Upland Outlaws (19 page)

Shandie’s shoulders slumped. He rubbed his hands togetherhe was half frozen, of course, but the gesture made him seem curiously vulnerable and indecisive. Perhaps that was because he so seldom gestured. “You could be right, I suppose.”

“Of course I’m right!”

“But suppose it’s the other way? Suppose I was deluded by Raspnex and the faun on the boat, and now I’m away from them I’m starting to think straight again? How can I know which is right? ” His voice was a despicable whine, like a spoiled child’s.

For a moment Ylo was tempted. This was not his war, as Shandie had told him earlier. He was an insignificant pawn in the political game. He could abandon the cause, vanish into the teeming population of the Impire, and the Covin would never bother him. But if Shandie gave up without a fight and went back to court, then he would take Eshiala with him, and Ylo would never have a chance to enjoy the gorgeous body he had seen in the preflecting pool. That would not do.

“I’ll tell you how,” he said. “There is a way to test that! Let’s be on our way as we planned. In a week or so, we’ll have put some ground between us and Hub. We should be out of range of the Covin, and out of range of the faun and the warlock. Believe me, then you’ll be back to feeling as you did this morning.”

The imperor considered that, shivering convulsively. “I suppose you’re right. A big decision like that shouldn’t be taken hastily. “

Ylo breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Up you get. ” He cupped hands for the imperor’s muddy boot. “The first thing we need is a comfortable inn-a hot meal, a room, and a couple of warm girls! “

Shandie pulled a face as he took the reins. “One girl and two rooms.”

Wiping his hands on his cloak, Ylo turned away to mount the other horse. “You’re crazy and you always were crazy,” he muttered, but he made sure that Shandie did not hear him.

It was on a brisk winter morning, three days later, that King Rap caught himself whistling. Somewhat shaken by this discovery, he eventually decided that he was feeling almost maniacally cheerful. The faun in him took to a coach and four as his jotunn half took to ships, and a Krasnegarian could ignore the cold. He was far enough from Hub now to have escaped from the sprawl of satellite towns and rich-folk country mansions. The surrounding plains were lush with orchards and farms. He gloried in the scenery and fine weather-wind in his hair, sun on his back, ice crackling under the wheels, the stark beauty of branches against the frosty fields.

There was more to it than that, though. He was caught up in a sort of wicked juvenile glee at this mad adventure. Even a king could crave a change once in a while, and now he was a hunted outlaw. There could be no greater change than that. And his cause was just. If, by the grace of the Gods, Shandie and his tiny band of supporters could pull off the miracle they planned, they would have made a better world. If they failed-well, they would have tried. A man could take heart from that prospect, no matter how unlikely success might seem at the moment. With a little effort, Rap could probably recall some suitable proverb of his mother’s on the subject.

Thinking of his mother, though, brought on thoughts of prescience and young Gath, back in Krasnegar. That was not a cheerful topic. And he missed Inos as he would have missed both legs and an arm.

He had done well in his choice of horses, although the roan was weaker than the other three and might need to be traded off soon. They had a long way to go, so he was setting an easy pace for them. Who would question a faun driving a coach? He had thought to make himself some passable livery before leaving White Impress, so he looked the part.

At his back, the hatch clicked open. He twisted around to see Thinal’s gaunt face peering out like a ferret in a burrow. His nose was red with cold and the tip of it sparkled wetly.

“I’m hungry!” he complained. Whined.

Thinal was bored to distraction, that was the trouble with Thinal. Scenery and adventure held no interest for him. Nothing did, except extracting wealth from its rightful owners.

“Then you should have gotten up earlier and eaten breakfast,” Rap said crossly. He recognized the tone he used on Kadie at her worst, and stopped himself before he broke into a lecture on what happened to people who sat up until all hours gambling in bars. Admittedly Thinal had rattled the ambience very little, and he had won more than enough to pay for their joint board and lodgings. Gods knew how much he could have collected had he really tried.

“Wait an hour, and we’ll give the horses a rest.”

“You care more for them than you do for me!” Thinal snarled-which was perfectly true-and slammed the hatch shut on an obscenity.

Rap continued to drive on along the road, but his cheerful mood had dimmed. Obviously he was going to lose his traveling companion very soon, for Thinal would not endure much more bouncing around. A faun driving an empty carriage might be asked questions. Thinal himself Rap could do without, but he was potentially four other men, also, and they were handy accomplices in dangerous escapades, as experience had demonstrated, long ago. Pity!

At noon, Rap felt he had barely caught his second wind, but the horses needed a rest. He pulled into a stable yard in some anonymous little farming town. Only the great trunk roads of the Impire provided posting stations, and the inn he had chosen was a humble establishment. Thinal, the thief, stalked off in search of lunch, playing gentleman. The king of Krasnegar rubbed down the horses and saw to their needs. Fortunately his sense of humor was capable of appreciating the irony.

He joined the servants in the inn kitchen for a quick slab of cheese and rye bread, deflecting questions with vague tales of taking the master home for Winterfest. The only fauns who ever roamed the Impire were hostlers; despite his size, he was inconspicuous in that role. Nobody spoke of sorcery or politics or the new imperor, only the unusually cold weather and the price of grain. He was much more at home with these humble, honest folk than he was with royalty like Shandie. When the time came to dash out and rig up again, it seemed much too soon.

Thinal sauntered out, accompanied by a well-dressed middleaged couple-a portly, florid-face man and a lady even more so. Rap lowered the steps for them and held the door, keeping his face straight with extreme effort.

Thinal paused before following his guests into the coach. “Master Orbilo and his lady have kindly offered me hospitality for the night,” he explained airily. “Carry on along the river road and we’ll direct you where to turn off.”

“Yessir. ” Rap touched his cap in salute.

“We shan’t be going far out of our way,” Thinal added, his eyes glittering with mischief. “And, boy …”

“Yessir?”

“Remember what I said about tiring the horses, or it will go hard with you.”

“I’ll be very careful, sir.” The king of Krasnegar bowed respectfully. As he closed the carriage door, he said a prayer that Thinal would be able to restrain his larcenous instincts. A little finger work would do no harm, but he might attract occult attention if he started romancing these worthy citizens about his grandfather’s lost gold mine.

An hour or so later, the road came to a bridge. Rap reined in at the toll gate. At once a half-dozen legionaries appeared from nowhere to surround the carriage, and his heart began to thump with rare enthusiasm. They were looking at him, not the door, so their interest was in the driver, not the passengers. That was very bad news. He needed no occult talent to see the suspicion in their gaze. Zinixo controlled the Imperial army, and could have issued warrants for the arrest of all oversize fauns. Normally mundanes could be no threat to Rap, but the Covin would still be listening for any use of power near the capital.

The centurion drew his sword as his men took hold of the reins. “You, boy! Down!”

“Master?” Rap exclaimed, trying to look stupid, and thinking that it would be altogether appropriate under the circumstances. He began tying the reins, although legionaries were holding the lead pair’s cheek straps. He moved clumsily along the bench, taking his time so he could analyze the situation. The closer he could come to the centurion himself, the less power he would need to use to influence him. And then, amid the sparkle of sunlight on chain mail, he saw a faint shimmer of sorcery on the man.

It might be a loyalty spell, in which case he was one of the dwarf’s votaries. That seemed unlikely, for this was a very minor road, one of hundreds in the Capital District. Zinixo could not possibly have enough manpower to post sorcerers on them all. The centurion did not show in the ambience, not at the moment, so probably he was just a bespelled mundane. Rap dared not pry deeper, to discover what the magic did. It might make the wearer immune to mastery, or sound alarms if it was used near him, or … or … Holy Balance! Now what?

Then the side window of the carriage clicked open, revealing the rubicund face of Master Orbilo.

“What’s happening? Oh, it’s you, Uggleepe!” Startled, the centurion saluted._ “Uncle!”

“Well? What’s going on?”

“Just a routine check, sir.”

“Well, you’ve checked. You know me, I hope?”

“Of course, Uncle!”

“Good. Then clear the road. ” Orbilo disappeared. Uggleepe backed up quickly, sheathing his sword and shouting at his men to stand clear.

Saved! Rap climbed back on the box and took up the reins again. “Have a nice day, Centurion,” he murmured quietly. Thinal was going to be unbearable over this incident when he got Rap alone-bless him!

Shandie roused himself as if he had been riding in his sleep. He stared at the gates of the city ahead and then turned in the saddle to fix an angry gaze on Ylo.

“Newbridge?”

“That’s right.”

Apparently he was only now registering the bustle of traffic on the highway-coaches and wagons and groups of riders-and yet it had been all around him for the last half hour. “I thought we were going to stay on side roads and avoid crowds?”

“Where else can we cross the Ambly?” Ylo said patiently. “1 don’t fancy swimming it in this weather.”

“There are ferries!” Shandie’s eyes were dark slits of suspicion.

Ylo sighed. “We discussed this.”

“Discuss it again!”

“We agreed wed be more noticeable on a ferry than crossing a bridge in a crowd, and more easily remembered.”

“I don’t remember discussing that at all!”

“Well, we did. You don’t listen,”

Shandie grunted and fell silent, absently chewing a fingernail. Soon he seemed to sink back into the black brooding that occupied so much of his time now. Every day was worse than the one before. Distance had brought no lessening in the Covin’s hold over him; if anything, his doubts and depression were increasing. He rarely spoke, except when he had found yet another reason to turn back and surrender to the usurper. Hub was calling him, and either the call was growing stronger or his resistance was fading.

Ylo also was rapidly sinking into despair. He was exhausted by Shandie’s arguments, depressed by his lethargy, and worried sick by his unpredictable fits of temper. He hardly dared let the imperor out of his sight for fear the madman would disappear. Emshandar had died after a fifty-year reign, the wardens had been overthrown after three thousand-fine! Ylo could accept those changes as being no more unexpected than weather. But to find Shandie, of all people, behaving like a sulky child was enough to unseat the heavens. As well expect trees to walk or fish to sing.

Now came a new worry, for Newbridge was an obvious trap. Here the Great West Way crossed the mighty Ambly and here, surely, Zinixo would have sorcerers watching the traffic. As Ylo and his ward rode in through the gates, he offered a prayer that there would be safety in numbers.

Winterfest was coming and the Impire was on the move. Imps went home at Winterfest as bees sought their hives at sunset. Highways were solid with horses and carriages as half the population headed to family reunions with the other half. In the rainy gloom of a winter evening, Newbridge was packed. Immobilized traffic jammed the narrow streets. Angry coachmen shouted and argued, demanding right of way, proclaiming the importance of their passengers. Women and children wailed in fear as they were crushed tight by the press of the crowd. At the best of times this road would be shadowed, and now it was almost dark. Ylo struggled to keep his horse close to Shandie’s, aware that his legs were going to be black and blue from the battering they were taking.

“Yshan? “

The imperor grunted. “Humph? “

“If we get separated, wait for me at the North Gate. “

“Humph.”

“Crushed a couple of dozen yesterday,” a cheerful voice at Ylo’s elbow remarked.

He glanced around and decided he had never met the young man whose horse was crowding into his. Danger was making normally taciturn strangers talkative. “Should be able to do better than that if we try. “

The youngster sniggered nervously. “You’re not wearing spurs, are you? Saw a yokel back there with spurs on.”

“Ought to be a law,” Ylo agreed. One horse pricked unexpectedly could create a disaster. “What’s the delay?”

“The army tries to limit the numbers getting on the bridge. They don’t have much luck at this time of year. “

“They close down at sunset?”

“Uh-huh. Well, usually allow an hour or so longer. Frightened of a riot if they’re too early, my dad says.”

The crowd edged forward. Ylo urged his horse after Shandie’s. His new friend followed. He was obviously a local, probably an apprentice.

“Going far?”

“Mosrace. “

“You sure won’t make that by Winterfest.”

“At this rate I won’t make it by Harvesthome,” Ylo agreed, with a mental note to revise his cover story. Mosrace must be farther west than he’d thought.

Shandie glanced around. “Ylo?”

“Yes, Yshan?”

“The bridge here is too narrow. It needs widening. Remind me when we get back to Hub.”

Ylo sighed. “Yes, Yshan.”

Shandie set to work chewing another fingernail. “Who’s he?” asked the youngster. “Looks familiar.”

“Sh! He’s very sensitive about it.”

“Oh.”

Shandie might have passed through Newbridge a dozen times or so in the last few years. Once or twice he might have been conspicuous at the head of troops, but usually he would have been fast and anonymous, and his was not a memorable face. Almost certainly the boy was mistaking him for someone else altogether. The crowd surged forward a few paces and the talkative youth was detached. In a few moments Ylo found himself trading chaff with a buxom housewife looking out of a carriage window. She had a nice line in innuendos.

Nothing lasts forever, and eventually the crowd oozed out of the alleyway and onto the approach to the great Emthar II Bridge. There it slowed down. The bridge itself snaked away as a ribbon of darkness across the silvery brightness of water, and the far bank was invisible in the misty winter evening. Ylo was horrified when he saw how many guards there were. Perhaps they were only regulating traffic, but he suspected they were inspecting the travelers, as well. Nothing he could do about it now, though-with Shandie at his side, he was being borne forward by the crowd as irresistibly as a boulder on a glacier.

“Yyan!” Shandie exclaimed, jerking alert again. “I’ve got it!”

“Got what?”

“The real story! Listen to this. It was all the faun’s doing! Why didn’t we see how unlikely it was-that he would turn up on the very evening Grandsire died? That’s got to be more than coincidence!”

“I don’t see why. You suggesting he assassinated your grandfather?” Personally, Ylo could imagine no less likely murderer than King Rap.

“Possibly!” Shandie’s eyes were gleaming with excitement. “He used sorcery on Grandsire once before, remember! And got away with it! Then he faked that scene in the Rotunda. That wasn’t Raspnex we saw at all, it was the faun!”

Ylo groaned at this insanity. “Was he Grunth, as well?”

“Yes. No. She never spoke, remember? Just bowed. So she was merely a delusion. And so was the destruction of the four thrones. We were made to imagine that!”

Ylo could recall being hit by a flying rock, but he said nothing as the nonsense poured out—

“So the wardens knew nothing of what was going on! Rap’s an enormously powerful sorcerer, remember. He lured us away to Sagorn’s house …” Shandie paused, frowning. Then he beamed. “Lured us away with fake memories of a preflecting pool, of course. Obviously that whole business never happened! We were given false memories of it, that’s all. I mean, is it likely? Magic pools just lying around? For half a year we do nothing about those supposed prophecies, and then we manage to track down Sagorn in a couple of hours?”

“We saw Rap and Raspnex there together, ” Ylo said wearily. “You suggesting that the dwarf was a sort of ventriloquist’s dummy?”

He should have known that logic wouldn’t work. “Certainly!” Shandie shouted. “I hadn’t thought of that. Brilliant! ” He went on to explain how the faun was trying to lure him away to Krasnegar-for reasons he had not worked out yet-and how the wardens were trying to cover for him, hiding his disappearance with the help of Cousin Emthoro and Duchess Ashia, of course, and there was no Usurper Zinixo, it was all just a story the faun had made up …

When he ran down at last like a dried-out water clock and said, “Well, what do you think?” Ylo realized that they were in the middle of the river, halfway across the bridge, and had safely passed the guards.

In a spasm of relief, he threw caution to the crows. “I’ve seen lots more attractive stuff on barn floors,” he sneered, and took the rest of the crossing to tear the imperor’s absurd fantasy to fragments.

Shandie went into a sulk after that. For an hour he said nothing at all, just trailed after Ylo as he scoured the northern half of Newbridge for a vacant bed. When the search at last turned up a grubby little inn, he did not comment on it. The stable was already crowded, and no grooms were available to attend to the horses. Still Shandie said nothing. He dismounted in silence, handed his reins to Ylo, and began pacing up and down, brooding.

Normally Ylo enjoyed horses, but he was weary and hungry, and would have appreciated some help. The change in his companion frightened him, but it also annoyed him. He detested being thrust into leadership over a man he had followed so faithfully. He had not expected this responsibility, or asked for it, and he resented it strongly. He placed himself in Shandie’s path.

“Here!” he said, waving the key. “You’d better take possession of the room, or we may find half a cohort asleep in our bed when we get there. Take the packs. Number seven. “

He stopped in horror, realizing he had just given orders to the imperor. Yet Shandie did not protest. He wandered off, trailing the saddlebags. Snorting with either relief or disgust-he was not sure which-Ylo grabbed up some straw and went back to polishing sweaty horsehide.

The sun set. When he finally plodded up the creaky stairs, he discovered the key in the door, and the room empty. To be exact, he found no imperors in it. The one bed nearly filled the tiny space, the only other furniture being a very spotty mirror bolted to the wall and a large china chamber pot, equally unprepossessing.

For a moment he almost panicked. Shandie could not have gone anywhere without the horses, and he had not come out to the yard to use the privy. Could he have been kidnapped?

The saddlebags had been stuffed down between the bed and the far wall. Underneath them was Shandie’s satchel, containing the king’s letters to Krasnegar and the supply of gold. Obviously Shandie had taken leave of his senses altogether if he had left the gold unguarded. If that was ever lost, everything would be lost.

After locking the door and looping the satchel over his shoulder, Ylo went clattering back downstairs. The saloon was crammed, noisy, and dim. There were no spare seats, and so many men standing that there was barely room to move. He hunted around, with no success. He went outside and searched the stables, the privies, the yard, even the street. With any other man, he would have suspected a girl and a bed, but not Shandie.

Now what was he supposed to do? Rouse the city guard to hunt for a missing imperor?

Fatigue forgotten and fear a bitter taste in his mouth, Ylo went back to the bedroom and began all over again. When he reached the saloon, he set out to quarter it methodically, squeezing around crowded tables and between loud huddles of men locked in argument. Eventually he found his quarry slumped on a solitary stool in a corner, gazing solidly at the wall. He clutched a tankard of bad-smelling beer with both hands. It had to be badsmelling beer if it was the same stuff that made the room stink as it did.

Ylo managed to ease in beside him and kneel down, almost leaning on him.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded. “You sick?”

The imperor looked around slowly and stared at him with an expression of distaste. He muttered, “Uomaya!” and took a leisurely draft from his tankard.

“What about her?”

“What about her?” Shandie mumbled. “What sort of man deserts his child and runs away just because a dwarf says to, huh?”

“Whileboth’s faster,” said a harsh military voice at Ylo’s back.

“Poor little Maya!” Shandie moaned. “I left my baby!”

“Whileboth and the Ister valley and then Mosrace.”

Mosrace?

That was where Ylo had been telling people he was heading. He choked off what he had been about to say so he could listen. In the clamor of voices all around, he did not make out an answer, but then the nearest man spoke again.

“Naw, too hilly. And not Lipash township neither. Roads’ll be waist-deep in mud this time of year. “

Ylo relaxed. Nothing to do with him, just a party of legionaries heading home on Winterfest leave, obviously. Mosrace was a largish place, so its mention was merely coincidence. He returned his attention to Shandie and the wild, bitter look in the coal-black eyes.

“You left the baggage unattended!”

“Should have stayed in Qoble, stayed with the legion. Deserted my post. Not fit to be an imperor.”

“Tell me what I can do to help. “

Shandie raised his stein to drink. Ylo thought he was not going to get a reply, then it, came. “Tell me what you’ve done so far. “

“Huh?”

The dark eyes narrowed. “What’s in this for you, Signifer? You’ve never been an idealist before. You only care about the itch in your crotch. Why should you suddenly start acting hero?”

For a moment Ylo wanted to make a stupid retort about being the only man in the army entitled to wear a white wolfskin. Then he remembered that he had earned that honor by accident, and Shandie knew that. All right, so he wasn’t a hero. He’d never said he was.

And Shandie went on. “Who bought you, Signifer? What were you promised?”

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about!”

“Don’t you? You expect me to believe all this puke about covins and almighty sorcerers?”

“You don’t? “

Shandie smiled slyly into his tankard. “No, I don’t! Not now. Oh, they fooled me to start with, that dwarf, that faun. Now I see it was all a plot! They’ve stolen me away from my throne with their feathery tales of millennia and votaries! And I don’t think you believe it, either-I think you’re one of them! “

God of Madness! The Covin was winning, distance had not helped.

“Er, your wife believed in it.”

“Ha! What do women know of politics, huh?”

Plenty, in Ylo’s extensive experience of pillow talk, and they were usually a great deal more astute at judging men. For him to bring Eshiala into the conversation with Shandie in his present mood might provoke all sorts of unfounded suspicions. So”Maybe you’re right! What do you think we ought to do?” Shandie blinked at this sudden capitulation. Odd twitches of expression flickered uncertainly over his face. Then he drained his tankard and lowered it with a gasp. He wiped his lips on his sleeve. “Go home, of course! Go back to Hub and do my duty. Catch all the liars and hang ‘em from the flagpole.”

Ylo needed a sorcerer, quickly. He needed help and he certainly needed advice. If Shandie persisted in these delusions, he might take off back along the Hub road like a madman. He might do worse-he might just give himself up to the local authorities. Why had the faun or the warlock not foreseen that this might happen? Just as it had in inventing the imposter imperor now reigning in Hub, the Covin had pulled a trick the godly had not anticipated. What evilish horror might it play next?

If Shandie could be taken into a shielded refuge like White Impress, then he might recover. Maybe. But a mundane like Ylo had no means to locate such shielding. If he could lay his hands on the magic scrolls he could ask the sorcerers for advice, but the scrolls were in Shandie’s pocket. To ask for them would only fan the madman’s suspicions-perhaps he could try to steal them in the night. A reply might not come for days, though.

“Can’t go anywhere tonight,” Ylo said, smitten with sudden inspiration. “They close the bridge at sunset.”

Shandie grunted. He was still staring at his companion with undisguised suspicion. The legionaries’ ‘geographical dispute was growing louder in the background.

“I don’t think we’ll get any food here,” Ylo continued. “And it would be old and ill-treated if we could. We’ve still got some apples and stuff in the packs. Why don’t we go and have a snack and then make an early night of it?” He was talking too fast, almost babbling.

“What, no wench tonight?”

“Same argument as the food. “

“It’s never stopped you before.” Shandie was not so far out of his mind that he had lost his shrewdness. If anything, his crazy suspicions would make him even harder to deceive than usual, and marble was malleable compared to Shandie.

“I’ll have two tomorrow to make up,” Ylo said, wishing he could wipe the sweat off his face without drawing attention to it. “Come on. This place makes me ill.”

Shandie reluctantly put his tankard down among the boots around him and rose to his feet. He swayed, steadying himself with a hand on the wall. “You’re right,” he muttered. “Hard day.”

It had not been a hard day at all. They had covered less than fifteen leagues, which was as much as they dare ask of the horses on these roads. Shandie had been known to ride three times that far in a day, often.

Then he sat down again, heavily. “Get me ‘nother beer.” This unshaven, unkempt wastrel was a far cry from the dapper prince Ylo had served so long. He was either a very sick man or he was drunk. The idea of Shandie drunk was unthinkable, but then this whole experience was unthinkable.

“You’ve had enough beer, Yshan.”

“Am not Yshan!” Shandie roared, coloring. “I’m done with your stupid games! From now on I’m not hiding who I am, and I’m going back to my palace, and I’m not going to Mosrace, and I’ll not believe all that evilish nonsense about threats to the Impire! “