Kingdom Of Argylle - A Sorcerer And A Gentleman Part 49

"They'll not let thee go yet," he said. "Thy Uncle Avril hath little good in him, Freia."

"He-" Freia began, and stopped.

If Freia told her father, Gaston mused, that the Emperor had threatened using force on her, then probably this room by virtue of the Bounds on it would be the only thiiig left standing of the Palace. He touched her shoulder; she flinched. "Thou'lt go home," he told her, "but not yet, not now." Would Prospero indeed bargain for her, surrender something for her? A wonder: that she could be so precious to him. It could not be so, thought Gaston; Prospero was a sorcerer.

Yet Prospero had given up something precious not long ago. He was not mad; he could not have handicapped himself in the war for no reason. Gaston looked at Prospero with sudden, sharp uncertainty: he was not behaving as expected.

"Thrash not so. Trust me, Puss," Prospero said, his voice rough to cover emotion. "I'll see thee home safe ere long. I did but come to be sure thou'rt well ere I began."

"I'm not well," she said in a keening voice, turning away. "I want to go home. I've got to get home."

"Thou'rt looking hale enow," Prospero said. "Now, Freia-"

Sorcerer and a (jent&man 405.

"Interview's over," the Emperor announced, arriving at the other side of the door. Behind him, Count Pallgrave and Cremmin waited, holding books and ledgers. "Come, Prospero, we have much to say."

"Avril-"

"We have a little time free now," the Emperor said, "or you can wait two days."

"Father-"

"Freia, patience." Prospero turned from the door and followed the Emperor.

"Papa, no! Don't leave me here! Don't leave me! Don't go!"

Gaston caught her before she hit the Bounds and held her back, then held her against him. She struggled, trying to kick him.

"Such noise the creature makes," the Emperor's voice floated back.

A door slammed.

Freia moaned and slumped.

"I'm sorry, la.s.s," Gaston told her. "Trust in thy father. He loves thee well, I see't, and he-he'd give much for thy welfare."

THE BARS OUTSIDE THE WINDOW WERE an obstacle, but not 3 formidable one.

Dewar tapped. His gloved hands didn't tap well. He used the pommel of a dagger.

The bedding he could see through the gap between the drapes moved seismically, erupted. A rumpled, white-gowned lady blinked owlishly around the room.

Dewar tapped again.

Freia stared at the window and was at it seconds later, yanking the drapes aside, fumbling at the cas.e.m.e.nt. It was locked-in fact, welded; Dewar saw her scowl. He gestured to the hinges. She looked at them, then at the lock, and 406.

ftizabetfi Itfittey shook her head, either not understanding or not able to do anything about it. Dewar meant for her to break the hinges; he had no doubt it would be possible, but he couldn't easily mime it to her hanging onto the grating with one hand.

Snow blew against his back. It had been raining earlier. He'd rather have rain.

He held up one finger and pointed to her with a questioning expression.

She nodded, then pointed at the next room to the left, holding a finger of the other hand to her lips.

He nodded. Gaston was there; Dewar's surveying had discovered him already. Dewar plinked the gla.s.s again with the dagger: then break it.

Freia went to the bed and got a blanket. She m.u.f.fled it over the window and drew the drapes again. Dewar lowered himself a few feet on the knotted rope, crouched against the brown-ivied wall, and waited.

c.h.i.n.k-c.h.i.n.k-cras.h.!.+ Musically, the gla.s.s panes shattered. A shard hit his thick-hooded head and bounced off. Hand over hand, Dewar climbed back up. Freia had just cautiously lowered the blanket, staring anxiously toward Gaston's room. Dewar saw why: a connecting door.

"Why doesn't it flash?" Freia whispered. "The doorway does."

"Bindings are tricky," he whispered back. "The iron grating is Bound, but more weakly than the walls. The wood frame and gla.s.s aren't Bound at all. They're not integral, you see. Makes for a weak link. And you didn't cross the Boundary by breaking the gla.s.s. I see it's a blood Boundary. Cut your finger on a piece of that gla.s.s, Freia, and smear the blood around the window opening in an unbroken line."

She hesitated, distrustful. "Why?"

"If you do that, I'll break the Bounds; or rather breach them."

Freia, flinching, cut her left middle finger on the jagged gla.s.s and began drawing the line. Dewar put his hand opposite hers on the outside of the window and drew on the force of her blood, altering the Binding without destroying it. The blood burned through the Boundary, but since the maker Sorcerer and a Qentleman 407.

had worked Freia's blood into them as well as his or her own, the Emperor's, and Gaston's, the Binding-spell accepted and accommodated the change in forces and direction.

They finished. Dewar's arm was cramped from clutching the grating and rope. He s.h.i.+fted. Inside, Freia pressed her hand to stop the bleeding.

"Are you here for me?" she whispered.

"I thought I'd drop in for supper. What do you think? Get the poker."

"1 haven't one."

"Oh. Lest you trepan somebody with it."

"I'd love to," she said, and her voice and her face trembled.

Dewar patted her hand through the grating with two fingers and smiled. "Luckily a burglar, I mean a sorcerer, comes prepared." Indeed, his sorcerous career of late seemed to be half a housebreaker's. He pushed that aside for later consideration.

"How did you get up?"

"Rope. We'll go down same way. Shshsh. Draw the drapes. Pretend to sleep. Just in case." He began breaking and picking more gla.s.s from the cas.e.m.e.nt, reaching through the grating.

She obeyed, disappearing behind the folds of heavy cloth. Warm air poured thickly past him into the night. Dewar, one-handed still, rootched in the bag slung at his hip and found the jemmy bar. He began working at the bolts holding the grating.

They were newly set in the red sandstone wall for the occasion, not at all in keeping with the Neo-Ornamenled architecture, and not terribly well set either. The mortar crumbled, badly packed, as he worked. He pried bolts off, picked more gla.s.s from the cas.e.m.e.nt, and pried again. It seemed to take hours and to make a horrendous noise. No light came on in Gaston's room, though, and no one stirred within. Snow pattered on his shoulders.

Dewar's rope was still fastened to the grating, and he prayed heartily that the bolts he ieft wouldn't give up. He 408.

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Freia sat up in the dark-hung bed. She looked like h.e.l.l, haggard and drawn.

"You're a sight for sore eyes," he lied, smiling, and bowed.

"Did my father send you?"

Straightening, he still smiled. "No. Care to go anyway?"

"Yes!"

"Get warm clothes. d.a.m.n cold out."

She dressed. Dewar stood by Gaston's door, just in case. Gaston slumbered on. Dewar pitied him in the morning. Out of favor. He'd probably better leave town.

"Get a cloak."

"I don't-"

"Blanket."

She pulled two off the bed and stood by the window, clutching them to her chest. Her whole body was tense, expectant.

Dewar winked at her, decided to say nothing about the grating and the rope and the paved terrace three storeys below, and opened the curtains with a flourish.

"You first."

"I . . ." Freia looked out the window, at the rope disappearing into wet darkness, and quailed. "I can't-I can't. I can't."

Dewar drew in his breath to argue about it and thought better of it. "Very well. I will carry you down."

He pulled on his gloves again to protect his hands from the coa.r.s.e rope, then climbed over the sill. She put a chair under the window and stood on it, crouched on the sill, and transferred herself gingerly, stiff-bodied, to his care.

"Don't look down," he commanded her in an undertone.

"Trying," she replied.

"Surely a woman who can drop off a cliff on a gryphon can manage this," he muttered.

Sorcerer and a Qen.tie.man 409.

"I can't do heights," she whispered back, and squeezed her eyes shut. "I can't look."

Dewar, exasperated, abandoned the topic. He had not expected her to be so damsellish. Fiery Lady Miranda wouldn't, he thought, and he said to Freia, "Then don't look."

She nodded.

With one arm hugging Freia's body against him, he descended without haste but without delay. She, trembling distractingly, clutched him around the neck, gripped him with her legs, and kept her eyes closed tightly. Dewar accustomed himself to the extra weight and odd balance, and then he inched them down, drawing on the Well to fortify his arms, bracing his feet on the rough wall. They rustled in the ivy and dislodged globs of slush. Once his boots slipped, and he and she dangled crookedly until he found footing again. Freia was inflexible as iron.

The window-grating gripped its sloppy masonry until they were just above the first storey. Dewar felt it go and dropped, landing solidly on his feet and putting Freia down lightly, even gracefully.

The grating hit the terrace with a thunderous clang a half-step away from them. Dewar swore softly in the shocked silence that followed.

Light blazed up in Gaston's room. Dewar grabbed her hand and, as the curtain opened, they scurried off the terrace. Gaston was shouting above them, and Dewar couldn't resist looking up and waving c.o.c.kily as they crossed the pale patch of light from his window.

The Marshal stared at him, yelled "Dewar!" and was gone.

"Oh no!" Freia wailed.

"Think I'm stupid? The horse is this way."

"No . . . magic . . ." she puffed beside him.

He thought she meant, Why not leave through a Way? "Bounds in your room prevented it. Good job, who did it?"

"A lady-"

"Neyphile?"

410.

T&za&etfi "No!"

"Oriana. Ah well. Here he is. Good fellow, Cinders! Hup I go-hup you come-and away."

Back at the Palace rose alarums and shouts, burned lights in the rain.

Freia began "Guards-"

"Forget them."

The horse pounded into the Palace Gardens, leaving a clear trail for anyone to follow.

"Where-"

"Shh. Trust me."

Freia clutched him hard around the waist, bouncing on the horse's rump behind him. Trust him, she thought. Trust him.

Later she could never remember exactly how they had gotten out of the Palace Gardens, though hanging by the ivied wall in the rain-flecked dark stayed in her nightmares for years. Dewar sent the horse on without them, Cinders galloping away wildly in the freezing rain and digging up the turf so that the guards would follow the animal awhile longer. Beyond that she wasn't sure. She remembered a fire in a temple-like place, and being sodden, wet through, and very cold so that her body ached.

Dewar liked the rain; he lifted his face to it and pushed his hood back. Freia absorbed it, growing heavier and slower, its coldness penetrating her skin and its wetness smothering her.

The night was a kaleidoscope of darkness, water, and uncertainty. The fire was leaping and alive, defiant against the weather, and Dewar crouched by it trying to talk to her.

"Where, Freia?"

"Home," she said, and began to cry, his questions like all the others she could not answer.

"But where? Just a name, Freia! Teli me a name of a place. It would help."