Rupert shook his head slowly. “I don’t doubt your magic, sir Warlock, it’s that goblet in your hand that worries me. Anybody can make a mistake when he’s the worse for drink.”
The Warlock smiled crookedly. “I’m not much of a sorcerer when I’m drunk, Rupert, but I’m worse when I’m sober. There are too many memories in my old head, too many unhappy memories. It’s only the wine that keeps them quiet. The Champion was right, you know, I could have been a Sorcerer Supreme. I could have been a hero out of legend. Unfortunately, I just wasn’t up to it. Not everybody is. When all is said and done, I’m not the stuff heroes are made of. I’m not particularly brave, or clever. I have a talent for magic, I’ve studied the Art all my life, but your family always expected so damn much from me! Every time some new magical menace appeared, they’d send me off to deal with it. Never mind the risk to my life! Every ogre and demon and natural disaster … Eventually, I just got tired. Tired of the responsibility, the pressure, of being scared all the time. That’s when I started drinking. It helped, at first. And still your family piled more and more responsibility on me, until finally I broke under the weight of it. Simple as that. And then I fell in love with a Lady who turned out not to care for me, and … Well, it’s a familiar enough story, I suppose.
“Look, Rupert, what I’m trying to say is… this is a kind of second chance for me. Don’t ask me to stop drinking, because I can’t. But if you’ll trust me, I’ll give you everything I’ve got. My word on it.”
Rupert looked steadily at the High Warlock. All the sorcerer’s new youthfulness couldn’t disguise the tired, defeated set of his shoulders, but still he held his head high, his pride ready to stand or fall by whatever answer Rupert gave. The Prince smiled, and reached out to clap the Warlock lightly on the shoulder.
“Prepare the teleport spell,” he said gruffly. “It’d be a long hard struggle, fighting our way back through the Darkwood. I’d rather get my men home safely.”
“Thank you, Sire,” said the Warlock. “You won’t regret this, I promise you.”
Time passed, and the night wore on. The blue-tainted moon shone brightly down as the Warlock chivvied the guardsmen into a small, compact crowd. At first, the guards hadn’t been all that impressed by the Warlock, with his wine-stained robes and absent-minded airs, but after seeing what the Warlock had done to the Champion’s chain-mail in a fit of pique, they developed a new respect for him. The Champion moved over to join Rupert and nodded at the High Warlock, who was sitting cross-legged in mid-air, staring at nothing.
“You musn’t go ahead with the teleport, sire. We can’t trust him.”
“I’ve made my decision, sir Champion.”
“He’s a traitor and a drunkard. He—”
“Shut up!”
The Champion blinked in surprise, taken aback by Rupert’s sudden anger.
“I don’t want to hear another word from you,” said Rupert quietly. “Go back to your men and stay there. That’s an order.”
The Champion looked at him steadily for a long moment, and then he bowed slightly and moved away to take his place among the guardsmen.
“Was that really necessary?” said the unicorn.
“Yes,” said Rupert shortly.
“There are times,” said the unicorn, “when you sound a lot like your brother.”
The blizzard pressed closer, its solid wall of snow devouring the clearing inch by inch. The demons watched and waited in ever-increasing numbers, impervious to the unrelenting cold and the howling wind. Hoarfrost enveloped the Dark Tower in an icy cocoon, and shimmered whitely on the men’s armour. Rupert’s breath steamed on the freezing air, and his bare face ached from the cold. A light snow began to fall within the clearing. And then, finally, the High Warlock dropped his feet to the earth and nodded briskly to Rupert.
“Sorry about the delay, Sire, just checking the arrival coordinates. Get the decimal point wrong, and we might all appear several hundred feet above the ground. Or even under it.”
The guardsmen exchanged glances.
“Start the teleport,” growled Rupert hurriedly, and the Warlock nodded.
“Very well, sire. If you and the unicorn would care to stand just here, beside me … thank you. And now, we begin.”
He raised his arms in the stance of summoning, and his gaze became fixed on something only he could see. For a long moment, nothing happened. The Warlock’s brow furrowed as he concentrated. Outside the clearing, the wind raged and the storm intensified. And then the air within the clearing seemed to dance and shimmer. A deep sonorous tone shuddered through Rupert’s bones, on a level almost too deep for hearing. The ground shook beneath his feet. Space itself ripped apart before the Warlock, revealing a wide silvery tunnel that seemed to fall away for ever. The Warlock rose slowly into the air, and then, one by one, Prince Rupert, the unicorn, the Champion and the guardsmen left the ground behind them and followed the Warlock into the tunnel.
The rip in space slammed together and was gone, with no trace to show it had ever been there. The last of the Warlock’s shields collapsed and fell apart, and the howling storm, unfettered at last, swept forward to swirl helplessly around the empty Dark Tower.
Chapter Six
TRAITORS TO THE CROWN
But, darling …”
“Get the hell away from me or I’ll flatten you.”
King John sighed tiredly. Harald and Julia were at it again. The King leaned back in his throne, and tried to pretend he couldn’t hear the raised voices outside his Court. He had more than enough to worry about without having to deal with his potential daughter-in-law as well. A dozen petitioners from the outlying farms waited patiently before him, leaning tiredly on their great longbows, their homespun clothes battered and begrimed with the dirt and dust of long days on the road. They’d arrived on foot little more than an hour ago, pounding determinedly on the closed Castle gates as night fell early across the Forest. On hearing the nature of the news they bore, King John had cursed softly to himself, and granted the farmers a private audience. And now they stood before him in the empty Court: tall, broad-shouldered men with sturdy muscular bodies formed by continuous back-breaking work from dawn to dusk. There was nothing soft or weak about the harsh planes of their faces, but in their haunted eyes the King saw a naked fear and desperation that chilled him to his bones.
“Julia, my sweet, if you’ll only let me …”
There was the sound of fist meeting flesh, followed by a pained if somewhat muted howl from Harald. King John’s mouth tightened angrily, and he gestured for one of his Royal Guard to approach the throne.
“Your majesty?”
“Take my compliments to my son Harald and the Princess Julia, and tell them I will see them after this audience is ended. You will further add that if I hear one more word from either of them before that time so help me I’ll have them chained together and cleaning out the Castle cesspits!”
“Yes, your majesty,” said the guard, and headed quickly for the closed antechamber doors.
King John shook his head slowly, and turned back to the waiting fanners. “Sorry about that; my eldest son’s courting.”
The farmers smiled and nodded, and seemed to relax a little for the first time since entering the Court. King John searched for something else to say that might help put the farmers more at their ease. It was clear they needed to talk, but none of them seemed to know where or how to start. The King leaned forward, choosing his words with care, and then the double doors slammed open as the Seneschal came limping furiously into the Court, followed by a protesting guardsman. The Seneschal glared him into silence, and then advanced, still glowering, on the King.
“Dammit, your majesty, this time you’ve got to do something!”
The King closed his eyes briefly, and wished wistfully that he was somewhere else. Anywhere else.
“What is it this time, sir Seneschal?”
“It’s those damned goblins again, what else?” The Seneschal lurched to a halt befo
re the throne, nodded brusquely to the mystified farmers, and then leaned heavily on his walking stick and glared at the King. “You should never have let those disgusting little creatures into the Castle, Sire, they’ve been nothing but trouble since they got here. I don’t know what possessed Prince Rupert to send them to us in the first place. I’ve known Barrow Down guttersnipes that were more civilised! It took us three weeks to teach them to use the toilets. And another three weeks to stop them using the sinks. It’s not as though they contributed anything to the Castle’s defences; their fighting isn’t worth a damn, and they won’t take orders from anyone except their own leaders. They’re passable scouts, when I can persuade them to set foot outside the safety of the Castle walls, but they will keep setting traps for the demons and then forgetting where they put them. You wouldn’t believe how many trackers we’ve lost that way. It’s keeping the poachers on their toes, I’ll admit, but that’s not the point …”
“Sir Seneschal,” said the King, cutting in firmly, “what exactly is your problem? What have the goblins done now?”
The Seneschal sniffed a couple of times in an embarrassed sort of way, and studied his shoes. “Well, Sire, for want of anything better to do with them, I put them in charge of manning the battlements. It seemed a good idea at the time, mainly on the grounds that anything that got them out of sight and out of mind had to be a good idea. I mean, what harm could they get up to on the damn battlements? I should have known better. You will be interested to learn, your majesty, that I have finally discovered why the kitchens are always short of cauldrons these days. It’s because those damned goblins have been stealing them to mix their boiling oil in! We only just got to them in time to stop the little bastards from testing their latest batch by dropping it on the three Landsgraves as they rode in from their day’s hunting!”
The King tried hard to look shocked, but a smile kept tugging at his mouth as he savoured the thought of a cauldron of bubbling boiling oil being slowly tilted over the Landsgraves’ unsuspecting heads … He finally hid his grin behind a raised hand, and had a quiet coughing fit.
“Were any of the noble Landsgraves injured?” he asked the Seneschal, when he felt he could trust his voice again.
“Well, not actually hurt, Sire, but if they hadn’t been wearing cloaks and chain-mail …”
Several of the farmers had a quiet coughing fit. It seemed the Landsgraves weren’t that popular outside the Court either. The King made a mental note to look into that; he could always use more allies against the Barons.
“I’m glad to hear no one was hurt,” he said solemnly. “How did the Landsgraves take it?”
“You can ask them yourself, your majesty. They should be here any minute.”
King John glared at his Seneschal. “Thanks for the advance warning. Round up the goblins, and send the lot of them out into the Forest. I need to know how fast the Darkwood is advancing, and the troop of guards I sent to find out hasn’t come back. If nothing else, goblins do make excellent reconnaissance scouts. Mainly because they have a positive gift when it comes to hiding from anything even remotely threatening.”
“Very good, Sire,” said the Seneschal. “I’ll send them on their way.” He hesitated, and then glanced at the King. “They do mean well, your majesty, it’s just …”
“Yes,” said King John. “They are, aren’t they.”
The Seneschal grinned, bowed and left. As he walked out, the three Landsgraves walked in. The two Royal Guardsmen glanced at each other, and then moved protectively closer to the throne, their hands ostentatiously near their swords. Ever since he’d been dragged senseless from the Court after his assassination attempt, Sir Bedivere had been careful to wear an empty scabbard at all times, but even so, there wasn’t a guard in the Castle that trusted him an inch. Or the other two Landsgraves, come to that.
Sir Bedivere, Sir Blays and Sir Guillam marched silently forward, and the farmers gave way to them, stepping passively aside so that the Landsgraves could take their centre position before the throne. They knew better than to protest to men who represented the Barons. Farmers might work the land, but the Barons owned it.
King John studied the three Landsgraves warily. There was a calm sureness about them that worried him. Still, when in doubt, attack. He leaned forward in his throne and glared coldly at Sir Blays.
“This is a private audience, sir Landsgrave. I have business with these men.”
“The peasants can wait,” said Sir Blays. “We have business with you.”
“And what might that be?”
“Demons have overrun the Barons’ lands. What are you doing about it?”
King John scowled at the Landsgrave’s bluntness, and struggled to keep his voice calm and even. “You know damn well what I’m doing. My guards are running themselves ragged fighting the demons, training peasant militias in those towns nearest the darkness, and helping to stockpile provisions in case of siege.”
“While the Castle itself stands virtually unprotected,” said Sir Blays sardonically.
King John smiled sardonically. “There’s always the goblins, my dear Landsgrave. I’m told they’re very good with boiling oil.”
Sir Blays stiffened angrily, and Sir Guillam laid a restraining hand on his arm. The two Landsgraves stared at each other; Sir Guillam shook his head slightly, and Sir Blays subsided.
Now that is interesting, thought the King. I always knew there was more to Guillam than met the eye. He glanced quickly at Sir Bedivere, who was staring off into the distance as though nothing that had been said was of any interest to him. Probably it isn’t, thought the King sourly. He’s just a killing machine, waiting for his next set of orders. But who gives those orders, Blays or Guillam? He stared at the timid little man standing passively before him, and tugged pensively at his beard. Why had the Barons sent Sir Guillam? He wasn’t a diplomat, like Sir Blays, and he certainly hadn’t the makings of an assassin. He claimed to be an accountant, but so far he’d made no attempt to inspect the Castle’s finances. Not that the King would have let him, of course …
King John frowned uncertainly. If the Landsgraves hadn’t come to complain about the goblins, what the hell were they here for? And why were they so interested in his guards? The King sighed quietly. Now that the Astrologer was no longer on hand to advise him, it seemed he’d have to keep digging for answers the hard way.
“Well, Sir Guillam,” he said heavily, “perhaps you’d care to tell me why you’ve chosen to interrupt this private audience. Sir Blays doesn’t seem too sure.”
Sir Guillam smiled politely. “There are … questions … which need to be answered, Sire.”
“Such as?”
“Such as what’s happened to the High Warlock.” Sir Guillam smiled diffidently. “He does seem to be rather overdue. Months overdue, in fact.”
“He’ll be here.”
“When?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“You don’t seem too unhappy about his tardiness,” said Sir Blays. “Anyone would think you didn’t want him to come.”
“Sir Blays,” said the King slowly, “I don’t care to be interrogated in this manner. You know very well how I feel about the High Warlock, you were here the night I read the Edict of Banishment upon him. Now my noble Landsgraves, it’s been a long day, and I still have much to do. What exactly do you want from me?”
“We want action!” snapped Sir Blays. “Fine words and promises won’t stop the Darkwood. I know I speak for my fellow Landsgraves when I say the Barons will not stand idly by and watch the Forest Land fall into ruin while you dither and prevaricate and do nothing!”
“I’m doing all I can!”
“It isn’t enough,” said Sir Bedivere. He stepped forward a pace, and the two guardsmen drew their swords. The huge Landsgrave ignored them, his eyes fixed on the king. “If you won’t do what’s necessary, there are others who will.”
“That sounded like a threat,” said the King evenly. “Perhaps you’ve fo
rgotten what happened the last time you dared threaten me?”
“Ah yes,” smiled Sir Guillam. “Where is Thomas Grey these days? Still hunting for the … lost… Curtana?”
“It won’t find itself!” snapped the King. “The Astrologer’s worked day and night trying to discover who stole the Curtana from my Armoury.”
“Assuming it was stolen.” Sir Blays stared mockingly at the King. “You slipped up there, your majesty. It was just a little too convenient that the Sword of Compulsion should vanish into thin air the moment the Armoury was rediscovered, thus putting the Curtana beyond the reach, and control, of the Court.”
“You tread dangerous ground, my noble Landsgrave.”
Sir Blays and Sir Guillam smiled, and Sir Bedivere chuckled openly.
“When you took the Sword of Compulsion for yourself,” said Sir Blays, “you lost all claim to our loyalty.”
“We cannot accept such a threat to the Barons,” said Sir Guillam diffidently. “We therefore demand, in their name, that you hand the Curtana over to us, for … safe-keeping.”
“You demand?” King John rose to his feet, shaking with anger. “You demand nothing in my Court! Now get out, or I’ll have you whipped from my sight! Get out!”
Sir Bedivere laughed softly, and King John shuddered at the barely restrained madness in that laughter.
“You really shouldn’t have done that,” smiled the huge Landsgrave. “I’ll have your heart’s blood for this insult.”
“You dare …”
“There’s no Astrologer to protect you now, King John. All that stands between you and me are those two guards. And that isn’t going to be enough. Give me your sword, Blays.”
Sir Blays glanced at Sir Guillam, who hesitated, and then nodded quickly.
“You’d better get out of here, Sire,” murmured one of the guardsmen. “We’ll hold him as long as we can.”