Part 14 (2/2)
”Or maybe not,” murmured the Emperor, and sat back, biting his lower lip. His eyelids sank. ”Hm. Hm. Then what do we have. Dead Golias, live Baron of Ascolet, a bunch of loose mercenaries you can pick up . . .” He began to smile. ”Ah, Marshal. You are not quite subtle enough. A dead man cannot be made to live, but a live one can be killed. We 140.
'Etizafotfi 'Wiffey will grant Ottaviano, son of a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, the Barony of Asco-let. We will pardon Golias. We shall set thereto a condition: that they shall both with their armies, including those of Lys which are due to us from the imprudent Countess of Lys, oppose Prospero under your command.”
Gaston said nothing again.
”We are now not joking,” the Emperor said drily.
”I mis...o...b.. how steadfast Golias's hirelings would be 'gainst such opponents as Herne faces.”
”Surely the bait can be made very attractive. Every man has his price.”
Prince Gaston did not speak, but he shook his head slightly.
”Except you, we all know.”
The Fireduke was thinking about it. ” Twould be in them to turn on us and demand more at first opportunity,” he said at last. ”However, if thus is your will, 'twill be done so.
The Emperor scowled. ”We hear little enthusiasm, though we have solved your problem for you, Marshal.”
Slowly, Gaston shook his head. ”It will serve-perhaps. Tis Golias I mistrust. The boy's young. He'd come to heel with a dram of coaxing, meseems-soft words, small favors . . . pity he's married.”
”We have no daughter, appearances to the contrary, but we see what you're getting at. Make him Baron, recognize his connection to Landuc, treat him like one of the family. h.e.l.l, he is one of the family if he's Sebastiano's son. Glen-cora can tickle him round. She knew his mother Cecilie and Sithe of Lys-she was one of Anemone's women-and she could use that as an in with what's-her-name. Lys. The only question is when we'd find the time for such folderol. It would be best to get him over there sooner, rather than later.”
Avril never changed, thought Gaston. ”Well, I will put the proposal to him.”
”Let us consider this yet two days more before you do,” the Emperor decided.
”Very well. Yet your consideration will cost the Empire Sorcerer and a (jentkman 141.
blood. Let your thoughts hold that also.” Prince Gaston inclined his head slightly. The Emperor still had not addressed his second concern. ”And the sorcerer?”
”Well, we'd be pleased to throw him at Prospero too. Whichever one got blasted, we'd be ahead. Have you seen him?”
”Nay. Nor have I had success finding out who he is. He must be one of Ottaviano's captains, or feigning so; but they are many and they hail from different quarters, thus none knows much about the rest. My spies have given me scant ground on which to found a surmise, and the prisoners know little of use.”
”The idea of a sorcerer getting into such a war is disturbing,” the Emperor muttered. ”They're all supposed to be under oath to the Well, the Crown. They're not supposed to be able to oppose it.”
Gaston waited.
The Emperor shook his head. ”We cannot afford a sorcerer. If you wish to hire one, the Empire will sanction the contract but will not be a party to it.”
”I see,” Prince Gaston said.
”An Emperor cannot make the kind of bargain one of them would want to strike. We cannot engage in that kind of commerce.”
”As you will, then. I do not have time to seek one out and negotiate, nor could I delegate such an important task. I will wait for your word on the other business.”
13.IN AN ANCIENT HOUSE SURROUNDED BY t.i.tanic gnarled trees which shade and darken every window, a man whose hair and beard are the color of snow warmed by late golden sun sits reading a letter in a deep, comfortably-cus.h.i.+oned arm-chair which has a.s.sumed the imprint of his body through long use. His slippered feet are propped on a little stool embroidered with roses and a motto-”Vere veritatem ser- 142 -= 'EtizaBetfi tWitey vire”-and his elbows are accommodated by cus.h.i.+ons similarly decorated by the same hand. On his long, thin hands are three rings: on the left hand, middle finger, a plain band with a lock of brown hair braided around it; on the right third finger, a gold signet ring engraved with the wearer's arms (five roses in a wreath); and beside it, on the middle finger, a plain, heavy silver ring with a dark-blue cabochon stone. The autumn sun enters the red-curtained windows and angles down onto the brown carpet in heavy, dust-laden beams.
The man's light blue eyes are on the letter, which he holds within eight inches of the end of his nose. His brows are slightly raised with the effort of focusing; his expression is mildly bemused. On his lap lies a handsome book bound in tooled red leather whose spine is a little misshapen, a little frayed at one end; on the floor lies brown wrapping paper and oilcloth and a tangle of string in which the book had been packed. The letter is pleated in many small accordion folds.
A woman stands at one window, looking out through the bare branches of a tree at the gardeners raking and sweeping the lawns. ”Father, what is it?” she asked softly after a long, thick silence.
”Eh,” he said. ”Eh. Come see.” Slowly, he lowered the letter and let her quick fingers s.n.a.t.c.h it, her sharper eyes racing over it faster than his. The sun tinted her smoothly knotted hair, which was the color of a winter morning, and to her fair cheeks came the bright hue of emotion.
”Here,” she whispered.
”Not even near,” her father said. ”Not even near. But more here, than elsewhere.” He chuckled drily. ”Hah. This shall be fun. I am sure he is ready this time.”
”Last time he moved too quickly,” said the woman softly.
”Anger does that to a man,” he said. ”Act in haste, repent at leisure. Yet may one consider well and still repent at leisure.”
She lowered the letter and looked at him, a line dividing Sorcerer and a (jentfeman 143.
her brows. ”We have done nothing to repent of,” she said. ”I regret nothing, would regret nothing had it been much worse.”
”So dost thou repent at leisure with me,” said he, but smiling.
”What shall we do?” she asked.
”Do? Nothing.”
”Nothing!?”
”Not a blessed thing. Think, Miranda: He knoweth his work. Were there any aid we could render he would ask.” The man walked slowly to the window where she had stood in the sun and stood as she had watching the gardeners. ”Another winter upon us,” he said. ”Ah, we have had better fortune than most. Beort, beheaded. Chargrove, poisoned. Tebaldo and Truchio, hanged. The others . . .” He did not finish.
”They will all be vindicated,” she said, lifting her chin.
He nodded, his back to her, his mouth turned down. Though their tombs be hammered to rubble, their bodies limed in a pit-grave, would their souls rest easier, vindicated?
Outside, the gardeners removed the leaves from the lawn lest they decay and mar it.
Miranda read the letter again, her eyes devouring each word and taking on fire and intensity of purpose. ”If I were a man!” she cried, dropping the letter and striking her palm with her fist. ”He would have taken me with him-”
”Nay. He would not,” said her father. ”He went alone because he must. We understood. Wert thou a man, belike we would have ended as the others.” This was an old argument, familiar to both of them, and he sighed a little at its reiteration.
”I know,” she said wearily. ”I know. Father, I am sorry to plague you. I hate this inaction. It is worse than being dead, being thwarted so, and the waiting, the waiting that has gone on, and now we have only a few words in a letter which may be no more than rumor.”
He shook his head. ”No. This is true tidings. I feel it 144 -^ 'EGzaJtetk <wittey ...=”” in=”” my=”” bones.”=”” his=”” hand,=”” unseen=”” by=”” her,=”” clenched=”” around=”” the=”” heavy=”” silver=””></wittey>< p=””>
”It is good of Fidelio to send the news. He takes a great risk each time,” Miranda said. ”Someday I shall thank him. Someday he shall thank him.”
14.THE STEEP SIDES OF THE PARJPHALS are solid grey rock lightly coated with scree and, below the higher perennially-iced peaks, moraine. The gentler slopes of loose matter provide support for any number of trees large and small and for broad meadows drained by whimsically twisting streams. The mountains' lower flanks are cut by water-graven sheer-sided canyons, whose floors form natural livestock pens for the Ascolet herdsman and a brutally limited field of battle for an army.
Otto had baited Gaston into such a canyon, one which sloped gradually and whose walls were, at first, far apart; Golias had attacked the Fireduke there, and the Fireduke had turned and fought his way out, a purchase not cheap but necessary. Now Imperial soldiers were scattered along the canyon rim, bivouacked and firing bolts at the Ascolet army when it showed itself and sometimes when it only betrayed its presence by movements in the brush and sapling spinneys. Gaston himself lay with more soldiers some little distance away, in the frozen floodplain of the Parphi-nal River where it had scooped out a valley for itself-a canyon again, but one with maneuvering room. A drovers' road to Erispas, unpaved but wide-trampled, ran above the river and, three miles upstream where the cliffs drew together again, a narrow five-arched stone packhorse bridge arched over it, out of reach of the melt.w.a.ter floods.
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