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“Things,” said Sameth. “Nothing you’d be interested in.”
“How do you know?” asked Ellimere. The familiar tide of resentment was rising between them.
“Toys,” snapped Sam, holding up his little batsman, which suddenly swung its tiny bat before freezing back into immobility. “I’m making toys. I know it’s not a fit occupation for a Prince, and I should be asleep getting ready for a fun new day of dance classes and Petty Court, but I . . . can’t sleep,” he concluded wearily.
“Neither can I,” said Ellimere in a conciliatory tone. She sat down in the one other chair, and added, “I’m worried. About Mother.”
“She said she’d be fine. The Great Stones will heal her.”
“This time. She needs help with her work, Sam, and you’re the only person who can do it.”
“I know,” said Sam. He looked away, down at Nick’s letter. “I know.”
“Well,” Ellimere continued uncomfortably, “I just wanted to say that studying to be the Abhorsen is the most important thing, Sam. If you need more time, you just have to say, and I’ll reorganize your schedule.”
Sam looked at her, surprised. “You mean take time away from the Bird of Dawning, or those afternoon parties with your friends’ stupid sisters?”
“They’re not—” Ellimere started to say; then she took a deep breath and said, “Yes. Things are different now. Now we know what’s going on. I shall be spending more time with the Guard myself. Getting ready.”
“Ready?” asked Sam nervously. “So soon?”
“Yes,” said Ellimere. “Even if Mother and Dad are successful in Ancelstierre, there’s going to be trouble. Whatever is behind it all isn’t going to lie still while we stop its plans. Something will happen, and we need to be ready. You need to be ready, Sam. That’s all I wanted to say.”
She got up and left. Sam stared into space. There was nowhere to turn. He had to become a proper Abhorsen-in-Waiting. He had to help fight whatever the Enemy was. The people expected it. Everyone depended on him.
And so, he suddenly realized, did Nicholas. He had to go and find Nicholas, to save his friend before he got in trouble, because no one else would.
Suddenly Sam was filled with purpose, a feeling of decision that he didn’t examine too closely. His friend was in danger, and he must go to save him. He would be away from The Book of the Dead and his Princely chores for only a few weeks. He would probably be able to find Nick quite quickly and bring him to safety, particularly if he could take half a dozen of the Royal Guard. As Sabriel had said, there was little chance of the Dead doing anything, what with the spring floods.
Somewhere deep down a small voice was telling him that what he was really doing was running away. But he smothered the voice with other more important thoughts, and didn’t even look at the cupboards that held the book and the bells.
Once the decision was made, Sam thought about how it could be done. Ellimere would never let him go, he knew. So he must ask his father, and that meant rising before dawn in order to catch Touchstone in his wardrobe.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sam Makes Up His Mind
Despite his good intentions, Sam overslept and missed Touchstone’s departure from the Palace. Thinking that he might catch him at the South Gate, he ran down Palace Hill and then along the broad, tree-lined Avenue of Stars, named after the tiny metal suns embedded in its paving stones. Two guards ran with him, easily keeping pace despite the weight of their mail hauberks, helmets, and boots.
Sam had just sighted the rear ranks of his father’s escort when he heard the cheers of the crowd and the sudden blare of trumpets. He jumped up on a cart that was stopped in the traffic and looked over the heads of the crowd. He was just in time to see his father ride out through the high gate of Belisaere, red and gold cloak streaming behind him over the horse’s hindquarters, the early sun just catching his crown-circled helmet before he passed into the shadow of the gate.
Royal guards rode in front of and behind the King, twoscore tall men and women, bright mail flashing from the vertical cuts in their red and gold surcoats. The guards would continue north tomorrow, Sam knew, with someone dressed as Touchstone. The King would actually be flying south to Ancelstierre with Sabriel, to try to forestall the death of two hundred thousand innocents.
Sameth kept watching even after the last guard passed the gate and the normal traffic resumed; people, horses, wagons, donkeys, pushcarts, pullcarts, beggars . . . all flowed past him, but he didn’t notice.
He had missed Touchstone, and now he would have to make up his mind all on his own.
Even when he crossed to the center of the road and turned against the tide flowing out of the city, his gaze was absent. Only the vacuum created around him by two burly guards prevented several pedestrian accidents.
Since Sam had started to think about going to find Nicholas, he found that he couldn’t stop. He was sure that the letter was real. Sam was the only one who knew Nick well enough to track him down, the only one with a friendship bond that finding magic could flow through.
The only one who could save him from whatever trouble was brewing for everyone around the Red Lake.
But that meant Sam would have to leave Belisaere, abandoning his duties. He knew that Ellimere would never give him permission.
These thoughts, and multiple variations of them, swirled through his mind as he and his guards passed under one of the huge aqueducts that fed the city with pure, snow-melt water. The aqueducts had proved their worth in other ways too. Their fast-flowing waters were a defense against the Dead, particularly during
the two centuries of the Interregnum.
Sameth thought of that, too, as he heard the deep bellow of the aqueduct above his head. For a moment his conscience twinged. He was supposed to be a defense against the Dead himself.
He left the cool shadow of the aqueduct and began heading along the Avenue of Stars before the wearying climb up the switchbacked King’s Road that led to Palace Hill. Ellimere was probably already waiting for him back at the Palace, since both of them were to sit in Petty Court this morning. She would be cool and composed in her judicial robes of black and white, holding the wand of ivory and the wand of jet that were used in the truth-testing spell. She would be cross that he was sweaty, dirty, inappropriately dressed, and unequipped—his wands had disappeared, though he had the vague notion that they might have rolled under his bed.
Petty Court. Belisaere Festival duties. Tennis racquets. The Book of the Dead. All of it surged up like a great dark wave that threatened to engulf him.
“No,” he whispered, stopping so suddenly that both his guards nearly ran into him. “I’ll go. I’ll go tonight.”
“What was that, sir?” asked Tonin, the younger of the two guards. She was the same age as Ellimere, and they had been friends since they had played together as children. She was nearly always one of his guards on his rare excursions into the city, and Sameth felt sure she reported his every movement to the Princess.
“Um, nothing, Tonin,” replied Sameth, shaking his head. “I was just thinking aloud. Guess I’m not used to getting up before dawn.”
Tonin and the other guard exchanged semi-tolerant glances behind his back as they moved on. They got up every day before dawn.
Sameth didn’t know what his guards were thinking, as they finished the climb up the hill and entered the cool, fountain-centered court that led to the west wing of the Palace. But he’d seen the looks they’d exchanged, and he had a general idea that they did not consider him the perfect pattern of a Prince. He suspected most of the city folk shared their opinion. It was galling to someone who had been one of the leading lights of his school in Ancelstierre. There he had excelled at everything that was important. Cricket in the summer and Rugby in the winter. And he’d been first in chemistry class and in the top classes for everything else. Here, he couldn’t seem to do anything right.
