And so they came to Castlerock, and stood atop its highest pinnacle to look back over the way they had come, the freelance and his apprentice, the lord and his little granddaughter, and the jester. How they got there is another tale, to be told in another time and another place; for now, all that matters is that they did come there, despite all the efforts of the lords and of Master Oswald and his team; and Lord Aran said to Magnus, “What comes now?”
Magnus shrugged. “You are the lord here, not I.”
“I am the lord,” Lord Aran rejoined, “but there is more to you than there seems.” He peered keenly at his bodyguard. “You are not of this world, are you?” Magnus stood very still for a moment, gazing out at the countryside.
Siflot looked up, more alert than alarmed. Slowly, Magnus turned to the lord. “You have guessed it,” he said, “and I should not be surprised. I knew you were acute, my lord.”
“Thank you for the compliment,” Lord Aran said, with only a trace of sarcasm. “May I know your true name, and station?”
“I am a knight,” Magnus said slowly, “and heir to a lord.”
Siflot stared, wide-eyed.
Lord Aran nodded, triumph in his gaze. “I knew it! Breeding cannot be hidden long, especially in such crises as we have weathered together, young man. What is your house and nation?”
“I am a d’Armand, of Maxima,” Magnus said slowly, “though I grew up far from there.”
Lord Aran nodded. “And how have you come to be here?”
“That, I am not at liberty to say,” Magnus answered, “though I will tell Your Lordship that my spaceship awaits in orbit.”
“And will you leave us, then?” Ian looked up, alarmed.
“I fear I must,” Magnus said, “for to aid you further would be to betray my comrades.”
“Have you not betrayed them already, in aiding me?”
“They believe so,” Magnus said, “but I know otherwise. They will find that their plans to help the people of this planet are advanced more than they could have hoped for in a single year, and will find that they merely need shift their strategy to incorporate the fact of your survival, and coming to Castlerock.”
“Indeed!” the old lord said, with some asperity. “Then it was not loyalty alone, or friendship, that bade you save myself and my granddaughter.”
“It was,” Magnus contradicted, “but I had need also to find a way to salvage the plans of my … friends, by saving you.”
“Resolving a conflict of loyalties? Magnificent, if you achieved it! But how?”
“Yes, this is really quite interesting,” Siflot said, composing himself to listen. “How shall Lord Aran survive, and Castlerock with him, without disrupting the plans of … our friends?”
“Why, by his own action,” Magnus said. “I shall leave you a transceiver, with which His Lordship can access a transponder that will beam his voice to Terra. By that, he can declare Castlerock to be a sovereign nation, desiring associate membership in the Decentralized Democratic Tribunal, and asking its aid.”
“But the D.D.T. will never interfere in the internal affairs of a planet!” Siflot protested.
Lord Aran glanced at him keenly, and Magnus, with a sense of satisfaction, knew that the old lord would not lack good advice. “It may, when that planet is not a member of the Tribunal, but is one the D.D.T. wishes to count among its members.”
“But SCE—” Siflot coughed, then said, “Our friends would never allow it!”
“No, it would take the situation out of their control, wouldn’t it?” Magnus smiled. “So they will, of course, intercept the message, and offer to give Castlerock support in their own right.” He turned back to Lord Aran. “They will give you weapons, my lord, and instruction in their use, enough for you to be able to withstand the siege of the other lords.”
“My fellow noblemen will hire offplanet aid,” Lord Aran rumbled.
“They’ll try,” Magnus agreed, “but I think you will find that none will be willing to work for them, or sell them weapons.”
“You, however, will find them quite willing, these offplanet men,” Siflot suggested.
Lord Aran looked at him in surprise, and Magnus smiled. “Your enemies will not give up easily, though, my lord. It may be twenty years or more before they accept your dominion here as a fact they cannot change, and begin to ignore you. Even then, they will mount the occasional assault.”
“If I have the resources they have, I can withstand them,” Lord Aran rejoined. “But you assume these Castlerock folk, these stalwart gentlemen and freedmen, will accept me as their lord. You forget they have worked out their own council for governance.”
“I do not doubt it, but I think you will find them turning to you for guidance more and more as the months pass. Certainly they will countenance your soliciting of offplanet help—and when they learn that the price of peace is for them to accept yourself, and your granddaughter after you, as their nominal lords, they will do so.”
“The price of peace?” The old lord frowned.
“Of course, my lord,” Siflot said softly. “If Castlerock is nominally your demesne, and the people on it not outlaws, but your serfs and gentry—why, then, your rival lords have an excuse to ignore it, a means of pretending that the status quo has been preserved, and that you have been punished sufficiently by ostracism from your own kind. In brief, if the Council accepts you as their President or some such, the other lords will have a means of saving face without continuing the war.”
And SCENT, Magnus realized, would have its nucleus of democracy, and its beacon of hope for all the other serfs of Taxhaven.
But Lord Aran was staring at Siflot. “You are rather wise, for a fool. But of course—for you, too, are from offplanet, are you not? Tell me, what is your rank and station?”
“Alas! I am no lord, but only the son of a politician of gentle birth—with whose policies I could not agree.”
“Which makes him the equivalent of a lord’s heir, in terms of the Terran Sphere today,” Magnus told Lord Aran.
But Siflot shook his head. “Not a lord! I was not born to a title.”
“But a gentleman, certainly,” Magnus insisted, “though I think you will find that such distinctions lack their accustomed force, my lord—on Castlerock.”
“Perhaps it is just as well.” The old lord sighed. “But you, Captain Pike—can you not stay with us as well?”
“I fear not, for although my friends may find excuses for Siflot’s presence here, they cannot excuse my direct disobedience, my defiance of their orders. They must court-martial me, or forfeit all claim to authority and discipline. If I stay, they will find that they must besiege Castlerock to make of you the martyr they originally thought you would be. If I go, they will find excuses to support you.” He smiled at the old lord. “So my duty to you, is to leave.”
Ian gave an inarticulate cry.
“I know, lad.” Magnus stepped forward to rest a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Would that I could take you with me—but your place is here. You are among your own kind, now—escaped serfs—and will find that your fellows hold you in high esteem.”
“Escaped serf?” Lord Aran looked up. “He is not, then, a … gentleman’s informal son?”
“He is no bastard, no, but a serf legitimately born,” Magnus said. “Ian, tell him why you fled.” Ian swallowed, but faced the old lord bravely. “My lord was Lord Murthren, sir, and he sought to take my sister by force. My father found a way for her to escape to the forest—but for doing so, Lord Murthren had him flogged within an inch of his life. He knew that it would go hard with me for being his son, so with his last breath, or nearly, he bade me escape.” Tears rolled down Ian’s cheeks, but he stood staunchly and ignored them. “I fled to the greenwood, and was lucky enough to evade the hunters till my master, Captain Pike, took me under his care.”