Every eye turned to the general. His mustachios seemed to wilt.
“No,” he said. “I have only forty krilla. My forces are spread to every border. They cannot gather here in time. Can you cause the earth to heave up and swallow Sologne’s army? Can you cause lightning to rain down on them and destroy those cursed flying monsters? How can you achieve victory against such odds?”
Angelo couldn’t help but smile, the expression lifting the corners of his mustache.
“I can’t. But I can help to lessen the loss of life and cause Prince Francour to turn back. Not right away, but very soon after he arrives.”
“How?” Zoraida asked, her eyes wide.
The wizard patted her hand. He had just struck on a desperate, but possible solution. “By making him think that he has won, but not the prize that he seeks.”
Angelo’s apprentices greeted the visiting ministers and other dignitaries with grace, helping them up the narrow stairs to the top of the mystic tower. The spire was under guard by the household cavalry, two dozen picked krilla riders, all that remained in the citadel of the airborne force.
As always, a crowd in the trimeter room was a tight fit, but every minister in the castle who had not taken to horse or to krilla wanted to watch Angelo’s plan take shape. They clustered around the enormous crystal sphere, a relic of LaDarnel, the third court magician who had served the royal family of Enth, making a modicum of room for Zoraida, who had changed from her court finery into her field uniform of leather tunic and boots.
He had never been as proud of his apprentices as at that moment. Grandaa Alessandra TalEmbra, a big, strapping girl from the western provinces, her blond braids bound up under a borrowed helmet, stood with the volunteer archers and spear carriers in the very bottom of the pass. At the bottom of the sphere, they saw her gloved palm. All around the perimeter of the globe were the images of men and women in leathern tunics and caps, holding their weapons ready, every face as nervous as if they were facing a tax audit.
“How is it we see what is happening so far away?” Rafello asked, digging in one nostril with the nail of his little finger.
“The Law of Contagion,” Angelo explained. “These two magical orbs touched one another during a joining ritual, so everything that happens around the one is visible through the other.”
Hastily, the general whipped his finger away from his nose.
“Why do I not have one of these crystals?” Rafello demanded, to cover his embarrassment.
“You do not have the wits to use it,” Angelo said, frankly. “If you had any magical talent, you would have learned it in childhood, and you would probably have been one of my students, instead of joining the army.”
“I will conscript your apprentices, all of them!”
Angelo sighed.
“You nearly have, general. My students have left their studies to help to defend this realm. May we have this argument later?”
“Very well,” Rafello said, the blaze in his eyes assuring Angelo that the discussion would be resumed in the very near future.
Alessandra held the crystal out to the left and right, just in time to see the fifty hunters disappear into the thick woods to either side of the two trimeter-wide gravel-topped road. Two hundred peasants armed with bows and spears, cloaked by wizardry in the semblance of trained fighters, stood more or less in formation, awaiting the signal. One company of real soldiers were split front and back, to keep them from running away. Angelo couldn’t say he blamed them. They wanted to defend the realm, but they were scared, as any sensible person would be.
A deathly shriek came out of the very air, the cry of the krilla. Suddenly, the air was full of wings. The gigantic red-and-yellow-banded snakes, each with a human rider, swooped out of the sky toward the first ranks. At the company’s head rode Francour, whooping and laughing.
“I hate him,” Zoraida said, through gritted teeth. Angelo reached over to pat her hand.
The soldiers loosed quarrels from their crossbows, then dropped them onto their tethers to lift sword against the airborne foes.
“Let fly!” the master bowman bellowed from the woods. Arrows arched from among the trees. The riders had to raise their shields to protect themselves from the onslaught. At least one of the winged serpents fell, to be chopped to pieces by the Enthian defenders. But foot soldiers were no match for flying troops, especially with beasts that wielded a poisonous bite.
Make it look good, Angelo murmured. Steady. Steady. Now!
The Enth cavalry rose up from the forest. The lieutenant in charge, the finest rider in the realm with the finest steed, made straight for Francour. The prince recoiled, then raised his sword to defend himself. The lieutenant, acting on strict orders, zipped around him in a circle.
“Gnyaaah!” the lead officer shouted, putting his thumb to his nose. Then he lit out at a sharp vector to the south, his reptile almost flat out on the air.
“Gnyaaah!” the squad bellowed, following their commander’s lead.
The prince’s dark eyebrows shot up his forehead.
“Kill them!” he yelled, spurring his lashing steed.
As predicted, the Solognian force followed them, bellowing, shooting bolts from their crossbows. The Enthians fled, their krilla weaving from side to side to avoid the arrows. Below, suddenly deprived of their air cover, the Solognian army poured from the mountain pass, swords high and teeth bared.
The professional soldiers at the head of the Enth forces met them bravely, fighting with sword and shield, shouting their defiance. The peasants in their midst loosed their spears, fortunately missing all of the defenders. It soon became clear that the numbers of the invading force completely overwhelmed the number of Enth soldiers. At a nod from the captain of the armed forces, the peasants fled.
Alessandra held her position bravely, though the view through the crystal trembled with her fear. As the last spear-wielding peasant soldier passed her, she took to her heels after him. The pursuing Solognian troops looked puzzled, then triumphant. They bellowed their success, and began a chant of victory.
“The enemy comes,” Count Guillerme said, glumly. “We must prepare.”
“Indeed. Now is the time for you to conceal yourself, your serenity,” Angelo told Zoraida.
She raised her head, her chin held proudly.
“I am the regente,” she said. “I do not hide from any enemy. I must lead my people, to success or failure!”
“My dear, you are without a doubt the object of this invasion,” Angelo said. “If they succeed in capturing you, it doesn’t matter if we manage to expel them. Remain here. It is comfortable, and protected by myriad spells as well as the mystic mist. You can watch all through the crystal. It will obey your will.”
“She has magic?” Rafello asked, looking from one to the other.
“Oh, yes,” Angelo said, regarding her proudly. “She would have been a serviceable enchantress, but her destiny is to lead.”
Rafello was accustomed to accepting orders without question, but this took a good deal of swallowing. Eventually, he managed it, and went on to the next concern. “But Francour seeks her. He will not stop until he finds her.”
“And he shall find her,” Angelo said, removing his tall hat and sending it floating up to the ceiling. “This is all part of the story we are telling the Solognians, the illusion we are performing for them.” This transformation didn’t even require touching his whitstone. The magic flowed from his eyes, mouth and palms, tickling up and down his body. He knew every plane and curve of her face and bestowed it on himself. His hair darkened and flowed into elegant braids, and his fluttering robes took on the semblance of Zoraida’s best court gown. At the last minute, he made his beard and mustachios disappear, revealing smooth cheeks and jaw. He drew the rest of the power back inside himself to settle his nerves, and smiled at the ministers. “How do I look?”
&nb
sp; The astonishment on every face proved he had succeeded. He preened and touched his cheek with a delicate forefinger. The ministers looked repulsed and intrigued at the same time.
“My disguise appears to be a success!” Angelo said. “Then, let us go meet my future consort.” He hoisted his staff in one hand and headed for the stairs.
“Yes … your serenity.” Rafello hopped to open the door for him.
Not a few of the castle denizens had wanted to throw Angelo from the walls instead of going along with his humiliating suggestions. Only the order of the condestable to follow his instructions kept him from being murdered. His maroon-clad apprentices had spread out across the vast citadel’s environs to make preparations and to find hiding places from which to work their wonders. All the visible signs of wealth that they could remove were pulled down and hidden, in the bottom of middens, the depths of sewers, underneath pig sties, and below washtubs and piles of dirty clothes.
The ministers arrayed themselves in their oldest and most disreputable garments, some borrowed from their own grooms and servants. Scarcely a jewel was to be found among their adornments.
“This is a disgrace,” Ricahembra Elisabetta snarled, swiping her hair underneath a tattered veil tied with a ribbon, without her usual tiara to anchor it.
“It is temporary,” Angelo promised her. “Rescue is coming, I swear it.”
“Hmmph!”
“The enemy comes!” a guard called from the wall above the portcullis.
“Fling open the gates!” Angelo shouted. He arranged himself with dignity, chin high and borrowed crown set straight on his hair.
Sologne’s army marched in, but the prince himself flitted in over the walls on his krilla, followed by a score of soldiers and attendants on their own steeds. His cheeks were wind-whipped until his normally pale cheeks bloomed red, and his long black hair lay in tangles. His hissing steed descended to the inlaid stones of the courtyard, folded its wings, and coiled into a loop. Francour bounded from the saddle. His brows were drawn down in fury.
“Regente Zoraida, your insult to me could not be ignored one more day,” he said. “I have defeated your incompetent and cowardly troops.” Beside Angelo, Rafello growled. Angelo kicked him with the side of his foot. The illusion he had cast on the general to imitate Zoraida’s petite, dark-skinned lady-in-waiting wouldn’t hold for long if he emitted those baritone rumbles. “I claim your realm and all the riches therein as tribute to me and my family! You are now my chattel. Bow to me!”
Angelo held out his skirts and curtseyed. This was as much playacting as the appearance of dignity he maintained every day. Rafello and the other ministers and servants gasped to see “her” kneel on Francour’s demand.
“I yield, Prince Francour,” Angelo said, humbly. The Solognian grinned and grasped one of his hands to yank her upright.
“I can be merciful and gracious. We shall be married soon. But I will not be your consort. As your conqueror, you shall be mine, as is all you once ruled. You are regente no longer. And don’t you dare bite me again!”
“I won’t. In truth, we welcome you to our realm—your realm, your grace,” Angelo said, careful to maintain Zoraida’s fluting tones. “I did not want to insult you, sir, but I could not let you see the truth of our situation. If your messenger didn’t tell you of what he could not possibly fail to have seen, it was only postponing the terrible day for a little while. We were too ashamed to admit it.”
Francour’s brows flew upward.
“Admit what?”
Angelo wrung his hands together. “The depths of our embarrassment! The shame of our destitution. The terrible situation in which my entire realm has found itself. The gleam of our former glory has faded away, sire! Thank you, oh, thank you for coming to our rescue!”
Then, Francour saw for the first time the careful desolation of the courtyard. All of Angelo’s apprentices, under Mistress Drucella’s iron hand, had cast illusions everywhere: broken windows, cracked stonework, missing slates on the roof. Maintaining them would take all of their concentration and not a little of the precious whitstone in Angelo’s staff, yet he had to admit how effective the semblance was. Horses and cattle he knew to be well-fed looked skinny and ill-kept, and the people of the castle had rubbed dirt into their clothing and faces.
“I am afraid,” Angelo said, “that we are not able to give you the welcome that you deserve.”
How long can you maintain this subterfuge?” Drucella asked Angelo. His journeywoman served as his tiring-woman, giving her the excuse to come and go from his quarters. She brushed and braided the wizard’s long hair, just in case Francour or any of his soldiers burst into the regente’s private chambers, as they had more than once over the previous three days. From the artfully crooked window frame, the magician peered down at the scene in the courtyard. Francour led his troops into one building after another, searching for the riches that he assumed were there. So far, their quest had been in vain.
The Solognian quartermaster, a stout man of four or five decades, peered over the pathetic cattle and fowl presented for his inspection, looking for suitable animals for his master’s feasting. The castle’s cooks had been given free rein to adulterate any meal as they chose, and their efforts had been magnificently horrible. A few cunningly placed rats’ heads and a very spoiled potato had caused one of the cook’s boys to be beaten and tossed out of the feast hall the previous night. The servers had quite rightly congratulated themselves.
“As long as I need to,” Angelo said. He touched the whitstone in his staff. It showed signs of erosion under the constant drain he had to put on it. His apprentices were too inexperienced to mete out the very minimum of whits needed. Angelo could feel every fragment of stone burst away from it. He worried that the stone would not last until he managed to horrify Francour into leaving. If it failed, all would be revealed, all but the presence of Zoraida in the tower. Thankfully, she was safe, no matter what happened. “The dragon must come soon.”
He peered out across the mountains, scanning the skies. To the north, he saw the blue cone of light, the beacon as yet unanswered. Francisco faithfully maintained his vigil, to no avail. Curse it, had Andoria gone off with another one of her lovers? She must come. She must!
Yet, by day ten of the terrible occupation, Andoria had still not appeared. Even Angelo, who had to show the bravest face of all, began to tire of the taste of moldy cheese and stale bread. Not even illusion could disguise the dusty odor and rancid taste. Many of the visitors had gone down sick because of the spoiled food.
Once in a while, the servants tried to make themselves some decent food in the lower chambers of the castle, but if the invaders smelled good cooking, they fell on it like a pack of hungry dogs, kicking and punching others out of the way to find something edible.
The Solognians had raided the town at the bottom of the hill, but the mayor and guildmasters had been forewarned, too. Drucella herself had ridden down in secret to explain the situation and convince them to cooperate. The quartermaster and a hundred troops returned, looking shamefaced at the meager and downright dangerous bounty that they had obtained. Angelo marveled at the number of rotten apples and ill-cured meats that emerged from cellars. Even he began to wonder if Enth was as well-off as it had once seemed.
In desperation, the krilla were sent home again and again to the borders of Sologne to bring victuals. Risking a revolt by his own troops, Francour kept those for himself and his inner circle.
“Ah, my bride!” the Solognian prince chortled, as Angelo made a timid entrance into the feasting hall, clad in demure pink and white. Not one of the nobility of Enth was present, only Francour’s cronies and their krilla.
They had not been entirely unsuccessful in their search for valuable goods. In the corners of the room, priceless tapestries and silk carpets lay rolled up. On top of those were scattered silver ewers and bowls, golden platters, jeweled go
blets, tiaras, jewelry and chains of office ripped from the necks of the ministers. Angelo smiled to himself. The hoard did not represent a tenth of what had been on display up until the day before the Solognians arrived.
In the giant fireplace, a whole pig and two fat geese imported from Sologne turned on a spit, dripping grease into the hissing flames. The smell of roasting meat made the wizard’s mouth water. Francour tore off a hunk of meat from the haunch of rabbit in his hand with his teeth.
“Join us!” He beckoned for Angelo to sit close, but the wizard kept a distance. “No, here! Beside me!” He wrapped an arm around the wizard and hauled him to his side. He held the haunch of coney under his nose. “Here! Have a bite.”
Angelo hated to show any signs of weakness, but the meat smelled so good. It had been days since his last decent meal. He leaned forward to take the morsel, but Francour yanked it away at the last second, and shoved his grinning face at him instead.
“Kiss me, Zoraida!” he shouted, as the others laughed.
Angelo was grateful that the regente was hidden away in the tower. If Francour had tried that on her, she would have bitten right through his lip. Angelo raised his hands in mock horror and pushed the prince back with all his strength. Francour went flying backward. Angelo sprang up, out of the prince’s reach.
“Oh, no, my liege! Not until the wedding!”
“By heaven, you’re a fierce one.” Francour said, scrambling to his feet. He threw the joint of meat into the fireplace. One of the snakes pursued it, then lay on the stones hissing in fury as the flames exploded, depriving it of its prize. “Yes, the wedding! Let’s get that over with as soon as we can! At least, I will get some decent wedding presents out of this pathetic country.”
Francour ordered Condestable Inez and Count Guillerme to accompany him, Angelo and his minions down to the city at the base of the citadel’s peak, Rainbow Gate. When they flew in, Angelo was delighted at the seeming devastation and dire poverty he surveyed from above. Drucella and the apprentices had done well in the city. Rainbow Gate looked as if it was haunted, not a living town. Rats scurried from shadow to shadow, chittering. Angelo recognized the fine hand of Dayeed, his youngest apprentice, who showed marked talent for enchanting vermin. One day he would be able to control even the largest of animals. The boy had to be hidden somewhere close by.