Combat was conducted as in any tourney, with the outcome being determined largely by honor and eight floating referees, four from each side. In the one departure from ordinary League procedures, each party was allowed the use of a weapon customarily forbidden. Simon Widefarer chose the longbow, Garth the morgenstern. In practice, as William the Dubious pointed out, it always came down to swords; but Simon’s choice committed the invaders to helmets and serious body armor, despite the special blunted arrows. “That adds up fast, on a hot day. They never write about it, but plain exhaustion must have accounted for as many armored knights as anything else, in the old wars. Look for them to start dropping around two o’clock, three maybe.”
“Can we hold them off that long?”
William beamed a bit muzzily. They had been helping to work on the wooden castle all afternoon, aided by a siegeworthy stock of Mexican beer. “Easiest part of it. The thing is, Joe, the defenders always have the edge. There are only three good places to land on this whole island—there used to be more, but Garth spent all week one year bringing in these huge rocks, and he dropped them around so they ripped the bottom out of anything that tried to beach. It’ll take them till noon just to get a foothold, and they’ll lose a lot of men doing it. They’ve only got till sundown, and we can keep them away from the castle till late afternoon sometime, with any luck at all.”
“Nice house odds,” Farrell said. He thought of adding, except for Aiffe, but instead he asked, “You’re really looking forward to this, aren’t you?”
William the Dubious nodded earnestly. “This will be my fifth. I just think it’s a great outlet for so much bad stuff—all your aggressions, your violence, phony behavior, the whole thing of choosing sides, winning. I think all wars will have to be like that pretty soon, like ours. Nobody can afford the real ones anymore, but people still have to have them.” He caught himself, laughed self-consciously and added, “Okay, men have to have them. See, I’m trained.”
On the evening before the war, Farrell went with Hamid to a meeting at William’s house to discuss plans for the War of the Witch, as it was already being called. Simon Widefarer and most of his strongest fighters were there, arguing like football fans about tourneys past and storied feats of arms in shattering mêlées; and, like connoisseurs of rugs or high fashion, about techniques of shield work and innovations in longaxe combat. There was mulled wine and homebrewed mead, and conversation slipped back and forth across the border between daily speech and the silly, haunting Ivanhoe language.
Farrell fell asleep and was nudged awake by Hamid when the gathering broke up. Drowsily he asked, “How’d it come out? Do we have a game plan?”
“Best game plan in the world,” Hamid said. “Pound ‘em on the head, stay out of the poison oak, and run like hell when Aiffe shows up. One slick game plan.”
Farrell had come to the meeting in League dress—tights, tunic and a laced vest that Julie had made for him—like everyone else except Hamid, who had arrived directly from his post office job, wearing tan slacks, a white short-sleeved shirt, and—in spite of the heat—a narrow red tie, elegant as a serpent. Passers-by turned completely around to stare at them as they walked down through the sweetly smothering night. Hamid said, “I got to stop drinking that damn mead of William’s. You could fly model airplanes on it.”
“I understand he’s catering the war,” Farrell said. “You still think Aiffe’s going to show? Simon kept swearing she’d promised the Nine Dukes or somebody—”
“Man, I know she is!” Hamid stopped walking. “Simon was just trying to keep their minds off that battle roster Garth sent over. We got them outnumbered damn near two to one. You think old Garth didn’t notice? You think he’d ever let the odds stack up like that if he didn’t have a little game plan of his own?” His voice rose and softened into the singing mumble of the St. Whale saga. “Oh, it is going to be a one-woman extravaganza, live from Las Vegas, and when it’s over there won’t be any more wondering, any uncertainty about just who is the star around this League. And there is to be a death.”
They were two blocks further along before Farrell could believe Hamid’s last words enough to repeat them. Hamid blinked. “Did I say that? I told you, I have got to lay off the mead—it throws me right into my bard routine, and I don’t even notice.” He was silent for another block, and then he said quietly, “No, that’s not true. It just happens like that once in a while, with bards.”
“A death,” Farrell said. “Whose death? How?”
But Hamid walked on, striding out faster than Farrell had ever seen him, making the red tie lick backwards over his shoulder. “The voice just came out with it, it does that. Pay it no mind.”
He did not speak again until they were nearing the Parnell corner where Farrell would turn off toward Julie’s house. Then he said thoughtfully, “Word has it that a certain mutual royal friend is no longer on the street. Glad to hear it,” but there was a questioning tilt at the end.
Farrell said, “He’s in the hospital, getting over malnutrition, kidney trouble, a spot of anemia, and a couple of those things you get from living out of dumpsters. Also, he’s way past time for his regular dental checkup, and he’s under what they call observation because he has real trouble remembering who and when he is. But he’s doing fine.”
“Well, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth about him,” Hamid said. “I’ll be honest, I had my doubts as to how much you could take in.” He cut short Farrell’s indignant response. “Yeah, I know what you and I saw Aiffe do, but you got to understand, I have also seen more than a hundred intelligent people steadily denying something she pulled off right in front of their eyes. Unmaking it, you hear what I’m saying? Changing him, changing Micah, to fit the story, I saw them doing it. Man, he helped found and organize this whole damn League, and two weeks, three weeks, he was just another crazy black man, gone AWOL, gone native, the way they got this unfortunate tendency to do.” His voice was shaking as badly as the hand that gripped Farrell’s forearm, the enviable, expected grace of being in sudden shreds. “You ever want to see the real witchcraft, you watch people protecting their comfort, their beliefs. That’s where it is.”
Farrell asked, “Why did you stay in the League?”
Hamid’s control was already reasserting itself when he answered. “They needed a chronicler, and I needed something to chronicle. I had my own comfort to look after.”
At the corner, he bade Farrell an abrupt good night, turned away, hesitated, and then added, “You know, another reason I had some trouble talking about Micah—I guess you know Julie and he were sort of an item when what happened happened.” Farrell nodded. Hamid said, “I wouldn’t take it to heart. But I’d say they do have a certain amount of unfinished business.”
“It’s their business,” Farrell said. “That voice of yours, on the other hand, that death tomorrow, I think that’s our business. I think we should pay attention.”
Hamid snorted. “That voice’ll say anything, it doesn’t know shit.” But his eyes were not mocking when he patted Farrell’s shoulder. “Well, we’ll pay attention, whatever we can do. That’s the thing with the damn bardic voice, it never comes with instructions you can read. Worse than useless. See you on the island.”