The Warlock's Last Ride Read online

  "Of course, since he must have longed for a home of some sort," Gregory agreed.

  "But it must have been very lonely for you," Quicksilver said.

  Magnus nodded. "I was very glad to meet Alea."

  Alea wasn't sure that was all that much a compliment under the circumstances, especially since Magnus did not reach out to her in the slightest way, not even to touch her hand when he said it—but she felt the fondness radiating from him, and under it, a desperate need so strong that it shocked her. Had it been there all along? She was amazed that none of his sibs seemed to notice—but perhaps they were all too polite to acknowledge it.

  Or could Magnus somehow direct it only at her?

  Or—stranger still, enough to make her heart flutter—was he even aware of the emotions that came to her?

  They dispersed after breakfast, each to his or her own duties—or if they had none, to leisure. While Cordelia and Alain checked on the baby, Magnus opted to roam about the estate for a while, to visit the scenes of his youth. Alea recognized the excuse for what it was and came with him.

  They wandered out through the gardens, Magnus telling her his memories of being a teenager there, Alea's gaze fastened to his face as she drank in every word—but when a row of lilacs screened them from the castle, he sank down on a bench and seemed to go limp.

  Again, Alea knew how much it meant that he was willing to relax so much of his control with her, of the trust it proved—and the need for compassion. She sat beside him, hands in her lap, waiting.

  Finally, Magnus said, "It's like walking a plank."

  Alea waited, and when he said nothing further, asked, "Do you really feel they're all waiting for you to make one misstep?"

  "Waiting for me to try to give an order, or to correct them or remind them how to behave, as I used to do when I was eighteen and Gregory twelve," Magnus said, "and ready to scold me or challenge me if I do, to prove they are grown and that I no longer have authority."

  Alea frowned. "Perhaps it's because I've never had a sister—but isn't it obvious that you consider them your equals now?"

  "I've read a book or two on the subject," Magnus sighed, "and apparently that isn't usually obvious to an older sib. I probably wouldn't have realized it myself if I hadn't read about it."

  "But you have," Alea said. "Surely they have, too!"

  "They haven't had empty hours weighing on them as they traveled between stars," Magnus said. "I gather their lives have been very full, every day." Sadness, bitterness, and envy showed in his face and were gone.

  Alea felt it as a stab, that he still did not trust her enough to let such emotions show for more than an instant—but having seen him with his family, she realized how much even those flashes of feeling told about his confidence in her. Warmed by the thought, she said, "Travel can be tedious, yes—but your life has been very full, too, whenever you've landed on a new planet."

  "Full of events," Magnus said, "not relationships." He turned to her. "That has been my choice, though. I have no right to feel bitter about it."

  "You have when your choice was determined by the events of your past." Alea felt her own anger begin. "When having feelings for someone only let them use you and humiliate you, of course you would choose not to let that happen again!"

  Magnus gazed into her eyes, and for a moment, Alea felt she was shrinking, that his eyes were growing almost to encompass her—but he spoke and was only a man again, one with a very tender voice. "And you—was that not your case, too, attraction only a tool that let someone use you?"

  Alea started to answer, but the words caught in her throat and she turned away. "That doesn't matter—what happened to me. That doesn't matter at all, now."

  "It does to me." Magnus dared to let his hand rest on hers. "It matters most greatly to me."

  He waited, and she trembled within, longing to spill out the story with the flood of emotions, of infatuation and pain and shame—but no, not yet, not when he had so much to contend with…

  Not when she still didn't trust him enough.

  After all, how could Magnus think she was important? She was only a gawky, homely girl grown into a woman with no talent or skill, a peasant from an insignificant town in the outlands of a planet no one could find on a star map.

  When she did not speak, Magnus lifted his hand and sat back. Afraid she had hurt him, she darted a quick glance at him, but he seemed restored somehow, full of confidence again, his smile open and warm without the slightest trace of pity but a great deal of caring. "We are shield-mates, after all," he said. "I have trusted my life to you, and will again."

  Alea could only stare at him, wondering at what he had said, but even more at what he had not.

  "It's good to have you back, sir," the Home Agent for Savoy and Bourbon said with her most winning smile.

  "And a sad thing that I have to be," the Mocker snapped. "A fine mess you amateurs have made of the planet while I've been gone."

  The Home Agent lost her smile for a moment and bit back a retort—that the Mocker hadn't done so well himself, when it had been his job to organize a rebellion against the Crown. Oh, he'd organized it well enough, but when they were almost ready for battle, the Lord Warlock had led a commando raid of three, tied up the Mocker, and let that half-dunce Tuan Loguire steal the Mocker's whole army and turn it against the anarchists—not a bad idea in itself, but considering they'd been trying to overthrow the queen at the time, not the best either. The Mocker also seemed to forget that he had been removed from his command in disgrace, not promoted to a desk job in the coordinating office.

  But she remembered her priorities—ingratiating with senior officers always came first—and forced the smile back into place, making it as dreamy as she could. "There have been a few setbacks," she admitted.

  "Well, let's see about setting them forward," the Mocker said as they went in the door.

  They came into a large paneled room occupied by a long table and decorated with pictures of the great dictators of history. When the Home Agent sat, all the chairs were filled except the one at the head of the table. The Mocker sat and let himself savor the feeling of triumph for a moment, of vindication. What mattered a failure he couldn't have prevented? But now that he knew what he was up against, he would clear it away in days! He would have his revenge!

  Then he thrust down the emotion and turned to assessing the situation. He surveyed the faces around him—some expectant, some clearly hiding worry, some completely bland, more skillfully hiding their emotions.

  He nodded and said, "Understand—for you, it's been thirty years since my last foray against the Gallowglass clan, but for me, it's been scarcely a month."

  "We do understand that," said a portly, middle-aged man. "I was a young recruit in your peasant uprising."

  The Mocker frowned. "Name?"

  "Dalian," the man said.

  The Mocker's face went neutral to hide the shock. "Yes. I remember you."

  Dalian's face turned bitter. "I've toiled in the ranks for the decades you've been gone."

  "And think you should have been appointed Chief, hey? But the job needs perspective, Agent, not just experience—and I toiled in the VETO ranks for thirty years before I was given this post. Would have overthrown the monarchy neatly, too, if it hadn't been for the interference of that backstabber Gallowglass!"

  "It was the coalition he put together that was too much for your army," said a motherly woman in her forties, "mostly that witch Gwendylon."

  "Yes, well, he's lost her now, hasn't he?" the Mocker said with bitter satisfaction. "And lost all the influence she brought with her."

  "He's made some connections of his own," said a man who seemed young until you looked closely.

  "Connections his wife made for him," the motherly woman returned, "who will stand by him out of loyalty to her memory."

  "Let's find out just how far that loyalty goes, shall we?" the Mocker said. "Start by sending out agents disguised as forest outlaws, to circulate in the villa
ges and remind the people how badly they're being exploited."

  "We've tried that," a pretty older woman said. "Whenever we manage to build a movement and gather some steam, Gallowglass sends one of his brats to hypnotize the people into thinking they're well-treated."

  "Gallowglass, or his wife?" the Mocker asked with a sour smile. "Send out the agents and tell them to be ready to fade into the greenwood quickly if Gallowglass does send in his goons—but I don't think he will."

  Dalian frowned. "Why not?"

  "I don't think he'll have the heart," the Mocker said, "not with his wife gone. Who did you lot think was really running this land, anyway?"

  When he woke the next morning, Rod chewed a heel of bread while he cooked the eggs he had found the evening before, and with them the strip of jerky that had been soaking all night. Breakfast done, he saddled Fess and rode down the woodland path. They had not gone far before Fess lifted his head, nostrils spread wide.

  Rod knew the robot-horse didn't have a sense of smell as such—just an ability to analyze air molecules and detect anything that shouldn't be there. "What's wrong?"

  "The smell of blood," Fess said.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Rod drew his sword. "What kind of blood?"

  "It is difficult to say when the molecules are so thinly spread," Fess answered, "but I am fairly certain that it is not human."

  "Won't hurt to make sure. Follow your nose."

  "I can scarcely do anything else, Rod, since it is so much farther in front than the rest of me."

  "A point," Rod agreed. "Follow your scents."

  "Technically, Rod, a robot has no sense."

  "Nor do I, half the time," Rod sighed. "At the moment, though, I'll rely on your tracking ability."

  They turned off the beaten track and broke through a screen of brush into a small clearing, where a boar lay on its side, blood spreading from a rip in its abdomen.

  "It would seem we have found the loser in a fight over a female," Fess said.

  But Rod dismounted and knelt beside the boar, inspecting the wound. Then he rose, shaking his head as he remounted. "It was no tusk that made that wound, Fess. It was a blade with a serrated edge."

  "Only a boar hunter, then?"

  "If so, he was a very clumsy one—hunters meet a boar's charge head-on, or step aside and stab for the ribs and the heart. This poor beast must have staggered for hundreds of yards before it finally collapsed."

  "Perhaps, then, the hunter is tracking it."

  "Could be—the kill is fresh enough, only beginning to draw flies." Rod started to sheathe his sword, then thought better of it. "If that hunter is coming this way, I'd better be ready to meet him."

  "People who hunt boar, Rod, generally do not hunt people."

  "With some notable exceptions. England's William the Second was killed when he was out hunting, after all."

  "With an arrow, not a boar-spear—and as I recall the incident, he was hunting deer at the time."

  "Yeah, but his nobles were hunting him."

  "It could have been a Saxon peasant who loosed that arrow, Rod."

  "Or a nobleman who wanted it to look like a peasant's work."

  "The peasants did have much to resent, so soon after the conquest," Fess mused.

  "Yeah, but so did the noblemen, even if they were part of the invading force. William Rufus wasn't the wisest or most moderate of rulers."

  So, happily bickering, they went back to the trail and on down it. After a while, Rod decided they must have passed the hunter, if he'd been tracking his prey—and the thought that he hadn't bothered gave Rod a chill; he didn't like men who killed solely for sport.

  To banish the gloom, he took out his harp and plucked out a melody in a minor key as he rode, remembering other such journeys in his bachelor days, when he had been looking for something worth doing, looking for a woman he could fall in love with who would fall in love with him—and knowing he never would, that he was far too unattractive.

  Incredibly, he actually had found such a woman. Even more incredibly, she had actually fallen in love with him. He marvelled how little had changed, for here he was riding down a woodland path alone, searching for her again.

  A cawing broke into his reverie. He frowned, looking up into a tree at its source—and was astonished when the cawing shaped itself into words.

  Three ravens sat high in a tree, where the branches thinned enough to let them survey the forest around them. "RAWK!" croaked the first. "I see a tasty morsel!"

  "And I," cawed the second. "But we must wait for him to die."

  "How, though, shall we decoy his hound?" a third asked. "Even his horse stands guard over him!"

  Rod frowned. Someone lay dying? Not if he had anything to say about it. "Off to the right, Fess—that's the direction they're looking."

  "As you say, Rod." The robot horse stepped off the path and picked his way between saplings and rotting stumps into a small clearing.

  "CRAWK!" the third raven cried in alarm. "There comes a human doe!"

  "As heavy with child as she may go," the second said in disappointment.

  "Patience, brothers," said the first. "Perhaps the hound will drive her away."

  But Rod came into the clearing in time to see the hound run to the woman, saw her stroke its head with words of praise even as she made her way toward the young man who lay prone, blood oozing from the shoulder joint of his armor, eyes closed and face pallid.

  The young woman sank heavily to her knees with a cry of distress. She was indeed in the final weeks of pregnancy. "Oh, my Reginald!" she cried. "Live, my love, live! Do not leave me now!"

  The young man's eyelids fluttered; he looked up at her a moment before his eyes closed as though the weight of the lids were too heavy a load for him to bear. The young woman gave a long, keening cry.

  "Mayhap she will die with him," the first raven called hopefully.

  Rod rode toward them, and the second raven saw and gave a loud, long caw of anger. "Brothers! A vital one comes within!"

  "Close the door," Durer said.

  Aethel stepped through and shut the portal. The three other agents exchanged a glance, wondering why the rest of the cadre was shut out.

  "Too many people make a discussion too cumbersome," Durer told them. "Everyone wants to say something, and nobody wants to listen. The five of us should be able to come up with a useful idea."

  "An idea for what, Chief?" Aethel sat down with the others.

  "A rebellion, of course! A coup to thrust that little snip off the throne and put our man on!"

  Again the others exchanged a glance; the "little snip" was in her fifties.

  "Not a chance of succeeding without one of the twelve great lords to lead it," Stan said, "and they're all too willful to let us guide them."

  "Except the king's brother," Durer countered.

  The others sat very still. Anselm Loguire had been the figurehead for Durer's last rebellion against Queen Catharine. The agents didn't even have to look at one another; they knew they were all thinking the same thing: How long will it take him to stop living in the past?

  "Anselm Loguire isn't a lord any more," Orin said. "He's attainted—stripped of his title and lands."

  "I know, and that witch Catharine gave them to her younger son," Durer snapped, "but the other lords all know that Anselm is really the rightful Duke Loguire and heir to all its estates."

  "Maybe," said Aethel, "but they all know what happened to him, and that it was only because King Tuan counselled mercy that Anselm is still alive."

  "Alive—and bitter," Durer pointed out. "He's probably long over his gratitude at being left alive and in charge of a small estate. He'll be angry with his brother and the queen—angry and wanting revenge."

  "And wealth." Stan knew it didn't pay to argue with the boss for long.

  "For his son," Aethel added.

  Durer nodded, pleased to see them falling into line. "But we need something to push him, something to turn bitterness in
to action, something so strong that he won't care whether he lives or dies as long as he has a chance of bringing down the monarchy."

  Everyone was quiet, each glancing at the others. Then Aethel hazarded, "A threat to his son?"

  "Let us hope it is the knight's enemy," the first raven said.

  "Aye, and that he will slay the fellow, then drive off his hound and take his horse," said the second.

  "No such luck," Rod called back to them and hoped the young woman couldn't understand their words. He dismounted even as Fess stopped beside the fallen knight.

  The young woman looked up in terror, then leaned across her husband to protect him, crying, "If you have come back to finish what you have begun, know you shall have to slay me, too!"

  The hound crouched, baring its teeth and growling, and the horse stamped its hooves and neighed a warning.

  "I did not begin this," Rod assured the young woman, "and I have some knowledge of healing. May I come near?"

  Wild hope filled her eyes, and she struggled to straighten up. "If you can staunch the flow of his blood, aye!" She stroked the back of the hound's head, crooning, "Aye, you are a brave guardian, but, I hope, not needed now. Let the good man approach, Voyaunt, let him come nigh."

  The hound sank to the ground; its growl receded deep into its throat, but it watched Rod with suspicious eyes.

  Rod took his first-aid kit from his saddlebag and went to kneel on the other side of the knight. He unbuckled the shoulder-piece of his armor, asking, "What is his name, young woman, and your own?"

  "He… he is Sir Reginald de Versey, goodman, and I am his wife, Elise."

  "I am Sir Rodney." Rod flashed her a smile. "No, I don't look like a knight, not in these travelling clothes, but I am one nonetheless." He pulled out his dagger.

  The hound's growl rose as it did, rising ready to pounce.

  "Easy, fellow," Rod crooned. "I draw the blade to save your master, not to slay him. Dame Elise, reassure him, if you will—I must cut away the cloth beneath to find the wound."