Kingdom Of Argylle - A Sorcerer And A Gentleman Part 54

Already three mud-trodden ways ted in from the gates through bare-trampled ground, meeting at a collection of log-and-daub buildings in the middle; a stone-enclosed, roofed fountain rose there, the main public water supply- as if the river weren't sufficient. Already many of the older wooden buildings, Prospero's first projects for his people, had been replaced by stone; two stood half-constructed. These were Prospero's command-post now, where he dwelt himself and planned his works and war and housed the favored of his folk.

"A young city," Dewar said beside her. A gla.s.s ball on a golden chain swung from his hand, its inside stained with a few drops of blood.

"Yes," she said.

444.

There were still trees on the Isle, but now the riverbanks were naked. Bare ground and sloping meadows sprawled where once she had threaded her way through mighty trees and stalked wood-elk and other prey. She would have left it so. Prospero's ideas were not hers.

Dewar was quivering with tension. "Hope he's here," he muttered.

"I don't know where he'd be, but I never did," Freia said. "He never trusted me to tell me," she said, almost to herself, but Dewar heard.

Freia began walking very rapidly, blinking back tears. Please be home, Papa, she pleaded with Prospero in her thoughts. Please, please, please.

A man from a group working on the walls ran toward them, sprinting.

"Utrachet!" Freia recognized him, but hadn't the strength to run toward him.

Dewar fell back a few steps behind her, storing away his gla.s.s ball.

"Lady!" Utrachet cried, putting on a last burst and covering a hundred paces at race-speed. "Lady! Lord! Welcome! Is it-" and he broke off.

"Utrachet, I'm so happy to see you," Freia said. His face was scarred, she had seen it so in Dewar's bowl of vision-water, but he was heavier and healthier-looking than he had been. "Utrachet- How, how are things here?"

"Lady, they go on," he said, and looked at Dewar behind her and at her.

"This is-this man is Dewar," Freia said. Recognition came to Utrachet's face, and she added, "You know who he is?"

"Yes; Lord Prospero has spoken of him," Utrachet said. "Welcome, Lord," he added in Lannach, bowing.

"Thank you, Utrachet." Dewar bowed also.

Lord Prospero never mentioned him to me, Freia thought. "Is he here?"

"Lord Prospero?"

"Yes."

Utrachet stared at her. "Is he not with you?"

Sorcerer and a QentCeman 445.

"Oh, Utrachet. Please don't let's have one of these conversations about him," Freia said, tears starting to her eyes. "Of course he's not here. He never is when I need him. Where is Cledie?"

"She has gone, Lady," said Utrachel. "She left the dawn after you did, and did not say whither she went to anyone."

Freia stared, frozen for a moment, and then walked past the Castellan and continued on toward Prospero's walled city.

Utrachet and Dewar looked at one another.

"She has had difficulties," Dewar said.

"We know she was captive," Utrachet said in accented Lannach. "But why is Lord Prospero not with you?"

Dewar frowned. "Has he been looking for, ah, Lady Freia?"

"He went to free her," Utrachet said.

Dewar blinked. "When?"

"Five days past."

"Uh-oh," Dewar muttered. "Free her how? By attack? Covertly? Do you know?"

"You do not?"

"No-"

"Best to wait, then," Utrachet decided, and, looking very worried, turned to begin trotting after Freia. "Come, if you will," he called back over his shoulder.

Prince Gaston must be present, loth the proceedings though he did; the Emperor swore him to silence. Prince Herne was solidly of the Emperor's opinion in the matter. Prince Ful-gens had never liked Prospero well, for Prospero's winds sported with his s.h.i.+ps and had driven many of the navy onto rocks and shoals over the years of war. The prospect of seeing Prospero shorn of sorcery had the Admiral in an expansive mood, despite the severe winter storms that were setting in.

The Fireduke wished that Prospero might be suspicious of his daughter's absence from the room where the Emperor received him, flanked by officials of his court and the two other Great Dukes and the sorceress Oriana, who was also 446.

Wittey a party in the deception. Would it not seem unnatural to him? More likely it would appear as more of the Emperor's caution.

The doors were opened by two heavily-armed guards, who stood one on each side. Prospero entered. His cloak covered him shoulder to heel and he carried a metal-shod black staff in one hand. Under his cloak was a leather messenger's cylinder.

Prince Gaston tried to catch Prosperous steel-grey eye, but Prospero watched Oriana and the Emperor, whom he rightly saw as the two most dangerous in the room.

"I'll renounce nothing before another adept," he told the Emperor without preamble, "and thou'rt a fool to think I would, a fool doubly, for anything she learn of me could be to wield 'gainst thee, and anything she wield 'gainst me shall rebound on thee."

"She shall remain," the Emperor said.

"Then needs must accept my word that I shall fulfill my vow, for I'll perform naught before any man, layman or sorcerer. 'Tis as binding as the deed; though thy words are gossamer, mine hold."

"This seems a forthright precaution," Gaston said, "and I support it. It is no matter where the vow is kept, nor exactly when, so long as it be done and done timeously."

"Aye," Fulgens said, "Prospero keeps his vows, all know't, though they work to his own ill." He smiled.

"No need to sp.a.w.n a second scourge in putting down the first," Herne agreed.

Oriana remained loftily silent.

The Emperor considered it. "So be it," he said. "You shall complete the terms of the agreement at earliest possible time-within, let us say, five days of its making, and shall be bound by them in that interval."

" Twill not be done instanter," Prospero said in a level tone which was also, somehow, sarcastic, "for thou com-mandest nor Time nor Elements. Seven days shall pa.s.s ere I may complete the vow, and that's if all go well in journeying-which it may not, for thy Empire's full of wildnesses where all was tamed before thy reign. You that travel little,"

Sorcerer and a (jentteman 447.

and he glanced at them contemptuously, "know it not so well as one who does."

"He speaks truth," Oriana said distantly, coldly- perhaps repaying Heine's slight. "A twelve-day's frist be not overgenerous, considering the terms of the contract."

The Emperor, burning with Prospero's insults, began to naysay this, but was interrupted by Prince Gaston.

"Indeed it's true, travelling's not so easy as it was," the Marshal said, "and the old ways are not always reliable. I think twelve days, for journeying to thy bolt-hole and returning, be not unreasonable; and indeed, if it lieth in six days' Road-journey of the capital, 'tis near indeed. As the condemned man may choose his hour, so may you, Prospero; how long will you reasonably require? Considering that you're bound by the vow 'pon agreeing to it, there's no harm in allowing adequate time for its completion."

Fulgens and Herne glanced at one another; Gaston could be fiendishly diplomatic at times.

Prospero said, through clenched teeth, "Your kindness, brother, is warm, and warmly received. Twelve days be not unreasonable, eighteen be somewhat realistic."

"Eighteen," Prince Gaston repeated, firmly. Prospero's stronghold lay far afield, but not too far. Where could it be, that it was hidden from Landuc?

"Eighteen," the Emperor muttered, displeased.

"At which time shall my daughter be delivered me," Prospero said, leaning forward.

"The Crown cannot impede your daughter's liberty," the Emperor said.

Gaston hoped Prospero would demand to see the girl, but Prospero said, "An ill wind thou art, Avril, pure pestilence. Any hurt she hath taken I shall charge to thy account, for that thou'rt so eager to claim benefits, must also claim evils done in thy demesnes-and with them a father's curse on thee." His voice was soft and menacing.

The Emperor said nothing, but stared back at him hatefully, ignoring the coldness on his neck.

Evil comes of evil, thought Gaston. He rubbed a pounding vein in his temple.

448.

'Ethatietfi "Now let us review these terms," Prince Prospero said, opening his cylindrical leather case.

"Agreement?" Freia repeated. "What agreement?"

"Oh, my Lady," said Scudamor. He and the Castellan looked at one another across the table, then at her where she sat in the seat to the right of Prospero's empty chair. Dewar stood at a window at the other end of the table, gazing out and listening.

"The Emperor Avril made a writing agreement with Lord Prospero when Lord Prospero went to seek you," Utrachet said. He spoke Argos to Freia, the language native to his tongue and Scudamor's, and Dewar understood nothing of what they said, but did understand Freia. He puzzled over this with a piece of his thought.

"I didn't know that. They didn't tell me."

"He did not w-did not like it," Utrachet corrected himself, "but he decided that it was best to go along with it, better than leaving you prisoner and under Landuc's power as you were."

"The writing agreement, yes," Scudamor said. "Lady, you have not seen him?"

She shook her head, their sick expressions frightening her. "No, no, he came once to me, went away, he said nothing of agreements, he only-I suppose he wanted to know I was alive. He said nothing."

Scudamor swallowed. "The Emperor did propose to him an agreement of several points. I have the writing, the same writing copied. It is in the language of Landuc, not ours."

"I can read that," Freia said.

Scudamor nodded and left the room. They said nothing until he returned and handed her a rolled sheet. "This is a copy of what they gave him," Scudamor said, "he made it and left it here."

"Do you know-?" Freia paused in unrolling it.

"He did ask our counsel, Lady, and we gave it," Utrachet said.

Dewar turned from the window and watched her read.

Sorcerer and a QentCeman 449.

Her eyes widened as she went down the doc.u.ment. Twice she cried "What!" and the second time Scudamor put his head in his hands and whispered, "Aye, Mistress, aye . . ."

"This is, this is horrible!"

"So he thought, but he could make little change in it," Utrachet whispered. "Yet we did fear that to leave one of our own in their hands would be great danger to all, greater danger than any other herein."

"He would have left me," Freia said, going cold.

The room was very still, and then, quickly, Scudamor said, "Nay, Lady, I think not."

"He would have left me," she repeated. "These terms are harsher to him than death. He could not consider me worth so much." She looked at Dewar and her eyes narrowed. "Especially if he knows about you."

"Aye, Lady," whispered Scudamor, looking down unhappily, before Dewar could equivocate.

She held the rolled paper under her icy hands and stared at it. "When did he go?"

"Five days ago."

Freia looked at the paper. Five days previous had been the day she had rid herself of Golias's burden, the hateful seed he had started: a day of evil for evil, fear for fear. "Fitting," she whispered, her lips numb. The shock held her motionless.

"May I see?" Dewar asked softly.

She flicked the treaty; it rolled down the table toward him. He carried it to the window to read.

"I wonder if we can get to him in time," she said.

Utrachet and Scudamor brightened. "Could try," said the latter.

"He has Hurricane," Freia said.

"Yes," said Utrachet.

"Nothing can outrun Hurricane," Freia said. "Nor do I know the way there. Trixie followed him when I went before; she knew. Where is Trixie?"

"I can find the way," Dewar said.

"She fled," Scudamor said, "she came and killed, but 450.

'EtizaBetfi Sorcerer and a (jentkman 451.