He was dressed and down to the main portal in minutes, just in time to see Gar softly lifting the bar and pushing the door open. “Wait!” Gianni cried. “If you must go without ceremony, at least let me go a little way with you!”
Gar looked back, smiling—but not surprised. “Well, then, if you must force yourself up at such an unreasonable hour, come along.”
They went out into the chill darkness of very late night—or very early morning. Gianni glanced at the east but didn’t even see a glow on the horizon. “How far are you going?”
“Into the hills,” Gar answered.
Gianni wondered what he intended to do once he arrived. “Horses, then. Why walk?”
Gar nodded. “With you along to take them home, yes.”
They went into the stable, saddled two horses, and rode out through the silent streets of the city—so silent that neither of them spoke. The sentries at the inner gate needed no convincing, not when it was Gianni Braccalese and General Gar who told them to open the portal—briefly. They rode out over the pontoon bridge that temporarily replaced the causeway. The sound of the water beating against the hulls beneath them broke the spell of silence. Gianni asked, “Why?”
Gar shrugged. “Why not?”
“Because you could have lost your life,” Gianni answered. “Because you went through a great deal of suffering and misery that you didn’t have to undergo. Because it wasn’t your fight.”
Gar said slowly, “Would you believe me if I said I needed the money?”
“With a wizard-friend who travels in a great golden wheel? Besides, if you needed money, you wouldn’t be going. Why, Gar?”
The giant sighed. “A man must do something with his life, Gianni Braccalese. He must have some purpose, some reason for living—and for me, the mere pursuit of pleasure is nowhere nearly enough.”
They rode in silence a few minutes more; then Gianni said, “But why us? Why make our problems yours?”
“Because you had need of it,” Gar said. “Because I couldn’t very well make things worse. Because my inborn sense of justice was outraged years ago, so I look for people unjustly treated, to satisfy my craving for revenge that should have been sated long before I met you.”
That, at least, made sense. Gianni lapsed into silence again, and it lasted until they had passed the charred stumps of the land gate. Then curiosity drove him again. “Just how far away do you come from?”
Gar sighed and tilted his head back. “Look upward, Gianni Braccalese—look at the stars. Each of them is a sun, and most are far brighter than the one that shines on this world. Some of them even have worlds of their own, swinging about them as a sling whirls around the fist of a hunting peasant—and here and there, one of those worlds is warm enough and gentle enough for people to live on it.”
Gianni stared upward, trying to grasp the enormity of the concept—then trying to grapple with its implications. “And you—you come from one of those worlds?”
“Yes. Very far away, and its sun is so small that you can’t see it from here—but I was born on a planet named Gramarye, and my father was born on a tiny world named Maxima.”
“The world in which you are a nobleman,” Gianni whispered.
“No—the world in which my great-uncle is a conte. My father is a high lord on the world of Gramarye now, and I am his heir.”
Gianni let that sink in for a while, then asked, “Why did you leave home?”
“Because being my father’s son wasn’t enough for me.”
Well, Gianni could understand that. “How did you come here?”
“In Herkimer,” Gar answered, “in the great golden wheel. It’s really a ship the size of a village, Gianni. My great-uncle, the Count d’Armand, gave it to me. He didn’t say it was a reward for leaving, but that’s what it came to.”
The intense loneliness of the man suddenly penetrated Gianni, and he shuddered. Trying to throw it off, he asked, “And the false Gypsies? Were they, too, from another star?”
Gar nodded. “They’re members of a league that calls itself AEGIS—which stands for the Association for the Elevation of Governmental Institutions and Systems.”
“Did they really believe persuading the lords to crush us merchants would bring peace and happiness, not a blood-bath?”
“Oh, yes,” Gar said softly. “I don’t doubt their good intentions for a minute. They’re very intelligent, very idealistic, and very knowledgeable people, Gianni, who are also incredibly naïve, and have a lack of judgment that borders on the phenomenal. Yes, I really do believe that they thought the lords’ actions against the merchants would be only commercial competition.”
“Incredibly naïve indeed,” Gianni said, numbed by the enormity of it.
Gar shrugged. “They’re determined to believe only the best about humanity, no matter how much evidence they see to the contrary.”
“But you didn’t tell the prince about them,” Gianni pointed out. “You didn’t have them arrested and put on trial.”
“No. They saw for themselves the folly of their ideas, and the war the noblemen’s alliance caused—but they also saw that the merchants’ league prevented the worst of it. They’ve learned humility, Gianni, and guilt alone will make them work for the good of every individual here, not just the princes. Besides,” he added as an afterthought, “they’re stuck with the results of what we’ve done here, you and I. They can’t very well undo it without causing a war that even they can’t help but see coming. No, I think you can trust them, in their way. They’ll do Talipon a great deal of good, and very little harm now.”
“But … Medallia?” Gianni felt his heart wrench as he asked it. “Was she really one of them?”
“Yes, but she transcended her naïveté and was able to believe the evidence of her eyes. She overcame the bias of her idealism and realized that the AEGIS plan wouldn’t work here, so she left them to try to form a merchants’ league, hoping your commercial leverage could forestall the war.”
“But she would have failed, if you hadn’t come meddling.” Gianni looked up keenly. “How did you do it all, Gar? How did you win our war for us?”
“Herkimer gathered a great deal of information for me,” Gar said. “I pretended to be an ignorant barbarian, asking questions so obvious that even an idiot would know the answers, until I had learned the rest of what I needed to know.”
Gianni looked up sharply. “It was all a pretense, then—your being a half-wit?”
“We both pretended, at first,” Gar reminded him. “But after that blow on the head, when we both waked naked and shivering in the rain? No. That was real—the effect of concussion—but when I came to my senses and realized how useful the pose could be, I pretended. It let me attack the Stilettos without being killed outright, and make them bring us all into the Castello Raginaldi.”
“Where you knew what you would find.”
Gar nodded. “Yes, but I had to prove it.”
“But how did you persuade the other wanderers to do as you said?” Gianni burst out. “I have to command men now, so I need to know! How did you keep the guards from seeing us? How did you convince the porter to lower the drawbridge? No one could have believed Feste’s posturings!”
“Ah.” Gar rode in silence for a minute, then said, “I don’t mean to sound conceited, Gianni, but it’s nothing you can do.”
“Why not?”
“Because of my father’s rank,” Gar said quietly. “Because of the gifts I inherited from him.”
“What gifts? What rank?”
Gar still hesitated.
“You’re leaving now, Gar,” Gianni pressed. “There’s no reason for me to tell your secret—and no harm if I do! What can your father’s rank have to do with it?”