A Wizard In War Read online

  "We have to go looking for other groups of men who want to stop the lords' oppression," Dirk explained. "If it all comes down to numbers, we've got to dredge them up."

  Gar nodded. "There are more serfs than lords, after all. There must be some way to arm and raise more of them than the lords can."

  Banhael looked skeptical, but all he said was, "Well, if I can't dissuade you, then I can wish you well. Vinal! Oram! Guide these guests out of the forest by the most secret path!g"

  So they set off out of the settlement with Banhael's parting gift--another stallion and two ponies, for the women to ride.

  And, of course, his guides to follow. Coll rode with his spear in his fist, and noticed that Gar and Dirk each kept a hand close to his sword. In spite of it all, though, they rode unthreatened to the edge of the forest, where Vinal and Oram touched their forelocks and Vinal said, "Yonder lies the pastureland and the plowed fields, sir knights."

  "We wish you well, and so does Banhael," Oram said. "Remember, if things go wrong out there, you'll always have friends and a home in here."

  Coll hoped they wouldn't have to live in it.

  They wouldn't, at least for the moment. As the afternoon waned into twilight, they came upon a ragtag band of people clustered around a campfire, backed by two oxcarts. They looked up warily as Gar and Dirk rode up, but some of the women glanced behind the knights and saw two peasant women, which seemed to reassure them somewhat. The oldest man, a hale and hearty greybeard, stood and came toward them, sweeping off his hat to bow. "Good evening, good sirs! Can a poor band of mountebanks aid you in any way."

  "Mountebanks!" Gar and Dirk exchanged a startled glance, then turned back to the man with slow smiles. "Are you players?" Dirk asked.

  "We have that privilege, sir."

  "Actors who perform plays?" Gar clarified.

  "Well, we do try," the man said with a self-effacing smile.

  "Then we would like to travel with you to your next performance, so that we may watch," Gar told him. "Would that trouble you?"

  "No-no, not at all," the man said, with a look that verged on panic. The other players stirred uneasily, trying to hide their alarm.

  "Oh, yes it does," Dirk said with a smile. "We'll camp near you, then, but not with you, and follow you in the morning." He turned his horse away, and Coll turned with him-but his gaze lingered on one young woman, a redheaded, sloe-eyed beauty, who noticed his interest and lost her alarm in a slow, measuring smile.

  Dicea frowned and moved her pony forward. "Then let us find a resting place quickly, while there is still light."

  "Yes, of course!" Dirk jolted himself out of his reverie. "We'll see you in the morning then, players."

  "Good night to you, sir knights," the greybeard said, obviously relieved, and the party moved on-but Coll glanced back twice, and felt his heart leap when he saw that the redhead's gaze stayed fixed on him.

  Gar pulled them off the road into a small clearing. The earth was beaten hard, and there were two rings of blackened stones with the evidence of many fires. "This seems to be a virtual way station. Did you bring canvas, Dirk?"

  "Canvas? Sure." Dirk dismounted and pulled a thick square of folded cloth from a saddlebag. So did Gar. They pitched camp, and Mama set herself to working wonders with dried meat, some roots that she grubbed up, and a ket tleful of water. Scarcely had she set the pot over the fire, though, when she exclaimed with annoyance, "Savory! There's none to be found. I'll just walk back to those players, and see if they have any."

  "You shouldn't go alone, Mama," Coll said quickly. "I'll go with you." He fell in beside his mother, his heartbeat quickening at the thought of red hair and huge eyes. He heard scraps of talk behind him.

  "Now, why would the good widow do that?" Gar wondered. "Surely the herbs cannot be so very important!" Dicea turned to him, forcing a smile that became real as she gazed at him. "It isn't the savory she really goes for, sir-it's the other travelers."

  "Oh, of course." Gar nodded. "I expect the company of other women would be comforting. Are you sure you don't want to go with her?"

  Dicea gazed up at him, and her eyelids drooped. "By your leave, sir, I'd sooner stay here with yourself and Sir Dirk."

  Coll frowned, a little nettled at not being even an afterthought, which he always had been, as far as Dicea was concerned. He sighed, glad that he wasn't going to have to stay to watch his sister flirt with the impassive giant.

  8

  Mama and Coll came back in less than an hour, Mama wreathed in smiles, Coll with a slight curve to his lips and a strange light to his eyes that made Dicea frown. He had just had, fifteen minutes' talk with the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, and felt as though his blood were wine.

  "Oh, what hospitable folk they are!" Mama held up a bunch of greenery. "Dried savory, and rosemary and sage, too!"

  "And good conversation with it?" Gar asked, smiling. "A great deal of news." Mama sat down beside the kettle and crumbled a little savory into the stewing meat. "There, now, half an hour more, and your dried meat and vegetables should have turned into a most appetizing stew. Such good conversation, my! They've heard of the battle already, how the king fought with Earl Insol, and won-and without even slaying all that many men, though a good number are lost on both sides."

  "Lost or slain, what difference?" Coll said bitterly. "No, no, son! 'Lost' meaning no one knows where they are! No dead bodies found, nor no living ones neither!"

  "Fled?" Coll looked up, a light of hope in his eye.

  "I don't doubt it," Gar said. "Remember my concern about the soldiers who might have taken cover in the greenwood? Banhael will find many new recruits for his band, I think, but not very many women."

  "Oh, there will be those, too," Mama said darkly. "Ours wasn't the only village trampled beneath the soldiers' feet, sir, I assure you! Already these vagabonds have heard of four other clusters of serf huts gone, and the people fled."

  "There must be hiding places other than the forest," Gar said, frowning.

  "To be sure, there are, and many of the men will find their way back to their homes, if their villages still stand. Many more will find their way back to their lord's castle, since they've no place else to go."

  "But the bones of many others will someday be found, in the thickets and the crannies where they crawled away to die," Coll said, scowling.

  "I fear so," Mama sighed. "Thus has it always beenthus will it always be, and we women must bring more men into the world so that humankind doesn't kill itself off completely."

  "Perhaps it deserves to!"

  "No, Coll, it doesn't," Gar said gently. "Who began this war, anyway?"

  "Who begins them all?" Coll retorted. "The lords!" Gar nodded. "So if you take away the lords, perhaps the wars will stop, at least for a while."

  Dicea and Mama stared in fright at the enormity of the treason Gar spoke, but Coll only laughed a short and bitter laugh. "That's what you've preached to Banhael, isn't it? But no matter what you said, he heard nothing about killing off the lords completely-he only heard a chance to become a lord himself! That's the only change that will come about if you slay them all, sir knight-new ones will arise, and worse than the ones before! They'd have to be, or they wouldn't have been able to kill the old ones!"

  Dirk shook his head. "It's possible to keep the lords out, Coll. The people can band together and pull down any man who tries to boss them."

  Coll stared at him, then recovered. "Band together? How? Under a leader! And what's to keep that leader from becoming a lord, hey?"

  "The people," Gar told him, "if they're all armed and all trained to fight, and if there's a law that says the leaders can't do anything without their consent."

  Coll stared at him as though he were insane. "A law? The leaders make the laws!"

  "Doesn't have to be." Dirk shook his head. "The people can gather together to agree on what laws they want to make, then pull down any leader who tries to break those laws."

  "A law stronger th
an a lord?" Coll stared at him. "Are you crazed?"

  "No, Coll, and neither is Sir Gar." Dicea laid her hand on her brother's forearm, but her glowing gaze was all for Dirk. "If they say it can be done, it can."

  Coll glanced at her face, saw more fascination with men than with laws, and knew there was no point in speaking any further. "Have it as you will," he said bitterly.

  "It's worth a try," Mama said slowly. "Give them that much, son-it's worth a try. In fact, if the men leave it up to the women to decide, there will never be any wars."

  Well, Coll had seen women come to blows, though not as often as men, so he found room to doubt. Even so, he had to admit the women would declare fewer wars than the men.

  Gar nodded slowly. "I've heard of such an arrangement before-a men's council and a women's, with both needing to agree before any action can be taken."

  "Why not simply have women in the same council?" Dicea seemed very excited by the idea, so excited she couldn't keep it in, but she spoke very softly, as though trying not to be heard.

  Gar nodded gravely, though, turning to her. "That has been tried, too." He shrugged. "Each people seems to have its own needs and requires its own form of council."

  Coll stared. "Do you mean to say that every people is governed by a council?"

  "A system of councils, I should say," Gar said slowly, "and I have heard that some peoples are better governed without any such meetings-but I have never seen any."

  "Do you mean to tell me that the outlaws are ruled by a council, not by Banhael?"

  "The outlaws are a council," Dirk explained. "They're a small enough group so that everyone can speak up-and they did. Banhael was constantly talking with one man, three men, five, persuading, intimidating, asking-but he couldn't just command, except in battle. They didn't have to meet as a council-they met for dinner every night-but they were a council anyway."

  Coll stared at him; then his eyes lost focus as he remembered what he had seen of the way Banhael spent his day. Dirk was right-he had been constantly chivying and haranguing. "Will these mountebanks prove to be a council, too?"

  Dirk shrugged. "We'll have to see. Whatever else they are, they should be great cover for five people on the run."

  "Cover?" Dicea frowned. "How do they cover us?"

  "A hiding place, Dicea," Gar explained. "If we disguise ourselves as vagabonds and travel with them, no one will think to look for us among them."

  Dicea stared. "Knights disguise themselves as vagabonds?"

  "Is it any worse than hiding among outlaws?" Dirk countered.

  "I've disguised myself as worse; to escape when my side has lost," Gar assured her.

  "But the king won!" Coll exclaimed.

  "Yes, but many of the Earl's troops, and some of his knights, escaped and are roaming the countryside," Gar told him. "We'll have to move carefully in seeking to rejoin the king-very carefully, and very slowly."

  Coll lifted his head, understanding. Gar didn't want to rejoin the king-at least, not right away. Why? Well, that didn't really matter. All that did was that Gar and Dirk were bound on wandering for a while. And if they wandered in the company of that red-haired wonder, Coll certainly had no objection.

  "The mountebanks should be glad of an armed escort, then," Gar observed. "If we hide our shields, no one will know we're knights unless they've already met us."

  Dirk nodded. "After all, we don't wear any more armor than your average heavy trooper."

  Dicea's eyes were wide; she looked scandalized, but was trying (unsuccessfully) not to let it show. Coll only grinned and nodded; it was the kind of ruse in which he was beginning to delight. "Shall I hide my spear?"

  "No, we'll claim we're mercenaries, and we hired you to do the dirty work." Dirk grinned. "No lie like the truth, eh? Just hide your royal tabard."

  Coll pulled the tabard over his head and folded it. "Done."

  But Mama looked worried. "What if a king's knight discovers you?"

  "Then we tell him that we're traveling in disguise to learn more about the lords and their weak points," Dirk told her.

  Again, Coll thought, no lie like the truth.

  "One could almost wish our side had lost," Gar sighed. "Then there would be no fear of someone accusing us of being deserters."

  "Not much worry about that, anyway," Dirk pointed out. "After all, we left in such a hurry that we didn't get paid."

  It didn't seem to bother him much at all.

  The greybeard still seemed nervous when they rode out to join his carts as they came rumbling along the road, but he also seemed reassured not to see any armor, and only swords and daggers at the knights' hips, so he forced a smile. "Well met, sir knights! I am Androv. We are proud to have you join us."

  "Well met, Master Androv." Gar inclined his head politely. "I am Sir Gar Pike ... this is Sir Dirk Dulaine ... Coll ... Dicea ... and their mother, whom I believe you have already met."

  Androv smiled at Mama, and his nervousness fell away. "Yes, and an excellent companion she is, too."

  And an even more excellent cook, Coll thought. He knew Mama was the only reason the mountebanks were willing to travel with the knights at all-not that they had much choice.

  Mama smiled warmly. "How good of you to say so, Androv! "

  "For the time being," Gar said, "I think we would do best to drop our titles. I am simply 'Gar' to you, and my companion is 'Dirk.'"

  "You don't want people to know that you're knights, then?" Androv asked in surprise, then quickly shook his head. "No, of course, that's no business of mine! Come along, sirs, and since there are more woods ahead of us that are infested with bandits, we'll be very glad of the company of three armed men." He glanced at Coll. "You are armed, aren't you?"

  Coll grinned and pointed to the first cart. "While you were talking, I hid it in there."

  Androv looked in surprise and saw the butt of the spear poking out from the side nearest them. He smiled slowly. "Your hand was quicker than my eye, Coll. Have you thought o€ taking up conjuring tricks?"

  Gar and Dirk laughed, but Coll perked up. "Why not? I can use all the training I can get!"

  "What professor wouldn't give his chair for an attitude like that!" Gar sighed, earning looks of puzzlement from everybody.

  "Why would a professor be so far from a university?" Androv asked-which put him ahead of Coll, who didn't even know what a professor was.

  "To find students like Coll," Dirk replied.

  Androv shrugged off the cryptic comment and got down to business. "You should know your companions by name." He turned to gesture toward his fellow mountebanks, beginning with those who were perched precariously on the carts. "Constantine ... Charles ... Frederick ... Ciare . . ."

  Ciare nodded courteously enough toward Gar's roughhewn countenance, but her gaze lingered on Coll's face, becoming slumberous. He felt as though he were a field with seeds shooting out of the ground, and his smile seemed to glow in response to hers as he nodded.

  Dicea frowned and asked, rather loudly, "Who is that handsome young man who drives the second cart, Master Androv?"

  "Oh, that's Enrico," Androve said. The youth ducked his head, and came up with a long and caressing gaze for Dicea. She gave him a brittle smile in return-very brittle because Dirk didn't even seem to have noticed; he only nodded gravely to Enrico, then at each of the other players in turn.

  Coll felt a little angry in defense of his sister, and could almost have felt sorry for her-"almost" because she had turned to chatter brightly to Gar. Coll turned an inquiring glance toward Mama, but she only shrugged and shook her head.

  So they journeyed on, the men taking turns walking and riding in the carts, the two knights riding alongside and, from their higher vantage point, chatting with the players who were perched on top of the loads. Coll was amazed at how quickly they managed to draw out the players, at how easily the players were chatting, as though with old friends.

  They came to a town about midday-a collection of wattle-and-daub huts with a
few half-timbered buildings, two of which actually had a second story. There was a church, too, built of stone and a little taller than any other building, with a steeple besides. Androv went around it, off to the second largest building.

  Coll looked about him wide-eyed, and so did Mama and Dicea. "I have never seen so many houses!" Dicea breathed.

  Ciare laughed, looking down at her from her seat on the cart. "You'll see towns like this often enough, and many times bigger, too, if you stay with us long."

  Dicea's face set in resentment at the reminder that she was a country bumpkin, but just then they passed the market, and her eyes widened again at the sight of so many booths, roofed with gaily colored cloth. She started toward them, but Mama caught her arm and pulled her back into line. "Later, darling-and after we've earned a few coppers, if we can."

  They went around the largest building, and Coll was surprised to see that it was hollow. They came in through plank gates between two tall wings into a wide courtyard. Cattle lowed in a pen against one wall, pigs in a pen against another. Chickens pecked for grain in the dust, around the wheels of several carts held in place by wheel chocks; the horses and donkeys were stabled under a thatched roof at the far side of the courtyard. Hostlers moved about among the animals, and a kitchen was sending forth odors of roast pork and fresh bread that made Coll's mouth water.

  A large man with an apron tied around his middle came up to them, his smile of greeting fading as he looked them over-but he kept his tone polite. "Good afternoon, travelers. What would you like?"

  "A place to perform, landlord." Androv doffed his cap with a flourish. "Have I the pleasure of addressing the proprietor of this establishment?"

  "You have." The landlord's interest kindled as he looked over the smiling players and the gaily painted canvas folded over the wooden trunks in the first cart. "Are you play-actors?" .

  "That we are, sir, and with many a fine play to present! We have the doleful history of Pyramus and Thisbe for lovers, the battles of Henry the Fifth for those of martial spirits, and the confusions of the Imaginary Invalid for those who love to laugh! Will it please you to have us perform them in your yard?"