David Drake - Master of the Cauldron

The wizardlight vanished. The frogs and mice reverted to their natural selves, capering and rolling in desperate attempts to free themselves from the equipment hooked about them. Their terrified squeaks would've roused pity in a butcher's heart.

Dipsas stepped out of the tent. She looked worn, but her eyes were feverishly bright. The reptile-scale athame hung loosely from her right hand.

"Your entertainment disgusts me!" Garric said. He spoke much louder than he'd intended, but he didn't regret the outburst. Liane was at his side, touching his arm to reassure herself and him as well.

"Aye, he's right," Wildulf said. In the heat of the moment, Garric had forgotten the Earl's presence. "You! You're a wizard, you say?"

Dipsas backed from the threat in Wildulf's voice, looking surprised and frightened like a rat startled in the middle of a large room. In her place the Countess said, "She's a great wizard!"

"Then let her do something about thosedamned clouds!" Wildulf said. "Portents or not, I want them stopped. And you, wizard-"

He groped unconsciously at the place on his belt where the hilt would be if he were wearing a sword.

"-if I thought for an instant that youwere behind those things, if I ever learn that, your best hope is for a quick death. Because you'll be luckier than you deserve if I grant you that kindness."

"She's not responsible, Wildulf!" Balila cried. "Lady Dipsas is going to save us and get you your deserts! You'll see. You'll all-"

She turned and swept Garric with a blazing glance.

"-see. You will!"

The Countess laid an arm around Dipsas' shoulders. She walked through another archway, half hugging and half supporting the old wizard. The bird thrust out its black tongue in a hissingskreek! and stalked off behind them. When the cherub noticed they were leaving, he burbled in terror and followed-stumbling and paddling forward, half the time on all fours.

Garric hugged Liane close without taking his eyes off Balila and her wizard until they'd disappeared from sight. In a quiet voice he said, "Do you suppose Dipsas is behind the portents? Or whatever the clouds are?"

"I don't know," Liane murmured. "But I'll have more information shortly, I believe."

A few of the frogs and mice were still pawing at the fine wire screen closing the front of the stage, but for the most part they'd subsided into trembling misery against the walls of the enclosure. Occasionally a mouse flailed against its armor, then gave a whimpering squeal and stopped.

I understand how they feel, Garric thought; but he didn't allow the words to reach his lips.

The wall stretched east and west to both horizons. It was stone and taller than a man-taller than either of Ilna's companions, at any rate. They could easily climb over, but the watchtowers every few furlongs were obviously intended to prevent that from happening without discussion.

A wooden trumpet called from the nearest tower. It was a blat of sound, not in any sense music, but it seemed to have done the job. A gong rang from the manor house that sprawled on the opposite ridge. Ilna could see the figures of men running toward the stables.

Chalcus waved his left arm enthusiastically. "May as well convince them we're friendly," he said in a cheerful tone. "And I surely am friendly, since I see how many of them there are: and them having bows too, or I'll be pleasantly surprised."

They started down the slope of sharp-edged grass and flowers on central spikes. The plantings on the other side of the wall were darker green. The figures working among the rows straightened to watch the strangers until the wall cut off further view.

"The fields are irrigated," Davus said. He held a fist-sized rock in his right hand, but he didn't convert his sash into a sling at present. Like Chalcus-and Ilna herself, of course-he was of the mind that fighting was a last resort against such obvious power. "There must be several hundred people in the community. Maybe more, depending on how far north it stretches where we can't see."

"Is there a habit of being hospitable to wandering strangers here, Master Davus?" Chalcus asked. "Strangers who come in peace, I mean, of course."

Davus shrugged. "In my day the Old King enforced such a custom," he said. "But my day is long past, as we all know."

The estate's southern gate was hung in a high archway, but there were no guard towers nor was the wall wide enough to stand on and throw things down on an attacker. Even Ilna-not by any stretch of the imagination a soldier-could see that it would be impossible to defend from a single determined person with a hatchet, at least until after he'd managed to whittle his way through a gate-leaf.

As they approached, Ilna walked a little ahead of the men flanking her. Chalcus could be charming, but looking harmless was completely beyond him. Davus, she'd begun to realize, wasn't any better in that respect for all that she couldn't have asked for a more polite and pleasant companion.

The gate creaked inward, then jerked open further. The tall leaves hogged, so the inward corners plowed curving furrows in the ground. Two horsemen with swords and quivers of short javelins rather than arrows hanging from their saddles rode through. They pulled up just outside the enclosure, trying to look menacing while the four men who'd opened the gate remounted and followed them.

When all six were in a line, a man so fat that Ilna felt sorry for his poor horse-he'd have done better on an ox-came out, keeping carefully behind the others. This last fellow wore a sword, but he looked as though the horse would be more dangerous wielding it.

He was overdressed and badly dressed, both. His cloak was of blue wool dyed in several different lots, and his black tunic had started to fade in patches. Both were embroidered with gold thread. The seamstress who'd worked on the left side of the garments was skilled enough to receive Ilna's silent approval, but that only served to point out the childish incompetence of the two different hands who'd done the rest of the embroidery.

The leader of the six horsemen wore a mail shirt and trailed a red pennant from the peak of his helmet. He looked at the fat man, then glowered at Ilna and said, "Get on with you! Lord Ramelus doesn't allow vagabonds on his land!"

Ilna smiled faintly. She was thinking of how this flunky in armor would look dangling by his own intestines from a limb of one of the chestnut trees growing beside the manor house.

"We're travellers, not vagabonds," she said in a mild voice, hoping that her smile had been misinterpreted. "We'd appreciate a little food and drink, but we're more than willing to work for our keep."

She glanced at her companions, keeping her face bland. Chalcus grinned engagingly at a pair of the mounted men; Davus was digging at the ground with his big toe. To a stranger he'd look embarrassed, but Ilna noticed that he'd uncovered a wedge-shaped shard of limestone. A piece like that could very nearly decapitate a man if it was well-thrown.

The chief guard glanced again to the fat man who was obviously Lord Ramelus. Ramelus frowned, then said in a squeakier voice than his bulk suggested, "They can have water, Gallen. We don't need their labor-or their presence here, either one."

"All right, Lord Ramelus says you can have water," Gallen said, twisting to get the skin of water slung from the back of his saddle where it balanced the sheaf of javelins.

Ilna smiled again, her fingers weaving a pattern of cords. It struck her as amusing that Lord Ramelus and his flunkies were just as safe as they thought they were, but only because she and her companions didn'twant to kill them all. It would've been quite simple, at least if Davus was what she thought he was; and possible even if he wasn't, given Chalcus' skills and her own.