"I never thought of that," said Kynoc.
"You're used to shooting at deer and hares, which do not shoot back. Next time, shoot not until I tell you. We have no bolts to waste."
"Go on! Go on!" called Grallon's voice. "Creep up and surround them; then rush upon them from all sides. They cannot number more than two or three."
Jorian bellowed: "Promus, take these javelins off that way. See if you can spear one of these knaves. Clotharo, take the spare bolts off that way; try to hit one in the flank. Nors, get the covers off our shields. Physo, did you remember to sharpen our steel?"
Kynoc looked about in a bewildered way at hearing these commands addressed to nonexistent warriors. Margalit, catching on at once, lowered her voice to sound mannish, calling: "Here you are, sir. Which sword do you wish? Let me lace on your cuirass!"
The creeping Shvenites seemed to have halted their advance. Jorian whispered: "Kynoc, steal off amongst the trees on either side and tell me what you see."
"Go on!" came Judge Grallon's voice. "Keep advancing! It is all a pretence, his having an army. Get in close and rush them!"
A guttural voice spoke in the Shvenish language: "Why does he not lead his grand charge himself?" Jorian understood the words but supposed that Grallon did not.
From the trees on one side came the thud of Kynoc's arbalest, followed by a yell of pain. The young man came loping back, grinning.
"I got one!" he chortled. "Methinks I did but wound his leg; but he'll molest us no more."
"That will hold them up for a while," said Jorian. "But in a couple of hours, darkness will fall, and we shan't be able to hit the side of Mount Aravia."
"Belike we can then give them the sup," said Kynoc.
Jorian fidgeted, trying to get another clear shot. But the Shvenites hugged the hollows in the earth, offering no targets save an occasional glimpse of a buckskin-clad arse as they wormed their way forward. Jorian shot at one such target but missed.
At last Jorian, unwilling further to prolong the stalemate, crawled back from his edge. "Kynoc!" he said. "I'll try a cavalry charge. Take off the rest of Filoman's load."
"How shall ye guide the beast without a bridle?"
"I'll make one." Jorian began experimenting with the lead rope, threading it through the mule's unwilling mouth and twisting it around the animal's muzzle. The mule jerked its head uneasily.
"Be it trained to riding?" asked Kynoc.
"We shall soon find out. There, that should serve to guide the beast, if he does not chew the rope through. Wilt give me a hand up?"
Since the mule had no saddle, Kynoc made a cradle of his hands, into which Jorian put one booted foot, and then he swung aboard the mule's bare back. Jorian had not ridden bareback in years and hoped his riding muscles were still hard enough to keep him on Filoman's back.
"Here goes!" he said, drawing his sword and thumping the mule's ribs with his heels.
Filoman refused to move. When Jorian whacked its rump with the flat of his sword, it shook its head and bucked. Jorian caught its mane to avoid a fall.
"Get my spurs out of the baggage," said Jorian. Margalit, again anticipating his needs, was already burrowing into his gear. Soon she had strapped the spurs to his feet.
"Here goes again," said Jorian, digging in his spurs.
The mule snorted and bounded forward, almost precipitating Jorian back over its rump. When he recovered his seat, he tried to guide the animal by his improvised bridle. But Filoman paid no heed to Jorian's rope. Instead, it ran around in a circle, bowling over Kynoc. Then it galloped off into the woods at random.
In front of it hung Jorian's blanket, which Jorian had suspended from a convenient branch to dry. The mule plunged ahead, ducking its head beneath the lower edge of the blanket. Jorian ducked, too, so as not to be swept off the mule's back by the branch. Hence he struck the blanket squarely, so that it was whisked from the branch and settled down over his head and body, completely blinding him. He yelled: "Haiti Stop! Whoa!" and pulled on the rope, to no effect.
From somewhere before him he heard a shout of terror and, in Shvenic, cries of "Oswic's ghost!"
"The headless horseman!"
"All is lost!"
"Flee for your lives!"
Then came the sound of men running away. One tripped and fell, got up cursing, and ran on. The mule continued galloping, turning this way and that, trying to shake Jorian off. Jorian dropped the rope, caught the mane, and clung to the animal's back.
The mule stopped so suddenly that Jorian was thrown forward over its head. He landed in a patch of brush, while the blanket flew off over his head. Scratched and bruised, he scrambled up and made a flying dive to seize the mule's rope before the beast ran away.
Then he saw a curious sight. Gray-bearded Judge Grallon was kneeling on the forest floor and praying with his eyes closed. Of the Shvenish lariat-men there was no sight save a glimpse of one buckskin-clad back receding in the distance. The man limped, and Jorian guessed that he was the one Kynoc had shot in the leg, left behind by his speedier fellows. Up the trail, half a bowshot away, lay the body of the man whom Jorian had shot.
Jorian gathered up his sword, which he had dropped, and approached the justice, sword in one hand and lead rope in the other. "Get up!" he said.
Grallon opened his eyes. "King Jorian!" he cried. "Methought 'twas the true headless ghost whereof the innkeeper told us. Being too old to flee with that squad of superstitious cowards, I was confessing my sins to Imbal, expecting each instant to be my last. What would you of me? My life?"
"Not yet," said Jorian. "I need you as a hostage. Get up, pick up that blanket, and walk ahead of me. At the first untoward move, you shall be a headless ghost, too!"
Grallon grumbled: "But, Your Majesty, I do but my duty. I wish you well in every way, so long as you in turn perform your duty, which is to attend the ceremony of succession."
"Never mind that. Pick up that blanket!"
Jorian saw that the judge was looking past him with an expression of alarm. Quickly turning, Jorian saw a patch of striped orange and black among the trees. The tiger padded to where lay the Shvenite whom Jorian had shot. The cat lowered its head to sniff at the corpse, then raised it to stare at the two men on the path below. It blinked its big yellow eyes, then lowered its head again. Silently, it sank its fangs into the body.
The Shvenite gave a faint cry. But the tiger raised its head, so that the wounded man's arms and legs dangled. It walked calmly off into the forest, the man's limbs flopping where they were dragged over roots. Grallon said:
"Your Majesty is a villain, if you will excuse my saying so. Odovald was the best man of the squad, and you slew him. Were we in Xylar, you should answer for your crime!"
"Horse apples!" snorted Jorian. "I warned him to let me alone. When he would not, I defended myself. Besides, I did not slay him; the tiger did. But enough legalistics; march!"
Soon after dusk, Judge Grallon, his wrists tied by a strip of cloth cut from Jorian's blanket, stumbled up to the front door of the Golden Ibex. Behind him came Jorian, covering him with a cocked crossbow; then Margalit and Kynoc, the last leading the mule.
At jorian's command, Kynoc went into the inn and brought out his uncle Turonus, who whistled at the sight. "What is this, Master Nikko? Some quarrel or feud? Not in my inn—"
"Never mind your inn," said Jorian. "Your other guests were after my head. Give me the reckoning, pray."
Turonus felt in the pocket of his apron and brought out a stack of thin wooden tablets threaded on a thong. He leafed through these until he came to Jorian's and presented it.
"Hers, too," said Jorian. He handed Margalit his purse, not wishing to have to juggle his weapon and the money at the same time. While Margalit counted out the money, the Shvenites appeared in the doorway.
"Your Honor!" cried one, starting to draw his sword. "What betides?"
"Back inside!" said the judge. "Quickly, ere this desperado puts a bolt through my brisket!"
&n
bsp; Jorian smiled. "Now, your Honor, you shall come for a ride. Kynoc, saddle the judge's horse and boost him up on its back. Then saddle the lady's and mine."
Minutes later, Jorian and Margalit rode off on the road to Othomae. Jorian led the mule. The judge, gripping the mane with his bound hands, unhappily bounced on the back of his own horse, like him old and fat.
"I am in your eternal debt, Lady Margalit," said Jorian. "Why did you go to such effort and risk to save my unworthy neck?"
"I told you. I felt responsible to Estrildis for you. As it was, I did not truly save you, since the Shvenites were close upon my trail. Your own valor did that."
Jorian chuckled. "If you but knew the horror with which I felt myself borne along willy-nilly on that cursed mule, blinded by the blanket— but there, Karadur is ever at me not to let my modesty show. At least you gave me a few moments' warning. You are a splendid person. When you get a husband, you deserve the best. If I were not a devoted family man…" Feeling that his unruly tongue was about to run away with him, Jorian ceased talking and concentrated on the road ahead.
Chapter Six
THE WATER WIFE
AFTER RIDING THROUGH THE DARK FOR HOURS, JUDGE Grallon called: "Your Majesty, how much farther wilt drag me? 'Twill take all the morrow to get back."
"You shan't get back," said Jorian. "I am taking you to Othomae."
"By Imbal's iron pizzle, what for? Mean you to slay me there?"
"Not at all, your Honor. I have a task, wherefor you are uniquely qualified."
"Task? Art mad? What task could I possibly perform for you?"
"Service as arbitrator in a dispute. You will receive the standard fee and be sent back to Xylar no worse for wear."
"That is the strangest proposal I have ever heard!" exclaimed Grallon. "Why should you trust me to deliver a just verdict, after you have treated me so wrongfully?"
"Because I knew you of old, when I was King. Will you do it?" Grallon hesitated. "Only if I can discharge my office honorably, without prior conditions or constraint."
"That's my wish, too. I ask not that you incline to my cause because of my connection with Xylar, and even less that you incline against it because of the strong measures I have taken to protect myself."
"Very well, then," said Grallon. "Meanwhile I am half dead from bouncing on the back of this cursed beast. At least unbind me. Do you mean to camp out?"
"Nay. We shall soon reach another inn."
"And who is this young person?"
"You shall know in good time."
"At least tell me whether it be male or female."
"Not just yet. Ah, methinks I see a light through the trees! When we go in, I shall be Nikko of Kortoli, and you Master Grallon. Think not to raise an outcry of kidnapping, for we are now well within Othomaean territory. You know the love between Othomaeans and Xylarians! They'd say, give him an extra kick for me!"
At the inn, Jorian took a room for two. He offered no explanation of Margalit in her young man's garb. If anyone noticed the unmasculine bulges beneath her jacket, they forebore to comment in the presence of one so formidable-looking as Jorian.
Leaving the taverner to warm up leftovers for their supper, Jorian shepherded his two companions into the room. As he set down their baggage, Margalit took off her forester's hat, so that her curly hair sprang out.
"I know you now!" said Judge Grallon. "You are the Queen's lady-in-waiting, Margalit of Totens. I heard of your disappearance from the palace. What do you here? What of these wild tales of a scarlet demon's snatching you from the Queen's apartments?"
"Just a little sorcery gone awry," said Jorian.
"But—but that does not explain her being with you on Mount Aravial And in men's garb, forsooth! She evanished from the palace in the month of the Eagle, and here it is almost springtime! What have you twain been up to in the meantime?"
"That's enough questions," said Jorian. "You forget you are my prisoner and not the other way round."
The judge turned to Margalit. "But you, Lady Margalit? What do you here? Are you in some plot with this runaway king?"
Margalit began: "Why, as to that—" Then she saw that Jorian, standing behind the judge, was making motions of clapping his hand over his mouth. "You must needs ask Master Jorian," she said.
"Hah! Were this Xylar, you'd soon be behind bars as a fautor of King Jorian's felonies!"
"Felonies?" said Jorian.
"Certes! For the king to escape the doom assigned him by our divinely inspired laws were a heinous offense. Should we ever win you back to complete your part in the blasphemously interrupted ceremony, you will be scourged, ere you are beheaded, for your irreligious contu-maciousness."
"Thanks for the warning," said Jorian. "I'll take good care not to be caught."
The judge clenched his fists, stamped his feet, aid sputtered with righteous indignation; but so wrought up was he that no words came forth. At last he dropped his arms and dropped his shoulders, muttering: "Shameless! Shameless! You are lost to all consicerations of morality!"
"Lost or not," said Jorian, "the innkeeper should lave something for us to eat. Belike a full belly will help you bear my üiquities."
After supper, Jorian chivvied his companions back to the room. "Margalit," he said, "the judge shall have the bed, whist you and I take turns sleeping beside him and watching him."
Grallon groaned. "If the word gets out that I have jassed the night in bed with this young woman, my repute on the bench will be ruined, not to mention what my wife will say."
"When I said 'sleeping,' I meant just 'sleeping,'" said Jorian. "Anyway, if you keep silent about it, we will do likewise. Eh, Margalit?"
She laughed. "I have already been compromised to the point where one more scandal matters not. I promise, your Honor, to make no lascivious advances."
"Now," said Jorian, "I'll trouble your Honor for your shoes, knife, and purse."
"Aha, so Your Majesty has turned robber as well as abductor?"
"Not at all. They shall be returned to you in dm course. I merely wish to make sure that, if the one of us on watch fall asleep, you do not stab us in our sleep and flee. Margalit, whilst you are on watch, sit on the judge's things."
The return to Othomae took Jorian half a day loiger than had his journey to the Golden Ibex. Two companions, he found, inevitably slowed him down, the more so since one was elderly and Jorian's own horse was showing fatigue. They arrived on the aftenoon of the fourth day out of the Golden Ibex, too weary to take up Joran's business with Abacarus. Jorian did, however, hire one of Rhuys's ions to carry messages to Abacarus and to Goania and Karadur.
At dinner time, Goania and Karadur came to tie Silver Dragon. Boso hulked in and gave Jorian a surly greeting. Joran asked: "Where is Vanora?"
Goania said: "I suppose Margalit has told you oi her confession. I served her notice that one more such buffoonery and she was through. She hung around for another few days. But when, by my second sight, I told her that you had escaped the lariat squad and were on your way back to Othomae, she packed up her scanty gear and vanished. Belike she thought you would slay her on your return."
"I do not kill women," said Jorian. "But I might have been tempted to stripe her backside."
Once convinced of Judge Grallon's identity, Doctor Abacarus accepted the learned jurist as arbitrator. He and Jorian drew up a stipulation of facts not in dispute and handed the sheet to Grallon. Then each set forth his argument over the debt, and each had a chance to rebut the other's statements.
When they had finished, Grallon retired to think. While they waited, Abacarus and Jorian killed time with a game of draughts. Jorian thought himself a competent player, but the sorcerer beat him so easily that Jorian suspected magical assistance.
Grallon returned, saying: "On due consideration, I must find for Master Jorian. Doctor Abacarus, your arbitration agreement states that I collect my fee from the loser. Ten nobles, please."
Abacarus counted out the money with the expression of
one who has bitten into a lemon. "Not bad pay for a morning's work," he grumbled.
"It is the going rate, sir. Your agreement also forbids either party to attempt future harassments, by dunning specters or otherwise, does it not?"
Abacarus nodded tight-lipped. Jorian saw the judge out. He said: "The first diligencia of the season leaves for Xylar on the morrow. I have reserved a place for you. Permit me to thank you for your just verdict."
"No thanks are due," grumped Grallon. "I did but call the hit as I saw it. I will confess that I was not entirely regardless of the fact that, if Abacarus clapped you in debtor's prison, our chances of getting you back to Xylar were lessened. On the other hand, the rascal richly deserved to lose. He whispered to me that, if I decided for him, he would split his takings with me."
At the inn .that evening, Jorian told Margalit of the judge's impending departure. She said: "I suppose I ought to return to Xylar with him."
"Better not," said Jorian. "Remember what he said about your being an accessory to my crimes? If he got you to Xylar, he'd denounce you to the law instanter.
"He is a fanatic in his way. When I was King, he made a fine chief justice, absolutely incorruptible and fearless. You saw how he stood up to me when I held his life in my hand. But these virtues become awkward when one is on the other side of the law from him, no matter how absurd the law. And I like your head much better attached to the rest of you."
Jorian told her of his interview with Shenderu, adding: "Know you anyone around the court susceptible to a bribe? Shenderu said gambling men were the easiest targets for golden arrows."
She frowned. "Let me think. Aha! There's a proxenary clerk, Thevatas, in charge of Estrildis's expenses. I do not know of any defalcations by him, but he is addicted to horse races. He would come to our apartment from one, volubly praising the beauty and speed of the beast he had wagered on if he had won, or berating the animal as bait for crows when he had lost."
"If I know such gentry," said Jorian, "he will have skimmed a little here and there off my darling's income to make up for his losses. We'll see what can be done with him."
The Unbeheaded King Page 10
