A Sorcerer and a Gentleman

by Elizabeth Willey

  13

  IN AN ANCIENT HOUSE SURROUNDED BY titanic gnarled trees which shade and darken every window, a man whose hair and beard are the color of snow warmed by late golden sun sits reading a letter in a deep, comfortably-cushioned armchair which has assumed the imprint of his body through long use. His slippered feet are propped on a little stool embroidered with roses and a motto— “Vere veritatem servire”—and his elbows are accommodated by cushions similarly decorated by the same hand. On his long, thin hands are three rings: on the left hand, middle finger, a plain band with a lock of brown hair braided around it; on the right third finger, a gold signet ring engraved with the wearer’s arms (five roses in a wreath); and beside it, on the middle finger, a plain, heavy silver ring with a dark-blue cabochon stone. The autumn sun enters the red-curtained windows and angles down onto the brown carpet in heavy, dust-laden beams.

  The man’s light blue eyes are on the letter, which he holds within eight inches of the end of his nose. His brows are slightly raised with the effort of focusing; his expression is mildly bemused. On his lap lies a handsome book bound in tooled red leather whose spine is a little misshapen, a little frayed at one end; on the floor lies brown wrapping paper and oilcloth and a tangle of string in which the book had been packed. The letter is pleated in many small accordion folds.

  A woman stands at one window, looking out through the bare branches of a tree at the gardeners raking and sweeping the lawns.

  “Father, what is it?” she asked softly after a long, thick silence.

  “Eh,” he said. “Eh. Come see.” Slowly, he lowered the letter and let her quick fingers snatch it, her sharper eyes racing over it faster than his. The sun tinted her smoothly knotted hair, which was the color of a winter morning, and to her fair cheeks came the bright hue of emotion.

  “Here,” she whispered.

  “Not even near,” her father said. “Not even near. But more here, than elsewhere.” He chuckled drily. “Hah. This shall be fun. I am sure he is ready this time.”

  “Last time he moved too quickly,” said the woman softly.

  “Anger does that to a man,” he said. “Act in haste, repent at leisure. Yet may one consider well and still repent at leisure.”

  She lowered the letter and looked at him, a line dividing her brows. “We have done nothing to repent of,” she said. “I regret nothing, would regret nothing had it been much worse.”

  “So dost thou repent at leisure with me,” said he, but smiling.

  “What shall we do?” she asked.

  “Do? Nothing.”

  “Nothing!?”

  “Not a blessed thing. Think, Miranda: He knoweth his work. Were there any aid we could render he would ask.” The man walked slowly to the window where she had stood in the sun and stood as she had watching the gardeners. “Another winter upon us,” he said. “Ah, we have had better fortune than most. Beort, beheaded. Chargrove, poisoned. Tebaldo and Truchio, hanged. The others …” He did not finish.

  “They will all be vindicated,” she said, lifting her chin.

  He nodded, his back to her, his mouth turned down. Though their tombs be hammered to rubble, their bodies limed in a pit-grave, would their souls rest easier, vindicated?

  Outside, the gardeners removed the leaves from the lawn lest they decay and mar it.

  Miranda read the letter again, her eyes devouring each word and taking on fire and intensity of purpose. “If I were a man!” she cried, dropping the letter and striking her palm with her fist. “He would have taken me with him—”

  “Nay. He would not,” said her father. “He went alone because he must. We understood. Wert thou a man, belike we would have ended as the others.” This was an old argument, familiar to both of them, and he sighed a little at its reiteration.

  “I know,” she said wearily. “I know. Father, I am sorry to plague you. I hate this inaction. It is worse than being dead, being thwarted so, and the waiting, the waiting that has gone on, and now we have only a few words in a letter which may be no more than rumor.”

  He shook his head. “No. This is true tidings. I feel it … in my bones.” His hand, unseen by her, clenched around the heavy silver ring.

  “It is good of Fidelio to send the news. He takes a great risk each time,” Miranda said. “Someday I shall thank him. Someday he shall thank him.”

  14

  THE STEEP SIDES OF THE PARIPHALS are solid grey rock lightly coated with scree and, below the higher perennially-iced peaks, moraine. The gentler slopes of loose matter provide support for any number of trees large and small and for broad meadows drained by whimsically twisting streams. The mountains’ lower flanks are cut by water-graven sheer-sided canyons, whose floors form natural livestock pens for the Ascolet herdsman and a brutally limited field of battle for an army.

  Otto had baited Gaston into such a canyon, one which sloped gradually and whose walls were, at first, far apart; Golias had attacked the Fireduke there, and the Fireduke had turned and fought his way out, a purchase not cheap but necessary. Now Imperial soldiers were scattered along the canyon rim, bivouacked and firing bolts at the Ascolet army when it showed itself and sometimes when it only betrayed its presence by movements in the brush and sapling spinneys. Gaston himself lay with more soldiers some little distance away, in the frozen floodplain of the Parphinal River where it had scooped out a valley for itself—a canyon again, but one with maneuvering room. A drovers’ road to Erispas, unpaved but wide-trampled, ran above the river and, three miles upstream where the cliffs drew together again, a narrow five-arched stone packhorse bridge arched over it, out of reach of the meltwater floods.

  Secure from the bolts and arrows of the Empire’s sentries, a bareheaded messenger carrying a green bough rode along the drover’s road, then up into the canyon, and slipped out of sight in a cluster of high-topped evergreens.

  Among the trees, Ottaviano and Golias watched the big-chested bay horse trot toward them with tall Dewar in his bright cloak on its back. When he arrived, Otto held the horse’s head as the sorcerer dismounted.

  “You’re not going to believe this one,” Dewar said, grinning.

  “Try me,” Golias said. “He wants my head, and then it’s all pardoned.”

  Dewar shook his head, grinning still. “Better than that.”

  Otto handed the horse’s reins to a groom, murmuring “You’re welcome” to himself with a sidelong glance at Dewar. “Let’s go inside, shall we?” he said aloud.

  They walked to Ottaviano’s tent. Ottaviano turned and said “Well?” softly as soon as they were inside.

  “The man has imposing taste in wine,” Dewar said.

  “Everybody knows that,” Otto said. “What else?”

  “He is imposing in height as well.”

  “Dewar, knock it off. What did he say?”

  “I thought I’d start with things you’d recognize as true, to enhance the improbability of his proposal. Here you are: If you and Golias will haul up and trek off with him to join Prince Herne in his defense of the Holy Homeland against Prince Prospero—”

  “Then the rumors are true!” exclaimed Ottaviano. Golias snorted.

  “I said they were,” Dewar said coolly. “I also said it worked to your advantage. If you will do this, you, Ottaviano, become Baron of Ascolet, and you, Golias, are pardoned and named Prince; you both are permitted to bathe in the Well’s fire, taken into the familial fold, and bygones go by the board.” Dewar smiled slightly. “I think there is not much flexibility in this offer. The Marshal indicated that several times, subtly; he murmured that the Emperor’s clemency should not be tested.”

  “Baron of Ascolet,” muttered Ottaviano.

  “My first thought on hearing that, Otto, is that it is no less than your father had.”

  “That is true,” Otto said. “For Golias, pardon.”

  “Which is no small thing, considering how they feel about you,” and Dewar nodded to Golias.

  “I don’t give a black shit what they thi
nk. Anything else?”

  “Not that he spoke of then. That may be the one item for which we can negotiate more: land for you.”

  “I’d settle for cash.”

  “You might not be able to get that. Wars tend to leave governments long on good intentions and short on coin.”

  “Cash on the nail,” said Golias. “What do you want to do, Otto?”

  “I’ll have to think about it.”

  Golias snorted. “He’s offering this now because he’ll take heavy losses and probably lose.”

  “I do not tell futures,” Dewar said, bowing slightly.

  Otto leaned back and drummed his fingers lightly. “I’d rather have it be an independent country again,” he said. “They will think I’ve sold short. I’ll think I’ve sold short. For the privilege of facing down the man the Emperor fears more than anyone alive.”

  “Is there a deadline?” Golias asked.

  “I said you would tell him tomorrow at the same hour and so on whether it be acceptable or we desire more time in consideration. If we attack or move in the meantime, he will consider that a refusal and hostilities go on as previously scheduled.”

  “I wonder if he’s stalling for time,” Otto muttered.

  This hadn’t occurred to Dewar. He lifted his eyebrows. “Why?”

  They looked at one another and then at Golias, who, a veteran of war with Landuc, was most familiar with the opponent.

  Golias said, “Reinforcements.”

  “Not that I’ve seen,” Dewar said. “I wonder where they’d come from. They seem to be throwing everything to Herne. Rightly, too; Prospero is a greater danger, though distant.”

  “Then he wants to finish this up and head out after Prospero,” Ottaviano decided. “Hm.” He slouched further down in his chair, tipping it, and propped his feet on a chest. “Is there any advantage to us in continuing to fight here, now, if Gaston really wants to leave?” he asked, half-aloud.

  “Prince Gaston isn’t going to walk away from the fight,” Dewar said, shaking his head. “Think of what people would say.”

  “No, no. I’d never expect that. Maybe if Prospero marched on the capital, Gaston would evaporate for a while and come back later,” Otto said testily. “I wonder …” His voice trailed off; he took his oblong red folding knife from his pocket and began tapping it against his left palm. “Prospero,” he said in an undertone.

  Golias poured wine for himself. “It’s to Prospero’s advantage that we delay Gaston here,” he said.

  “It is,” Dewar said. “No doubt he’s very grateful to you.”

  “How grateful do you think he is?” Otto asked his pocket-knife, cleaning a bit of grit from its handle with a fingernail, then opening the knife and beginning to clean his fingernails.

  Dewar chuckled softly, shaking his head.

  “What’s funny?” Otto asked.

  “I think it sounds like a good question,” Golias said. “How grateful is he? Can he beat the Emperor’s offer?”

  “You just send round and ask him,” Dewar said. “Do you think he doesn’t know about you, about the war here? Of course he knows. If he were interested in prolonging it, you would have heard from him, or from a proxy.” He glanced at Golias for a moment. “Have you?”

  Ottaviano looked up from his knife, his attention caught by the sharp note in Dewar’s voice. “Have you?” he echoed, when Golias said nothing.

  “Not lately,” Golias said. It was true; he had heard nothing from Prospero for the past twenty-five days. Twenty-five days ago, he had received payment in advance for the coming quarter’s mayhem, a shaggy pony trotting up to him with four bags of well-muffled coins in its panniers. Golias had counted the coins, had slapped the pony and sent it trotting back wherever it came from, and a few days later had entered into contract with Ottaviano—at the rate of pay Otto had agreed to, which had been one and a half times Golias’s last.

  Otto had been somewhat surprised by the answer, but Golias had pointed out that the costs of doing business, for the independent man, had increased steeply.

  “What did you hear and when?” Otto asked.

  Golias gave Dewar a look of unveiled dislike. “I’ve worked for him,” he said.

  “Doing what?”

  “That’s confidential, Your Highness,” Golias retorted.

  “So it is,” agreed Ottaviano, nodding. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean to pry.” Otto admired the underhanded, yet open, way in which Dewar had just made him aware that Golias’s interest, after all was said and done, was in staying alive and getting paid for it, not in settling; had warned Golias that he knew more than Golias might like about the mercenary’s business affairs; and had pointed out courteously that deals struck with Prince Prospero were unlikely to benefit anyone but Prospero. Dewar, one of these days, would make somebody a hell of a Privy Counsellor.

  “Don’t see any point getting in touch with the Duke of Winds, now that you put it that way,” Otto said, frowning a little. “If he wanted to exploit this, he’d have made an offer. Maybe what he wants is to face Prince Gaston fast—before he’s had the expense of a drawn-out fight, before he has to spread himself out holding territory.” He thought, trying to second-guess Prospero. Prince Gaston was probably much better at doing so. Ottaviano began fiddling with his pocket-knife again. “What was it the Marshal said about the offer, Dewar?”

  “That the Emperor’s clemency should not be tested. Those were his words,” Dewar said. “I suspect strongly that the corollary is that, if you refuse now, there will be scant clemency later. Clemency does tend to decay, if not plucked promptly.”

  Golias grunted. “Clemency. Yeah. We get to go fight for Avril, instead of ourselves.”

  Dewar shrugged. “Fighting and causes and so on aside,” he observed, “they are much alike, being baron of a large and powerful barony owing fealty to an Emperor and being king of a relatively small and poor kingdom neighboring the same.”

  “Alike?” Otto said. “What about the small clauses of fealty, requiring me to go fight Prospero if the Emperor tells me to?”

  “Oh, well, that,” Dewar said. “I suppose. Looking at it in terms of lives lost—” He shrugged again. That was Ottaviano’s problem.

  Lives. Ottaviano hadn’t considered that. How expensive might it be to hold Ascolet against a merciless and impatient Gaston, who might have men diverted from Herne if he so desired, reinforcements provided to speed victory here and free Gaston to meet Prospero? How long could Ottaviano hold out? Golias and his mercenaries would melt away as soon as Luneté’s gold was all in their hands, and that would not take long, for they were expensive to hire. There would be no military assistance from Lys, for Luneté had—after such delays as she dared use—raised the Emperor’s levy of troops there for Gaston and could send no more to Ascolet without treason.

  If they were facing Josquin, who (from what Otto had heard) was far and away the least competent of the Princes, or one of Gaston’s subordinates in the Imperial Army, the chance of victory would be much greater. Ottaviano had not expected to face the Imperial Marshal himself—nearly in person, the other day, separated by a dozen strides on the battlefield, swinging his long sword and lopping an arm off one of Otto’s men. King Panurgus had appointed the Marshal because he was the best man for the job of defending and expanding Landuc. Emperor Avril had kept him on for that reason.

  King of Ascolet, Baron of Ascolet. Which was better? It was easy for Dewar to toss off witty remarks about kings and barons. It wasn’t his name, his future at stake. Ottaviano had decided when he first learned of his ancestry that he would be King of Ascolet, and by the Fire in him he would do it. But what did it mean to be king of a place conquered, precariously, at the cost of the lives of so many of its able-bodied men? They had lost a tenth of their force already. Otto hadn’t expected so many deaths, so much slow-killing pain and so many frozen bandages. Would the throne be secure, set on bones and blood of its own citizens?

  Otto opened and closed his heav
y knife: big blades, little blades, awl-punch, corkscrew …

  Suppose, Ottaviano thought, suppose he won here now and were deposed later, by citizens or Prince Gaston. Looking at it as a problem he faced from the Emperor’s side, Otto would be dead. The Emperor took a dim view of rebellion; the fates of Prince Prospero’s old friends and allies showed that. Dead was a pretty permanent state to be in. There wasn’t much chance of improving it. A live Baron, however, might better his position at opportune moments—later.

  Ottaviano snapped shut the blades of his knife, one by one. “I’ll ask you, Dewar, to act as spokesman again, tomorrow,” he said. “You’ll tell him I accept the offer.”

  “Surrender!” Golias exclaimed.

  “If you don’t want to be included,” Ottaviano said, “I’ll do what I can either to get you a safe-conduct or to cover for you while you leave. Up to you. We can try to freight that title of Prince with more material ballast.”

  Golias looked at Ottaviano, imperfectly covering his contempt. “Surrendering,” he repeated, shaking his head slightly, and he looked at Dewar disdainfully. Dewar seemed to be dozing in his chair, but Ottaviano saw his eyes glittering under lowered lids. “I’ll speak for myself,” Golias said. “I cut my own deals.”

  The silence was charged. Dewar said nothing. Ottaviano felt his face redden. The implied insult was galling; but Golias had said nothing answerable, nothing openly offensive. Otto couldn’t challenge him for it. Perhaps he could take the quarrel to other terms and win.

  He forced himself to relax, to smile, to nod. “Good enough,” Ottaviano said. “You’re your own boss, and you know best what kind of deal you want to cut.” He paused, just long enough to let the topic go, and went on, “Speaking of cutting and dealing—weren’t we going to play cards tonight?”

  The young guard outside Otto’s tent had looked very familiar to Dewar as he went in. As he went out, he paused, taking out a pipe, letting the others go ahead of him.

  “Luneté,” murmured Dewar around the pipestem, glancing at her in the torchlight.