Part 8 (2/2)
”Good morning, Your Grace,” he said. ”I wish to thank you for your hospitality.”
”Good morning,” Lunete replied, and, though it felt oddly intimate to address him nakedly by first name, added, ”Dewar.”
He smiled again. ”You are much occupied with business, I know, but I would steal a few minutes of your time today.”
”The theft of time is a grave thing to contemplate,”
Lunete said, beginning to walk again and nodding to him to join her. ”Once stolen, it cannot be returned.”
”True. Yet the victim can often be compensated in other ways, even to the point of welcoming the theft,” he suggested.
”The compensation's value must in such cases be well in excess of the time's, then, for time is a precious thing to all mortal creatures,” Lunete said. ”We have a fixed allotment which cannot be increased.”
”The theft of time, by and large, cannot account for nearly so many of the days lost from a lifetime as time wasted and time squandered on trivial things,” Dewar said drily.
”It is often difficult to determine what is trivial and what is significant until time is nearly out,” Lunete countered.
”Thus I must offer you, for the time I'd steal, something of enduring and evident value,” he said, and smiled at her again.
Lunete could not but smile back. She felt her face grow warm. She was engaged to be married, she thought; she Sorcerer and a Qentieman 87.should not be flirting with this man. He was a sorcerer. There was no knowing what he really wanted in Lys.
”Sorcerers are not known for gambling,” she said. ”You must have something which meets those criteria already in your mind.”
”I do,” he replied. ”And if it does not meet those criteria in your mind, I shall do my utmost to refund your wasted time.”
”This is uncommonly generous of you,” Lunete said, ”and I shall strive to a.s.say the value of your compensation as justly as humanly possible.”
”I thank your ladys.h.i.+p for double kindness, then: for enabling the theft and for your justice in judging the thief. In return I shall offer something few victims of theft receive: the boon of naming the time.”
As they talked, they had left the black-and-white checkered corridor and crossed through the central hall of the castle, ascending a flight of stairs at its back and arriving outside Lunete's solar. Lunete had stopped; Laudine hovered a few steps behind her mistress, watching the sorcerer with evident dubiety.
Lunete hesitated, then suggested that he join her at the eighth hour for a light luncheon in the garden. Dewar bowed and thanked her again and took leave of her. The Countess watched him go and then went into her apartment.
Laudine tried to catch her mistress's eye. The preoccupied lady, however, went to her writing-desk and sat down, ignoring her maid.
”Madame,” said Laudine finally.
”Yes?”
”Is it true that that man is a sorcerer?” Laudine asked.
”By his own admission, Laudine. He is clearly a gentleman as well.”
”Handsome,” Laudine said, in an undertone, going to the window and looking out.
Lunete shrugged. ”He speaks agreeably,” she said.
”Have you need of a sorcerer, my lady?” asked the maid.
88 -^ 'ECizaBetfi Wittey Lunete turned and looked at her, raising her eyebrows. ”No,” she said. ”But a gentleman who makes himself pleasant is welcome everywhere he goes.”
Through a gla.s.s, Prince Prospero watched his daughter watch the town.
She was sitting on her heels on a felled tree at the edge of a stump-littered clearing, half-hidden in the tree's foliage. He could see the end of her bow above her shoulder, see the leather band that held her hair more or less in order, see the line of sweat trickling through the dust on her throat; her mouth was set in a line, her brows wrinkled in a frown, and her demeanor was that of the animal which intends to have a look, then move on.
The objects of her suspicious glare, a party of men apparently resting from the midday heat of the early summer sun, lounged and chattered tensely at the other end of the clearing. They were unsure what to do, and so they pretended-badly-that she was not there, that her brilliant and unrelenting stare did not discomfit them, and that they were going to go back to tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the tree's branches and cutting it up as soon as they had rested.
Prince Prospero frowned. She was wild; rather, she had become feral. He'd had her domesticated, at least he had thought so, and he had been caught unawares by the revival of her solitary roving habits. She'd run for seven years after he had shaped the people he needed, and run again three days after her return from that long absence, yet not so far as before. For an hour or a few days or most of a winter, Freia would sidle back in, wary and weatherbeaten, bearing some gift of game or gathered fruit. She'd rarely acknowledge with look or word the hundreds of folk, denying them. It always ended: she'd take offense at some little matter and fly. He had not wished to hobble her and keep her forcibly with him, trusting time to tame her; yet soon he must lead his army into Pheyarcet, and he intended that she sit in governance in his absence and carry on his works in the town. He had told her this, yet still she preferred the forest.
Sorcerer and a Qentttman 89.It was enough; it was too much. Prospero put the gla.s.s back in its case and walked down the bare-sided steep hill where he'd been watching for a stone-barge on the river. He could not fathom Freia. Though she had no art for dissembling and showed all her thoughts in her face, he could not pierce her moods and fits of temper to see what stirred them, nor what spurred her departures and returns.
He picked his way through a pasture and over a fence, and the folk at the edge of the clearing saw him now-and he saw the other thing they'd seen that he could not see from his hilltop: an animal behind Freia, hidden in the green.
Freia noticed him. The animal-a bird, he saw the beak, of gigantic size-tossed its head, rustling the branches, and he recognized it. A gryphon, by heaven's veil; he had seen few enough of them. It might be a favorable portent.
Freia s.h.i.+fted on the tree-trunk, waiting for him to come near.
”How now, daughter,” Prospero said. ”Hast seen fit to be seen.” Freia said nothing, but her expression altered: he had stung her thin skin. Prospero sighed, softened his voice. ”And I am pleased to see thee,” he concluded.
”You were not here. I came back, and you were gone, they said.”
”That is half a year ago-nay, more. I travelled away some days, and returned. Twas business that concerns thee not. Thou wert wiser to have waited for me here.”
Freia tossed her head back. ”I had business too. I went to meet someone, because I had promised her I would do that.”
Prospero, briefly dismayed by her ”someone,” was rea.s.sured by ”someone's” s.e.x. It would be educational for Freia to spend more time with the women here. ”So thou hast made a friend of one of my people? That is well,” he said. $ ”She is nothing like them. I don't like them,” she said. i
”They have done thee no offense.” *
f ”They cut down the best trees,” said Freia, and Prospero heard real grief in her voice. ”You let them.”
”I commanded them.”
90.T&zað 'Wittey Sorcerer and a QentCeman 91.There was a long, cold moment.
”I found this animal,” Freia said, ”and I brought her back.”
Prospero said levelly, ”Do not allow thy gryphon to prey upon the folk here. I command thee so.”
”Of course not. I'm going to give her a pig,” Freia said firmly.
”Nay, no pigs, nor cattle-”
”Why not? They're not people.”
”They're for breeding and working and eating in winter,” he said. ”Let the gryphon hunt her wild meat.”
”She is hurt, and I promised her a pig,” Freia said. ”I promised.”
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