They stopped at a place where a dusty country road joined the high road that led to the town of Greenthorpe. They had passed out of the forest, but huge trees overhung the crossroads. Orgoru looked around, frowning. “This isn’t too good a place for an ambush, Master Miles.”
“It’s as good as we’re going to get,” the peasant growled. Orgoru glanced at Dirk, but the master only nodded and turned pointedly to Miles.
Miles sighed and explained. “The trees are large enough to hide our raiders, both behind their trunks and in their branches. We don’t really expect to need them, though.”
“I know—the custom is for the outgoing magistrate to send watchmen to the halfway point, to meet their new master,” Orgoru said. “I take it this is that point.”
“Not quite-not by a league. That’s close enough so the new magistrate won’t be surprised to see us, but far enough away so that the Greenthorpe watchmen won’t come this far—though Nathan will watch half a mile down the road, and bring us word if they do.”
Nathan touched his forelock and jogged away toward the south. Orgoru watched him go, marveling that this man, two years before, had thought himself to be Lord Saunders. “So we’ll deceive,” he said, “not ambush.”
Miles nodded. “We’ll only ambush if we have to.”
Ryan, formerly Lord Finn, went down the northern road toward Atterborough, from which the new magistrate was coming. The others sat down, ate, and rested, two napping and two awake, until Ryan came jogging back. “They’re coming! A mile away—I saw them from high in a tree!”
“Stations, quickly,” Miles ordered.
Andrew (the erstwhile Count Parlous) and Douglas (the quondam Duke River) climbed up into the trees and disappeared among the branches. Gar and Orgoru stepped behind a tree trunk. Orgoru heard the whisper of arrows laid against bows, and hoped, for the sake of the real magistrate and his men, that they would believe the deception.
Ryan paced nearby, nervous and unable to hide it. He wore ordinary peasant clothes, as a coachman would. Miles and Dirk, though, were dressed in watchmen’s livery, and sat leaning against the tree trunk, gossiping and yawning. Orgoru couldn’t believe his ears—their intended victims nearly upon them, and the men were discussing government!
A voice hailed them from far down the road.
Miles came to his feet, Dirk right behind him. They waved at the approaching carriage with its two riders and extra horse, then waited smiling until the coachman drew the carriage up. The magistrate, a heavyset man in his forties, gave them a smile, and the gray-haired coachman called, “Are you from Greenthorpe?”
“The Greenthorpe escort we are,” Miles lied cheerfully. It went against all his upbringing, but Dirk had impressed upon him how important it was. Besides, they were planning to make sure a magistrate got to Greenthorpe just not this one.
“Then we’ll be pleased to let you escort our master.” The coachman climbed down from the carriage and came around to gaze up at the magistrate. “You’ve been a good master, Magistrate Flound, and I envy the folk in Greenthorpe. Fare you well with them.”
“Fare you well,” Flound said with a sad smile, “and I hope your new master is a good one. Give him a chance, Holstinhe’s quite young yet, and is apt to be sharp in his nervousness.”
“Weren’t we all!” Holstin held up a hand, horizontal, palm downward. Flound let his own hand rest on it for a moment; then Holstin stepped aside so that the two riders might exchange good-byes, and receive the laying-on of the magistrate’s hand in farewell.
It was enough like a blessing to give Dirk a start. He wondered if it was the only form of touching that ritual allowed between a magistrate and his men.
The farewells done, Miles climbed up on the box and took the reins. He clucked to the horses and drove off at a sedate pace. Flound looked back once, with a fond smile, then turned his face resolutely toward the future—but Dirk, riding close beside, noticed tears in his eyes.
They rode, Ryan and Dirk on either side, for half a league, to the intersection where Orgoru stood hidden. There Miles said, “Whoa!” and pulled in the horses.
Flound leaned forward, frowning. “Why have you stopped?”
“Because this is as far as you go, Your Honor,” Dirk answered. “Climb down, please.”
Flound looked up in shock. “You’re outlaws!”
“I’m afraid so,” Dirk said with a sympathetic smile, “but we don’t mean—”
Flound sprang at him.
He slammed into Dirk, knocking him from his horse and grabbing frantically at the saddle, but didn’t quite manage to hold, and fell himself, half on top of Dirk. He scrambled to his feet and pulled a short club from under his robe. Dirk leaped up, too, and swung an uppercut. Flound blocked with the club, then swung it with a shout.
It was a fast blow, but Dirk ducked under it, coming up to shoot a quick punch at the magistrate’s jaw. Flound blocked with his left and swung the club again. Dirk leaped back, but the club seemed to follow him somehow, and caught him on the left shoulder. He ground his teeth against pain and grabbed for the club with his right hand.
Ryan leaned down from his saddle to catch Flound around the throat, but the magistrate danced aside and chopped viciously with the club. Dirk snatched his hand away, and Miles sprang down to throw his arms around the magistrate from behind. Flound kicked back sharply, and Miles cried out at the pain in his shin. The distraction was enough; Flound twisted away, and swung his club at Miles’s temple.
Orgoru shouted as he caught Flound’s arm and yanked it back, enough so that the club missed. The magistrate yanked hard, but Orgoru held tight to his wrist and turned the palm up, yanking the sleeve of the robe high.
Flound finally took a good look at Orgoru and stared, thunderstruck by seeing magistrate’s robes.
In the second he was frozen, Dirk pressed a small bulb against his wrist.
That brought Flound out of his stupor with a shout. He slammed a kick into Orgoru’s stomach. Orgoru managed to block, but that only took some of the force from it, and he doubled over in pain. Flound yanked his arm free and turned to face Dirk, breathing hard and swinging his club in a whirring circle.
Then, suddenly, his eyes rolled up. and he slumped to the ground.
“Thought that drug would never kick in,” Dirk panted as he came over to pick the club from nerveless fingers.
“We didn’t know,” Miles said, eyes wide. “I swear to you, Mas-Dirk, I never knew magistrates hid clubs beneath their robes!”
“Neither did I,” Orgoru said, and Ryan echoed him and added, “I never knew they’d been taught how to fight, either!”
“Then it’s a good thing we taught you.” Dirk handed Orgoru the club. “Keep that with your blackjack now, and use the club first if you have to use anything, since that’s what they’ll expect you to have.”
“I shall,” Orgoru said. “Good fortune that you taught me single-stick play!”
“Good fortune indeed,” Dirk agreed, “but we can’t trust to luck. From now on, the real magistrates won’t even get this much of a chance. We can’t have somebody winding up dead, can we?”
“Not if we can help it, no,” Orgoru said, slightly shocked at the idea. “After all, this isn’t war.”
“Yet,” Ryan said heavily.
“Well, into the carriage with you,” Dirk told Orgoru. “You still have a reception committee to meet.”
“Yes! Thank you for this help, Dirk.” Orgoru turned to Miles. “And thank you, too, Miles.”
“It’s I should be thanking you,” Miles answered, with the first real smile he had ever given Orgoru. “He would have cracked my head if you hadn’t stopped him.”