Kingdom Of Argylle - A Sorcerer And A Gentleman Part 8

"Captain Golias, I shall emphasize: nothing granted for nothing done. 'Tis required to do real damage, to face true opposition."

"I'm being used as a cat's-paw, then, and I don't like it."

"There's no need to engage; indeed 'twere counter to the purpose. Ride and harry."

"Decoying. Decoying. They'll be after me pretty d.a.m.n quick."

"An it please you, take Vilamar for the winter," said the man, shrugging. "Catch them by surprise, and you're well-set for a long siege."

Golias studied him: aquiline nose, elegant short beard, tanned face, callused hands clearly accustomed to lifting more than dice; yet his speech was of the Court, the old Court of Panurgus's days, and his arrogance fit his speech. The captain was perturbed by his inability to place the man's face in memory, and a p.r.i.c.kling consciousness that the other was not what he seemed made Golias cautious.

"This sounds like a load of s.h.i.+t to me, and I'm not touching it without hearing the full story first," said the captain. "From the man who's hiring." He was beginning to guess who the employer might be: there were few n.o.bles alive with a long purse and a long grudge who could locate the captain in his chosen refuge.

"You may hear it from me, but if you refuse the commission afterward . . ." The dark man's voice dropped ominously.

"Oh?" said the captain softly.

"Aye," said the other.

They stared at one another.

"So why have someone attack Preszheanea? Grudge?" tried the captain.

"Of a sort."

"Against someone specific?"

The dark man's eyes were low-lidded, and they watched $, the captain's hands. He lowered his head slightly. f; "Some Court feud," speculated the captain.

82 -=> 'Elizabeth < p="">

"To trash the place and leave," said the captain in an undertone.

The other smiled slightly. "In a manner of speaking." "Preszheanea specifically? Vilamar in particular?" "Ere you'll know more, we'll discuss the contract." The captain nodded. "You know my usual terms. Nothing usual in this job. Four times my usual rate for it, considering the disadvantages."

"I'm prepared to offer double your usual terms. The sole unusual clause would be that you'll continue your ... efforts until you receive word to stop. There is no other object." "And surrender? Three times my usual, then." "Done," said the other, his voice ringing through Golias for a moment. "Nay, to withdraw to safety and there wait. Tis understood that you may not be in position to do so at once, but must do so as soon as 'tis feasible."

"For example, hole up in Vilamar or one of the other little cities."

"An it please you."

"Triple pay for this picnic. My, my. This is an expensive feud."

The dark man's left eyebrow flicked up and down. "Indeed."

"You're saying, you want me and my men to head into northeastern Landuc and do as much damage there as we can until we receive orders from your boss to stop?" "In summary, that's correct." "Pillage, burn crops, violate shrines-" "As it please you. Those are the usual activities of an attacking army."

"I could do a lot better with a goal." "There may be further word of ends, later. You are the means."

"And the pay schedule? With no clear destination . . ." "This quarter in advance. Thereafter, you'll be paid for the coming quarter on the first."

R Sorcerer and a gentleman 83."My, my. Fringe benefits?"

The dark man smiled. "They're what you make of 'em."

Captain Golias chuckled, "And transportation? Just how are we supposed to get back to Landuc from here, my friend?" he asked, his smile disappearing, leaning forward. "It's a long, hard Road."

"I believe you can arrange that yourself, as you arranged your transport here," said the dark man quietly.

The captain's eyes narrowed. He considered taking exception, and reconsidered. Triple pay. There was no point losing the contract, and he could indeed arrange his own transportation from the Eddy-world to Landuc.

"Your men will follow you?"

"Oh, yeah. The hard part will be convincing them the job's for real." The captain tipped the dice, which had sat idle several minutes, over and over on the table with his fingertip. "Your boss wouldn't mind," he asked, "if I used the opportunity to get a little personal business out of the way, I take it?"

"So long as it interfered nowise with his own works and purposes."

His. Bulls.h.i.+t, thought the captain. With a closed, pleased expression, the captain nodded a few times and then smiled gradually. "You've got yourself a deal."

DEWAR STOOD ON THE BALCONY OUTSIDE his bedchamber in the castle of Champlys, looking down. He was a small distance back from the Hchened bal.u.s.trade, so that he was not obviously looking at the couple on another balcony one floor below him; he hadn't intended to do so when he came out for a breath of air before leaving the provincially comfortable chamber where he had spent the night. But the sunlight glinting offOttaviano's reddish-blond hair and the sparkling sound of Lunete's laughter had drawn his notice, and he wanted to study them in this unguarded moment.

84.'E&zaBtth Sorcerer and a (jentkman 85.Ottaviano wore a purple cloak today, gold -bordered. His back was to Dewar; he leaned over the Countess of Lys, who was seated with her breakfast before her on a low table. The Countess wore turquoise and red. Dewar could see no servants with her. She was laughing at something he had said, shaking her head, now shaking her finger too. Together, they made a colorful splash on the sober old grey stone balcony.

Before she looked up and saw him, Dewar stepped back inside. The Countess's laughter bubbled to a halt, and the songs of the birds in the courtyard below were audible again. Dewar folded his arms and looked up at the blue, blue sky revealed by the pa.s.sing of the night's rain, considering what he would do now; go on his sorcerer's business alone, or pause here in this pleasant place, Lys, and dance at a wedding.

The Countess, Lunete, left the balcony after her breakfast. Though the day was pleasant, the weather was still cool for lingering outdoors once the sun had moved away from that side of the building, and at any rate she had business to attend to. Ottaviano, with her authorization, was working with Lys's Marshal to organize an army to oppose Ocher, who had paused to collect a larger force. She had sent the announcement of her betrothal out with the city's criers that morning, and to do so had given Lunete a delicious thrill. There was no turning back now. Once everyone knew, there was no way to change it.

Thinking of that thrill, smiling to herself, she walked to the Fiscor's office with Laudine, her maid, and went in.

The first clerk who sat at a high stool in the Fiscor's office was also the one who answered the door, ran errands, and announced visitors to the Fiscor when he was in his office. Now he wrote busily in a ledger while the Countess's dark little maid awaited her lady's pleasure on a bench by the door, turning her fan around and around in her fingers and looking at the three clerks, one after the other, from beneath her lashes. From time to time, the first clerk, who was closest to her, would feel her gaze on him and just twice he lifted his own eyes to meet hers for a fleeting instant. She smiled, each time. He blotted his book, each time.

The Fiscor spent the morning reviewing certain accounts with the Countess, who wished to be a.s.sured that the funds she and Ottaviano antic.i.p.ated needing would be available at once. She gave directions for getting more cash-for what, she did not say, save that there would shortly be demand. Although she was not yet of age, the Fiscor had heard the announcement of the upcoming wedding, and he had decided that, legal or not, the Countess's word was law.

"I am thirty-six days from majority," the Countess said to him as she rose to take her leave.

The Fiscor nodded.

"I know that it is not lawful for me to command my own affairs yet."

The Fiscor smiled. "Your Grace," he said, "I have lived within the law all my life. If living within the law now were possible, I would. However, I cannot, in good conscience, do so. And in the end, a man's own conscience judges him more harshly than any monarch can."

Lunete, who had meant to offer him an opportunity to resign and leave Lys if he wished, smiled. "Thank you, Sir Matteus."

He smiled also, embarra.s.sed. "Although your guardian was appointed by the Crown, Your Grace, I was appointed by your late father. I consider myself his humblest servant, and yours." He bowed deeply.

"Thank you, Sir Matteus," she said again, softly. "May the Well favor your loyalty. Good day. Please keep me informed about the money."

"Yes, Your Grace." He bowed again and opened the door for her. She left his office and the first clerk hopped down and opened the outer door for her, bowing deeply. Her maid swept out behind her.

The Fiscor's offices were in a relatively recently-built black-and-white tiled corridor, which had a shallow gallery on either side where there were benches. Winter tapestries still hung between the galleries' high, narrow windows. The pillars were spirally striped black and white, and the tapes- 86 -^ 'Elizabeth 'Wiiiey tries were mostly in shades of red: an outdated fas.h.i.+on since the death of King Panurgus, but homely to the Countess's eye. She started down the corridor, meaning to go to her own rooms and send for certain burgesses of the city to inform them in person as to her intention of marriage and the probable consequences.

She paused, however, seeing a tall man in blue-green and green-blue standing with his back to her studying one of the tapestries in the right-hand gallery. He turned and smiled frankly, then approached her and bowed.

"Good morning, Your Grace," he said. "I wish to thank you for your hospitality."

"Good morning," Lunete replied, and, though it felt oddly intimate to address him nakedly by first name, added, "Dewar."

He smiled again. "You are much occupied with business, I know, but I would steal a few minutes of your time today."

"The theft of time is a grave thing to contemplate,"

Lunete said, beginning to walk again and nodding to him to join her. "Once stolen, it cannot be returned."

"True. Yet the victim can often be compensated in other ways, even to the point of welcoming the theft," he suggested.

"The compensation's value must in such cases be well in excess of the time's, then, for time is a precious thing to all mortal creatures," Lunete said. "We have a fixed allotment which cannot be increased."

"The theft of time, by and large, cannot account for nearly so many of the days lost from a lifetime as time wasted and time squandered on trivial things," Dewar said drily.

"It is often difficult to determine what is trivial and what is significant until time is nearly out," Lunete countered.

"Thus I must offer you, for the time I'd steal, something of enduring and evident value," he said, and smiled at her again.

Lunete could not but smile back. She felt her face grow warm. She was engaged to be married, she thought; she Sorcerer and a Qentieman 87.should not be flirting with this man. He was a sorcerer. There was no knowing what he really wanted in Lys.

"Sorcerers are not known for gambling," she said. "You must have something which meets those criteria already in your mind."

"I do," he replied. "And if it does not meet those criteria in your mind, I shall do my utmost to refund your wasted time."

"This is uncommonly generous of you," Lunete said, "and I shall strive to a.s.say the value of your compensation as justly as humanly possible."

"I thank your ladys.h.i.+p for double kindness, then: for enabling the theft and for your justice in judging the thief. In return I shall offer something few victims of theft receive: the boon of naming the time."

As they talked, they had left the black-and-white checkered corridor and crossed through the central hall of the castle, ascending a flight of stairs at its back and arriving outside Lunete's solar. Lunete had stopped; Laudine hovered a few steps behind her mistress, watching the sorcerer with evident dubiety.

Lunete hesitated, then suggested that he join her at the eighth hour for a light luncheon in the garden. Dewar bowed and thanked her again and took leave of her. The Countess watched him go and then went into her apartment.

Laudine tried to catch her mistress's eye. The preoccupied lady, however, went to her writing-desk and sat down, ignoring her maid.

"Madame," said Laudine finally.

"Yes?"

"Is it true that that man is a sorcerer?" Laudine asked.

"By his own admission, Laudine. He is clearly a gentleman as well."

"Handsome," Laudine said, in an undertone, going to the window and looking out.

Lunete shrugged. "He speaks agreeably," she said.

"Have you need of a sorcerer, my lady?" asked the maid.

88 -^ 'ECizaBetfi Wittey Lunete turned and looked at her, raising her eyebrows. "No," she said. "But a gentleman who makes himself pleasant is welcome everywhere he goes."

Through a gla.s.s, Prince Prospero watched his daughter watch the town.

She was sitting on her heels on a felled tree at the edge of a stump-littered clearing, half-hidden in the tree's foliage. He could see the end of her bow above her shoulder, see the leather band that held her hair more or less in order, see the line of sweat trickling through the dust on her throat; her mouth was set in a line, her brows wrinkled in a frown, and her demeanor was that of the animal which intends to have a look, then move on.

The objects of her suspicious glare, a party of men apparently resting from the midday heat of the early summer sun, lounged and chattered tensely at the other end of the clearing. They were unsure what to do, and so they pretended-badly-that she was not there, that her brilliant and unrelenting stare did not discomfit them, and that they were going to go back to tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the tree's branches and cutting it up as soon as they had rested.

Prince Prospero frowned. She was wild; rather, she had become feral. He'd had her domesticated, at least he had thought so, and he had been caught unawares by the revival of her solitary roving habits. She'd run for seven years after he had shaped the people he needed, and run again three days after her return from that long absence, yet not so far as before. For an hour or a few days or most of a winter, Freia would sidle back in, wary and weatherbeaten, bearing some gift of game or gathered fruit. She'd rarely acknowledge with look or word the hundreds of folk, denying them. It always ended: she'd take offense at some little matter and fly. He had not wished to hobble her and keep her forcibly with him, trusting time to tame her; yet soon he must lead his army into Pheyarcet, and he intended that she sit in governance in his absence and carry on his works in the town. He had told her this, yet still she preferred the forest.

Sorcerer and a Qentttman 89.It was enough; it was too much. Prospero put the gla.s.s back in its case and walked down the bare-sided steep hill where he'd been watching for a stone-barge on the river. He could not fathom Freia. Though she had no art for dissembling and showed all her thoughts in her face, he could not pierce her moods and fits of temper to see what stirred them, nor what spurred her departures and returns.

He picked his way through a pasture and over a fence, and the folk at the edge of the clearing saw him now-and he saw the other thing they'd seen that he could not see from his hilltop: an animal behind Freia, hidden in the green.

Freia noticed him. The animal-a bird, he saw the beak, of gigantic size-tossed its head, rustling the branches, and he recognized it. A gryphon, by heaven's veil; he had seen few enough of them. It might be a favorable portent.

Freia s.h.i.+fted on the tree-trunk, waiting for him to come near.

"How now, daughter," Prospero said. "Hast seen fit to be seen." Freia said nothing, but her expression altered: he had stung her thin skin. Prospero sighed, softened his voice. "And I am pleased to see thee," he concluded.

"You were not here. I came back, and you were gone, they said."

"That is half a year ago-nay, more. I travelled away some days, and returned. Twas business that concerns thee not. Thou wert wiser to have waited for me here."

Freia tossed her head back. "I had business too. I went to meet someone, because I had promised her I would do that."

Prospero, briefly dismayed by her "someone," was rea.s.sured by "someone's" s.e.x. It would be educational for Freia to spend more time with the women here. "So thou hast made a friend of one of my people? That is well," he said. $ "She is nothing like them. I don't like them," she said. i "They have done thee no offense." * f "They cut down the best trees," said Freia, and Prospero heard real grief in her voice. "You let them."

"I commanded them."

90.T&zað 'Wittey Sorcerer and a QentCeman 91.There was a long, cold moment.

"I found this animal," Freia said, "and I brought her back."

Prospero said levelly, "Do not allow thy gryphon to prey upon the folk here. I command thee so."

"Of course not. I'm going to give her a pig," Freia said firmly.

"Nay, no pigs, nor cattle-"

"Why not? They're not people."

"They're for breeding and working and eating in winter," he said. "Let the gryphon hunt her wild meat."

"She is hurt, and I promised her a pig," Freia said. "I promised."