The Talisman

mother still sitting by herself in the Tea and Jam Shoppe, wondering why she had let him go?
    Jack turned back and watched the long cart rattle through the gates of the summer palace and swing off to the left, separating the people who moved there as a car making a turn off Fifth Avenue separates pedestrians on a cross-town street. A moment later he set off after it.
    2
    He had feared that all the people on the pavillion grounds would turn toward him staring, instantly sensing his difference from them. Jack carefully kept his eyes lowered whenever he could and imitated a boy on a complicated errand – he had been sent out to assemble a list of things; his face showed how he was concentrating to remember them. A shovel, two picks, a ball of twine, a bottle of goose grease . . . But gradually he became aware that none of the adults before the summer palace paid him any attention at all. They rushed or dawdled, inspected the merchandise – rugs, iron pots, bracelets – displayed in the little tents, drank from wooden mugs, plucked at another’s sleeve to make a comment or start a conversation, argued with the guards at the gate, each wholly taken up by his own business. Jack’s impersonation was so unnecessary as to be ridiculous. He straightened up and began to work his way, moving generally in an irregular half-circle, toward the gate.
    He had seen almost immediately that he would not be able just to stroll through it – the two guards on either side stopped and questioned nearly everyone who tried to reach the interior of the summer palace. Men had to show their papers, or display badges or seals which gave them access. Jack had only Speedy Parker’s fingerpick, and he didn’t think that would get him past the guards’ inspection. One man just now stepping up to the gate flashed a round silver badge and was waved through; the man following him was stopped. He argued; then the tone of his manner changed, and Jack saw that he was pleading. The guard shook his head and ordered the man off.
    ‘ His men don’t have any trouble getting in,’ someone to Jack’s right said, instantly solving the problem of Territories language, and Jack turned his head to see if the man had spoken to him.
    But the middle-aged man walking beside him was speaking to another man, also dressed in the plain, simple clothes of most of the men and women outside the palace grounds. ‘They’d better not,’ the second man answered. ‘He’s on his way – supposed to be here today sometime, I guess.’
    Jack fell in behind these two and followed them toward the gate.
    The guards stepped forward as the men neared, and as they both approached the same guard, the other gestured to the man nearest him. Jack hung back. He still had not seen anyone with a scar, nor had he seen any officers. The only soldiers in sight were the guards, both young and countrified – with their broad red faces above the elaborately pleated and ruffled uniforms, they looked like farmers in fancy dress. The two men Jack had been following must have passed the guards’ tests, for after a few moments’ conversation the uniformed men stepped back and admitted them. One of the guards looked sharply at Jack, and Jack turned his head and stepped back.
    Unless he found the Captain with the scar, he would never get inside the palace grounds.
    A group of men approached the guard who had stared at Jack, and immediately began to wrangle. They had an appointment, it was crucial they be let in, much money depended on it, regrettably they had no papers. The guard shook his head, scraping his chin across his uniform’s white ruff. As Jack watched, still wondering how he could find the Captain, the leader of the little group waved his hands in the air, pounded his fist into a palm. He had become as red-faced as the guard. At length he began jabbing the guard with his forefinger. The guard’s companion joined him – both guards looked bored and hostile.
    A tall straight man in a uniform subtly different from the guards’ – it might have been the way the uniform was worn, but it looked as though it might serve in battle as well as in an operetta – noiselessly materialized beside them. He did not wear a ruff, Jack noticed a second later, and his hat was peaked instead of three-cornered. He spoke to the guards, and then turned to the leader of the little group. There was no more shouting, no more finger-jabbing. The man spoke quietly. Jack saw the danger ebb out of the