. "See, thy Line of Life is long, and crosses with the Line of Love near to its beginning. Thou shalt wed a man most excellent, and that quite soon."
Beaubras frowned, but Lady Bountiful seemed to find nothing amiss. She turned back to give Beaubras a roguish glance. "Shall we wed so soon, then, my lord?"
"As soon as thou shalt say," the knight returned gallantly.
"And thou." Regretfully, the old man let go of the lady's hand and reached out for the knight's. Beaubras frowned, but held out his palm. The hermit took it, looked, then stared. "How can this be? Thy Line of Life is broke in five places!"
"What meaning hath that?"
"Why, it doth signify that thou shalt die, yet shall live again, and not once, but five times whole!"
" Tis but a seeming." The knight smiled, amused. "I never truly die."
The old man gave him a very fearful look, but seemed to be reassured by the knight's open, smiling face. "As thou wilt have it, my lord." He turned to Modwis, dropping Beaubras's hand like a hot rock. "And thou?"