Kingdom Of Argylle - A Sorcerer And A Gentleman Part 23

"I am surprised to hear that. Unswerving devotion to purpose hath ever been a pillar of your character."

"You flatter me, madame," Prospero said, and bowed from the waist, not deeply but elegantly.

"You flatter me yourself, for I know you are not so easily flattered."

Prospero laughed quietly. "Alas, Countess, the courtier's arts are wasted here; sorcery discards them as a child's paper 208.

'EfizaBetfi dolls, vain trash. But, madame, I have a further doubt regarding my challenge now, one which you may allay."

"What is that?"

"What will his father say to my prisoning the upstart? I am sure you understand me when I say I've no intention of avoiding one offense and committing another unwittingly."

"Bring him here, and I shall deal with the ... ancillary issues," Odile said.

"Ah," said Prospero. "Then there shall be difficulties."

"I think not."

"I prefer certainty to best approximation, madame. Let us inform his father of his son's activities."

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"Plainly, no."

"You have heard me correctly."

"What will you, then, Odile? I have much afoot; I cannot go forth to this challenge without knowing I shall not lay myself open to a greater. I Bind the boy; I deliver him to you, his mother, for sorely-needed correction in certain grievous errors which appear to be ingrained in his thinking; and you promise me there will be no further consequences?"

"Not to you. To the boy, yes. He must learn the protocol of interaction and challenge."

"I agree. He is about to learn something of it. But you do not concern yourself over his father's reaction, so long as his father is ignorant. I think you s.h.i.+eld the boy."

Odile said nothing.

"You are too fond, Odile," Prospero said. "I fear you will scold him roundly and box his ears and send him abashed on his way."

"That is nothing of your concern."

"Very well," Prospero said, "I shall not concern myself about it further. Thank you, madame, for this interview. I shall see you next with this Dewar in hand."

"I am looking forward to it," Odile said.

He bowed, turned to go.

"You leave at once?"

Sorcerer and a QentCeman 209.

"It doth not do to let things hang too long," Prospero said, pausing.

"Allow me to offer thee some refreshment ere thou goest."

He hesitated, then nodded and turned back to face her fully. "Thy courtesy is not amiss, Countess," he said, "to offer, but I fear delay."

"The delay will be but a few hours in thy journey," said she, "but if it be so urgent-"

"Not so urgent as to offend thee by refusing, then," Prospero said, and he smiled.

Odile rose to her feet. The birds, disturbed, fled in three different directions among the pillars to the sides and behind Prospero. Her veil-like robes swirled and settled around her foggily with the movement of her standing; Odile stood as still as she had sat for the time of one heartbeat and then, slowly, descended the dais. Prospero bowed deeply and offered her his arm; she took it and they stood another beat of Prospero's heart eye-to-eye (for she was tall). Then, at a stately pace as if they were leading a procession, they walked together around the dais, to the rear of the black-pillared temple.

The three white birds waited at the edge of the pillared darkness, heads bowed. Odile touched their heads negligently with a drifting finger as she pa.s.sed, not looking downward from Prospero's silvery gaze, and when she had pa.s.sed, three fair white-clad serving-maids, slender and soundless, hurried away to fetch refreshments for their mistress and her guest.

Dewar opened the bottle of wine and poured four gla.s.ses. He handed the first to Prince Gaston, the second to Baron Ottaviano, the third to Prince Golias, and the fourth he raised himself.

"To Prince Josquin," he said. "A generous man." The wine was Madanese, from the new supplies.

Golias laughed and drank. Ottaviano snorted, grinned, and drank also. Gaston tasted the wine, then sipped. Dewar's smile was secret, mocking.

210.

T&zað 'Wittey "So he's almost here? Or what?" Golias said, wiping his mouth.

"He is where he should be, and on the morrow shall we confer all together to plan our next attack," Gaston said. "Lord Dewar hath provided such knowledge as he may safely gather about the enemy's disposition; to wait longer would be needless delay, for what we know now is adequate."

"It's about time," Golias said. "All the time we've been waiting for his dandified highness, that b.a.s.t.a.r.d's been building up forces and spying on us."

"With Josquin," Ottaviano said, "the numbers are ours."

The sorceress Odile rose noiseless, naked, from her silk-draped couch and stood at its foot. Behind her, through an arched doorway, the moon hung between two pillars of the temple of Aie, and its light was but little, for it was a pared old moon. Yet the little light cast a shadow, Odile's shadow, before her, cold and black-edged, a shadow cut from the moon-stream; and another, deeper, more perilous and potent stream came in with the moon, that cast a shadow also: unfathomably deep, and darker still. Odile looked into her shadow, where her visitor lay, his eyes closed, asleep for an instant: long enough.

"Nay, Prospero, I'll not delay thee," whispered Odile, as thin as the moon's edge. "Haste from here: haste to thy wars and workings, and haste thereby to thy end." Odile's hands moved, cupping the darkness, and it grew more dark, all light seeping from it. "Seek thy own blood, and find defeat and destruction."

The darkness seeped from her hands, a silent trickle onto Prospero, who slept in her shadow.

When Odile's white hands were empty, she lay again, a soft and silent movement, beside Prospero, and touched him lightly, and his eyes opened.

"Madame," Prospero said to her, "dear though dalliance be, I may not tarry; I may not linger another minute here."

"That I wit well," said she, "for hast thou not said it afore the sunset? and in the dusk? and now as the moon doth rise Sorcerer and a Qentkman 211.

and open thy Road to thee, will I believe thee. Lo, I did not hinder thee; 'twas the Stone and the moon."

"True enough, madame. If I rest another instant, sleep would claim me, nor would it be thy doing that it keep me from motion."

"Hast never been a restful man," she said, and drew dark draperies around her, veiling her body. He rose then, and clothed himself alone, for she left through the moon-limned archway, and when Prospero had dressed he followed her and took leave of her at the dais, bending over her hand in the light of the four tall torcheres, turning and leaving her motionless there.

Prince Josquin was hardly recognizable in leather armor and a helm. His fine blond hair was cut short to lie fur-smooth against his skull; he was thinner and harder-looking than he had been when Dewar first met him in Landuc some years previous. But his speech had the same arrogance over the Madanese draw! and his movements the same sensual deliberation, and his pale-blue eyes had the same good-natured expression.

Dewar slipped into his chair at the table as Prince Gaston presented Golias to Prince Josquin with elaborate courtesy. Ottaviano was already there, engaged in drawing in his notebook. It didn't look like his usual subjects: arbalests and onagers, bridges and water-wheels.

"What's that?" Dewar asked in a low voice, keeping half his attention on Josquin's leather leggings.

"Just this thing I saw," Otto said evasively.

"A cannon." Dewar was familiar with them through his travels on the Road.

"Yeah. The Marshal said the Prince Heir has a few."

"Good. I'm tired of being all the ordnance. Primitive design, that."

"I'm a primitive artist." Otto's pencil broke; he took out his strange red folding pocket-knife and began whittling the pencii-point sharp.

Gaston, Josquin, and Golias had completed their introductions and were sitting down. The other two looked up.

212.

'EfizaBetfi 'Wiiiey Dewar kept his face bland and emotionless.

"Lord Dewar, I did not see thee join us," Gaston said. "Prince Josquin, here is our sorcerer."

Josquin looked from Ottaviano to the man beside him in sea-blue silk and black leather. The Prince Heir's breath paused, quickened as his face was touched with more than wind and cold's reddening. "I am pleased to meet you, Sir Sorcerer."

The sorcerer rose to his feet, holding Josquin's eyes with his own, and bowed fluidly without looking down.

"The pleasure is mine, Your Highness," he murmured.

After pa.s.sing the girdling Limen which the warring brothers Panurgus and Proteus had forged to separate Fire from Stone, Prospero buiit a large fire and through it opened a Way to a certain place near his headquarters. Hurricane, an old hand at this, allowed himself to be led without balking into the fire and through to the other side of the Way, a flat, open place of stones among the scrub. The midday air was cold and colorless. Beneath his and Hurricane's feet, the ground thumped with the hollowness that freezing brings; a high, thin glazing of cloud hinted at snow.

Swinging himself into the saddle, Prospero nudged Hurricane, and he, who knew well the way home from here, walked between the trees, choosing his way to the narrow, rutted road. As they travelled, occasional things seen and unseen fluttered around them and then departed, sentinels of the occupied territories. Prospero was their master, and so they made no interference with his pa.s.sage.

The house which he had made his occupational headquarters became visible as he left the winding low road. Prospero's eyes saw things that others could not: s.h.i.+mmering, insubstantial lines of warning spells and Bounds; Ele-mentals flitting, flowing, or creeping; in the distance behind the bare black sticks of the weather-twisted winter-nude trees, a skyward veiling glow between his lines and Gas-ton's, coruscating up and down the spectrum as the opposing spells Dewar had set against him touched it.

Hurricane p.r.i.c.ked his ears forward, pleased at the sights Sorcerer and a Qentleman 213.

and smells of their temporary home. He trotted to the house, ignoring the doings of the Elementals and other creatures with august indifference-he, after all, was the Master's preferred steed, his intimate in many enterprises- and to the stable-yard.

"Thank you, Hurricane. Good fellow. Odo!"

Odo was a boy who had remained behind when the rest of the manor-house's residents had fled before Prospero's advance. He had been in the stables, and in the stables he had stayed, apparently completely uninterested in whose horses he curried and fed. He came running a few minutes after Prospero had dismounted, from a far corner of the paddock where he had been clearing the stream.

"Sir," Odo said, and took Hurricane from his master. "Good 'orse, good 'orse, good 'orse," Odo chanted under his breath, leading him away.

Prospero patted Hurricane's neck and went into the house carrying his saddlebag. In the room where he had received Dewar, he summoned his captains to a meeting and reviewed with his second-in-command Utrachet the immediate business that had arisen in his absence. Strangely, there was none.

"They have not made any but small sallies," Utrachet said.

"He is waiting for something."

"He may have gotten it, my lord. Today Stachan saw activity in the turncoat Golias's camp which might signify some large movement."

"Interesting. It could be a feint. They know we watch."

"They have attempted to conceal their doings this time, but I am suspicious."

"I shall call in my watchers and see if they can add to't. In the meantime, pa.s.s the word: prepare for an attack two days hence."

"Yes, sir. We have been in readiness for days now."

"I know. I dislike this stalemating, but we have no choice. The time was not yet right."

When Utrachet had gone, Prospero unrolled maps and weighted them down flat on his table, and he stood a long 214 -=>.

time gazing down at them moving himself and Gaston through possible encounters in his mind.

Prince Gaston's page came to him where he sat writing orders in his tent and announced Prince Josquin, who was on his heels. The Marshal sent the boy out and offered Josquin a seat. He poured two tumblers of wine and offered Josquin one; Josquin accepted and drank, then set the tumbler down with a thump as if deciding something.

"I left and came back," Josquin said, "because I didn't want to be seen. No guarantee I wasn't, of course, but at least I've tried. Your sorcerer, Uncle Gaston."

"He is not mine, nor anyone's but his own. Had thy father deemed fit to contract with him we might call him ours."

"Exactly. Uncle Gaston, that is the man who stole my Map and Ephemeris."

" 'Twas years ago, well-nigh a score. Art certain?" the Fireduke asked.

"I'd know him among thousands," Josquin said, and his face was high-colored as his uncle studied him. "He's the one," said Josquin.

Gaston nodded once slowly. Dewar was a man to leave a strong impression behind him, having many fine traits to catch the eye-particularly an eye like the Prince Heir's. "Aye. I'd thought 'a must be."

"You what!"

"Thy description then was particular and he fits it surpa.s.sing well, and he hath every mark of having pa.s.sed through the Well's Fire."

Josquin sat back and nodded slowly. "But he is of use to you."

"Josquin, 'tis not judged that 'a hath committed any greater misdeed than cozening thee. Tis not, per ensample, a crime to approach the Well, though the Crown seeketh to keep the Well for itself. Once 'tis done so, there's naught to mend it. I cannot think of a previous case oft."

"Does my lord father know he is here?"

Sorcerer and a Qentltman 215.

"1 have not mentioned it to the Emperor because I am not certain."

"What doubt could there be? How else could he use the Map and Ephemeris? Why steal them if he had not been to the Well?" Josquin found his uncle's cautious reasoning, as always, opaque.