A Sorcerer and a Gentleman

by Elizabeth Willey

  The snow hissed on the sides of the tent.

  “I meant to tell you at this meeting,” Golias said sullenly.

  Prince Gaston looked from him to Ottaviano, but said nothing. He sat again, and Prince Herne slowly sat down beside him.

  “All prisoners henceforward shall be under Prince Herne’s authority,” said the Marshal. “To return to our agenda,” he said, “Prince Herne shall take the Sixth and Seventh to guard the convoy of prisoners to Perendlac. Prince Golias, shalt accompany them with thy men.” He glanced at his notes for the first time. “Item, the locals are being paid and dismissed. Any difficulties?”

  “None reported, sir,” Prince Josquin said. He had brought the Emperor’s gold and silver and the paymasters with him.

  The meeting went on. Ottaviano, Josquin, Herne, and Golias reported on their total count of casualties; they discussed, in subdued voices, supplies and transportation of the wounded in a special convoy, and at the end, Prince Gaston said, “The death of Lady Miranda hath placed a particular burthen on me. I shall carry her body to Landuc myself, through a Way, today. Ere I go I’ll obtain a full account of the matter for the Emperor.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” Golias said. “She was here as a spy, committing treason. Let her vanish—”

  “Dost know,” Prince Gaston said, “who Lady Miranda of Valgalant is? Was?”

  Golias blinked.

  “Nay, thy ignorance is clear,” said the Fireduke coldly. “I’ll speak with thee anon.”

  “Uh, Your Highness, a word,” Ottaviano said, catching his cousin the Prince Heir outside the tent.

  Prince Josquin, still with that remote, chill look in his face, looked at him expectantly.

  “Who’s Miranda of Valagant?”

  “Valgalant. Gonzalo of Valgalant’s daughter.”

  “And who’s he?”

  “A prominent, noble, but exiled, partisan of Prospero whose daughter and sole child is widely speculated to have entered a private engagement, perhaps even a marriage, with her father’s patron against the time when he would rule,” said the Prince Heir. “Prince Prospero has the highest regard for her; he was her name-sponsor when she was born. Valgalant still holds much land around Landuc, directly and indirectly. Of the nobles who supported Prospero, Gonzalo was the only one whom the Emperor did not execute after the last war.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh,” Prince Josquin agreed. “An ancient, illustrious family, favored by Panurgus and still of consequence despite diminished numbers and unfashionable politics.”

  “Do you—did you know her?”

  “Oh yes,” said the Prince, and he bowed slightly, turned, and walked away.

  “Prince Gaston—”

  “Baron.” The Marshal nodded, preoccupied, sparing but a word for the Baron of Ascolet. His tent had been taken down; he was just finished speaking with Gernan the surgeon, Captain Gallitan, and Prince Herne, all of whom cast cold glances at Ottaviano as they all three left.

  “Sir, I have a request.”

  Gaston waited.

  “I, um,” Otto looked down. “I haven’t been— It seems to me, sir, that my presence isn’t needed to lead my troops; my second, Lieutenant Clay, is capable of doing that. I request permission for a leave.”

  Gaston frowned slightly. “To what purpose?”

  “I’d like to see my wife, sir,” Otto said.

  “Thy wife, the Countess of Lys,” Gaston said. “The journey would take some time, Baron. More time than I prefer to have thee absent. I must deny thy request, but I shall endeavor to grant it when ’tis possible to have leaves of absence. Prince Prospero is at large; the war is by no means over, simply in hiatus.”

  “Sir, we—it’s been very hard on her, I can tell from her letters—”

  Gaston lifted his eyebrows. “The request is denied,” he repeated.

  Otto gave it up, seeing that no argument would be accepted. “Yes, sir.”

  “Absent thee again without my leave, and the consequences will be severe, Baron.”

  Otto dared not hold his gaze; he looked down. “Yes, sir.”

  “I overlook the first instance as inexperienced enthusiasm. There will be no second.”

  Otto was on probation, was what the Marshal was saying, Ottaviano thought. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “A further word, Baron.”

  “Sir.”

  “Lady Miranda was dead ere she left Prince Golias’s tent: the men taken with her were disposing of the body. Know’st thou aught of this?”

  “No, sir,” whispered Otto, looking up swiftly to meet Gaston’s eyes. His hands went damp with sweat at what he saw there: for an instant, the Well burned in those eyes. Ottaviano was very pleased to have been able to answer truthfully. He hoped the truth would suffice.

  “She was badly used before her death. Know’st thou aught of this?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Thou wert with him that morning, in his tent: what didst thou see of her?”

  “Nothing, sir. Nothing. I had never heard of her.”

  “Dismissed,” said the Fireduke curtly, and he looked over to his squire, who approached, ending the interview.

  Dry-mouthed, Otto bowed and went through the camp to his quarters, near Golias’s, where the men of Lys and Ascolet were getting into marching order. He wished he had not stopped at Golias’s tent that morning; Golias had been in a rare high mood and had made some coarse remarks about Luneté (about whom he could know nothing), and Otto had left quickly. But not quickly enough, it seemed, for he’d been seen and now he was associated with Golias even more strongly.

  Visiting Luneté had been the best reason he could think of for taking leave. That Gaston had denied it rankled, but he also had to admit that the Prince Marshal’s reasons were uncontestable and that the request had been, under the circumstances, not only a long shot but a foolish one.

  He would just have to wait.

  Dear Luneté,

  began Otto that evening, and stopped, pen in midair.

  There were so many things he did not dare convey to her thus.…

  Dear Luneté,

  Much has happened since my last letter. We have won this lap of the war. Prospero was taken in battle a couple of days ago and escaped the same night, but his army remains prisoner and so for the moment he is toothless—until he gets another army. That could take a few days or a few years; we don’t know where most of this lot came from. The Fireduke is holding all in readiness for another assault any moment, and he has denied my request for a leave. I will not be home this winter, I fear; the war will not be over until Prospero is taken and brought before the Emperor and put to death or imprisoned.

  Dewar aided Prospero in his escape, but it is unclear to me whether or not his help was compelled in some way. It’s certainly possible, for Prospero had talked to him before the battle and could have laid a geas on him then or subverted his will, but I do not know, for Dewar is gone with him and none knows where. Sorcerers cannot be fathomed. Yet Dewar was of great help to us in Lys and Ascolet and has been useful here, and on his side it must be admitted that since the Emperor refused to make a formal agreement securing his aid he was free to do as he wished when he wished, and he never promised more than he has delivered. Still it is infuriating to have had the real end of the war postponed by his actions.

  I cannot write more, the courier is ready to leave and so I fill the rest of the letter with love and thoughts of you. Ottaviano.

  He sealed and addressed the letter and gave it to the courier riding to the Palace with accounts and other mail. Luneté might get it in half a month, likely longer. Ottaviano wished he had taken the opportunity of his recent unauthorized leave to visit her, but he had not thought of it and now he could not go.

  But Luneté had been prepared for a long separation. She had spoken of it as a disagreeable inevitability when they had talked of it first, planning the war in Ascolet, and when that had come to a quick end, she had accepted his going away with Gaston
with stoic grace. He knew she didn’t like it, but there was nothing to be done about it. She would wait for him; she was firmly in love with him and her future lay entirely with Ottaviano.

  24

  DEWAR WOKE MOANING.

  There were so many pains in his body that he could not tell one from another in the dazing ache of cold.

  His eyes were stuck shut. He wiped at them clumsily with a numb hand and brushed grit and ice from the lids. Blearily he blinked at whiteness. It was snow, tiny unmelting stars on his hand where it had fallen in front of his blurred eyes. He held his breath, studying perfect hexagons, and then exhaled. The snow melted reluctantly on his wax-white skin.

  He tried lifting himself on the hand that had rubbed his eyes clear, and the arm would not hold him. Broken bone grated and he fell back, grunting.

  Where was he? He couldn’t remember.

  Dewar swallowed, thirsty, and moved his head to lick at the snow. It had not yet begun snowing when he had … when he had fled with Prospero. What was he doing here? He remembered riding pillion behind the Prince on his horse Hurricane. What had happened?

  He supposed Prospero must have dumped him, trying to distract Prince Herne from the pursuit.

  Herne evidently hadn’t taken the bait, though he had never hidden his dislike of Dewar.

  “Snumabish,” he mumbled, or tried to mumble.

  A high-pitched kee-aaaaa cry rang off the snow. The world dimmed and brightened, a flickering. The snow blew about in an eddy of wind. Dewar tried lifting himself on his other arm, but it didn’t obey his commands—at least, it didn’t seem to be, but he felt himself tumble over onto his back, and he cried wordlessly as fresh pain surged through arms, legs, back, and body.

  His mouth wouldn’t work properly. Turning his head, he licked at the snow again. His face hurt.

  “Hey!” shouted someone above him.

  Rescue! They must have been out all night looking for him. He’d have a hard time explaining this to Gaston. At least they’d feed and bandage him.

  “Hey!” came the shout again, high and thin, and thudding and scrambling accompanied the cautious descent of a young man in brown leather clothes, muffled and gloved, fleece showing at his cuffs and collar. Unfamiliar uniform. Not one of the Emperor’s men.

  “Ungh,” Dewar said, smiling weakly, and then recalled the local custom of killing and robbing the wounded. The man brushed at the snow on Dewar.

  “You are alive. I thought not,” the leather man said, a lilting accent marring the words. He turned and floundered back up in the snow, which was much deeper than Dewar had assumed.

  The leather man returned with an assortment of things hung off him. He had a wineskin, and he raised Dewar’s head and poured heavy, cold red wine into his mouth until Dewar coughed.

  “More?”

  “More,” Dewar whispered, swallowing the first deluge.

  “Here.” He managed the flow better this time, and Dewar swallowed. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Broke arm,” Dewar wheezed.

  “I can see that. There now. You lie back. So. I have to figure out how to get you out of here. Did you fall?”

  “Don’t know.” Dewar tried to grab the other’s shoulder, to rise.

  “Don’t do that! You’ve broken your right leg, I think. It’s bent wrong. I wouldn’t be surprised if you cracked a few ribs too. One of the, the Emperor’s men, aren’t you?”

  Dewar wasn’t sure what to answer.

  “If it matters,” said the leather man to himself, ignoring the non-response, and went on, “I’ll make a stretcher. Don’t move!”

  He went away in the snow, which fell with tiny pats on Dewar’s closed eyes and cold cheeks. Dewar listened to the snow and his own breathing, delicate whispering sounds. He was too cold, he thought, and in a minute or two he’d get up and make a fire. Plenty of brush around him. He’d glimpsed it adorned with snow just now. It was resinous; it would burn easily. Warm him up. Yes. He’d just rest another few minutes and then make a fire. Easily done. Elementary Elemental Summoning, that was all. He framed the words in his mind, jumbling them up, but he’d get them right when he spoke the Summoning …

  “Hey! Stay awake.”

  Dewar made a small sound of protest.

  “Maybe the wine wasn’t a good idea. Here, suck on this. It’s honey.”

  His mouth was opened and a grainy, coarse lump stuffed into it.

  “Gah!” He choked.

  “I made a stretcher. I’m going to get you on it, tie you to it, and then pull you out of this ditch. You’re too big for me to carry.”

  Dewar’s mouthful of runny sugar didn’t permit a reply. He gritted his teeth as the leather man began lifting his shoulders. When he hauled Dewar’s legs over to the left, Dewar couldn’t keep from shouting at the agony, fire and ice in his bones.

  “Sorry!” cried the leather man. “One more.”

  He did it again, shoulders and then legs, and by then Dewar was moaning and panting. The first jolt as his head was lifted and the foot end of the stretcher bumped over a rock made him scream, and then he fell over into darkness.

  He woke feeling water on his face.

  “Bleh.”

  “Do keep your mouth closed. I’ve got soap,” said the leather man.

  Dewar closed mouth and eyes, which had glimpsed light and something white-and-dark. Hot wet cloth patted his face and throat, interspersed with splashing sounds, and moved down to his left arm and his chest. Another cloth was laid over him.

  “Just to keep you warm.”

  “Better,” Dewar tried to say, and managed, “Beher.”

  “I dare say. I straightened out your arm and leg while you were fainting. Why did they leave you there? Did they think you dead?”

  “Dunno. Think I fell.”

  “At least that,” the leather man said, bathing him. Dewar yelped as a hot pain flared in his side. “Ah. I thought so. There’s a cracked rib or two here. I’ll tie that up too.”

  “Good of you,” Dewar mumbled.

  The leather man didn’t reply, rubbing something on Dewar’s sore side. An herbal smell rose in the air.

  Dewar hissed a few times as his body was wrapped up in a long wide bandage. He kept his eyes closed and his teeth clenched. When the strapping was finished, the bath resumed with gentle strokes on his hips and thighs and cautious swabs at his groin. Startled, Dewar looked at his benefactor.

  “Hey!” he said. He’d been mistaken as to his rescuer’s sex.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Dewar blushed crimson. “I—um … I can—”

  “You can’t, either. Not with your leg splinted. Never mind the broken arm and ribs. Save your blushes for real embarrassments,” said the young woman who was giving him a sponge-bath, keeping him down with her hand flat on his chest. “And please stop trying to move. You’ll hurt for it.” She wasn’t smiling, but her voice was amused and her eyes crinkled over her wind-pinked cheeks. Her dark hair was pulled back untidily in a fraying braid.

  “Who’re you?” Dewar said, forcing himself to relax.

  “I found you, remember?” She pulled the blanket back onto him.

  “Oh,” Dewar said. “Uh.” She still wore the leather trousers and jacket that had deceived him, just as he’d been fooled by Lady Miranda. She was certainly not Lady Miranda—had Lady Miranda had an ally, a confidante similarly disguised? No—she would have mentioned it.

  “When I’m finished washing the muck and blood off you, we’ll eat.”

  “Hungry.”

  “I should think so. You’re in fine health for a fellow who slept in a blizzard. Lucky.” She was rubbing more salve into his left leg, the same pungent unguent. The touch hurt.

  “What are you doing there?”

  “This is very good for bruises. It will feel tingly and warm.”

  “Unh.” Indeed it tingled and warmed already, blending with the nearly-painful tingling from his hands and feet: the touch of the cold, withdrawing. He tu
rned his head, trying to forget the shock of finding himself stretched naked in front of a strange woman, and looked at the fire. The furnishings were good-quality; on the floor lay a fine crimson carpet, and a high-backed blue-upholstered chair at the hearth had things draped over it to warm. In the coals stood a three-legged covered kettle, and there was wood stacked to one side leaving a mess of bark and mould on the carpet.

  The warm water felt good on his skin. She towelled him dry as she bathed him and added another dab of salve here and there. Her hands were gentle; when she dressed his bruises, he could feel that she was trying not to cause pain. Dewar watched the flames until she said, “There now,” and drew bedclothes up over him.

  “Thank you,” he said, looking at her at last.

  “You are welcome.” She smiled a small, brief smile.

  He glimpsed the water in her basin—he had been filthy. Since the great battle he’d not bathed, he realized, nor eaten; agreeing, his stomach growled.

  “I’ll empty this and we will eat.” She left the room through its high, dark old door, eight panels of some antique carving grimed with time and wax-fixed dirt.

  Dewar exhaled and relaxed. The clean sheet next to his skin was soft and silky, fine-woven expensive stuff, and the blankets over it were lofty, wispy, costly Ascolet highland goat’s-wool dyed brilliant blue. The featherbed cradled him. The bed hangings were pulled back, bits of red and blue patterning visible in their dark-grey folds. The sorcerer closed his eyes and thought of the flames of the fire, and he reached through them to the Fire, to the Well. Its heat washed over him; tired and weakened as he was, he had but poor control over it. But his command was sufficient to direct it to those parts of himself that ached and throbbed: ribs, arm, legs. The ribs would be easiest and soonest mended. He concentrated on them, hurrying his healing, strengthening and warming himself.

  The woman returned with a tray on which bowls, spoons, cups, and a loaf of bread were dwarfed by a bottle of wine. Dewar, with plump tasselled pillows behind him, was able to sit up and eat slowly: dark, rich stew full of chunks of onion and venison, bread soaked in the broth, and red wine. He devoured four bowlfuls and all the bread save a heel the young woman ate, and then she tucked the blankets up around him and left him to sleep.