Rod stared.
Catharine's hand strayed to her neck, playing with a locket at her throat.
Rod cleared his throat, a trifle nervously. "Here I am, just a simple blank-shield soldier, just carrying out my orders and taking my pay, and three times in thirty hours I get accused of being something mysterious."
"Then I must needs think that it is true." Catharine's mouth twisted in a mocking smile.
She sat in one of the great oaken chairs, grasping the arms tightly, and studied Rod for a few moments.
"What are you, Rod Gallowglass?"
Rod spread his arms in a shrug, trying to look the picture of offended innocence. "A blank shield, my Queen! A soldier of fortune, no more!"
" 'No more,' " Catharine mimicked, malice in her eyes. "What is your profession, Rod Gallowglass?"
Rod scowled, beginning to feel like the rodent half of a game of cat-and-mouse. "A soldier, my Queen."
"That is your avocation," she said, "your pleasure and your game. Tell me now your profession."
The woman was A) uncanny; and B) a bitch, Rod decided. Trouble was, she was a beautiful bitch, and Rod had a weakness.
His brain raced; he discarded several lies and chose the most obvious and least plausible.
"My profession is the preserving of your Majesty's life."
"Indeed!" Catharine mocked him with her eyes. "And who hath trained you to that profession? Who is so loyal to me that he would send you?"
Suddenly, Rod saw through the mocking and the belligerence. It was all a mask, a shield; behind it lay a very frightened, very lonely little girl, one who wanted someone to trust, craved someone to trust. But there had been too many betrayals; she couldn't let herself trust any more.
He looked into her eyes, giving her his gentlest, most sincere gaze, and said in his best couch-side manner, "I call no man master, my Queen. It is myself who has sent me, out of love for Catharine the Queen and loyalty to the nation of Gramarye."
Something desperate flickered in her eyes; her hands clutched at the chair arms. "Love," she murmured.
Then the mockery was back in her eyes. "Yes, love — for Catharine the Queen."
She looked away, into the fire. "Be that as it may. But I think you are in most comely truth a friend — though why I believe that, I cannot say."
"Oh, you may be sure that I am!" Rod smiled. "You knew that I was at the House of Clovis, though you couldn't say how, and you were right about that."
"Be still!" she snapped. Then slowly her eyes lifted to his. "And what affairs took you to the House Of Clovis this night?"
Was she a mind reader, maybe?
Rod scratched along his jaw; the bone-conduction microphone would pick up the sound.
"There's some confusion Fesstering in my mind," he said. "How did you know I was at the House of Clovis?"
"Here, Rod," a voice murmured behind his ear.
Catharine gave him a look that fairly dripped with contempt. "Why, I knew you spoke with Tuan Loguire. Then where could you be but the House of Clovis?"
Very neat — only how had she known he was with Tuan… Loguire?
Loguire!
Rod stared. "Excuse me, but-uh-did you say Tuan Loguire?"
Catharine frowned.
"I thought his name was, uh — McReady."
Catharine almost laughed. "Oh, nay! He is the second son of Milord Loguire! Did you not know?"
Second son! Then Tuan was himself the man he had been condemning for a fool!
And his big brother was the man who had "an ancient grievance 'gainst the Queen," and was a major threat to the throne.
"No," said Rod, "I did not know."
Fess's voice murmured, "Data indicate existence of excellent intelligence system."
Rod groaned mentally. Robots were a great help!
He pursed his tips, staring at Catharine. "You say you have no spies in the House of Clovis," he said, "and if I assume that you speak the truth, then that means…"
He left the sentence hanging; Fess would fill in the blank.
There was a moment of silence; then a loud hum behind Rod's ear, ended in a sharp click.
Rod cursed mentally. If Catharine had ho spies, she logically couldn't have known what she did know. He'd given Fess another paradox, and the robot's circuits had overloaded. Epileptic robots could be very inconvenient.
Catharine glared at him. "Of a certainty, I speak truth!"
"Oh, I never doubted!" Rod held up a hand. "But you are a ruler, and you were reared to it; one of the first lessons you must have learned was lying with a straight face."
Catharine's face froze; then, slowly, she bent her head, looking down at her hands. When she looked up, her face was drawn; the mask had been stripped away, and her eyes were haunted. "Once again, my knowledge was true," she murmured. "You know more than soldiering, Rod Gallowglass."
Rod nodded heavily. He'd made another slip; blank-shield soldiers don't know politics.
"Then tell me," she murmured, "how you came to the House of Clovis, this night."
"My Queen," Rod said gravely, "one man was set upon by three, in an alley. I helped him out; he took me to the House of Clovis to tell me his thanks with a glass of wine. That is how I came to meet Tuan Loguire."
Her brows drew together in an anxious little frown. "If I might but credit your words with truth," she murmured.
She rose and went to the fireplace. All at once, her shoulders slumped, her head bowed forward. "I shall need all my friends in this hour that comes upon us," she murmured, voice husky, "and I think thou art the truest of my friends, though I cannot say why."
She raised her head to look at him, and he saw with a shock that her eyes swam with tears. "There are still some to guard me," she said, her voice so low he could scarcely hear; but her eyes shone through the tears, and an invisible hand tightened around Rod's chest. His throat tightened, too; his eyes were burning.
She turned away, biting her clenched fist. After a moment, she spoke again, her voice trembling. "The time shall come soon when each of the Great Lords shall declare himself for or against me; and I think they will be few who ride to my standard."
She turned, came toward him again, eyes alight and a shy, trembling smile on her lips. Rod rose to meet her, staring, fascinated, heart pounding in his ears.
She stopped just before him, one hand touching the locket at her throat again, and whispered, "Will you stand by my side in that day, Rod Gallowglass?"
Rod nodded awkwardly and garbled out something affirmative. At that particular moment, his answer would probably have been the same if she'd requested his soul.
Then, suddenly, she was in his arms, lithe and squirming, and her lips were moist and full on his own.
Some timeless while later, she lowered her head and moved reluctantly away, holding to his arms as if to steady herself. "Nay, but I am a weak woman," she murmured, exultant. "Go now, Rod Gallowglass, with the thanks of a queen."
She said something else, but Rod didn't quite follow it; and, somehow, he was on the other side of the door, walking down a wide, cold, torchlit corridor.
He stopped, shook himself, made a brave try at collecting his wits, and went on down the hall with a step that was none too firm.
Whatever else you might think of her political abilities, the gal sure knew how to bind a man to her service…
He stumbled and caught himself; his stumbling block shoved a hand against his hip to steady him.
"Nay, mind thy great feet," grumbled Brom O'Berin, 'ere thou trip headlong and foul the paving."
The dwarf studied Rod's eyes anxiously; he found whatever he was looking for someplace between iris and cornea, and nodded, satisfied.
He reached up to grab Rod's sleeve and turned away, guiding him down the hall.
"What had you from Catharine, Rod Gallowglass?"
"Had from her?" Rod frowned, eyes unfocused. "Well, she took my pledge of loyalty…"
Ah!" Brom nodded, as though in commiseration.
"What more could you ask, Rod Gallowglass?"
Rod gave his head a quick shake, eyes opening wide. What the hell more could he ask, anyway? What in heaven's name had he expected? And what, in the seventh smile of Cerebus, was he getting moon-eyed for?
His jaw tightened, sullen anger rising in him. This bitch was nothing to him — just a pawn in the Great Game, a tool that might be used to establish a democracy. And what the hell was he getting angry about? He had no right to that, either.
Hell! He needed a little objective analysis! "Fess!" He meant it as a mutter, but it came out as a shout. Brom O'Berin scowled up at him. "What is a fess?"
"An unreliable gear train with a slipped cam," Rod improvised. Where the hell was that damn robot, anyway?
Then he remembered. Fess had had a seizure.
But Brom had stopped, and was studying Rod's face with his ultra-suspicious look. "What are these words, Rod Gallowglass? What is a gear train? And what is a cam?"
Rod pressed his lips together and mentally recited the books of the Bible. Careful, boy, care full You're at the brink! You'll blow the whole bit!
He met Brom's eyes. "A gear train is the pack mule a knight uses to carry his armor and weapons," he growled, "and a cam is a half-witted squire."
Brom scowled, puzzled. "Half-witted?"
"Well, some kind of an eccentric. In my case, it all adds up to a horse."
"A horse?" Brom stared, completely at sea.
"Yea. My horse, Fess. The sum and total of my worldly goods and supporting personnel. Also the only soul — well, consciousness, anyway — that I can tell my troubles to."
Brom caught at the last phrase and held to it with all the vigor of a drowning man. His eyes softened; he smiled gently. "You are of us now, Rod Gallowglass, of we few who stand by the Queen."
Rod saw the sympathy in Brom's eyes and wondered what bound the deformed little man to Catharine's service — and suddenly hated Catharine again for being the kind of bitch that enjoyed using men.
He set off down the hall, striding long. Brom marched double-time to keep up with him.
"Unless I miss in my judgment of a man," Rod growled through his teeth, "the Queen has another friend in the House of Clovis; yet she calls him her enemy. Why is that, Brom? Is it just because he's the son of her enemy the Duke of Loguire?"
Brom stopped him with a hand on his hip and looked up into Rod's eyes with a half-smile. "Not enemy, Rod Gallowglass, but one that she loves well: her uncle, blood-kin, who gave her sanctuary and cared for her five years while her father tamed the rebel Northern lordlings."
Rod raised his head slowly, keeping his eyes on Brom O'Berin's. "She chooses strange ways to show her love."
Brom nodded. "Aye, most truly strange, yet doubt not she loves them, both the Duke and his son Tuan."
He held Rod's eyes a moment, not speaking.
He turned away, pacing slowly down the hall. Rod watched him a moment, then followed.
"It is a long tale, and a snarled one," Brom murmured as Rod caught up with him. "And the end and beginning and core of it is Tuan Loguire."
"The beggar king?"
"Aye." Brom nodded heavily "The lord of the House of Clovis."
"And one who loves the Queen."
"Oh, aye!" Brom threw his head back, rolling his eyes upward. "One who loves her right well, be certain; he will tell you as much!"
"But you don't believe him?"
Brom locked his hands behind his back and stamped as he walked, head bowed. "He is either truthful, Rod Gallowglass, or a most excellent liar; and if he lies, he has learned the way of it right quick. He was trained only in truth, in the house of his father. Yet he is lord of the House of Clovis, of they who claim the ruler should be chosen as the ancient King Clovis was, or as they say he was — by the acclamation of those whom he rules."
"Well, they've warped history a little bit there," Rod muttered. "But I take it their plan calls for pulling Catharine off her throne?"
"Aye; and how can I then believe him when he says that he loves her?" Brom shook his head sadly. "He is a most worthy young man, high-minded and honest; and a troubador who will sing you the beauties of milady's eyetooth as quick as he will twist the sword from your hands with his rapier. He was always a gentleman withal, and in him was nothing of deception."
"Sounds like you knew him pretty well."
"Oh, aye! I did, most surely I did! But do I know him now?" Brom heaved a sigh, shaking his head. "They met when she was but seven years of age, and he but eight, at the keep of Milord Loguire in the South, where her father had sent her for safety. There two children met and frolicked and played — under my eye, for I was ever a-watch over them. They were the only two of their age in the whole of the castle, and" — he smiled, and gave a bitter laugh — "I was a miracle, a grown man who was smaller than they."
Brom smiled, throwing his head back, looking past the stones of the hall into the years that were dead. "They were so innocent then, Rod Gallowglass! So innocent, aye, and so happy! And he worshipped her; he would pluck the flowers for her crown, though the gardener scolded him. Did the sun chasten her? He would put up a canopy of leaves! Had she broken milady's crystal goblet? He would claim the fault for his own!"
"Spoiled her rotten," Rod muttered.
"Aye; but he was not the first to play Tom Fool for her; for even then, she was a most beautiful princess, Rod Gallowglass.
"Yet over their happiness stood a dark, brooding shadow, a lad of fourteen, heir to the keep and estates, Anselm Loguire. He would look down from the tower, watch them at play in their garden, his face twisted and knotted all sour; and he alone in the land hated Catharine Plantagenet — why, no man can say."
"And he still hates her?"
"Aye; and let us therefore wish my lord of Loguire long life. "For near to five years Anselm's hatred did fester; but then at long last he did stand triumphant. For the lords of the North were subdued, and her father called for her to be brought again to his side, here in his castle. And then did they vow, Tuan and Catharine, she at eleven and he twelve, that they would never forget, that she would wait till he came for her."
Brom shook his great shaggy head sadly. "He came for her. He came for her, a lad of nineteen, a golden prince riding out of the South on a great white charger — broad-shouldered, golden-haired and handsome, with muscles that would thicken any woman's tongue and make it cleave to her palate. A troubador, with a harp on his back and a sword by his side, and a thousand extravagant praises for her beauty. And his laugh was as clear, his heart as open, and his temper as frolicsome as when he was twelve."
He smiled up at Rod. "She was eighteen, Rod Gallowglass, and her life had been as still and smooth as a summer stream. Eighteen, and ripe for a husband, and her head filled with the giddy gossamer dreams that a girl learns from ballads and books."
He peered sharply, but his voice was gentle, echoing strangely in the emptiness of his years. "Was there never a dream of a princess for you, Rod Gallowglass?"
Rod glared at him and swallowed, hard. "Go on," he said.
Brom turned away, shrugging. "What need to say it? She loved him, of course; what woman would not? He knew not what a woman was for, and I'll swear it, and neither did she; but it may be that together, they learned, you may be sure that they had golden chances."
He shook his head, scowling. "If 'twas so, 'twas the crown of the last days of her youth; for it was that spring that her father died, and the scepter was set in her hands."
He fell still, measuring the hall with his stride, and was silent so long that Rod felt the need to say something.
"Here is no matter for hating, Brom O'Berin."
"Oh, aye! But bear the end of the tale, for only when the crown was on her head did Catharine come to see that Tuan was a second son; that he thus inherited his family's honor, but no more. She swore then that he loved her not, that he coveted only her throne. She would not have him; but in wrath and scorn she sent him away — without due cause, it se
emed, though only they two could know the truth of that. She banished him to the Wild Lands with a price on his head, to dwell midst the beast-men and elves, or to die."
He fell silent again.
Rod prodded him. "And Milord Loguire rose up in wrath?"
"Aye," grated Brom, "and all his liegemen with him, and half the nobles of the kingdom besides. If Tuan failed in his courting, wrath and scorn were his due, quoth Loguire; but banishment comes only for treason.
" 'And was it not treason,' Catharine answered hotly, 'to conspire for the crown?' "
"Then Loguire stood tall in cold pride and declared that Tuan had sought only the love of Catharine; but his words rang hollow, for he whom the Queen marries must reign; and this Catharine told him."
"Then did Loguire speak in sorrow, that his son was no traitor but only a fool, a fool to be courting a silly, spoiled child; and then would Catharine have cried 'Treason!' again, had I not prevented her."
"And yet you say she loves them, Loguire and Tuan?"
"Aye; why else such harshness?"
Brom lapsed into silence again. Rod cleared his throat and said, "Tuan doesn't seem to have stayed banished too well…"
"Aye." Brom's mouth drew back at the corners. "The fool would be near her, he swore, though his head should be forfeit. But with a price on his life, he must live like a murderer or thief."
Rod smiled sourly. "And, somewhere, he got hold of the idea that the beggars would cause less trouble if someone took care of them."
Brom nodded. "And thus the beggars became somewhat a power, but Tuan swears he will throw all his forces to guard the Queen's back. He professes that he still doth love her; that he will love her though she hew off his head."
"And she, of course," Rod mused, "claims there isn't a reason in the world why he shouldn't hate her."
"And in that she is right; yet I think Tuan loves her." They had come to the guard room door; Rod put a hand on the latch and smiled down at Brom O'Berin, smiled and shook his head sadly. "Brainless," he said. "The pair of them."
"And most tender loving enemies they are," Brom smiled, with a touch of exasperation. "And here is your lodging, good night."
Brom turned on his heel and stalked off.
The Warlock In Spite of Himself Page 10
