Part 17 (1/2)

keeping himself from being noticed closely. Gaston stepped forward to get a better, last look at the sorcerer, Lord Dewar.

”What about your promises, sorcerer?” hissed Golias. ”You abandon us when we need you-”

”That is a lie, Golias,” said Dewar, ”in that it implies that I said I would not, and never did I so.” He nudged his horse forward, and the animal began to walk.

”That's true,” Ottaviano said, following him. ”Look, sometime we-”

”And farewell, Prince Gaston, a pleasure to meet you.” Dewar smiled a brief, brilliant smile at the Prince Marshal.

”Farewell,” Gaston said, surprised and amused.

”I thank you,” said the sorcerer over his shoulder, and kicked the horse so that it began galloping along the drover's road above the Parphinal. He went around a bend and was out of their sight.

”Son of a b.i.t.c.h!” Golias said. ”f.u.c.king unreliable fickle-”

”Prince Golias, you surpa.s.s yourself in slander and discourtesy,” the standard-bearer said primly.

Gaston stared at the standard-bearer, startled again. A woman? Was nothing what it seemed to be, today?

”He sold us out!” Golias said to Ottaviano.

”Don't be an a.s.s!” Ottaviano said. ”They come and go.”

” 'Tis the nature of the breed,” Gaston said. ”Whence came he?”

”Madana,” Ottaviano said. ”Or somewhere.”

Gaston nodded. Had he met the man before? Something about him was familiar, but Gaston could not put a name to it, or him, beyond that given: Dewar. He resolved to think on it later.

”He's going for the Nexus at Byrencross, there's a sunset Gate there, I remember he mentioned it once-” and Ottaviano broke off.

”At my back,” Prince Gaston said. ”I am impressed anew by the quality of the forces thou hast brought to thy cause, Baron.”

”We could have won!” Golias said, still enraged.

162 -^.

”Nay,” said the Fireduke, ”for had you not agreed, Prince Josquin was prepared to join me with men of Madana, and you would have died.” His holiday humor was gone; again he was the implacable leader of the Emperor's armies.

”Oh,” said Ottaviano.

”Aye.”

”That's not a sure thing,” said Golias. ”Betrayed!”

” Tis a certainty,” said Gaston dispa.s.sionately, and he gathered up the copies of the treaty.

OTTAVIANO TURNED SLOWLY ROUND AND ROUND, looking Up, looking away in every direction. Above the peaks of the tents, above the poles of the standards, the sky hung high and empty, dawn sweeping up from the distant rim, the wide, long dawn of the frozen plains. Daylight exposed the army as a meagre thing in a way that the near-hanging stars had not. They had arrived at night, following Prince Gas-ton's troops into a bonfire-Way the Marshal had opened to Prince Herne; the night was spent pitching camp by torchlight, a.s.signing perimeter patrols, and the like. Otto had crawled into his cold bed shortly before sunrise, and shortly after, his sharp-voiced squire had roused him with the name of Prince Herne, under whom the Marshal had placed Asco-let's troops and the mercenaries. It had all seemed routine, if a bit off-hours, in the dark. Now that Otto saw the place, the battlefield-plains of Chenay, he was taken aback. The dun and grey earth merged into the heavens; the sc.r.a.ps of color around the army-pennants, cloaks, fluttering laundry-were piteously insignificant.

”What's biting you?” Prince Herne demanded, halting and looking back at him.

”It's . . . flat,” Otto explained.

”These are the Western Plains,” Herne retorted. ”Step smartly; the Marshal waits.”

Sorcerer and a Qentfeman 163.

The Marshal emerged now from his tent, frowning a little; the frown disappeared when he saw Prince Herne, Prince Golias, and the Baron of Ascolet. They were late.

Otto glanced around himself again with a shudder. It was too flat. It was like being on a plate. Prospero had chosen his venue well; the Emperor's army was exposed in every way. Otto had been on prairies before, in deserts, on oceans, and he hated their naked sweeps of s.p.a.ce and sky.

Prince Gaston was waiting, though. Ottaviano saluted and greeted him, then was stopped as he started into the tent by Gaston's hand on his shoulder.

”Sir?”

”Hadst thou difficulties in the journey?”

”None. No. The men, a few of them didn't like it, but they came through. We had some panicky horses. And they're all finding it strange here.”

”Strange?” the Fireduke prompted him.

Otto gestured, embarra.s.sed. ”Well, it's-flat. It's like- like being on top of a mountain,” he said, ”all the time. Seeing so far. The air's thin, even.”

” 'Tis an unwonted bitter cold strike, from Prospero's hand no doubt,” Prince Gaston said. ”Aye, the land's not like Ascolet.”

”I don't like it, sir. We can't do anything.”

”We can. We can advance.”

Ottaviano nodded. ”Yes, sir,” he agreed, and the Prince let him go. But as Ottaviano went into the tent, he glanced back again. On the monotonous horizon, a blue-violet line of storm swept toward them from Prospero's forces, and Otto wondered how far anyone would advance against that.

He had the answer sooner than he liked. The Emperor's men could not advance. They could barely hold their own. Prospero had momentum, and Prospero had sorcery the like of which had not been since Panurgus and Proteus had divided Hendiadys into Pheyarcet and Phesaotois, and Prospero had weather. Hail hammered down, and fierce small cones of black cloud whipped over the land and through their lines, sucking men up and crus.h.i.+ng them when they fell. The weather mocked them; a few hours of 164.

&zaf>etfi sun or stars would precede a stinging near-horizontal rain that soaked through their tents and gullied and rutted the encampment. They froze, but snow never fell, only icy, glazing rains.

Ottaviano admired the weather-working; it took fine Elemental control to do it, the sort Prospero had been rumored to have, but seeing it in action was deeply disturbing. When the very air a man breathes can turn into a hostile wind, morale suffers. Gaston's troops seemed to take it better; perhaps their proximity to the Fireduke heartened them. Golias's portion of the army had it the worst, or claimed to, and Herne's men were bogged in mud.

Yet they did progress, feet by days. Prince Gaston attacked Prospero anyway, and Prospero fell back sometimes and held sometimes. Prospero's object, Gaston said, must be to reach the River Ire, which he could use to move very swiftly past a number of obstacles to land relatively close to the capital. Landuc's Bounds barred him from using sorcery to go so near and prevented him from some of the direst workings, and he must fight his way as any invader would.

”If Panurgus were alive,” Otto muttered to Golias, as they walked to Golias's tent to dine and play a game of cards with Herne and Clay, ”he could strengthen the Bounds and push Prospero back. That's how the d.a.m.n things are supposed to work.”

”Were the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d alive, Prospero wouldn't be, simple as that,” Golias said. ”Who's there?” he added, half-drawing, turning to face a torch-bearing figure racing toward them.

”Baron! Sir! Prince,” said the messenger, one of Gaston's squires. ”His Highness the Prince Marshal, sir, wishes you to come to his tent now, Baron, sir.”

Ottaviano could think of reasons for Gaston to send for him at this time of the night, but none seemed plausible. ”Now? Well-Golias, go on without me, I guess.”

Golias nodded and turned away, slogging on alone in the icy drizzle Prospero had sent them today, and Otto plodded through the encampment to Gaston's tent.

Sorcerer and a Qentleman 165.