The Warlock in Spite of Himself

"Nay!" He slammed his fist on the board, turning to rake the lords with his glare. "This vile wench shall learn that she dare not trample the honor of her peers! We must tear her from the seat of power and break her beneath us for ever and aye!"

Loguire's face reddened, his throat swelled with a rebuke; but before he could speak it, Rod murmured, "Nay, my lord, not so harsh. Not a defeat, but a discipline."

He was caught in a crossfire of laser-beam glares from Anselm and Durer; but Loguire boomed "Aye!" with a giant's joy and relief. "He speaks out of place, but his speaking is true! Our young Queen is headstrong; but so is a filly before it is bridled. She must learn her authority is not absolute, that there are checks upon her power; but she is the sovereign, and must not be torn down!"

Anselm made a gurgling sound, his face swollen red and his eyes starting forth from their sockets, choking with rage; then he managed to speak, fairly stuttering in his wrath.

"Nay, now! Now I say nay! A woman for a sovereign? Tis a mockery! And a whoring, arrogant bitch of a—"

"Be still!" Loguire thundered, and even the four great lords shrank away from the savage power of his voice.

As for Anselm, he fairly cowered, staring appalled at the white-bearded giant before him, who almost seemed to swell and tower high as they watched.

Then, slowly, and with greater dignity than Rod had ever seen in a man, the true regal dignity that only comes unaware, Loguire resumed his seat, never taking his eyes from his son. "Retire to your chambers," he said in a cold, still voice. "We shall speak no more of this till the conclave at sunset."

Anselm somehow managed to summon the strength to lift his chin again, a gesture that somehow seemed pompous and ridiculous, and turned on his heel. As he stalked to the door, his eyes fell on Rod. Rage and humiliation boiled up in him, and he swung up his arm to favor the minstrel with a back-handed slap.

"Nay!" barked Loguire, and Anselm froze.

"This man," said the Duke, speaking in centimeters, "has spoken truth. I will not have him maltreated."

Anselm locked glares with his father; then his look faltered, and dropped. He turned away; the door slammed behind him.

"Minstrel," rumbled Loguire, "play!"

Rod let his fingers ramble through "The Old Man of TorTappan" while he reflected.

So there would be a council of war tonight, eh? And the main issue would apparently be constitutional monarchy versus warlordism, though only he and Durer might know it. Well, he knew which side he was on.

He looked again at the straight-backed old Duke, eating token bits of food, lips pressed tight under his flowing white beard, brow locked in a slight scowl, only the slightest hint of his grief showing in the deep, shadowed eyes.

Yes, Rod knew which side he was on.

They met in the great hall, large enough to act as a hangar for a good-sized spaceship, if the Gramarians had known what a spaceship was.

The stone floor was inlaid with Loguire's coat of arms. Great silver sconces supported torches every yard or so along the walls. The ceiling was concave and gilded, with an immense silver chandelier suspended from its center. There were no windows; but that made little difference, since night had fallen.

Loguire sat in a great carved chair at one end of the hall, bunting of his family's colors draped on the wall behind him. His chair was raised on a four foot dais, so that the standing lords must look up at him.

There were a good many of them, not only the twelve greats, but with them a host of counts, barons, and knights, their vassals.

And at each one's elbow stood, or rather hunched, a thin-faced, bony little man, with scant light hair lying close against his scalp.

Rod surveyed the hall; his lips pursed into a soundless whistle. He hadn't realized the councillors were so numerous. There were at least fifty, maybe seventy.

And there might be more outside his field of view. At the moment, he had literal tunnel-vision, and one-eyed at that. The torches that illuminated the hall sat in sconces that were held to the wall with three rough bolts.

But one of the sconces behind Loguire's throne was missing a bolt, and the stone behind it was bored through for an inch, then hollowed out to the depth and width of a man's head. The head, at the moment, was Rod's, where he stood in the clammy darkness of a narrow passage behind the wall.

His peephole afford him an excellent view of the back of Loguire's head, and some nice over-the-shoulder shots of anyone addressing him.

His right hand rested on a lever; if he pushed it down—if it wasn't rusted tight—the stone before him should swing wide to make a handy door. From the looks on the faces of the lords confronting the Duke, it might be very handy.

The man immediately in front of the Duke was An-selm. Bourbon and Di Medici stood at either side of the young man. Durer, of course, stood at Loguire's left hand.

Loguire rose heavily. "We are met," he rumbled. "Here in this room is gathered all the noble blood of Gramarye, the true power of the land." He scanned the faces before him slowly, looking each of his brother Great Lords directly in the eye.

"We are met," he said again," to decide on a fitting rebuke for Catharine the Queen."

The Duke of Bourbon stirred, unfolding his arms and setting his feet a little further apart. He was a great black bear of a man, with shaggy brows and a heap of beard on his chest.

His fists clenched, his mouth tightened. There was something furtive, sheepish, in his stance.

He glared at Loguire. "Nay, good Uncle, you have the wrong of it. We are met to say how we may pull her down, she who would trample upon the honor and the power of our nobles Houses."

Loguire stiffened, his eyes widening in outrage. "Nay!" he choked," there is not cause enough…"

"Cause!" Bourbon straightened, his black beard jumping with his jaw. "She hath taxed our lands more heavily than ever in the traditions of our lore, and wasted the substance upon the filth and dirt of peasants; she sends her judge amongst us every month to hear complaints from all the manor; and now she will appoint her priests within our lands—and we have no cause? She robs us of our rightful rule within our own demesnes, and then upon this all insults us to our faces by hearing the petitions of besotted beggars ere she will bend her ear to ours!"

Di Medici had bent to listen to the slight man at his elbow; now he straightened, smiling faintly, and murmured, "And was it custom, ever, for a monarch to receive petitions from his peasants within his own Great Hall?"

"Never!" thundered Bourbon. "But now our gentle monarch will place the rabble thus before us! And these, my reverend Duke, be but the greatest of her enormities, and the atrocities she hath wreaked upon the custom of the land. And this while she is but a child! What will she do, my lord, when she is grown!"

He paused for breath, then shook his head and growled, "Nay, good coz! We must needs pull her down!"

"Aye," murmured Di Medici, and "Aye," declared the other lords, and "Aye" rolled through the hall and swelled, till the word came full, clamoring from every throat, again and yet again.

"Aye!" and "Aye!" and "Aye!"

"Now I say nay !" Loguire roared above them all.

The hall fell still. Loguire drew himself up to his full height and breadth, looking more a king than duke.

His voice was only a little calmer, falling like the toll of a battle tocsin. "She is the sovereign. Caprcious, aye, and arbitrary, hot and headstrong, aye. But these are faults of youth, of a child who must be taught that there are limits to her power. We must now show her those limits that she has exceeded. That may we do, and nothing more. Our cause does not admit of further action."