Tuan stood, gazing down at her for a moment.
Then he cleared his throat and turned to Rod. “What manner of hill-hag is this, Lord Warlock? I had thought the ancients ‘mongst the witches were all sour and bitter and hated all of humankind.”
“Not this one, it turns out,” Rod said slowly. “She just hated the way people treated her…”
“Oh, still thy prattle!” Agatha snapped. “I do hate all men, and all women, too, Majesty—unless I’m near them.”
Tuan turned back to her, nodding slowly with glowing eyes. “Now, God save thee! For hypocrisy such as thine would confound the very Devil! Praise Heaven thou wert here!”
“And curse me that I wasn’t!” Rod snapped, turning to glower down at the entrenched beastmen.
“Again thou hast said it!” Tuan cried, exasperated. “What ails thee, Lord Warlock? Why dost thou say that thou wert absent, when thou wert here in truth, and fought as bravely as any—aye, and more!”
Rod froze.
Then he whirled about. “What!”
“Thou wast here, indeed.” Tuan clamped his jaw shut. “Thou wert here, and the beastmen could not freeze thee.”
“I’ truth, they could not!” Brother Chillde cried, his face radiant. “Thou didst sweep across their line, Lord Warlock, like unto a very tempest, laying about thee with thy sword of flame. Five at a time thou didst grapple with, and conquer! Their whole line thou didst confound and craze! And ’twas thou who didst give heart unto our soldiers, and didst prevent their retreat from becoming a rout.”
“But… that’s impossible! I…”
“ ‘Tis even as he doth say, my lord.” Gwen’s voice was low, but it carried. “From this hilltop did I see thee far below; and ’twas thou who didst lead, even as this good friar saith.”
Rod stared at her, appalled. If she didn’t know him, who did?
Then he turned away, striding down the back of the hill.
“Hold, Lord Warlock! What dost thou seek?” Tuan hurried to keep pace with him.
“An on-the-spot witness,” Rod grated. “Even Gwen could be mistaken from a distance.”
He skidded to a stop beside a knot of soldiers who huddled under the protection of a rocky overhang. “You there, soldier!”
The soldier lifted his tousled blond head, holding a scrap of cloth to a long rent in his arm.
Rod stared, amazed. Then he dropped to one knee, yanking the cloth off the wound. The soldier yelled, galvanized. Rod glanced up and felt his heart sink; surely that face belonged to a boy, not a man! He turned back to the wound, inspecting it. Then he looked up at Tuan. “Some brandywine.”
“ ‘Tis here,” the young soldier grated.
Rod looked down and saw a bottle. He poured a little on the cut and the soldier gasped, long and with a rattle, his eyes nearly bulging out of his head. Rod tore open his doublet and tore a strip of cloth from his singlet. He held the wound closed and began to wrap the bandage around it. “There’s a lot of blood, but it’s really just a flesh wound. We’ll have to put some stitches in it later.” He looked up at the young ranker. “Know who I am?”
“Aye,” the young man gasped. “Thou’rt the Lord High Warlock.”
Rod nodded. “Ever seen me before?”
“Why, certes! Thou didst stand beside me in the melee! Thou wert then no farther from me than thou art now!”
Rod stared up at him. Then he said, “Are you sure? I mean, absolutely sure?”
“Nay, be sure that I am! Had it not been for the sight of thee, I’d ha’ turned and fled!” Then his eyes widened and he glanced quickly at his companions, flushing; but they only nodded somber agreement.
“Take heart.” Tuan slapped his shoulder. “Any would have fled such a battle, an they could have.”
The young soldier looked up, finally realized the King himself stood near, and almost fainted.
Rod grasped his shoulder. “You saw me, though. You really did see me.”
“Truly, my lord.” The young man’s eyes were wide. “I’ truth, I did.” He lowered his eyes, frowning. “And yet—’tis strange.”
“Strange?” Rod frowned. “Why?”
The young soldier bit his lip; then the words spilled out. “Thou didst seem taller in the battle—by a head or more! I could have sworn thou didst tower above all soldiers there! And thou didst seem to glow…”
Rod held his eyes for a moment longer.
Then he went back to wrapping the bandage. “Yeah, well, you know how it is during a battle. Everything seems bigger than it really is—especially a man on a horse.”
“Truth,” the young soldier admitted. “Thou wast astride.”
“Right.” Rod nodded. “Big roan horse.”
“Nay, milord.” The young soldier frowned. “Thy mount was black as jet.”
“Calm down, Rod,” Fess’s voice murmured, “you are beside yourself.”
“I am?” Rod looked around in a panic.
“It was a figure of speech,” the robot assured him. “Lower your anxiety level—you are quite definitely a singular personality.”
“I’d like to be sure of that.” Rod frowned down at the soldiers around him. He was walking through the camp, surveying what was left of Tuan’s army. Whether he’d been there during the battle or not, the mere sight of him was putting heart back into them. Personally, he felt sheepish, even guilty; but…
“Your presence is good for morale, Rod,” Fess murmured.
“I suppose,” Rod muttered. Privately, he wondered if he wasn’t “showing himself” to reassure himself that he was indeed himself. “I mean, the phenomenon is totally impossible, Fess. You do understand that, don’t you?”
Soldiers stared up at him in awe. Rod ground his teeth; he knew the rumor would fly through the camp that the Lord Warlock had been talking to his “familiar.”
“Certainly, Rod. Attribute it to mass hysteria. During the battle, they needed the reassurance that the Lord High Warlock stood by them, to oppose the beastmen’s magic. Then one soldier, in the heat of the fight, mistook some other knight for yourself, and doubtless cried out, ‘Behold the High Warlock!’ And all his fellows, in the gloom of a lightning-lit battle, also imagined that they saw you.”
Rod nodded, a little reassured. “Just a case of mistaken identity.”
“Lord Warlock?”
“Um?” Rod turned, looked down at a grizzled old sergeant who sat in the mud. “What’s the matter, ancient?”
“My boys hunger, Lord Warlock.” The ancient gestured to a dozen men in their young twenties, who huddled near him. “Will there be food?”
Rod stared down at him.
After a moment, he said, “Yeah. It’ll just take a little while. Rough terrain, and wagons—you know.”
The ancient’s face relaxed. “Aye, milord.”
As Rod turned away, he heard a soldier say, “Surely he will not.” The man beside him shrugged. “A king is a king. What knows he of a common man-at-arms? What matters it to him if we are slain and frozen?”
“To King Tuan, it matters greatly,” the other said indignantly. “Dost not recall that he was King of Beggars ere he was King of Gramarye?”
“Still… he is a lord’s son…” But the other seemed to doubt his own prejudice. “How could a lordling care for the fate of common men!‘’
“Assuredly thou’lt not believe he wastes his soldiers’ lives?”
“And wherefore should I not?”
“Because he is a most excellent general, if for no reason other!” the first cried, exasperated. “He’ll not send us to our deaths unheeding; he is too good a soldier! For how shall he win a battle if he has too small an army?”
His mate looked thoughtful.
“He’ll husband us as charily as any merchant spends his gold.” The first soldier leaned back against a hillock. “Nay, he’ll not send us ‘gainst the foe if he doth not believe that most of us will live, and triumph.”
The other soldier smiled. “Mayhap thou hast the truth of it—for what is a general that hath no army?”
Rod didn’t wait for the answer; he wandered on, amazed by Tuan’s men. They weren’t particularly worried about the Evil Eye. Dinner, yes; being sent against the beastmen with the odds against them, yes; but, magic? No. Not if Tuan waited till he had the proper counterspell. “Put the average Terran in here,” he muttered, “put him against an Evil Eye that really works, and he’d run so fast you wouldn’t see his tracks. But the way these guys take it, you’d think it was nothing but a new kind of crossbow.”