"Would she have a choice?"
Hugh watched for a moment. Then he began to smile, shaking his head slowly. "Perhaps not. As I said, none here bow their backs."
"And I'll wager they are on the watch, to be certain no man asks them to." Gar. put down his plate, still chewing, and rose, wiping his hands with a tuft of grass. "I have a sudden desire to speak with this paragon of yours, Hugh. Take me to her, if you will."
The big Tradesman looked up, startled. Then he grinned, and rose. "Aye, gladly! This should be worth the watching-if you seek to match wits with Lapin!" He looked back at Dirk. "Will you come?"
"No," Dirk said slowly, "I don't think I'd learn anything new."
Hugh frowned. "How's that again?"
"Nothing. But tell me this, Hugh ... from whom does Lapin take orders?"
"Why, no one." Hugh grinned. "Till DeCade arises."
Dirk nodded sardonically. "That's what I'd thought, somehow. No, I think you can get by without me."
Hugh shrugged. "As you wish." He turned away and led Gar off around the fire.
Dirk sat watching them go, chewing the last mouthful. There was no point in talking to Lapin; he was looking for the top rebel leader; and she wasn't it. No one was.
Except DeCade ...
"Good evening, Outlander." Dirk looked up, instantly wary.
A lean old man with a tonsure and a monk's robe sat down beside him, turning a friendly smile toward him. In spite of himself, Dirk smiled back. "A good evening it is. But I'm not an outlander."
The smile was still friendly, but the monk shook his head with certainty. "There is the touch of the alien in the way you say your words, in the way you bear yourself-a thousand small things. Any man can see it-you are not completely one of us."
Dirk bit down on bile and nodded reluctantly. "You're right. I'm a churl-but I'm a churl from the skies."
"Ah." The old man nodded, satisfied. "From the Wizard's towers. Yes, there would be strangeness in the way you say your words-and the words themselves strange, I should think."
"Strange words?" Dirk frowned. "Oh-you mean words like `molecular circuit,' `monofilament,' `nuclear fusion.' "
"Exactly." The old man smiled, pleased, but there was a watchful look in his eyes. "Words of wizardry, I fancy. Surely you who have followed the Wizard into the skies would have far more such surface wisdom than any others of our people."
Dirk frowned. "'Surface' wisdom? How do you mean?"
"No doubt these words give you great powers." The old man smiled gently. "But will that help you live your life more fully and happily, my friend? To understand the Riddle of Life?"
"I suppose not," Dirk said slowly. "I take it any other kind of wisdom is `surface'?"
The monk shrugged. "By my beliefs, at least." "And you may have a point," Dirk admitted. "At least, that kind of wisdom is about all that could let these people stand to live at all, let alone happily. I was wondering how a guerrilla army could manage having children around, when they have to be ready to split up and run any minute." The monk nodded. "But the children understand it as a fact of their life and dismiss it as easily as the adults do-more easily perhaps."
"When they have to run, they do. Till then, they don't think about it."
"Quite so," the monk agreed. "So they have no need to worry for their children. The mothers carry the infants, the babes ride their fathers' shoulders-and all the others can go to ground and stay hidden as well as any rabbit."
"Oh." Dirk's eyes widened. "So that's why the top banana calls herself 'Lapin.' I was wondering why they called their chief `Rabbit.' "
"Of course." The old man smiled, amused. "They have great respect for rabbits, I assure you. In fact, they surpass them when it comes to hiding and lying still till the King's hunters have passed them. But these rabbits have teeth, and very sharp ones."
"I believe it." Dirk's eyes strayed to an outlaw who sat near the fire, making arrows. "Didn't I notice you playing that game with them earlier, Father?"
The old man glanced at the arrowmakers, then nodded. "Aye, I must admit I have some skill at it. For that reason, they call me `Father Fletcher.' "
Dirk frowned at the chagrin in the old man's voice. "That bothers you, eh? A man of the cloth, making weapons of war?"
"Somewhat," the old man admitted. "But Our Lord said to love our enemies and forgive them; He did not say we should not fight them."
Dirk cranked his head around to try to swallow that one, but found he couldn't. "I-ah-don't quite think that's-uh-an accurate reflection of the-ah-gist of His preaching."
The old priest tried to shrug, but it bowed his shoulders. "We do what we must, Dirk Dulain; and if my conscience wakes me in the night with screaming, that is my concern and no one else's."
But Dirk had suddenly lost interest in the topic. "You know my name."
"Aye." A smile touched the old priest's lips again. "So does the whole of the camp, by now. None ever escaped the arena before; you are men of some moment."
"I'm overcome by the honor," Dirk said dryly. "Are you chaplain to this merry army, Father?" "Only a wandering guest, like yourself." The old man looked out over the camp, and Dirk thought he saw a certain yearning in the lined and weary face. "I am a hedge priest, my friend-a clergyman without a parish or a flock, wandering wind-tossed over the earth, bringing words of hope to all the people."
" `All . . .' " Dirk rolled the word over his tongue, wondering whether he liked its flavor. "How many bands like this are there, Father?"
"A dozen more within this forest, and at least another dozen in every other forest in the kingdom. After that, who knows? There's scarce a woodlot in Melange without its score or more of outlaws."
Dirk nodded. "Seven major forests-that's eighty-four bands right there. And each Lord has his hunting park. Figure fifty people per band on average ... about five thousand archers, trained and armed, and ready . . ."
"You're quite the pessimist," the priest assured him. "I'd estimate at least twelve thousand." Dirk nodded. "And which is the largest band?" "Why, this one." The priest smiled, amused. "Would you not expect it, nearest the King's own town?"
"Ordinary outlaws, no," Dirk said judiciously. "But people with a folklore culture aching for guerrilla warfare revolution ... Yes, of course. Should I ask who all these bands take orders from?"
"No, you've guessed it." Father Fletcher's mouth crinkled at the corners. "All acknowledge suzerainty of this band."
"And that means of Lapin." Dirk heaved a sigh. "Quite an army to bring against the Lords, if DeCade ever calls."
"When DeCade calls," the priest corrected serenely.
Dirk felt a sudden, sinking certainty that he'd never find a way to kick this patient peasant army into motion.
A sudden piercing whistle shattered the calm of the night.
The outlaws leaped to their feet, staring toward the east, where the whistle had come from. Murmurs rose and fell like surf, with a subtle undertone of rattling wood, as men and women strapped on quivers, caught up bows.
A runner came bounding into the firelight, glanced about him wildly. "Lapin!"
The leader moved into the firelight like a creasing bow wave. "Speak! What moves?"
"A hundred Soldiers, at least," the runner cried, whirling toward her. "And at their head-Lord Core himself!"
"Core!" Hugh spat, and the outlaws took up the word, passing it about from mouth to mouth, like a swollen porcupine involved in a dispute about its ownership.
"Why comes he here, himself?" Lapin rumbled. "Why else?" Gar shouldered up beside her. "From all I hear, escape from the Games isn't exactly a move calculated to make the authorities lose interest." He looked up at Dirk. "I think we might consider a change of climate."
"We all must," Lapin said sourly, and the whole army turned to gather up its belongings.
"No, wait!" Madelon stepped up. "There's only a hundred of them; we are twice their number. Why not take them?"
"Aye!" Hugh cried. "Disperse, but only
to the borders of this clearing. Then let them all come in, and when the last is here within the clearing-let fly the arrows. Cut them down!"
"Rifles," Father Fletcher murmured, but Hugh waved the objection away. "They won't have time." "Why not?" Madelon cried. "If we take themLord Core! At a stroke, we've stricken out our harshest hunter!"
"Devoutly to be wished," Father Fletcher admitted. "Still, it lacks the taste of wisdom." "Why?" Hugh bellowed. "We'd take them all; not a one could live to run! No one would learn of it. No one could know-save us!"
"Well planned," the priest approved. "But every plan can go awry; and if only one should slip away, to bear the word-"
"How?" Hugh interrupted. "What Soldier could outrun or hide, in our own for-"
"Enough," Lapin said-not loudly, but with the weight of a new bride's biscuit; and the argument was killed. Silently, they all turned to her.
"We will hide," she said. Silence stretched a skein.
"Why!" Hugh erupted. "Odd gods, woman! How much chance is this?"
"None," Lapin said with profound calm. "But it would be war, and the Bell has not yet rung." Hugh stood staring at her in poleaxed silence. Then he turned away, his face thunderous, and took the kettle off the fire. Madelon stayed a moment longer, glaring furiously at the older woman; but Lapin turned a granite gaze upon her, and Madelon turned away, flushing.
Dirk stared, paralyzed. Just one word from this she-leviathan, and a whole peasant army threw away a certain victory. In his mind's eye, he saw a vast and ready army, stretching across the length and breadth of the kingdom, armed and poised to strike -and frozen, immobilized in ice. Because a word had not been spoken, had not because it could not-because the lips that had to speak it had turned to rot and dust, five hundred years before.
A hand clasped his shoulder, jolting him out of his trance.
"It might be best if you would come with me," Father Fletcher suggested. "I know these woods and can lead you to a safe place."
Dirk raised his eyes, saw Gar and Madelon standing behind the priest. He looked out over the clearing, saw it almost empty, except for a few stragglers who slung packs on their backs while he watched, and a hundred brushwood shanties.
He turned back to Father Fletcher, nodded judiciously. "Yah. That might be a good idea." Father Fletcher strode away toward the trees. Dirk glanced at Gar and Madelon, then turned and followed the priest.
CHAPTER 9
The rising sun found a party of four wandering down the King's Highway-an old hedge priest, a young woman in a dark, hooded robe, and two filthy madmen, crusted with dirt and with only a twist of loincloth for clothing. The one might have been very tall, if he ever stood straight; but he was hunched and shambling, shuffling down the roadway.
What the other lacked in height, he made up in energy. He bounded down the road capering and crowing, howling a hymn of glee to the rising sun.
"Quite well done, I'm sure," Father Fletcher said dryly, "but I think you do it with too little cause and too much will. I would ask you to remember that I am, after all, a Christian priest." "Of course, Father," Dirk tossed back over his shoulder, "but any good Christian would agree that only a madman would chant a hymn to the sun." "Nonetheless, our good Father has a point," Madelon demurred. "True, we must be disguised from the King's patrols, and two madmen and a maiden bound for convent will scarcely be noticed in this land, if they travel under a priest's protection; but I would like to remind you that no Soldiers are watching at the moment."
Dirk brushed the objection away. "You don't understand the art of it. The true histrionicist must always be in character; you never know when you're going to have an audience."
"Ordinarily, I wouldn't find that argument too compelling," Gar demurred. "But, since three horsemen have just come into sight ahead of us, I must reluctantly grant it a certain validity."
Dirk looked up, startled, Far down the road, half-obscured by the morning mist and the sun behind them, three riders stood in silhouette.
"Be easy, my children." Father Fletcher seemed relaxed around a core of tension. "We are only two poor madmen and their grieving sister, journeying to a Bedlam house under the protection of a priest."
Dirk filed the fact for ready reference, and whirled around to begin the next act of "Salute to the Sun."
Halfway through the second stanza, a voice cried, "Hold!"
Just in time, too-Dirk had almost run out of lyrics.
He whirled about, one hand poised over his head like a fountain-statue, staring wide-eyed at the Soldiers.
Father Fletcher came to a halt and looked up, mildly inquisitive. Gar kept shambling on; Madelon tugged at his arm, and he stopped, then turned, slowly, to gaze at the Soldiers with a vacant bovine stare.
The sergeant scowled down at them. "What have we here, Friar? Three geese, plucked bare by the parish?"
"Only two poor madmen, Sergeant," Father Fletcher intoned, "newly orphaned; and their saner, grieving sister."
Saner. Dirk wondered about that.
One of the troopers leaned down to yank Madelon's cowl back; rich auburn hair tumbled down. The Soldier whistled.
"Under my protection, of course," Father Fletcher murmured. The sergeant glared at the trooper, and the man drew back. Dirk was amazed; he hadn't realized the clergy had so much influence.
"And where would you be traveling to, Father?" The sergeant was measuring Gar with his eyes. "Why, to the nearest Bedlam house, of course," Father Fletcher said easily. "The Hospice of Saint Orthicon, at Chambray."
"Three, they are," the second trooper growled, "and, if you straightened out the big one-" "Pray do not attempt it," Father Fletcher murmured. "He becomes violent if you touch him." The trooper eyed Gar's bulk, and moved his horse back a little.
"Well, what of it?" the first trooper growled. "Do we arrest them?"
Father Fletcher looked up in mild puzzlement. "What for? Surely these poor unfortunates could have harmed no one."
"I'm sure they could not have." The sergeant's sarcasm was thick. "But, ridiculous as it may seem, we Soldiers are bound to consider that even you, a man of the cloth, might be trying to smuggle dangerous criminals past us."
"No!" Father Fletcher was appropriately scandalized. "Is there really so little faith left among your superiors?"
"Even so," the sergeant lamented. "But-ours not to question why, Friar."
"Sergeant," the priest reproved him gently, "I am a man of peace."
Dirk thought about arrows and kept his mouth shut.
"My superiors, I fear, are not," the sergeant pointed out.
Father Fletcher's tone became more severe. "Sergeant, if you meddle with those under the protection of a priest, you earn the displeasure of the Almighty."
"There's some truth in that," the sergeant said thoughtfully. "But if we don't, we earn the displeasure of Lord Core-which is apt to come a little sooner than God's."
"But it doesn't last quite as long."
"There's some trufh in that, too." The sergeant glowered down at Dirk, who had fallen into a rapt study of the grains of dust in the roadway.
Madelon looked up at him wide-eyed, almost adoring.
The sergeant straightened in the saddle, with an air of decision. "Well enough, then, Father-we won't interfere with the clergy. We'll let you take your charges to the Bedlam house."
"I thank you," Father Fletcher murmured.
"In fact," the sergeant went on, "our respect for your cloth is so great that we'll even escort you." "Oh." Father Fletcher pursed his lips, thinking that one over for a moment. "I thank you greatly, but ... surely that is too much bother to ask of you."
"Not at all, not at all," the sergeant said affably. "After all, we couldn't have you being set on by outlaws, now, could we?"
The sun was setting as the priest brought the madmen to the Hospice of Saint Orthicon-with three steel-clad Soldiers behind him. Their sister kissed them a fond, tearful farewell at the doorand muttered between kisses, "Keep your hearts up, as well
as you can. We'll get you out somehow-I just can't promise how soon."
Then she stood back, hand raised in parting, while the priest blessed them, and the attendants ushered them in, out of the sunlight-and into a dank, chilly gloom, filled with the smell of unwashed bodies and excrement.
They stopped in the doorway, involuntarily pulling back as a pandemonium of moans and wails hit them. Dirk's eyes fought to adapt to the gloom; there was only a little light, from a few small windows way up high on the walls-barred windows, set in granite thirty feet above them. By the time this modicum of sunlight filtered down to the floor, it had spread out to a sourceless, uneven murk, out of which rose islands of pallid bodies clothed in rags and filth. Some of the islands moved in a constant, slow churning.
The attendants pulled them forward, and, as they passed between rows of poor madmen lying on straw pallets, Dirk saw an occasional one whose movement was hurried, frenzied-and totally aimless; a kind of threshing pantomime of violence. Dirk tried to shrink away, inside his skin, away from them all; they filled the long, narrow room, standing, sitting, or lying against the walls. Each one had a chain, some on the ankle, some on the wrist; the other end of the chain was driven into the wall. He stared about him, horrified, following the attendant, feeling as though he was wading through a sea of groans, walls of despair, cries of rage, and shrill, gibbering laughter. Suddenly, he doubted if he could even make it through one night here. He could only stare, horrified, as the warder riveted a chain around his ankle and went.away, leaving both of them chained between a Tradesman who crouched against the wall, glaring at an unseen persecutor and cursing steadily in a low, even voice; and a Farmer, squat and flabby, who sat hunched against the wall, munching slowly at a sore on the back of his hand.
"It's a madhouse," Dirk whispered, stunned. "Yes." Gar swallowed heavily, his eyes bulging. "Not a mental hospital, not an insane asylum. A madhouse. The real, genuine medieval article. A Bedlam." He swallowed again, thickly.
"I don't know if I can even make it through one night here."
"Shut up," Gar snapped, his eyes burning. Cold sweat stood out on his brow.
A Wizard In Bedlam Page 11