Ottaviano glared down at the stranger. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded in a low voice.
“I beg your pardon,” said the man, lowering his small black book. “Are you addressing me?”
Otto belatedly alerted his senses for nascent sorceries and locked his gaze on the other’s. The guy might try another spell. If he did, Otto must disrupt it or avoid it.
“Yes, I am,” Otto said softly. “Don’t get cute.”
“I have been called many things, but never ‘cute,’” said the other coldly.
“I believe you. You’re tailing us, or me, and I find it very, very annoying, buster.”
The sorcerer looked at the man leaning over him. The fellow plainly wanted to pick a fight. He thought he’d deny him the satisfaction of it. “You have an overrated opinion of yourself if you believe that, sirrah. I have no interest in you at all.”
“I find that hard to believe, considering the number of times I’ve seen your face lately.”
“Believe anything you like, by any means,” said the other, indifferently.
“I’d also like your attentions to my fiancée to stop,” Otto said.
“You have confused me with someone else,” the sorcerer decided, and raised his book again.
“I don’t think so.”
“You think?” the sorcerer muttered, and it took a few seconds for the insult to register.
Ottaviano reached for the sorcerer’s wrist, but a slow, sticky resistance engulfed his hand. He tugged back at it. He couldn’t free himself, and he realized he had been snared and immobilized by a protective spell—one he hadn’t sensed in the slightest degree.
“I can leave you like that all night, you know,” said the sorcerer, not lifting his eyes from his book.
“Where are you from? Noroison?” Otto whispered, cold seeping into his extended arm through his fingers. There was no one to see his odd position; the room was still empty.
“Yes.”
Otto had intended the question sarcastically; he had expected any answer but that. “No shit.”
This statement had no possible reply that the sorcerer could conceive. He reread the sonnet. He couldn’t decide whether he liked it or not. The conceit was not novel, but the interesting way the poet had broken the meter in the concluding couplet—
Meanwhile, Otto tried to free his hand again. No success, and he was numb to the shoulder. “Uh, look, if you don’t mind, we should either finish this conversation—”
“We aren’t having a conversation. You’re swaggering and making an ass of yourself. If I release you, you shall cease this buffoonery.”
“You just happen to be going everywhere we’re going.”
“It appears so. Unfortunately. The journey becomes rather dull when one sees the same faces again and again.”
“Where are you going?”
Silence.
“All right, your business. It’s rather unusual to see anyone from Noroison around these parts.”
The sorcerer glanced up, and Otto noticed that the man’s eyes were a remarkably intense blue, even in the dim light. “I suppose so. You’ll speak of this to no one.”
“Yes,” said Otto, automatically it seemed, his mouth agreeing without consulting his thoughts.
“Excellent.”
Ottaviano’s hand flew back; he staggered off-balance for a moment, then walked away from the sorcerer without another word, massaging his arm.
Noroison. That put the wind up Otto, left him cold long after his arm was flexible and sensate. Was it possible? One of the legendary bogeymen, here: not far from Landuc and the Well itself. How had he crossed the Limen, King Panurgus’s sorcerous screen between cold, ancient Phesaotois and burning, younger Pheyarcet? Had that outermost Bound begun to weaken, after the King’s death, as the Well had faded and drawn inward? Otto pushed that question aside for more immediate worrying.
The stranger was probably a spy, and certainly a sorcerer, as all the people of Noroison were reputed to be. He was not spying on Otto personally, but on things in general. Otto’s doings, however, would form part of the spy’s stock in trade, and Otto thought he objected as much to that as to the attentions to Luneté.
Yet there was pitifully little that he could do about the man. Killing him outright, considering the command of sorcery he’d demonstrated so offhandedly, would be difficult. He was protected and wary. Otto wasn’t so foolish as to get himself into a sorcerers’ duel.
Stepping out the stableside door into the damp spring twilight, Otto folded his arms and leaned against the wall, scanning his surroundings automatically, longing in vain for tobacco or anything smokable. His hand, in his pocket, found his special red-handled folding pocket-knife. He took it out and began whittling a twig of wood he picked up from under his feet, making it into a spiralling screw-shape. The thuds, grunts, shouts, and clashing of his men’s practice session came from a paddock behind the inn, homey sounds.
A sorcerer, travelling alone and inconspicuously. It occurred to Otto that this could even be long-silent Prince Prospero, titled the Duke of Winds; in which case Otto thought he would like to know where Prospero was going and why.
The door rattled. “There you are,” Luneté said, smiling at him.
“Here I am.” His irritation over the sorcerer was balmed by Luneté’s conceding to seek him. Ottaviano folded his knife away.
“Are you awaiting an assignation of honor, sir?”
“I was awaiting a brilliant idea, but I think the odds of one visiting me just now are low. I’ll accept your brilliant smile instead,” and he smiled back at her.
“I was afraid you and that fellow would have brought the building down by now,” she said, dropping the courtly tone to match him.
Otto considered asking her to make herself agreeable to the stranger, thereby to try for more information. He reconsidered. The man had already taken too much notice of Luneté.
“Did you find anything out about him?” Luneté asked, interrupting the thought and slipping her hand through his arm.
“How did you know— No. Yes. In fact I did.”
“Being …?”
“He—” and Otto’s tongue froze.
Luneté waited politely.
“Son of a bitch!” he exclaimed, regaining command of his vocal cords and realizing what had happened.
“If you keep calling him names like that, he’ll get really annoyed, Otto,” Luneté said, sighing.
“He’s—” and Otto found he couldn’t tell her what had been done to him either. He gurgled incoherently. “I’m going to break his ribs bone by bone,” he gasped.
Luneté stared at him in alarm, took his shoulders, and shook him slightly. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”
Otto, breathing slowly and hard now, commanded himself to calm down. There was no point in raging like this. He’d been bagged as neatly as any coney could be, a geas slapped on him to tie his tongue and lock his throat when he tried to speak of the traveller being a sorcerer from Noroison. Humiliating, it was, and infuriating. He knew just when it had been done, too: when the other had said, “You’ll speak of it to no one.” And done so well Otto hadn’t even suspected it.
The subtlety and force of the sorcerer’s workings were impressive. Otto had felt nothing of them, though they had seized him and settled on him while he was wary of just such measures. There were few, or no, sorcerers so able in Pheyarcet, and none in Landuc, a lack due to the late King’s and now the Emperor’s vigorous discouragement of the Art. Who could he be? The Well, nearly inaccessible after King Panurgus’s death, was supposed to be banned to new initiates—a ban that could be evaded, Otto knew, but still—
“Otto?”
“I’m all right, Lu.”
“You didn’t look it.” She still stared into his face, but took her hands from his shoulders. “You looked ready to choke.”
“I’m all right now. Just a—spell.” Otto smiled to cover his dismay. “I think I’ll stay out of that guy’s busines
s. No point messing with a strange magician when we’ve got a war to worry about.” Could the Emperor have bargained with a new sorcerer? But this wasn’t the time to consider that problem. Luneté came first.
“I’m glad you’ve changed your mind,” she said, and squeezed his hand, pleased that he’d dropped the quarrel. “Come up for dinner.”
After their meal, Luneté allowed Otto a single chaste kiss on her hand before closing and barring her door for the night. He bowed, smiling, over the hand, and they played their customary question-game:
“How long, my lady?”
“Four weeks, five days, and six hours,” she replied, smiling also.
“It gets longer every day,” he muttered, straightening. At times there were disadvantages to being a gentleman.
“It does not.”
“It will take infinitely long, madame, for first we must live halfway until then, then half the remaining time, then half what is left again—”
“I’ve heard that before,” she said, folding her arms demurely, smiling, “and I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now. Four weeks, five days, and six hours, sir.”
“Good night, Your Grace. I go to lose a few hours in oblivion, counted off by the clock of my heart.” He thumped his chest theatrically.
“Good night, Otto.” With a last smile, Luneté closed the door, then leaned against it and sighed, pressing her hand to her breast. Four weeks, five days, six hours. There was no point even thinking about it; that only made the waiting longer, she chided herself. They would ride on toward Champlys in the morning. Then it would be four weeks, five days even, and she did not believe the time could ever pass quickly enough.
7
PROSPERO’S FOLK WERE INDIFFERENT TAILORS AND seamstresses. Their clothing, when they wore it, was loose-draped and little decorated, pieced together from scraps of whatever cloth was to be had. Cloth was scarce; Prospero had brought in bales of woollen and linen stuffs, but there was none woven locally, and no native material save leather, mostly used for winter boots and garments worn by those who hunted.
Freia, gowned, beribboned, and sandalled, her scorched hair sheared evenly and curling as it dried, trotted stiffly beside her father as he took her to meet one of the men. She looked at the stained and frayed wool and at the coarse leather on the people carrying water to the irrigation trenches of the fields. “I can make better clothes than they do,” she observed, almost smug, to Prospero, “and you said I’m not very good at making clothes.”
“No need for thee to be so,” he said. “For them, ’tis the early work of their novice hands, and I doubt not they’ll better it in time, with experience and material. But material’s in short supply. Soon I’ll fare forth to the wider world for purchase of such goods as those, and other things needful to carry out my plans.”
“They could make cloth from the tossflowers,” Freia said.
“Tossflowers?” Prospero said.
“The tall yellow flowers on the black stalks have long threads in the stalks,” Freia said. “They stick together. I made a fish-net, and ropes, and my belt, and a map when I was in the north. I showed you my belt this morning.”
Prospero paused and looked at her acutely for an instant, then walked on. They met black-bearded Scudamor, and the Prince made Freia known to this man, his first-shaped and now his Seneschal. Prospero had Freia tell Scudamor of the tossflowers, and later that day the Seneschal set people to collecting the plants. Freia was shy of Scudamor, wary of all the new folk; she half-hid behind Prospero to talk to the Seneschal in a near-whisper, and the tactful Seneschal never looked at her directly, but at her feet, or the sky, or the grass.
Then Prospero took Freia in tow again, and with her hand on his arm or holding on to his pocket he led her to where his Castellan Utrachet and three others were making bows and arrows. But Freia murmured that she used a better wood than that the Castellan had, and the Castellan and his helpers trotted off into the forest to find it.
“Why are they making so many bows? Surely they do not all mean to hunt?” Freia asked, following Prospero along a muddy track between fields where trees had stood before she left. Her trees: the cultivated fields looked wrong to her eyes, and she tried to see only Prospero, narrowing her vision to his back, his hat, his broad shoulders dark-clad.
“Time comes when they’ll be needed,” Prospero said. “I have chosen my time, and I shall strike down the usurper in Landuc. There’s much work to be done here before then: we’ll have fletchers and smiths, bowyers and armorers, ropemakers and weavers, sailors and carpenters, all manner of trades among us soon.”
“Why?”
Prospero stopped, dipped a drink of water from a bucket by a stone-sided well at the meeting of three muddy paths. He offered her the wooden cup. “Why? Why, maid, think’st thou that Avril will return my stolen patrimony for th’ asking? Though I’m the rightful ruler in Landuc, he’s had long years—why, longer than thy memory runs—to drive out or murder all contrary to him: my friends, my agents, my subjects. Even Lord Gonzalo, that Panurgus consulted in any matter of law of the realm, is banished for his service to the truth, his lands baldly stol’n, little left him but his daughter fair Miranda. Avril is a fool, and a fool’s arse is ill-seated on the throne of Landuc. The realm suffers for’t.”
Freia had listened to this, understanding not all, and waited when Prospero concluded for a further conclusion.
“But, why?” she asked again, when nothing further came.
Prospero dipped water, drank again. “The realm’s the mirror of the king—”
“The, the sailors. The smiths. The foundries. Why those, Papa? Are they driven from Landuc?”
“Nay, miss, Avril in Landuc hath armorers and smiths aplenty. And I have none. Therefore do I prepare to arm me, to arm my men, to dispute false Avril’s claim.”
“With him?” Freia asked.
“In war,” Prospero said, exasperated, “in battle, Freia, art wood-headed yet? In war I’ll face his men with mine, and I’ll conquer them by force and sorcery, drown ’em in blood if need be; possess the city, depose the usurper, and claim my throne. In war.” He shook his head at her and started off again.
Freia stood, understanding at last, and then hurried after him, catching his arm. “Here—”
“There. Hast lent ear to one word of mine in a thousand, ’tis patently shown.” Prospero shot her a quick grey look. “Very natural art thou indeed. Come now. I’ll tell this to thee slowly once again, and this time I’ll hear thee say it back to me. We go to war with Landuc, that I may be King as is right.”
“But, Papa, why? Aren’t you happy here? You have people now; nobody is killing anybody—you told me it’s wrong to kill people! Won’t your people be killed too? They don’t have any quarrel with these Landuc people! Won’t they kill you? Please, Papa—don’t go to Landuc and have war. Everything is good here. Will you not stay here and be happy?”
They had halted again amongst a terraced patch of vegetables; women and children were hoeing and weeding at the far end of it, out of earshot, peering up curiously at Freia.
“Thou hast as much sense of honor as yon cabbages,” Prospero declared, scowling blackly at Freia, “and as much knowledge of policy and sorcery. ’Tis right that I make war ’pon Landuc, by any means to hand; I’m the King, by right of blood, for the King died without naming another heir, rather murdered himself and fouled the Well with his death. Say naught of these matters thou dost not understand! The world’s wagged amiss since that Avril insinuated himself upon a throne too great for him, beneath a crown too heavy. The Orb and Scepter are idle in his hands. The Roads ravel, the Bounds unbind; the very vigor of the world spends itself, useless, in the wastes. I, I have all the powers and every right to take it from him, to rule the place better than he, witling princeling, can. He’s no scholar, no sorcerer, knoweth naught of the Well: he’s unfit to rule. Now give me peace indeed: thy questions are a very battery of foolishness. Hearken to me, cease thy larkin
g, thou’lt learn all needful to thee in good time.”
Ottaviano roused Luneté and his men an hour before the spring dawn, as the sleepy folk of the inn and village were stumbling through their waking chores. Then he hurried back to his room and finished dressing, shaving hastily but painstakingly, re-using the basin of water he had just put to a wholly different purpose. The water glimmered faintly, but with reflected candlelight, not the trapped light of the morning star, and it showed no image of Baron Ocher of Sarsemar nor his men, only Ottaviano and his razor and soap.
It was stupid to waste the time, Otto thought as he shaved, but a stray piece of his father’s advice had gotten stuck in his head and he’d never been able to ignore it.
Assume, Sebastiano had written him, in the letter stained on one corner with his blood, that in any confrontation you will be killed, and, when possible, prepare yourself to present a dignified and gentlemanly front to the world in death as in life. Keep cleanliness foremost among your habits. Let your attire be neat and not ostentatious. Let your nails be clean and pared, and your boots well-soled; let your face be shaven, or, if you should wear a beard, let it be washed and trimmed neatly as your hair, without extraneous matter or perfumed oils. Let your person be as free of flaws as is in your power to assure, bathed and dressed in such a way as you would not be ashamed to lie upon your bier, and then go forth and conquer any who oppose you …
“Shit,” Otto said, and emptied his basin out the window.
A moment later it flew back in and splatted him in the face.
“Hey!” Dripping, he looked out, knowing what he’d see.
A cold and disdainful face glanced up at him for an instant from beneath a grey hat.
With a sharp, tight-lipped inhalation, Otto turned red, pulled his head back in, and slammed the window shut. He was sure that this guy was working for Ocher, no matter where he claimed to be from, for his habit of following them around was disturbing and his methods of getting to their next stop before they did disconcerting. A Ley-path, Ottaviano knew, ran from Stonehill in Sarsemar to the Shrine of Stars in Lys, but it was weakened by disuse: there was a newer road, and riding on the road was easier than following the old Ley up hill and down dale. Otto supposed that old King Panurgus had probably meant to supersede the Ley with the new road, perhaps forge a new Ley; but he had died of Prospero’s wound before completing the work, and his son Emperor Avril had made small progress on any public-works projects.
A Sorcerer and a Gentleman Page 7
