A Wizard In Peace

by Christopher Stasheff

  So they marched, down every low road and bypath, men born peasants, grown up to -become lords in delusion, and cured to live lying lives as false magistrates. They ambushed the patrols set to ambush them, or saved one another when the patrols were too clever for one group alone. Fifty-three of the magistrates and their men died in the occasional clashes, but day by day, they came closer and closer to the capital, their numbers swelling as watchmen and bailiffs and reeve's men who had heard of the revolution came secretly to join them. It was an army three thousand strong who surrounded Milton Town a week later, with seven thousand more on the road.

  Miles fretted, pacing in the indoor gloom of the warehouse near the town gate. "There must be a thousand traps laid for us by now! The spies must have told the Protector that we're rebelling!"

  "Not really," Dirk told him. "You told that agent in the Protector's kitchens to feed and water the questioner and his torturers, and to spread the word that they had a real hard case going, and weren't to be disturbed-not that anybody would get all that curious about secret police business, anyway."

  "Still, Renunzio must have made reports!"

  Dirk grinned. "I forgot to tell you about that last curse Renunzio threw at me before I gagged him."

  Miles turned, staring. "Curse? What curse?"

  "He hoped I'd spend the rest of my life running flat-out through a nightmare with never a rest or a drink," Dirk said, grinning, "for coming before he'd told the Protector about us."

  Miles stared, speechless, but Gar nodded. "It's the way of bureaucrats. Sometimes they hoard up all the good news, instead of giving it to their superiors in bits and pieces. They tell their bosses when they have the whole situation wrapped up and under control, to make themselves look all-powerful and totally competent. They usually hope for promotion. Sometimes they even get it."

  "You mean the Protector never even heard about our rebellion?"

  "Well, we can't be sure Renunzio didn't tell anybody else," Dirk hedged. "Might be he couldn't resist bragging-but I don't think so. He's the kind who wouldn't want to report it to a superior because the boss might steal the credit."

  "Of course," Gar said, "somebody might have let him out of that torture chamber by now-but I don't think he was in any shape to make sense."

  "You mean we're still secret?"

  "I'm pretty sure about it, yes."

  "I," said Gar, "am completely sure."

  "You would be," Dirk growled.

  Miles could scarcely believe it. Suddenly a huge weight seemed to roll off his shoulders, and the rock that had seemed to be rolling around in his belly disappeared. He took a deep breath and realized how wonderful it was here in the warehouse. Sunlight filtered through louvered turrets on the roof, casting a magical half-light over the heaped and stacked bales and crates. Scores of different spices perfumed the air. He felt a sudden, irrational surge of affection for, the place, and heartily wished Ciletha had been there to share it.

  "But the longer we wait, the greater the chance that word will come in from the provinces of an amazingly large number of magistrates deciding to take a vacation." Gar lifted himself off the bale of velvet he'd been using for a seat. "Your couriers tell us we have three thousand men around the city, and our spies in the Protector's Army tell us he only has twenty-five hundred soldiers, plus a hundred town watchmen. I think it's time to strike."

  Miles stared at him, the wonderful feeling draining out of him as though he were a wineskin without a stopper.

  "Seven thousand more men on the road," Dirk reminded Gar. "If we wait even one more day, we'll outnumber the Protector's forces by a safe margin."

  "His castle has high walls, and his guards have halberds, pikes, and crossbows," Gar reminded. "Surprise will give us more strength than numbers-and a better chance of less bloodshed."

  The last phrase decided Miles. "Fewer dead is worth the risk." He felt decision crystallize within him. "Yes, Gar, let's strike."

  Gar's eye gleamed with pride as he watched his chief rebel. "Well enough, then. Tell your couriers to have your magistrates ready to march into the city at midnight."

  Miles frowned. "But the Watch will find them!"

  "Will they?" Gar asked. "Or will they find the Watch?"

  The first twenty magistrates came in during the day, dressed as peasants. As dusk gathered, they hid in alleys, and when night fell, they came out to hunt.

  A squadron of watchmen passed the mouth of an alley, talking in bored tones. " `Extra vigilance,' the bailiff says! And why? Just because there are thousands of men marching up from the south!"

  In the shadows at the alley mouth, two "magistrates" exchanged surprised glances.

  "As though a mob a hundred miles away could have anything to do with us here!" another man scoffed.

  "Mob?" a third man said with a laugh, "Magistrates! How can puffed-up magistrates be a mob? Especially when they say they're only coming to talk with the Protector because they're so disturbed about marriage!"

  "Why would magistrates be upset about weddings?" the first man scoffed. "They have more of them than any other kind of man!"

  "Something about there not being enough good marriages," a fifth man said. "Even so, he's sending a thousand soldiers south."

  "Yes," said the sixth. "He says it's to escort . . ."

  The watchers heard no more, mostly because they stepped out of the alley and stepped up behind the watchmen, hands chopping down, stiffened into blades, making muted smacking sounds. Four watchmen dropped. The other two turned, mouths opening in alarm, but the "magistrates" leaped forward, stiffened fingers driving into bellies. The two watchmen doubled over, unable to talk, and blade-hands chopped again. Then, still silently, the "magistrates" pulled them back into the alley and began tying them up.

  "So the spies finally went out at night and found the rest of us," one of the "magistrates" muttered.

  "Yes, but it sounds as though they gave a good enough excuse to confuse the issue."

  "And the Protector," said a third. "He doesn't want to chop down his civil service if they're not really going to make trouble."

  "They don't seem to know our full strength, at least," the first man said, "or he wouldn't think a thousand men would be enough."

  "A thousand?" asked the fourth man. "That would be enough, all right-if the men they were going to meet ere real magistrates. They'd only be armed with batons, after all, and they can't know as much about fighting as real troupers. Then the thousand soldiers could claim to be an honor guard, but the mob would still realize they had to watch their step."

  "Well, that's a thousand troops fewer for us to worry about tomorrow," said the first man. "Let's get going to the turnpike. We've taken out our squadron."

  All over the city, the scene was repeated. Sometimes the Watch managed to call for help, and the commandomagistrates had to fade back into the shadows, leaving the unconscious bodies as bait for the next squadron that came on the run. Sometimes the watchmen were too quick, injuring a commando before they were struck down. There were even two squadrons who knocked out the commandos and ran back toward the palace, shouting the alarm-but half a dozen groups of commandos converged on them and stopped their shouting. When it was over, two commandos were dead and half a dozen wounded-but none of the watchmen had been killed, though several would take a few weeks to heal.

  Meanwhile, commandos crept up on the bored sentries who guarded the turnpikes on the major roads in and out of the town. There were no city walls, and any number of men could have slipped in between the houses and warehouses that bordered it but the Protector wasn't worried about a few footpads, since the Watch patrolled the streets so well. No, the turnpikes were there to make sure all incoming merchants paid their import taxes, and that all legitimate travelers showed their travel permits. The turnpikes barred the roads at sunset. Anyone who arrived too late had to seek lodging in one of the many inns outside the town, and wait for the officials to come on duty again in the morning.

  Sentries guarde
d those turnpikes, of course, and though three thousand people could have come in between buildings and down alleyways, it was far quicker to march openly down the main roads-so commandos crept up behind the sentries and knocked them out. One or two turned at the wrong moment and swung their halberds at their attackers, so there were another couple of commandos wounded and a few more shouts at the edge of the city-but the waiting rebels swarmed through the turnpikes and knocked out the sentries themselves.

  When the sun rose, all the watchmen lay tied up and moaning in cellars and warehouses, with a man and a woman rebel each to tend their wounds, give them a little water, and assure them that, though they would have a hungry day, they'd be released the next morning-if all went well. If it didn't, they might have to wait a bit longer.

  That same sunrise woke the Protector, for he earned his pay twice over. He was haughty, but he had some right to be-for, though he was the son of one Protector and the grandson of another, he took pride in forty years of long days and hard effort working his way up through the ranks of the civil service from small-town magistrate to Protector in his own turn. His brothers had failed to rise so high, and lived now in this very town, where they could at least have permanent families-and live where he could keep an eye on them. But he had worked hard to achieve what he had, and worked hard still, rising with the sun and laboring at his desk and in his audience chamber until midnight, keeping track of everything that happened in his realm, and issuing a constant stream of decisions about any problems that arose.

  Now his valet threw the curtains wide-and froze in astonishment, the sunlight streaming past him to the Protector, who was just rising from his bed. He frowned and asked, "What is it, Valard?"

  "The square, Protector! It's full of men!"

  "Let me see!" The Protector pushed Valard aside and stepped up himself to look down upon the square in front of his palace. It was jammed from edge to edge with heads wearing the notched caps of magistrates, faces staring up at the palace in expectation.

  The Protector stared back, speechless and frozen. Then he turned from the window in a royal rage. "How on earth did they manage to slip past my soldiers! What the devil are they doing here? No, I know you don't know, Valard-but help me dress! I must confront them instantly, and learn what they want!"

  It was a measure of the man's character that his first thought was to-confront the danger that awaited him. It was only as a second thought that he said, "Tell the Captain of the Guard to send his men out around the square, behind the library and the treasury and the secretariat, then through the alleys between them to surround this crowd. Oh, and make sure the palace wall is fully manned, of course."

  He burst out of his dressing room in his most imposing robes and with his chain of office glinting richly on his breast, the Captain of the Guard beside him, listening to the last of a stream of orders. "-and have them await me in the audience chamber!" the Protector finished. As the man nodded and hurried off, he snapped to another official who stood near, "How stand the provinces?"

  "Messages have just come, Protector," the man said quickly. "Rebel magistrates have led mobs against reeves' castles in Autaine, Grabel, and Belorgium . . ."

  "Three-quarters of the realm!"

  "Yes, Protector, but the reeves and their guardsmen have put them down. There were only a handful of malcontents, of course, and the people themselves joined in their overthrow."

  The Protector nodded briskly. "That is well. Now if only the people of this city come to overturn these rebels.... Open the windows!"

  The valet threw open the French doors that let onto the balcony, and the Protector stepped out-and felt as though he had run into a solid wall of sound. The massed shout of "Liberty and rights! Liberty and rights!" slammed into him, repeated over and over until he staggered away from it, dazed and panting. The valet quickly pulled the windows shut, and the Protector gasped, "What the devil do they mean? There is only one right! How can there be more? And what nonsense is this about liberty? Personal liberty is chaos and the door to suffering!" Then, recovering himself, he roared, "Who taught them this nonsense?"

  No one answered. For a moment, the hall was quiet. Then a footman stepped forward to say hesitantly, "Protector ... there are three men awaiting you in the audience chamber, and one is clothed as a magistrate. . . . They ask to speak with you about ,mutual concerns.' "

  "Concerns?" The Protector stared; then his brows drew down, and he shouted, "They had best be concerned indeed! How did they come into my audience chamber?"

  "No ... no one knows, sir," the man faltered. "The men you had sent to wait for you discovered them there."

  The Protector stood rigid, staring at the man, and for the first time, he felt cold tendrils of fear. He shook them off, spun on his heel, and hurried toward the audience chamber with a snarl.

  He burst into the chamber with footmen and men-at-arms scurrying after him, and brought up short, staring. The room was a hall with a fifteen-foot beamed ceiling, the Protector's high chair and bench at one end and banks of seats at the other. Between them stood three men, two seeming very small compared to the other; who must have been seven feet tall if he was an inch. He was dressed as a soldier in doublet and hose, but no livery, only russet cloth. One of the ordinary-sized men was dressed in the same fashion, though in leaf-green, and the third man was dressed as a magistrate.

  Facing them was a row of ministers, gowned even more sumptuously than reeves or magistrates. Seeing them filled the Protector with renewed confidence. He waved the footmen and men-at-arms away, suspecting that what transpired here would be something he would not want to have leak out by gossip.

  One sergeant lingered. "Sir ... your safety ... "

  "The ministers will ward me! Out!"

  The sergeant's face expressed his misgivings, but he left. The Protector marked him for preference-here was a man who knew both loyalty and obedience.

  As the door closed behind the men, he rounded on the intruders. "How did you get in here?"

  "We came by night," the one dressed as a magistrate replied. "Came by night! Into the Protector's palace? How did you get past my guards?"

  "Very carefully," the other short one answered, and nothing more.

  The Protector's eyes narrowed; he felt his emotions calm to ice. He had played this sort of game before, many times before, and these were men half his age, who certainly could not be as skilled at it as he was. "Who are you?"

  "I am Miles." The shortest one bowed slightly. "These are my companions, Dirk and Gar."

  "What have you to do with this rabble out in the street?"

  "They aren't rabble, Protector, but men who have served you as magistrates and reeves for as many as five years." Reeves, too! That shook the Protector, but he kept it from showing. "Why did you come here?"

  "To confer with you, Protector, about policies that give us great concern."

  "Politely phrased," the Protector said, thin-lipped, "but I know demands when I hear them, and your mob in the square has told me what those demands are-liberty, which would cause this realm to tear itself apart, and `rights,' whatever that may mean!"

  "It means that we feel the people must have guarantees of their safety written down, Protector, as the fundamental laws of the land-matters which it is right for them to decide for themselves, and which no government should force upon them."

  That rattled the Protector. He couldn't stifle a gasp of shock. "You want to change the foundation of the Law of the Realm!"

  "We feel that is necessary," Miles said, almost apologetically. "Then I shall build you the finest gallows in the land, for you must be the grandest traitor ever to walk! You must know that I would rather die than agree to such a change!"

  At last the giant spoke. "We hope that will not be necessary, sir."

  The Protector turned on him, face swelling with rage. "You had better believe that won't be necessary, though your own deaths are another matter!"

  The third one spoke up. "You might not say that if
you heard which rights we wish to guarantee, Protector. They're modest enough, after all."

  "If your `rights' restrict the power of the state to hold itself together, they're scarcely modest!" The Protector turned to him, eyes narrowing again. "But have your say, sir! What's your list?"

  "First, that all people have the right to try to be happy."

  The Protector sifted through the words in his mind, frowning, trying to find the barb in them and failing. "It seems harmless enough," he said grudgingly. "What next?"

  "That everyone has the right to choose their spouses for themselves, and the government can never make them marry someone they don't want."

  "But by that law, there would be many who would never marry!"

  "Yes, Protector," Miles said evenly, "and there would be many who would find that loneliness is less miserable than a loveless marriage."

  "But the realm would have fewer people, which means fewer crops, less income from taxes!"

  "Fewer people yes, but happier ones," said the smaller of the two strangers. Dirk, was that his name? "Happier people might be more productive."

  The words had a seductive ring, and the Protector frowned, storing them away to chew over when he had time. "That one is worth considering, at least." And not worth fighting a rebellion. "What else?"

  Miles's eyes brightened with hope. "Everyone is free to worship as they please, and to preach their own religion," Miles told him.

  That brought the Protector up sharply. "What is `religion'? A belief in a god or gods, and worship is talking to them in your mind."

  "Fantasy," the Protector pronounced, hands on his hips, "but I see no harm in it, as long as they don't think these `gods' are real. What else?"

  "One that follows from the last, for if people have the right to believe in their religions, they have the right to tell other people about them. Everyone is free to speak whatever they please that won't injure any other person."

  "Person?" The Protector jumped on the flaw right away. "Is the government a person?"

  "No," Miles admitted.