Sensing motion behind him, Thorolf whirled to meet the other guard. The man swung his halberd in a decapitating blow. Thorolf knew that, while the swing of this top-heavy weapon was slow enough to be usually evaded or parried, when such a blow got home it commonly killed. He also knew that he fought at a disadvantage. While the guards seemed eager to kill him, he did not wish to slay either and thus foreclose all chance of help from Orlandus.
He caught the swing of the other halberd on the head of the one in his hands. The ax heads met with a hideous clang. Instead of retaliating in kind, Thorolf reversed his shaft and rammed the butt into the guard's solar plexus. The coat of mesh mail and the padded acton beneath did little to break the force of the thrust; the man went sprawling on the cobbles, doubled up and clutching his midriff.
Thorolf turned to glimpse the carter in flight down the path up which they had come, and Doctor Bardi crawling under the cart. The legs of the guard whose halberd Thorolf had taken dangled kicking over the edge, of the tub, while from the tub came the bubbling sounds of a man trying to shout with his face under water.
"What in the seven hells betides?" shouted another armored man, an officer from his scarlet insignia, issuing from the portal at the head of a squad of blue-clad guards.
"I came to present a patient for Doctor Orlandus to treat—" began Thorolf.
The felled guard, who had stopped coughing, climbed to his feet and cried: "He—he seeks to smuggle a monster into the castle!"
"Give up your weapons, and we'll look into this matter, " the officer growled.
"No, sir, I will not! I am a soldier of the Rhaetian Army, and those idiots attacked me without provocation."
"What doth my man in yon tub?" asked the officer.
"My patient, who is in the tub, came to mine aid," Thorolf said, leaning the halberd against the cart and pulling the barely conscious guard out by the legs. Thorolf turned him over, hoisted him by the middle, and shook the water out of him. The man went into an agony of coughing.
The officer stepped to the tub. "That's your patient?"
"Aye; she's a noble lady under enchantment."
"Ha!" said the officer. "When I believe that, I shall believe the legend that Arnalt of Thessen rode his horse across Lake Zurshnitt atop the waves."
"Ah, Sergeant Thorolf of the Fourth Foot, I believe! " said a new voice from the gateway. The cluster of guards opened out as the newcomer approached. As he passed among them, they placed hands over their hearts and bowed low.
The object of their reverence was a tall, lean man with a long, mobile face, wherein slanting eyebrows and greenish-blue eyes effected a slightly eerie look. He wore a scarlet robe of shimmering stuff. Upon his midnight mane of long black hair reposed a golden academic cap, whose dangling tassel glinted with little gems.
"Who is that beneath the cart?" demanded the newcomer. "Ah, I do perceive my respected colleague, Doctor Bardi. Come out, my dear fellow! None shall harm a hair of your venerable head."
Brushing dirt from his robe, Bardi arduously rose. "I am sorry, Doctor Orlandus," he coughed, stooping to pick up his mortarboard. "Dear me! I fear that I be too old for the robustious games your minions play. Had ye not appeared so timely, they would have harmed far more than the hairs of our heads."
He finished brushing his cap and ceremoniously raised it to the Psychomage, who in turn tipped his cap to Bardi before he strode to the tub.
"Who was this when she had her normal form?" he asked in a mellifluous voice.
"Countess Yvette of Grintz," said Thorolf. "Bardi tried to alter her appearance, the better to elude her foes; but something went awry."
"Ah, yea; the widow of Count Volk. A woman of exceptional qualities; she could easily become a diaphane, thus enhancing her already notable powers. Our spells never miscarry thus." He turned to his guardsmen. "Captain, tell four men to bear this tub within.
Choose another to fetch fodder for the mule, and guard the cart until the carter return for his property. Now follow me, my dear friends."
As they walked leisurely under the raised portcullis, Orlandus continued: "Your Countess escaped from Duke Gondomar with nought but a horse, her garments, and her coronet, did she not? And presently lost both horse and clothes to her pursuers. Where is the coronet now?"
"In safekeeping," growled Thorolf suspiciously, glancing about.
On the inner side of the curtain wall, many stairways led to the parapet. Between the stairways, casements had been built into the massive lower wall, forming living quarters. In the middle of the enclosure, separated from the curtain wall by a space of twenty or thirty feet all the way round, rose the keep, a massive, turreted building of rust-red sandstone. It overtopped the curtain wall by a whole storey. On the second and third levels, the present owners had replaced the arrow slits by diamond-paned glass windows.
As they crossed the courtyard, persons of various ages bustled out one door and in another. All wore robes, calf-length for the men and ankle-length for the women. Some were bright yellow and the rest gray, save for one or two in scarlet like that of the leader. Beyond, Thorolf glimpsed a couple of women in nondescript attire washing clothes in a tub and three small children playing. The guards' families, he thought.
In the midst of the yard, three men and two women in gray robes were on their knees, washing the cobblestones with scrubbing brushes and water buckets. As Thorolf passed these scrubbers, one of the women, young and pretty, looked up. At Orlandus' frown she hastily looked down again and resumed her labor.
They entered one of the massive doors of the keep and passed down a hall. Another young woman in gray stood meekly aside as they entered and then resumed polishing the inside doorknob. Orlandus said:
"Ah, yea; my prudent sergeant would deposit Yvette's bauble safely, would he not? 'Twould fetch a pretty sum—belike twelve thousand marks."
He conducted them up a long stair, down the right-hand one of a pair of long halls, and into a spacious room, containing chairs, a divan, and a large desk. Seating himself behind the desk, Orlandus motioned Thorolf and Bardi to chairs. At another gesture, the soldiers set down the tub and departed.
Thorolf glanced around. In contrast to Bardi's dusty clutter, the chamber was as clean, neat, bare, and orderly as if it had never been occupied at all. The door through which they had come was one of a pair on one of the long sides of the room, which was cheerfully lit by diamond-paned casement windows at the ends. On the long side facing the doors was a low fireplace, but no fire had been laid and there were neither ashes nor cinders on the hearth.
Above the fireplace hung a huge framed painting, extending to the ceiling and dark with the dirt of decades. Through the grime it faintly showed the God and Goddess, Voth and Frea, of the Dualistic Church of Carinthia and the Empire. A small tear above Voth's head had not been repaired.
The Divine Pair had originally been painted seated on the natural thrones formed by a pair of thick-stemmed, twisted trees. The divinities extended benedictory hands above a multitude of tiny figures, representing mortal mankind, which swarmed about their feet. The Pair had originally been nude, Voth with a great black beard rippling down his chest and a wreath of laurel leaves on his hair; Frea as a beautiful blond woman of matronly figure. Someone had later painted bronze-green oak leaves over the Divine Couple's sexual characters.
Following Thorolf's glance, Orlandus said: "This was the audience chamber of the Carinthian governors when they ruled in Rhaetia. When the Carinthians departed, they evidently found the moving of yon painting more trouble than they deemed it worth. According to a Tyrrhenian expert I had in, it is second-rate art. Still, it might be worth cleaning some day when we have the time."