Rod nodded. "Very true."
Gwen nodded too, and turned back to the children. "We must needs guard them."
"But the soldiers..."
"Did lately chase them," Gwen reminded. "Who is to say the sorcerer"s power may not reach down from the North to ensnare them again, and turn them "gainst the d.u.c.h.ess and her boys?"
Illaren exchanged a quick, frightened look with his brother.
"But, Mama..." Geoffrey cried.
"Thou wilt do as thou art bid," Gwen commanded, "and thou wilt do it presently. Thou, whose care is ever the 722 ordering of battles-wilt thou truly deny that the course of wisdom is to guard this family, and take them to King Tuan, to bear witness?"
Geoffrey glowered back up at her, then said reluctantly, "Nay. Thou hast the right of it. Mama."
"Doesn"t she always," Rod muttered; but n.o.body seemed to hear him.
She turned to him. "We shall go, husband-even as thou dost wish."
"But Papa won"t be safe!" Cordelia whirled to throw her arms around his midriff.
Rod hugged her to him, but shook his head. "I"ve faced danger without you before, children. There was even a time when I didn"t have your mother along to protect me."
Magnus shook his head, eyes wide with alarm. "Never such danger as this. Papa. A vile, evil sorcerer, with a whole army of witches behind him!"
"I"ve gone into the middle of an army before-and I only had a dagger against all their swords, and worse. Much worse."
"Yet these are witches!"
"Yes-and I"ve got more than a mental dagger, to use against them." Rod held his son"s eyes with a grave stare.
"I think I can match their sorcerer, spell for spell and power for power-and pull a few tricks he hasn"t even dreamed of, since he was a child." He hauled Magnus in against him, too. "No, don"t worry about me this time. Some day, I"ll probably meet that enemy who"s just a little too much stronger than I am-but Alfar isn"t it. For all his powers and all his nastiness, he doesn"t really worry me that much."
"Nor should he."
Rod looked up to see his youngest son sitting cross- legged, apart from the huddle. "I think thou hast the right of it. Papa. I think this sorcerer"s arm is thickened more with fear, than with strength."
"An that is so," said Geoffrey, "thou must needs match him and, aye, e"en o"ermatch him. Papa."
"Well." Rod inclined his head gravely. "Thank you, my sons. Hearing you say it, makes me feel a lot better." And, illogically, it did-and not just because his children had, when last came to last, become his cheering section. He 123.
had a strange respect for his two younger sons. He wondered if that was a good thing.
Apparently, Cordelia and Magnus felt the same way.
They pried themselves away from Rod, and the eldest nod- ded. "If Gregory doth not foresee thy doom. Papa, it hath yet to run."
"Yes." Rod nodded. "Alfar"s not my Nemesis." He turned back to Gregory. "What is?"
The child gazed off into s.p.a.ce for a minute, his eyes losing focus. Then he looked at his father again, and an- swered, with total certainty, "Dreams."
125.
8.
The d.u.c.h.ess slapped the horses with the reins, and the coach creaked into motion as they plodded forward. They quick- ened to a trot, and the coach rolled away. Gwen turned back from her seat beside the d.u.c.h.ess, and waved. Four smaller hands sprouted up from the coach roof, and waved franti- cally too.
Rod returned the wave .until they were out of sight, feel- ing the hollowness grow within him. Slowly, he turned back toward the North, and watched the soldiers moving away, bearing their wounded knight on a horse-litter. They had decided to go back into the sorcerer"s army, disguised as loyal automatons. Gwen had told them how to hide their true thoughts with a surface of simulated hypnosis-think- ing the standardized thoughts that all Alfar"s army shared.
She had also made clear their danger; Alfar would not look kindly on traitors. They understood her fully, every single man jack of them; but their guilt feelings ruled them, and they welcomed the danger as expiation. Rod watched them go, hoping he wouldn"t meet any of them again until the whole rebellion had been squelched.
Somehow, he was certain that it would be. It was a.s.sinine to place faith in the p.r.o.nouncements of a three-year-old- but his little Gregory was uncanny, and very perceptive.
124.
Acting on the basis of his predictions would be idiocy- but he could let himself feel heartened by them. After all, Gregory wasn"t your average preschooler.
On the other hand, just because he had a ten-year-old"s vocabulary, didn"t mean he had a general"s grasp of the situation. Rod took his opinions the way he took a palm reading-emotionally satisfying, but not much use for help- ing decide what to do next. He turned to Fess, stuck a foot in the stirrup, and mounted. "Come on. Alloy Animal!
Northward ho!"
Fess moved away after the departing squadron. "Where are we bound. Rod?"
"To Alfar, of course. But for the immediate future, find a large farmstead, would you?"
"A farmstead? What do you seek there, Rod?"
"The final touch in our disguise." But Rod wasn"t really paying attention. His whole being was focused on the dev- astating, terrifying sensation of being alone, for the first time in twelve years. Oh, he"d been on his own before during that time-but never for very long, only a day or two, and he"d been too busy to think about it. But he had the time now-and he was appalled to realize how much he"d come to depend on his family"s presence. He felt shorn; he felt as though he"d been cut off from his trunk and roots, like a lopped branch. There seemed to be a knot in his chest, and a numbing fear of the world about him. For the first time in twelve years, he faced that world alone, without Gwen"s ma.s.sive support, or the gaiety of his children-not to mention the very considerable aid of their powers.
The prospect was thoroughly daunting.
He tried to shake off the mood, throwing his shoulders back and lifting his chin. "This is ridiculous, Fess. I"m the lone wolf; I"m the man who penetrated the Prudential Net- work and overthrew its Foreman! I"m the knife in the dark, the vicious secret agent who brings down empires!"
"If you say so. Rod."
"I do say so, d.a.m.n it! I"m me. Rod Gallowgla.s.s-not just a father and a husband!... No, d.a.m.n it, I"m Rodney d"Armand! That "Gallowgla.s.s" is just an alias I took when I came here, to help me look like a native! And Rodney 726 d"Armand managed without Gwen and the kids for twenty- nine years!"
"True," Fess agreed. "Of course, you lived in your fa- ther"s house for nineteen of them."
"All right, so I was only on my own for ten years! But that"s almost as long as I"ve been married, isn"t it?"
"Of course."
"Yes." Rod frowned. "On the other hand, it"s only as long-isn"t it?"
"That, too, is true."
"Yeah." Rod scowled. "Habit-forming little creatures, aren"t they?"
"There, perhaps, you have touched the nub of it," Jie robot agreed. "Most people live their lives by habit patterns, Rod."
"Yeah-but they"re just habits." Rod squared his shoul- ders again. "And you can always change your habits."
"Do you truly want to, Rod?"
"So when I get home, I"ll change them back! But for the time being, I can"t have them with me-so I"d better get used to it again. I can manage without them-and I will."
"Of course you will. Rod."
Rod caught the undertone in Fess"s voice and glared at the back of his metal skull. "What"s the "but" I hear in there, Fess?"
"Merely that you will not be happy about it...."
"Rod, no! This is intolerable!"
"Oh, shut up and reverse your gears."
The robot heaved a martyred blast of white noise and stepped back a pace or two. Rod lifted the shafts of the cart and buckled them into the harness he"d strapped onto Fess in place of a saddle.
"This is a severe debas.e.m.e.nt of a thoroughbred, Rod."
"Oh, come off it!" Rod climbed up to the single-board seat and picked up the reins. "You used to pilot a s.p.a.ceship, Fess. That"s the same basic concept as pulling a cart."
"No-it is a.n.a.lagous to driving a cart. And your state- ment is otherwise as accurate as claiming that a diamond embodies the same concept as a piece of cut plastic."
127.
"Hairsplitting," Rod said airily, and slapped Fess"s back with the reins.
The robot plodded forward, sighing, "My factory did not manufacture me to be a cart horse."
"Oh, stuff it! When my ancestors met you, you were piloting a miner"s burro-boat in the asteroid belt around Sol!
I"ve heard the family legends!"
"I know; I taught them to you myself," Fess sighed, again. "This is merely poetic justice. Northward, Rod?"
"Northward," Rod confirmed, "on the King"s High Way.
Hyah!" He slapped the synthetic horsehide with the reins again. It chimed faintly, and Fess broke into a trot. They swerved out of the dirt track onto the High Road in a two- wheeled cart, leaving behind a ragged yeoman gazing hap- pily at the gold in his palm, and shaking his head at the foolishness of tinkers, who no sooner came by a bit of money, than they had to find something to spend it on.
As they trotted northward, Fess observed, "About your discussion with your wife, Rod..."
"Grand woman." Rod shook his head in admiration. "She always sees the realities of a situation."
"How are we defining "reality" in this context. Rod?"
"We don"t; it defines us. But you mean she was just letting me have my own way, don"t you?"
"Not simply that," Fess mused. "Not in regard to any- thing of real importance."
"Meaning she usually talks me into doing things her way." Rod sat up straighter, frowning. "Wait a minute! You don"t mean that"s what she"s done this time, too, do you?"
"No. I merely thought that you achieved her cooperation with remarkable ease."
"When you start using so many polysyllables, I know you"re trying to tell me something unpleasant. You mean it was too easy?"
"I did have something of the sort in mind, yes."
"Well, don"t worry about it." Rod propped his elbows on his knees. "It was short, but it wasn"t really easy. Not when you consider all the preliminary skirmishes."
"Perhaps... Still, it does not seem her way..."
"No... If she thinks I"m going to lose my temper, she 728 stands firm anyway-unless she sees good reason to change her mind. And I think having given me a promise is a pretty good reason. But at the bottom of it all, Fess, I don"t think I"m the one who convinced her."
"You mean the d.u.c.h.ess?"
Rod nodded. "Mother-to-mother communication always carries greater credibility, for a wife and mother."
"Come, Rod! Certainly you don"t believe yourself in- capable of convincing your wife of your viewpoint!"
"Meaning I think she won"t listen to me?" Rod nodded.
"She won"t. Unless, of course, I happen to be right...."
It wasn"t hard to tell when they reached the border; there was a patrol there to remind him of it.
"Hold!" the sergeant snapped, as two privates brought their pikes down with a crash to bar the road.
Rod pulled in on the reins, doing his best to think like a crochety old farmer-indignant and resentful. "Aye, aye, calm thysen! I"ve held, I"ve held!"
"Well for thee that thou hast," the sergeant growled. He nodded to the two rankers. "Search." They nodded, and went to the back of the cart, to begin probing through the cabbages and bran sacks.
""Ere! "Ere! What dost thou?" Rod cried, appalled. "Leave my cabbages be!"
"Tis orders, gaffer." The sergeant stepped up beside him, arms akimbo. "Our master. Duke Alfar, demands that we search any man who doth seek to come within the borders of Romanov."
Rod stared, appalled-and the emotion was real. So Alfar had promoted himself! "Duke Alfar? What nonsense is this? "Tis Ivan who is Duke here!"
"Treason!" another private hissed, his pike leaping out level. Rod"s fighting instincts impelled him to jump for the young man"s throat-but he belayed them sternly, and did what a poor peasant would do: shrank back a little, but manfully held his ground. He stared into the boy"s eyes, and saw a look that was intense, but abstracted-as though the kid wasn"t quite all here, but wherever he was, he cared about it an awful lot.
Hypnoed into fanaticism.