Kingdom Of Argylle - A Sorcerer And A Gentleman Part 9

"The pigs are not thine to give," Prospero said, folding his arms, "that thou knowest, for I have told thee. Now leave this game and come-"

"Not without my gryphon. She's mine, I found her, and I said she would have a pig here. There are many pigs. I counted forty-four. She can have a male pig and you still will have pigs to breed."

"The pigs belong to the folk here, not to thee," Prospero said, his patience fading.

"Then I will ask them," Freia said, and she stood, walked along the trunk of the tree, and jumped down. "Chup-chup-chup!" she called, clapping her hands, and the gryphon's head withdrew into the green shade. A disturbance, and the animal pushed through the bushes, snapping at them with that terrible beak. It-she, Prospero corrected himself- looked briefly at Prospero with an unnervingly intelligent gold eye. As she emerged from the trees, wings protectively tucked tightly against her back, Prospero realized he had underestimated her size. He had never seen such a large one.

Freia had a plaited leather halter around the gryphon's beak, head, and neck. She tugged on the lead-rope and the gryphon, favoring her off hind leg heavily, hopped after her, toward the little group of people on the other side of the clearing. Her wings, Prospero saw, were restrained by a fibrous-looking rope, made by Freia, and one wing was splinted.

"Freia-" Prospero began.

Freia threw him a quick, brilliant glance and looked back to the people.

They were backing away, murmuring. One stood his ground, and Freia went to him and stopped an arm's-length away. The gryphon halted and settled into an uncomfortable half-crouch.

Scudamor and Freia examined one another. Freia's bow and her little leather knapsack of gear, her short leather tunic and the knee-high leggings she wore, made her appear a wild woman of an explorer's dream before black-bearded Scudamor, who wore a simple muddy-white sleeveless smock, belted up above his sandalled legs for ease in working.

"Welcome, Lady," said Scudamor.

"This is a gryphon," Freia said, "She's Trixie."

Scudamor looked at the gryphon.

"I promised her a pig, and Prospero says the pigs are yours," Freia said.

Scudamor looked at the gryphon still. She had pulled her head in, sitting hunched.

Freia looked at Scudamor, and then Prospero heard her say a very small, soft word that gave him all hope for the future.

"Please," Freia said.

Scudamor said, "The gryphon favors her leg."

"Yes."

"She cannot hunt," Scudamor said.

"I hunt for her."

"Let us go to the pigs," Scudamor said.

" Tis not needful-" Prospero began, and Freia drew in her breath, and Scudamor said mildly, "To give the Lady's gryphon a pig is a good thing." He nodded, as if to himself, and turned and walked away. Freia tugged the gryphon's tead gently and the gryphon rose and limped with them.

"Be d.a.m.ned," muttered Prospero, confounded. Well, let them give the beast a pig, and when her leg healed they'd have no pigs at all in eight days.

But the gryphon ate her one pig, and then no more, for 92.'H'ifley Freia hunted for her; she hopped after Freia devotedly, and Prospero realized when the gryphon's feathers and fur began to shed and grow again that this was a youngling, coming only now into bright mature plumage. He did not know how young she might be, but she was growing larger as she fledged. Trixie had apparently decided Freia was her foster-mother, and Freia, who had never shown inclination toward pets, poulticed and bandaged and combed and fed her a.s.siduously.

"Belike," Prospero suggested, as Trixie pulled strips of meat from a wood-elk Freia had shot and rafted home to the island for her, "belike thy gryphon were better encouraged to hunt for herself." He feared the day the animal's health returned.

"She cannot fly," Freia said. "Her feathers are half-out. I told her she mustn't eat anybody here, or the pigs or the new ones."

"Sheep."

"They don't look very nice to eat. They're all hairy."

"That's wool, wench, and thou hast seen it 'fore this, in thy garments." And he told her about wool, Freia thought that cutting the hair off the sheep was a strange occupation, and suggested that waiting for them to shed would be easier, but Prospero forbore to expand upon the minutiae of husbandry.

"Anyway Trixie won't eat them; I said she mustn't," Freia said when Prospero had risen to leave her. "Papa-"

He waited, "I asked the men who were making the s.h.i.+p, the big one, if I could not have some of the iron ropes-"

"Chain, Puss. It is chain, or chains."

"Chains. So that is what chains look like. I had wondered. -They said I must ask you."

"What wouldst thou with chains?" Prospero asked, guessing.

"For Trixie."

"Wilt not let her fly when she's mended?"

"Yes, I will, but ... she must have better harness. The A Sorcerer and a Qentkman *=- 93 leather is thin, and she doesn't mean to break it, but it breaks."

"Ah. Hm. Well, there is little to spare. Do thou wait, and tell them I have said thou mayst have any excess, but only when they have completed their work. 'Twill not be long- five days, or six; they labor with good will."

Freia nodded. "Thank you, Papa."

Dewar used the hours between his meeting and his appointment with the Countess profitably. He went into the town and found a tavern where he eavesdropped and gossiped, learning as much as he could about the Countess and her affianced. At the eighth hour he met a page as he emerged from his room at the castle, and the page led him to a sunny, pleasant bower in the garden where the Countess's maid and the Countess waited by a table laid with covered dishes on a yellow cloth, beneath a tree which was seasonably adorned with clouds of white flowers and sharp, impossibly bright-green new leaves.

"Good afternoon, Your Grace." Dewar bowed.

"Good afternoon, Dewar. Laudine."

Reluctantly, Laudine withdrew to a bench some distance away and sat down to a piece of needlework, and the page was also dismissed to skip off back to the castle.

"Please be seated."

"Thank you, madame."

"I seem to recall asking you to call me Lunete," she said when he was beside her.

"I would not seek to presume on the informality of fellow-travellers," he said, "but to willfully disoblige you would be far more presumptuous. Lunete, then."

"Thank you. Would you care for salad?"

"Allow me. It is kind of you to grant me this interview today. There are a great number of things clamoring for your attention after your absence."

"I am curious," said Lunete. She was curious, and his talk was delightful. With his courtesy and address, he made her feel as if she were the Empress Glencora herself.

94.'Efizabetfi 'Wittey "And so am I," said Dewar. "You see, I am not particularly informed on iocal issues. I wondered why you and the King of Ascolet were pursued by Ocher of Sa.r.s.emar." He had acquired some inkling of the business in the tavern, but wished to hear the tale from the lady herself. The town had begun to seethe with preparations for some kind of battle; Dewar had glimpsed Otto leading a column of pikemen.

"Oh," said Lunete. "Ah." She sipped some wine. "Well, it is complicated. In effect, Ottaviano kidnapped me."

Dewar raised his eyebrows, watching her over the rim of his heavy old-fas.h.i.+oned goblet.

"In effect," she emphasized. "Baron Ocher was appointed my guardian by Emperor Avril on the death of my parents when I was a child; he was no particular friend of my father, but when he pet.i.tioned for the position, the Emperor granted it to him. The terms of my parents' will and the custom in this area have kept him from a.s.suming real power over Lys; I have lived here sometimes, in Champlor sometimes, and in Sa.r.s.emar sometimes, but in Sa.r.s.emar more than anywhere. When I was sixteen Ocher pet.i.tioned the Crown for permission to wed me. He was denied. I am told this was probably through the interest of Empress Glencora. My mother Sithe of Lys was a lady-in-waiting of Queen Anemone, and she knew Princess Glencora in Landuc. The Baron lately has made every effort to-to woo me, although I find him entirely disagreeable. I refused and made myself as unpleasant and unmanageable as I could, while keeping close ties in Lys. Ottaviano was a captain in Ocher's service who maneuvered himself into the position of escorting me as often as possible-" She smiled, her cheeks flus.h.i.+ng red for a moment.

"I see," Dewar said, also smiling. Parents, guardians, friends, lover-forces that acted on other people, but not on sorcerers. It was an engaging change from his usual work. He envisioned Lunete's story as spheres circling spheres, colliding at times.

"I did not know he was Prince Sebastiano's son at first."

Another sphere, its...o...b..t tangent. "I daresay he's kept that very quiet. If the Emperor had known of such a poten- Sorcerer and a QtntUman 95.tial troublemaker, he'd have had his throat cut/'

"Oh," Lunete said, and she paused before continuing her tale. "My twenty-fifth birthday is four weeks away. Sa.r.s.emar, for reasons of his own which I cannot fathom, recently decided to use force to make me consent to the marriage after all. If I marry as a minor, you see-"

"Your a.s.sets pa.s.s to your husband. Lys." Dewar nodded. Territory was something of importance to everyone, even here in Pheyarcet where there was only one ruler over the Well. If Lunete was Lys, then she must act for Lys first, always.

"And if I marry as an adult Lys remains mine. Yes. I couldn't let that happen to Lys. I am the last of Lys blood; only the stones have been here longer. My great-grandfather was made a knight by King Panurgus in the War when he conquered Proteus and seized the sacred Well from Noroison. Lys is part of me; I belong here. It would be a betrayal of the very soil to let Ocher or another rule here while I yet live." Lunete straightened slightly. Her voice rang with pride.

Dewar smiled. "So you ensured this did not happen."

Lunete nodded tautly. "Ottaviano rescued me and we fled Sa.r.s.emar. That was when we met you. We contracted our betrothal before we left. Ocher knows about that, because Otto made the captain of the guard in the place where I was held sign the agreement as a witness. Now all we have to do is hold Ocher back until we are wed."

"A pretty tale, madame. I presume you have selected for the wedding the most auspicious day you could as closely as possible following your twenty-fifth birthday," Dewar said. The system would stabilize, he thought, around this new twin planet, Lunete and Ottaviano, and all would go on, with them and around them, comfortable and foreordained.

She relaxed, smiling back at his smile and humorous tone. "But of course."

"How delightful. So Ocher, if he comes to war, shall be attempting to seize your person, or, failing that, to kill Ottaviano."

"Or to keep us apart on that day. Anyone could guess 96.f&zað Wittey which day we chose; it was the best one in the calendar for a month, Otto said. I wished to pet.i.tion the Crown to remove Sa.r.s.emar from his position as my guardian for the balance of my minority, but Otto thinks that such a pet.i.tion would be refused. It might even end with Sa.r.s.emar being given me by the Emperor, and then Lys would no longer be mine but his, my family's blood erased by his. Besides, by the time a messenger rode to the Emperor in Landuc and returned, I would be of age-so we may as well do as we will. I know it is right."

Dewar began to ask why, and stopped. "And Lys's army remains yours," he said softly. Even in Noroison, the men of Lys were famed for their fighting skill and spirit. He had forgotten an element in his mental model: Ascolet, Ot-taviano's Ascoiet, Ottaviano's territory. As Lunete sought to preserve Lys, so must Otto burn to hold Ascolet-but Ascolet had been taken from him by the Crown. Dewar's pang of recognition and sympathy surprised him. It was an old story in Phesaotois, and an old story here in Pheyarcet too; in the end, everything came down to land, and the Source.

"Yes. If Sa.r.s.emar promised additional men to the Emperor, the Emperor would be sure to give me to him."

"While Otto will use them against Landuc."

"We haven't agreed on that yet. It depends on what Sa.r.s.emar does. I will not leave Lys vulnerable."

"Wise of you." Lunete's explanation bridged wide gaps in the gossip Dewar had collected this morning. The Emperor would be very annoyed to find the armies of Lys suddenly turned against him on behalf of Ascolet-if that was what Lunete intended. If Ottaviano refused them, he was a fool, and Otto did not seem a fool. "The Empress, you think," he said after a moment, "takes an interest in you."

"I have never met her; I have never been to Court. But Mother knew her. People here said, when Baron Ocher was refused me when I was sixteen, that the Empress must have done it."

"The Baron might have had tacit Imperial approval for his recent plan to marry you against your will, then," Dewar Sorcerer and a Qentteman 97.remarked, and poured more wine for both of them. "If the Emperor desires Lys under Sa.r.s.emar but did not wish to arrange it openly, he might have let Ocher know that this would be overlooked."

"Ye-es," agreed Lunete slowly. "I suppose he might."

"You can count on it not being as simple as it looks, when monarchy is involved," Dewar said.

"May I ask, Dewar, why you take an interest in Lys suddenly yourself," Lunete said. "There is a saying about sorcerers and simplicity."

"I've heard it," said Dewar, "I am curious."

"Curious?" she said, when he did not elaborate.

"Yes. Or perhaps I should say, I was curious. Now I am interested."

"Interested?"

"I find Ottaviano's case against the Crown compelling," said Dewar. "I would like to see him succeed in it."

"You would?"

"Yes," he said. "I have every sympathy for his undertaking. I understand that people in areas like this would regard a sorcerer's attention as more a threat than a possible benefit, but mine is benevolent."

"Benevolent," repeated Lunete.

Dewar nodded, holding her eyes with his. She had wide, bright brown eyes with straight, barely-curved brows over them; they dropped from his suddenly and a wash of color went over her cheeks.

"However," Dewar went on, "it is very difficult to demonstrate mere goodwill."

"You helped us yesterday," Lunete said, aligning her silverware precisely. "For no reason." She glanced at him from under her lashes.

"That made Ottaviano less than happy," Dewar said, "and more than suspicious."

"He is worried," Lunete said softly.

"You are too."

"Yes, of course."

"If an occasion arises," he said, "in which I might be of a.s.sistance to either of you, it would give me great pleasure "Etiza&etfi to grant any aid in my power. And lest you concern yourself over with what fee I might burden you in return, hear this: I do not sell my sorcery."

Lunete looked up at him, still high-colored, and said, "You are not anything like a sorcerer, or not like the ones I have heard of."

"Of what sorcerers have you heard?" Dewar asked. The general ignorance of the Art in Landuc was appalling.

"Oh, Prince Prospero, let's see, Esclados the Red, Lady Oriana of the Gla.s.s Castle, the Spider King, Neyphile, Foul Acrasia-"

"I see. An unsavory collection." Dewar sipped his wine. "The scorn heaped on the Art here is deserved, if those are its most noteworthy pract.i.tioners." They were of undistinguished repute in Noroison. Lady Oriana was the only one worthy of serious thought, and she had been but a minor sorceress before supporting Panurgus and leaving Phesao-tois-and had not, after all the travails of exile, become his consort. "I am of a more retiring and scholarly bent than any of them, having deliberately cultivated a certain . . . distance between myself and my peers."

"I'm afraid it's not very usual to even meet a sorcerer."

Dewar smiled crookedly. "If one were wise, one would not wish for such a meeting. It is usually dangerous, or at least unhealthful."

"But I am glad to have had the opportunity." Lunete smiled at him again. "How did you happen to be travelling that way?"

Dewar selected a pale gold-white pear from the tray of fruit-last fall's, but still good-and peeled it carefully as he spoke. "I am looking for something of interest to me." His head was tipped back and he addressed the fruit through half-closed eyes.