Now it was her turn to pull herself together and remember her dignity. “I am Elyena, Duchess of Romanov.”
7
Rod steered the tottering horses off the road and into the meadow near Gwen, holding up the Duchess with his left arm. As he pulled them to a halt, she raised her head, looking about, then crowded closer to him. “The soldiers…”
Rod turned, and saw all the soldiers gathered in a knot under a low tree. Most of them held their heads in their hands. Some had lifted their gazes and were looking around, blinking, their faces drawn and uncertain. The knight lay by them with his helmet off. Gwen knelt over him.
“Don’t worry,” Rod said, trying to sound reassuring. “They feel as though they’ve just awakened from a bad dream. They’re on your side again.” He jumped down from the box. “Just stay there.”
She did, huddling into herself—and not looking at all reassured.
Rod sighed, and thought sharply, Cordelia!
The little girl leaped up halfway across the meadow and looked around. She located her father and jumped on her broomstick, zooming straight over to him. “Aye, Papa?”
Rod noticed the Duchess staring. Well, at least she was distracted. “Cordelia, this lady needs…”
But Cordelia was staring past him, toward the windows of the coach, and a delighted grin curved on her lips. “Children!”
Rod turned, surprised.
Two little faces filled one of the windows, looking about with frank curiosity.
Cordelia skipped past Rod, hands behind her back. The Duchess’s children watched her warily. Cordelia stopped right below them and cocked her head to the side. “I am hight Cordelia.”
They didn’t answer; they just stared.
Rod touched her shoulder. “They’ve been having some bad scares lately, honey.”
The elder boy looked up in indignation. “Was not scared!”
“Yeah, sure, you were calm as a mill pond. Just go easy, honey.”
“Oh, Papa!” she said, exasperated. “Can they not see I wish them no harm?” Before he could answer, she whirled away to the Duchess. “May I play with them?”
The Duchess stared down at her. Then, slowly, she said, “Why… an they wish it… certes.”
That they would wish it, Rod did not doubt; he knew his daughter. Already, the two boys were watching her with marked interest.
“Oh, good!” Cordelia spun back to the children. “I have brothers, too. Thou mayst play with them also, an thou dost wish it.”
The two boys still looked wary, but Cordelia’s friendliness was infectious. The younger opened the coach door, and stepped out. “I,” he said, “am Gaston.”
Rod turned away, quite certain the Duchess’s attention would be fully occupied for a while, and went over to his wife.
As he came up, she sat back on her heels, gazing down at the knight and shaking her head. Instantly, Rod was alert. “What’s the matter? Is the hypnosis too strong?”
Gwen shook her head again. “I have broke the spell, my lord. Yet I can bring him no closer to life than this.”
Rod turned, staring down at the knight. He saw a lined face and bald head, with a fringe of gray hair. His skin was gray, and covered with a sheen of sweat. Guilt swept through Rod. He knelt beside the knight. “But it was only 120 volts! Only fifteen amperes! And I only hit him with it for a few seconds!”
Gwen shook her head. “It may have as easily been the fall, my lord. His heart had stopped, and I labored to make it begin to beat again.”
“Heart attack?” Rod took a closer look at the knight. “He’s middle-aged—and he’s let himself sag out of shape.” He shook his head, looking up at Gwen. “There was no way I could tell that. He had his helmet on, and the visor was down.”
“In truth, thou couldst not,” she agreed, “and anything thou hadst done to stop him, might have hurt him this badly.” She lifted her eyes, gazing into his. “Yet, my lord, I misdoubt me an ‘twas any action of thine that did strike him down. He had ridden too many miles in harness.”
Rod nodded slowly. “Whoever sent him out to lead a troop in full armor, at his age, must’ve seen him only as a thing, not a person. Who…? No, cancel that. Of course—who else? Alfar.”
“We will tend him, milady.”
Gwen looked up, and saw the sergeant kneeling across from her.
“Sir Verin is old, but dear to us,” the soldier explained. “How he came to this pass, we know not. We will tend him.” He lifted his head, showing haunted eyes. “Lady—what have our bodies done, the whiles our souls slept?”
“Naught that is any fault of thine.” She touched his hand, smiling gently. “Trouble not thine heart.”
Geoffrey darted up beside her. “Mama! There are children! May we go play?”
Gwen looked up, startled. “Why…”
“We’ve got company,” Rod explained.
A short while later, the parents sat around a hasty campfire while the children played nearby. The Duchess sat, shivering in spite of the sun’s midday warmth. Gwen had fetched a blanket from Fess’s pack and wrapped it around her, but the poor lady still shivered with reaction. She gazed at the children, who were winding up a raucous game of tag. “Ah, bless them! Poor mites.” Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. “They know not the meaning of what hath happed.”
“Thou hast not told them, then?” Gwen said softly.
The Duchess shook her head. “They know what they have seen, and no more.” She looked up at Rod, a hard stare. “And I will not tell them until I know.”
Rod stared back, and nodded slowly. “Why not? Your husband could still be alive. It’s even possible that he’s well.”
The Duchess nodded slowly, maintaining the glare. But she couldn’t hold it long, and her head dropped.
Nearby, the children collapsed in a panting tangle.
“Nay, but tell!” Cordelia cajoled. “Didst thou truly see the evil sorcerer?”
“Nay,” said the youngest; and “We saw naught,” said the eldest. “Naught save the inside of our keep. Mother penned us there, and would not even let us go so far as the window.”
“Yet thou didst come in a coach,” Magnus reminded. “Didst thou see naught then?”
The boys shook their heads, and the youngest said, “We knew only that Mother bade us follow her down to the courtyard, and placed us in the coach. Through the gate house, we heard the clash of arms afar off; yet she drew the curtains closely, and bade us open them not.”
The oldest added, “We could hear the rumble of the wheels echoing about us, and knew that we passed through the gatehouse. Then the portcullis did crash down behind us, and the noises of war began to grow nearer.”
Geoffrey’s eyes glinted.
“Then they began to grow fainter, till they were lost behind us,” the eldest went on, “and we heard naught but the grating of the coach’s wheels.”
The youngest nodded. “When at last we did part the curtains, there was naught to see but summer fields and groves.”
The Duchess pressed her face into her hands, and her shoulders shook with more than shivering. Gwen tucked the blanket more tightly around her, murmuring soothing inanities. She glanced at Rod and nodded toward the children.
Rod took the cue. “Uh, kids—could you maybe change the subject?”
“Eh?” Cordelia looked up and took in the situation at a glance. “Oh!” She was instantly contrite. “We are sorry, Papa.” She turned to the other children, catching the hands of the Duchess’s sons. “Come, let us play at tracking.”
The fatuous look they gave her boded well for her teen-aged future, and ill for Rod’s coming peace of mind. But they darted away, calling to one another, and Magnus hid his face against a large tree, and began to count.
The Duchess lifted her head, turning it from side to side in wonder. “They so quickly forget such ill!”
“Well, yes—but you haven’t really told them the bad parts,” Rod said judiciously. “For all they know, their
father’s winning the battle. And can you really say he didn’t?”
“Nay,” she said, as though it were forced from her. “Yet I did not flee till I looked down from the battlements, and saw that the melee had begun to go against him—even as we had feared.” Then she buried her face in her hands, and her shoulders heaved with sobbing. Gwen clucked over her, comforting, and Rod had the good taste to keep quiet until the Duchess had regained some measure of control over herself. She lifted her head, gazing out over the meadow with unseeing eyes. “When first the reeves began to bring us tales of villages suborned, we dismissed them with laughter. Who could come to rule a village, whiles its knight stood by to shield it? Yet the first tale was followed by a second, and a second by a third, then a fourth, then a fifth—and ever was it the same: that a sorcerer had made the people bow to him. Then it was a witch who forced the homage, with the sorcerer’s power supporting her; then a warlock.”
“How’d they do it?” Rod asked. “Did the reeves know?”
The Duchess shook her head. “They had heard only rumors of dire threats, and of barns bursting into flame, and kine that sickened and fell. Yet for the greater part, there had been only surliness and complaining from the peasants, complaining that swelled louder and louder. Then the witch or warlock stepped amongst them, and they turned with joyful will to bow to him or her, and the sorcerer whose power lay ‘neath. My lord did bid one of his knights to ride about his own estates, and visit the villages therein. The knight returned, and spoke of peasant mobs that howled in fury, brandishing scythes and mattocks, and hurling stones. When he charged, they broke and ran; yet when he turned away, eftsoons they gathered all against him once again.” Her mouth hardened. “Thus were they bid, I doubt not.”
“Sudden, rabid loyalty.” Rod glanced at Gwen. “Would you say they didn’t really seem to be themselves? The peasants, I mean.”
“Nay, assuredly not!” The Duchess shuddered. “They were as unlike what they had been, as May time is from winter. Such reports angered milord, but not greatly. They angered his vassal, the Baron de Gratecieux, far more; for, look you, the greater part of Milord Duke’s revenues was yielded to him by his counts, who gained theirs from their barons. Yet the barons gain theirs from their knights.”
Rod nodded. “So a knight’s village resisting payments is a little more serious to the baron than to his duke.”
The Duchess nodded too. “He did implore Milord Duke for arms and men, which my lord did give him gladly. Then rode the Baron ‘gainst the sorcerer.”
She fell silent. Rod waited.
When she didn’t go on, Rod asked, “What happened?”
The Duchess shuddered. “Eh, such reports as we had were horrible, in truth! The Baron’s force did meet with a host of magics—fell creatures that did pounce from the air, fireballs and rocks that appeared among them, hurtling; arrows that sped without bows or archers, and war-axes and maces that struck without a hand to bear them. Then peasant mobs did charge upon them, howling and striking with their sickles. Yet far worst of all was a creeping fear, a sense of horror that overcame the Baron’s soldiers, till they broke and ran, screaming hoarsely in their terror.”
Rod met Gwen’s eyes, and her words sounded in his ears alone: I count a witch-moss crafter, and the warlock who doth hurl stones ‘mongst us; and there be witches who do make the weapons fly. Yet what’s this creeping horror?
Rod could only shake his head. He looked down at the Duchess again. “What happened to the Baron?”
The Duchess shuddered. “He came not home; yet in later battles, he has been seen—leading such soldiers as lived, against the sorcerer’s foes.”
Rod caught Gwen’s eye again; she nodded. Well, they’d met that compulsive hypnosis already. “How many of the soldiers survived?”
“There were, mayhap, half a dozen that lived to flee, of the threescore that marched to battle.”
Rod whistled softly. “Six out of sixty? This sorcerer’s efficient, isn’t he? How many of the defeated ones were following Baron de Gratecieux in the next battle?”
The Duchess shrugged. “From the report we had—mayhap twoscore.”
“Forty out of sixty, captured and brainwashed?” Rod shuddered. “But some got away—the six you mentioned.”
“Aye. But a warlock pursued them. One only bore word to us; we know not what happened to the other five.”
“It’s a fair guess, though.” Rod frowned. “So right from the beginning, Alfar’s made a point of trying to keep word from leaking out.” Somehow, that didn’t smack of the medieval mind. “You say you learned this afterwards?”
The Duchess nodded. “It took that lone soldier a week and a day to win home to us.”
“A lot can happen in a week.”
“So it did. The sorcerer and his coven marched against the Castle Gratecieux; most of the household acclaimed Alfar their suzerain. The Baroness and some loyal few objected, and fought to close the gates. They could not prevail, though, and those who did acclaim the sorcerer their lord, did ope’ the gate, lower the drawbridge, and raise the portcullis.”
Rod shrugged. “Well, if they could make whole villages switch allegiance, why not a castleful?”
“What did the sorcerer to the Baroness?” Gwen asked, eyes wide.
The Duchess squeezed her eyes shut. “She doth rest in the dungeon, with her children—though the eldest was wounded in the brawling.”
Gwen’s face hardened.
“How did you learn this?” Rod tried to sound gentle.
“Servants in Gratecieux’s castle have cousins in my kitchens.”
“Servants’ network.” Rod nodded. “So Alfar just took over the castle. Of course, he went on to take over the rest of the manor.”
“Such villages as did not already bow to him, aye. They fell to his sway one by one. At last, the other barons did take alarm, and did band together to declare war upon him.”
“Bad tactics.” Rod shook his head. “The hell with the declaration; they should’ve just gone in, and mopped him up.”
The Duchess stared, scandalized.
“Just an idea,” Rod said quickly.
The Duchess shook her head. “Twould have availed them naught. They fought a sorcerer.”
Rod lifted his head slowly, eyes widening, nostrils flaring. He turned to Gwen. “So he’s got people thinking they can’t win, before they even march. They’re half defeated before they begin fighting.”
“Mayhap,” the Duchess said, in a dull voice, “yet with great ease did he defeat the barons. A score of sorcerer’s soldiers did grapple with the barons’ outriders, on the left flank. The scouts cried for a rescue, and soldiers ran to aid them. The sorcerer’s men withdrew; yet no sooner had they vanished into the forest, than another band attacked the vanguard of the right flank. Again soldiers ran to bring aid, and again the sorcerer’s men withdrew; and, with greater confidence, the barons’ men marched ahead.”
Even hearing the story, Rod felt a chill. “Too much confidence.”
The Duchess nodded, and bit her lip. “When they came within sight of Castle Gratecieux, a wave of soldiers broke upon them from the forest. At t’ other side of the road, rocks began to appear, with thunder-crashes, and also from that side came a swarm of thrown stones—yet no one was there to throw them. The soldiers recoiled upon themselves, then stood to fight; yet they fell in droves. Three of the five barons fought to the last with their men, and were lost. The other two rallied mayhap a score, and retreated. The sorcerer’s army pressed them hard, but well did they defend themselves. Naetheless, a half of the men fell, and one of the barons with them. The other half won through to the High Road, whereupon they could turn and flee, faster than the sorcerer’s men could follow. A warlock followed them, and rocks appeared all about them; yet he grew careless and, of a sudden, an archer whirled and let fly. The arrow pierced the warlock, and he tumbled from the sky, screaming. Then away rode the baron and his poor remnant—and thus was the word brought to us. And I
assure thee, mine husband did honor that archer.”
“So should we all,” Rod said. “It always helps, having a demonstration that your enemy can be beaten. Didn’t your husband take these rumors of danger seriously before then?”
“Nay, not truly. He could not begin to believe that a band of peasants could be any true danger to armored knights and soldiers, even though they were witches. Yet when the Baron Marole stood before him and told him the account of his last battle, my lord did rise in wrath. He summoned up his knights and men, and did send his fleetest courier south, to bear word of all that had happed to Their Royal Majesties.”
Rod frowned. “He sent a messenger? How long ago?”
The Duchess shrugged. “Five days agone.”
Rod shook his head. “He should have been in Runnymede before we left.”
She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes widening, haunted. “He did not come.”
“No,” Rod answered, “he didn’t.”
The Duchess dropped her gaze. “Alas, poor wight! Need we guess at what hath happed?”
“No, I think it’s pretty obvious.” Rod gazed north along the road. “In fact, he might even have dressed himself as a peasant, in hopes he’d be overlooked. In any case, he’s probably the reason Alfar sent his new army out to cut down refugees.”
“Refugees?” The Duchess looked up, frowning. “What are these?”
“Poor folk, who flee the ravages of war,” Gwen explained.
Rod nodded. “Usually because their homes have been destroyed. In this case, though, the only ones who’ve been heading south are the ones who realized what was coming, and got out while they could.”
“You’ve seen such folk, then?”
Rod nodded. “A few. I’d say we’ve been running into one every mile or so.”
The Duchess shook her head slowly. “I marvel that they ‘scaped the sorcerer’s soldiers!”
“They started early enough, I guess—but I’m sure the soldiers caught up with plenty of other bands. And, of course, we did manage to, ah, interfere, when a squad of men-at-arms was trying to stop a family we bumped into.”
The Duchess studied his face. “What had this family seen?”
The Warlock Enraged Page 12
