Will Power Part 16

"What?" he said, and there was that vagueness in his eyes again, but only for a moment. "No," he said. "Not now. That is already in hand."

"What does that mean?" I said.

"It's taken care of," he said. "We have another mission."

"Which is?"

He sat down hurriedly and spoke in an earnest, hushed tone. "The enemy who attacked the city have fled into the forest, but several of their foul companies have been spotted in the hills north of the city. Our scouts have reported that a large infantry unit has settled there and is probably awaiting orders to a.s.sault Phasdreille again. Their cavalry and the beasts they use are stationed elsewhere. If we wait for them to attack they will have a vast force composed of every type of soldier available to them. Right now, they are at a disadvantage. Several, in fact. They have not fully regrouped since their last a.s.sault and are missing anything resembling cavalry. They also aren't aware that we know their location, and their camp is poorly defended. We can strike fast and with minimal risk. Last time my service was scant. Today my sword will spill whatever goblins have in place of blood.

"You are here as my friend, Will. Now you must prove yourself true and valorous. Show the n.o.blemen that your heart is stout and your weapon keen as your wit. Gird your loins, polish your sword, and leave your crossbow behind, for you will not need it. This is war, not a paltry trading of shots. We will go with sword and shield and helm and worthy steeds that will make the air sing with their strides. We will rain down upon these goblin filth like a storm G.o.d, and we will drive them from our land in a tide of their own blood."

See what I mean? To Garnet, loin-girding (what does that even mean?) and blood tide is picnic-in-the-meadow stuff, fun for all the family and a good time had by all. The more sharp bits of metal are flying around, the better he likes it, and these goblins had given him his absolute favorite thing in the whole world: moral clarity. And, in truth, it was kind of infectious. The idea of charging around with a bunch of honorable and well-equipped troops mowing down goblin sc.u.mbags armed with sticks suddenly sounded quite appealing, particularly once I'd reminded myself that if the opposition looked tougher than Garnet seemed to expect, I could always ride back, honor tarnished but hide intact.

And so, in a matter of minutes, there I was, sitting astride my worthy steed, my loins girded (I think), the reins gripped tightly in my shield hand while my leather-gauntleted right hand strayed uneasily to my sword hilt. I felt stupid, but I also felt the excitement and surety of victory of those around me, so I looked up proudly and tried not to feel like a fraud.

There was a company of fifty of us, hors.e.m.e.n all, mustered in the vast, pale courtyard before the palace. Sorrail rode at the head, clad in silver mail and brandishing a lance. Around him cl.u.s.tered Gaspar and several of the other prominent courtiers, all decked out for battle, their silken dalliance now barely conceivable as they spurred their horses and eyed their blades critically. Ladies and servants watched approvingly from the steps where Sorrail had greeted us on our arrival into the city. A woman in ultramarine taffeta strode forward and pa.s.sed a veil or handkerchief to one of the riders. He kissed it ostentatiously and bound it to his wrist. Garnet, still beaming, cantered toward me as the hors.e.m.e.n fell into ranks of four and began to move off. My horse lurched as we began moving, but I stayed on.

Garnet, who lived for this kind of thing, raised his axe in the air and bellowed. I winced with embarra.s.sment, but such displays were apparently considered acceptable to this crowd. Soon the courtyard rang with courtiers shrieking their valor and masculinity. I tried to smile away my fear and attempted a halfhearted cheer, but if anyone else was convinced, I certainly wasn't.

We pa.s.sed through the city, whose streets were lined with admiring and encouraging faces, out of the inner gates, over the bridge, and through the main gatehouse. Our column veered north, moving swiftly through mown wheat fields and meadows of long, brownish gra.s.s, and Garnet talked about how he was going to win glory by killing thousands of goblins singlehandedly. I was amazed he didn't send the other forty-nine of us home so he could do the job by himself. Yet the company was part of it. He loved to be surrounded by like-minded men, all ready to show their skill and strength for a good cause. At one point he turned to me and said, "With these things you can smell the evil. You can see it in their eyes, in the shape of their limbs, in the malice scribed at birth into their faces. They are creatures of darkness, creatures of hatred and resentment. With each one you kill you can feel the world weeping with grat.i.tude."

The words were strange, of course, especially from the usually taciturn Garnet, but I knew what he meant. I had seen them boiling around the city walls and I had tasted the righteous indignation he felt. I wondered if this was what people felt when they fought what they call a "holy war." By the time the camp was in sight, I had drawn my sword and set my teeth, almost as eager as my companions to encounter the enemy.

The fight, when it came, was short and glorious. We plowed through their camp before they really knew we were there. Those we did not kill instantly scattered in a rout before us, fleeing into the hills like geese with clipped wings. There were almost a hundred of them to our fifty, but they were thin, disheveled creatures with poor weapons and poorer spirits, and the sight of us bearing down upon them filled them with a shrieking terror so that they fled confusedly. We broke into two lines and funneled the stragglers into the center where they could not flee. For a few minutes, they fought desperately. Most of them could barely reach us, towering as we were on our saddles, so some took to hacking and stabbing at the horses until several fell.

I killed two goblins. One, a spindly fellow in gray rags brandishing a stick with a rock tied to the end, rushed into my sword point in a desperate charge. The other, a heavier creature with olive skin and deep-set, malignant eyes, stood his ground when he realized he could not flee. I charged my horse at him and plowed him underfoot before he could time his spear thrust. One of our men fell to a javelin thrust, but that was our sole casualty.

When we left the field, it was littered with the corpses of fifty-five goblins. The rest of their unit had completely dispersed. I felt utterly invigorated. Once the battle had begun, my fear left me and I never felt threatened or in serious danger. We were-as Garnet had said-like storm G.o.ds, una.s.sailable, righteous, and potent beyond imagining. It was a good feeling.

We returned to the city as heroes. Women cheered and blew kisses and men applauded, promising to be with us next time. Garnet slapped me on the back and told me I had done well. His arm had been gashed by a goblin cleaver, but it was, he said, a minor injury. And the goblins had lived, but briefly, to regret doing him harm. Then he laughed and cheered with the rest. We were taken into the palace for a banquet, apparently the customary end to such raids. All damaged weapons, including my sword, which had been notched near the tip when I killed that first goblin, were collected and sent to the smith for reforging.

Here I made my excuses. Garnet was surprised that I did not want to indulge in this part of the proceedings, but he was also clearly impressed by the fact that I would fight and then not wait around to be wined, dined, and praised. His admiration, however problematic, came in my direction rarely, so I said nothing of my proposed rendezvous with the mysterious court lady.

Instead I bathed, dressed, and picked over the colorful, dainty, and tasteless morsels set aside for my private supper and went out, leaving the world of the palace behind. It was still light outside and the sky was pale and blue. The wind was fresh, and the city's towers, columns, and graceful, curving walls looked-it has to be said-astonishingly lovely, like something out of an old tale.

Well, so much for that. I had more immediate adventures on my mind. I crossed the sentried bridge where the goblins had led their feint and found workmen studying the small spots of damage where catapulted stones had chipped and cracked the masonry. Unlike the burly and rude types who labored on the streets in Cresdon when someone finally decided it was worth doing repairs, these men were as tall, slender, and clean as the guards, shopkeepers or, for that matter, the courtiers. They were strong, no doubt, in that understated but powerful way that the men of their race seemed to have, but they looked more like bakers than builders. They wore long tunics of a pale, sandy color and stood around looking grave and doing, to my mind, very little. At the far end I came upon some spots that had already been repaired and noted the pretty shoddy job the workers had apparently done. The stone blocks that had been shattered by the impact of the monster had just been packed back into the crater in the wall, and one of the laborers was in the process of painstakingly plastering over the damage. The finished job looked just about perfect, but the wall was structurally no stronger than before the "repair." Were they so short of materials that they could not do a better job? Were they expecting another a.s.sault imminently and merely wanted to cheat the goblins into thinking that the walls were as solid as they had been?

I approached the wall and looked closer, still riding a wave of confidence after my excursion with the cavalry. Almost immediately one of the masons came over to see what I was doing.

"Just looking at the repairs," I said, lamely. "Rushed job, was it?"

He gave me an odd look and shook his head.

"It just looks," I said, "a little, well, flimsy. No. I don't mean flimsy flimsy, exactly. I mean, well, I'm not sure. Not as strong as the rest."

"We have used a slightly different technique," the mason said, unoffended, "but the wall is as strong as when my great-grandfather first hewed and shaped the stone which was laid as the foundation of this structure. You see those columns by the gate? He carved those himself with nothing but a chisel and mallet. He worked until his hands bled, refusing to rest until the job was done to the best of his ability. The intricacy of their carving is unmatched and, a hundred years later, they are still as straight and flawless as the day they were finished. Since then the goblin armies have broken upon this fortress like waves against cliffs and it stands still. He taught the trade to my grandfather who taught it to my father and my father taught it to me. This hammer," he said, hefting the steel tool thoughtfully, "has been pa.s.sed down through our family since the days of my greatgrandfather, who used it to shape these stones and cut those pillars. We set a diamond into its handle to remember him by, see? You need not worry about the strength of the walls."

I thanked him for his insight and moved on hurriedly, wondering at how quick people here were to give you personal history lessons. Beyond the barbican was a broad, paved road which skirted the edge of the city in what looked like a circle. Presumably it led somewhere other than simply round the badly patched walls of Phasdreille, but I had heard so little about the immediate environs that I could not begin to speculate where it might go. When I met my secret a.s.signation, would I be led into the city? And, if not, what else was there round here other than the forest, which was the domain of goblins and dead friends?

A coach drew up as I was mulling this over. My heart leaped and I tried to look conspicuous. It was drawn by a pair of white mares with red ribbons plaited into their manes and tails. A slender white hand parted the curtained window and stretched out, dangling a flounce of red-ta.s.seled silk: a handkerchief, perhaps. Was this a sign for me? I faltered uncertainly. The coach and its offered invitation remained where they were. I took a hesitant step and then, quite out of the blue, a gentleman appeared from the bushes at the bridgehead. He wore a small mask spangled with glittering stones and a pale coat with forked tails and hemmed with gold. He strode up to the coach, took the handkerchief and stepped back as the door swung open in admittance. He climbed up and disappeared inside. The door clicked shut and the coach rattled away.

As it trundled out of sight I looked back to where the stranger had come from. Around the barbican grew dense laurel bushes and a scattering of sculpted bay trees. If I was not mistaken, these bushes were alive with casually hidden courtiers. Indeed, now that I looked, they weren't really hidden at all. Any attempt at concealment was purely token and, while they all wore elaborate masks, there was a similarly minimal effort to actually hide their ident.i.ty. Clothes are expensive, and even a wealthy courtier can only run to a few suits of the kind of luxuriance that these blokes sported, so I could recognize several of them at a glance. One of them had been one of the princ.i.p.al players in the love debate we had witnessed while waiting to meet the king, and another had ridden with us earlier in the afternoon.

After another few minutes a different carriage rolled up and stopped. A lady's satin glove was dropped nonchalantly by the cloaked driver, and a masked dandy emerged from the shrubbery, returned it to the invisible lady inside, and was admitted. The whole thing took no more than thirty seconds. Then they were off to whatever prearranged pleasures they had in store-though whether this would consist of more than courtly wordplay, I could not guess.

For about a half hour this bizarre pantomime went on. Coaches would draw up, display their appointed signs, and collect their respective gallants. Pa.s.sersby seemed used to the huddle of half-hidden lovers awaiting their trysts and would occasionally stop to chat with one or more of them. More often, however, they would simply watch from an admiring distance. On several occasions the masked courtier would make a courteous bow to the audience before climbing into the carriage. This invariably produced a little smattering of applause from those around, including those halfheartedly ensconced in the shrubbery.

Apart from bewildering me utterly, this strange sequence of events also raised a serious question in my mind. Since this seemed to be the official marketplace of love, how was I to recognize my designated lady? If there had been any mention of some significant token that would identify her, I couldn't remember it, and even if she stuck her head out of the window, I wouldn't recognize her. Perhaps she would hang a board with my name in big letters from the window, or the driver would lean over and bellow, "Hawthorne, you're on next." I feared I would get little applause from the crowd for that and, since I had neither mask nor sumptuous attire, it seemed I was going to get precious little in the way of panache points.

At that point two courtiers accidentally came out for the same carriage but, after careful inspection of the workmanship of the proffered signet ring, one of them politely retired with much bowing and sc.r.a.ping, for which he got a round of consolation applause. I was close to abandoning the whole farcical escapade when a canopied two-wheel buggy, stylish but probably quite fast, drew to a halt at the edge of the road. The curtain above the half-door stirred slightly and a white hand emerged. It was holding an envelope.

I looked about me, but no one else seemed to be claiming this one. I took a deep breath and strode purposefully up to the vehicle with its single horse and driver. The eyes of the crowd followed me and I sensed their amus.e.m.e.nt. I felt awkward, like I'd stepped onto the stage knowing only half my lines or couldn't remember how the scene ended. As is always the case in such moments, the audience smelled my uncertainty and fed on it. A t.i.tter rippled through the crowd. I flinched but kept walking, hoping against hope that I wouldn't have the further humiliation of being turned away. My steps were halting, uncertain, quite different from the confident and balanced strides of the courtiers who had preceded me. I turned to find some masked fop emerging from the trees in a clumsy, limping gait, which was clearly offered as a parody of mine. The crowd lapped it up, chortling delicately and pointing from behind fans and hats.

If I get out of this, I thought, I'll show that poncing git what I thought of his joke. He was dressed in deep, glowing blue velvet trimmed with lace and wore a rapier in a jeweled sheath. I'll remember you, I thought, you clever swine. I'll remember you, and we'll see if you can use that sword as well as mince about with it. Knowing that he was probably quite the expert with the blade only made me angrier.

"Mr. Hawthorne?" came a low, female voice from inside.

"What?" I said. "Er, yes, that's me. I'm in then, am I?"

Not the most romantic speech I could have delivered, I know, but it seemed to do the trick.

"Climb up," she answered.

And suddenly I forgot the smirking, disdainful crowd. The voice was breathy, pa.s.sionate, and sent my heart pounding. I did not need to be asked twice. I climbed in and didn't even think to flick some rude gesture at the crowd as we rattled away.

SCENE XV

A Long-Awaited Meeting

For a second I sat quite silently in the gloom of the hooded carriage. The girl was sitting opposite me and, like the gallants I had been lining up with, she was masked. It was an odd mask, glittery and shaped like the beak of a bird. Though golden and studded with green stones, it was eerie looking and, in other colors, would have been quite sinister. She was pale and blond, but since that went for the entire non-goblin population of this land, it was hardly informative. She wore her hair in golden ringlets which broke around her shoulders and the lacy enticement of her neckline. Her dress was of a rose-colored silk adorned with frills and some small amethysts. Her necklace looked like silver and tiger's eye or some similar semiprecious stones. And, strangely enough-for in other circ.u.mstances I would have thought her way too good for the likes of me-I was a little bit disappointed.

In my old Cresdon haunt, the Eagle, a woman like this would have turned heads like hands on a clock. Had she walked up to the bar where I sat, cheating some poor idiot out of his meager wages, I would have gaped, stared and, quite possibly, drooled. But I was getting used to beauty, elegance, finery, and riches; I was not quite so easy to impress these days. Before, I would have turned on my best performance for the chance of an hour alone with any woman distinguished by a lack of contagious skin afflictions and a fair limb count, but now I expected radiant perfection. The girl, under her mask and silk, might well be it, but her jewelry clearly wasn't, and this, strangely, bothered me. She would not have pa.s.sed muster in the king's palace thus attired, and there would have been snickerings and knowing glances at her amethysts and tiger's eye. Perhaps there were the makings of a courtier in me yet.

"You are very quiet, Mr. Hawthorne," she said. Her voice, as I had noticed when she first spoke, had that rich and breathy character that spoke of both navete and knowledge, of coyness and sensuality. I caught my breath, began to answer, and had to pause, swallow, and try again.

"I am not sure where to begin," I said, beginning. "You know my name, but I do not know yours, nor do I think I have seen you at court."

She smiled. That much I could see, since the mask left the lower part of her face uncovered. She had good, even, white teeth, but I was struck not by them but by how few times I had seen courtiers produce anything so genuine. Their smiles were controlled wrinkles of their lips, as if someone had threaded a fishing line through the corners of their mouths and then tugged it gently upward. Such smiles were amused or sardonic, but always restrained, and no one showed their teeth.

"My name is not important," she said, "and I am surprised you ask it."

"Is it not normal to introduce oneself before"-I faltered, realizing I had dug myself a hole-"er ... before, driving somewhere together?"

She giggled at my clumsiness. It was, again, both endearing and uncourtly, perhaps endearing because because it was uncourtly. I smiled despite myself, but my doubts grew. it was uncourtly. I smiled despite myself, but my doubts grew.

"So do you read many plays?" I said.

This stopped her smile like I had smacked it with a large fish. "What do you mean?" she asked, her voice losing a little of the refined politeness it had managed thus far.

"You made reference to a play in your letter," I clarified. "Have you read many?"

"The odd one," she said, with no real effort to conceal the lie. She beamed again.

The odd one? This was not the same mind that had conjured all those phoenixes and clouds onto the pages of the letter. As she seemed to relax and grow more playful, I found myself growing uneasy. This was not the same mind that had conjured all those phoenixes and clouds onto the pages of the letter. As she seemed to relax and grow more playful, I found myself growing uneasy.

"You're not from round here, are you?" she said, and a little more of that aristocratic hauteur fell away from her accent.

"Not exactly, no," I answered warily.

"You're so tense!" she exclaimed. "I won't bite, you know. What do you go by, Will or Bill?"

"Either," I said, cautiously. "Usually Will."

"Right then, Will," she announced. "Turn round and let me rub your shoulders."

She moved suddenly, leaning across the carriage and pulling my upper body toward her. Usually this would be a promising step, but now I flinched like I'd taken an arrow in the gut.

"You're very highly strung, aren't you Will?" she said, as I recoiled slightly from her touch. "Your muscles are all knotted up like bits o' rope."

I pulled myself back abruptly and caught her wrist. "So that's the fashionable courtly speech, is it?" I demanded. "Bits o' rope? "Bits o' rope? You didn't write that letter." You didn't write that letter."

"Yes, I did," she said, lying playfully again.

"No chance. You don't sound like a courtier, you don't dress like one, and I'll bet my last farthing that you can't write like one."

"What does it matter who wrote the letter?" she answered.

"So you didn't?" I pressed.

"No," she replied, a trifle sulkily.

I released her hands, waiting for more information. She folded her arms and sat in silence for a minute or so. Then, in what I took to be her own voice-it was devoid of courtly affectation and touched with some regional accent that was round and earthy-she said, "And you don't think I look like a courtier?"

Her tone was hurt, and this seemed so completely genuine that my suspicion momentarily evaporated and I had nothing but a kind of pity for her.

"Well, I haven't really seen you yet," I said, as kindly as I could in the circ.u.mstances.

"There!" she said, s.n.a.t.c.hing the mask from her face. "Now you can see me."

She was quite beautiful. Her face was fuller than was the fashion at court and she held a slight rosiness in her cheeks which would have seemed too countrified for the city, but she looked real as few of the women in the palace had looked. I was caught by surprise.

"Well?" she demanded, pouting slightly. Even in the dull light I could see that her eyes were hazel, deep and darker than any I had seen in the city.

"You look wonderful," I said, honestly.

"But not like a court lady."

"Better than a court lady."

She looked at me quizzically, a childlike skepticism pa.s.sing over her face. Then she smiled broadly again. "Good," she concluded. "Look, we are nearly there."

She moved the curtain and the light fell on her face. We had been traveling for some time and were now far from the city. Trees grew out of darkening fields and, in the distance, isolated stone cottages showed lights at the windows.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Nearly there."

"Yes, but ..."

She reached across and laid her finger on my lips. I fell silent and then decided that this would be a good time to kiss her. I had no idea who she was or what she had in mind for me when the coach stopped, but I could not believe she meant me harm. Well, I preferred not to. It was conceivable that she would slip a stiletto in my ribs or hand me over to someone else who would, but she was no goblin, even if she wasn't a courtier either. I contrived to get closer to her on the pretext of looking out of the window and then made the move. As my cheek brushed against hers she backed away: a small but decisive gesture.

"Wait till later," she said.

But there was something in her glance, or the way she averted it and stared fixedly out of the window, that told me beyond any doubt that there would be no "later." It was my turn to sulk. I suppose I should have been more concerned for my safety, but I was too busy being disappointed in that petty, self-involved fashion that I've cultivated so expertly over the years.

It was quite dark when the carriage drew to a creaking halt. I had long since lost track of which direction we were heading in. I was thus rather alarmed when I looked out and found the dark, irregular silhouettes of trees hanging over the road. We were on the edge of that vile forest.

"Where the h.e.l.l are we going? I demanded, petulance m.u.f.fling my growing fear.

"We are at an inn," said my companion. "Climb down and go inside. I have to pay the driver. When you go in, go straight up the stairs at the back of the bar and wait for me in room four. It will be unlocked."

"Why don't I wait for you here?" I asked, suspiciously.

"Because we should not be seen going in together," said she, with that provocative little smile, which seemed to promise so much more than I was going to get. "That just isn't done."

She wagged her finger at me. As she fumbled for her purse and replaced her mask, she added, "Go on in and I'll join you presently."

I wanted to believe her, but as I got down and walked across the cobbled yard to where the small hubbub of the tavern emanated, I knew she wouldn't be coming up. I considered having a few beers-if they were any good-and then getting the first ride I could back to the city, but I was too frustrated to be so pa.s.sive. I sensed no malice from her and I wasn't about to threaten the girl, partly because I doubted that she knew entirely what it was that was about to happen. The a.s.sa.s.sins had got to me in Phasdreille. There was no reason for them to arrange so elaborate a ruse to get me out here in the middle of nowhere. No; this was something different, and I felt a rising sense of caution touched with antic.i.p.ation. I wanted to see who had gone to so much trouble to get me out here and why.

So I started to go in. But first I took one last look at the masked beauty in the carriage, who was making a show of sorting through some coins. I didn't expect I'd see her again and had almost decided to go back to say something romantic and significant when the carriage suddenly launched forward and, with a clatter of hooves, vanished into the darkness. Well, that was my ride gone.

So much for romance.

For a minute or two I just stood there, not surprised, but feeling sort of confused and pathetic anyway. Then someone came out of the pub pushing a dolly with a barrel on it and the decision was made. He gave me a curious look. Suddenly conscious of how strange it must seem to be standing around in the courtyard in the dark, I took a few purposeful strides, gave him a "good evening" kind of nod, and stepped into the inn.

The barroom was curious. It had more of the Cresdon bustle than the other inns I had seen since we were transported to wherever we now were. It was smoky and loud-not like the Eagle, you understand, but it certainly had more character than the Refuge or anything in Phasdreille. The atmosphere cheered me. Maybe the beer would even be decent.