He paused, aware that the two men were staring at him, total incomprehension on both their faces.
"What I mean to say is," he repeated, "it sort of involved the dog but not really directly, if you get my meaning."
There was a very long pause, then Halt said slowly, "No, actually, I don't."
Crowley looked at his longtime friend and said: "You had this young man with you for… what, six years?"
Halt shrugged. "Near enough," he replied.
"And did you ever understand a word he was saying?"
"Not a lot of the time, no," Halt said.
Crowley shook his head in wonder. "It's just as well he didn't go into the Diplomatic Service. We'd be at war with half a dozen countries by now if he was on the loose." He looked back to Will. "Tell us, in simple words and, if possible, completing every sentence that you start, what the dog and this person and Alyss have to do with each other."
Will drew a deep breath to begin talking. He noticed that both men took an involuntary half step backward and he decided he'd better try to keep it as simple as possible.
When he finished relating the tale, Crowley and Halt sat back, looking at Will with some concern.
"You sold him into slavery?" Crowley asked, eventually. But Will shook his head.
"I didn't sell him. I… gave him into slavery. It was either give him to the Skandians or kill him. And I didn't think he deserved to die."
"But you did think he deserved to be… given… into slavery?" Crowley asked. Will's jaw set a little more firmly before he answered.
"Yes, I do, Crowley. The man has a long history of crimes of violence. He's probably been responsible for more than one murder-not that there's any proof that would stand up in a court of law," he added.
Halt scratched at his beard, looking thoughtful. "After all," he put in mildly, "it is part of our brief to deal with cases where there's insufficient evidence for a conviction." Crowley looked at him sharply.
"That's not formally acknowledged, as you well know," he said. Halt nodded, taking the point, then continued in the same mild tone.
"So the case of Arndor of Crewse wouldn't by any means set a precedent?" he asked, and Crowley shifted his feet uncomfortably. Will looked at the two of them, puzzled by the turn in the conversation.
"Arndor of Crewse?" he asked. "Who was he?"
Halt smiled at him. "He was a giant-over two meters tall. And a bandit. He terrorized the town of Crewse for several months until a young Ranger dealt with him… in a relatively unconventional way."
Seeing Will's interest, and Crowley's discomfort, Halt continued, with the barest hint of a grin. "He chained him to a mill wheel in the town and let the people of Crewse use him as a mill pony for a period of five years. Apparently it had a chastening effect on his soul and brought quite a bit of prosperity to the town as well. Crewse flour became well known for the fineness of its grind."
Crowley finally interrupted this tale. "Look, it was a different situation and I…" He corrected himself a little too late. "The Ranger concerned… couldn't think of any other way of dealing with it. But at least he was making reparation to the people he had wronged. He wasn't just sold as a slave to a foreign power."
"Well," said Halt, "neither was this Buttle character. And actually, as Will pointed out, he wasn't sold. He was given. A good lawyer could probably make a case that with no money changing hands there was nothing done that was against the laws of the country."
Crowley snorted. "A good lawyer?" he said. "There's no such thing. All right, young Will, I suppose you acted for the best and as your lawyer here points out, technically speaking, there's no crime involved. Maybe you'd better pitch your tent. We'll talk after supper."
Will nodded, flashing a grin at Halt, who raised that eyebrow again. As he moved off to pitch his small green tent, Crowley stepped a little closer to his old friend, speaking in a lowered tone so that Will couldn't hear.
"You know, it's not a bad way of dealing with awkward cases," he said softly. "Maybe you should contact your friend Erak and see if we could do it on a more regular basis."
Halt looked at him for a long moment in silence.
"Of course. After all, this country only has so many flour mills, doesn't it?"
11
The three Rangers sat comfortably around the fire Will had built. Their evening meal had been a good one. Crowley had brought venison steaks with him and they had cooked them, sizzling and spitting, on flat stones heated in the coals of the fire, supplementing the meat with boiled potatoes, liberally heaped with butter and pepper, and greens that had been blanched quickly in a pot of boiling water. Now, nursing mugs of coffee that Halt had brewed, they sat in a companionable silence.
Will was eager to know the details of his mission but he knew that there was no sense in hurrying things. Crowley and Halt would tell him in their own time, and nothing he did or said would make them do so any sooner than they planned to. A few years earlier, he would have been in a fever of anticipation, fidgeting and unable to relax. But, along with the other skills of a Ranger, he had learned patience. As he sat and waited for his superiors to broach the subject, he felt Halt's approving eye on him from time to time as his former teacher assessed this newfound quality. Will looked up once, caught Halt's eyes on him and allowed a grin to touch his features. He was pleased that he was able to demonstrate his forbearance.
Finally, Halt shifted his seat on the hard ground and said in an exasperated tone, "Oh, all right, Crowley! Let's get on with it, for God's sake!"
The Corps Commandant smiled delightedly at his friend. "I thought we were testing Will's patience here, not yours," he said. Halt made an annoyed gesture.
"Well, consider his patience tested."
Crowley's smile slowly faded as he gathered his thoughts. Will leaned forward, to hear his new assignment. He'd spent the past few days doing his best to suppress his curiosity and now that the moment was here, he felt he couldn't wait another second. He'd been racking his brain wondering what the assignment might involve and had come up with several possibilities, most of them based on his experiences in Skandia. Crowley's first words, however, instantly dispelled all of them.
"We appear to have a problem with sorcery in the north," he said.
Will sat back in surprise. "Sorcery?" he asked, his voice pitched a. little higher than he had meant it to be. Crowley nodded.
"Apparently," he said, laying stress on the word. Will looked from him to Halt. His former teacher's face gave nothing away.
"Do we believe in sorcery?" he asked Halt. The older man gave a small shrug.
"Ninety-five percent of cases that I've seen have been nothing but mumbo jumbo and trickery," he said. "Nothing that couldn't be solved by a well-placed arrow. Then there's perhaps another three percent that involve mind domination and manipulation of a weaker mind by a stronger-the sort of control that Morgarath exercised over his Wargals."
Will nodded slowly. Morgarath, a former baron who had rebelled against the King, had led an army of bestial warriors who were totally bound to his will.
"A further one percent comprises the sort of mass hallucinations that some people are capable of creating," Crowley put in. "It's a similar case of mind control, but one that causes people to 'see' or 'hear' things that aren't really there."
There was a moment's pause. Again, Will looked from one to the other. Finally, he said, "That leaves one percent." The two older men nodded.