The Whim of the Dragon Read Online Free PDF Page B

speaks to thee also?”
    “Yes,” said Laura.
    “That’s why I thought we might be able to get them back,” said Ted. “We seem to be connected.”
    “Fence?” said Randolph; Laura concluded that, whatever Fence understood, Randolph did not.
    “You have not read in that book either,” said Fence, turning and staring at him. “But Edward hath.”
    “What book?” said Ted.
    “This speaking of Edward in the backward of your thoughts,” said Fence, “is a devising of Melanie, that she worked on Shan without his will. He wrote on it in his reports to the Blue Sorcerers, saying, ‘I must be all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.’”
    Laura doubted that that was what Saint Paul had been talking about, but this was no time to say so.
    “What bearing hath this on the present issue?” Randolph said.
    “A moment,” said Fence, and to Ted, “A cardinal did deliver you to this man in red?”
    “Then let his minions have the care of them,” said Randolph.
    “Randolph, for the love of heaven!” said Fence. “There’s no blame on the children.”
    “Is there not?” said Randolph. He jerked a wad of paper out of the long jacket he wore and flung it down on Agatha’s table. The top sheet was covered with Ruth’s round, back-handed writing. She wrote that way because a teacher had once chided the left-handed Patrick for doing it.
    “Didn’t Ruth say we didn’t know?” demanded Ted.
    “Evil done unknowing yet hath evil effect,” said Randolph.
    “Randolph,” said Fence, “that is ice so thin thy feet are wet e’en now. Let be.”
    “We thought we might be able to make it up to you,” said Ted.
    Scorn drew itself along Randolph’s face like ink spilling on the white tiles of a bathroom floor, and Laura felt cold.
    “Randolph,” said Fence; and Randolph shut his mouth. “How?” said Fence to Ted.
    “Have you told anybody about that?” asked Ted, pointing to Ruth’s letter.
    “No.”
    “All right. So we can prevent the civil war by pretending we’re the real royal children. And maybe we can tell you enough about our game for you to figure out what Claudia’s doing and why. And maybe we can get your royal children back for you.”
    “It was bravely done,” said Fence, in the kindest voice he had used yet. “But we will do well enough. Do you go to your homes and regard us not.”
    “You have got to be kidding,” said Ted. Laura recognized the signs of a monumental fury, and could not decide if she wanted to keep quiet or help him out. “How in the hell,” said Ted, “do you expect us to regard you not? We’ve lived with you for three months; and we lived with you for years before that, really. You’re part of our lives whether you like it or not. And I promise you,” finished Ted, in a dire tone Laura had seldom heard out of him, “that we’ll use whatever power we have to make your lives miserable if you don’t let us stay and help.”
    “Oh, that’s logic indeed,” began Fence, in a tone of exasperated amusement; but he was overridden.
    “That,” said Randolph, not loudly at all, “is the outside of enough. Begone from here and do your worst, or stay and regard ours. There are dungeons in High Castle deep enough for the likes of you.”
    Laura thought that Ted should have known better than to threaten Randolph.
    “All right,” said Ted. “All right. May I remind you of something? You—both of you—swore me an oath.”
    Randolph’s face was so terrible that Laura looked away from it. But Fence, after a moment of anger as monumental as Ted’s, simply sat down on the floor in the midst of his black wizard’s robes and laughed until he cried.
    There was a petrifying pause. Laura looked only at Fence. His giving up of dignity hurt less than Ted’s dirty tactics or Randolph’s loss of control. He had never been very dignified anyway. When he stopped wheezing and pushed his hair out of his red face, Laura, greatly daring, edged around Ted, sat down