“Nay, do mind it!” Gregory cried. “For if they take fright, and are hurted enough to become bitter and hateful, might they not flee to Alfar, and swell his strength?”
Rod thought about it, then slowly nodded. “I hate to admit it, son, but you’re right.” He turned a somber gaze on Gwen, then dropped his gaze to look at his children, one at a time.
“What thoughts dost thou engender, husband?” Gwen asked softly.
Rod lifted his gaze to her again. “This mission has definitely turned dangerous, darling. Time for you and the children to go home.”
The night was silent for a moment. Then: “ ‘Tis not fair!” Cordelia cried.
“Only now doth it gain interest!” Gregory protested.
“Nonetheless…” Rod began.
“Tis the tactics of magic!” Geoffrey cried. “Assuredly, Papa, thou’lt not deny me the chance to witness such!”
“You’re apt to get hurt!” Rod snapped. “And preventing that, is my main job in life!”
“Then wither wouldst thou be, without us?” Magnus demanded, catching at his sleeve.
“Lonely,” Rod snapped, “but effective. A lot more effective than if I’m worrying about you while I’m in the middle of a fight!”
“Yet thou hast no need to fear for us!” Cordelia cried.
“Send an army ‘gainst us, ere thou dost fear!” Geoffrey howled.
“Yeah.” Rod’s jaw tightened. “You’d just love to have an army to box with, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately, it just might have a stronger arm than you, and…”
“Husband.” Gwen’s low voice bored through his building anger. “Thou didst say, even now, that thou didst protect them.”
Rod’s head snapped up, indignation flaring. “Are you implying…?”
But Gwen was already talking to the children, rapidly. “Thy father has said there is danger in this; and if thou dost believe thyselves strong, only think—how wouldst thou fare if thou didst confront a grown warlock, at the height of his powers, an thou wert alone? If thou hadst been split away from thy brothers and sister—how then?”
Geoffrey started to answer.
Gwen pressed a hand over his mouth. “Nay, do think carefully ere thou dost speak! There is a thrill of pleasure in it, aye—but only till thou dost truly fear! Then all of thy joy in it doth die a-borning.” Her gaze came up to meet Rod’s. “ ‘Tis even as thy father doth know, for he hath been in peril. Nay, if he saith ‘tis dangerous, then assuredly the danger could strike deepest fear in thee, could kill thee.”
The children stared up at her gravely, thinking they understood.
“Yet, husband, be mindful.” Gwen looked straight into Rod’s eyes. “The foes Alfar hath sent against us thus far, have scarce begun to tax our powers. Were Alfar to send all his force against us, ‘twould be great danger, aye; but I misdoubt me an he would risk more than a moiety of his force, when he knoweth not the true depth or breadth of our power. Were he to send an army, in truth, we ought then to flee; yet if he sends only witches, the High Warlock and his family have little to fear.”
“Only enough to make it fun, eh?” Rod managed a harsh smile.
“I could not deny it,” Gwen admitted. “ ‘Tis but exercise, for a brood such as ours.”
“Yes…” Rod frowned. “He’s testing us, isn’t he?”
Geoffrey spun around, wide-eyed. “Papa! Wherefore did I not see that?”
“Experience,” Rod assured him. “But that means the attacks will become stronger, until he thinks he knows our limits. Then he’ll hit us with twice the force he thinks he needs, just to make sure.”
Geoffrey had a faraway look in his eyes. “Therefore… it doth behoove us to use as little power as we must, to defeat them.”
Rod nodded. “Which we haven’t exactly been doing, so far.”
“We may stay then?” Cordelia cried, jumping up and down.
Rod fixed them all with a glare.
They pulled themselves into line, hands clasped in front of them, heads bowed a little—but looking up at him.
“Do I have your absolute promise that you’ll all go right home, without any argument, the next time I say to?”
“Oh, yes, Papa, yes!” they cried. “We will flee, we will fly!” Cordelia avowed.
“We wouldn’t want to stay, if this sorcerer really were dangerous, Papa,” Magnus assured him.
“But you don’t believe he could be, eh?” Rod fixed his eldest with a glare.
“Well…”
“That’s all right.” Rod held up a palm. “I’ve got your promises. It’s okay—you’re still on board, at least until the next attack. And if it’s too close to being dangerous, home you go!”
“Home,” they averred.
“Still don’t believe me, eh?” Rod looked up at Gwen. “How about you? Promise?”
“I shall heed thee as strongly as ever I have done, my lord,” she said firmly.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Rod sighed. “Well, I suppose I’ll have to be content with that. C’mon kids, let’s set up camp.”
Gwen threw her head back with a happy sigh. “Ah, ‘tis good to be aloft again.”
“I’m glad for you.” Rod gripped the broomstick tighter and swallowed heavily. His idea of flying was inside a nice, warm spaceship, with a lounge chair and an autobar. “This shooting around on a broomstick is strictly for the birds. On second thought, strike that—even the birds wouldn’t touch it.”
“Oh, certes, they would, Papa.” Cordelia shot up alongside, matching velocities. A robin sat on the tip of her broomstick, chirping cheerily.
Rod gave the bird a jaundiced glance. “Odd friends you’re making, up here.”
Gregory shot past them, flipping over onto his back to look back and wave bye-bye.
“Show-off,” Rod growled, but his heart sang at the sight of a smile on the face of his sober little son. It was good to see him be a child again.
“Regard thy way,” Gwen called after him. Gregory nodded cheerfully and flipped over onto his tummy again.
Magnus swung up alongside. “I thank thee, Papa! We are free again!”
“Delighted.” Rod tried to mean it. “Might as well, since Alfar knows who we really are, anyway.”
“Yonder.” Magnus pointed ahead. Rod looked up, and saw a line of hills, blued by distance. Magnus informed him, “Tis the Titans’ Rampart.”
“The Romanov boundary.” Rod felt his stomach suddenly grow hollow. “Somehow, I find myself less than eager to cross it.”
“But ‘twill be exciting, Papa!” Geoffrey cried, flying up on his port side.
“That’s a kind of excitement I think I can live without. Besides, I’m hungry. Darling, what do you say we find a town large enough to have an inn, this side of the boundary?”
“I misdoubt me an they’d welcome folk so poorly dressed as we, my lord.”
“Yeah, but they’d let us sit in the innyard, if we buy our food with real silver.”
“Hot sausage!” Geoffrey cried.
“Stew!” Magnus caroled.
“Toasted cheese!” Cordelia exulted.
“Hungry children,” Gwen sighed. “Well, husband, an thou dost wish it.”
“Great. Land us in a nice little copse, about half a mile out, will you? Tinkers they might accept in the innyard, but not if they use it for a landing strip.” He stared ahead hungrily. “Terra firma!”
5
As they came into the town, Cordelia gave a happy little sigh. “Tis so nice that the nasty old sorcerer knows we come toward him!”
“Oh, indeed yes,” Rod muttered. “This way, he can have a wonderful reception all ready for us! Why do you like it, dear? Because you can fly?”
“Oh, aye!”
“I dislike disguise, Papa,” Geoffrey explained.
Rod gave his son a measuring stare. “Yes, I suppose you would—even when you see it’s necessary.”
“As ‘tis, I know,” the little boy sighed. “Yet doth it trouble me, Papa.”<
br />
“I understand.” Rod frowned. “What bothers me, is trying to figure out how Alfar saw through our disguises.”
The family walked on in brooding silence—for a few seconds. Then Gwen said, “ ‘Tis widely known that the High Warlock doth have a wife, and four bairns—and that one is a lass, and the other three lads.”
Rod scowled. “What are you suggesting—that they had their illusionist attack every family who came North?” His gaze wandered. “Of course, I suppose there aren’t that many families coming North… and the kids’ ages are pretty much a matter of public record…”
“It doth seem unlikely,” Gwen admitted.
“And therefore must be seriously considered. But we would have heard about it, wouldn’t we? Monsters, attacking families…”
“Not if the witch and her monsters won out,” Geoffrey pointed out.
“But no sooner would they have attacked, than the witch would have seen the families had no magical powers!” Cordelia protested. “Surely she would then have called off her monsters.”
Geoffrey’s eyes turned to steel. “She would not—if she wished to be certain no word reached the King.”
“That does seem to be their strategy,” Rod agreed.
“But—to kill bairns?” Cordelia gasped.
“They are not nice people,” Rod grated.
The children were silent for a few minutes, digesting an unpleasant realization. Finally, Gregory pointed out, “We do not know that, Papa.”
“No, but I wouldn’t put it past them. Still, it does seem a little extravagant.”
“Mayhap they did post sentries,” Geoffrey suggested.
Rod nodded. “Yes, well, that’s the most likely way—but what kind of sentries? I mean, we haven’t seen any soldiers standing around in Alfar’s livery. So his sentries must be disguised, if he has them. And I suppose they’d have to know what we looked like…”
“Eh, no!” Magnus cried, grabbing Rod’s wrist. “They need only be…”
“Telepaths!” Rod knocked his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Of course! Just station mind readers on each of the main roads—and maybe even out in the pastures, if you’re the suspicious type—and they’d be almost impossible to spot! They could be anybody—the farmer who passes in his cart, the varlet in the kitchens, the merchant and his draymen…”
The children looked around them, suddenly alert.
“…and they’d be almost impossible to spot,” Rod finished, “since all they have to do is sit there, with their minds wide open for every stray thought!”
“We could have masked our minds,” Geoffrey mused.
“Yes, but we didn’t.” Rod shook his head. “Besides, it’s not as easy as it sounds. You’re all beginning to get pretty good at it…” He caught Gwen’s glance. “…every time you’re doing something you don’t want Mama and me to know about.”
The children exchanged quick, guilty glances.
“Of course, Mama and I are getting even better at probing behind the masks,” Rod went on, “so I suppose it’s very good training for all of us. In fact… that might not be a bad idea.” He flashed a grin at each of them. “Start poking around inside minds here and there, kids.”
Instantly, all four faces turned blank, their eyes losing focus.
“No, no! Not now! I mean, if they have been listening to us, they’ll have heard us, and just wiped their minds and started thinking disguise thoughts! You’ve got to catch them when they’re not ready, take them by surprise. Listen and probe for them whenever you just happen to think of it, at odd moments.”
“But will they not always be masked to us, Papa?” Cordelia protested.
“Not when they’re trying to listen to your thoughts,” Rod explained. “They can’t do both at the same time—mask and listen. You’ve tried it yourselves—you know.”
This time, the glance the kids exchanged was startled—and worried. Just how much did Daddy know, that they didn’t know he knew?
“Try to catch them unaware,” Rod urged.
The children sighed philosophically.
“I know, I know,” Rod growled, “this unpredictable Daddy! First he tells you to do it, then he tells you not to! So balance it—sometimes you do it, and sometimes you don’t.” He looked up. “Gee, that’s a nice looking horse, up there. I think I’ll steal it.”
The children gasped with shock, and looked—and gave their father a look of disgust. “Thou canst not steal him, Papa,” Gregory said sternly. “He is already thine.”
“Makes it more convenient that way, doesn’t it?” Under his breath, Rod muttered, “Nice of you to come ahead to meet us, Old Iron. How about I ride you, on the next leg of the trip?”
“Motion sickness, Rod?”
But it was Gwen and Cordelia who rode, at least as far as the inn, and the innkeeper was very obliging—once Rod caught his attention.
It wasn’t easy. Rod left the family at the door and stepped inside, bracing himself for an unpleasant scene. He saw a tall, wiry man with a stained apron tied around his waist, setting a double handful of mugs on a table and collecting coppers from the diners. As he turned away from the table, his gaze fell on Rod. “Be off with you,” he ordered, but he didn’t even stop turning. “We’ve no alms to give.” By the time he finished the sentence, he was facing the kitchen again, and had started walking.
“I’ve got money!” Rod called.
The man kept on walking.
Rod dodged around him and leaped into his path, shoving his purse under the innkeeper’s nose and yanking it open. The man stopped, frowning. Slowly, his eyes focused on the purse.
Rod shook a few coins out onto his palm. “See? Silver. The real thing.”
The innkeeper scowled at the coins as though they were vermin. Then his expression lightened to musing, and he pinched up one of the coins, held it in front of his nose to stare at it as though it were some new variety of bug, then methodically set it between his teeth and bit.
Rod couldn’t resist. “Hors d’oeuvres?”
“ ‘Tis silver.” The innkeeper seemed puzzled.
“Genuine,” Rod agreed.
The man focused on Rod. “What of it?”
Rod just stared at him for a second. “We’d like something to eat.”
“We?” The innkeeper turned his head from side to side, inspecting the walls and corners.
“My wife and children,” Rod explained. “I didn’t think you’d want us inside.”
The innkeeper thought that one over for a while, then nodded, frowning. Rod wondered how the man ever managed to make a profit. Finally, the innkeeper spoke. “Wise.” He kept nodding. “Wise.” Then he focused on Rod again. “And what food dost thou wish?”
“Oh, we’re not choosy. A big bowl of stew, a plateful of sausage, a couple of loaves of bread, a pitcher of milk, and a pitcher of ale should do us. Oh, and of course, six empty bowls. And six spoons.”
The innkeeper nodded judiciously. “Stew, sausage, bread, milk, and ale.” He turned away, still nodding. “Stew, sausage, bread, milk, and ale.” He headed for the kitchens, repeating the formula again and again.
Rod watched him go, shaking his head. Then he turned away to find Gwen and the kids.
He found them sitting under an old, wide oak tree with a huge spread of leaves. “Will they have us, husband?” Gwen didn’t really sound as though she cared.
“Oh, yeah.” Rod folded a leg under him and sat down beside her, leaning back against the trunk. “He was very obliging, once he tasted our silver and found out it wasn’t pewter.”
“What troubles thee, then?”
“Frankly, my dear, he didn’t really give a d—” Rod glanced at the eager faces around him, and finished, “…darn.”
“Assuredly, Tudor doth lack in gallantry,” said a large man, walking into the inn with a companion.
“Aye; it doth pain me to say it, but our noble Earl hath ever been clutch-fisted,” answered his companion. “This sorcerer Alfar, now—
all one doth hear of him, doth confirm his generosity.”
They passed on into the inn. Rod sat frozen, staring into space.
Magnus put it into words for him. “Do they speak against their own lord?”
“They do,” Gwen whispered, eyes huge.
“And in public!” Rod was flabbergasted. “I mean, peasants have spoken against their rulers before—but never out in the open, where a spy might overhear them. For all they know, we could be…” He ran out of words.
“Yet the lord would have to be greatly wicked, for his own folk to complain of him!” Cordelia cried. “Could they break faith with him so easily?”
“Not ordinarily,” Rod said grimly. “But we didn’t come up here because things were normal.”
A maid came ambling up to them, bearing a tray of food.
Her face was smudged, and her apron was greasy—from the scullery, Rod guessed. He braced himself for the contempt he’d grown used to from the peasants, and reminded himself that everybody had to have somebody they could look down on. Maybe that was what they really needed tinkers for.
But the maid only held the tray down where they could reach it, shaking her head and marvelling, “Tinkers! Why doth the master spare good food for tinkers?”
Rod took a plate warily, and sniffed at it. A delighted grin spread over his face. “Hey! It is good!”
“May I?” Magnus sat still, with his hands in his lap. So did the other children, but their eyes fairly devoured the tray.
“Why… certes.” The scullery maid seemed surprised by their politeness.
Magnus seized a bowl. “May I?” Cordelia cried, and the younger two chorused, “May I?” after her.
“Certes,” the wench said, blinking, and three little hands snatched at bowls.
Rod handed the plate to Gwen and lifted down a huge bowl of stew, then the pitchers. “Take your cups, children.” Gwen scooped up the remaining two flagons, and the spoons.
The kitchen wench straightened, letting one edge of the tray fall. A furrow wrinkled between her eyebrows. “Strange tinkers ye be.”
She was trying to think, Rod realized—and she’d have been trying very hard, if some mental lethargy hadn’t prevented her. “Still wondering why your master is serving us more than kitchen scraps?”
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