A Sorcerer and a Gentleman

by Elizabeth Willey

  The arrow guided him through a scrubby forest where he rested a few hours, having left the Road. He was no longer on a Ley, either; this might mean he was close to his quarry. Ottaviano ate the last of his food, but found no water. The place was cold and arid; the leaves leathery, and the wood tough and unburnable.

  He rode out of the forest late at night and followed the arrow onward. It led him through low-walled pastures to a rocky shore, down a steep slope to a cliff-edge where a small house stood, as grey as the thick clouds overhead. The house was nearly indistinguishable from the stony ground around it; the sea roared below its ill-repaired walls and sent spray up to its roof.

  Otto reined in and looked the place over.

  This was it. Likely Prospero was still here. Otto’s heart skipped and began to race in battle-rhythm.

  He sent Lightfoot scrambling up the bank. Otto was perishing with thirst, so he led the horse back toward a muck-edged waterhole he had circumnavigated earlier. Three-toed footprints stippled the mud, and over them moon-shaped hoofprints. He let Lightfoot drink after filling his waterskin; no knowing what kind of animals they kept here, and the water was slightly funky, but it was better than nothing.

  That done, he led Lightfoot back among the stones and picketed him.

  On foot now, in the dim cloud-strained light that had not changed, Ottaviano made his way quietly back to the cottage. The arrow he had buttoned under his jacket twitched and throbbed. Ottaviano crouched behind an array of stones and discarded clever and elaborate plans.

  The place was Well-poor, making sorcery difficult for him, and anyway he knew he couldn’t expect to challenge Prospero to a sorcerers’ duel and live.

  Otto closed his eyes and let the part of his mind or body—he was never sure whether it was one or both—that fed on the Well dominate his senses. He sensed no sorcery in the area; the stone hut was without reinforcement from the fire of the Well, and the dull glow of life within was unmoving and quiescent. Another living thing was on the other side of the building, most likely Prospero’s horse.

  Could Prospero have been so arrogantly confident as to have not bothered with protective spells? Otto looked again. A cautious man himself, he could not believe that anyone in Prospero’s position might stop without warding himself nine ways or a dozen.

  But there was no sign of the weblike knitting of Bounds nor of a protective spell.

  Otto studied the place again through his Well-sense, and found nothing, no sorceries. Perhaps it was not Prospero—but the arrow strained to get to the place, Prospero’s own blood.

  He stood and picked his way to the hut, avoiding loose stones and making as little disturbance in the world as he could. Out of sight, a horse stamped and chewed.

  Ottaviano stood beside the uncovered low doorway, listening. Light snoring. The arrow thrummed.

  Great and glorious Well, was the sorcerer Prince simply stretched there asleep? Was he so smug as to think no one could follow him in his flight? Was it to be as easy as this?

  Otto took a dagger in one hand, drew his sword quietly with the other, and stepped swiftly into the hut. He froze, tense and ready; the breathing of the occupant went on. His eyes grew accustomed to the dim interior; he saw a long shape on the ground, dark-muffled, and in the light of the doorway a bandaged hand, blood-stained. Otto took two quick steps and lifted the dagger, bringing the pommel down hard.

  Prince Herne saw the Baron of Ascolet first on his return to Gaston’s camp. Prince Herne was still furious about Prospero’s escape, and the Baron’s empty-handed arrival set him off again.

  “He ran fast and far,” Ottaviano said again and again. “I lost him. I tried to find him, but I lost him again.” His grimy state and his horse’s exhaustion—he had ridden hard to return from Malperdy, abused Lightfoot to make two Gates and the Road—attested to his story, and finally Herne, with a last snarl about useless jack-sprats, left him alone. Otto breathed a sigh of relief. He would tell them the truth, he fully intended to do so, but in his own time, when he’d rested and decided what the price of Prospero would be.

  “Pay him no mind,” Prince Josquin said, coming up beside Otto as he passed a tent.

  “Your Highness. You heard—”

  “Herne and Fulgens share a temper, thus either has but half.”

  “I didn’t take it personally, sir. I’ve seen him blow up before.”

  “Ah. He and Golias were at blows this morning, and not on the training ground.”

  “Setting a good example, my lord?”

  The Prince chuckled. “Cock-fighting,” he said. “I won two royals on it.”

  “I want a bath, my lord,” Otto said, “and a lot of food, and about twelve hours of peace and quiet. Think I’ll get any of ’em?”

  “Just pop round and say hello to the Marshal,” Prince Josquin advised him. “We were going to have a briefing tonight, but he’ll postpone it till tomorrow since you’ve returned. Good news?”

  “No news.”

  “Bad news.”

  “Right. Good news for Prospero, though.”

  Prince Josquin’s eyebrows went up. “True. And bad news for somebody, certainly. —He’s an amazing fellow. We can’t work out where in the Well’s bright worlds his army came from. Can’t understand a word they say, and it’s mutual.”

  “I thought the Well granted the gift of tongues, my lord.”

  “So did we, but this lot speak pure jabberish. Damned frustrating. Their commander, Prospero’s second, speaks a bit of Lannach, and he’s getting testy. The Marshal hasn’t admitted that we no longer have Prospero, you know. I’ll lead your horse to the grooms with me; I’m going there myself. Tito! Take the Baron’s horse.”

  “Thank you, Your Highness. You’re very kind.”

  “Do enjoy your luncheon, Baron. Toodle-oo,” said the Prince Heir, and his squire led Lightfoot away behind him.

  Ottaviano gazed after him. It was hard to figure Josquin. When was he acting? There was something serious to him; he was good in the field, good enough for the Marshal to trust him as much as Herne, but the flippant, foppish veneer was difficult to penetrate. Dewar liked him—in fact, they were panting after one another as discreetly as possible—but Ottaviano couldn’t see what the sorcerer might find so intoxicating in the Prince Heir. Perhaps Dewar, who had refused Otto’s laboriously-located wenches, wasn’t interested in girls, despite his continual flirting with Luneté in Lys. More likely, Dewar was uninterested in men or women, which would be usual for a sorcerer, and simply enjoyed playing eye-games with the future ruler of the Empire.

  The Baron of Ascolet made his way to the Marshal’s headquarters. He was kept waiting a few minutes and then beckoned in by one of the squires, who was repairing a mail-coat when he wasn’t minding the door.

  “Good day, sir,” Otto said.

  Prince Gaston nodded to him and nodded to a chair, the same Otto had occupied before. “Hast been away,” he said.

  “I went hunting. A good run, as they say in the chase, but no kill.”

  “I did not think thou wouldst succeed, and I’d have ordered thee forgo it,” the Marshal said.

  “I went without leave. I know. I thought it was worth the risk.” Ottaviano summarized the route he had followed after Prospero—truths and fictions. “I lost him at Fiargate. How long was I gone?”

  “One day. ’Twas quickly ridden. —There’s a matter of weight I’d bring to light with thee.”

  “Uh, Lys—”

  “Thy sorcery.”

  Ottaviano nodded, as if he’d expected it. “I know a few tricks,” he said. “Book-learning.”

  They studied one another. Prince Gaston was obviously waiting for more. Ottaviano tried to tough it out and found the Fireduke’s unwavering regard too harsh.

  “That’s about it,” he said. “I’m not Dewar.”

  “Clearly not,” Prince Gaston said, which felt vaguely like an insult. “Yet hearsay claims ’twere needful thou attend initiation at the Well, ere thou couldst perfor
m a Binding such as thou hast done.”

  Otto felt his face redden against his will. He hadn’t expected this; he had forgotten in the excitement of the hunt and capture. Prince Gaston wasn’t one to let anything pass without at least letting it be known he had noticed.

  “Um,” he said.

  “That’s all,” the Prince said impassively. “Go thou, eat and rest. We’ll confer at the first hour o’ morning. Tomorrow we’re breaking camp.”

  Ottaviano got up and got out of there, grateful for the Fireduke’s mercy, and hastened to his tent without seeing anyone else of consequence. Soon he lay in bed, unable to rest despite being dead tired and stuffed with greasy cold mutton. He thought hard about Gaston.

  He had just been warned, Ottaviano decided. The Marshal thought he was up to something. Gaston needed his cooperation for now, but any crap from Ottaviano, and Gaston was going to come down hard on him. Ottaviano had high-tailed it out of camp after Prospero and Dewar. That looked bad. He had done it without informing his commanding officer. That was bad. He had failed in his cockeyed mission, ostensibly. That meant he’d wasted time, which was bad too.

  The Prince Marshal had let the Baron know, obliquely, that he did not trust Otto, that he knew there was something fishy going on, and that he did not want his war mucked up by another sorcerer.

  Ah, shit, thought Otto, and rolled onto his stomach.

  He thought of Malperdy, a severely-made fortress in Ascolet, and smiled. The Marshal might think he’d wasted his time, but this time the Marshal was wrong. When the Baron of Ascolet showed what he had accomplished, Gaston would be surprised.

  23

  “DULL COMPANY THIS MORNING,” PRINCE JOSQUIN murmured to Otto, passing him the mulled wine. The Marshal allowed no servants in the briefings.

  “Send for a clown, Your Highness,” suggested Otto.

  “Alas, the Marshal’s agenda has no item for tumblers and jesters.” The Prince Heir smiled and sipped. “But where’s Prince Golias?”

  Otto’s wine was too hot. He set it down. “He said he’d be a few minutes behind, said he had something—”

  Prince Herne came in, followed by Prince Gaston. Outside the sounds of the camp’s disassembly were coming in through the wind-shuddering canvas. It was still snowing.

  Actually, thought Ottaviano, maybe it was just the aftermath of the battle. Maybe the wounded and dead were dragging the spirit of the camp down. The dead had been buried in the day Otto was gone, in a long ditch which Dewar had blasted in the earth to halt Prospero’s advance; there was insufficient fuel for so many pyres, so only one token purifying, transubstantiating fire had been lit. The crowd of dead men would have to make do with that. Thrifty Gaston.

  “Where’s Golias?” Prince Gaston asked him.

  “He said he’d be a little late. I had breakfast with him,” Otto said.

  Prince Herne sat down heavily, dropped his leather pouch of papers and maps before him, and folded his arms. The Prince Marshal poured himself wine and sat at the head of the table, taking out his own notes.

  Golias lifted the tent flap and entered, a blur of snowflakes accompanying him, and took his seat on Otto’s side of the table. Dewar would have been between them, across from Josquin; that place was empty now.

  They sat a few seconds in silence, glancing at one another, and then Prince Gaston nodded.

  “Several items,” he said laconically. “Item, Baron Ottaviano, plain to see, hath returned, and took no prisoners in his hunt of Prince Prospero and Lord Dewar.”

  “How far did you get?” Prince Herne asked him.

  “I lost them at Fiargate, sir,” lied Ottaviano, wondering at their easy acceptance of his newly-revealed ability. He suspected that gossip had been busy in Otto’s absence.

  “Ah,” said Prince Josquin. “I know it. Complicated junction.”

  “Yes, sir. I don’t know where they went then, but they did go through there. But from there, there are a lot of places they could go.”

  “We’ll not pursue it, or them, further,” the Marshal said.

  Herne glowered at Gaston. “You should have let me kill him.”

  “Herne.”

  A taut silence. Josquin studied his immaculate finger-ends. Golias watched Herne and Gaston eyeing one another until Herne looked down.

  “Item, the dead were fired and interred ’fore sundown yesterday. Let the crews be praised and rewarded,” Prince Gaston said. “Item. Have you met delays in breaking camp?”

  “None. My men are nearly finished,” Herne said.

  “The Madanese cannot wait to leave.” Prince Josquin grinned. “I believe we’re setting a record for camp-striking speed.”

  “My company’s ready,” Golias said.

  “We haven’t got much to break down, sir, and it’s going smoothly,” Otto said. Much of his and Herne’s encampment had been destroyed by Prospero’s forces in the last battle; they’d doubled-up since with Golias’s and Josquin’s men.

  “Good,” the Marshal said. “All must be ready to go at noon.” He glanced around the table; they all nodded. “Item, the prisoners. His Majesty hath desired they be conveyed under strong guard to Perendlac, overland. Prince Herne, take thou the Sixth, and under thee shall go Baron Ottaviano with his men, to escort them and guard them once there. That shall be but a holding-place; we’ve no means to repatriate ’em, and ’twere unwise to allow them to remain long together.”

  Execution, thought Otto. Would Emperor Avril order the death of, what was it, six thousand? Sure. They were Prospero’s. As long as they were alive, they’d be dangerous. The sorcerously-bound allies had disappeared when Prospero acknowledged his defeat in Prince Gaston’s tent, taking the vanquished’s oath. The Pheyarcet men Prospero had recruited would be returned to their native lands, their rulers penalized.

  “Prince Herne, do thou further question his second and discover what thou mayst about their origin,” Gaston said, “and how they came hither.”

  Herne nodded, smiling slightly.

  The door-flap stirred. Gaston frowned and turned, standing as he did; it was one of the squires.

  “Captain Gallitan is here, sir, and he begs audience at once, sir, ’tis most urgent.”

  “Let him come.”

  The flap went up and down; out went the squire, in came Captain Gallitan, agitated, his eyes black sparks under his shaggy brows.

  “Sir, your pardon, sir,” he said, and saluted the Prince Marshal.

  “What is it?” Prince Gaston asked.

  Gallitan’s gaze slipped to one side to meet Otto’s for a fraction of a second and then back to Prince Gaston’s. “An incident, sir.”

  The Marshal frowned.

  “A prisoner, sir, attempted to escape and has been killed,” Gallitan said slowly.

  Prince Gaston nodded, waiting.

  “Prisoner is a woman, sir,” Gallitan went on, stiffening up and glancing at—no, Otto realized, at Golias, not at Otto. “The woman was being held by Prince Golias’s men, sir,” Gallitan went on. “She is not of Prince Prospero’s force.” He inhaled again.

  Prince Gaston nodded, a single down-up, and Ottaviano swallowed a little wine.

  “I recognize her, sir,” Captain Gallitan went on. “Lady Miranda of Valgalant.”

  “Indeed?” said Prince Gaston, his brows drawing together.

  “The treasonous cockatrice!” Prince Herne shouted, leaping to his feet.

  “Thy prisoner?” Prince Gaston rounded on Golias.

  Captain Gallitan stood rigid, staring straight ahead.

  “My men picked her up,” Golias said calmly, “in a sweep for prisoners, deserters, and so on. They brought her in and I questioned her—”

  “Thou didst not report this to me,” the Marshal said. “Hast questioned her?”

  “Of course. She could not give account of herself, no explanation of why she was riding away from here as fast as Lord Dewar’s horse could carry her. I recognized the horse as the one he’d used during the battle, when h
e was swinging a sword instead of using his sorcery for us. She admitted this morning that she was here to warn Prospero of certain movements of Prince Josquin; apparently she got here too late for it to do him any good, and so she was sneaking homeward when we caught her.”

  “Killed,” the Marshal said, to Gallitan.

  “Dead, sir,” Gallitan said. “I have the men who appear to be involved under guard, sir.”

  “My men—” began Golias, his eyes flashing with anger.

  “Didst not inform me of this,” the Marshal said, in that very quiet voice, cutting him off. “Thou knewest who she was.”

  “I was going to bring it up,” Golias said. “You’re holding my men prisoner?”

  Prince Josquin was staring at him, his brows drawn together slightly. He turned his gaze on Ottaviano, coldly assessing him.

  “Lady Miranda? You did not see fit to inform the Marshal that you found Lady Miranda here?” Prince Herne demanded.

  “Captain Gallitan,” said the Marshal, “what passed?”

  “It’s still not clear, sir,” Gallitan said. “I gather that the woman, with hands bound behind her, managed to escape the tent where she was held and started away, but was intercepted. The men claim there was a scuffle. She died of a stabbing.”

  “Hold the men apart from one another, and let the body be treated with all due honor,” Prince Gaston said. “Dismissed.”

  Gallitan saluted and left as quickly as he’d entered.

  Prince Gaston turned and fixed Golias with a brilliant stare, downward from his height to seated Golias, a burning glare. “Art aware,” the Fireduke said slowly, “of what furor this shall incite?”

  “She was a spy,” Golias said.

  “She was Gonzalo of Valgalant’s daughter,” Prince Gaston said. “Regardless of her identity, thou didst not inform me thou hadst privily such a prisoner.”