A Minstrel’s Quest (The Trouble with Magic Book 4) (29 page)

Corlin’s had worn thin some time ago, so he had to bite his tongue when Karryl flashed him a little grin. “Not much longer now.” He turned to the other magician. “Will you complete please, Cadomar? I think everything is satisfactory.”

Cadomar, unlike Karryl, performed his magic with accompanying gestures, which all seemed rather dramatic and unnecessary to Corlin, but even so, it seemed to be having an effect. The weight which had been bearing down on his staff seemed to lessen, and he breathed a huge sigh of relief as, after one final dismissive gesture, Cadomar gave an assertive nod and stepped back.

Karryl reached out and lifted the section of frame off Corlin’s outstretched staff. “Thank you Corlin. You have, I believe, saved us no end of trouble.”

With the staff’s brass ferule now lodged firmly on the ground, Corlin leaned heavily and jerked his head in Cadomar’s direction. “It wasn’t
all
me. Thank the man who made the staff in the first place.”

Karryl gave a knowing smile. “All in due course. Cadomar has something else to do now, and so do we.” He looked intently at his fellow magician. “No need to ask that you do your best, my friend. We shall meet again shortly in Tregwald, all being well.”

The corner of Cadomar’s wide mouth twitched. “For the time being, let us hope that Duke Alexander is in a receptive mood.”

As the magician vanished in a swirl of green and violet, Karryl slipped the brown canvas bag off Corlin’s shoulder, carefully placed the section of clock frame inside and tied the neck.

He placed his hand on the minstrel’s arm. “At last, all the pieces are together. Now, it remains to discover what may result from their eventual assembly. Shall we go?”

Corlin nodded, and seconds later he and Karryl were once again in the pleasantly pungent warmth of Megan’s stable. The grey mare gave him her usual greeting, and Corlin quickly placed a hand over her nose to quieten her as Luma trod excited circles in the straw. There was no sign of troops or housecarls but he wasn’t taking any chances. He was busy securing the bag containing the clock to the saddlebow when he realised that his gimalin was still in Duke Alexander’s apartment in the castle. Almost as if the man had been reading his thoughts, a minute later Cadomar hurried in with the instrument under his arm.

He thrust it into Corlin’s hands. “I sneaked this out earlier. I don’t think the duke has missed it yet. Now I must go.”

Before Corlin could even say “Thank you”, Cadomar was hurrying out again. With his staff wedged under the stirrup flaps, and the gimalin behind the cantle, Corlin lifted the faithful hound and perched him on the saddle. He turned to see Karryl waiting patiently.

Placing one hand on Megan’s neck and the other on Corlin’s shoulder, Karryl raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Are you ready?”

Corlin nodded, and returned a tight smile, but couldn’t help shivering as the scene around him dissolved into a thick dark grey fog.

To Corlin’s surprise they materialised, not in Castle Tregwald as he had anticipated, but at the edge of a small wood, surrounded by fields of emerging crops. The rain had cleared and a new moon hung low in a sky, its sparse light catching the edges of fast moving streaks of cloud.

Corlin looked around. “Where are we?”

Karryl pointed away to their left. “About three miles in that direction is the city of Tregwald. From here we can get to the city’s south wall and approach the castle from that direction. If we had suddenly emerged in the castle keep, or in the immediate vicinity, things could have been awkward to say the least, particularly if Lord Treevers has scouts spying out the lie of the land.”

He moved round to Megan’s left side and grasped her lead rein. “Now, while we go, tell me what you remember of the castle.”

The minstrel chuckled. “That won’t take long.”

Karryl listened with interest, walking beside Megan, while Luma coursed the ground for nocturnal rodents and Corlin described the sad, neglected pile of which Duke Ergwyn had lately been lord. Once he had told all he could remember, the two men fell to discussing Ergwyn’s state of mind and what circumstances could have conspired to cause him to plead poverty, and so cause the castle to fall into disrepair.

The sight of the city walls stirred a memory in Corlin, and he told Karryl about the old woman selling walnuts, the advice she had given him and how the walnuts had turned into silver pieces sometime during his journey to Tallard. Although he seemed interested, even intrigued, Karryl had little to say about the incident, and apart from one or two passing comments the only sound was the gentle clop of Megan’s hooves echoing as the two men made their way along the packed stone road which followed the line of the wall and past the city.

Each man lost in his own thoughts, neither made any comment as Tregwald’s dark bulk came into view. No sooner had it appeared than the stink of the marshes swirled around them, borne on a thick fog that deadened sound and obscured all sight of their surroundings. Corlin hunched his body and squirmed in the saddle. He felt uneasy and uncomfortable, even though he was no stranger to fog. The WestLands were renowned for their thick fogs which sometimes lasted for days, but this particular fog felt different.

He glanced down at the Mage Prime striding along beside him. “This isn’t real fog, is it?

Karryl shook his head. “Not in the way you mean. It’ll seem real enough to Lord Treevers’ scouts though, and will give us cover to enter Tregwald unseen.”

In an effort to ease the grip of the heavy mood pressing down on him, Corlin swiped at the illusory fog. “Let’s hope we don’t go straight past it!”

Karryl chuckled. “It’s a determinate spell, so if we do we’ll be caught out in the open, with not a wisp of fog to be seen.”

Another thought occurred to Corlin and he was unable to leave the question unasked. “Why didn’t you just move us straight into the castle keep, like you moved us from Tallard?”

The fog was not thick enough to obscure the magician’s wry smile. “If I had, we would probably have found ourselves stuck with arrows like a cloved ham, and no questions asked. These are nervous times, and bowmen will have itchy fingers. Not only that, it would have been considered extremely poor etiquette and would not reflect well on the royal household.”

Temporarily unnerved by the thought of being shot full of arrows, Corlin’s spirits rose again as he caught a whiff of something more homely and appealing than the stink of rotting vegetation blown across from the marshes. He could smell food and wood-smoke. When, a few minutes later, he was confronted by the imposing and daunting bulk of a massive gatehouse and solidly built sentry rampart, he suspected that somehow Karryl had been tinkering with time, just a little. That came as no surprise. What did surprise him was the sight of the heavy, iron-hinged and studded gates which now hung straight and forbidding within their broad stone frame. Halfway across the bridge, he reined in and looked down. The trees which had waved their branches up at him the last time he crossed the bridge had gone, along with the grass, weeds and rubbish which had so recently populated the broad moat. Now, dark water glinted below him, cold and intimidating.

Karryl strode across the bridge and struck the solid timber three times with his fist. The sound boomed over the deep curtain walls and across the outer bailey as the wicket in the gate was slid back.

A disembodied snarl shot through the opening. “Who goes there? State your business.”

The unfamiliar voice that came from Karryl’s mouth was deep, resonant and uncompromising. “Open the gate and admit the Mage Prime, special ambassador from Vellethen and envoy to Jouan, Earl of Tregwald. Also admit the minstrel and quester Corlin Bentfoot.” As the wicket was slammed shut and the sound of running feet and raised voices drifted towards them, the magician looked back and gave Corlin a broad grin. “That should do it.”

A minute or two later, the wicket’s sharp clatter was followed by the scrape and thump of the heavy timber bar being lifted away from the gates. The massive wooden barriers swung back and Karryl strode through with Corlin riding a couple of paces behind, a dozen questions tumbling around in his brain. Rather incongruously, the one foremost in his mind was whether all magicians could change their voice at will. It was only when Karryl brought them to a stop at another pair of massive gates that Corlin found himself with something equally intriguing on which to focus. He was certain that when he was previously at Tregwald, there was only one pair of ramshackle gates, hanging precariously on rusted hinges, broken and decaying teeth left to guard the West wall entrance as best they may. Now, if the length of the passage between the two pairs of gates was to be believed, the castle’s curtain wall had been reinforced, and widened by about fifty feet.

Corlin wasn’t certain how long ago he had left Tregwald, but he
was
certain that it was not humanly possible to achieve that amount of reconstruction in the time. As the two men waited for the second pair of doors to be opened from the inside, Corlin glanced around at the passage walls. High up near the point where the curve of the ceiling began, he noticed bluish-white spots and streaks glinting in the light of the gatekeepers’ lamps. The minstrel’s skin crawled. It was not the first time he had seen spots and streaks like those. He was about to draw Karryl’s attention to the un-nerving traces, when the doors swung back and the two men moved forward into the wide bailey, now clear of weeds and grass, with no hint of the neglect it had so recently suffered. At the entrance to the keep on the far side of the yard, stood Jouan, a man at arms standing at each side of him.

Beneath the light of a single lantern suspended from a high arch he made an impressive figure, far removed from the diffident trooper Corlin had met on the road to Redmire. He hurried forward as Corlin dismounted.

With barely a glance at the minstrel, or at the lop-eared hound at his side, the new lord of Tregwald strode up to the Mage Prime and made a brief but respectful bow, before straightening up and holding out his hand. “Master Karryl. You are most welcome. This castle is honoured by your visit, but we all wish it could have been in less troubled times.”

He turned to Corlin and gave him a broad grin. “It would seem that we have both survived things unexpected and challenging since we last met. I look forward to hearing an account of your exploits and experiences.” He looked at each of them in turn. “I think there will be more surprises, and challenges thrown down before too many days have passed.” He gestured towards the keep. “Now it’s time to eat and relax for a while, and bring ourselves up to date. Then we can work out how we are going to deal with that fox Treevers. Let’s get inside before that stinking marsh fog creeps over us.”

Karryl gave a knowing smile and shook his head. “That won’t come any further. I can guarantee it.”

Jouan tilted his head, his smile equally knowing, as the little group made their way towards the keep. “Ah. I see. It’s one of
those
fogs, is it?”

A gesture to the far side of the bailey brought a stable-hand hurrying over to take Megan’s reins, ready to lead her across to the stable-block. Holding up a hand to delay him for a moment, Corlin unhitched his gimalin from behind the saddle’s cantle, and unstrapped his staff.

As the minstrel slung the instrument over his back and let the staff take some of his weight, the stable-hand eyed the gimalin and jerked a thumb towards it. “You’re the quester then? Him what played for the old duke?”

Corlin nodded and grimaced as he turned away and hurried after Karryl and Jouan. “ ’Fraid so. Looks like the trouble isn’t over yet.”

With Luma staying close to the grey mare, the young man began to lead Megan away, and called over his shoulder. “It’s still here y’know; that gimalin. Nobody wanted to touch it. ‘Tis down in the cellars now, or so I’ve ‘eard.”

His curiosity piqued, Corlin hung back, leaning on his staff until magician and earl had reached the far side of the keep. He was, and not for the first time, feeling that current events had no real relevance to his quest. War plans were something about which he knew little or nothing, and he was quite content to let Karryl and Jouan carry on, as long as they left him out of it. If he was being honest with himself he would have admitted he was in a quandary. He had all the parts of the clock, and he was quite prepared to admit that he could not have done it alone, but as far as he was concerned, all he had to do was hand it over to Lord Treevers, and Clies would be free. What happened to Treevers after that, Corlin cared little. Unfortunately the blasted man had moved the barrels, and the game had changed. Now it looked as if Corlin was being drawn inexorably into a serious situation in which he would much rather have no part. He was certain that Treevers’ imminent bid for Castle Tregwald, its lands and holdings, had nothing to do with him. On an impulse, he turned away from the entrance to the keep and started to make his way across the bailey after the stable-hand.

He was halfway across when a voice he could never forget called to him from the shadows. “I was wondering when you’d get here.”

Although the voice was instantly recognisable, the figure that stepped forward into the lamplight was far less so. The burden of soft flesh which the stocky frame had once borne had been replaced by firm well-toned muscle, while the contours of the chubby face were now clearly defined, yet still served to frame the same self-assured grin.

Corlin stared. “Blood and thunder! What happened to you?”

Otty’s grin widened as he struck a pose, flexing his biceps and strong well-defined thigh muscles. “Simple really. The Grollarts put me to work, kept me off the beer, and fed me good food.” His grin disappeared. “It wasn’t easy, mind. There were a few times when I thought they were trying to kill me.” The grin crept back. “It was worth it though.”

He bounded forward, and the two men clasped arms as they looked each other up and down. The minstrel quickly realised that if the Grollarts had not only knocked Otty into shape, but taught him to handle himself as well, then he could prove to be either extremely useful or downright dangerous.

Pushing that last disturbing thought to the back of his mind, Corlin waved a hand in the general direction of the keep. “So, how long have you been here?”

His companion looked around, placed a hand on Corlin’s shoulder and began to steer him towards the stable block. Keeping his voice low, he leaned closer. “Me and Egg got here very early yesterday morning. I’m not sure how, ‘cos one minute we were on that ledge on the Grollarts’ mountain, and the next we were less than half a mile from the East gate. Next thing I knew, there were gallopers heading straight for me and I was arrested and bundled in here. Then Earl Jouan stepped in and sorted things out. I dunno how, but it seems he was expecting me.” He grabbed a handful of his baggy clothing and flapped the shabby threadbare fabric. “It also seems that I won’t be wearing these much longer. He tells me I’m to be enlisted in his army tomorrow, so perhaps I’ll have a uniform that’ll fit a darn sight better than these.”

Before a very surprised Corlin could reply, the stocky man was nodding to the guard who was eyeing them with some suspicion from his post beside the stable doors. “We’re guests of Earl Jouan, just going to check our horses.”

The guard returned the nod, stepped forward and pushed the doors open for them to enter the semi-dark hay-scented atmosphere. Every clean, well furnished stall was occupied, alert and bright-eyed chargers watching the two men as they made their way along to the last two stalls in the row where Megan and Egg had been accommodated side by side.

The stable-hand was still unsaddling Megan, and acknowledged Corlin with a little self-conscious grin and a jerk of his head towards the grey mare. “She’s a gentle thing sir, if you don’t mind me sayin’. Makes a change from that feisty lot out there. Some o’ them’ll bite yer if you ain’t a bit careful.”

Corlin chuckled. “I’m sure it’s just high spirits. Smart creatures, horses. I reckon they know something’s afoot.” He fished a couple of coppers out of his inside jacket pocket and held them out to the fellow. “You can leave Megan to me now, and take a message to Master Karryl, who is with Earl Jouan. Tell him I’ll be there shortly, but Otty and I have some catching up to do.”

The hand’s eyes shone as he pocketed the coins. “Oh yes sir! Right away sir!”

Waiting until the doors had closed behind the departing stable-hand, Otty plonked down on a bale of straw and stuck his legs out in front of him, like sturdy oak-tree roots. He watched for a few minutes while Corlin put down his gimalin, made a fuss of Luma, checked his saddlebags and gave Megan her feed.