“She has Trixie,” Scudamor said. “What harm could befall her with a gryphon?”
They both automatically looked at a gryphon (much smaller than life) sculpted at the top of a pillar. Wings half-spread, made of finely black-veined stone the color of dried blood, it glowered down in the direction of the door.
“Plenty,” Prospero said tersely.
Scudamor looked at him, not believing it. Nobody in his right mind would go near one of the largest female gryphons in the land with intent to harm her or Freia.
“I shall have to go haring after her,” Prospero said, “and ’tis not as if I’ve not enough to contrive and more otherwise. Irresponsible chit,” he muttered. “I’ll ground her. Take her gryphon away for a year. Is’t not what one’s supposed to do?”
“My Lord, I wouldn’t know,” childless and bachelor Scudamor said humbly. “She went on the best of motives, and maybe she will return ere you set out.”
“True,” Prospero said. “She’ll arrive, find all fled, and follow home; she’s not such a dullard as not to understand an army’s retreat. I suppose I can rely on that. And Trixie will keep her from the worst of trouble.” And out of the towns, he thought, though she loathed towns. And away from people, though she disliked people too. He’d been overly indulgent with Freia, and she was become an impertinent and disobedient baggage; now need was to bear down upon her hard. He drummed his fingers. One of the men at Perendlac had claimed to see a gryphon—but it was surely delusion; Freia had no way of knowing Perendlac and he’d not tarried long himself, moreover she’d have been at his side in a trice had she been there. Indeed, if Freia’s gryphon tracked him to Landuc, now she would wheel about and track him home again, will-she, nil-she. “Perhaps simply to wait is best,” he concluded.
“The Wheel will turn,” Scudamor agreed, relaxing.
“Thou’rt not to blame; ’tis no one’s fault, her own,” Prospero said. “She’s obstinate and willful.”
“Her reasons were the best,” Scudamor modified the statement gently. “She worried about you.”
“I ward myself,” Prospero said, standing. “’Tis not her concern—Well, ’tis neither here nor there. For I am here, she’s there or between, and when she cometh here we’ll make an end of’t. Meanwhile there’s the City.”
“If My Lord would like to review the work on the walls …”
“Aye. On horseback. Let us go around the circuit and I’ll see how’t succeeds.”
Dewar had, uncharacteristically, picked a bunch of floppy-petalled, wantonly lush scarlet flowers and put them in a tall silver ewer of water on his bedside table. The odor of them was richly spicy-sweet. The day was warm, warmer than usual for the mountains where his thorn-girdled tower stood with its views of eternal snow and a faraway waterfall that spilled liquid silver down a shattered cliff. High-piled clouds massed and re-formed, vaporous fortresses in silvered whites and greys. There would be a thunderstorm later. That would be pleasant to watch as he lounged naked in the sheets surrounded by papers, reviewing his own old notes. It was good to be at work again. The war had wasted his time and gained him nothing—less than nothing.
He had removed his moustache and beard, deciding he didn’t care for them anymore, and his chin tingled still with the touch of the razor. The scent of astringent blended not unpleasantly with the flowers.
It was regrettable, Dewar mused, setting aside a sheet of three-sided diagrams and spiky plots, that he hadn’t bedded hot Josquin or skittish Freia when he’d had the opportunity. That would have been time well spent. Luneté had provided satisfaction such as he’d not allowed himself for too long. As for the third interesting woman he had met, bold Lady Miranda—there was no wench to be tumbled but a friend to be cultivated; she burned with nobility and bridled power, more like the folk of Noroison than any other creatures of Landuc had been, a strong woman of thoughts and deeds. Still, there’d be time later for such diversions. Freia had been eager to take it up and Josquin would be as easily taken up himself. He had looked up Valgalant in his Ephemeris and could call on Lady Miranda formally some few months hence. Given Otto’s behavior at Perendlac and before that at the fountain, it was delightful to lie here and think about the man’s wife. Dewar chuckled. Another thing that might be taken up again later, he suspected, and he doubted that he’d need to draw upon the power latent in the lock of hair she’d given him, which now reposed in a sorcerously-sealed jar.
Freia, he thought, and picked up a sheet of equations. Pretty eyes she had. Brown. Blue? No, they were an odd slatey grey. Bit of green maybe. Unusual color. Brownish-grey-green, like fallen leaves in water. Anyway, pretty. He frowned a small frown.
How could she have gotten out of Perendlac?
The gryphon, of course.
Nasty fighter. He’d seen it gut a mail-armored man with one foreclaw, a messy death. Where Freia would go next—into hiding if she had sense. Of course she’d been seeking Prospero, and she’d missed the Way.
He lowered the sheet of paper, scratched his crotch, and frowned a little more. Prospero was clearly en route elsewhere, a wise general who had kept moving with his battered army and the allies waiting there with ships to carry them off. That army was in no condition for an attack on Landuc. No. Prospero would rebuild and return.
How would the girl find him, then?
A mote of guilt entered the warm, bright bedroom and darkened it.
The gryphon, Dewar thought, had some way of tracking Prospero. That was how she’d gotten to Malperdy. Yes, and that was what she’d been doing on the last leg of the trip: Trixie had sensed Prospero and headed straight for him. Yes. Strange but not unheard-of. Perhaps the animal was actually Prospero’s own, so Freia would use the gryphon’s finding-sense to track and follow him. Perhaps even along the Road; there were precedents for such behavior from familiars.
When she found Prospero, he considered, she would certainly tell him of her encounter with another sorcerer. She liked him. She might be an ally later. In which case it was as well he had not pressed his advantage and his attentions on her; for she could only give good report of him to Prospero, had only favorable, courteous memories of Dewar. It would soften Prospero toward him; Prospero was inclined to softness, holding back his sorcery in the war to spare Dewar for the wrong reason. He had told Dewar he was his son, foolishly confiding in him, and Dewar could have attacked him, blood to blood.
Prospero had been trafficking with Odile. Despite the Prince’s distrustful words about her, Dewar knew Odile was subtle, pernicious, and poisonous. If she could strike at her son through Prospero, she would. Dewar must protect himself from Odile, and if he could use Prospero to gain an advantage, he would. Yet he must guard himself at the same time.
Not a duel, no: rather, Dewar could make of Prospero a shield and sounding-board that would at once shield him from Odile and let him know what she had afoot—but that could wait, all could wait. He was tired of people for now, and he had better work to do. The Third-Force problem had become more than interesting; it was urgent that he solve it soon. For, given a Third Force, someone must ineluctably claim it, making it the center of his sorcery and power, as Primas had found and possessed Hendiadys, as his son Panurgus had found and possessed Pheyarcet. Dewar would find the source of the Third Force and it would be his, and then he would be able to deal with Prospero and Odile both.
He picked up another sheaf of notes and equations in which he had attempted to describe the Third-Force problem and concentrated.
31
PROSPERO RAN THROUGH THE MUD-CHURNED streets past scaffolding and piles of stone, his Castellan on his heels.
“Trixie!” he shouted to the gryphon in the meadow at the downstream end of the island.
Trixie was grooming, balefully eyeing the watchers, half a pig visible beneath her. She stopped and tensed, staring at Prospero.
He stopped twenty feet from her. She didn’t move.
“Trixie,” he crooned, “pretty Trix, where’st thou been pretty th
ing, I’ve worried … my, I’ve been fashed … pretty Trix, wilt let me see thy bags? Good Trix, good Trix …”
A quarter-hour later, the gryphon was allowing him to stroke her throat and he was unbuckling the gear she still carried. It was weather-beaten, as was Trixie; Trixie had also bitten at the leather-covered chains and tried to get them off. Prospero loosed her harness, then opened the bags and hunted through them, spilling them on the bloody grass.
Empty. No food. A few small pieces of clothing. Freia’s cooking equipment. The canteen was dry.
“Where’s Freia, Trix?” he said, standing again. “Freia. Where’s thy Freia?”
Trixie crooned unhappily.
“Damnable dumbness,” Prospero said. “If I’d known what I was about, I’d’ve given you all speech. Freia.”
The gryphon’s croon became a scream, drawn-out and deafening. She reared back and beat her wings, then dropped again.
Prospero scowled. “There’s nothing for’t but to find her myself,” he said, covering concern with ill-humor.
Trixie squalled again and stamped all four feet impatiently. Prospero nodded. “Eat thou and rest,” he said. “We’ll go later.”
He left the animal there, telling two soldiers to see that the gryphon was not disturbed. “And do you shoo another pig to her, if she hungers still.”
Freia was in trouble after all, and Prospero felt a sinking misgiving. He hoped it was something as painless to repair as a broken leg.
Ottaviano had come to respect his stubbornly silent hostage. He questioned her diligently under all the compulsions he knew which would not damage her permanently, and she resisted him with all her will. Shaking under the strain of holding silence, she would bite her lips bloody or grind her teeth, her face contorted, muscles locked, keeping herself from answering any questions. Golias favored breaking her, forcing her further than she would be able to resist, and Otto opposed him saying that their primary concern was to turn her over to the Emperor in good condition, else he might well dispute any concessions they wrung from him. Golias conceded grudgingly.
They had heard from the Emperor only that he weighed their offer, and Golias was impatient for results.
“He’s had it for ten days,” he said.
“That’s not very long to consider a major rearrangement of the real estate in the contiguous realm,” Otto replied.
“He’s dragging his feet,” Golias said. “Probably planning an attack: that’s what I’d do.”
“We’re ready for it.”
“It’s been long enough for him to say something,” Golias insisted. “We have to put the pressure on him.” He sat on the edge of the table where Otto was eating lunch, playing with a dagger, throwing it and catching it.
Otto ignored the dagger flying up and down beside his head. “What did you have in mind?”
“You have a fast tongue. Go to Landuc and start dickering. Take some of the Lys and Ascolet guys with you. A so-called honor guard. Let him know you’re serious.”
Otto shook his head. “If Prospero shows up here, you’ll be defenseless.”
“Neyphile can handle him.”
Ottaviano set down his knife and spoon and stared at Golias. “I don’t want her in on this.”
“She’s reliable, unlike your last sorcerer. And she’s easy to deal with. Don’t worry, it’d be on my tab,” Golias said. He pared his left thumbnail with the knife. “If he shows up, anyway, and she takes him on, there may not be a tab to pay.”
“Probably not. Prospero’s got a lot of power at his fingertips.” Otto thought. The girl was a hot property, unquestionably. Getting her out of their hands quickly was only to their advantage. Going to Landuc to negotiate the business in person would force the Emperor to step one way or another, move things along.
He had to admit that Golias had the right of it: putting a little pressure on the Emperor now would work for them.
“If you’re confident that you won’t have any trouble you can’t handle, I’ll go,” Otto said.
Golias grinned. “Don’t sell me out.”
“Of course not. Let’s go through the list of fallbacks tonight.”
“How many men will you take?”
“One company of Ascolet. No need for more: that’s enough to show I mean business and to deal with any … difficulty there may be.”
“I’m going to rearrange security a little,” Golias said, tossing the knife and catching it by the point. He swung it back and forth, pendulum-like. “Just in case.”
“Ariel!”
“Yes, Master!”
“My daughter’s gone astray. Find her.”
Ariel thought about it. “Where is she missing, Lord?”
“From here, my wisp-witted friend,” Prospero said.
“My Lord, I mean—know you in which of the spheres she was last to be found?”
“Ah. That I know not. ’Tis likely to be the Fire’s realm of Pheyarcet.”
“Oh,” said Ariel, and hesitated further.
“Begone, Ariel. This is no light matter. She may be wounded, ill, or lost.”
Ariel rustled through the leaves of a book on the table. “I go, Master, but it will take some time …”
“I understand,” Prospero said. “As thou understandest it had best not take too much.” He gestured.
Ariel made a popping noise. “Yes, Master,” he squeaked, “I fly, I fly …”
“Good Ariel. When hast found her, return here at once with such tidings of her state and place as canst assemble.”
“Yes, Master,” sighed Ariel, and swished through the open casement.
Prospero tapped at the open pages of his book with his wand.
It was the fastest way he knew of to find anything: send a Sylph. Ariel was thorough and trustworthy, if a little distractable. There was nothing more to be done, now. He couldn’t Summon her back, which was the simplest way of dealing with it; he could not Summon beyond the area dominated by the cool, liquid flow of the Spring—even as he could not Summon from Landuc’s Pheyarcet to Phesaotois—and he had performed a Summoning within his Spring’s realm. There had been nothing. She did not know how to shield herself, so therefore she was dead or not in range.
He preferred to think her not in range. Moreover, were she dead, Trixie would not have returned alive. The gryphon would have done anything to kill Freia’s killer.
Prospero paced. Light-minded wench, he thought. He’d settle her somehow. Flouting his most plainly patent command! He muttered, “Damnation, Freia, I’ll pack thee off to—nay, in sooth I’d not do that; I’d liever keep thee here where I can ward thee. Nay, no idle threat for thee. Should marry thee off. Give thee fitting matter to engage thee, hah. Scudamor’s fond of thee; so’s Utrachet, but I cannot quite see wedding thee, apple-daughter, to a man I know full well was a long-clawed burrowing eskor or a wildcat.”
He snorted at the joke.
“Nay, ’twouldn’t do,” he tutted to himself, and stopped pacing to stare out the unglazed window at the stars. He must ground her, but not basely. For Freia, the mate must be a peer, and strong-minded. Had Avril found out about Ottaviano yet, or vice-versa? ’Twould be a handsome touch. Foolish Cecilie. Pull a bag over Avril’s head and tie it at his neck. ’Twas ill wind that blew no good, though. Prospero would have to track Ottaviano down. See what sort of fellow he was, what use might be made of him: friendly with Dewar, could be a recommendation—apprenticed with Neyphile, though he seemed not to have surpassed her teaching or ability, nor to have learned anything from Dewar. A procedural, not an original, sorcerer.
Prospero stopped pacing and stood over his golden scrying-bowl. Dewar, he thought, and shivered. Odile’s son crackled with power and anger. Yes, he had better settle Freia ere he settled with the boy.
Freia slept as much as she could, curled in a ball on the wooden bench which was her bed. There were beetles in one end of the bench, which was crumbling slowly, and she kept her feet away from them. The cell was relatively free of vermin, a
nd relatively warm, and all she had to do, she thought, was wait until Prospero realized he’d left her behind.
The time she had fallen in the canyon and broken her leg, Prospero had brought her home hours later, with his sorcery. Where was he now?
Surely, she thought, somebody had seen her and Trixie.
Surely, she thought, Dewar would tell Prospero she had been left behind.
But it seemed to be taking a long time.
Ottaviano rode into Landuc thinking of Luneté, his wife of a year and a half’s standing with whom he’d had but few days of post-marital pleasure. He wanted to see her again. Their last meeting but one—well, that had been Otto’s fault, really, he’d been angry at her furious reception, had said some stupid things, had behaved like a pantomime caricature of jealousy, and he knew she’d never take a lover, she was too straitly made for philandering. Of course she was antsy, closed up in that claustrophobic castle, and she was right when she said he hadn’t spent much time with her. He thought he’d made up a great deal when she’d let him come to her on his return a half-month later. He smiled, thinking of it.
He made plans to buy some peace-offerings here in the city and send them to Lys. Rubies. A tiara. Something fashionable like that. Summer silk and pictures of the newest styles.
Behind him, beside him, his men checked their weapons. They had been permitted through the Gate of Winds, inside the city walls; it remained to be seen how things would go at the Palace.
At the Palace, things were progressing rapidly. The Emperor had been informed of Otto’s approach by a fast runner from the city gate. The Emperor had Summoned Prince Herne and the Prince Marshal and ordered them to tighten up Palace security. The troop of men might enter the first courtyard, under the arrows of Herne’s archers. Gaston was to meet and disarm Otto and escort him to the Emperor.
“He is not come to yield, Avril,” Gaston pointed out. “See the green branch.”
“Parley, hah. He’s come to bargain. We knew he would. He is an impatient young fool,” and the Emperor grinned ferociously. “We shall have him now.”
A Sorcerer and a Gentleman Page 38