Kingdom Of Argylle - A Sorcerer And A Gentleman Part 18

"I don't know, but I tried to open one to leave here. It doesn't work. Prospero has not been idle; he has advanced certain aspects of the Art intriguingly."

"We can march," Otto said.

"Not fast enough. He can throw Bounds around you faster than this many men can move. Your Marshal knows that."

"Well, thank you for letting us know, then," Ottaviano said. "I'd better go write a will and put it in a fireproof chest."

Dewar poured himself another gla.s.s of wine, smiling slightly. "You really have no idea what to do," he said. "Really?"

The Fireduke frowned, catching Otto's eye. Otto shrugged.

"You have a suggestion?" Gaston said.

"Actually I have a question, or a criticism."

Gaston inclined his head, waited.

Sorcerer and a gentleman 169.

"Why don't you have Bounds on your encampment?" Dewar asked, setting the gla.s.s down, genuine wonder in his voice. "You're facing a sorcerer, and you don't have the most rudimentary of Bounds."

"I know not the Art of placing them," Gaston said, "nor does anyone who is not a sorcerer, and we have no sorcerer among us."

"Hm," Dewar said. "Panurgus's doing. I see. Pity."

"I cannot make contract with a sorcerer," Gaston said bluntly.

"I don't sell my services," Dewar said. "I just came to see Ottaviano, how he was getting on. I shall convey, sir, your respects to your widow," he added, rising to his feet.

Ottaviano kicked Gaston again, hard, and stood himself. "Don't bother," he said, and dragged his temper under control. Gaston had risen too now and appeared to be holding some hot words in his clenched teeth. It reminded Otto of the coy conversation he had had with Dewar before, when Dewar had been obliquely letting Otto know that he would help Otto with his war. "Perhaps you'd like some supper," Ottaviano said. "Let's go to my tent. It's not far."

"Very kind of you," Dewar said, that annoying smile returning. "I shall accept with all the grat.i.tude of the famished, if the Marshal will allow me to leave his presence without sending those husky fellows after me everywhere."

Gaston looked at Ottaviano, clearly considering whether this were some treacherous game or weird plot. He nodded once. "Baron, thou shall wait on me at midnight," he said.

And report on what this is about, Otto filled in. "Yes, sir."

"And whilst Lord Dewar is in the camp, bear him company at all times."

"Yes, sir."

Uninvited, Dewar sat down in the one real chair Otto had in his tent, a rather nice one Lunete had embroidered with ;, a picture of the famous Ascolet castle, Malperdy, on its ,. back and a fine big ram, representing the acknowledged %** fundament of the Ascolet livelihood, on the seat. She had 170.

'Elizabeth had some trouble with the ram's right legs, so that he appeared to be fixed to his hillside at an angle, and his gaze was a touch cross-eyed. Still, it was an excellent chair, having upholstered arms and built to be tilted onto two legs, and the Baron of Ascolet nearly suggested that Dewar might be more comfortable on one of the three-legged sling stools.

But Dewar slouched and propped his feet on a chest at the foot of Otto's bed, and Otto sat on another chest.

"I hope you meant it about the food," Dewar said after a moment, opening his eyes and looking sharply at Otto.

"Sure I did. I'll send someone. There's usually stew at least." Ottaviano went out again and found one of his squires, who was a few tents away giggling and dicing with two other boys and a predatory off-duty lieutenant from Herne's troops. Otto sent the boy off to find them a late bite of supper and considered, as he squelched back to his tent, that perhaps he should find more work for his squires, if only to keep them from losing their s.h.i.+rts and the Sun might see what else.

Dewar was rubbing his forehead and yawning.

"Tired?"

"The Marshal's wine in an empty gut brews instant hangover," Dewar said. He smiled thinly. "He would have been happier to see Prospero himself, I do think."

"I'm sure that if he does, he'll offer him a drink," Otto said. "Gaston doesn't seem to take this whole thing personally."

"But of course not. Is it not the Emperor whom Prince Prospero opposes? The Marshal is, hm, standing in the way. Not a good place to be, between a sorcerer like Prince Prospero and something he wants."

Otto sat on the bed again. "Not a good place at all. Even less good in a few days, if what you said is true."

"It's true."

"Did you drop by just to tell us that?" Otto asked.

"No," Dewar said, after thinking for a moment.

The wind flapped the tent's sides. Dewar got up, thumping the chair, and went to the tiny wood-stove in the center Sorcerer and a gentleman 171.

of the tent. "Coal would be better," he said, stuffing two days' ration of wood into the cast-iron belly.

"In Ascolet we use coal," Otto said; "we've got a lot of it. Out here there's nothing to burn but dung, which stinks, so we're leaving that for the foot troops and as a special concession to the officers the Marshal let Herne haul in some wood."

"Most of the heat goes right up and out," Dewar observed, standing and closing the stove, looking up the pipe.

"Why are you here?"

The sorcerer dusted bark from his hands. "Have you ever seen Prospero?"

"Yes. Well, at a distance. A great distance. I thought it was him."

"I dreamt of him," Dewar said, turning and sitting on the stove. He and Otto eyed one another by the dull light from the lamp, whose chimney needed to be cleaned.

"Did he tell you to come here?" Otto asked, trying to keep his voice level. He didn't believe in supernatural dreams, dreams of foreseeing and dreams of far-sight.

"He laid a geas on me," Dewar said, "to seek him until we met."

"h.e.l.l of a geas," Otto said. "What did you do to deserve that?"

Dewar lifted his eyebrows. The stove was becoming warm enough to penetrate his trousers. He s.h.i.+fted his seat. "Well," he said, "when I first had it I was in his tomb."

Ottaviano opened and closed his mouth. Trespa.s.sing in the Royal Tombs? How? Why? But Dewar wouldn't answer questions, certainly. "You get around," he said.

Dewar inclined his head, smiling. "Lately," he said, "the geas has, in a manner of speaking, been roused. I could ignore it before. Have you ever had a geas?"

"Uh, no, not that sort."

"They're a pain in the neck," Dewar said thoughtfully. "Dreadful nuisance. Particularly that sort, the very vague and wide-ranging sort that, if one isn't aware, hangs over one's every deed and either shapes or shadows it. One forever has a feeling that there's something else one ought to 172.

Vfittey be doing. Not pleasant at all, particularly when one is doing something that one is quite sure is what one wants to be doing." Dewar nodded slowly, his eyes looking past the tent to something outside, beyond, with detached, remote interest.

"So," Otto asked, when the sorcerer had said nothing more for several minutes, staring into nothing, "Prospero put a geas on you, in a dream you had in his tomb. And you've been looking for him since. How long ago was this?"

"Oh, years. Years," Dewar said, blinking and shaking the geas's veil from him. "As I said, one can ignore a geas, for a while anyway. But all that talk in Ascolet about Prospero woke mine."

"What are you going to do, then? Walk over there and introduce yourself?"

"I hardly think so. He's patently in a fire-first, worry-later temper; he snapped a bolt at me when I prodded one of his Bounds today. If Fd known he was nearby I wouldn't have done, I a.s.sure you."

The tent-flap flipped back, and all the feeble warmth whooshed out and a cold slab of winter fell in. Otto's squire entered, carrying a covered tray. Dewar watched as the boy laid the rough table with a cloth, dishes and green gla.s.s goblets, napkins and utensils.

"We'll not need you to serve," Ottaviano said. "Stay out of Tick's tent and his games," he added. "Did you finish oiling those boots?"

"No, sir," said the boy.

"Do it," Ottaviano commanded, and the squire, with a sullen look, left with another gust of cold air. "Shall we eat?"

The food was ham, a bony stewed rabbit, and mutton; there was bread also, and Dewar concentrated his first attention on the loaf, eating with the quiet ruthlessness of sharp hunger. When they had supped as well as they might, both sat back and regarded one another.

"You could call him to a duel," Ottaviano suggested.

"No, thank you. I have no quarrel with him, nor do I desire one." Dewar wiped the loaf-end meticulously around Sorcerer and a gentleman 173.

and around the rabbit-dish, removing every trace of gravy, and ate it.

"But here you are," Otto said. "Right in the path of his possible firebath."

"Ye-e-s. . . . Do you know how the calendar really works?"

"What?"

"The calendar. Events such as Days of Flame happen regularly and for a reason."

"Well, yeah, everybody knows that. Holidays."

"Landuc observes only Days of Flame," Dewar said, "but there are others. Tomorrow will be a Day of Stone."

Otto slapped the table, exasperated. "I don't understand. We should get religion? Could you say something straightforward, Dewar? It's late, I have to go tell Gaston why you're here, and I can't figure you."

Dewar chuckled. "All right," he said. "I can't imagine what pa.s.ses for education here. Tomorrow is a Day of Stone. It's the most auspicious and efficacious day for working with that Element. The most sensible thing for you, for Gaston, to do, is to use that day to put up Bounds of your own and get inside them. Stonebounds can repel a Salamander, properly made."

"Thank you for the suggestion. It is inconvenient that none of us is able to do that."

"I can," Dewar said.

"Obviously you can, but why would you?"

"Because," Dewar said condescendingly, "I have a geas gnawing at me, and I don't like it, and I intend to putter about in the area and get a better idea of Prospero, what he is and so on, before I let the geas rule me altogether. It's much stronger with proximity."

"I see," murmured Otto. "So you're-volunteering. Again."

"I suppose one could look at it thus. Or one might say that I am using Gaston and his army as a piece of distracting business while I observe a potential opponent. Whether or not Gaston wants me, I will be here. Whether or not he likes it, I shall certainly forge Bounds to protect myself. He can 174.

'EfizaBetfi allow me to make myself, from his point of view, useful."

"You're insane."

"Unconventional," Dewar said, smiling. "Now it is nearly midnight. Run along and tell Gaston he has a sorcerer, for the nonce, if he wished to retain me, though I know he can't, and I don't sell my sorcery; and that if he does not want me, I shall be here anyway."

"Truth to tell," Dewar said, "I rather like this rain. It's thoroughly wet." He was soaked to the skin, his cream-white linen s.h.i.+rt molded to him in dark folds, water running down his face.

"Part sheep, are you?" Otto gibed.

Dewar bared his teeth at Otto in a humorless grin-from his point of view, the jest lacked taste and humor-and tossed wet hair from his face. The torch in Prince Gaston's hand sputtered and hissed at the spray of drops. "Is the horse ready, Prince Herne?"

"He doesn't like it," Heme said, "he's a warhorse, not a-"

"Yes, yes. He'll manage. If he bites me I'll geld him," Dewar added, "on the spot."

"What do we do?" Golias asked.

"You, if you're smart, will all go about three hundred feet from here-that low hill should be all right-and watch," Dewar said. "Since none of you is a virgin, or so I believe I may safely a.s.sume, none of you can possibly be of a.s.sistance. Give me that end of the rope. Marshal, your men have marked the gaps I surveyed?"

"Yes. There are two greater, east and west, and two lesser. The stakes were further apart, east and west; I a.s.sumed you meant them so."

"Very good," Dewar said. "Hm, one of you can carry this plough while I lead the horse. Thanks, Prince Herne. This way; we'l! start at the west side, as that's the most important. No, put it facing-yes." The sorcerer and the Prince walked to a tall upright wand and Herne set the plough down. "Go, join the others," Dewar said, suddenly urgent. "Take my lantern. Hurry. Dawn comes."

Sorcerer and a CjentCeman 175.

Prince Herne bit back a retort and left, not running but not lingering. The lights he carried bobbed away among the bushes.

Dewar stood in the predawn rain with a crude plough, to which Herne's horse had been harnessed, and a long rope, which led off through the foul weather and darkness to the center of Gaston's newly-chosen campsite. Closing his eyes, he laid his hands loosely on the plough-handles and concentrated.

There it was: the first trickle of daybreak, and the Well's muted roar beneath it. Dewar's hands closed; he lifted the plough, set it down, and shouted "Gee!" to the horse, adding a kick of the Well to the word, so that the huge horse started and sprang forth, dragging the plough.

The ploughshare dug into the ground, making a shallow furrow, and Dewar strode forward, chanting in a low monotone. The earth rumbled and s.h.i.+vered and began to flow behind him; the wind switched around to hammer rain in his face and parted screaming in his wake. He did not look back; once he had put hand to plough and begun the Bounds, he must not look back until the circle was completed. A Well-fostered nimbus crackled on the ploughshare and gradually spread up over the handles, over Dewar, over the horse.

"Holy Well," muttered Herne, reaching the hilltop and looking back.

An ethereal, glowing figure of a ploughman as high as a mountain was striding around the perimeter of the camp, following a ghostly horse, and the furrow he made was a deep, steep ditch, and the earth he turned was a high dike inside the ditch. A thin line of fire led from the plough to a tall pole of sparks, snapping discharges of power, in the center of the plough's circular path.

Gaston and the others said nothing, watching. If one squinted, one could see in the distance the tiny Fire-limned figures of Dewar, the straining horse, and the plough.

A whirlwind, black and conical, whipped toward Dewar from the west. Prospero had taken note.

Dewar, head down, felt the Well pumping through him, 1 76.