“Good morning,” he murmured.
“Mmhm.” She squirmed a little and then rested against him again.
Dewar spoke low in her ear. “Sleep well?”
“Woke up a lot.” She sighed, eyes still closed. “Worrying.”
He took his hand away from her sternum and began rubbing her neck beneath the thick fuzzy braid of hair which had been hidden under the jacket. Freia sighed again. Dewar smiled to himself.
“Thank you,” she murmured when he had gently kneaded the muscles in her shoulders.
He lay against her back as he had when they slept, but his hand was on her hip now. “You’re welcome.”
Freia’s breathing was quicker than resting pace.
“Dewar,” she said with another deep sigh, and turned; he kept his arm around her as she did. The sun was low, the loft dim.
“Mm.” Under his hand, smooth shirt and firm waist; some resilient and warm part of her was just touching his chest, and her hip and thighs were tangled with his, softness against hardness. He pressed against her, a wordless but unmistakable suggestion.
Freia swallowed nervously. “You … um … are you … are you trying to … um …”
He kissed the corner of her mouth, a pleasant giddiness in his head. “Yes.”
“Ohhh.” Freia touched his face, and he took her hand and began kissing her fingers: salty, warm. Her palm: small, a few calluses, a dimpled hollow.
“Am I succeeding?” A small lick on her wrist. He undid the cuff button.
“Ah. I’m not sure it’s a good idea. Oh. Please. Let me think. Just now.”
“Thought kills action,” murmured Dewar, and kissed her wrist where the quick pulse trembled. “Mm?”
“Oh. Please. Stop. Please.”
“Surely. There.” He held her hand, breathing into her cupped palm.
“Oh,” Freia sighed, biting her lip, and shivered. She tensed. He waited. “I think we should do what we’re supposed to be doing,” she said at last. “And I’m not sure about you. And you’re so … so nice, so handsome, but I’m not sure. I don’t know you.”
“You like me, though?”
“Yes.”
“You have good judgement in other things. Trust it now.”
“Flatterer,” she said, warmly. “No. I shouldn’t.”
“We may never know one another better than we do now,” Dewar said regretfully. “Ah well. I like you, more than I thought I did. You’re sweet as a nut, Freia: prickly and rough, but smooth and warm inside.” He was surprised at how disappointed he felt, and he realized that he wanted her urgently. He hadn’t expected a No. She was preoccupied by Prospero; if he pressed now, likely he would spoil his chances later. He kissed her palm softly and closed her fingers over it. “There.”
“Not easy to crack, either,” Freia said, and touched his cheek. His beard was rough; she smoothed it down with two fingers. “Later? Couldn’t we—Afterward?”
“Madame, though I am a sorcerer, I do not engage in trade.”
She was stiff. “I’m not bargaining,” she said coldly.
“Sorry. Freia. I didn’t mean you were. No.” Dewar took her hand in his. “I didn’t mean that.” He wasn’t sure what he’d meant; it had come out, a memory of Luneté prompting it, perhaps.
“Did you think I’d be an easy tumble?” she demanded, a sharp note marring the peace.
“No,” he whispered.
“My father would—” but she stopped herself, took a deep breath. “It’s none of his business,” she added. “Maybe.”
Dewar caught the word, correlated it. Utrachet, she had cried. Her father? Possibly. He might be wise to stay away from a girl with such a father as Prospero’s second. “Freia, no insult intended. Accept my apology for the unintentional slur, ill-chosen words from a thoughtless mind. I did not and do not think of you as an easy tumble. I thought of pleasure to both of us.” Anger crept into his voice: frustration and rejection gripped his heart.
“Dewar,” she said, more gently, leaning near him, trying to see his face in the poor light. “I don’t mean to insult you either.”
He shook off the irritation. “This,” he said, and took her hand again, smiling, “is what comes of lying too much together, madame.” He folded his hands around hers.
“You’re right.”
“For too-cold winters engender heat.”
She was smiling too; he heard it in her voice and saw her face move, a hand’s-breadth away. “Pretty. Poetic.”
“Hackneyed, Freia.”
The smile still warmed her words: “But fitting. Can’t a cliché be new, once in a while?”
“The frequency is what makes it cliché. I shall invoke another cliché by mentioning cold water, namely that brook and our own thirst for its contents.”
“Dewar. Later? Afterward?” she urged him gently, hope in her voice.
He wryed his mouth for lost opportunity, and perhaps for a narrow escape. Women invariably wanted more than simple pleasure out of these things; Luneté transparently had. “I may have to leave suddenly after meeting Prospero.”
“You said you weren’t—”
“He may not like what I say to him, madame.”
“If I can make him like it I will.” Her hand pressed his.
The stars forfend she should fall in love with him, Dewar thought, drawing away a little. “Would that be in your power?” The intimacy of darkness, of proximity: it still held them.
“I could try it and see. I don’t know. He is a difficult man to approach, but he can be very kind, very generous, for no reason at all. Princes, faugh.” Freia’s voice was disdainful.
Dewar chuckled. “Indeed.”
They sat poised an instant.
“I’d like—It’s just—I’m sorry,” she said softly, and dropped his hand and turned away.
Dewar realized she was: that she regretted that her duty interfered with dalliance, and that she had heard his own second thoughts in his voice. Freia was shaking her blankets awkwardly, and before he could say anything more she had gone, slipping and sliding down the hay.
Dewar floundered through the hay and dusted himself off at the bottom. He felt as if he’d rejected her, rather than the other way around, and wondered if he should have kissed her rather than accept her refusal. The gryphon was crunching up bones; she had killed again. Freia shook out the blankets and rolled them up, took an apple from her bag and ate it in a few bites, quickly, hardly chewing, her movements quick and tense.
“Have some cheese,” she said, and shared the last of her lump of hard stuff with him, giving him the larger piece. “That’s it,” she added, “a few more apples, nothing else.” Her voice rang falsely cheerful.
He bit a winy bruised apple. “Next time Trixie hunts, take a cut.” Somehow, he had to smooth things over. She was too valuable to alienate, and besides he did like her. Kind and generous for no reason at all: herself. Dewar ate the apple core. He had devoured most of her provisions since they’d met, more generosity he could not repay. She had placed him under gossamer obligations, delicate strands made of unpriced gifts. They constrained him as much as an overt agreement, or more, with their subtle charge of duty owed.
Freia put the slack saddlebags on the gryphon, which was sanguine in the dying light, tightening straps with brusque tugs.
Dewar stood behind her and put his hands on her arms as she turned around. “Freia,” he said, and kissed her mouth.
She was startled, and then she sighed and closed her eyes as he closed his, accepting and returning the gesture. The sky was full dark when he opened his eyes and straightened again.
“Thank you,” Dewar said huskily. It had been as intense as making love to Luneté—slow and deep, vertiginously falling into her. They were both half-panting. He wanted to pull her down and finish it at once. He could not remember having wanted anyone so much, so quickly, so deeply.
“Welcome,” Freia whispered, dazed, half-leaning on him still.
He stroked her face wit
h both hands and repeated, “Thank you.” Perhaps now was the right time after all—
The gryphon churrupped, an odd sound Dewar had not heard her make before.
Freia lowered her hands from Dewar slowly, turning away. “Trix?”
The gryphon was staring into the wood.
“Let’s go,” Freia decided. “Something’s up.”
“Up?”
She stared, like the gryphon, at the woods. “Happening. I have a feeling—” Freia bounded to the gryphon and jumped on; Dewar, with practiced ease now, mounted behind her. Trixie trotted into the field, then hurled herself into the air, spiralling up. On high, the sunset still stained the west; the stars were coming out.
Cold air dried Dewar’s throat. He embraced Freia, who was taut and attentive as they climbed, and looked at the dark mass of the forest.
“No, it’s—” he began, as they veered from the course indicated by the spelled pipe.
“Trix wants to go this way!” Freia said over her shoulder.
There was a light in that direction, on the other side of the bristling forest, up the river.
“Perendlac!” cried Dewar, as they came nearer, miles later.
“Prospero!” Freia replied.
The line of force between Golias and the pipe was moving: it was ahead of them, at Perendlac. Golias had been elsewhere, but was there now.
Trixie was pouring it on, her wings thundering.
“Higher!” Dewar advised Freia, and she pulled the gryphon upward. They soared over the fortress, which was on a bluff overlooking the confluence of the two rivers. Inside was tumult; Freia allowed the gryphon to descend slightly and they saw fires burning in several places, stone-shattering moving white-hot fires Dewar identified at once as Elemental in origin. Salamanders. Prospero was there, somewhere; potent sorcery whorled about the place in a vortex. The central tower rose, irregularly red-lit by fire within and without.
Freia was peering into the smoke and disorder, muttering to herself or Trixie.
Dewar didn’t realize what she meant to do until she was doing it. There was a flowing movement of men, running toward one of the fires where there was fighting, a knot of men trying to surround another, attacking—
“What are you doing!” he screamed as Trixie folded her wings with a screech and plummeted.
Freia didn’t answer; she had her crossbow in one hand, hanging on to Trixie’s harness with the other.
Dewar tried to relax to take the shock of a rough landing and put one hand on his sword. She was going to land right on—
—the knot of uniformed men collapsed; the gryphon began ripping and rending anything in reach, and Freia was doing the same herself, one-handed with a long knife, using the crossbow as a shield and a club.
“Argylle!” roared a voice Dewar knew at once.
Freia shouted something and the gryphon reared back. Dewar slid down its rump and found himself facing three soldiers in Landuc livery. He drew.
Damn the woman—
The three men were dead; now he was carried around the tower in a press of men who had obviously been prisoners, surging toward the fire which Dewar recognized to be a huge Way.
Trixie was ripping, biting, and disembowelling still, with Freia impeding a fresh attack from the garrison, swinging the crossbow. They were surrounded by Landuc’s men.
“Argylle!” Prospero bellowed again. “To me!”
“Papa!” Dewar heard Freia shout, a thin, breathless cry lost in tumult.
The soldiers had fallen back, leaving a barricade of dead and dying in front of the gryphon. Dewar fell back, jostled and shoved by the crowd of prisoners, who were running into Prospero’s fire, most supporting one or two weaker others.
“I will kill you!” screamed someone nearby, and two of Prospero’s men were knocked down by Otto, leaping forward toward Dewar as he retreated toward Freia and Trixie. Freia wasn’t visible to him, but he was sure she was there.
Otto swung at him, a two-handed skull-crushing swing with a mace, and Dewar ducked and heard it sing in the air. He cut at Otto’s arm and nicked him as he brought the mace around again; a crossbow bolt sprouted from Otto’s mailed shoulder, though, and he lost control of the mace swing.
“Hurry!” Prospero shouted. “To me! Argylle!”
Prisoners echoed his shout. “Argylle!” came back from the quarters of the courtyard. The melee increased in speed and desperation.
Dewar tripped on a body and rolled frantically away as Otto brought the iron mace down at his head, thumping the stone pavement instead. More prisoners were fighting hand-to-hand with the garrison soldiers, but all were falling back toward the fire.
“Hey!” Freia yelled, and tripped Otto, who punched her in the ribs and sent her sprawling over the gore and dead.
Trixie screamed and pecked at him. Otto swung the mace, smashing the gryphon in the beak and twisting the backswing toward Dewar, who dodged it again.
Never again, Dewar vowed, would he venture within sixty-four miles of a battlefield without a comprehensive and impermeable collection of protective spells.
“Argylle!” shouted Prospero.
Freia got up, stumbling and holding her side, and staggered over the disordered corpses toward the fire where Prospero stood fighting two guardsmen. An uncoordinated mob of Imperial soldiers at one side were being held off by prisoners with scavenged weapons while their fellows ran with closed eyes and clenched teeth into Prospero’s fiery Way. Dewar caught a glimpse of this as he dove away from Otto’s mace, rolling behind Trixie, who raked Otto’s mail shirt with her hind claws and lurched after Freia but was distracted by an arrow striking beside her left eye. With another scream, the gryphon set into a retreating group of royal soldiers, wildly stabbing and biting, pursuing them around the tower, away from Prospero, into a dark corner.
The Way in the fire was closing; the vortex of sorcery was drawing in on itself. All the prisoners in the yard were through save the group with Prospero, holding the Way secure and backing toward it. Dewar ran forward, not wanting to lose this chance. Otto pursued Dewar, then passed him, lunging toward Prospero with a knife. Freia tripped Otto again; he grabbed her ankle and brought her down with him.
“Argylle! Away!” Prospero cried hoarsely, killing a man with a swift in-and-out thrust; his gory blade was black in the unnaturally white Way-fire light. He kicked the corpse away, into another soldier’s feet so that he stumbled onto Prospero’s ready sword.
Prospero’s men backed toward the whirling, narrowing Way in the fire. He gestured them through, shouting, “Go! Go!” and stepped back into it himself. The Way was shrinking as it closed. Otto was nearly there; Dewar caught up to him and yanked him back, punching him ineffectively in his mailed stomach. Otto turned and struck him along the head, but Dewar twisted and caught himself and fell, tumbling into the Way with Prospero’s dark cloak whirling above him.
As he fell, he heard Freia shriek “Paaaapaaaaa!” in a long keening wail.
The Way closed with a thunderous, sky-breaking bang and sent sparks and ashes flying in an acrid cloud.
Dewar landed on sand and fire, thrashed out of the fire, and brushed singeing coals off himself.
He was on a beach, near a crowd of men, Prospero’s men. There were long boats in the low surf, ferrying the freed prisoners-of-war to furled-sailed ships waiting out in the bay, black silhouettes. It was cool, but not cold. No one paid attention to Dewar as he stood, shaking white sand and black cinders out of his clothes. The sky was overcast, the air mild, circulated by a velvety offshore breeze. A glow at the horizon might be dawn or sunset, brightening the purply twilight.
The men, rejoicing, shouted and called in their own language, which he could not understand, and he tried to find Prospero, who had vanished among them.
“You!” cried someone suddenly, and seized Dewar’s arm.
They stared at one another.
“You’re Utrachet,” Dewar said to the rangy, yellow-bearded man who faced him.
&n
bsp; “You’re none of ours,” Utrachet replied with a lilting accent Dewar had heard recently on Freia’s tongue, and Dewar found himself being hustled over to a collection of long torches driven into the sand where an argument proceeded hotly.
It was suspended. Prospero and four other men looked expectantly at Dewar.
Utrachet addressed them in that incomprehensible speech.
“Nay, ’tis not possible; ’twas but some illusion of his stressed mind’s desire: I say ’tis so,” Prospero said. “Leave this one to me a moment. Carry on the evacuation.”
The men muttered and left them staring at one another.
“What wouldst thou here?” Prospero asked finally.
“We have unfinished business. I didn’t appreciate being chucked in a ditch in a blizzard,” Dewar said. It came out less elegantly than he had intended.
“Go to. ’Twas not I cast thee to Herne,” Prospero said. “Thy hands loosed and thou didst take rude leave of me.”
“I passed out from being hit on the head,” Dewar replied. “I didn’t want to go with you; you insisted and then dumped me. I’ll not forget it.”
Prospero stared at him, incensed. “That’s thy message? Wilt challenge me, spratling? I warrant thee, thou’lt not find it healthful exercise.”
“I’m not continuing in this farce. I’ve been trailing you all over the Well-be-scorched countryside to settle—”
Utrachet ran up. Dewar saw now that he was limping and hiding it badly. He spoke to Prospero quickly, agitatedly.
Prospero exploded with an obscenity. A whirlwind sprang up and whipped away down the beach, throwing stinging sand.
Utrachet spoke again, and Prospero shook his head and said, “Let us begone from here. The men come first.”
Utrachet nodded and left.
“As for thee, I have no time now to give audience to thy grievances,” Prospero went on to Dewar. “Canst leave o’ thyself, or I’ll remove thee, for I’ll have none about the place not wholly of my party. I’d not be so abrupt, but I’ve much in hand.”
Dewar’s hot anger drained out of him and left an icier, more enduring fury. “I shall leave, sir,” he said, bowing, “and it shall be an ill day we meet again.” He pulled his cloak around him as he turned his back deliberately and walked away, into the dunes to find something flammable, to return to the Tower of Thorns and consider whether he’d been insulted sufficiently for a challenge. He halted a half-step. He should mention to Utrachet, or perhaps to Prospero, that that overly-chaste young woman Freia had aided him—but no. Let her tell them so herself, if she so chose; why, to be associated with Dewar now in Prospero’s mind might bend the Prince’s ill-will toward her. She’d done him no wrong to earn that. He had nothing more to say to Prospero.
A Sorcerer and a Gentleman Page 36