When the imp that had been sent to examine Denoriel's clothing returned, Pasgen was again wrestling with the red mist, which ate anything introduced into its space. Even small amounts of the mist, wisps swallowed by larger creatures, would slowly consume the host from within. Pasgen had twice needed to make an englobing shield large enough to contain a host rapidly disintegrating into red mist and remove the ravenous thing to the domain where he had first found the stuff.
Thus Pasgen did not immediately collect the information the imp had gathered. A few days or a few weeks would make no difference. There was no particular hurry, after all. Whenever he was ready to do it, the girl was dead. This needed no elaborate planning, no army, no changeling substitute. Pasgen had decided he would simply go to Hatfield disguised as Lord Denno, go into the garden with the child, stab her or strangle her, leave her there, and flee.
Lord Denno would be blamed and hunted not only through England but in all other places where England had influence or even simple contact. Even an enemy would not shelter a monster who murdered an innocent eight-year-old girl-child, much less the beast that had slain the king's daughter. So Pasgen would not only have fulfilled Vidal's order, he would also have destroyed any usefulness Denoriel would have in the mortal world. All his "friends" all his "connections" would be lost to the Bright Court.
But there was no hurry. Pasgen continued to work with the red mist as a week passed, wondered why it could not eat the globe of power in which he contained it, began to consider whether the boundaries between the domains were a kind of wall of pure power. He made notes of this information and considered how he could test it.
In the containment room far below, the imp squalled with hunger and diminished in size as it consumed its own substance to remain conscious and coherent. Although he did not wish to, Pasgen heard; he was attuned to the containment room where he held prisoners and subjects of experiments. First he calculated how long the imp could be ignored before it lost the information it had been sent to gather. Then he wondered why he did not simply collect the information and let the imp go. And then, at long last, he understood that he had been delaying because he did not wish to kill a child.
She was not important, he thought. Let her grow to maturity. When she was a woman . . . But the purpose of killing Elizabeth had nothing to do with Elizabeth herself. It had all to do with reestablishing Vidal as prince of Caer Mordwyn. Pasgen sighed, glanced once more at the red mist, and created a Gate that took him to the containment room and winked out of existence as soon as he arrived.
The imp fell silent when Pasgen appeared, quivered a bit as Pasgen extracted from it everything it had seen in Denoriel's clothes press, and disappeared as Pasgen released it from the spell that had bound it to observing Denoriel's clothing and simultaneously sent it out into his domain. There it would return to its usual task of gleaning anything, creature or plant, that faded or died. Thus it would keep Pasgen's property flawless and regain substance.
Rather disturbed by the revelation that killing Elizabeth would not be pleasant and that it was his own reluctance, not his concern for Rhoslyn's feelings, that was deterring his action, Pasgen determined to act and be finished as soon as possible. Reviewing the images of the garments the imp had discovered in Denoriel's clothes press, Pasgen chose what he believed was a sufficiently elegant suit for visiting a princess and created it on his body.
His next act was to create two packets of twenty golden half-crowns, which he dropped into his purse. Scowling at the way the purse now dragged at his belt, Pasgen removed the rolls of gold coins. After a moment's thought, he tucked the bribe into the front of his doublet. Before a mirror, he recreated Denoriel's silver hair, the round ears and round pupils of mortals, set his hat on his head. He shuddered slightly. He did, indeed, appear to be his half-brother.
Pasgen turned away from the mirror and considered his options for entering Hatfield. He could not take the not-horse. Nor could he use the Gate he had created to escape from Elizabeth's apartment when they had tried to abduct her. That Gate would open into her bedchamber if he tried to reawaken it and Denoriel never visited Elizabeth's bedchamber. Neither of those options seemed viable, and he dismissed them.
However, the imp he had sent to watch for visitors had passed along other images, one being the path that led to the main entrance of the palace, now closed, and the branch that led around to the entrance to Elizabeth's wing. He could create a temporary Gate just at the beginning of that side path and walk. His lips thinned a trifle at the thought of the energy he would need to expend to create a new Gate, but then he shrugged. He could renew his strength in almost any Unformed land.
The creation of the Gate went smoothly, although the echo of the energies involved sent the air spirit rushing through the palace and the garden. By the time it actually found the Gate, Pasgen was walking unhurriedly along the path toward the palace. A brief inner survey showed the air spirit a Sidhe; an even briefer outer survey showed a familiar face and figure. The air spirit had no capacity to wonder why a Gate had been created, when its master usually arrived on Miralys. It returned to the vicinity of Elizabeth.
The guards at the gate both smiled and wished Pasgen a good day, calling him Lord Denno. He only nodded in return to the greeting, not certain how Denoriel would respond, but he did not cross the courtyard, which would have taken him close to the stable. He slipped around the far edge of the open space taking any cover he could find, until he was able to reach the door to the great hall of Elizabeth's wing.
No one questioned him; many smiled and would have spoken but he quickly begged pardon and claimed a need for haste. In the audience chamber, real good fortune smiled on him. Mistress Champernowne was giving instructions to one of the grooms, but when she saw Pasgen, although she looked surprised, she came forward with an outstretched hand and a broad smile.
"I am so glad to see you," she cried. "Whatever did Elizabeth say to you to drive you away for so long? She has been weeping over it in secret, although she will not confess. Or was it my fault, saying you were coming too often? I am so sorry, Lord Denno, but we are warned not to allow Lady Elizabeth to become too attached to anyone not appointed by her father."
Pasgen took her hand and kissed it, although he shuddered inwardly at the need to touch a mortal. Still, it was a small price to pay her for supplying so much necessary information. He now knew exactly what to say.
"No, no. Really the fault is mine for taking some umbrage at your kind hint. I am aware that the king's children must be carefully guarded but I was . . . hurt. The fact is that I needed to be away for some time and I took a petty revenge by leaving without a word instead of warning you about my absence. I, too, am sorry and I have brought a little token of peace."
So saying he extracted the rolls of half-crowns from his doublet and pressed them into her hands. She stared, lips parted, as she felt the weight of the coins.
Too much, Pasgen thought. It seems that Denoriel is not as generous in paying his way as I believed. Then he realized he need only make this sound like a special bribe and she would accept it.
He leaned forward. "Since Lady Elizabeth still seems to remember our quarrel, perhaps you would send her into the garden where I could talk with her alone?"
"Yes, of course," Kat Champernowne said, looking at the rolls of coins in her hands. "I will make sure she goes to meet you too and doesn't suddenly conceive of a will to be stubborn." And she helped him again, by waving him toward a door he would not have noticed but Denno would surely have known.
Through the door was a well kept but narrow lawn and a short, stone-paved path to a gate. Pasgen went through the gate, closing it behind him, and along the gently curving path that led deeper into the garden. When he was just ahead of a curve that would hide him from the house, he stopped. Two or three steps would take him and the girl out of sight—at least from the garden gate and the windows of the lower floor. If someone was looking out of the windows above, they would be able to see what he was doing, but they would be too far away to help or even summon help before he was gone.
He did not have long to wait before the garden gate opened and a girl-child with bright red hair and an upright carriage came through. Behind her was a maid. Pasgen's lips thinned. He had told that stupid woman that he wanted to speak to Elizabeth alone. He tried to think of a spell that would prevent the maid from following Elizabeth and yet not alarm the child so that she would run away.
Just as the words formed on his lips, he swallowed them back. Was that not the maid that had struck and then damaged Aurelia? If it was, she might be protected, and if the spell failed to take hold, she would cry out and warn Elizabeth. Let the child come closer. He would deal with the maid when it was necessary.
In the event something better happened. The maid looked at Pasgen and then stopped near the gate as the child came forward. Pasgen moved back a few steps and then a few more, until he was sure that he and Elizabeth would be hidden from the house and the maid at the gate. He would have liked to go a bit farther, to where he now saw there was a side path even better concealed, but the child was frowning and she was still not in arm's reach.
"Why are you wearing those strange clothes?" she asked.
Strange clothes? But they had been in Denoriel's clothes press, so he must have worn them. Perhaps not recently, Pasgen realized. And then he noticed that Elizabeth was wearing a very plain gown. Possibly he was overdressed?
"We had quarreled," he said. "I wished to wear my very best to show I was sorry."
She dropped her head a little and did not move forward. Pasgen stopped backing away. Elizabeth looked around at the walk, at a row of bushes that divided the bed of flowers near the path from a bed that fronted another path. She seemed to understand that the bushes would hide them from sight and Pasgen was afraid she would insist on returning to where the maid could see them, but she did not.
Instead she asked sharply, but in a low voice that would not carry, "Where is the letter from my Da?" And she held out an imperious hand.
Taken completely by surprise, Pasgen opened his mouth, closed it. Was Denoriel acting as messenger for a secret correspondence between King Henry and his daughter? That was ridiculous, impossible to believe. Whatever could she mean? Ah. It was not impossible that the child, thinking Denoriel of more influence than he was, had asked him to carry a letter to her father.
"I have no letter from your father," he admitted, "but—"
"I told you—" she began angrily, taking another step toward him—and then blinked and murmured, "My father . . ."
She backed away a step. Pasgen reached out toward her—not too fast. He did not wish to startle her into full flight when he could see she was not ready to run. She was staring at him intently, and then he realized that alarm was growing in her eyes. Pasgen took two quick steps forward, now almost touching her, and an ache began deep in his bones.
"Elizabeth," he said softly but intensely. "Put your cross in its special pouch. You know I cannot bear it."
Somehow what he said had been horribly wrong. The child's eyes widened and just out of his grasp she turned to run, whispering, "You're not my Denno," over her shoulder.
Teeth gritted against a rising agony, Pasgen leapt forward. It would take almost no time for him to break that scrawny little neck. He need only withstand the pain for a moment, he told himself, as he threw an arm around her. But what lanced through his arm was no sharper ache; it was a torment he had never expected, as if his forearm above the wrist had been pierced with a red-hot poker and sparks from it flew up along the arm to his elbow.
He released the child, thrusting her away with his other hand so forcibly that she stumbled forward a step or two and then fell. He had somehow twisted her as he pushed so that she had fallen on her back, and he saw that the black iron cross lay bare on her breast. His arm throbbed in waves of agony and an ugly aura rose from the child, who was fumbling at her side, perhaps to bring out another cross.
"Blanche," she shrieked. "Blanche, come quickly!"
Pasgen hissed, "Silence!" as if it were not already too late—his keen ears could hear hurried footsteps beyond the curve of the path.
Her neck was thin and naked. He would not need to touch the cross. One squeeze . . . Pasgen forced himself one step forward. Pain drummed in his bones and the injured arm felt as if it would burst open to allow lava to pour out. Another step.
"Blanche!" Elizabeth screamed, trying to slide herself backward.
Her heel was caught in her gown and would not grip the earth. Her hand scrabbling at her belt pulled up the chain of her tiny housewife with its needles and pins and spool of thread and tiny scissors. Scissors! The iron cross had made him let her go. The scissors were also iron.
"If you try to put your hand on me," she quavered, "I will stab you with my scissors. Iron scissors. I will stab you."
The pain—burning in the flesh and lances of agony down his bones—was so intense that Pasgen's vision was blurring. His right arm hung useless at his side, feeling stiff and bloated, the fingers too swollen to bend, and a flower of blue-white agony bloomed just above his wrist.
Scissors. If she stabbed him, if the iron came into contact with his naked flesh, it would be far worse than what the cross had done through the silk of his sleeve. For one moment, Pasgen hesitated. But that this puny mortal girl child should threaten him raised such a flood of fury in him that he took another step toward her, prepared to fling himself atop her and break her neck.
Only a flaming arrow pierced his cheek and suddenly the whole world was afire. And a woman's voice, strong and resonant, was chanting words he did not understand, but they were wrenching at his power, tearing him loose from the world. He heard "Be gone" and screamed, because the backlash from his collapsing Gate, also torn from its anchor, battered at him, bruising his flesh and cracking his bones. A void opened, impenetrable blackness, waking in him terrors he had not known since infancy, and he cried, "Mother!" and saw Llanelli's face, and saw no more.
As she ran toward Elizabeth, Blanche Parry managed to wrench off and throw one of her iron crosses at Pasgen. It struck him on the cheek, raising a red welt, and he staggered back, away from the child. Blanche then unhooked her necklace and waved it over Elizabeth, chanting the strongest spell of exorcism she knew.
Elizabeth was weeping in gasping sobs, struggling to sit up, her eyes almost black with shock. The creature in outdated court clothing no longer looked much like Lord Denno to her. His hair was now gold rather than silver, his eyes were a different color, more gray than clear green although they too were oval-pupilled like a cat's, and his ears were longer and more pointed than dear Denno's. Worse, his whole face was twisted with rage and pain.
"Be gone!" Elizabeth screamed as for one moment more he seemed to strive to throw himself at her, but then he screamed too, and . . . vanished . . . crying "Mother" as he disappeared.
Blanche threw herself down beside Elizabeth and gathered the child into one arm, still holding the necklace with its many iron crosses high between them and where Pasgen had been.
"My fault. My fault," she breathed, holding Elizabeth tight. "As soon as I saw those clothes—years out of date they were, and all wrong for coming to visit you—I should have known there was something wrong with Lord Denno. I should have taken you back to the house."
Elizabeth took a deep tremulous breath and her shivering began to diminish.
After a few minutes more, Blanche murmured, "I don't feel any bad thing anywhere near now, lovey. Do you think if I help you, you could walk back to the house?"
"Not yet," Elizabeth whispered. "If I go back now, everyone will see that I have been crying and believe that Lord Denno did something wrong. There's an arbor with a bench. Let's go there and sit."
Blanche frowned fiercely. "What do you mean they will believe Lord Denno did something wrong? I saw him threaten you!"
As she spoke, Blanche lifted Elizabeth to her feet. The bench was no great distance and, although Blanche was nearly carrying Elizabeth for the first few steps, the child grew stronger and steadier and sat without support when they reached the seat.
After a while, Blanche said, "I cannot believe that Lord Denno tried to hurt you, but I saw it with my own eyes. What could have driven him to do such a thing?"
"It wasn't Denno," Elizabeth whispered, taking Blanche's hand and clinging to it. "He looked like Denno, but his hair was yellow, not white, and somehow . . . I don't know . . . his face was wrong, not Denno's. And . . . and he thought I meant my father when I said 'Da.' Denno would never make that mistake. And he . . . he told me to put away my cross . . ."
"Told you to put away your cross!" Blanche stared at her with round eyes, but they were eyes full of belief, not disbelief. "No. Lord Denno would never do that. You must be right, lovey. It was someone who wanted us to think he was Lord Denno, so Lord Denno would be blamed—" Blanche's voice stopped abruptly and she folded her lips over what she had been about to say.
"For—" Elizabeth shuddered. "For killing me?"
"More like for stealing you away," Blanche said firmly.
Denoriel had just bid good afternoon to Joseph and drawn from the letter press a particularly thick and creamy sheet of parchment—he thought paper would not be elegant enough for a note to the duke of Norfolk—when the air spirit erupted into the chamber, shrieking, "Come! Come! Danger! Come! Danger!"
The creature winked out and Denoriel jumped to his feet. "Miralys," he called silently, "go to the stable in Hatfield. I am coming."
He ran headlong toward the back of the house and into the kitchen. A dryad looked up from some tubers she was scraping, but she said nothing as he careened across the room, through the door, and down the stair that led to the wine cellar. About two-thirds of the way back, he squeezed between two tuns. A pointed finger changed a spot of deeper blackness into an arch of stone, within which was a shield-shaped glimmer. One spot brightened at his mental demand. Denoriel, slightly dizzy with the expenditure of power, stepped forward and was in Elizabeth's bedchamber.
Empty! No scent, no feel of Unseleighe presence. He did not call for Blanche. He could not sense her either so she must be with Elizabeth. That reduced the terror that had almost blanked his mind, and he hurriedly slid out of sight of the door beside a large wardrobe, grateful that no one had been in the room when he stepped through the Gate.
Catching a shuddering breath, Denoriel sent a summoning to the air spirit, which appeared before him, cheerfully bouncing up and down on nothing. Firmly Denoriel subdued a violent desire to catch the little glittering nothing and tear it glitter from glitter. However, to express haste or anger would only muddle the creature further.
Denoriel swallowed hard. "Where is the danger?" he asked quietly.
The air spirit hung quietly for a moment. "None now. You were danger. Try to hurt child. Lady throw cross. Child cry 'Be gone.' Pulled on link. Took me elsewhere. Found you. Came back. Danger gone."
"I was the danger? I threatened harm to Elizabeth?"
The air spirit did not respond. Denoriel probed gently in its mind, saw himself in clothes he had not worn since he and George Boleyn disported themselves among London's amusements. A chill pervaded him. Only Pasgen looked enough like him, possibly "felt" enough like him, that the air spirit would make a mistake. Blanche would only have seen "him" and thought no more about another visit. Elizabeth? Elizabeth could see through illusion, but Pasgen looked like him without any illusion.
Denoriel shivered. "Gone where? Where did the danger go?"
"Ask child."
"Elizabeth?"
The air spirit bounced acceptance of the name. Surprise, disbelief, anxiety flickered through Denoriel's mind. He knew that Elizabeth could see through illusion, but that she could spell-cast, he could not accept. She was not yet eight years old, for Dannae's sake. He doubted Treowth had been able to spell-cast at eight.
"Where is she now?"
"Garden. With lady. Crying."
Crying? Elizabeth? He could not remember seeing Elizabeth cry. She must have been terrified. "Go back to her," Denoriel said to the air spirit, collapsed the Gate behind him, and cast the Don't-see-me spell.
Under its protection, he went to the door and listened. Nothing. Carefully he cracked the door a hair. Nothing immediately visible through the crack. Slowly, slowly, he let the door open—as if it had not been fully closed and was drifting open of its own weight. The room was empty.
With similar precautions he made his way downstairs and through the audience chamber. Softly, carefully, he unlatched the garden door and then watched until the leaves stirred with a breeze. A little push sent the door open and Denoriel slipped out just as Nyle caught the door and began to wiggle the latch.
He left the guard frowning at the door and hurried along the path, finding Blanche and Elizabeth just as Blanche said, "What do you mean they will believe Lord Denno did something wrong? I saw him threaten you," as she helped the child to her feet.
Denoriel shrank back around the curve, hoping Blanche would not sense him or the spell. She could not see through it, but Elizabeth could. He followed carefully, behind the dividing bushes and crouched down when they reached the bench and sat. His lips thinned when he heard Blanche accuse him again, but a moment later he almost threw caution away and leapt out when he heard Elizabeth say "It wasn't Denno." She knew. He could go to her and comfort her. He drew a breath to call her name and clamped his teeth over the impulse.
Fool! He was a fool! Yes, Elizabeth had seen through Pasgen's disguise, had seen the small differences between him and his half-brother. But how would he explain how he just happened to appear in Hatfield moments after an attack by a person who looked very, very much like him when he was supposed to be in London waiting for a ship to bring him a letter from Harry.
He was relieved when Blanche accepted Elizabeth's reasoning and agreed that it was not Denno who had offered harm. He was glad that Blanche had fixed on abduction as the worst threat. There was no need for the child to be more frightened; however, Denoriel's own heart clenched with fear. He suspected that Vidal wanted a more permanent solution to the threat of Elizabeth coming to the throne, and from the tension in the maid's body, she, too, feared Elizabeth was meant to die.
Denoriel backed down along the hedge, afraid that either the maid or Elizabeth would sense the storm of rage and fear that was shaking him. How could he protect her? He did not believe he could cast a shield around her as he had done for Harry. Harry never sensed the magic, but Elizabeth might, and might feel confined or suffocated.
He bit his lips and strained to hear, but Elizabeth and Blanche were discussing what to tell Mistress Champernowne. Denoriel gritted his teeth. It had been much easier with Harry, who had known from the beginning that he was a "good fairy," an "elven knight," and was not surprised or frightened when Denoriel did inexplicable things or appeared suddenly in places he should not have been. And Elizabeth—he felt disloyal for the idea, but truth was truth—Elizabeth was far keener of mind than Harry had been.
He could not stay and guard her himself; Blanche would soon sense his presence if he were close indoors, and Elizabeth might see right through the Don't-see-me spell. And he suddenly realized he could not wear the Don't-see-me spell for very long; his knees already felt soft and there was a hollow inner trembling in his body that warned him he would soon need to go Underhill to restore himself.
Underhill. Aleneil. She was welcome in Elizabeth's inner chambers where he was not. Between them he and Aleneil could surely arrange something. Still, he was not displeased when he heard Elizabeth say uncertainly that she should perhaps tell her governess the truth about the attack. That would provide Elizabeth with human guards at least. But after a considerable hesitation Blanche warned her to think about it a little.
"If you tell Mistress Champernowne, she will blame me for allowing you to go off alone with Lord Denno." Blanche sighed. "That would be only just. I deserve to be blamed, but—but another maid would be even less use in feeling the presence of evil. I am better than nothing."
"No!" Elizabeth flung her arms around Blanche and hugged her tight. "No. I will not tell, ever. You are the only one who feels what I see. If not for you, sometimes I would think—" her voice dropped "—think I was mad."
"There is another thing," Blanche said thoughtfully. "You cannot really explain to Mistress Champernowne why you believe the man who attacked you was not Lord Denno. Therefore, she will exclude Lord Denno from those allowed to visit you or, if you insist on seeing him, will surround you with guards. She must, Lady Elizabeth. Whoever it was will not again make any of the mistakes that betrayed him this time."
"But—" Elizabeth began and then shook her head.
She had never told even Blanche that Lord Denno was not a man as other men, that he had huge emerald green eyes with the slit pupils of a cat, that his ears were long and pointed, the tips showing through his hair. Thus she could not tell Blanche that the person who attacked her had much thinner and sharper ears and different-colored eyes.
Blanche cocked her head at Elizabeth's expression, but Elizabeth only shook her head; she could not explain, and, after another moment, Blanche sighed and added, "And I . . . forgive me, my lady, but I am not able to guard you as I should. It seems I cannot see clearly enough. I thought that person was Lord Denno."
There was a silence while Elizabeth thought about how frightened she had been and how much safer she would be with Gerrit and Nyle or Shaylor and Dickson watching. But then she could never talk to Denno about her Da. The guards had been her half-brother's, and "knew" he was dead. They had never said so, but their expressions . . . She very nearly began to cry again, but she swallowed the ache in her throat and thought about letters.
No, it would not be safe for the guards to see or hear about such an exchange. They knew she was not supposed to receive or send FitzRoy letters . . . Not that she had got any letter yet. Would there ever be a letter? Could a letter just be bait to draw her near? But then why had not that . . . that person held out a letter to her? She would have come close to take it and he would have had her.
She swallowed hard, wondering if that could have been Denno disguised and then disguised again just to seize her? For a moment she clutched Blanche's hand tighter, then relaxed her grip. No, that was silly. Denno would have held out a letter to her. That . . . person knew nothing, not even that it was her half-brother she called "Da," not her father.
"I would not want to be surrounded by guards when I am with Lord Denno," Elizabeth said slowly. "Sometimes Denno and I have . . . private things to say to each other. But I do not think whoever that was could hide himself from me again—and you may be sure I will not let even the real Lord Denno come close enough to seize me."
"Clever Lady Elizabeth! That is very wise."
Blanche gently drew her hand from Elizabeth's and the child released it readily. Then the maid took a small cloth from the pouch at her belt and moistened it with rose water from a small flask, also from the pouch. She used it to wipe Elizabeth's face, replaced everything, and tucked a few wisps of Elizabeth's hair more firmly under her headdress.
"There, love," she said, "no one will know you were crying now."
Elizabeth nodded and sighed. "I will have to tell Kat that Denno and I have quarreled again, so she will not wonder why he did not accompany me back to the house and bid her farewell. Let us hope that the real Lord Denno does not come tomorrow with a big smile on his face."
Was that a warning, Denoriel wondered? Had Elizabeth felt his presence and tried to warn him away? No, surely she was just voicing a fear. But he had been thinking about coming the very next day. Aleneil could guard her this afternoon, but what about the night? If he could Gate into her bedchamber, Pasgen could do so also.
Behind the hedge, Denoriel's knees gave way and he knelt, fighting back waves of faintness. He must go Underhill, and soon. And he could not come here tomorrow. If "he" arrived two days in succession, it would wake doubts in Mistress Champernowne. He would talk with Aleneil; perhaps she would know what to do. His head was spinning.
Meanwhile, Blanche carefully brushed Elizabeth's gown and straightened her headdress so there should be no sign of her struggle on the path, and they set off for the palace. Denoriel watched them go, and then forced himself to his feet and made his way out of the garden to the stable, where he dismissed the Don't-see-me spell in a patch of shadow just inside the door.
He stood there, leaning on the wall and breathing hard. Slowly the effects of using too much magic became less acute. He stood up straight. As long as he did not need to cast another spell, he could manage. As soon as he stepped into the light, Ladbroke went to fetch Miralys, who was in the rearmost stall.
"No one saw you ride in, m'lord," he whispered, handing the rein to Denoriel. "And what happened? I felt . . . well, I'm not sure what I felt but it was like a thunderclap."
Denoriel could only hope that no other mortals had been aware of the magical disaster, but Ladbroke had lived Underhill; he might be sensitized to magical events. And it was just as well, Denoriel thought. He had to warn Ladbroke about Pasgen. That was safe enough; Ladbroke and Dunstan remembered living Underhill, but were bespelled never to be able to mention it or magic or spells.
"Blanche drove off an Unseleighe disguised as me," Denoriel said. "I think the thunderclap was the collapse of the Gate he came through."
He didn't dare say that Elizabeth had banished her attacker and he was not certain of it; the evidence of air spirits was not always perfectly reliable. As it was, Ladbroke's eyes widened in alarm.
He did not acknowledge in any way what Denoriel had said about the Gate, instead he said, "A person came disguised as you, Lord Denno? My lord . . . My lord, how are we to be able to tell . . ." Miralys shifted, and Ladbroke's eyes were drawn to the elvensteed's head gear, which he could see, but mostly wasn't there. "Miralys?" he whispered.
The elvensteed's mane suddenly turned bright red, lifted into the air as if whipped by a mighty wind, and turned to brown again as it drifted down exactly as it had been.
Ladbroke began to laugh, then breathed out a long sigh. "Yes, it's Miralys. No one could ever make a copy of a horse like this one. You're Lord Denno all right."
"Good man. So, if you see 'Lord Denno' and Miralys is not in the stable or somewhere near, throw a horseshoe at him or try to tap him elsewhere with iron."
"Will do, m'lord. I'll set Tolliver to watching too. He's pretty good friends with the gardeners and suchlike. The lady won't come out of the house but there'll be eyes on her."
"Good! And warn Dunstan too. Lady Elizabeth is not going to tell Mistress Champernowne what happened because she is afraid that will result in Blanche being dismissed and the removal of Lord Denno's name from the accepted visitor's list, so Dunstan must be told. Not the guards, though, or I'll find myself with a steel sword through me."
"You would, too," Ladbroke said, smiling. "It's like Lady Elizabeth is a precious heirloom handed down from the duke of Richmond. She's a lot tarter than His Grace, but they're all mad about her. They really would die for her, and kill for her . . . gladly."
Just as well, Denoriel thought. Definitely just as well.