She shook her head.
"There's so much I want to say," he mumbled. "SomethingI wanted to say something to let you know how much you mean to me."
He pulled away, leaving her reaching for him over the fence. "All I could think of was when we were twelve. Remember when we played hide-and-seek in the orchard? That day? I dream about it all the time. Have, ever since."
Turning away to face the darkness, he said, "That's allI remember that day. Goodbye, Lena."
She screamed after him but he ran with renewed energy. Armiger deduced he wanted to get as far from the cottage as he could before whatever was coming found him.
Perce ran around the goat pen and down a laneway that led between more orchards. Low fieldstone walls lined the laneway, and in the darkness they closed in claustrophobically. Perce's eyes stayed down though; he seemed to know what in the dark he was afraid of, and it was nothing that might lurk behind those walls.
He had gone perhaps half a kilometer, and was beginning to stagger desperately, when he heard a ripping sound overhead. It was a sound almost like a flag in the wind, almost like the blurred noise of a sword on the downstroke, but it went on and on, rising to a deafening crescendo. Dust leapt from the laneway around Perce, and he coughed, and stopped helplessly.
Giant claws crushed him. He shouted blood as they spun him around and pulled him into the sky.
Perce saw his hands reaching down to the receding lines of the laneway, then he saw the jewel-box perfection of Lena's cottage glowing below him. It was intact. Drops of blood trailed off his fingertips and fell toward it.
Darkness fell over him like a cloak.
Armiger cursed, and opened his eyes. Megan stood above him, her expression quizzical.
Something had severed his link to the remote.
"What is going on here?" he asked himself.
Megan laughed lightly. "I was about to ask you that myself. What are you doing?"
He shook his head, scowling into the night. Suddenly the shadows Diadem cast across the clearing didn't look so benign.
I have to leave , he thought. But, looking up at Megan, he found he didn't want to say that to her. In its own way, that was as disturbing as the vision he had just had.
He pushed the heel of one hand against his forehead, a gesture one of his lieutenants had favored.
"You're a mess," Megan said sympathetically.
Armiger thought about it. Then he squinted up at her. "Dear lady," he said, "I believe you are right."
His horse snorted and turned to look at him. Axel stretched and grinned. "You hate to wait, don't you?" he said to her. She swung her head away again.
He had gone into town to look for discrete lodgings for August, and to buy a good pair of horses for Calandria and Jordan. He'd found the lodgings, but not the horses. It was a good start.
He cantered over to the wagons. "Making camp?" he inquired of the driver of the wagon that sat square in the middle of the gateway. The man looked at him wearily.
"Everybody's a comedian. Sir," he added, noting the way Axel was dressed.
"Seriously, what's the hold-up?" One very large wagon blocked the wrought-iron gates to the estate. Axel supposed he could ride around through the underbrush. He didn't, but leaned forward as the other man pointed down the road.
"Breakdown up ahead."
Axel laughed. "Some things never change. Any chance you can move that cart a meter or two and let me by?"
"Yes, sir." The driver urged his horses forward a bit. Axel's own steed balked at the narrow opening between the stone gate post and the side of the wagon, so he dismounted and led it through.
Six or seven wagons waited on the roadway ahead. He didn't bother to mount again as he passed them.
Funny, he thought, but these wagons looked awfully familiar. Then he looked past them, and understood why.
Turcaret's steam car sat wreathed by smoke and mist a little down the road. The controller himself stood next to it talking to a pot-belled man in greasy velvet robes. Axel passed the lead wagon and walked up the center of the road to meet Turcaret.
When he spotted Axel, Turcaret turned and casually waved. He was a tall man who appeared forever to be posing for his own portrait. He wore a red velvet riding jacket, and spotless black boots. He stood ramrod straight and held his chin high so that he could look down his long, pointed nose at Axel.
"Ah, the wandering agent of Ravenon," he said. "I see you made use of my suggestion to visit the Boros. How is the lady May?"
"Never better, sir." Axel peered into the pall of smoke around the steam car. He hated Turcaret. "Having a little mechanical problem?"
"Nothing we can't fix. I've sent a man ahead to tell Yuri we're arriving. I trust you've found the Boros' accommodating?"
"That we have." What was Turcaret doing here? He had outlined his travel itinerary at length in several tiresome dinner conversations prior to their arrival at Castor's. Cal had decided to take up the hospitality of the Boros family precisely because Turcaret was not expected to come here. The fewer people to compare notes about them the better.