"Those trees were not there before," he said.

"What trees?" Diane asked.

"The trees outside the circle."

"You don't understand," she said. "From this place you see everything the way it was when the castle was created. At the time it came into being this land was wilderness, with only a few wild tribes or occasional hunters following the few paths that ran across it."

They continued their climb and finally came to the great entrance, which led into a large room, a sort of reception hall, thought Duncan. The floor was of well-fitted, colorful flagstone, and from it ran up several other short stone staircases leading to other parts of the castle. Candelabra set in the walls flared with thick waxen candles, lending a soft light to the hail.

In the center of the hall stood a six-foot column of stone, three feet through, and at the sight of what crouched atop it, Duncan and all the others stopped short in their tracks.

"Come on," said Diane impatiently. "It is only Scratch. There is no need to fear him. I assure you he's quite tame and harmless."

Slowly they went forward, the creature on top of the column watching them intently. The creature spoke to them. "Only Scratch, she says, and she speaks right, as she always does, for she is a very truthful and even a kindly person. You see before you, either for your pity or your contempt, a demon straight from the pits of Hell."

"He always dramatizes," said Diane. "He stops all who visit to tell his story to them. There's no one now, of course, who can judge how true it is, but he has much to tell. Give him the opportunity and he'll talk an arm off you."

"But what is he?" asked Duncan.

"He is what he told you, a demon out of Hell. He has served as doorkeeper here for almost as long as the castle has existed."

"That is what they designate me," said Scratch, "but I keep no door. I am chained here to this column as a subject for ridicule by humans, who more often than not make great sport of me. Rather, it seems to me, I should be an object of deep pity, the most unfortunate of creatures, a runaway from my place of origin, but not a true resident of this palace of opulence and glory. Gaze upon me, please, and see if I tell you wrong. See my crumpled horn, observe the hump upon my back, the clubfoot that I carry, my crippled hands, clenched and held as in a vise by arthritis, the result of the foul and damp and chilly climate of this most barbarous of countries."

"Scratch, shut up," Diane said sharply.

"And please," said Scratch, "look upon my tail which, along with his horns, is the pride of any demon. Look upon it and tell me if it seems a thing of pride. Broken in three places and never set properly, although the setting of it would have been as child's play for any competent chirurgeon."

"Scratch," said Diane, "I command you to be silent. Stop this endless chatter. Our guests have no interest in you."

All that Scratch had said of himself, Duncan saw, was true. The last third of his tail took the form of an amazing zigzag, as if it had been broken and no attempt made to reset the bones, or if an attempt had been made, it had been very badly done. His left foot was clubbed, at least three times as large as it should have been, and with a misshapen hoof enclosing the malformation. Above the clubfoot a long chain was riveted, hanging in a loop to the floor, the other end of it set into a heavy metal staple sunk into the stone. An unsightly hump rode his shoulder blades, forcing the upper half of his body into an awkward forward thrust. The left horn atop his head was perfectly formed, short, but stout, the other horn distorted and grown to greater size, ridged with ugly wrinkles like the markings on a clam shell, and bent close against his forehead. His outthrust hands were twisted and bent, the fingers convulsively half closed.

Conrad moved closer to the column, reached up to touch one of the crippled hands. "You poor son-of-a-bitch," said Conrad.

Diane spoke coldly. "Let us proceed. He is no one to waste your pity on."

20

First Diane administered to the wounds, smearing salve on Conrad's gash, swabbing off Andrew's abraded face and rubbing soothing unguent on it, cleaning out the small cut on Duncan's head. Meg, who had come through without a scratch upon her, sat in a chair too high for her, with her feet dangling off the floor, cackling as she recalled her part in the battle.

"Faith," she said, "the old girl knew what she was about. I got well down to the ground, well out of all harm's way. I killed no single one of them, for I had not the strength to do it, but I discommoded them. I found a stout branch that had fallen from a thorn tree and from where I crouched upon the ground, I cracked them in the shins. They did not know what hit them, and I whacked with all the strength I had in my scrawny arm. But I made them hop and flinch, and as they hopped and flinched, m'lord smote them with his blade or the hermit speared them with his staff."¨

"Always in the gut," said Andrew proudly. "The gut is a soft place and easily penetrated with a determined blow."

"I don't know how you managed it," said Diane. "I got there as quickly as I could, but…"

"Our arms were strong," said Conrad sanctimoniously, "because our cause was just."

The doctoring over, they explored the larder and found a haunch of beef, well roasted, a large loaf of wheaten bread, a wheel of cheese, a platter of fried fowl left over from the day before, a small pigeon pie, a keg half full of pickled herring, and a basket of juicy pears.

"Cuthbert, when he does not forget to eat," said Diane, "is a trencherman of note. He likes good food and, too often, far too much of it. He is no stranger to the gout."

Now they sat around the table in the kitchen, where Diane had done her doctoring, the medications pushed to one end of the table, the food set on the other.

"I must beg your pardon," Diane said, "for serving you in such a lowly place, but the dining room is far too splendid. It makes me a bit self-conscious. It is too splendid a room for my taste and, I would suppose, for yours as well. Also, once the meal is done, there is much china and silver to be washed and dried and put away again. It is too much work."

"Cuthbert?" asked Duncan. "You have spoken of him often. When will we be able to talk with him? Or will we?"

"Most certainly," said Diane, "but not tonight. There was a time when he would sit up half the night, working at his desk, but of late years he has taken to going to his bed at the coming of first dusk. The man is old and needs his rest. And now suppose you tell me all that's happened since the day I first met you in the orchard. There have been rumors, of course, of the things that you have done, but you know how rumors are. Not to be relied upon."

"Nothing great," said Duncan. "We have, it seems, stumbled from one disaster to another, but each time have managed to escape by the skin of our teeth."

They told her, chiming in on the story by turns, while she sat listening intently, her head bent forward, the flare of the candles making another flame of her shining hair. One thing Duncan did not tell her, and the others did not think to, or noticing that he had omitted it, made no mention of it-and that was about the finding of the amulet in Wulfert's tomb.

Watching her as she listened, Duncan debated whether he should go back along the story's trail and tell her of the amulet, but in the end he refrained from doing so. Certainly, he knew, it was a thing that would greatly interest her, and perhaps she had a right to know-most surely had the right to know if Wulfert truly had been kin of hers, as she had said.

Finally, when the story was all done, she asked of Wulfert. "You remember that I was seeking him," she said, "or rather, some word of him, for he must have long since been dead. You, Sir Hermit, before we were interrupted by the hairless ones, seemed to indicate that you knew of him. For some reason you did not explain, you appeared to be greatly distressed."