A Wizard In War Read online

  Coll wasn't sure what all the words meant, but he was sure he agreed with them. Like Dirk and Gar, he had found his king to be very disenchanting.

  Dirk noticed. "You don't look any too happy about him either, Coll."

  The serf shrugged. "You, at least, can leave this land, if you don't like its king, sir."

  "Dirk," the knight corrected.

  "Dirk." Coll tried to smile. "You can leave. I have to live with this king."

  "Yes." Dirk's eyes narrowed; his voice dropped. "But he doesn't."

  Coll stared, trying to understand what the knight meant. When he realized it, it struck him like lightning, and he staggered. The idea that people could rid themselves of a bad king was shocking, worse than shocking.

  "Steady." It was Gar's hand that held him up. "After all, you're an outlaw."

  Coll stared at him, uncomprehending. Then he understood what Gar meant, and he felt a rush of strength swelling within him as a wolfish grin tugged at his lips. He was dead already, if the law caught him-how much more dead could he be for fighting against the king?

  "He's young, though," Gar reminded Coll. "We might still make something of this king of yours."

  Coll stared, even more flabbergasted. How could you remake a king?

  "Is he a pretty good example of the men who rule you," Dirk asked, "or are the lords any different?"

  The question took Coll aback. "I only know of Earl Insol."

  "But you must have heard something of the others." Coll shrugged. "From the rumors we hear in our village, they're all the same-not the songs the minstrels sing in the common, but the words they speak in low voices when the door is barred and the night keeps folk home in bed. All of the lords want wealth-who doesn't-and all of them want power, or they wouldn't be lords."

  "That makes sense, as far as it goes," Dirk admitted. "The question is, do they want anything but wealth and power?"

  "Of course," Gar said, with a hard smile. "They want the things that wealth can buy and power can compel-rich food, fine wines, young women for their beds. . ."

  Anger flared in Coll. "Yes, they're like that, all of them! Oh, my grandfather told me that Earl Insol was noble enough when he was young, that many of them are-but a year or two of power changes all that. Before his father died, the earl was angered by our sufferings; he brought us food when he could, and made his soldiers treat us more gently, so my grandfather said. They thought it was because he was in love with one of the serf girls, but dared not touch her, for she was very pretty, and his father might want her for his own-and sure enough, the old earl took her, and the young lord was too much ashamed to take her afterward. He still came to help the serfs with food and medicine when he could, but something had died within him."

  "What happened when they buried his father and he became earl in his own right?" Dirk asked.

  Coll shrugged. "He stopped the scourgings and demanded fewer days of labor on his own lands-for a year or two. Then Count Sipar, his neighbor to the north, marched against him, and he had to haul men from the plow and jam them into boiled-leather armor."

  "He won, though?"

  "He didn't lose," Coll sighed. "He still holds Insol. He held the border, yes, but he didn't march into Sipar's lands. At home, he began to become hard as his father, and little by little the scourgings came back, and the days of labor went up again, until we were no better off than before."

  "And his son?" Dirk asked.

  "Which one?" Coll said bitterly. "He has a dozen, among our serfs-but never by the woman he loved in his youth, they say."

  "He hasn't married, then?"

  "Only two years ago, and long we had to labor to provide his feast! His wife's with child at last, so mayhap there will be a son soon."

  "And his lady?" Gar asked. "Has she come among you to cure your ills, or asked her lord to lighten your burdens?"

  "Lighten them! She's calling for another day's labor every fortnight, to build the new tower she fancies!" Coll shook his head slowly. "Yes, some of them are noble enough when they're young, sir knights-but power changes that. In all of them. I've never heard of a one who used it to help his serfs-not one."

  Dirk gave Gar a lugubrious look. "It is worse than home!"

  They had only two weeks to weld the king's forces into a single army. His Majesty employed Gar and Dirk as couriers, riding from one knight to another to take them the king's orders and bring back information. It took Gar only one day to figure out that the king expected him to coordinate the bands, inducing them to work together somehow. He left it to Dirk to soothe ruffled feathers and convey orders without being too insulting, while Gar devoted himself to calming and flattering the king while he provided him with advice on tactics under the guise of guesswork. Coll rode first with the one, then the other, amazed at the number of details they gave him to work out, and even more amazed to discover that he could do every job they gave him.

  In spite of it all, he still managed to squeeze in a couple of hours of drill with the king's spearmen every day, and quickly discovered that he and his friends had worked out more ways to use the weapon than the professionals had been taught. He undertook the task of teaching them, without letting them know. "Foul? I'm sorry. I never thought it would be a foul blow to strike at the belly with a spear butt. We do that at home in Melange, all the time. How did I do it? Well, you stab with the blade, but as you draw the spear back, you swing the butt down, like this.. ."

  Gar watched them drill and was pleasantly surprised. "Well done, Coll, well done indeed! It seems we chose better than we knew when we recruited him, Dirk!"

  "Oh, well, I always had an eye for talent," Dirk drawled, with a gleam in his eye-and a manner so droll that Coll shouted with laughter. It felt good to laugh again, even once.

  Then they were marching, and the time for laughing was done.

  The king himself led the crossing of the ford on the main road. He led a charge with a dozen knights behind him in the grey light before dawn, out of the water and into the earl's camp. Insol's army was just waking, just beginning to stumble out of their tents to throw kindling on their banked fires and blow them to life. The king's army swept in among them, clubbing unarmed men aside with contempt. Knights came running from their pavilions with swords already drawn and only mail coats for protection, shouting and haranguing their men into some semblance of order and bullying their soldiers into catching up spears. But the king's troops parried their thrusts, then stabbed in return, and men died. Death screams filled the air, and some of them came from king's men, for the earl's soldiers came awake quickly with the surge of fear. But they were too few and too late; the king's knights swung from horseback and struck the swords out of the hands of the earl's knights, though here and there an earl's man thrust upward and slipped his blade between gorget and helm; there and here, a king's man struck, not caring where, and a knight lost an arm or fell with blood pulsing from his throat. But most of the earl's troops fled, and in less than an hour, the king's soldiers were rounding up prisoners.

  "An excellent action, Majesty," Gar told the king. Coll, overhearing, thought that Gar should have known if anyone did-after all, the plan had really been his.

  "Thank you, Sir Gar." The king fairly beamed,-pleased; he had won his first battle. "I trust Sir Hildebrandt and Sir Hrothgar have fared as well as we."

  "I'm sure they have, Majesty," Gar told him. Coll wondered how the big man could be so certain of it. Nonetheless, the couriers came riding at the gallop to tell of victory, and that before they were more than a mile farther down the road, with the prisoners already on their way to the king's dungeon. The king was beside himself with glee. "A triumph! A wonderful triumph!"

  "It is indeed," Gar agreed, "but when we chase Earl Insol on his home estates, I trust Your Majesty will be more careful of your person-and more thrifty with your men."

  The glee vanished on the instant. "What do you mean?"

  "We must find some high place," Gar counseled, "so that you may look down on the bat
tle, and direct it. I know it will be hard for you to give up leading the charge yourself, but our chances of winning the battle are greater if our tactician can see the enemy's movements and counter them during the battle, rather than setting everything in motion and hoping he was right."

  The king had started nodding before Gar was more than halfway done. "Yes. A most excellent idea, Sir Gar. You will stay by me, though, to guard me."

  Coll fancied he caught an undertone of relief in the king's words-and he thought Gar's sigh was entirely false as he said, "I must do as Your Majesty wishes, of course." After all, Coll reflected, Gar hadn't said who the tactician was.

  So it was that, when they met Earl Insol's army, the king was no longer at their fore. Instead, he sat atop a hill with his bodyguards, Gar at his right hand, and directed the bat - de. There was a fair amount of grumbling about it, covering outright fear: How sure of victory could the king be, if he was so anxious to be far from his own army? But Dirk rode from knight to knight, explaining in very loud tones how the king's being away from the battle improved their chances of winning, and each knight nodded as though he had reasons of his own for agreeing. The troopers, seeing how thoroughly their masters were of one mind, began to relax and gain heart.

  The earl, marching his main army to join the advance guard he had sent to the ford, had met and rallied the routed soldiers, gathering them in. Spies in the enemy camp sent word to the king that the nobleman was shocked and angry to find the king had already attacked and had captured half his advance guard to boot. "Not necessarily a good thing," Dirk explained to Coll. "He knows he has a real fight on his hands now, and is out for revenge besides."

  Soldiers who overheard him exclaimed with delight, but Coll felt a cold pool of apprehension growing in his belly. It would be a harder fight than the last, much harder.

  It was. The earl borrowed the king's technique from the reports of the battle at the ford, and charged at first light. The king's men were ready and waiting for him, though, and gave ground at the center of the line, fighting desperately as they retreated-desperately, because the earl's knights fought with the energy of anger, driving their footmen all the harder, and because the earl himself laid about him with furious strokes of his sword, calling for the coward king to come out and fight. The troopers could only try to parry his blade and retreat before him and his huge armored horse, because only another nobleman was allowed to battle him. Any knight who had been so rash as to try it and win would have been hanged for his pains.

  Coll watched it all happen, for he crouched in the bracken high on the hillside with the rest of the reserves, hearing the king rage at Gar, "He insults me, he impugns my honor! Don't tell me again about the soldiers he has hidden in the ranks near him who are to disembowel my horse and bear me down . . ."

  "The earl will be quite willing to hang them after the battle, as honor dictates," Gar reminded him.

  "Then let them die-but let it be in battle, from the spears of my soldier guards! Live or die, I must fight him, or none will ever follow me again!"

  "Look!" Gar pointed. "The earl has driven our center in so far that our flanks are behind his now! Yes, Majesty, by all means, charge in to fight him, for we have him surrounded now!"

  The king drew his sword and charged down with a shout. His men echoed it and pelted down the hill after him, Coll in their midst.

  They struck the earl's army like a hammer through thatch. The knights commanding the flanks saw them coming, and timed their own counterattack so that suddenly the earl found his army hard-pressed from every side. Even the men who had been giving ground before him were standing firm now, even beginning to press in! And worst of all, here came that idiot boy in his shining armor, plowing through the press of peasants and roaring Insol's name! There was no help for it, chivalry dictated that the earl turn aside from trying to push back the serfs in front of him, to meet the stripling in combat. "Dag! Vorgan!" he called to the two nearest knights. "Press this rabble back! I must see to the scullery boy!" He turned, couching his lance, and saw a lane open up as if by magic, foot soldiers pressing back to reveal the young king at the far end, lance leveled. Insol shouted and charged.

  So did the king.

  They met with a fearful crash. Insol felt his lance torn from his arm and reeled in his saddle, his stomach suddenly roiling as the sky and army swerved and soared about him. Motion stopped; dimly, he was aware of serfs turning his horse about, and pulled himself upright in the saddle in time to see the young king turning to face him, throwing aside a broken lance and drawing a sword.

  Anger came to Insol's aid. He drew his own sword and spurred his horse, shouting an angry insult The king's horse lumbered into motion, and king and nobleman met to trade blows.

  But while the king was keeping Earl Insol busy, Gar was shouting orders to the other knights, who drove their men in, cutting Insol's army into wedges-wedges that fought back with the desperation of cornered men who expect no merry, and the battle disintegrated into half a dozen skirmishes. The knots of men broke apart, and Insol's men ran for ground that gave them a better chance. The king's men raised a gloating shout, and charged after them-but the earl's serfs knew the terrain and stopped to fight again atop a ridge, so that the king's soldiers had to charge uphill at them. They met spears, and many died.

  Coll didn't wait to get caught up in trying to catch a fleeing foe. As soon as he could, he broke off from the battle and ran for home. He was dreadfully aware that the fighting was far too close to his village, and that fleeing soldiers might very well run for the cover of its cottages.

  5

  Coll broke loose from the knot of men, slipped into the trees, then trotted as fast as he could over the old, familiar game trails. He wished he could go faster, but dared not-a storm might have washed away soil to expose a root, or a fallen branch might block the trail; he would get there faster, and in better shape to fight, if he went slowly enough to see what lay ahead. At least the enemy would have to stay on the road as they fought one another, though he knew that any who managed to break away, as he had done, would probably know the woods as well as he. When they were boys, they had paid little regard to the border between the two estates, running back and forth between villages to visit, and the king's serfs knew the trails as well as the earl's.

  He burst into the village to find it silent, cold, and empty; no children played between the silent huts; no women sat in the village square, gossiping while they carded and spun. Every door was closed tight, every window shuttered.

  None of it deceived Coll for a moment. just the year before, he had himself barricaded the cottage and hidden when the alarm had sounded; he knew how the peasant folks strove to survive when the soldiers came. The only question was whether they had hidden in the woods this time, or indoors. He ran to his mother's but and pounded on the door. "Mother! Open! It's Coll!"

  There was no answer. He told himself not to be surprised, that she couldn't believe his words. He kept knocking, crying, "It's Coll!"

  Was that a step he heard behind the door? Perhaps, but more clearly and more loudly came the roar of fighting men and the clash of steel. Coll spun about, to see the earl's men tumbling into the village, racing for the false security of a but and a door. Hard on their heels came the king's men, kicking doors open and smashing them down, running into the huts to drag out screaming women and children-and the occasional soldier who had managed to hide.

  Coll knew what would happen to those women when the king's men were sure they had defeated all the earl's menfor the king had been crafty; these were men from the north he had sent to attack here, not local boys who knew the villagers. He took his stand by the door, and as a king's man came running up, shouted, "None here-the but is empty! Search the next!"

  The man nodded and sped away-but three earl's men spun toward him. "Empty?"

  "Let us in!"

  "Aside, king's man, or die!"

  A halberd swung down at Coll's chest.

  He blocked it wi
th his spear, spun the butt into the man's stomach, kicked the next attacker in the knee-but was slow leaning aside from the third's spear thrust, and the blade gazed his shoulder. It jarred into the wood of the doorframe, though, and slowed the man long enough for him to realize whom he was fighting. "Colt!!?"

  "The same, Wand! And if my mother's but is empty, I'll eat its thatch! Go find some other place to hide!"

  "But what are you doing in..."

  "Go! Don't you hear me? Run for your life and hide!" Wand swallowed thickly and said, "Tell me later!" Then he turned and ran, dodging away among the huts.

  Behind him, the door opened a crack, and his mother's voice said, in disbelief and wonder, "Coll?"

  "Yes, Mother." Coll risked a quick glance. "Are you safe?"

  "For now, yes." Tears choked her voice. "And Dicea?"

  "Safe, Coll," his sister's voice said, amazed and wondering. There was a shadow of movement behind his mother. "Stay inside and bar the door, then. I'll keep the king's men from coming in!"

  "But you're a king's man yourself! How?"

  Three men in earl's livery rounded a nearby but and ran pell-mell toward Coll. They didn't see him yet. "I'll tell you later! Bar the door now-these will need more than talk!"

  "Bless you, son!" his mother said, and the door slammed shut.

  The earl's men saw a lone king's man standing in front of a hut. Their eyes lit with relief and revenge-lust; they shouted and charged Coll.

  They were all strangers-from the south, most likely. Coll swung aside to his left, beating down one spear as another thudded into the door. "For the king!" he cried, and struck his spear shaft against the nearest soldier's throat, then cracked the butt into the forehead of the second man as he struggled to yank his spear loose. But the third had taken the time to leap around both, and Coll saw the spearhead ramming straight toward his belly. He twisted aside at the last instant, and the spear only scored his ribs-but a hard fist came around and exploded in his face. The wall struck his back, and all he saw was a field of exploding lights against midnight blue. He staggered, flailing his spear out of sheer reflex-but when the stars faded, he saw the earl's man hovering in front of him, waiting for a chance for a clear blow. Behind him, a knight rounded a but with half a dozen earl's men behind him. "The murderer!" he bellowed. "Kill him!"