The Warlock in Spite of Himself - Warlock 01 (30 page)

'Cloud the trail, Fess,' Rod murmured, and the great black horse reared, pawing the air and screaming combat; then it wheeled away and was gone, lost in the night, hoofbeats drumming away. Rod smiled grimly, sure that Fess's trail would cross and re-cross Tom and Loguire's till an Italian spaghetti cook wouldn't be able to unsnarl it.

He peered up into the sky. He couldn't see beyond the circle of torchlight, but he thought he heard a faint mewing. He smiled again, a little more sincerely this time. Let Catharine try to imprison. Let her try.

Then his smile settled and soured as he turned to face Sir Mans. The old knight was struggling manfully to look angry; but the fear in his eyes blared as loud as a TV commercial. His voice quavered. 'Rod Gallowglass, you have abetted the escape of a rebel.'

Rod stood mute, eyes glittering.

Sir Mans swallowed hard and went on. 'For high treason to the body and person of her Majesty Queen of all Gramarye, Rod Gallowglass, in arrest I must hold thee.'

Rod inclined his head politely. 'You may try.'

The soldiers muttered fearfully and drew back, None wished to match arms with the warlock.

Sir Mans' eyes widened in alarm; then he spun and grabbed one of his soldiers by the arm. 'You there! Soldier! Soldier!' he hissed. 'Run ahead and bear word to the Queen. Say what transpires here.'

The soldier bolted, overwhelmingly glad to lose out on the action. Sir Mans turned back to Rod. 'Thou must now come to judgment before the Queen, Master Gallowglass.'

Oho! thought Rod. I'm a master now, am I?

'Wilt thou go to her freely'?' said Sir Mans apprehensively, 'Or must I compel thee?'

Rod fought to keep his shoulders from shaking with laughter at the dread in the old knight's voice. His reputation had decided advantages.

'I will come freely, Sir Mans,' he said, stepping forward. 'Shall we go?'

Sir Mans' eyes fairly glowed with gratitude.

Abruptly, he sobered. 'I would not be in thy place for a castle and dukedom, Rod Gallowglass. Thou must needs now stand alone before our Queen's tongue.'

'Well, yes,' Rod agreed. 'But then, I've got a few things to say to her too, now haven't I? Let us go then, Sir Mans.'

Unfortunately, the march to the castle gave Rod time to mull over Catharine's latest churlish tricks; so by the time they came to the door to her chambers, Rod's jaw was clenched and shivering with rage. And, equally unfortunately, there was a reception committee, consisting of two sentries, the soldier who had been sent ahead as messenger, and two pikes pointed right at Rod's midriff.

The procession halted. 'And what,' said Rod, with icy control, 'is this supposed to mean?'

The messenger stammered an answer. 'Th-the Queen forbids that the wwarlock be brought before her unch-chained.'

'Oh.' Rod pursed his lips for a moment, then gave the messenger a polite lift of the eyebrow. 'I am to be chained?'

The messenger nodded, on the verge of panic.

The pikes crashed as Rod knocked them away to each side. He grabbed the messenger by the scruff of the neck and threw him into the pack of Guardsmen as they surged forward. Then he lashed out with a kick that wrenched the crude metal hinges from their bolts. The door crashed down, and he strode in over it, stepping hard. Catharine, the Mayor of the Queen's Town, and Brom O'Berin shot to their feet from their chairs around a map laden table. Brom sprang to bar Rod's path. 'What devil possesses you, Rod Gallowglass, that you . . .,'

But Rod was already past him and still moving.

He swung to a stop before the table, glaring across at her, his eyes chips of dry ice.

Catharine stepped back, one hand coming to her throat, disconcerted and afraid.

Brom leaped to the tabletop, thundering, 'What means this unseemly intrusion, Rod Gallowglass? Get thee hence, till the Queen shall summon thee!'

'I would prefer not to come before her Majesty in chain-' his words cold and clipped. 'And I will not allow that a nobleman of the highest rank be clapped in a common, noisome dungeon with rats and thieves.'

'Thou wilt not allow!' Catharine gasped, outraged; and, 'Who art thou to allow or not allow?' roared Brom. 'Thou hast not even gentle blood!'

'Then I must think that blood is opposed to action,' Rod snapped. He flung the table out of his way and advanced on the Queen. 'I had thought you noble.' The word was a sneer. 'But now I see that you will turn against your very family, even to one near as nigh you as a father! Certes, if you would fight any of your nobles, you must needs fight a kinsman but your very uncle? Fie, woman! Were he the foulest murderer, you had ought to receive him with courtesy and the honor due his station. Your finest chamber you should appoint his cell; 'tis but your duty to blood!'

He backed her up against the fireplace, glowering deep into her eyes.

'Nay, were he but a murderer, no doubt you would receive him with all honor! But no, he has committed the heinous crime of objecting to your high-handed, arbitrary laws, and the further calumny of maintaining his honor against your calculated insults. He will insist on being accorded the respect due a man during the reign of a vindictive, childish, churlish chit of a girl who hath the title of a Queen but none of 'the graces, and for this he must needs be damned!'

'Fie, sirrah,' she quavered, waxen pale, 'that you would speak so to a lady!'

'Lady!' he snorted.

'A lady born!' It was a forlorn, desperate cry. 'Will you, too, desert me? Will you speak with the tongue of Clovis?'

'I may speak like a peasant, but you act like one! And now I see why all desert you; for you would whip to scorn Loguire, who alone of all your lords is loyal!'

'Loyal!' she gasped. 'He, who leads the rebels?'

'Anselm Loguire leads the rebels! For keeping faith with you, the old Duke is now deposed in favor of his son!'

He smiled bitterly as the horror and guilt dawned in her, then turned his back upon her and stepped away, giving her time to realize the breadth of her betrayal. He heard a long-drawn, shuddering breath behind him; Brom rushed past him to aid his Queen. He heard a chair creak as Brom made her sit.

Looking up, he saw the Lord Mayor staring past him wide-eyed. Rod cleared his throat; the burgher's eyes shifted to him. Rod jerked his head toward the door. The Mayor glanced back at the Queen, hesitating. Rod toyed with the hilt of his dagger. The Mayor saw, blanched, and fled.

Rod turned back to the stricken girl.

Brom, at her elbow, threw Rod a glance of withering hatred and growled,

'Ha' done! Have you not cut deep enough?'

'Not yet.' Rod's lips thinned. He stepped up to the Queen again, his voice cold. 'This good nobleman, the Duke Loguire, your own uncle, out of bye for you stood against the whole of your nobility, even his own son!' His voice crackled. Her eyes jerked up to him, filling with dread. 'And it is your doing, by your high-handed lawmaking and utter lack of diplomacy, that Anselm turned against his father. He had two sons, and you have robbed him of both!'

She shook her head, faster and faster, lips shaping silent denials.

'Yet still he is loyal!' Rod murmured. 'Still he is loyal, though they would have slain him for it - and damn near did!'

She stared in horror.

Rod tapped his shoulder. 'This took the dagger that would have pierced his heart. And even at that, 'twas only by a miracle, and the help of one of the witches whom you scarce acknowledge, that I managed to bring him out alive!'

Brom's head snapped up, searching Rod's face for something. Rod frowned, and went on.

'But bring him out I did, at peril of my life, and brought him safely back. And what do I find? He is to be held a prisoner! And not even as befits a royal prisoner! No, no! to be treated with due courtesy and deference, but as a common cutpurse, in a lightless, damp, dank dungeon!'

He paused for effect, rather proud of the last bit of alliteration. But he had overdone it a bit; she rallied. Her chin came up and she sniffled back some tears. 'Before my laws, sirrah, all are equal!'

'Yes,' Rod agreed, 'but that should mean you treat a peasant like a lord, not that you treat a lord like a peasant!'

He leaned over her, his face an inch from hers. 'Tell me, Queen: why is it that Catharine must treat all with contempt?'

It was a lie; she didn't treat all with contempt, just the noblemen; but anguish and sudden self-doubt showed in her eyes. Still she tilted her chin a fraction of an inch higher, and declaimed,

'I am the Queen, and all must bow to my power!'

'Oh, they bow, they bow! Until you slap them in the face; then they slap back!'

He turned away, glowering at the hearth. 'And I can't say I blame them, when you deprive them of liberty.'

Catharine stared. 'Liberty? What talk is this, sirrah? I seek to give the serfs greater liberty!'

'Aye, so you seek.' Rod smiled sourly. 'But how do you go about giving it? You gather all ever more tightly unto you. You deprive them today, that you may give them more later!'

He slammed his fist onto the arm of her chair. 'But later will never come, don't you see that? There is too much ill in the land, there will always be another evil to fight, and the Queen's word must be law unquestioned to command the army against the evil.'

He drew his hand back slowly, eyes burning. 'And so it will never come, the day that you set them free; in your land, none will have liberty, save the Queen.'

He locked his hands behind his back and paced the room. 'There is only just so much of it to go around, you know - this liberty. If one man is to have more, another must needs have less; for if one is to command, another must obey.'

He held his hand before her, slowly tightening it into a fist. 'So little by little, you steal it away, till your slightest whim is obeyed. You will have complete freedom, to do whatever you wish, but you alone will be free. There will be none of this liberty left over for your people. All, all, will be gathered unto Catharine.'

His hand loosened and clasped her throat lightly. She stared and swallowed, pressing against the back of the chair.

'But a man cannot live without at least a little liberty,' he said softly. 'They must have it, or die.' His hand tightened slowly. 'They will rise up against you, made one by their common enemy - you. And then will squeeze their liberties out of you again, slowly, slowly.'

Catharine tore at his hand, fighting for breath. Brom leaped to free her, but Rod loosed her first.

'They will hang you from your castle gates,' he murmured, 'and the nobles will rule in your stead; your work will all be undone. And of this you may be certain, for thus was it ever with tyrants.'

Her head jerked up, hurt deep in her eyes. She gasped for breath to speak, shaking her head in ever harder denial.

'No, not I,' she finally rasped. 'Not that, no! Never a tyrant!'

'Always a tyrant,' Rod corrected gently, 'from your birth. Always a tyrant to those about you, though you never knew it till now.'

He turned away, hands locked behind his back. 'But now you know, and know also that you have none to blame but yourself for rebellion. You pushed them and pushed them, harder and harder, your nobles - for the good of your people, you said.'

He looked back over his shoulder. 'But was it not also to see which among them would dare say you nay? To see which among them were men?'

Contempt curdled her face. 'Men!' The word was obscenity. 'There are no men in Gramarye any more, only boys, content to be a woman's playpretties!'

He smiled, one-sided. 'Oh, there be men still. Men in the South, and men in the House of Clovis - or one, at least, there. Men, my Queen, but gentle men, loving their Queen, and loath to strike at her.'

Her lids lowered, the contempt playing over her lips in a smile. 'It is as I have said: there are no men in Gramarye more.'

'They are men,' Rod answered, very quietly, 'and they march north to prove it.'

She stared.

Then slowly sat back. 'Well, then, they march north, and I shall meet them on Breden Plain. Yet still there is none among them I would call man. Beasts, every one.'

'Oh, you shall meet them.' Rod gave her a syrupy, mocking smile. 'And what shall you use for an army? And who will command it?'

'I will command,' she replied haughtily. 'I and Brom. And there be five hundred of the Queen's Guard, and seven hundred of the Queen's Army, and threescore knights at my manors.'

'Sixty knights!' Rod's lips tightened, puffing down at the corners.

'Not even enough to give the Southern knights entertainment for one full charge! Sixty knights out of how many hundreds in your kingdom?

And all the rest arrayed there against you! And twelve hundred footmen against the rebels' thousands!'

Her hands seized the arms of the chair in a spasm, to hide their trembling; fear drained her face of its color. 'We shall win, for the honor of Plantagenet or Gramarye, or die nobly.'

'I have yet,' Rod said tightly, 'to see a noble death in battle. They re all just a little on the messy side.'

'Be still!' she snapped, then closed her eyes and bowed her head, knuckles whitening on the chair arms.

She rose, proud and calm again, and Rod couldn't help a brief, admiring thought for her spunk.

She sat at the table, drew up parchment and quill, scribbled a moment, then folded the parchment and held it out to Rod. 'Bear this to my Uncle Loguire,' she said. ''Tis a command that he appear here before me, and a warrant of safe-conduct; for I bethink me that I shall -need all loyal to me by my side ere greatly long.'

Rod took the parchment and crumpled it slowly in his fist. He flung it into the fire without taking his eyes from Catharine. 'You shall write a letter to the Duke, and I shall bear it,' he said in an Antarctic voice; 'but in it you shall beg of him the courtesy of an audience.'

Her back stiffened and her chin came up. Rod warmed his voice hastily, smiling. 'Come, come, my Queen! You already have all the liberty; can you not expend a little in courtesy?'

His eyes darkened, the smile faded. 'Or will you be swept by the sin of pride, and allow your liberty to become license?'