Kingdom Of Argylle - A Sorcerer And A Gentleman Part 27

21.HURRICANE, AS SOON AS DEWAR WAS settled on his back, started toward the encamped army. Dewar had slipped Prosperous ring on his finger, under his glove, and Hurricane walked along the line drawn by the ring. Dewar decided to let the horse pick his way as he chose, since he obviously understood, and busied himself reviewing a spell for boiling smoke from the earth, which might be useful to cover Prospero's departure, and another for invisibility. He took out his staff, which had been inside his doublet shrunken to a spiral-carved black wand, and then put it back again.

Three times he was challenged, and each time was recognized and allowed to pa.s.s without difficulty by the patrols and then the sentries. His heart's thumping was an annoying distraction, and so Dewar stopped Hurricane just at the perimeter of the first circle of tents and made himself breathe slowly and deeply for a few minutes.

Relaxed, under better control, he went in. Hurricane wanted to go directly to Prospero's tent; Dewar thought it would be best if he first sought Gaston. However, Prince Josquin, also on horseback, found him before he reached the Fireduke's quarters.

"Lord Dewar," said Josquin.

Dewar nodded from the great height of Hurricane's back. "Your Highness."

"You were not at the meeting . . ."

Dewar shrugged and looked away.

"... and I thought perhaps you might join me for supper, very late but not, I hope, unwelcome. I have just come from seeking you at your tent."

Dewar must look at him; he had no relish for flirtation now, nor for the honor of an intimate, personal meal with the Prince Heir. "Oh. Thank you. I'm not hungry, Your Sorcerer and a Qentleman 239.

Highness. Thank you for the invitation. Later perhaps."

"Tomorrow-later, I hope," Josquin said, with a comical expression of mock-distress, "for it's already the fifth hour of the night and my belly is long emptied. Very well. I'll see you on the morrow, then, Lord Dewar."

Dewar nodded again, and watched Josquin go along the path between the tents. He wondered why he felt no resentment at the Prince Heir for being the weapon Gaston had used to finally cut Prospero down. But Josquin was Lan-duc's, and there was no reason for him to do other than he had done.

Prince Gaston's tent was in the center of the camp; Prospero's ring told Dewar that Prospero was somewhere east of it. He dismounted at a mounting-block (it was still a stretch) and walked Hurricane to the tent, which had two torches outside and a couple of guards. Having looped the horse's reins loosely at the post, he started toward the entry.

One of the guards held up a hand. "Hold."

"I'm Lord Dewar," Dewar said, pus.h.i.+ng his hood back.

"A moment, sir." One guard leaned inside, just into the flap, and talked to someone; half a minute later, the flap was drawn back by one of Prince Gaston's squires, who bowed, expressionless, to Dewar.

Dewar went in, ignored the squire's quick protest and evaded the boy's hand as he brushed past him, and pa.s.sed into Gaston's inner tent. For privacy, the tent was doubled: an outer area about six feet wide insulated an inner chamber about fifteen across. Thus the Marshal could make plans with his captains, and none could overhear them. And thus he could talk to his brother the Emperor via a Lesser Summoning, without eavesdroppers getting the gist of their conversation.

Dewar stopped in the doorway, the red-faced squire behind him afraid to grab at the sorcerer's arm and drag him back.

Prince Gaston looked at him over a fireball and held up a finger: Wait.

"That is all for now," he said to the flame.

Dewar s.h.i.+fted his perceptions and synchronized them 240.

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"You're interrupted. I'll speak to you again tomorrow."

"Surely," Gaston said. "Good night. Your Majesty."

"Good night, Gaston. I am trying to think of rewards you haven't had yet."

"Give them to Herne," said the Marshal indifferently, perhaps distastefully, and snuffed the flame. He looked up at Dewar again, who blinked, having lost for an instant his purpose in coming there. "Good evening, Lord Dewar."

"h.e.l.lo."

Gaston's eyes moved over the younger man's face for a few seconds. Then he nodded to a chair beside him at the table. "Sit," he said, collecting his apparatus.

Dewar sat, a little heavily, and swallowed.

"Wine?"

"No-yes, watered."

Gaston nodded and served him from cut-gla.s.s bottles that stood on a dark wooden bra.s.s-bound cabinet to one side. He poured a tumbler for himself and sat again.

Dewar looked down at his hands. He wasn't sure where to start: he was here to get permission to see Prospero, but he could not baldly ask it. He would have liked to have talked to Gaston about something else. Wine, maybe, or mutual acquaintances-they had none-or books or music. Something neutral. Something that had nothing to do with armies or wars.

Gaston waited quietly and then said, "Tomorrow 'twill snow, our local men do say. At long last. They speak of returning home and penning their flocks and herds ere the snow lieth too deep."

Dewar's mouth twitched. "Will you let them go?"

"When I've no further need of them, though not as soon as they would like. But I'll not keep them when there's no need, when they have work elsewhere. Twould sour them 'gainst Landuc. As it is, they are well-disposed now. Many are dead, but the survivors are paid in coin, that's scarce here. They've tales to awe their kin and wives. They've won.

Sorcerer and a Qentteman 241.

There's no profit in wasting their goodwill." "This isn't exactly a dubious part of the realm." "Nay, but to them the Capitol's a bright fiction, the Emperor a myth. Now all's more real. The realm is strengthened by their loyalty as it would be weakened by its loss." "There are a lot of dead men out there, Marshal," said Dewar softly. "Lost and without loyalty." "Their families are compensated. Pensioned." "They'll never go home," Dewar said. "They're dead." Gaston turned and looked into his eyes. "I would that war could be conducted without Death's complicity," he said. "I've been named Death, myself."

Dewar looked down, away, at the wine. "Without Death's complicity, and that of at least two other parties," he agreed. "I don't mean to bait you, Prince Gaston. I'm sorry." There was something calming about Gaston, perhaps because of his deliberate speech, his quiet voice, his age. Dewar's agitation had ceased; his heart was slow and his breath restful. The bone-struck chill had left him and he felt warm, though the fire in the stove was as ineffectual as any against the deep cold.

Gaston nodded, still studying his face as he had since Dewar entered the tent. "I would that this war had been accomplished without my complicity at times," he said, "and at other times it hath seemed inevitable to me. Yet the death of each of the soldiers on both sides saddens me, though with their deaths they have purchased life for Landuc. Each death is a death, permanent and forever, and none of the dead will walk again. True, there are many soldiers in Pheyarcet to fight our wars; there is a finite number but it is so great as to be infinite for our purposes. That maketh not any one of them less valuable."

Dewar swallowed and nodded, then looked at the Fire-duke again. "I think I will not engage myself in wars henceforward. It has proven little to my taste, the blood, and I would accomplish the ends of war in other ways if it were possible."

Gaston nodded again, once, as he always did. "It's late," Dewar said, and finished the wine in his gla.s.s.

242.

'Etizað Sorcerer and a Qentfeman 243.

"Prince Gaston, I have been none too useful a tool to your hand today, but I am here to ask a favor of you."

Gaston waited.

"I wish to speak to Prince Prospero."

Gaston scrutinized Dewar minutely now, every muscle in his face, every weary line. His own expression was calm, neutral as always, betraying nothing of his thoughts.

"Tonight," Dewar added after the silence had grown too long.

"I will grant thee this," Gaston said slowly, and sighed.

"We have things to discuss," Dewar whispered, and looked down.

"Of course," Gaston said then, and rose.

He knew, Dewar thought, but he stood and followed Gaston out, standing aside as the tall Prince took a heavy red cloak from a coat-rack.

Hurricane, outside, was stamping in the cold; Dewar undid the reins and looped them around the hand, his left, that bore the ring beneath his glove.

"A fine horse," Gaston said.

"I found him wandering around-I was . . . wandering myself."

Gaston said nothing more, but led him through the torch-lit camp to a tent ringed with uneasy guards.

Could he be attempting this in truth? wondered Dewar. It was the stuff of cheap popular ballads. He dropped Hurricane's reins and left him standing outside the tent-flap when Gaston lifted it and ducked in. Going in behind him, Dewar nearly b.u.mped into him because the Marshal had stopped.

Then he straightened and saw why. A brittle, not-quite-visible s.h.i.+mmer in the air marked the edge of a circular Boundary drawn to confine Prospero here.

Prospero had looked up with an expression of chill inquiry which hardened as he recognized Dewar. He was not asleep, not even resting; he wore a heavy cloak, under which his left arm could be seen to be in a sling, and he sat on his cot, reading at a low table by a sickly green light.

Foxfire, Dewar realized. An illumination so energyless as to be useless as a focus for sorcery.

"Lord Dewar hath desired of me that he speak with you privily," Gaston said. "Is this agreeable to you?"

Prospero closed his book deliberately, and Dewar was unnerved to see that he was really thinking it over. "Very well," he said. "We've professional gossip to change, and this midnight's as good an hour as any other for't."

"1 knew you would not yet lie asleep," Gaston said.

"Go sleep yourself, and sweet dreams, Prince," Prospero said, a note of irony in his voice. "You've much to look forward to tomorrow."

Gaston's lips pressed together and his nostrils flared, but he said evenly, "Very well. Lord Dewar, 1 shall tell the guards one quarter of an hour."

"Thank you, sir." Dewar bowed his head, speaking quietly.

Gaston bowed slightly to him and left.

Dewar moved around the perimeter of the unseen-but-felt Bounds until he was closest to Prospero. Prospero looked at him, his eyebrows drawn together, with a pained, not unkind expression.

"Thou, idiot," he informed Dewar.

"I know another," Dewar said, p.r.i.c.ked. He removed his glove and held up his hand. "Recognize this?"

Prospero leaned forward, then stood and came to the Bounds. "How didst thou come by that," he hissed.

"A gift from a lady," Dewar said softly.

"A lady."

"A friend of yours."

"I see."

"She would have liked to come and talk to you herself, but I convinced her it was not the wisest thing to do. We have another acquaintance in common."

"Have we?"

"Four legs, twenty hands-"

"Idiot!"

"He's outside." Dewar reached into his jacket and took out his wand, beginning to draw power into it, into his hands, changing it, restoring its shape.

Prospero, who had begun to turn away, spun back and 244 -=> *E(iza6etfi 'Wittey stared at Dewar. "Where is she? Thou canst not be in earnest," he whispered.

"I wouldn't be, but for something the lady said before leaving."

"That, being?" Prospero would have pounced on him if he could.

"She has it on excellent authority that the Emperor has the cold cup ready for your gullet. This despite Gaston's objections; indeed, he may not know of it as such. To be slipped past Gaston to you as soon as possible. Perhaps for breakfast, who knows."

"Avril would keep that to himself. Here." Prospero pointed at a spot on the floor across from where Dewar stood, and Dewar went around to that place. He saw that it was a knotlike focus for the spell. " Tis there he closed it."

"I'll try my key in his lock. I didn't know he had the Art. The Well was plain in him, but not more."

"Didst not? Aye, he was with Neyphile, yon half-tutored vixen. She'd been prowling for a Prince. She had that knave false Golias awhile, lacking better company. A sweet pair of playmates, each to wreak 'pon the other by turns, poignant, pungent games of pain and steel in th' embrace of mutual vice."

Dewar covered his surprise, snorting. "Gossip indeed."

" Tis the sort can keep thee alive, thou young idiot."

"It's congenital," Dewar said, nettled. "Don't interrupt me."

Prospero, who had opened his mouth to do so, chuckled, holding his head in his right hand and shaking it. "Who'd believe this in a romance?" he muttered. "Why, n.o.body. Certainly not I."

Dewar was moving his staff, pa.s.sing it from hand to hand slowly and gracefully, eyes closed now, following the spell. It was a simple but durable construction. There were three false knots to it and a fourth true knot; the false must be loosed first, and so he did that with all the care and meticulous attention he could muster. The spell was built of Well- Sorcerer and a (jentfeman 245.

force, and Well-force was a white line, an additional nerve and sense in Dewar's spine.

"Haste," whispered Prospero, watching him, still disbelieving. At least it was winter, so the quarter-hour they had been granted was long. He turned and rumpled up the bedding, then half-covered the foxfire with his book, dimming the interior. "A grey-bearded ruse," Prospero muttered, shaking his head at the unconvincingly mock-tenanted bed. It might buy a few seconds1 reprieve.

Perspiration ran from Dewar's forehead to sting his eyes. He finished the third and began the true knot, moving the staff more and more slowly, as the resistance of the spell increased. Otto, luckily, didn't seem to have built any traps into the thing; there were a few odd tingles and pops, but Dewar ignored them as minor flaws or flairs and concentrated on taking it apart.

He slammed the staff down. Sparks shot up its length as force was channelled out through it, through Dewar and back through the staff to dissipate, and a glowing rush poured in from the Binding as it came apart around him.

"Right peremptory-beautiful," whispered Prospero, smiling. He gestured, three quick loops, drawing the Well into his own hands and shaping a spell with economy. The air around him s.h.i.+mmered and thickened.

Dewar leaned on his staff, panting and soaked; he mopped his face.

"Hurry," he whispered in his turn, and started for the tent-flap.