Kingdom Of Argylle - A Sorcerer And A Gentleman

Chapter 37

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Mistress? Lover? wondered Dewar. He continued to speak in her ear. "Second way will not work with him. He"s certainly proofed against sorcerous Summonings."

"Summonings," she repeated.

"It is a usual practice. Unfortunately he is probably also proofed against the cla.s.s of lesser spells which afford vision of a person without actually intruding into his sphere of experience. And that leaves the cla.s.sical method."

"What"s that?" Freia asked.

"If you were Prospero, where would you go next?"

"You"re joking."

"No. Where would you go?"

"That"s all you can do? Guess?" Her voice rose with disbelief.

"Are you going to throw me off here?" He was sure she wouldn"t.

"No .... I thought-I"m sorry. I don"t know where he"d go," she said unhappily. "Where would you go if you were him?"

"I"d probably run to earth for a while. Hide, lick my wounds, plan another attack."

"He hasn"t."

"You"re sure?"

She nodded. "I wouldn"t have come looking for you if I were."

"I see. Let me think about it then."

"How did you find him in the tower?"

"Ah, actually Ottaviano, whom you just met, told his wife where he was, and I happened to be listening. No sorcery, just luck."

Freia sighed. Trixie"s muscles moved rhythmically. Dewar"s legs were cramping with the effort of clinging to the animal"s slippery, silken back; the furry feathers, or feathery fur, were dense, soft, and hard to grasp. His face was cold; he ducked down more, using Freia as a windscreen.

"It would help me to guess," Freia said after a minute or so of silent scenic flight, "if I knew more about how that last battle went."

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*ECizaBetfi Sorcerer and a Qentkman 317.

"He was defeated and he surrendered."

"More than that. Where are-where are his men? His allies? Dead?"

"Not last I saw. The survivors of his army were taken captive. I suspect Gaston would move them as rapidly as he could to some safe holding area."

"How do you know so much, may I ask, about how and who and what?"

"I was working with Ottaviano," Dewar said, "but not under contract, and I decided to free Prospero after he was taken. And I did."

"You betrayed your side?"

"They aren"t, and weren"t, my side. There was nothing to bind me to them but friendship, and I saw no harm in helping Prospero escape from certain execution."

"Execution," she repeated.

He felt her pulse jump.

"Yes. The Emperor hates him."

"He never said-" she stopped herself. "Execution!"

"What would you expect? He"s attacked Landuc before."

She shook her head. "Why did you help him escape?"

"It seemed a great waste to me. Personal reasons. Whimsy. Mischief. I"m not sure. Perhaps he laid a geas on me to do it, when I wasn"t looking."

"Hm," Freia said.

The mountains were flattening out. The valley bottoms held bluish evergreens and brooks, and Dewar had spotted white specklings of sheep on the hills. Or cattle, perhaps. Out grazing in winter-it was odd weather, indeed.

"Usually the snow here is shoulder-deep by now."

"Is it?"

"Yes. I was here last winter and there"s no getting around after the solstice. Sun turns and sky churns, they say."

"Maybe it all fell where we were. I never saw so much snow. -I"m looking for a place to set down," Freia said. "Trixie"s tired, and so am I, and you"re slipping a bit."

"It was a long walk out, let us say. However, I am glad you changed your mind and came back for me."

"He would have killed you."

"Oh, I think I"d have taken him."

"He wanted to kill you. I never saw anyone so angry. He was berserk."

"Hm. He might have a streak of that in him. They say old Panurgus had terrible rages."

"You"ve fallen back. You must move closer while we go down."

"Sorry. You"re right, I"m tired." He hunched close to Freia again, feeling her body moving inside the leather suit she wore. Practical for flying: warm, windproof. Trixie was swooping in long, slow spirals. Freia was aiming for a pile of stones which resolved itself into a tumbled hut or fold. The descent took far longer than the landing, which was a brief, bone-jarring impact.

"It"s difficult with two," Freia said, and clucked to the gryphon, petting and praising her.

Dewar disentangled himself from her and slid awkwardly to the ground. His legs were sore, pressed and strained in strange places by gryphon anatomy. He walked in stiff circles while Freia took saddlebags and a bedroll from the animal"s neck and talked to her fondly. Trixie bounded into the air then and rose quickly.

"Where"s she going?" Dewar asked.

"Hunting."

"Ah. Let"s see what the lodgings have to offer here."

"I need to sleep for a few days," Freia said, yawning and looking over his shoulder into the half-fallen shelter. "Hay."

"Someone else camps here," Dewar said, indicating the fire-ring on the dirt floor. "Hunters or shepherds."

Freia pushed past him and began pulling at the hay, levelling it into a bedding pile. Dewar found a stack of wood behind the hut and made a fire with it; by then, Freia was stretched in the hay rolled up in blankets from her saddle.

"Food in the bag," she said. "Pots. You clean up." Her att.i.tude made it clear that he was on his own for the meal.

He boiled water, cooked a handful of grain and some dried fruit in it, and ate thoughtfully. The hot food warmed his wind-chilled and chapped body; she had a packet of 318.

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DEWAR WOKE UP COLD AND BURROWED further into the blankets, then slept again. When the frosty dawn brightened the air, he roused to hear Freia talking to the gryphon, but she came back in and flopped in the hay beside him, taking half the blankets away.

"Cold," he mumbled, tugging the blankets back.

"Hate it," she said, and huddled next to him, shivering. Together they were warmer than if they stayed apart, and so they slept In a nest of hay and wool until midafternoon sun sloped round to warm and light the hut.

"Hm," said Freia then, waking up.

"Hm yourself," Dewar said. "d.a.m.n, it"s cold. Wish we"d found a decent inn. Featherbed,"

"Featherbed yourself. It"d have bugs."

"Trust a woman to spoil a beautiful dream," he said, and he was kicked in the shins. "Ow!"

"Time for you to start earning your keep," she said tartly.

Dewar sat up and glared at her. "What did you have in mind? It is cold."

She threw hay at him, a big handful, and he laughed at her and threw some back. Then he lay down beside her again. She had unbent now that they were allied. He already liked her more than he had after their first enforced intimacy.

"Earning my keep," Dewar repeated, and pulled his cloak back around him. "You want me to conjure up smoked pheasant and champagne, perhaps? It doesn"t work that way."

Sorcerer and a gentleman 319.

"No, I want you to figure out where Prospero is." She had pretty eyes, actually, thought Dewar, distracted. Long lashes, lovely shape. Some part of his imagination, whetted by proximity, undressed her and decided that the rest of her person was probably not unattractive. He hadn"t noticed her body in the manor-house. The baggy borrowed dresses, perhaps, or his own pain, or maybe it was riding hard against her back on her gryphon yesterday. . . . "I"ll try."

"You"re not looking for him to challenge him to a fight, are you?"

"No."

Freia studied him still, and Dewar felt goose-flesh rise on his back. She wasn"t using sorcery, but he was being plumbed, his sincerity a.s.sayed.

"What do you think he"d do," he asked her.

"Was he hurt?"

"Yes, but not gravely. Minor to such as he." He decided that if she were willing, so would he be. Even in freezing cold in a haystack.

"Hm."

"He didn"t go where you thought he would."

"No."

"He went somewhere else, then." Dewar pictured the two of them, swaddled in wool in the spiky old hay, clumsily coupling, and smiled. "That"s obvious," he added, to account for his accidental smile. Leave dalliance for fea-therbeds and better weather. "You know, n.o.body else seems to be following him as you do."

"What do you mean?" she temporized.

"None of the rest of his army nor staff are trailing him as you have. How can you do that? What makes you special?"

"Nothing. I"m n.o.body special. I was just worried. He"s in trouble."

"Where are the rest of his army and staff?" Dewar asked. No point pushing the subject until she refused outright to tell him how she was following Prospero, as she certainly would. She was cautious, but not adept at concealment, and he was sure he could get much from her with subtlety.

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"Elizabeth "You said imprisoned somewhere - " Freia blinked. "Of course! I"m thick as clay. He"ll go to them, to bring them home! He won"t leave them here!"

"Exactly," Dewar said. "Find them, and he"s near or among them."

"Easier said than done, surely." Freia"s shoulders slumped. "I"ve no idea where - I"ve just been blundering around."

Dewar hmm"d thoughtfully. "Have you some token of any of the men in captivity?"

"No," she said apologetically.

"Then we"re reduced to indirect approaches," he said, sighing. "Well, that"s life."

"What are indirect approaches?"

"Sorcery. - You must be hungry."

"Yes, I am. Trixie brought us meat, if she didn"t eat it all herself already. We can cook it and eat, but we"d better leave at sunset."

"Afraid not. We"ll be here until moonrise and after, in order to find out where we"re going."

The fire gave light, but little heat. Freia had coaxed Trixie around to lie blocking the dry northwest wind, and that had helped warm the two travellers more than the fire. The musty, glossy gryphon"s body was an implied monstrosity in the shadows and moving light from the flames. Her great eyes were golden with reflected firelight, watching Dewar.

Freia"s eyes were wide, too, dark-pupilled and wondering. Wrapped up in one of her blankets, she sat in the hay an arm"s-length away from Dewar as he worked over a small hemispherical silver bowl filled with water. Dewar, for his part, embroidered the spell and added meaningless difficulties to it, standard practice: she wouldn"t be able to describe it accurately later, for example to Prospero.

He had rummaged through his bag and found several useful items. He had a pack of playing-cards once Josquin"s, which Dewar had pocketed after a last game with the Prince Heir, Otto, and Golias on the day before the battle. At that Sorcerer and a Qentieman 321.

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