Kingdom Of Argylle - A Sorcerer And A Gentleman

Chapter 38

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game Golias had lent Dewar a wooden pipe, kept with more benign absentmindedness than Josquin"s cards. Herne distrusted Dewar, but had lent him a whetstone three days before the battle, and Dewar had dropped it into his essential supply kit and forgotten it, until now.

A stone, a pipe, a pack of cards. They lay on the ground before him.

"What are you going to do?" Freia whispered.

"Shh," he said, and picked up the pack of cards and put it in the water.

The water was bright with trapped moonlight, so that the cards simply vanished under the light. Freia leaned closer, interested more than afraid.

Dewar sing-songed the last binding of this Summoning under his breath, but clearly, and the shining water gradually took on an image.

Josquin, with a faint look of perplexity, was looking around himself. He sensed the one-sided Summoning of Seeming and Sound, but couldn"t identify it.

Dewar muttered a modification to the spell, expanding the sphere of its vision and shrinking Josquin. The Prince Heir was in a tent, eating his dinner; a triple candelabrum on the table gave light and focus for the spell. A liveried young man stood to one side, serving him.

Freia had crept up, the better to see, and was leaning half-around Dewar"s shoulder.

"Who"s that?" she breathed.

"Prince Josquin. All we can do is watch and listen. He cannot hear us, but he sensed the Summoning-however, since he"s sorcerously ignorant, not only did he not recognize it but he also could do nothing about it." Dewar smiled unpleasantly. "I feel like a wolf among lambs. We shall see if we can discover something of his location from this, and whether he is near the prisoners of war."

"Oh," Freia said. She shifted her weight and sat down, preparing for a long siege. "People don"t usually say things like, "Here I am at Castle Cathouse," do they?"

"I know. It"s cues and clues I want. It may take a while, but the connection is strong." She was sitting very close to 322.

Tfiza&etfi his shoulder. "It"s cold," he said. "Mind if we share the blankets and the heal?"

"It is cold," she agreed, and they rearranged themselves. Dewar, under the baleful, unblinking gaze of the gryphon, put a folded blanket over some of the hay, and they sat on that and pulled his cloak and her other blanket around them, shivering. Freia put a pot of water next to the fire to heat for tea, and they sat watching Prince Josquin, who was dining slowly. Dewar"s arm slid around Freia"s waist a few minutes later. After a moment"s shy stiffness, she relaxed against him. Indeed it was warmer to sit this way.

The Prince finished his dinner and put on a heavy green cloak. "He"s not in Madana, anyway," Dewar said, half to himself, as Josquin left his tent and crunched over snow. Two guards with a lantern followed him, and the spell now focused on the lantern"s flame. The Prince walked among tents, met a man when he was well past them. The man saluted briskly.

"Sir!"

"As you were, Corporal. All quiet?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Keep it so."

"Yes, sir!"

Josquin was inspecting his sentries. He went slowly around the perimeter of the camp, and the exchanges were all similar.

The water boiled. Freia shook leaves into it.

At the last post Josquin turned back to the camp, trailed by his guards. He stopped at a tent and asked the guard who stood there if Lord Grumond were within, and the guard answered yes and bent down, lifting the flap and announcing His Majesty the Prince of Madana.

"Ah!" said Grumond, standing and smiling. He had been feeding a stove; the spell fed on the light of his oil-lantern. Dewar recognized Grumond: Josquin"s Madanese second and sometime lover. Hm. Should it become too intimate he"d break this off.

"d.a.m.n! It"s as cold in here as outside. Carry on, by the Sun!"

Sorcerer and a Qmtteman 323.

"Wood"s all damp with snow," Grumond said, "and it"s not taking." He knelt again and began fussing with the fire. "Any news, m"lord?"

"No. I"m going to ask the Marshal if he means to kill his own allies sitting out this accursed winter. Apparently Pros-pero escaped from the Baron of Ascolet again, while the Baron was out for a day or two visiting his wife."

"The Countess of Lys . . ."

"Yes. Heh-heh. The unlucky bridegroom. As soon as there"s a front, he"ll be the first sent to it, and good riddance. Sneaking around and trying to pull the wool over Gaston"s eyes, which can"t be done."

"The upstart b.a.s.t.a.r.d. He and that d.a.m.ned sorcerer of his- How did the devil get out of the castle? Malperdy"s never been breached from within or without."

"I don"t know the details, but he had help and there was sorcery involved. I rather strongly suspect our boy Dewar went after him again."

"Treachery," Grumond growled at the stove.

"You"ve got too much fuel in there," Josquin said, "that"s why it isn"t taking. Pull half of it out or two-thirds."

Grumond did that and added more tinder and a lit twig.

"If he"s escaped," Grumond said, "our troubles shall soon begin again."

"Yes. The Prince Marshal commands us to be ready to move in an hour."

"You had us hold ready anyway. Good thinking, m"lord."

"!t shan"t be over until Prospero"s head bounces twice. So the Emperor has said. I shall be glad of it; this has become rather a bore, and I never fiked him terribly anyway."

Freia moved a little, agitated; Dewar squeezed her against him.

Grumond"s fire was catching. He held his hands to its bright light eagerly.

"Now close the stove," Josquin said, "and it"ll be hotter."

"Lall"s a wonder with this thing. Catches right off for him. d.a.m.ned inconvenient climate, m"lord."

Josquin laughed. "For any number of things."

324.

Wittey "Golias is going to be itchy now," chuckled Grumond, standing and closing the door of the stove.

"Where is Lalt?"

"Chasing some wench. I gave him the dinner hour free. Believe he went off with Panzo, you know Panzo."

Josquin chuckled too. "Call on me later, when he"s back to keep your stove going."

"Thank you, m"lord. I shall. Cards?"

"Naturally," Josquin said, and went out.

"We may not do much better than this," Dewar murmured. "I can look in on Golias next." Freia sipped tea and pa.s.sed the cup to him. It was hot; welcome in his cold throat.

Freia asked, "He"s the mercenary . . . ?"

"Yes. Later, if Golias is unhelpful, we can watch Josquin play cards. He"s always been an obliging gossipy fellow." He broke the spell that bound Josquin and cast another for Golias, using the pipe. Since Dewar was the last to handle the pipe, it was more difficult to fix on Golias, but finally Dewar wrested the line of the spell"s seeking away from himself and found the mercenary.

Freia gasped. "No!" she cried.

Dewar held her down. "Calm down and listen!"

A lean blond man stood in front of Golias, held by two of Golias"s mercenaries. Around each of his eyes was a line of fresh-welling blood, seeping like tears on his cheeks. Blood ran down his neck, too, from his right ear. Golias was sitting down.

"Stake him out again," he said.

Freia"s hands were cutting off the circulation in Dewar"s forearm.

"So you know him," Dewar said, as the man was hauled out of Golias"s presence.

Golias, scowling, filled a pipe and opened a bottle of wine.

"He"s my fa-he"s second to Prospero here. Utrachet."

"Then we"ve likely found the troops," Dewar said, "and doubtless Golias, in his own subtle way, was trying to find out what we want to know, or something similar."

A Sorcerer and a gentleman 325.

Freia began to say something, and stopped. Dewar politely pried her fingers loose.

She quavered, "Sorry. I-"

"A shock," he said, and stroked her cold hands. "Now let"s see if we can find out more from the captain here."

"He must be an-an ogre. To hurt him . . ."

"He is." Dewar drew the spell in closer.

Golias looked around suspiciously and paused in mid-drink. He set down the gla.s.s and waited, still tense, and then opened a brown book in front of him. A journal. Dewar recklessly narrowed the spell"s focus so that Golias"s pen-work was visible and leaned forward to read it.

Perendlac. Day VI here. Questioned P "s captain again, no answers. XII more hanged, of the strongest.

"What does it say?" Freia demanded, unable to see around Dewar.

"Uh, he"s writing his journal," Dewar said, thinking quickly, "about how Utrachet isn"t talking. He doesn"t seem to know his name."

"Utrachet would say nothing," Freia said, "not even that, and the men speak none of the language here-" She stopped and blinked.

Word comes that Otto let P slip away again. Dewar did the groundwork for the escape, getting in, killing two guards, disrupting the Bounds, and knocking a hole in the d.a.m.n tower wall. Told Otto to put the prisoner in the dungeons, he insisted on the tower. Thefool, to have cast all away. Anillday. The Marshal and Herne wait in Landucfor word of Prospero "s whereabouts. On full alert.

Dewar translated this. "But where are they?"

"Perendlac. Perendlac. Hm. I"ll need a map. It"s somewhere in the river-plains. Perendlac"s a famous fortress."

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"Perendlac," he said again.

"We have to get them out," Freia said.

"Prospero is probably planning to get them out himself," Dewar said. "We have to be there when he does it."

"He"s hurting Utrachet! How far away is it?"

"It"s a good distance," Dewar admitted. The Road or a Ley might pa.s.s nearby. He gave the cup back to her and she refilled it.

"Trixie is fast," Freia said.

Dewar"s arm was still around her. She turned, kneeling and looking into his eyes.

"We have to go there, to Perendlac," she insisted. "We can"t leave them there! Prospero might be too late."

"I"m trying to think how, madame."

"You don"t know where it is?" she asked.

"I do, but not in such particulars as would enable us to navigate there from here. I am thinking that, since Trixie can fly there, I can cast a spell to lead us to Golias and that may do as well as or better than a map."

"But-"

"Of course we do not go to Golias. We stop before then, having seen with our eyes the evidence of his and his army"s presence before us."

"Ohhh. I see. Like following a scent."

He nodded and smiled.

"How long will it take to cast this spell? How far away is it?"

"It is hundreds of miles," he said. "This is no over-the-hills jaunt. Moreover we must avoid being seen."

Freia, agitated, began, "If you had a map-"

He put two fingers on her mouth, silencing her. "Let me think. It might be best to travel by night. Trixie is not inconspicuous. I must do some preparatory sorcery."

"How long?"

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