by Brian Daley
Dearest Friend Crassmor,
Plans have been made for the rescue of your beloved, my sister Oorda. Word has been sent her that she is to betray no sign of knowing you when you arrive. That you may rescue only one of my sisters, and that your choice would be Oorda, I well understand, for she is your betrothed. I have drawn a map on the back of this letter, detailing the region around John’s Winch and the river routes. Bear it with you. I am even now planning the rescue of Arananth in such time, with the help of the gods, that the marriage will not take place. Fair fortune to you, brave knight.
Your sister-to-be,
Alanna of Meere
John was certainly appraised of the letter’s contents by now; everything hinged on his believing them. Having encountered the fierce Oorda, Crassmor refused to think that pirate chieftain wouldn’t want the woman out of his cave and out of his life. This, it was to be hoped, would give the knight a certain freedom to operate.
He was considering ways of speaking to or otherwise making contact with his cousin, but was forestalled. The curtain rippled and a figure slipped into the room. Crassmor’s hand, at his dirk, checked. It was Bint.
He was rancid with sweat and scullery grease, worn and thinner, with a forefinger to his lips, urging quiet. He bore a stone bottle. Crassmor, catching a whiff of him, plied his pomander with a will.
“What’s happened to your leash?” he asked mildly. He hadn’t forgotten Bint’s silent indictment of him in Gateshield and thereafter.
Bint made a sour face. “They remove it once the winch is up; there are guards there at the cave mouth. But in truth, no leg iron’s needed; I’ve given John my parole, pledging to raise neither hand nor edge to anyone as long as I am here.”
Crassmor made no comment. Bint bridled anyway, thinking there was an unspoken insult in the air. “I attempted rescue when word reached me that two women were being held against their will. I’d have died fighting, given the chance—I’d have let them gut me before wearing a chain. But the Lady Arananth begged John to spare me and pleaded with me to give my pledge. She said she wished no more blood spilled on her account.”
She grows more to my liking, Crassmor thought. He said, “You lost no face with me, cousin. A dead man, even a dead knight, can do nothing for Arananth.”
The observation appeared to go over well with Bint; his animosity subsided. He uncorked the stone bottle and poured a careful measure of fish oil into the lamp, making the floating wick quiver and shadows flicker. Though he obviously hadn’t been harmed, it was plain that captivity and servitude had been a bitter draught for him to swallow. Crassmor was grateful and a little surprised that John had been so unsanguine about the matter, thinking, There may be more to that lout than meets the eye. Aloud, he asked, “How did you know I was here?”
“I overheard John and Borra and the others discussing a most peculiar letter they found in your baggage. It took several of them to get it read; none here ciphers well but Fanarion, and he’s near-blind. I’m on this fueling errand and must be back in the kitchen ere long.”
“What of this giant?” Crassmor wanted to know.
Bint shrugged. “Fanarion has put a compulsion on him. He stays in the area, patrolling, and John’s people feed him. He comes when Fanarion summons him. They say the sight of him has stilled—”
“—many brave hearts.” Crassmor anticipated his words. “Which means that I, for one, have nothing to fear.” He only hoped that the creature had observed his injunction to harm no one camped on the riverbank. Crassmor instructed Bint, “Stay ready, but do nothing until we’ve orchestrated some plan, Bint. All depends on role playing now.” He pointed a finger at his cousin. “No whispered messages of encouragement to the sisters, no veiled defiance to John.”
Bint pushed back a lock of blond hair from where it had plastered itself to his forehead and nodded. “They will watch me more closely now that they know that there are two knights in John’s Winch. But it’s ten days since I was captured; I have learned patience. Know this, though: Arananth’s people observe the dictates of the stars, and John is aware of that. It’s a common religion in this part of the Beyonds. No marriage sealed in this season will be recognized, but that obstacle will be invalid after another five days. John has the nuptials scheduled for then.”
He moved back to the curtain while Crassmor considered the changes in his cousin, relieved that Bint expected no prodigious feats of derring-do. At the curtain, Bint paused to say, “I am glad to find you sound of mind, cousin.” To Crassmor’s quizzical look, he responded, “The letter had you affianced to Oorda, which would not have spoken well of your sanity.”
Crassmor chuckled as Bint eased back out of the alcove.
A formal dinner at John’s Winch turned out to be an even madder affair than Crassmor had envisioned.
Fanarion came to fetch him without benefit of armed escort, proof that John was confident of the security of his realm. Crassmor was inclined to concede it too, particularly with that giant on the prowl. The mage tried to be pleasant and treat the new harper as a friend rather than a rival. Crassmor noticed he was blinking behind his glasses and tended to step back for a better look at things.
“Oh, this place shows great promise, great promise,” Fanarion was saying as they stepped along. “It is the first time most of these people have ever had a spot to call their own.”
“My songs will make of them a palace filled with heroes,” the knight assured him blithely.
Though he stepped back to do it, Fanarion fixed Crassmor with a look of surprising acuity. “They’d be grateful to be freemen in a home of their own,” the mage corrected. Crassmor forgot his next gibe, gesturing to show that he understood.
Though some of John’s followers were making merry in the lower caverns, the majority of the cave’s inhabitants, some three dozen and more, were seated in the oversized stone chairs at the lengthy slab of the dining table. Torches had been set in sockets in the wall, and additional fish-oil lamps brought in, making the place almost festive, though they had little effect on the dankness of the chamber. The viands, platters of trout and carp, small cauldrons of goat stew, hot breads, bowls of steaming crawfish, and racks of lamb were surprisingly edible.
John sat at the head of the table, with Arananth to his right and Fanarion next. Crassmor and Oorda were at the pirate’s left. The knight had the feeling of being a child once again as he slid into the huge, cold chair which, being immovably heavy, compelled him to lean forward in order to eat.
The tattered crew had attempted to make themselves presentable. Most of their clothing seemed at least to have been washed. The fate of the sisters’ wardrobe was evident in the rich colors of the many patches there. John’s band made little pretense at conversation or table manners, but fell to what was probably their best feed in some time. Their chieftain did his best to ply his intended with winning small talk.
Thus John, with an excess of suavity, began, “Lady Arananth, you do honor to this humble table—”
“And the dripping ceilings,” Oorda broke in spitefully, “and the corners where the children and dogs piddle, and the—” At length John became more glum, refilling his flagon at shorter intervals.
Oorda was chief performer at that zany travesty. She found occasion to revile or threaten nearly everyone present, throwing bones at the dogs that sniffed after table scraps and mocking John in such graphic terms that Crassmor decided, She holds great promise as a muleteer. Crassmor began to fear that John would lose patience and simply set the knight and his “fiancée” adrift on the river.
But the knight thought, too, that he detected an underlying note, suspiciously resembling compassion, in the affronts Oorda dispensed so lavishly. In deriding John’s little band, she betrayed a keen awareness of their hardships. This, however, didn’t keep her from dumping a fistful of spice from one of the bowls into John’s food when he wasn’t looking. The river pirate’s first bite sent him into a fit of sneezing, his eyes watering from some allergy th
e vindictive Oorda had discovered. Crassmor, for his part, did his best to fill the gaps in John’s stumbling sallies to Arananth and duck both Oorda’s vitriol and her table scraps.
Arananth, a complete contradiction to her sister, ate quietly, spoke civilly to one and all, and was one of the few to escape Oorda’s wrath. She even seemed to listen seriously to some of John’s nonsense, possibly out of pity.
The blinking Fanarion did some minor magic—parlor tricks—pleasing most of those present, eliciting bursts of smoke and tongues of fire in diverse colors from the table lamps. Crassmor, familiar with this kind of prestidigitation, concluded after careful observation that Fanarion kept bags of fire granules in his billowing sleeves. It was plain, though, that Fanarion was adept; Crassmor was certain that the old man had real magic and potencies in reserve.
Oorda’s outbursts kept the subject of the love song from arising until Fanarion, flushed with pleasure at his ovation from John’s followers, called: “An ode celebrating your host, harper!”
Crassmor took his zither up with some misgiving. He pointed out, “I scarcely know enough about Lord John yet for a proper ballad.” It rather broke the unspoken rules of minstrelsy, making public the process of poetic refurbishment, as it were. But no one seemed to object to the prospect of hearing the truth and then having it prettied up before him. John’s flagging morale actually appeared to lift at the suggestion.
Crassmor settled his zither and struck a somewhat melodramatic chord. “The tale, then?”
John, brow working furiously, managed, “The king was off to the war; his brother ground us down. We banded together to help one another and ended up battling for our lives, hiding in the forest. Finally, the king came home.”
Frowning at the paucity of detail, Crassmor set up an irritated thrumming. This would be more difficult than the simple cobbling together of hyperbole. “So, now, let me see. You rallied the people around you, eh, John? Led the resistance, struck a blow for—”
“The lummox was merely the second-in-command,” Oorda sneered. John nodded and shrugged apologetically to Arananth. Crassmor wondered how Oorda had come by that information.
“But was loyal to his king,” the knight interposed, “who no doubt gave great praise and was thankful for such good faith.”
“The king went right back to squabbling and whoring, mostly overseas,” a woman’s gravelly voice testified from somewhere down the table.
“And got himself killed with an arrow at that bloody stupid siege at Chaluz,” a man added.
“And so his brother took over again,” John admitted. “He went straightway to mistreating us all, just as before. This time even the barons couldn’t stomach him. They upped and cornered him at Runnymede and forced a pact. He had to go easier on them, but things didn’t get much better for us. A few of us from the old days, and some new ones, we threw in together and went looking for a new start.”
Crassmor, interested now aside from the song, inquired, “And your former leader?”
“Had his lands and title back,” a one-eyed man answered, his black patch rimmed by burn-scar tissue. “What did Robin care for us?”
John’s head came up, anger lighting his face like a signal flare. “He had a wife and children and liegemen to think about!” The big man caught his temper; he finished more calmly. “It wouldn’t have been right for him to go outlaw again, so we never asked him. We just struck off into the forest and kept going. We met Fanarion wandering there and finally came upon this place.”
The old mage, leaning back for focusing distance, squinting through his thick spectacles, agreed. Crassmor wondered if this lot knew or cared that they were no longer in their home Reality.
John went on. “There were brigands here in those days, real ones who robbed and slew without mercy, not toll takers like us.”
Oorda said, “Fah!” but he ignored her.
“We took over and chased off the ones we didn’t kill in battle. Our toll is small, and we pay or trade for everything else we get. Now you can travel for a day in any direction and never fear. A toll’s not a lot to pay for that, is my thought on it.”
“And is a kidnapping toll taker any better than a murdering robber?” Oorda queried.
John made his answer to Arananth. “Maybe not. But we could be cast out of this place any time some noble took a fancy to it; that’s the way things have always gone for us. At least this way I shall have some legal claim, however slight.”
“Little good that will do you when you get what’s coming to you—and you will,” Oorda mocked.
John shot her a look that made even Oorda recoil for a moment. “What does that mean?” he asked quietly.
“I—nothing.”
Crassmor cursed the woman’s constant sniping; with a meaningless, goading phrase, she’d aroused all John’s suspicions. Now some of her spirit came back. “Are you afraid of mere words? Of a woman’s words?”
“Of anything that threatens us here,” he answered. “Fanarion! Place upon her your spell of veracity!”
The mage was adjusting his glasses nervously. With an indignant squawk, Oorda tried to bolt. John was there first, out of his seat and around Crassmor’s with remarkable agility, reaching with his long arms to clamp her into her seat. Crassmor shrank to one side to avoid the action.
Fanarion was quick to obey John’s order. Hand moving through mystical passes, he chanted in his high, rasping voice. The tips of his fingers had begun to glow. The other diners were silent, watching, even Arananth. Crassmor noticed that he himself was being watched, and more than one hand moved closer to a hilt.
The knight’s estimate of Fanarion’s abilities rose, as did his fear. The mage might have been extraordinarily fortunate in being able to call up the spell at once, or had come to the table prepared with it, or was a much better magician than he looked. Whatever the case, Crassmor had no desire to intervene and stayed still to avoid attracting attention.
Arananth made a little objection then, but was ignored. The Lord of John’s Winch was no lovelorn buffoon when it came to his people’s safety. The elder sister, for all her resentment and vigor, could do nothing to free herself. Her lurid invective stopped in mid-word as Fanarion leveled his splayed, shining fingers at her. “Let go of me, John, you sorry sack of horse—”
She was blank-eyed, enthralled. Crassmor hunched even farther away from her to stay clear of that invisible lane of enchantment crossing the table. John released Oorda, stepping away. Oorda sat silently. An aspect of the spell not without its appeal, Crassmor judged.
John moved around to stand next to Fanarion so that he could watch both Oorda and Crassmor. “What did you mean just now?” he asked the woman, with a distrustful glance for the knight. “What will I get that’s coming to me? What danger is there?”
“I know of none,” she responded, as in a dream. Fanarion, without taking his hand down, shrugged; it could only be truth. John’s confused glare went back to the pale, fretful Crassmor, who’d long since begun thinking about bolting for the door.
John sought Oorda’s testimony, still believing she knew of some threat. “What, then, of him whom you love?”
Her brows knitted as if in troubled sleep. “What of him?”
John’s voice rumbled throughout the hall. “He is here! Admit his name!”
The somniloquent answer came: “John of John’s Winch.”
Chapter 12
RESOURCEFUL
In the profound silence following Oorda’s admission, Crassmor heard several of his tablemates choking on their dinner. John was at a loss for words. Running a large hand through his unruly hair, he muttered, “But how… how—”
Since it wasn’t a proper question, Oorda was unresponsive. Arananth supplied, “She loves you, you ninny; no one can say how.”
“Why?” he asked, nonplussed. That was a question, right enough.
Oorda answered, “Because you look after your people and you care for them. You are kind of heart; that is a thing that does
not come easily to me. To me, you are heroic.”
She’s good at concealing these things, Crassmor commented to himself as he eyed the door.
John’s gaze went back to the knight. “And what of him, Morodo—or shall I say Sir Crassmor? Is he not your betrothed?”
“I have never seen him before today,” Oorda answered.
John’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll have the facts of this yet. Fanarion, here’s another one for your truth spell to—’ware! Catch him!”
Crassmor had leaped from his seat, but the folks of John’s Winch rose from theirs to apprehend him. Seeing the odds, he reversed direction and slipped back into the big stone chair, then dropped under the table as cries of alarm went up. He could hear Oorda, released from the spell, beginning a torrent of her choicer invectives.
There was much racing, shuffling, and scuffling around the table. The knight considered his course of action, telling himself, Prayer might be just the thing right now.
Just then Fanarion scrunched down in his seat across the way, fingers still splayed, seeking to bring his spell to bear. Before he could, the knight duck-walked and scrambled over to snatch the spectacles off Fanarion’s face. The old magician squeaked and began blinking blindly, the lights on his fingers dying as his concentration broke. He groped and bleated.
Crassmor heard others edging down under the table cautiously, and swords being drawn as well. He was reappraising the notion of surrender when inspiration hit him. Tucking the spectacles away in his doublet to forestall any more spell casting, he grabbed Fanarion’s right arm, quickly located the bags of fire granules sewn into the sleeve, and ripped out those he could reach.
John and several others were now behind Fanarion, struggling to help the old man and get at Crassmor. Sliding away from them a bit, the knight opened the bags’ drawstrings, leaned out from beneath the table, and hurled them up at a torch. The contents were dispersed as the bags flew; a fireball laced with bright, variegated sparks erupted outward from the torch to roll and spread along the ceiling, filling the hall with smells and dense, multicolored smoke which curled to engulf the room. There was screaming, along with coughing, gagging, and cries of “Fire!” “Help!” and “Murder!” Many weapons were dropped.