The Warlock in Spite of Himself - Warlock 01 (10 page)

Catharine's voice crackled, into the uproar. 'Enough! Be still!'

Slowly, one by one, the Great Lords fell into sullen silence and sank back into their seats, glaring.

But their councillors' faces seemed lit with a suppressed joy; their eyes were burning, and each face held a smile just short of a grin.

'I have spoken,' Catharine said, voice and eyes bath chill. 'It shall be done.'

Trembling, the old Lord Loguire rose. Will your Majesty not-'

'I will not.'

Brom O'Berin cleared his throat. 'If your Majesty will permit-'

'I will not.'

Silence sat over the council chamber. Once again. Catharine surveyed the faces of her lords and their councillors.

Then, turning to her left, she bowed her head. 'My lord Loguire.'

The old nobleman rose, his jaw clamped tight under the grizzled beard, his liver-spotted fist palsied with barely-held anger. He drew back the great, gilded chair, and Catharine rose. He stepped back to his place. Catharine turned away, and the great oak doors were thrown wide. Guardsmen fell in before and behind her. She paused in the doorway, and turned. 'Consider, my Lords,' she said,

'and consent; for you cannot stand against me.'

The great doors slammed behind her.

The council chamber burst into pandemonium.

'Oh, come off it! It's the classic pattern, right down to the last look of outrage!'

His day's duty done, Rod was riding Fess back to the inn, bent on picking up a little gossip and a lot of beer. Big Tom was tending the home fires at the Royal Castle, with orders to keep his ears open for juicy tidbits of information.

'I disagree, Rod. It's the classic pattern with something added.'

'Bull! It's a simple, premature attempt at centralization of authority. She's trying to unify Gramarye under one law and one ruler, instead of twelve near-independent dukedoms. This business with the judges is that, and nothing more. Five'll get you ten some of those dukes have been playing god on their estates, forcing half the women to sleep with them and over-taxing everybody and anything else that occurred to them. Catharine's a reformer, that's all; she's trying to cure all the evils she can find by making herself the only law in Gramarye

- and she won't make it. The noblemen just won't stand for it. She might have gotten away with the judges; but this business with the priests'll bring on a rebellion for sure. Priests have more influence over the people than any other officials in this kind of society. If she makes them responsible to her, and only her, she's really pulling the noblemen's teeth, and they know it. And they won't give up without a fight.'

'So far, I'll agree with you,' the robot said. 'So far, it is the classic pattern, closely resembling the attempt of the English King John to centralize his nation before 'such a project could succeed.'

'Yes.' Rod nodded. 'And we can hope that, like King John's noblemen, the great dukes will insist on a Magna Carta.'

'But...'

Rod assumed a look of martyr-like patience. 'But what, Fess?'

'But there is a foreign element: a group of councillors to the Great Lords, a group that seems to be very cohesive.'

Rod frowned. 'Well, yes. There is that.'

'And from what you tell me of the scene after Catharine left...'

'Yii!' Rod shuddered. 'It was just as though she'd thrown down a gauntlet, and all the dukes were out to see who'd get the honor of taking it up. The girl might know some elementary political science, but she sure doesn't know any diplomacy! She was just daring them to fight her!'

'Yes, and the councillors were egging them on very nicely -each one councilling his Lord not to fight, because he was too weak. . . and then telling them that if he must fight, he'd better ally with the other lords, because each was too weak to stand alone. Expert use of reverse psychology. One would almost think the councillors were out to eliminate central authority completely.'

'Yes . . .' Rod frowned, musing. 'That's not quite normal to this kind of society, is it, Fess?'

'No, Rod. The theory of anarchy does not usually arise until the culture has attained a much higher degree of technology.'

Rod chewed at his lip. 'Outside influence, maybe?'

'Perhaps. And that brings us to the popular totalitarian movement: another anomaly. No, Rod, this is not the classic pattern.'

'No, dammit. We've got three groups contending for power: the peasants, the dukes and their councillors, and the Queen and whoever supports her. That support seems to be limited to Brom O'Berin at the moment.'

'Totalitarians, anarchists, and the Queen in the middle,' Fess murmured. 'Which one do you support, Rod?'

'Catharine, dammit!' Rod grinned. 'I'm out to plant the seeds of democracy; and it looks like the only chance to do that is to engineer a constitutional monarchy.'

'I might be mistaken,' Fess murmured, 'But I do believe you're delighted to find you must support her.'

Around them the few lights were dimmed by the night mist, a wall of fog thirty feet away. Rod rode alone through a world of smoke; Fess's hooves rang strangely weird in the echoing silence. A long yell split the night, followed by the slapping clash of swords.

'A rescue, a rescue!' a young voice cried.

Rod froze, hand on the pommel of his sword; then he dug his heels into Fess's metal sides, and the great black horse sprang toward the ruckus. A torch smoldered red through the fog at the mouth of an alley. There, under its smoky light, one man battled three, his back against the wall. Rod bellowed and landed horse and all in the middle of the melee. He laid about him with the flat of his sword, howling like an Indian studying to be a Confederate soldier. He yanked the dagger from the small of his back, just in time to catch a rapier coming at him from his left. His own sword swung in an arc over his head and clashed against steel as his opponent caught the blow.

Then steel points were jabbing up at him like sawgrass. Rod was forced back on the defensive, swatting the blades aside. But the intended victim let loose a yell that would have shamed a banshee and waded in from the rear.

All at once the three swords fell away, their owners pelting down the alley. Rod sat a moment dazed; then he yelled and Fess sprang after the retreating figures.

But they gained the dark at the end of the alley and when Rod caught up, the stones were empty. It was a dead end; they had gone through one of the shadowed, evil-smelling doorways.

Their would-be victim came running up behind, looked about, and panted.

'Gone, and no use to seek them further. They'll be five leagues away in as many minutes.'

Rod swore and slapped his sword back into its scabbard. He winced, and touched his forearm gingerly; one of the rapier points had slashed through his doublet and sliced his skin.

He turned to the stranger. 'You all right?'

The young man nodded, sheathing his sword.

Rod looked down into an open, snub-nosed, blue-eyed face with a grin that flashed white through the fog. The cheekbones were high, and the eyes large and wide, with a look of innocence. Blond hair was cropped round in a bowl cut. It was a young, inexperienced, very handsome face

- Rod felt a surge of resentment.

He swung down from his horse. The top of the youth's head was about on a level with Rod's eyes; but what the boy lacked in height, he made up in bulk. A barrel chest swelled into bull shoulders, a good six inches wider than Rod's. The arms would have looked more appropriate on a bear or gorilla; and the legs were two small tree trunks, rammed into narrow hips.

He wore a leather jerkin over a white shirt, a wide black belt, hose, and high, soft boots.

He frowned, seeing the blood on Rod's sleeve. 'You're hurt.' Rod snorted. 'A scratch,' he said, and fumbled in Fess's saddlebag for an antiseptic bandage. He wound the bandage around his forearm, threw the youth a bard grin. 'You can pay the tailor bill, though.'

The boy nodded, blue eyes sober. 'That will I gladly; for they would have cut my heart out, had it not been for your timely rescue. Tuan McReady stands in your debt.'

Rod looked him up and down, nodding slowly. A good kid, he thought. He held out his hand. 'Rod Gallowglass, at your service; and there's no debt involved. Always glad to help one against three.'

'Ah, but debt there is!' said the boy, clasping Rod's hand with a grip like a sentimental vise. 'You must, at the least, let me buy you a tankard of ale!'

Rod shrugged. 'Why not? I was on my way to an inn just now, anyway; come on along!'

To his surprise, Tuan hesitated. 'By your leave, good Master Gallowglass . . . there is only one house in this town where I am welcomed. All others have known my custom of old, and' -the round face suddenly broke into a grin - 'my manner of living does not please the peaceful and proper.'

Rod grimaced, nodding. 'Post jocundum juventutem. Well, one inn's as good as another, I guess.'

The route to Tuan's inn was somewhat out of keeping with his well-bred looks. They dodged down two dark alleys, wriggled through a weathered brick wall, and came out in a wide, moonlit courtyard that had been elegant in its day. That day must have been a century or two in the past. The remains of a fountain burbled in the center of cracked flagstones, sending up a stench redolent of primitive plumbing. Weeds, themselves in a state of dire poverty, poked through the paving everywhere. The brick of the walls was cracked and split, the mortar crumbling. Heaps of garbage lay by the walls and in the corners, with stray mounds of refuse here and there about the yard. The inn itself was a rotting granite block with tumbledown eaves. The overhanging second storey was propped up with roughhewn timbers, not to be trusted due to the infirmities of age. The windows were boarded over, the boards split, moldy, and fungoid. The massive oak door was the only sound piece of wood in sight, and even it was sagging.

'Ah, they tolerate your behavior here?' Rod asked, surveying the stagnant courtyard as Tuan knocked on the door with the hilt of his dagger.

'Tolerate, yes,' said Tuan, 'though even their hospitality is sometimes strained.'

Rod felt a chill between his shoulder blades and wondered just what kind of mild-mannered youth he'd run into.

Tuan knocked again. Rod wondered that he expected an answer; not a gleam of light showed through the sagging window boards. By the look of it, the place must be totally deserted.

But the door began to move, and groaned that it was going on strike for an oil break, till it was open just wide enough to admit the two men.

'Your host,' said Tuan cheerily, 'the Mocker.'

A gnarled, hunched, desiccated travesty of a human being peered around the door, making gobbling sounds in its throat. One ear was cauliflower, and the other was gone; a few strands of greasy hair straggled over a scabby skull. The nose was bulbous, the mouth a slash in a mass of warts, the eyes malevolent, gleaming slits. It was dressed in a collection of tatters and patches that might once have laid claim to being a doublet and hose, sagging badly on the scarecrow figure. The troll scurried away into the foul-smelling dark of its lair. Tuan strode through the door, following. Rod took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and looked back over his shoulder to make sure Fess was still standing there, by the fountain, head lowered in a good imitation of a horse grazing. For a moment, Rod envied the robot his ability to cut off his olfactory receptors.

Then, lifting his chin, he followed Tuan into the inn. The door ground shut behind him; there was a scurrying sound as the Mocker ran ahead to open another door.

This one opened easily, slammed back against the wall, flooding them with a blaze of torchlight and gales of coarse, bawdy laughter. Rod stared.

They stepped through the door, and Rod looked about him. It was a great common room, with four roaring open fires and score upon score of torches bracketed along the walls. Roasting meat hung over the fires; waiters wove their way through the crowd with tankards of ale and wine from two huge, flowing kegs that dominated the far side of the room. The clientele were the lees of the city. Their clothes were crusted, patched castoffs. Their bodies bore the marks of primitive justice: this one was missing an ear, that one an eye. Their faces were disfigured and scarred by disease. Yet here in their own den they roared merrily, all of them grinned, though malice glinted in their eyes as they looked at Rod.

But the malice faded, was transmuted into something almost like worship, as they looked at young Tuan.

'It is said,' and the boy smiled, 'that there is no honor among thieves; but there is at least kinship here, among the beggars of Gramarye. Welcome, Rod Gallowglass, to the House of Clovis.'

The hair at the base of Rod's skull prickled. He remembered the torchlight mob he had seen on the waterfront the night before. His eyes widened; he stared at Tuan. He couldn't be. He couldn't be. Oh, but he could. Yes, he could.

Tuan McReady was the young rabble-rouser who'd been haranguing the mob to march on the castle.

This apple-cheeked, wholesome youth was top rat in the local sewer. The crowd broke into a raucous, cheering clamor, welcoming their Galahad. Tuan grinned and waved. A slight flush crept up from his collar. He seemed almost embarrassed by the reception. He led Rod to a dark corner at the back of the hall. He hadn't said a word to the Mocker, but two steaming mugs of mulled wine thumped down on the table almost as they sat. The landlord scuttled away without pay. Rod watched him go, one eyebrow lifted in cynicism. He turned to Tuan.

'You don't use money here?'

'None.' Tuan smiled. 'All who come to the House of Clovis bring what little money they have. It is put into a common chest, and meat and wine given out to all according to their needs.'

'And a place to sleep, I suppose?'

'Aye, and clothing. It is poor fare by a gentleman's standards; but it is great wealth to these my poor brethren.'

Rod studied Tuan's face and decided the boy might have meant it when he said brethren.

He sat back and crossed his legs. 'Would you call yourself a religious man?'