Kingdom Of Argylle - A Sorcerer And A Gentleman Part 55

would permit none to harness her, and left after eating."

Freia's face fell further, injury and disappointment in every line.

"I daresay the gryphon could outspeed Hurricane, if you could find her," Dewar said.

"She'll be over the Jagged Mountains by now," Freia said sadly. "Gone feral-not that she was ever truly tame."

"Lord Prospero left other writings," Scudamor said, "which he said were to do with you, and which he had us sign also, Lady. He said 'twould give the Emperor a p.r.i.c.k in the a.r.s.e to see them."

"If you can find them-"

"I'll fetch the copies he did not take," the Seneschal said, and he left the room.

"He's buried them deep in some burrow of his," Utrachet said. "Nests in paper, not leaves. Lady, I will not conceal it, Lord Prospero was much oppressed."

"I cannot believe he agreed to do these things for me. I don't understand any of this. Why couldn't he do as you did and break the bonds? He got away from Malperdy himself. Why couldn't he free me?"

Dewar coughed. "As a sorcerer, madame, I can give you a number of reasons. In Malperdy, the Bounds around Prince Prospero were forged differently than in Landuc, where you were bound yourself to the prison. Otto, who pent him in Malperdy, had not the art to do so well, and so Prospero was able to use his familiar creatures, whatever they are, to free him."

"Where is Caliban?" Freia asked Utrachet.

"Not seen in long and long, Mistress-yet that is not uncommon," Utrachet added.

"At least you're still here," Freia said mournfully to the Castellan. He bowed his head.

Dewar waited and went on, "Stonework is a branch of sorcery possibly less familiar to Prospero than to me, as I apprenticed in it. Thus it may be that he does not know the ways in which such Bounds as held you are broken, though he can perhaps see how they are made. I suspect he could have broken them, given much time to study-did he not break Chasoulis's walls, which were Bound by Neyphile?- but such an examination is difficult without time and with interruptions by guards."

"So you think he couldn't," Freia said to him.

"That is what I said."

"I don't believe it," said she.

"Mistress," Utrachet said, "alas, it is true as far as I have seen."

"How can he renounce sorcery?" she cried. "It is all he does. He cannot just forget it."

"There are oaths," Dewar said, "which he can be forced to take, which are strong enough to prevent him from using what he knows, or speaking of it, or meditating on it."

"This is evil, evil," whispered Freia. "I knew no good would come of his war. He wouldn't listen to me."

Scudamor returned and set a wooden box before Freia. "Lady, here are the writings."

She opened the box. "They are in Argos and Lannach," ! she said.

"Yes," said Scudamor.

Freia read, and they waited, the sorcerer by the window * and the Castellan and Seneschal to either side of her.

"Why does he do this?" she whispered.

"What has he done?" Dewar asked.

"He has bestowed things on me, my name here and here- t.i.tles, lands I've never heard of-Argylle," she said, coming to the last, her eyes widening. "How can this be?" : "They are t.i.tles?" Dewar asked.

"They say he renounces-whatever it is, each is different- in order to bestow it upon me. So here he says I own lands in ?a place called Penrun, and in Wallong, and others .. ." She leafed through the sheets. "And here it says Argylle is mine."

;. "This city, Argylle?" Dewar asked patiently.

"This city?" Freia repeated.

Scudamor, Utrachet, and she all looked at one another.

"It is where you are, Dewar," she said. "All of it. The ^jaty-" She made a dismissing gesture. "That's new. At first ; Prospero called it Garvhaile, but I could never say it prop-and now it is Argylle. But that is not what I don't 452.

'Etizatietfi Wittey understand. Why has he done this? He knows I don't want this kind of thing. We argued about it, I won't take these things from him. He can't make me."

"They are t.i.tles to lands," Dewar half-asked, "and estates, things of that nature-"

"Yes, I guess that's what they are. If that's what it is when you give somebody something they don't want."

"Then they are deeds of gift of t.i.tle," Dewar said. "Pros-pero is a shrewd man, and the Emperor's getting less than he hoped from the bargain, but still much." He came around the table to stand behind her and look over her shoulder.

"Why?"

"In the agreement Prospero has made, he yields up his t.i.tles to lands to the Emperor-any he has. But before he went to sign the agreement-see, al! is dated and witnessed, and I daresay he is doing the same with some honorable folks of Landuc-he has divested himself of every sc.r.a.p of earth he could claim and places all in your hands."

Freia stared at the papers.

"You cannot refuse; it's not a question of accepting or refusing. You can ignore the properties, but legally Landuc cannot touch them. They are yours, by perfectly legal gift. Hm, this is rather older. And odder." Dewar paused and picked up a parchment, written in Prospero's perfect pen-work.

"That was when he had just begun planning the war. I didn't understand what it was, but he made me sign it and he put a copy into some place he said was important. What is this word?" She pointed to a particularly intimidating one.

"This doc.u.ment declares that you are an emanc.i.p.ated freewoman and that he holds no claim on you or anything you possess. It is a thing that is filed sometimes in Landuc when women are widowed and thus become legally wards of their brothers. If the brothers and the woman can come to some agreement, they will grant her the independence to manage property or money left to her by her husband or in her dowry and renounce claims on it. It is very rare," Dewar Sorcerer and a Cjentteman 453.

added, "and I've never heard of it being done with a daughter. You must ask a man of law if it is legally possible to emanc.i.p.ate a daughter."

"He doesn't own me!"

"That's what this paper says." Dewar sighed.

"I mean he certainly does not own me, and he never did, and he knows it! This is an insult!"

"Not in Landuc. In Landuc it is a scandal," said Dewar, grinning.

"d.a.m.n Landuc!" Freia banged the lid of the box closed. "Can you open a Way there? We must stop him from going through with this horrible business the Emperor has forced on him! It will kill him."

"No, it won't," Dewar said, "but it will cripple him, and the Emperor will like that better."

38."FREIA, THERE is SOMETHING IN THIS place which tickles my curiosity," Dewar said, sitting beside her and selecting a nut from the dish before them.

"I don't know anything," Freia said dully. She was rolling three nuts around the rim of the dish, her head heavy on her hand. He had been playing with odd instruments for several hours now, things with lenses and things with prisms and swinging balances, things with finely-graven marks and his Map and thick Ephemeris. She had been contemplating Prospero's disregard for her, past and present. Neither had much to show for the time so spent.

Dewar cracked his nut in his fist and picked the meat out. In a honeyed voice he went on, "There is some force here which overwhelms my sorcery. Do you know whether Prospero has placed Bounds or barriers hereabouts? I felt Bounds at the city walls, but not strong enough to account for the difficulty I'm encountering."

"He doesn't tell me anything. Perhaps Utrachet or Scu-damor would know," she replied bitterly.

454.

Dewar ate his nutmeat and cracked another more neatly. He tidied the sh.e.l.ls into a pile as he constructed his next remark. "Lady," he said, "a chance encounter made us comrades, and a chance of genealogy made us siblings. Though we're mostly strangers still, yet I think we've travelled and done enough together that I can ask you to tell me what's troubling you now." He leaned forward to look at her face.

"Everything," she said after a short silence, during which the nuts were allowed to roll to a halt. "I do not understand what Prospero is doing, or why, and he has never told me anything that mattered. He told Utrachet about you, Utra-chet said so, yet he never told me. He doesn't trust me," she finished.

"I do not think he has known very long that I exist, and less that I'm his son," said Dewar gently. "How long have you lived here with him?"

"I don't know. Always."

"Well, you have the advantage of me there," Dewar suggested. "I have not had more than an hour or so all told with him, much of that in the war when we were adversaries. Has he taught you sorcery?"

"No," she said. "He wouldn't. He said it would be bad for me to learn that from him. You don't have that problem," she added in her bitter tone.

Dewar understood. She was jealous. Prospero had excluded her from his confidence in the past, and she foresaw further exclusion because Dewar was a sorcerer and she was not.

"He wouldn't let me go with him," she went on in an undertone, "but if it had been you he would have."

"Freia, I do not know him well enough to second-guess him, but I surmise he left you behind to protect you." And rightly too, Dewar thought, if he had emanc.i.p.ated her and endowed her with lands. But he went on, "If he has gone to the trouble of having you with him for a long time, Freia, you shouldn't be afraid that he's going to cut you off. Surely he loves you. He has gone to Landuc to get you back."

She was silent, but he could see that she was troubled still.

Sorcerer and a Qentieman 455.

Dewar touched her shoulder and then cautiously half-embraced her. "Freia," he said, "do not let such ideas gnaw you. Let us work together as we have before to find him and then, when we have done so, we can begin to figure out what we are to one another,"

Freia looked at him sidelong. She didn't want a brother. If they two had dallied in the haystack before going to Perendlac, what would they be now? She had wanted Dewar painfully then; she didn't want him now, her body was sick and shocked still, but she knew that she had ached for him then and that everything she had seen in him was still there.

He had seemed antagonistic toward Prospero and she had thought to mediate between them, to help her father and please herself at once by finding a mate whose interests, talents, and affection could be brought to Prospero's aid.

"I thought you sought Prospero to quarrel with him," she said.

He looked down. "Yes and no," he said. "He had dismissed me suddenly-then did it again-and I misliked his arrogant way of doing so. It seemed to me-and still does- that we've much to discuss. We were adversaries, but without personal feeling, in the war. I've left the war."

"He does that to everyone," Freia said. "AH at his beck and call." She looked out the window at the forest, on the other side of the low course of stone that was becoming a wall.

"It befits a sorcerer and a Prince both," Dewar said, "and it p.r.i.c.ked me, as I said, but now I would not see the Emperor strip him of his powers. It sets a dangerous example, for one thing."

Freia noted that he did not speak of affection for Prospero. He had none, probably.

"I would not gladly see any colleague so treated," Dewar was saying, "least of all one for whom I have such respect and whose prowess is as great as his n.o.bility. I would like to know more of him." His arm, still across her shoulders, tightened. "Lady, we are allies in purpose. Doubtless you have been taught to trust none, believe none, but I promise you I bear him no ill-will."

456 -^ 'Elizabeth < p="">

"You yourself misprove that," Dewar said. "You have imperilled yourself and taken grave hurts for love of your father. Grant me some small share of your own altruism, Lady," he concluded in a near-whisper.

They sat eye-to-eye, breaths mingled, motionless. Finally Freia nodded fractionally.

"Thank you," Dewar replied, and bowed his head slightly.

Freia relaxed. She had been bow-tight.

"I am meeting great difficulty in working sorcery," Dewar said, "for there's something here which overwhelms and turns awry my least effort, just as I could not bring us closer to the place than that wasteland. Do you know of anything which could be the cause?"

"I think I do."

"What is that?"

"I think I'm not supposed to tell you," she said unhappily, biting her lip.

Dewar began to frame arguments and further wooing persuasions of confidence and then altered his plan. "Well. I would not have you flout your father's will. Then I must go from here to get to Landuc, and it will take precious time to do that. Several days, I should think, to leave the reach of this spell which confounds me."

She blooded her lip and Dewar forced himself not to look away.

"Dewar, I am not used to-" she started, but did not conclude the thought. "Let me think. Just do let me think."

"Surely." He lifted her hand and kissed it lightly.

Freia thought, weighing Prospero's safety against Pros-pero's fury, love against fear. "There is a Spring here," she said. "It is a source of power for him in some ways. He uses it to-to-change things. Sometimes. I don't understand very much of it," she said unhappily, "I wish I did, but he doesn't tell me things like that-you look strange; what's wrong?"

Sorcerer and a (jentfeman 457.

Light of knowledge and realization had broken over Dewar, a pure and intense emotion of recognition and desire. The Third Source was here. Someone had found it before him.

"A Spring, you say," he said, and his voice shook.

"It's just water. I bathed in it once," she said, his expression unnerving her.

"Water," he repeated. Yes. It would be Water. It made perfect symmetrical sense. He had suspected Water, all along, and yet he had never quite found the place. Ot-taviano's and Prospero's wars had distracted him from his quest. Facts snapped together, forming new structures of reason and truth. Prospero had deeded the place to his daughter to keep Landuc from destroying it and being destroyed, as destruction must surely follow such a subsump-tion of Water to its ant.i.thesis Fire. Freia untrained might well see it as only water, to drink and bathe in; that was the oddly impenetrable part of her, the part of her that was attuned to the Spring-most of her. This was why he did not understand the speech of these people, nor had anyone in Landuc who had pa.s.sed the Well's Fire; these were aliens, true outsiders whose essential nature was other than Fire.

"I think I shouldn't have told you that," Freia decided. "I can't do anything right."

"Freia, Freia! Yes, you have done right! I- You see I have been looking for this place. For many, many years. I knew it had to exist; it made itself apparent in disruptions of the other forces, the Well of Fire's and the Stone of Blood's, and I learned to compensate for it but never could locate the source of the difficulty. I theorized that it was some third force incompatible with those two but I could not locate it, though I sought. And here it is, here you are, imbued with it unknowing." He had seized both her hands and was staring into her face intently, and she stared back, riveted by the transformation his excitement had made in him.

"If I had thought it through I would have seen it." He laughed suddenly. "But there's been little time for thinking, really thinking. Freia, Lady, take me to this Spring."

458.

Itfittey She hesitated. "I think I shouldn't. I think he wouldn't like that." Prospero had warned her again and again not to speak of the Spring, of Argylle, of him, and she had now broken all those promises, and she didn't want to compound her crimes with what she feared he would see as treason outright.

"Please, Freia! I have searched so long, so long, and-"