A Sorcerer and a Gentleman

by Elizabeth Willey

  “I feel you are right, Lady.” Scudamor sighed.

  “No, no, there will be many more warm days,” Cledie protested. “Why, summer will not end, truly end, for half a season yet.”

  “You exaggerate,” Freia said, “and you said yourself a moment ago that it’s cold.”

  Cledie laughed. “But in comparison to the fireside, it is cold here in the stubble and wood-pile.” She shivered comically. “Perhaps it will snow.”

  “The harvest is in, and summer is over,” Scudamor said. “I have always thought of it thus. The year wheels on.”

  “Yes. Time, more time, and no Prospero, nor any word from him. It has been too long,” Freia said, pulling her hands from her knees and straightening.

  “It has been a long time, Lady,” Scudamor agreed, reluctantly. “Yet not so long as to be all out of memory.”

  “He said he would be home last winter,” Freia said, “and here it is nearly autumn again. Something must have happened to him.”

  “What could befall Lord Prospero?” wondered Cledie.

  “He might be in trouble,” continued Freia, “and we cannot know, waiting here.”

  “He said he would return,” Scudamor murmured. “That he might be delayed. That we must wait.”

  “I want to know where he is,” Freia said, gesturing once, sharply. “It cannot be taking this long just to make a war. They meet, they fight all at once, and Prospero is King. That was all there was to do.”

  “I know nothing of war,” said Scudamor helplessly. “I know he said we must wait.”

  Cledie spread her hands. “What can we do? We are here, and he is not. We must wait.”

  “I am going to follow him and seek him out,” Freia said. “I am not waiting any longer. Soon it will be winter again, and he will have been away a year more than he said. It is too much time. I want him to come home.”

  “How can you follow him?” Scudamor asked. “He has taken the strange path away, he said, over the sea; he said we could not find Landuc if we sought it. I cannot pretend to understand, Lady, as you must, but Landuc is not here, not anywhere to go from here. So he said.”

  “I will go with Trixie,” Freia said. “She knows Prospero, and she can find him anywhere. I… I have already tried, a little. We need him here. I must go.”

  Scudamor and Cledie looked at one another, dismayed, and Cledie said, “But before you go, then, come and eat with us.” And her hand rested on Freia’s arm, lightly.

  “I’m not—” Freia stopped herself.

  “Lady,” said Scudamor, “you are welcome among us.” He caught Freia’s eye and nodded tensely, until she rose to her feet and walked with them back to the fires and the feast.

  19

  DEWAR HAD CHOSEN THE HIGHEST GROUND he could find for his vantage-point for the battle, which Gaston and his gut had told him would probably decide the war. He had intended to ride in with the Prince Marshal, as he sometimes had in the past, but on studying the draft of maneuvers that the Marshal had provided him, Dewar decided he’d do the most good out of the fray, throwing what aid he could to each of the captains below. The previous night he had supped with Ottaviano, drinking two bottles of the best wine they could find with the best food the cooks could prepare. Otto had arranged for further amusement—a pair of brown-eyed Ithellin girls younger and healthier than any of the women Dewar had seen on the fringes of the Imperial encampment. Dewar had declined that portion of Otto’s hospitality and left the Baron to entertain both of them (the girls a bit miffed but Otto not at all), and the sorcerer had spent the night with notes and instruments, preparing himself for the day.

  Now, with a quick bread-and-cheese breakfast sitting on his stomach like lead, Dewar wrapped his cloak around himself against the wind that gusted from Prospero’s camp.

  It was the other’s command of Elementals that had presented Dewar with the core of his challenge. Dewar, though he had worked with them, had never done so in the depth and detail that Prospero obviously had. The Prince of Winds had Elementals of every kind in his army—Salamanders, Sammeads, Sprites, Sylphs—and an array of strangely mixed creatures as well. There were things like variably-sized glowing bars which tumbled end-over-end to crush men and sweep them away. There were black-and-brown brindled four-legged creatures with agile, flexible bodies and four arms on a headless thorax-like protrusion. There were skate-shaped birds made of razor-sharp metals, with long trailing whiptails which scythed through flesh and some armor. There were things like bundles of sticks, snakelike things, tusked wolves nearly pony-sized …

  And men.

  Prospero’s men were of two types: the known and the strange. The strange men fought well; Gaston, Herne, and Golias had all remarked on their strength and skill. Their battle cries were alien, though, and their shouted words to one another were incomprehensible. The known men were recruited from outlying areas of Pheyarcet, and they were good soldiers, but without the heroic stamina and ability of the strangers. They died in greater numbers than the strangers.

  But all of them could die.

  Dewar’s materials were arrayed around him; he shivered in the cold and sought the Prince Marshal’s banner. There it was, in the vanguard: the full golden sun on red beside the silver-on-red of Landuc.

  Couldn’t they parley? he wondered. So many deaths would happen today.

  The carrion-birds knew. Every variety waited overhead.

  He looked through the other lines for Prospero and could not find him, even with the aid of a spyglass.

  A horn sounded: Gaston’s call.

  Behind Dewar, a twig snapped beneath the thorny, bare tree which shared the hilltop with him. He whirled on his heel and saw, outside his protective Bounds, Prospero. The Prince was on foot. Dull black chain mail cased his body beneath his gold-trimmed blue cloak. A huge black horse with a white off-fore sock was behind him, its nose snuffling Prospero’s shoulder. Hung on the saddle were Prospero’s gold-plumed helm and long-sword. Though sheathed, the sword fairly smoked with sorcery: that was the weapon that had wounded Panurgus.

  A challenge after all, Dewar thought.

  “Nay,” Prospero said, shaking his head. “A truce.”

  “A truce?”

  Below them, the armies crashed together. Prospero inhaled, looking down on the fight from the closest point of Dewar’s Bounds to Dewar.

  “Looks like you’re too late.”

  “I suggest a truce ’twixt us. No sorcery to be used in this battle.”

  Dewar shivered and folded his arms tightly. “I have a feeling that the Marshal will find such a truce objectionable.”

  “Thou’rt here to counter sorcery. An I use none, he’ll need none.”

  “Why a truce?”

  “Personal reasons.”

  “Hardly a compelling argument, sir. You keep me from my work.” Dewar glared at him. Was Prospero attempting to ruin the small allotment of honor Dewar had been grudgingly granted here?

  Prospero chewed his lip. “I’ve spoken with thy mother,” he said.

  “You interfering bastard,” Dewar said, furious: that this man rummaged in his life so casually; that he was kept from his work; that Prospero assumed he, Dewar, was his inferior.

  “I’d not seen her in long,” said Prospero. “I told her thou hadst challenged me and claimed her as kin, and I said I wanted to know if she’d challenge me in turn an I defeat thee, as was certain I would. Odile said she would not, and asked that I bring thee Bound to her.” He looked at Dewar, who was rigid, his face bloodless. “Fear not that. I know her custom.”

  Dewar exploded, “Thanks a shitload. Can we gossip later? I—”

  “This is the answer to thy question.”

  “Spit it out then.”

  Prospero looked at him hard, sharply arching his left eyebrow, and Dewar blushed.

  “Hast passed too many idle hours with Golias,” Prospero said drily. “When I was last in Phesaotois,” he went on after a moment, “I desired knowledge regarding transformations a
nd transfigurations. Naturally I went to the acknowledged expert and … negotiated for a few scraps. I was able enough to ward me ’gainst her preferred tricks. Odile had never been thwarted thus before, and ’twas a new and annoying experience. I shall dock a long tale and say that in the end we came to be on very good terms, amiable terms. I dwelt seven years in Aië.”

  Dewar was half-listening, following Herne’s progress through his spyglass.

  “ ’Twas the price Odile and I settled on,” Prospero said, “a thing I was quite glad to give her: myself. But it seems that when I left after seven and a half years there, I had given her more than intended.”

  Something in his tone brought Dewar’s attention to him again. “Intended?” he repeated.

  “She was incensed when I left; of my free will I’d o’erstayed her term, but, after all, I had much to attend elsewhere. I left, and we parted in disharmony. I spoke not with her again until her name arose in our recent conversation, and then—” He paused and went on, “I looked on thee and saw traces of thy mother, and I saw also things I could not clearly interpret. Thou wert born not long after I left Aië; albeit thou madest shift to confuse me on that issue, I confirmed it otherwise.”

  Dewar changed his grip on his staff, in his left hand, and leaned on it more heavily.

  “You think you’re …” he began, but his throat shut and no more sounds came.

  “I’m sure of’t,” Prospero said, and smiled quickly at him. “Therefore let us keep truce ’twixt us this day. After this, however it end, I would talk more with thee …”

  Dewar was speechless still. He stared at Prospero, unable to organize his thoughts and emotions into anything coherent.

  “… an thou hast no objection,” Prospero concluded low-voiced.

  Dewar made a small sound and shook his head.

  “Good. Until later, then. Truce ’tween us.” He mounted the horse, turned him with his legs as his hands adjusted his cloak, sword, and helm, and trotted away over the crest of the hill and down its back.

  Dewar sat suddenly down on a boulder, his face slack with shock. He swallowed and his eyes watched the battle’s waves of attacks and his mind stumbled through other matters, while the cold bright sun reached noon.

  He rose slowly and broke his Bounds. The tide of the battle had moved away; Prospero’s western line had fallen back. Dewar walked down the hill to a temporarily lulled place on the field, took a sword and shield and helm from an arrow-throated corpse and dragged a shirt of mail from another, and donned them. He was trembling uncontrollably, and he could not understand why nor stop.

  Ottaviano was with Golias to the northeast. Dewar went to join them, commandeering a dead man’s horse on his way, and became Otto’s shadow, protecting and moving with him. Otto shouted something at Dewar when he saw him, but Dewar ignored it and set, cold-faced, to the loathsome butcher’s work at hand.

  Herne brought Prospero down with a length of chain on a handle which had been a morgenstern, but which had lost its head. He wrapped the thing, flail-like, around his brother’s sword arm and dragged him from the saddle.

  “Yield thee, pretender!” Herne bellowed.

  “Whoreson bastard!” Prospero shouted, truthfully, and he and Herne engaged on foot.

  Prince Gaston saw. He was not far off; Ottaviano and Golias were pressing a disordered clump of Prospero’s spike-helmeted troops down a slope, having cut them off from retreat to their camp, and they saw it too. Dewar saw, riding behind Otto, and he threw the blood-clotted sword in his hand away.

  “Yaaaah!” hooted Ottaviano in pure blood-lust.

  “Kill him!” screamed Golias.

  “Herne, hold!” shouted the Marshal, his voice carrying over the din of battle, and Herne whacked Prospero on his helmed head with the chain he still had in his left hand. Prospero staggered; Herne went over his counterswing easily and hit him again with the flat of his sword, then whirled the chain again and disarmed him.

  Gaston was charging, on his blood-spattered warhorse, over corpses and around knots where combatants were still engaged; the standard-bearer couldn’t keep up with him.

  “Yield!”

  “Herne! Hold!”

  Prospero lay on the trampled ground before Gaston, Herne having knocked him to his side with the disarming blow. His left arm had folded beneath him. He was not moving. Herne lifted his sword two-handed to strike again, a sure-fatal stroke, and Gaston’s long blade whipped around, singing in the air, to ring against his brother’s blade and prevent the blow, knocking Herne’s sword to one side and Herne off-balance, so that he stumbled a step away from the fallen Prince. Gaston’s sword returned and whizzed toward Herne’s neck, too fast for Herne to parry, so that if Gaston had not pulled the blow, half a hand’s-breadth short of striking, Herne had been a dead man.

  The Marshal took a deep breath, commanding himself. “I said, hold,” Gaston said, and his voice was soft. The sword was quite still and quite close to his brother’s gorget.

  Herne glared up at Gaston through the visor of his helm and then stepped back.

  Ottaviano, with Dewar behind him, joined them.

  “He’s stunned. There’s no common bond I’d trust to hold him,” Gaston said, jumping down lightly, as if he were not plate-armored from head to heel. “Dewar, do thou confine him with thy sorcery.”

  Dewar’s ears roared. He looked wildly at Gaston and then blankly, despairingly, at Prospero, who suddenly shook his head, recovering, and rolled onto his back with an audible pained hiss.

  “Confine him!” Gaston repeated, watching and knowing that Prospero was strengthening himself for another fight.

  “Wake up, man!” Ottaviano reached over and shook Dewar’s elbow.

  Herne lifted his sword and held the chain ready.

  “Dewar!” Gaston snapped, and glared at the younger man, who was breathing heavily and seemed entranced.

  “Damn you, Dewar! I’ll do it,” Ottaviano said, stabbing his sword into the ground. He moved his hands, gathering power as he walked around Prospero, addressing the forces of the Well and forging them.

  Gaston suppressed his startlement at this hitherto-undemonstrated ability of the new-made Baron of Ascolet and waited.

  Dewar closed his eyes to close out the sight of the world shifting jerkily from side to side before him. He feared he would fall from his saddle. Before Ottaviano finished the invocation of Binding, he spurred and wheeled his horse and raced the tired animal away across the field of carnage, forcing him through the dead and dying men and animals.

  “What the fuck!” Herne cried. “Treachery—”

  “Let be!” Gaston shouted him down angrily.

  Prospero, as the sinews of Ottaviano’s spell constricted around him, had shaken his head again and sat up, pushing up his visor in time to see Dewar turning and fleeing. There was blood on his face, but no obvious wound.

  “Aha,” he said, in a strained voice, looking at Ottaviano. “Neyphile’s boy.”

  Otto blinked, reddened. “I know you not, sir.”

  “Of course not,” Prospero said, with the ghost of a chuckle, and leaned on his opalescent black-bladed sword to rise, holding his left arm close against him.

  He and Gaston regarded one another for a minute, a minute and a half.

  “So, Gaston.”

  “Prospero.”

  “Avril hath not the stomach to fight his own fight, and you champion him.”

  “I fight for Landuc.”

  “So did Panurgus.”

  Gaston reddened. “I will not argue this with you.”

  “Nay. Your best argument is there in your hand, Marshal.”

  Another tense half-minute of silence passed.

  “I am your prisoner,” Prospero said quietly, in a stronger voice, and after perhaps three heartbeats, he unfastened his helm and dropped it on the ground. It bounced at Gaston’s feet and bounced back to Prospero’s. “If yon journeyman will be so good as to break these Bounds, I’ll yield my sword.” He wiped t
he blade on his cloak.

  “Do it,” Gaston said without looking at Ottaviano.

  “Sir—” Otto started.

  “Gaston—” Herne said, and stopped at a glare from the Fire- duke.

  Ottaviano murmured and gestured concisely. Prospero chuckled drily again and nodded. “Very good.” Ottaviano flushed and scowled at him.

  Prospero offered his sword unceremoniously, hilt-first, to Gaston.

  Gaston accepted it, his hand closing around Prospero’s on the hilt for a moment. Prospero unbuckled the scabbard and handed that to Gaston as well, and their eyes never left each the other’s.

  Prince Gaston gently slid the black blade, stained forever with King Panurgus’s blood, into its scabbard. “Let us go see to things,” he said softly then, and, taking the reins of his horse, gestured back to the encampment with his chin.

  Prospero whistled one note to Hurricane, who stood some distance away watching, calling the horse to him. Hurricane came slowly to them and Prospero mounted, not using his left arm, which he tucked into his belt. Escorted by Ottaviano, they left the battlefield, and Prince Herne, cold-faced, mounted his own horse and rode off to organize the imprisonment of Prospero’s men.

  Prince Prospero dismounted and stood leaning against Hurricane a moment longer. He stroked the horse’s neck, grateful, and breathed in a long ear, “Go, friend. Find Dewar. Serve him as me.”

  The Fireduke approached. “Are you injured? Let me—”

  Prospero slapped his horse mightily on the rump and Hurricane reared, whinnied, and raced away as if his tail were afire, leaping over wagons and dodging narrowly around a knot of soldiers arriving to guard Prospero, knocking two down, galloping back toward the battlefield.

  “Too fine a horse to fetter here,” Prospero said.

  Gaston looked at him a long, weighing moment, and then nodded. “Come into my tent. We’ve much to discuss.”

  20

  THE SORCERER SAT ON THE ROUNDED, grey-lichened stone where he had sat before. He watched the dark birds arriving to inspect the battlefield below him.

  The sun was setting. Clear, cold night was coming; the sky was uncluttered with clouds and the fire-colors progressed seamlessly from the round horizon, broken by higher hills leading to the faraway mountains at his back, to the unfathomable zenith. Dewar watched as lights appeared here and there in the north where Gaston was encamped. He had discarded his battered mail shirt when he had gotten clumsily off his horse. The horse was presently tearing at the winter-dried grass down the hill.