A Wizard In Peace Read online

  On the other hand, being as old as he was, the Watch wasn't likely to be able to catch them, either.

  Orgoru tripped and stumbled twice on his way to Ciletha's cottage, but fortunately didn't make too much noise either time. He walked past her kitchen window slowly, and that was signal enough; she was waiting and watching, and slipped out the door only moments after she saw him pass, her pack over her shoulder. He gave her hand a squeeze, then turned his face toward the forest.

  Moonbeams managed to pierce the canopy here and there, so the gloom wasn't quite complete. They felt safe enough to talk, and Orgoru said, "We have to make sure we don't leave them a clear trail to follow."

  "How shall we do that?" Ciletha quavered.

  "Why, as folk of high station should do--by taking the high road, and leaving the low road to the lowly!" Orgoru reached up to a tree with low branches and clambered up, ungraceful and panting, but up. "You now!" He reached down and took Ciletha's hand.

  "I'll fall," she objected.

  "We aren't going high enough for it to hurt you much," Orgoru explained, "and we'll go very carefully. Come now-or would you rather marry Bork?"

  Ciletha shuddered and reached up.

  They went very carefully indeed, edging out along the lowest limb until they were able to climb into another tree, then inching along its lowest branch to a third.

  "We'll never get very far," Ciletha protested.

  "True, but they'll never find us, either," Orgoru pointed out. "Their hounds won't be able to catch our scent, up here." Finally they came to a tree that overhung a brook, and Orgoru passed his pack to Ciletha while he dropped down into the water. Since it didn't come above his shins, he reached up and called, "First drop our packs, then drop down yourself!" Ciletha seemed glad enough to do that, surprisingly. They splashed off together, making much faster progress than they had before-until Ciletha caught Orgoru's arm and pulled back, pointing with a trembling finger. Looking where she indicated, he saw the glowing coals of a campfire, and near it, a figure wrapped in a blanket.

  Ciletha put her lips next to his ear. "We must slip far from him!"

  "No," Orgoru breathed back. "I see no dogs-and he's left his clothing in a pile!"

  "What of it?" Ciletha asked, frowning.

  "It has his scent! If we wear clothing like that, the dogs won't know who to chase! Come now, stay quiet while I steal away!" Ciletha almost reached to pull him back as he slipped off, but held her hand, heart pounding. It was a bright idea, far brighter than she would have expected of Orgoru-but the dear boy was so clumsy, so fumble-fingered, that he was bound to wake the forester and bring down his wrath. Moving silently, Ciletha followed him and caught up the nearest stick of wood for a club. Orgoru was all she had now, and she wasn't about to let the forester take him from her.

  But she didn't need the stick. Amazingly, Orgoru managed to be deft for once in his life. He found a long stick and lay flat at the edge of the firelight, reaching in to pull the forester's clothes to him one piece at a time. Holding the whole pile under an arm, he turned away to creep off into the night, back to the brook. Ciletha joined him again, heart pounding, but they were a hundred yards downstream before she dared talk. "How clever you were, Orgoru!"

  "Why, thank you." She could almost see him expand in the darkness. "I did manage it pretty well, didn't I?"

  "But shouldn't you have left him your clothes? The poor man will be naked!"

  "Then let him go bare," Orgoru said grimly. "The longer I'd stayed near, the greater the chance he'd have wakened-and If I'd left him my clothes, I might as well have told him who did the stealing. This way, he just might put it down to a badger or a bear, and thank the Protector for his life."

  "Wise," she said slowly, "but I feel sorry for the poor man."

  "Would he have felt sorry for you once the magistrate told him to catch you?" Orgoru demanded, then answered his own question. "Yes, he might have felt very sorry for you, but he'd have chased you anyway. Besides, it's not as though he was hurt, Ciletha." He halted in a patch of moonlight, looking about him. "We've come far enough. Let's change clothes now."

  He gave her the forester's boots, but they were way too big, so he had to settle for cutting the shirt in two and tying it over her own shoes. He wore the leggings and the boots himself, and together they slipped off down. a gametrail, hoping the forester's clothes would cover their own scents.

  The hounds bayed, closer and closer, and Miles, looking through the crack between the two boards, saw them come trotting down the road, their handler holding one leash in each hand and trotting himself, to stay near them. Behind him marched six men dressed in brown and green, with a seventh behind them who wore maroon, with a hip-length robe and chain of office-the bailiff of Miles's hometown with half a dozen foresters. Miles stiffened, and Dirk hissed, "Company?"

  "Be ready for drastic measures," Gar muttered.

  Surprised, Miles glanced at him, and saw him pull a piece of right-angled wood from his shirt-then two pieces of wood that tapered on the ends. He turned back to the spyhole, suddenly thinking he didn't want to know what Gar was going to do with the strange objects. He heard clicking and slithering noises behind him, and knew Dirk was doing whatever Gar was, too. He couldn't look, though-he was fascinated by the hounds trotting a hundred feet away. They came to the pathway to the barn and stalled, milling about, their voices turning querulous. Miles held his breath and hoped.

  The hounds cast about in larger and. larger circles, but their barking stayed confused. The foresters called to one another, growing angry and frustrated-but they kept their hounds where they were, sniffing in an expanding spiral.

  "They'll hit our trail sooner or later." Gar rose and went to the ladder. "Time for a bit of misdirection."

  "Stay where you are," Dirk told Miles, "and don't worrywe've confused harder cases than those guys."

  Miles stared, speechless, as they scrambled down the ladder, then ran for the barn's back door. They slowed to an easy stroll as they went through. He spun back to the crack between the two boards and stared, watching. It seemed a year before Gar and Dirk ambled into view, and when they did, they came from far off to his left. They had circled around to come from the trees along a stream that curved through the pasture. Dirk called out and waved; the foresters looked up, then turned and waited for him, frowning. As they came closer, the hunters looked them up and down and seemed to relax a little. The bailiff stepped forward, fists on hips and chin thrust out. Miles held his breath; with the bailiff come himself to lead the foresters in pursuit of the fugitive, it was no wonder they hadn't let the search lapse. Still, he had to admit they had dawdled as much as they could, to give him a decent lead.

  As Gar and Dirk came closer, the bailiff called out, "Which reeve do you serve, and why have you come?"

  The two companions halted and glanced at one another. Miles gnashed his teeth-if he had known they were going to talk to the bailiff, he would have told them to say their master was the Reeve of Ulithorn! That was far enough away so that no one here should know anyone there, except perhaps the magistrate-but by the time the bailiff reported back to him, Gar and Dirk would be long gone and, hopefully, Miles with them.

  The companions turned back to the bailiff. "We're between, just now," Gar said, "ordered back to the Protector."

  Miles released a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, and the bailiff stiffened. To be ordered to the Protector meant they would become part of his army, and everyone wanted to stay on good terms with the Protector's soldiers.

  "There is certainly no need to see your travel permits, then," the bailiff said, forcing a smile.

  "No, certainly not," Gar agreed, returning the smile. "We're growing tired of walking, though, and wondered if you could tell us where to find horses."

  "I'm surprised you weren't given them-"

  "None available," Dirk explained. "We'd just rounded up a band of outlaws, but we'd lost five horses in the fighting." He shrugged. "No men lost, though
a few of our friends will be some months recovering. That didn't leave our reeve any mounts to spare, though, so he gave us the wherewithal to replace them when we could."

  "An order to supply you, or gold?"

  "Gold," Gar said, "but we haven't found anyone with horses to spare, and it would have been unkind to commandeer them, especially since we weren't given a date for reporting."

  "Ah, some unofficial leave, eh?"The bailiff nodded. "Well, there's a farmer named Landry hereabouts, who raises horses for the magistrates. His farm is seven miles that way." He pointed northeast, past the barn where Miles hid.

  "Thank you for the information," Gar said, inclining his head. "May we return the courtesy?"

  The bailiff gave him a sour smile. "Only if you can tell us where to find the runaway we're hunting."

  "Runaway?" Dirk and Gar exchanged a glance, then Dirk said, "What did he look like?"

  "Not short, but not tall, either. Round-faced, dark-haired."

  "So that's why he seemed so nervous!" Dirk said to Gar. Miles's heart dropped down into his boots. His mind screamed at him to run, but he was too stunned to move. "You've seen him? Where?" The bailiff seemed almost to pounce, and his men stiffened.

  "Back at the ford, carrying a huge fish on a string." Gar's nose wrinkled. "Dead since dawn, at least. He walked with us to this very place, where he told us we might find horses for sale at a village yonder." He pointed toward the copse from which he and Dirk had come. "We hadn't gone but a quarter mile, though, before we saw there were no horses pastured. We came back to give the fellow a good thrashing for his lie, but we see he's gone."

  "Don't worry, I'll give him the thrashing for you," the bailiff said grimly. "No idea which way he went, then?"

  "No-but if he sent us east, I'd guess he'd have gone west" Gar pointed out across the fields:

  "Likely enough." The bailiff looked off toward the outcrop of woods, frowning. "How'd he disguise his trail from the hounds, though?"

  "Remember that fish I told you of?" Gar asked. "Well, I suspect he dragged it behind him. It's quite dead by now, and in the sun, it's probably giving off far more odor than he is."

  "Yes, probably enough," the bailiff growled. "Cunning rogue! All right, men, set your hounds to questing west!" Then, to Dirk and Gar, "Thanks for your information, guardsmen!"

  "Our pleasure-and thanks for telling us where to find horses." Dirk raised a hand in farewell, then remembered to stiffen it into the salute he'd learned the day before.

  The bailiff imitated the gesture, then hurried off after his foresters. Gar and Dirk started off toward the northeast.

  Miles sagged, and lay back against the boards with his heart thumping. He'd never heard such adroit lying in his life.

  But how would Gar and Dirk come back for him?

  Time enough to think that through later. For now, he needed to catch his breath-and let his body stop screaming at him to run.

  He was almost calm when he heard their voices as they came into the barn. "Well, yes," Gar was saying, "they did seem to have the hunting down to a routine. But that could be from being drilled in it, not from practice."

  "Yeah, and I might be good at speaking Standard because I studied it in a book," Dirk retorted. "Of course, it could also be from having spoken it all my life."

  "Well, we'll let Miles tell us." Gar smiled up at the wideeyed peasant. "Come down, Miles. I don't think you'll need to worry about that official for a while."

  "The bailiff?" Miles asked, round-eyed. "Do you really think he'll stay away?"

  "No," Dirk told him. "He'll be back in half an hour or so, when he finds his dogs don't strike any trace."

  "I expect they'll give them a dead fish to smell," Gar added, "but when they can't find that, the bailiff will come storming back, looking for blood. We'd better start hiking."

  Miles scrambled down the ladder, and they set off toward the woods along the stream. "Where are we going?" he asked. "To Farmer Landry's, first," Gar replied. "The bailiff and his men will be at least half an hour on their wild-goose chase, more likely an hour. We can have three miles' lead on them in that time."

  "Time enough to buy horses and be gone before they catch us," Dirk said. "By the way, Miles, settle an argument for us. Were those guys good at hunting because they've been trained in it, or because they've done it so often?"

  "Not `often,' I would say, sir," Miles said slowly, "no more than two or three times a year."

  Dirk looked up, startled, and Gar's face became a mask. "So you've met some other people running from the bailiff?"

  "Only before they ran, sir," Miles said, "or after they were punished. Not a year goes by without some young fellow giving in to the temptation of poaching, and I know most of them."

  "They don't get away, then?"

  Miles shook his head. "None from my village. I've heard rumors of highwaymen and forest outlaws, but I've never seen them myself."

  "But knowing they might be there ready to pounce, makes you think twice about running away," Dirk said with irony, "and the punishments are enough to make you think three or four times."

  "They are indeed, sir, and I don't know of any other runaways who are free. Even the bandits and highwaymen are caught by the reeve's men sooner or later."

  Gar frowned down at him. "You must really feel strongly about not marrying Salina, to dare all those dangersespecially since you seem to be sure you'll be caught sooner or later."

  "Killed, I hope, sir." Miles shuddered. "But I'd rather face death than a life of misery with a woman who hates me-and hates me all the more because I make her miserable, too. But yes, I am sure that if I don't fight to the death, they'll catch me. They all get caught, all the runaways I've known. The watchmen or the foresters bring them back." He shuddered again. "The flogging and the forced labor aren't pretty, and the shunning must be torture."

  "But they make you watch them, all the same," Dirk inferred. "That they do."

  "Doesn't anybody ever get angry at the bailiffs, or the Protector?" Gar asked.

  "No," Miles said very quickly. "Anyone foolish enough to let others know he's angry at the Protector, or even the magistrate or the reeve, disappears very quickly, never to be seen again. Old Jory-well, he loved his wife, but when she died, the magistrate ruled he must marry again. He didn't even say to whom-but Jory got drunk that night and swore they were all a pack of bullies and thieves, the magistrates and their bailiffs and watchmen, even the Protector himself-before he passed out. But the next morning he was gone, simply gone in the night, and no one ever saw him again." He shuddered. "Horrible," Dirk said, eyes wide. "How old was he, by the way?"

  "Old enough, sir-in his forties, at least."

  "Your magistrate doesn't seem to have heard_ of common decency," Dirk growled.

  Miles shrugged. "I suppose he felt that if the Protector made him marry so many times, he should make a widower marry again, too, sir."

  "So many?" Dirk looked up. "Have to marry? Why?"

  "Because the Protector won't let a magistrate stay in one town more than five years, sir," Miles said, surprised they should even ask. "Part of an official's job is to marry and beget sons who may become magistrates in their own turn-but when ,he is sent on to his next town, the marriage is dissolved, and he must marry again."

  "Practical, anyway," Dirk said with a shudder. "What does his ex-wife do for a living?"

  "Oh, the Protector sees that she and her children are wellhoused, well-clothed, and well-fed, sir-or the reeve, I should say, doing it for the Protector."

  "Yes, I can see that might make a man want to inflict marriage on other people," Gar said, "especially if he fell in love with a wife he'd had to leave."

  Farmer Landry was quite willing to sell them horses, even though their gold was only in little bars, not in coins. His eyes went huge when he saw them, and Miles elbowed Dirk and gave his head a little shake to tell him the price was far too high-but Dirk only winked and gave him a reassuring smile. Miles shrugged his shoulders and
stood back to watch his friends be cheated, then walked beside them, feeling helpless, as they rode off on their new mounts.

  But as soon as they were out of sight of the farmer's hut, they reined in, and Gar said, "We'll never outrun the bailiff if you keep walking, Miles. Up and ride, now!" He seized the peasant's arm and swung him up on the horse's rump. Miles clung for dear life, his stomach turning as he looked at the ground, so far below. It had never looked so hard.

  "Now for a hiding place," Gar said. "Is there some wild land where nobody lives, Miles?"

  "You must be from far away indeed, sir," Miles said, "not to know that the Badlands are only four days' journey from here."

  "Probably only a day and a half, on horseback. Hold tight, Miles." Gar clucked to his horse, then urged it into a fast walk. Miles clung, swaying and staring-and gradually, the fear subsided. In half an hour, he was surprised to realize he was actually enjoying it.

  All that time, Gar and Dirk had been talking, alternating between things that were so obvious he would have thought they were half-wits, and matters that sounded very complicated, but which Miles couldn't even begin to understand.

  "So the government is a dictatorship," Gar said, "only the dictator is called the Protector."

  "Shades of Oliver Cromwell," Dirk muttered.

  "His shade certainly seems to be alive and well here. He has the country people intimidated well enough-but there might still be rebels in the cities."

  "Oh, I think city people can be scared as thoroughly as country folk," Dirk replied. "Pardon my skepticism, but these `disappearances' Miles told us about smack of a secret police. They might not go by that name, of course. . . . Miles, what do they call watchmen who work in secret, so secret that nobody knows who they are?"

  "Protector's spies, sir."

  "Well, that's clear and plain enough! I'll bet they arrest dissidents before they worry about anybody else."