Kingdom Of Argylle - A Sorcerer And A Gentleman Part 24

" Tis evidence by circ.u.mstance," Gaston said. "Thou saidst at the time that he employed a spell to render these senseless."

"To put me to sleep. Yes."

"Thus he had some measure of power already competently at his command. I'm no sorcerer; I know not whether 'tis essential to command the Well in order to use the Roads and Leys and all, though I've believed so. It may not be the case. He may simply be a very clever man."

"Too clever. Gaston, how can we be sure of him?"

"I trust him," Gaston said. "Do not accuse or antagonize him, Josquin. If no other reason will still thee, then because we need his cooperation to defeat Prospero. Without him I had long since lost."

"Marshal!"

"Prospero hath a peculiar array offerees at his disposal. He is using more sorcery and more magical beings than ever hath done before. We should have been roundly defeated more than once but for Lord Dewar's help."

"Which you accept unquestioningly-"

"I have conversed with him enough to understand him. If we accept him and his a.s.sistance now without censure or remark, he will be an enduring ally."

"Hm. He is testing us."

"An thou wilt. He is no more certain whether he should trust Landuc than Landuc can be that it should trust him."

"It's to no one's advantage to make an enemy of a sorcerer. Very well, I'll say nothing if he says nothing." Josquin rose.

"An if he speak oft? Hast vengeance in mind 'gainst him?"

Josquin shrugged and twisted his mouth. "What could I 216 -:>.

say? Give it back? Challenge him? He beat me in the one fencing-match we ever had-he's good, you know, very good! He befooled me and did me no harm at all." He chuckled. "And I helped him. Good night, Uncle Gaston."

Gaston held up his hand, halting the Prince Heir's departure. "A word, Prince," he said.

"Yes?" Josquin, startled by the t.i.tle, waited.

Gaston looked at the younger man ready to dart out of the tent, bright-eyed and smiling. The Marshal's expression was impa.s.sive and his voice without emotion as he said, "! shall remind you that in my command, I allow no fraternization 'mongst mine officers."

Josquin's smile vanished. His face flickered with anger; a wash of color flooded and left his cheeks. But he said, "I remember, sir."

"Good night, nephew." Gaston rose and escorted Josquin out.

At the edge of the forest, Freia sat on a long log destined to become a bridge piling and watched the people of Argylle laughing and talking, cooking and eating, around their bonfires in a fenced, stubbled field. Her hands were clasped and pressed between her knees, and her shoulders were hunched and tight; she stared at the festivities without seeing them. She had brought them a wood-elk to cook, out of her awkward, abiding sense that she must give them something, but further involvement in their feast was outside her training. She had no children nor lovers in the crowd; she had no gossip about others' children or lovers; she did not think they needed her help to prepare the food; and she supposed, in her dissociation from them, that they felt no a.s.sociation : with her.

Someone took up the wood-elk's rack and began prancing around the fires, holding it over his own head. A line of laughing, clapping, whooping others followed him in a moment. Freia looked up at the thin-scattered stars. Beneath the woodsmoke and roast-reek, the night air was sweet and warm; but this was the celebration of taking the last summer Sorcerer and a QentUman 217.

grains, and some of the children were waving the first yellowed boughs of autumn in the train of the horned dance leader. The season and the sky had turned; the harvest made it certain. Until the ripe grain had been cut, she could tell herself that summer still reigned.

Sparks rose in a tower from one of the fires, welcomed with delighted shrieks. Freia stared at the stars still and tried to picture the Landuc star-patterns Prospero had taught her. Winter was coming. How far away was Landuc, among the strange lands Prospero had described?

"Brr, it is cold," said a woman softly.

Freia looked down from the sky. "Cledie."

"Come to the fire and be warm, Lady. The food is ready, or most of it." Cledie wore a loosely pinned mauve tunic that left a breast bare until she, s.h.i.+vering, pulled the cloth tighter around her. She went to one knee beside Freia, to see her face by the fireglow.

"I'm not hungry, thank you."

"It is not possible," Cledie said firmly. "I can smell the meat cooking even here. A stone would salivate."

Freia smiled but shook her head. "It's your feast," she said.

"And yours, as the grain is yours, and the meat and the fruit and vegetables," Cledie said. "Someday you will admit it."

"None of it's mine. You did it all, yourselves."

"Here comes Scudamor to argue it with you, apple by peach by bean if you will, Lady."

"Freia."

"Freia," Cledie said, smiling, touching Freia's arm once, light and quick. "If you will be our Freia, then you must eat with us."

"Lady," said Scudamor, crunching over the stubble, a dark earthy-smelling bulk. He crouched on his heels in front of her, beside Cledie. "If you are hungry, Lady, there is food to eat now. Come and eat."

"Scudamor," Freia said, "summer is over today."

"I feel you are right, Lady." Scudamor sighed.

218.

'Etizafteth 'Wittey "No, no, there will be many more warm days," Cledie protested. "Why, summer will not end, truly end, for half a season yet."

"You exaggerate," Freia said, "and you said yourself a moment ago that it's cold."

Cledie laughed. "But in comparison to the fireside, it is cold here in the stubble and wood-pile." She s.h.i.+vered comically. "Perhaps it will snow."

"The harvest is in, and summer is over," Scudamor said. "I have always thought of it thus. The year wheels on."

"Yes. Time, more time, and no Prospero, nor any word from him. It has been too long," Freia said, pulling her hands from her knees and straightening.

"It has been a long time, Lady," Scudamor agreed, reluctantly. "Yet not so long as to be all out of memory."

"He said he would be home last winter," Freia said, "and here it is nearly autumn again. Something must have happened to him."

"What could befall Lord Prospero?" wondered Cledie.

"He might be in trouble," continued Freia, "and we cannot know, waiting here."

"He said he would return," Scudamor murmured. "That he might be delayed. That we must wait."

"I want to know where he is," Freia said, gesturing once, sharply. "It cannot be taking this long just to make a war. They meet, they fight all at once, and Prospero is King. That was all there was to do."

"I know nothing of war," said Scudamor helplessly. "I know he said we must wait."

Cledie spread her hands. "What can we do? We are here, and he is not. We must wait."

"I am going to follow him and seek him out," Freia said. "I am not waiting any longer. Soon it will be winter again, and he will have been away a year more than he said. It is too much time. I want him to come home."

"How can you follow him?" Scudamor asked. "He has taken the strange path away, he said, over the sea; he said we could not find Landuc if we sought it. I cannot pretend to understand, Lady, as you must, but Landuc is not here, Sorcerer and a (jent&man 219.

not anywhere to go from here. So he said."

"I will go with Trixie," Freia said. "She knows Prospero, and she can find him anywhere. I ... I have already tried, a little. We need him here. I must go."

Scudamor and Cledie looked at one another, dismayed, and Cledie said, "But before you go, then, come and eat with us." And her hand rested on Freia's arm, lightly.

"I'm not-" Freia stopped herself.

"Lady," said Scudamor, "you are welcome among us." He caught Freia's eye and nodded tensely, until she rose to her feet and walked with them back to the fires and the feast.

19.DEWAR HAD CHOSEN THE HIGHEST GROUND he COuld find for his vantage-point for the battle, which Gaston and his gut had told him would probably decide the war. He had intended to ride in with the Prince Marshal, as he sometimes had in the past, but on studying the draft of maneuvers that the Marshal had provided him, Dewar decided he'd do the most good out of the fray, throwing what aid he could to each of the captains below. The previous night he had supped with Ottaviano, drinking two bottles of the best wine they could find with the best food the cooks could prepare. Otto had arranged for further amus.e.m.e.nt-a pair of brown-eyed Ith.e.l.lin girls younger and healthier than any of the women Dewar had seen on the fringes of the Imperial encampment. Dewar had declined that portion of Otto's hospitality and left the Baron to entertain both of them (the girls a bit miffed but Otto not at all), and the sorcerer had spent the night with notes and instruments, preparing himself for the day.

Now, with a quick bread-and-cheese breakfast sitting on his stomach like lead, Dewar wrapped his cloak around himself against the wind that gusted from Prospero's camp.

It was the other's command of Elementals that had presented Dewar with the core of his challenge. Dewar, though 220.

'EfizaBetfi "Wittey he had worked with them, had never done so in the depth and detail that Prospero obviously had. The Prince of Winds had Elementals of every kind in his army-Salamanders, Sammeads, Sprites, Sylphs-and an array of strangely mixed creatures as well. There were things like variably-sized glowing bars which tumbled end-over-end to crush men and sweep them away. There were black-and-brown brindled four-legged creatures with agile, flexible bodies and four arms on a headless thorax-like protrusion. There were skate-shaped birds made of razor-sharp metals, with long trailing whiptails which scythed through flesh and some armor. There were things like bundles of sticks, snakelike things, tusked wolves nearly pony-sized . . .

And men.

Prospero's men were of two types: the known and the strange. The strange men fought well; Gaston, Herne, and Golias had all remarked on their strength and skill. Their battle cries were alien, though, and their shouted words to one another were incomprehensible. The known men were recruited from outlying areas of Pheyarcet, and they were good soldiers, but without the heroic stamina and ability of the strangers. They died in greater numbers than the strangers.

But all of them could die.

Dewar's materials were arrayed around him; he s.h.i.+vered in the cold and sought the Prince Marshal's banner. There it was, in the vanguard: the full golden sun on red beside the sitver-on-red of Landuc.

Couldn't they parley? he wondered. So many deaths would happen today.

The carrion-birds knew. Every variety waited overhead.

He looked through the other lines for Prospero and could not find him, even with the aid of a spygla.s.s.

A horn sounded: Gaston's call.

Behind Dewar, a twig snapped beneath the th.o.r.n.y, bare tree which shared the hilltop with him. He whirled on his heel and saw, outside his protective Bounds, Prospero. The Prince was on foot. Dull black chain mail cased his body beneath his gold-trimmed blue cloak. A huge black horse Sorcerer and a gentleman 221.

with a white off-fore sock was behind him, its nose snuffling Prospero's shoulder. Hung on the saddle were Prospero's gold-plumed helm and longsword. Though sheathed, the sword fairly smoked with sorcery: that was the weapon that had wounded Panurgus.

A challenge after all, Dewar thought.

"Nay," Prospero said, shaking his head. "A truce."

"A truce?"

Below them, the armies crashed together. Prospero inhaled, looking down on the fight from the closest point of Dewar's Bounds to Dewar.

"Looks like you're too late."

"I suggest a truce 'twixt us. No sorcery to be used in this battle."

Dewar s.h.i.+vered and folded his arms tightly. "I have a feeling that the Marshal will find such a truce objectionable."

"Thou'rt here to counter sorcery. An I use none, he'll need none."

"Why a truce?"

"Personal reasons."

"Hardly a compelling argument, sir. You keep me from my work." Dewar glared at him. Was Prospero attempting to ruin the small allotment of honor Dewar had been grudgingly granted here?

Prospero chewed his lip. "I've spoken with thy mother," he said.

"You interfering b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Dewar said, furious: that this man rummaged in his life so casually; that he was kept from his work; that Prospero a.s.sumed he, Dewar, was his inferior.

"I'd not seen her in long," said Prospero. "I told her thou hadst challenged me and claimed her as kin, and I said I wanted to know if she'd challenge me in turn an I defeat thee, as was certain I would. Odile said she would not, and asked that I bring thee Bound to her." He looked at Dewar, who was rigid, his face bloodless. "Fear not that. I know her custom."

222.

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"This is the answer to thy question."

"Spit it out then."

Prospero looked at him hard, sharply arching his left eyebrow, and Dewar blushed.

"Hast pa.s.sed too many idle hours with Golias," Prospero said drily. "When 1 was last in Phesaotois," he went on after a moment, "I desired knowledge regarding transformations and transfigurations. Naturally I went to the acknowledged expert and . . . negotiated for a few sc.r.a.ps. I was able enough to ward me 'gainst her preferred tricks. Odile had never been thwarted thus before, and 'twas a new and annoying experience. I shall dock a long tale and say that in the end we came to be on very good terms, amiable terms. I dwelt seven years in Aie."

Dewar was half-listening, following Herne's progress through his spygla.s.s.

" 'Twas the price Odile and I settled on," Prospero said, "a thing I was quite glad to give her: myself. But it seems that when I left after seven and a half years there, I had given her more than intended."

Something in his tone brought Dewar's attention to him again. "Intended?" he repeated.

"She was incensed when I left; of my free will I'd o'er-stayed her term, but, after all, I had much to attend elsewhere. I left, and we parted in disharmony. I spoke not with her again until her name arose in our recent conversation, and then-" He paused and went on, "I looked on thee and saw traces of thy mother, and I saw also things I could not clearly interpret. Thou wert born not long after I left Aie; albeit thou madest s.h.i.+ft to confuse me on that issue, I confirmed it otherwise."

Dewar changed his grip on his staff, in his left hand, and leaned on it more heavily.

"You think you're . . ." he began, but his throat shut and no more sounds came.

"I'm sure oft," Prospero said, and smiled quickly at him. "Therefore let us keep truce 'twixt us this day. After this, Sorcerer and a (gentleman 223.