Part 50 (1/2)

”I c-c-can't,” she sobbed, s.h.i.+vering. ”Where's P-P-Papa? W-why isn't he h-here?”

He gave it up. ”Come along then,” he told her, not unkindly, and began talking to the fire. She huddled in a ball Sorcerer and a QentCeman 411.

of misery out of the rain; her body stiffened, so that when he told her to stand she couldn't. Dewar picked her up and jumped into the fire.

Gaston's bellow of rage was still ringing from the wet walls of the Palace as he ran in his s.h.i.+rt and a half-laced pair of breeches out the terrace door after the fleeing sorcerer and hostage. Guards followed him. He barked orders at them in the wet dark, took a torch from one, and raced on after the two. His fury at the girl's escape-she must have been shamming, shamming weakness and illness-overpowered thinking until his boot came down on a fresh pile of horse manure and he skidded and fell, vainly trying to keep his balance on the wet gra.s.s.

Cursing, picking up his failing torch and puffing on it once so that it flared, Gaston started off again, seeing now hoofprints in the thin slush. If he listened, he could hear the horse pounding ahead of him into the groomed and dormant garden. The marks on the lawn were easy to follow. He ran, pursuing the horse through the wild wet night by the streaming torchlight, farther into the garden. Dewar, he thought, must be making for the Emperor's Ride, the forest area beyond the gardens; there were two Gates along the Ride, both guarded, but Dewar's sorcery could foil the guards' opposition.

But the horse wove and wandered, and Gaston chased it back through the gardens and, strangely, toward the Palace again. A feint?

No. He came upon the horse suddenly. He had cantered to a halt and was drinking at a fountain's rain-filled basin; the light made the animal shy, but Gaston clucked and spoke gently and the horse let him take the bridle; ruefully, Gaston stroked his neck.

”Oldest b.l.o.o.d.y trick in the book,” Gaston said to him.

The horse snuffed at Gaston's chest. He was a handsome black-dappled grey; fine, but small compensation for the futile course Gaston had just run. The Fireduke led him to the Palace and met three guards, who were diligently searching, but not sure what for.

412.

'E&za&etfi ”Prince Prospero, sir,” one answered promptly.

”Nay! 'Twas the sorcerer Dewar. And the girl. Look for footprints. She's not strong; they cannot be far.” Gaston began directing the men. He sent the horse to the stables with one.

An hour later he called off the search. Dogs had led them to the Royal Tombs, to Prospero's own tomb where a fire smoldered outside the pillared portico. A sopping blanket from Freia's bed lay in a corner of the porch; the dogs pawed it eagerly.

”d.a.m.n,” Gaston said, not loudly.

He returned to the Palace and went to his apartment to repair his clothing, but his valet told him that the Emperor wanted to see him at once, and Gaston went accordingly at once to the private royal quarters. Wet, smeared with gra.s.s, dirt, and dung, he was an unwelcome bearer of an unwelcome report.

”Where's the girl?” the Emperor demanded.

”Gone,” Gaston said. ”It was Dewar. I saw him fleeing. Tis clear how 'twas done; he scaled a rope to the window and prised the grating, broke the panes, and went down again with the girl. The grating fell. I heard it and looked out to see them running.”

”You heard nothing of his prying and breaking?”

”I slept,” Prince Gaston pointed out, ”in another room, and the storm was loud, the window shuttered. I heard naught.” He looked coldly, levelly at Avril, daring him to fault Gaston's vigilance.

The Emperor considered: should he blame Gaston for this breach, convict him and put him down for good? There were so few weaknesses in Gaston's character and conduct, it might be folly not to use this. The Fireduke served without deference, which bothered his brother. The Emperor did not trust the prevailing wisdom that Panurgus's eldest son cherished no ambitions for the throne. Gaston had made no move toward it when Panurgus died, although he had had wide support and was the obvious first choice; despite his b.a.s.t.a.r.dy, Panurgus had always favored him. The Emperor had never gotten more than ”It does not suit me” from Sorcerer and a Qentkman 413.

Gaston by way of explanation. Yet he served, and served ably, quietly leading the Empire's armies, his support unwavering through the first uncertain decades of the Emperor's rule. Without him Landuc would have splintered in factions, for his support kept Herne and Fulgens far from the throne.

”We suppose it's possible,” the Emperor said, gracelessly yielding the point with a glare. ”How the h.e.l.l did he get in without being seen or heard? Where were the guards? And that d.a.m.ned lying Oriana-she said her Bounds couldn't be broken.”

”Dewar is a sorcerer,” Gaston said.

”There's a guard on that terrace. Are they blind? Dead?”

”True,” Gaston said, and frowned. ”I did not see the guards there. I'll inquire, or rather ask Herne; the Palace guards, as you know, are his men, and I would not intrude in his domain.”

”You chased them, you said-where did they go?”

”I pursued as soon as I saw them, but they were fresh and e'en horsed; they rode some small distance, but dismounted. I saw't not, following the horse's prints at a distance, and followed the horse still. They pa.s.sed a Way-fire. The dogs trailed them to Prospero's tomb and we found the coals there.”

The Emperor hissed an obscenity. ”It shall be razed,” he snarled.

Gaston shrugged. It would be wise, he thought, to distract the Emperor before he made some dangerous vow of destruction. ”She is gone from our hands,” he said, ”and now 'twere best consider what we'll do next.”

”True,” the Emperor said. He sat in a high-backed red brocaded chair, but did not offer a seat to Gaston, who leaned on the flame-carved gold-leafed mantelpiece, drying the backs of his s.h.i.+ns at the fire. ”He'll be back,” the Emperor said, ”ready to concede for her.”

”Do you think so?”

”Do you think not?” the Emperor said. ”You saw them.”

”Prospero does set his plans with care,” the Fireduke said. ”He may refuse, plan to rescue her later. We discussed 414.

'EtizaBeth this ere now, and you said 'twas what you expected; I agree still, for 'tis very like his craftiness. We did not meet o'er what the best counter would be.” The Emperor had favored executing the hostage. Prince Gaston had opposed it.

”She's his. As long as we have her we have him. He'll be back to get her, in order to get the noose off his neck. Even if it means crippling himself, he'll free her, because she's his heir, she knows a lot about him, and sooner or later she'll be broken and talk.” The Emperor smiled, thin-lipped and hard-eyed. ”He can't afford to leave her.” He stared at the flames a moment. ”Of course it's possible that that Fire-blasted loose cannon of Ascolet's was doing it for Prospero. That Prospero hired him.”

Gaston frowned. ”Why might Prospero hire another to do something within his ability?”

”Maybe he's not as good as we think he is,” the Emperor said. ”He said he couldn't break the Bounds. Certainly he would have if he could.”

The Fireduke was still unconvinced. ”How was it done? I have not seen the room.”

”Some sorcery; there's blood all over the place. We'll speak with Oriana about this-she swore it was unbreakable. Why would that little rat want the girl? To use her against him? Sorcerers feuding? It's more believable than sorcerers leaguing. Maybe he'll finish Prospero off for us.”

” Tis dark, whether they be allied or no,” Gaston said after considering the reasons. ”Prospero and Dewar. They were opponents in our war, and Dewar made sorties against him-”

”And broke faith at the final battle. He was in with him, and still is. Yes. And for some reason Prospero couldn't come himself, sent the other- s.h.i.+t and sorcerers. We must quadruple the price on his head.”

”I knew not he was made outlaw.”

”Of course. As soon as he turned coat. We'll make the award such that one of his own will turn him in: Oriana, or that witch Neyphile, or maybe Ascolet, who seems to have an axe to grind with him himself. Yes.” The Emperor smiled Sorcerer and a Cjentkman 415.

again. ”And for now, Prospero is still defeated. Be thinking, Marshal, of ways to keep him thus.”

Prince Gaston, taking this as dismissal, bowed slightly and squelched, flaking dried manure, toward his apartment. The Emperor's fearful hatred of Prospero marred his insight. Gaston thought Dewar might not be in league with Prospero; he might have abducted the girl for a hostage himself. Or for other reasons. Ottaviano had described their arrival and the way she had fought at Perendlac, his tune a mix of admiration and fury at the slaughter she'd accomplished aided by a huge bird. The young sorcerer and the old sorcerer's daughter might know one another well; they might even be allies, friends, lovers. Prospero might strengthen himself by wedding her to another in the Art, binding their fates together. Or maybe they were bound already, by blood-there were only Gaston's guesses for that. Yet he knew Dewar's heart was not yet crystallized in sorcery, as sorcerers' did, as Panurgus's had.

Changing his mind, Gaston turned from his own apartment and went instead to the rooms beside Freia's which he had used while he warded her. The connecting door was closed. He opened it and looked again at the dishevelled chamber. Hastily dressed, bundled in a blanket from the bed, out a broken window (a board over it now to keep the rain out) and down the wall on an insecure rope. Shamming, the Fireduke thought again, and a spark of rage flared.

The spark faded as quickly as it came. No. She could not have been feigning. He had touched the wounds himself, had fed her for the first few days, had seen the weakness and sickness that gripped her body and soul. She hadn't been dissembling illness, no more than she had dissembled when she saw Prospero.

Gaston closed the door quietly. Perhaps it was just as well she was gone, he thought. Her situation could not be worse than it was here. With a tremor of surprise, Gaston recognized that he was more than a little pleased at her escape. He had not liked having the girl prisoner. She ought to have 416.

'ECizaBetfi been received into the family, comforted, consoled; she was one of them by blood. Even if she were a prisoner elsewhere, if Dewar had captured her for some purpose of his own, it was in some way better for her to be prisoned by strangers than her own kin.

And, somehow, he was certain that she was no prisoner of Dewar's.

There was thunder outside. Freia, waking to it, pulled the pillow from under her head to over it. She hated thunder.