Kingdom Of Argylle - A Sorcerer And A Gentleman Part 39

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"A couple of hours. You can sleep while 1 do what I must."

After a long, searching look in his firelit face, Freia nodded. "All right," she said.

"I warn you I'm going to be very hungry when I finish, so I'll have to eat a big meal."

"There are apples in my saddlebag. Have some now."

He bowed his head politely. "Thank you. I'll still need to eat afterward. It's a drain."

"I know." Freia nodded, sighing, and sat back on her heels.

"You're worried about your friends," Dewar said, leaning forward and squeezing her shoulder. "We'll go as quickly as we can. 1 am as interested in seeing Prospero as you are. He may be there by the time we are."

"Trixie flies very fast," Freia said.

"For how long?"

She bit her lip. "I've only ridden her a long time alone. Nearly a whole day once, with a lot of soaring. This will be more work. We might push her for half the night, or a bit less."

"That might do it, if the winds are favorable. Now sleep. You'll have to be awake to fly."

"You don't want me to watch."

"Well, no."

"Say so then."

"I don't want you watching me work."

Freia nodded. "Trixie, guard," she said to the gryphon, putting her hand on Dewar's head.

The gryphon's eyes, which had been closed, opened and fixed her lambent look on the sorcerer.

He said, "You don't trust me."

"No," Freia stated.

They studied one another. Dewar's mouth quirked. "Sweet dreams, lady," he said. "I'll wake you."

Freia retreated to the hay with her two blankets and watched him for a quarter of an hour or so. Gradually, she 328.

'Elizabeth relaxed, and when Dewar heard her breathing deepen and slow, he began arranging his spell.

Trixie wouldn't let him leave the hut. She rose and blocked him, the wicked beak half-open, ready to snap. This he found irritating, and he woke Freia before he had intended to in order to gain his freedom.

"Hm?" she said, blinking at the golden light of his ignis fatuus, conjured to eke out the firewood.

"Mind calling off your watcher so I can step outside for a few minutes?'1 "What?"

"I need to p.i.s.s and the gryphon is keeping me in," Dewar repeated.

"Oh. Trix, easy."

"Thank you, madame."

Freia lay back down and was asleep when he returned after a cold and starry-skied sortie around the back of the lean-to. The gryphon, which had not moved her eyes from him while he had built the spell to draw them to Golias through his pipe, had tucked her head under a wing. He hoped the animal was rested enough.

"Freia, wake up."

"Mm."

He shook her shoulder. "Come now. Wake up."

"Ah-hah," she said, but didn't move.

"If you don't get up, I'll rouse you, like it or not," he threatened.

"Just try," Freia grumbled, blinking at him. "What's that?"

"An ignis. Here, drink this, it's hot." He pushed tea at her. A slow starter, clearly; Dewar was rarely sluggish on waking and was growing impatient to be gone. "We're in a hurry, remember?"

"Oh. Yes. I forgot."

"Wonderful," he said, and began packing her pot away.

Freia rubbed her eyes, drank the acidic tea, sat picking hay out of her clothes for a minute or so, and then, with a quick "Excuse me," bolted outside.

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Dewar grinned and picked up the cup and her blankets. He'd been sure the tea would get her out of the hay.

"Sweet stars, it's cold," she said presently from the other side of the gryphon. "Come along, Trixie. Oh, thanks for rolling that up."

"Let's go."

Freia, nodding, was tying the blankets and her saddlebags on. "Stretch first," she advised Dewar, doing so, joints snapping and creaking. "Ready?"

"For half an hour now, madame."

She glared at him in the ignis's mellow light. "Now what? What about this spell business?"

"We mount and fly. The heading is that way." He pointed west-northwest.

Freia looked in that direction, picking out stars, he realized. "Good," she said, and climbed onto the gryphon. Dewar got up behind her, dismissing the ignis with a finger-snap. Trixie protested with a m.u.f.fled squawk and Freia had to talk to her, encouraging her. Finally the gryphon trotted in her uneven way to an outcrop of stone.

"Ready," Freia said to Dewar.

"Ready." He tightened his arms around her waist. He was pressed against her back, his cloak tucked in tightly around him, knees drawn up under hers in the advised position.

Freia reached down and pulled at his left knee. "You can put your legs around-right, like that; it might work better. Go, Trixie!"

Trixie went, a jump, a plunge; wings catching thin air and making it solid.

Dewar watched this time as the ground fell from them under the gryphon's straining body.

"This is fabulous," he murmured. He wanted a gryphon. He'd have to b.u.t.ter her up, find out how and where to get one.

They left the mountains in less than an hour.

"The Plain of Linors, this is," Dewar told his pilot.

"Linors?"

"Yes. Lys is here, and Sa.r.s.emar and Yin in the south."

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He thought of warm, long-limbed Lunete and smiled, his cheek pressed to Freia's neck. Ah, that had been fun. Lunete was clumsy still, a virgin until marrying Otto and no time to practice since, but her shyness had made its own kind of excitement. And here he was, far above her lands, flying in the starry night.

"Good that the weather's clear," Freia said. "Can't fly in snow and rain."

Dewar nodded. The gryphon's wings stroked the air. The stars and the night rushed past.

"Dewar-"

"Right here."

"Sauce."

Impudently, he kissed her cheek. "Fresh too," he said. "I'm numb, madame, with wind and cramp: as cold as a butcher's slab."

Freia laughed. "Me too," she said, "and Trixie is tired, I can feel it. We'll have to set down."

"And dawn comes soon. Hm."

He looked down at the ground, a patchwork of fields and pastures.

"I want your opinion on safe stopping-spots," Freia said. "You know more than I do about the way people set up their farms hereabouts."

Dewar didn't think he did, but he nodded and began paying attention to the ground, which he had ignored for the stars and for occasional murmured course corrections to Freia. The pipe, b.u.t.toned inside his doublet in a pouch, tugged gently toward Golias: west-northwest.

After a few minutes, he said, "There's a wooded area coming up."

"Trees. Can't land in trees."

"Is she able to get across it?"

"Yes. There's a river up beyond-"

"Ah. We're closer than I thought. It may be the Rendlac. Look, they have haystacks here too; they're civilized. And snow. Aim for one of those big boxy structures."

"You're sure. Once we're down, we're down."

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"I'm sure."

"Hold on." She leaned forward, commanding Trixie to descend; the plummet began, paused, began, paused- Dewar closed his eyes as the ground lurched and rushed erratically.

The landing was easier than before. Trixie fell on something that squalled.

"h.e.l.l!"

"Shs.h.!.+ It's a goat or something. She's hungry. Get down."

It was some consolation to him to see that Freia was as stiff and uncomfortable as he. They wobbled around getting circulation back while Trixie began ripping up the animal she had killed. Others were running away over the snow in a bleating panic.

"I didn't see that road," Freia said, squinting. "Is it a road?"

"We should be safe enough here," Dewar a.s.sured her. "Let's go look at the barn."

Followed by Trixie, who carried her kill in her beak, they stomped through the snow to the barn. It was no more than a roof thrown over a huge haystack, with hurdles around the bottom to keep the herd out.

"It'll do," Freia said, and took the gryphon's saddlebags down. Dewar got the bedroll. "That was a long one," she added. "Good work, Trixie. You've earned a rest."

"We're close to Perendlac, too," Dewar said. "Can you make her get out of sight?"

Freia guided the gryphon around to the side of the haystack away from the road.

"She'll be fine here," Trixie began eating entrails with gusto. Freia wrinkled her nose and looked at Dewar. "No table manners. She'll sleep afterward."

"Days are short. We can go again at dark."

"How close are we?"

"I'm not sure, but I know Perendlac controls the junction of the Rendlac and Parry rivers. That river looked too wide to be anything but the Rendlac after the Parry joins it."

Freia nodded and set her bags and blankets down. Dewar 332.

'ElizaBetfi 'Wittey walked aimlessly, swinging his arms and loosening up his body, and ignored her as she discreetly wandered off around the corner. There was a hedgerow nearby and the forest was a quarter-mile or so beyond that.

When Freia returned, Dewar said he would get them wood from the hedgerow for a fire. The field was trampled muddy. He picked his way carefully, without an ignis-no point taking the risk of being noticed. In the hedgerow he collected a large armload of wood, not difficult by the starlight, and returned with it. Trixie had gorged and now was curled up with head under wing.

The wood was damp and recalcitrant. He finally summoned an ignis to spark it.

Freia was quiet, watching the snow get whiter with the coming day. She cooked a mixture of grain, dried fruit, nuts, and dried meat for them to eat. They emptied her canteen, thirsty from the arid air.