“Nay!” A soldier shoved his way to the front and pointed a shaking finger at Gar. “He’s the one who unhorsed Sir Bricbald and left him for dead! Left the rest of us, too!”
“Ah, yes,” Gar drawled. “I seem to recognize this soldier’s readiness to fight three men when he had a dozen on his side!”
The soldier reddened. “A deserter Sir Bricbald named him, and a deserter he is!”
Coll lunged at the man with his spear, but Gar caught his shoulder and held him back.
“Him, too!” The soldier leaped away, pointing now at Coll. “All three of them! Deserters, all! And these players have harbored them!”
“I find it hard to believe that a knight who was so close an adviser to the king would desert,” the knight said slowly, “but if Sir Bricbald laid the charge, we must consider it with some weight.”
“Weight!” Gar said in disgust. “He only repeated a charge he had heard a soldier make—a soldier who had fled the battle himself!”
“He did not!” the accusing soldier said hotly.
Gar turned to him, recognition coming into his eyes. “Perhaps I do know you…”
“Enough!” the knight cried. “Sir Gar and Sir Dirk, if you are truly guiltless, as I suspect, I will ask your pardon—but until then, we must take you before the king, and let him decide.”
“Excellent!” Gar lowered sword and dagger and straightened. “That’s where I’ve been trying to go, anyway!”
Well, Coll knew that wasn’t what Gar had really been trying to do, and so did Dirk—but who else? Certainly not the players. Oh, several dozen prisoners, sixty forest outlaws, and a whole grab bag of young aristocrats, soldiers, and merchants who had come to see the plays—but he doubted anyone was about to ask them.
“But we cannot leave these good players, who have been so hospitable to us, without defense,” Gar told the knight. “They must come along, and under my care, too.”
“If you say it, they shall,” the knight agreed, “and you and Sir Dirk shall of course keep your swords in your hands. You shall not need them, though.” That last was said in a tone of iron, as he swept his soldiers with a threatening glance. A murmur of assent passed through their ranks, and spears lowered.
So they went, with a very relieved Master Androv driving, and Coll aboard the cart comforting a sobbing Ciare. Dicea glanced at them, and longing was naked in her face; then she turned away, somehow looking gaunt and hollow-eyed. Coll’s heart went out to his sister. Was it only because he and Ciare had what Dicea wanted? Or was there something more? He decided to ask Mama as soon as there was a moment’s rest.
Gar and Dirk strode in front of the cart, so Coll didn’t hear Dirk saying, very softly, “I could see the doubt rising in him the moment you started talking, and the decision you wanted coming right behind it. You weren’t working on him with words alone, were you?”
“Come now, Dirk!” Gar smiled. “Would I do a thing like that? Surely sweet reason is enough to convince any man!”
“What’s sweet about it?” Dirk grumbled. “No, don’t say it—you could only answer with a psi.”
They came to a town miraculously untouched by the war, perhaps because it stood at the farthest border of Insol’s estates—or perhaps because it had high, strong walls, with stout oaken gates. Those gates stood open at the moment, and the knight drew the procession to a halt. “Your player folk will be safe here, and may even earn some gold.”
Gar nodded. “We must leave them, then.”
Coll looked up in alarm, then leaped down from the cart, but Gar was already reaching up to shake Master Androv’s hand. “I thank you for your hospitality, sir. May you fare well. If we can, we’ll summon you to play for the king when we’ve won.”
“Optimist,” Dirk muttered.
Gar turned to Coll. “Make your good-byes, for we must go, and quickly.”
“Good-bye again?” Ciare blazed. “Why, you lack-love, you summer suitor! Have you no faithfulness at all?”
“My love, I have no choice!” Coll protested. “Absolutely none,” the knight agreed, his tone once more iron. “He goes to the king for judgment.”
“Judgment! Aye, and even if His Majesty judges you guiltless, will I see you again? Not likely! You have had what you seek, and go to seek more!”
“I will come back…”
“Aye, when you’ve emptied your heart to some other lass! Then you’ll come to me to fill it again! But do not, sir, for I’ll be gone! A deserter they have named you, and a deserter you are—but you haven’t deserted the king, you’ve deserted me!” And she burst into tears as she turned away. Coll stared after her, dumbstruck, but his mother reached down to pat his shoulder. “It’s her grief that’s talking, son, not her reason—grief at losing you, grief that she must join your sister now in the agony of waiting and hoping her man will return alive and well.”
“My sister!” Coll stared up at her. “What man does she await?” Then he cursed himself for saying it aloud, and glanced at Dirk and Gar.
“No, not them,” Mama said. “While you were gone, she fell in love with young Enrico, the player who does the simpletons so well.”
Coll stared, then felt joy begin in his heart, joy for his sister at the same time that he felt an echo of his own sense of loss, aching in sympathy with hers. “They took him for a soldier!”
“They did, so if your friends can really end this war as swiftly as they think, tell them to do it! Before Enrico gets killed.” She transferred her hand to his head. “Go with my blessing, son. We’ll do our best to look after your Ciare for you.”
“And I’ll look after Enrico, if I can find him! Thank you, Mother—and God be with you!”
Earl Insol’s great hall wasn’t much less imposing than the king’s, and the king was just as impressive as he had been, and no more. Coll decided the youngster hadn’t learned much from this campaign. He was astonished to realize that he felt older than the king, and was actually looking at His Majesty as something of a silly man!
“Sir Gar.” The king’s tone was carefully neutral. “It is long since I have seen you.”
“Too long indeed, sire.” Gar had already bowed. “We were separated from your army in the fighting—pursued Earl Insol’s troops too hard, and became lost behind his lines. We didn’t know he had lost, so we hid in the greenwood, and have been working our way back to you ever since.”
“Such loyalty is to be commended.” But His Majesty didn’t issue the commendation, and carefully didn’t say whether or not he believed Gar. He didn’t seem to want to press the issue, though.
Gar pegged the reason. “I am delighted to see Duke Trangray’s sally so easily put to flight. Has the battle plan worked well, then?”
Now Coll understood that even before Earl Insol’s attack, Gar had left the king instructions for repelling an attack by another lord.
“Perfectly! It could not have fared better if you had read Trangray’s mind.” But the king frowned. “How could you know it was he who would attack me?”
“I did not,” Gar said frankly, “but I knew the lords couldn’t let this challenge to their power go unanswered. The more distant lords might, but the closer lords wouldn’t dare, because you might try to set your law upon them.”
The king’s eye gleamed. “They would judge rightly!”
“Indeed,” Gar agreed. “There was a chance they might league together—but even if they did, the first to arrive at your new borders would grow impatient, and test your strength with a small part of his forces.”
“So, of course, you advised me to answer with a major portion of my own. But you did not know it would be Duke Trangray?”
“I didn’t,” Gar replied. “I knew it would be a duke, who could call up the forces of all his earls, for you had already proved you could beat the forces of one earl alone. And I knew it would be one of the nearer dukes rather than one of the farther. But I could not know it would be Trangray.”