Kingdom Of Argylle - A Sorcerer And A Gentleman Part 15

Secure from the bolts and arrows of the Empire's sentries, a bareheaded messenger carrying a green bough rode along the drover's road, then up into the canyon, and slipped out Sorcerer and a (jentUrnan 145.

of sight in a cl.u.s.ter of high-topped evergreens.

Among the trees, Ottaviano and Golias watched the big-chested bay horse trot toward them with tall Dewar in his bright cloak on its back. When he arrived, Otto held the horse's head as the sorcerer dismounted.

"You're not going to believe this one," Dewar said, grinning.

"Try me," Golias said. "He wants my head, and then it's all pardoned."

Dewar shook his head, grinning still. "Better than that." Otto handed the horse's reins to a groom, murmuring "You're welcome" to himself with a sidelong glance at Dewar. "Let's go inside, shall we?" he said aloud.

They walked to Ottaviano's tent. Ottaviano turned and said "Well?" softly as soon as they were inside. "The man has imposing taste in wine," Dewar said. "Everybody knows that," Otto said. "What else?" "He is imposing in height as well." "Dewar, knock it off. What did he say?" "I thought I'd start with things you'd recognize as true, to enhance the improbability of his proposal. Here you are: If you and Golias will haul up and trek off with him to join Prince Herne in his defense of the Holy Homeland against Prince Prospero-"

"Then the rumors are true!" exclaimed Ottaviano. Golias snorted.

"I said they were," Dewar said coolly. "I also said it worked to your advantage. If you will do this, you, Ottaviano, become Baron of Ascolet, and you, Golias, are pardoned and named Prince; you both are permitted to bathe in the Well's fire, taken into the familial fold, and bygones go by the board." Dewar smiled slightly. "I think there is not much flexibility in this offer. The Marshal indicated that several times, subtly; he murmured that the Emperor's clemency should not be tested." "Baron of Ascolet," muttered Ottaviano. "My first thought on hearing that, Otto, is that it is no less than your father had."

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I&zo6etfi "That is true," Otto said. "For Golias, pardon." "Which is no small thing, considering how they feel about you," and Dewar nodded to Golias.

"I don't give a black s.h.i.+t what they think. Anything else?"

"Not that he spoke of then. That may be the one item for which we can negotiate more: land for you."

"I'd settle for cash."

"You might not be able to get that. Wars tend to leave governments long on good intentions and short on coin."

"Cash on the nail," said Golias. "What do you want to do, Otto?"

"I'll have to think about it."

Golias snorted. "He's offering this now because he'll take heavy losses and probably lose."

"I do not tell futures," Dewar said, bowing slightly.

Otto leaned back and drummed his fingers lightly. "I'd rather have it be an independent country again," he said. "They will think I've sold short. I'll think I've sold short. For the privilege of facing down the man the Emperor fears more than anyone alive."

"Is there a deadline?" Golias asked.

"I said you would tell him tomorrow at the same hour and so on whether it be acceptable or we desire more time in consideration. If we attack or move in the meantime, he will consider that a refusal and hostilities go on as previously scheduled."

"I wonder if he's stalling for time," Otto muttered. This hadn't occurred to Dewar. He lifted his eyebrows.

"Why?"

They looked at one another and then at Golias, who, a veteran of war with Landuc, was most familiar with the opponent.

Golias said, "Reinforcements."

"Not that I've seen," Dewar said. "I wonder where they'd come from. They seem to be throwing everything to Herne. Rightly, too; Prospero is a greater danger, though distant."

"Then he wants to finish this up and head out after Prospero," Ottaviano decided. "Hm." He slouched further Sorcerer and a Qentfaman 147.

down in his chair, tipping it, and propped his feet on a chest. "Is there any advantage to us in continuing to fight here, now, if Gaston really wants to leave?" he asked, half-aloud.

"Prince Gaston isn't going to walk away from the fight," Dewar said, shaking his head. "Think of what people would say."

"No, no. I'd never expect that. Maybe if Prospero marched on the capital, Gaston would evaporate for a while and come back later," Otto said testily. "I wonder ..." His voice trailed off; he took his oblong red folding knife from his pocket and began tapping it against his left palm. "Prospero," he said in an undertone.

Golias poured wine for himself. "It's to Prospero's advantage that we delay Gaston here," he said.

"It is," Dewar said. "No doubt he's very grateful to you."

"How grateful do you think he is?" Otto asked his pocket-knife, cleaning a bit of grit from its handle with a fingernail, then opening the knife and beginning to clean his fingernails.

Dewar chuckled softly, shaking his head.

"What's funny?" Otto asked.

"I think it sounds like a good question," Golias said. "How grateful is he? Can he beat the Emperor's offer?"

"You just send round and ask him," Dewar said. "Do you think he doesn't know about you, about the war here? Of course he knows. If he were interested in prolonging it, you would have heard from him, or from a proxy." He glanced at Golias for a moment. "Have you?"

Ottaviano looked up from his knife, his attention caught by the sharp note in Dewar's voice. "Have you?" he echoed, when Golias said nothing.

"Not lately," Golias said. It was true; he had heard nothing from Prospero for the past twenty-five days. Twenty-five days ago, he had received payment in advance for the coming quarter's mayhem, a s.h.a.ggy pony trotting up to him with four bags of well-m.u.f.fled coins in its panniers. Golias had counted the coins, had slapped the pony and sent it trotting back wherever it came from, and a few days later had entered into contract with Ottaviano-at the rate of 14S -=>.

pay Otto had agreed to, which had been one and a half times Golias's last.

Otto had been somewhat surprised by the answer, but Golias had pointed out that the costs of doing business, for the independent man, had increased steeply.

"What did you hear and when?" Otto asked.

Golias gave Dewar a look of unveiled dislike. "I've worked for him," he said.

"Doing what?"

"That's confidential, Your Highness," Golias retorted.

"So it is," agreed Ottaviano, nodding. "I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to pry." Otto admired the underhanded, yet open, way in which Dewar had just made him aware that Golias's interest, after all was said and done, was in staying alive and getting paid for it, not in settling; had warned Golias that he knew more than Golias might like about the mercenary's business affairs; and had pointed out courteously that deals struck with Prince Prospero were unlikely to benefit anyone but Prospero. Dewar, one of these days, would make somebody a h.e.l.l of a Privy Counsellor.

"Don't see any point getting in touch with the Duke of Winds, now that you put it that way," Otto said, frowning a little. "If he wanted to exploit this, he'd have made an offer. Maybe what he wants is to face Prince Gaston fast- before he's had the expense of a drawn-out fight, before he has to spread himself out holding territory," He thought, trying to second-guess Prospero. Prince Ga&ton was probably much better at doing so. Ottaviano began fiddling with his pocket-knife again. "What was it the Marshal said about the offer, Dewar?"

"That the Emperor's clemency should not be tested. Those were his words," Dewar said. "I suspect strongly that the corollary is that, if you refuse now, there will be scant clemency later. Clemency does tend to decay, if not plucked promptly."

Golias grunted. "Clemency. Yeah. We get to go fight for Avril, instead of ourselves."

Dewar shrugged. "Fighting and causes and so on aside," he observed, "they are much alike, being baron of a large Sorcerer and a (jentfeman 149.

and powerful barony owing fealty to an Emperor and being king of a relatively small and poor kingdom neighboring the same."

"Alike?" Otto said. "What about the small clauses of fealty, requiring me to go fight Prospero if the Emperor tells me to?"

"Oh, well, that," Dewar said. "I suppose. Looking at it in terms of lives lost-" He shrugged again. That was Ot-taviano's problem.

Lives. Ottaviano hadn't considered that. How expensive might it be to hold Ascolet against a merciless and impatient Gaston, who might have men diverted from Herne if he so desired, reinforcements provided to speed victory here and free Gaston to meet Prospero? How long could Ottaviano hold out? Golias and his mercenaries would melt away as soon as Lunete's gold was all in their hands, and that would not take long, for they were expensive to hire. There would be no military a.s.sistance from Lys, for Lunete had-after such delays as she dared use-raised the Emperor's levy of troops there for Gaston and could send no more to Ascolet without treason.

If they were facing Josquin, who (from what Otto had heard) was far and away the least competent of the Princes, or one of Gaston's subordinates in the Imperial Army, the chance of victory would be much greater. Ottaviano had not expected to face the Imperial Marshal himself-nearly in person, the other day, separated by a dozen strides on the battlefield, swinging his long sword and lopping an arm off one of Otto's men. King Panurgus had appointed the Marshal because he was the best man for the job of defending and expanding Landuc. Emperor Avril had kept him on for that reason.

King of Ascolet, Baron of Ascolet. Which was better? It was easy for Dewar to toss off witty remarks about kings and barons. It wasn't his name, his future at stake. Ottaviano had decided when he first learned of his ancestry that he would be King of Ascolet, and by the Fire in him he would do it. But what did it mean to be king of a place conquered, precariously, at the cost of the lives of so many 150.

'Elizabeth of its able-bodied men? They had lost a tenth of their force already. Otto hadn't expected so many deaths, so much slow-killing pain and so many frozen bandages. Would the throne be secure, set on bones and blood of its own citizens? Otto opened and closed his heavy knife: big blades, little blades, awl-punch, corkscrew . . .

Suppose, Ottaviano thought, suppose he won here now and were deposed later, by citizens or Prince Gaston. Looking at it as a problem he faced from the Emperor's side, Otto would be dead. The Emperor took a dim view of rebellion; the fates of Prince Prospero's old friends and allies showed that. Dead was a pretty permanent state to be in. There wasn't much chance of improving it. A live Baron, however, might better his position at opportune moments - later.

Ottaviano snapped shut the blades of his knife, one by one. "I'll ask you, Dewar, to act as spokesman again, tomorrow," he said. "You'll tell him I accept the offer." "Surrender!" Golias exclaimed.

"If you don't want to be included," Ottaviano said, "I'll do what I can either to get you a safe-conduct or to cover for you while you leave. Up to you. We can try to freight that t.i.tle of Prince with more material ballast."

Golias looked at Ottaviano, imperfectly covering his contempt, "Surrendering," he repeated, shaking his head slightly, and he looked at Dewar disdainfully. Dewar seemed to be dozing in his chair, but Ottaviano saw his eyes glittering under lowered lids. "I'll speak for myself," Golias said. "I cut my own deals."

The silence was charged. Dewar said nothing. Ottaviano felt his face redden. The implied insult was galling; but Golias had said nothing answerable, nothing openly offensive. Otto couldn't challenge him for it. Perhaps he could take the quarrel to other terms and win.

He forced himself to relax, to smile, to nod. "Good enough," Ottaviano said. "You're your own boss, and you know best what kind of deal you want to cut." He paused, just long enough to let the topic go, and went on, "Speaking of cutting and dealing - weren't we going to play cards tonight?"

Sorcerer and a Cfentfeinan 151.

The young guard outside Otto's tent had looked very familiar to Dewar as he went in. As he went out, he paused, taking out a pipe, letting the others go ahead of him.

"Lunete," murmured Dewar around the pipestem, glancing at her in the torchlight.

She glared at him. "Shsh," she mouthed soundlessly.

He lifted an eyebrow and looked at the other guard. "Pondy," he acknowledged the Castellan of Lys.

"Sir," Pondy said blandly, saluting.

Dewar looked again at Lunete, still glaring at him from under her earflapped, sheepskin-lined helm. "One cannot hide the moon in a rainbarrel, madame," he murmured, amused. Otto couldn't possibly know she was here. It was very funny and, Dewar thought, rather sweetly romantic. The sort of thing a girl brought up away from Court on too many troubadour's ballads would do. He smiled more widely, puffing on the pipe.

"Lovely evening," he said to the icy stars overhead. "They're off to a card game, but I care as little for it as they care to have me play; I'm too lucky, and honest too. A pleasant and quiet watch to you both."

"Sir," Pondy said again. Lunete said nothing, but Dewar could feel her watching him walk away.

When the guards changed at midnight, he put away his books and papers and sat at his narrow table with an elaborately etched five-lobed hourgla.s.s, watching the sands run slowly, measuring the long winter midnight. Before much of the hour had moved from the middle sphere to the lower, he heard a murmur of voices outside.

The tent-flap moved.

"Message from the King, sir," said one of his own tent-guards.

Dewar lifted his eyebrows, nodded once; the guard stood back and admitted Lunete.

They looked at one another over the candle's flame.

Dewar beckoned her near with one finger and pointed to the other chair, across the table from him.

"Sir," she said in a low voice, still standing, "I-"

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'E&zaSetk. 1>Mtey "Come closer and sit down."

She hesitated, did so.

"No one can hear us now," Dewar said pleasantly. "Wine?"

"Howso? No, thank you."

"A spell," Dewar said.

Lunete looked around, s.h.i.+vering visibly.

Dewar studied her. "May one ask," he said after a moment, "what you're doing here? Or must one draw conclusions from one's perhaps excessively creative and lively imagination?"

Lunete's cheeks reddened brighter than the winter cold had left them. She took off her gloves for something to do. "I have been worried," she said. "He has not written."

"Otto is not a diligent letter-writer," said Dewar.

"Not when things aren't going well," she agreed, looking away, and then looked back. "So you are surrendering," she said.

He sighed. "He is."

"Why?" she whispered, a hot hard word.

"Because it is the prudent thing to do," Dewar said, leaning back in his chair. "Because Otto shall have what his father had, and that is enough for most men. Because Otto does not like seeing his friends bleed and die. Because Golias's services are expensive and Otto cannot keep him on hire through the winter. Because Prince Gaston has taken Erispas back. Because it is better than losing everything." "You couldn't lose."

"Otto could lose," Dewar said. "Madame, 1 am not in the business of giving advice, but I submit to you that Otto has a long life ahead of him in which to plot, scheme, and fight, never mind the portions of it which he would spend with yourself, and were he executed now it would put a serious blotch on that rosy future."

Lunete opened her mouth to speak. "Do not asperse him for it," Dewar said. "He has won some of his battles and lost others. He is getting out of it very well, all things considered. Were Prince Prospero not in the West-"

A Sorcerer and a Qentfeman c-- 153 "What?"

"-and Prince Gaston at full leisure to pursue this war and lesson Ascolet thereby in loyalty, I a.s.sure you you'd be a widow before ploughing season came. And that would be a great shame." Dewar took out a pouch of sweet-smelling herbs and packed his long-stemmed pipe again slowly. "He-" Lunete began, and did not finish. "He has done all in his power. No one could do more. He is outcla.s.sed here. That is the simple truth. Were we facing, say, Prince Josquin-the odds would be different. But it is Prince Gaston, the Imperial Marshal, and Prince Gaston has trapped us, and he knows it, and he has other things to do, and Otto is a little more useful alive than dead. Are you familiar with the terms?" "I heard surrender."

"But it is a confectionery surrender, sugared with clemency. Otto and Golias abandon this war. Otto holds Ascolet, Baron as Sebastiano was. Golias is granted the t.i.tle Prince. In payment, so to speak, or atonement, they both go west with their men to support Prince Gaston and Prince Herne and the Empire against Prince Prospero, who attacks there with great boldness and great success."

Lunete drew her breath in, the blood fleeting from her face, ivory in the darkness. "It will kill him," she whispered.