"If that is so, leave him to me," Catharine said in an executioner's voice.
Sir Orgon looked at her and shuddered.
"Does your son not have manners enough to greet his aunt, let alone his Queen?" Catharine demanded.
Anselm bristled—but before he could answer, Geordie cried, "I see them! Dickon and Ned, two of mine own peasants!" And with no more ado, he was galloping down toward the meadow.
Down, and in among the peasants, who parted in sheer astonishment, then closed around the rider with dark and angry shouts—but Geordie swung down from his horse and ran to his men. "Dickon! Ned! What do you here? Do you mean to lose your lives?"
"Good day, squire." Dickon had the grace to look shame-faced. "When the guardsmen took you away, we were angered indeed by the duke's high-handedness. We heard men were marching to tear down this arrogant Queen and her supercilious sons, and we came seeking revenge for you."
"Well, you no longer have need! The Lord Warlock pled my case, and that 'supercilious son' sent me back to care for you all as well as I may!" He spun to Alain. "Your Highness! No matter who else must be punished, I beg you spare these! They sought only justice for their squire, nothing more!"
"You are loyal to this lordling?" one of the other peasants asked, incredulous.
Dickon's face darkened; he took a firmer grip on his staff as he stepped up beside Geordie. "We will defend this man to our deaths."
"Aye!" Ned stepped up on Geordie's other side. "Our squire and his lady have done all they can to see that we and our families are well fed and well housed! If we lack anything, 'tis only because he has no more money! Indeed, the duke's men arrested him for seeking food enough to take us through the winter, though he had to shoot the Queen's own deer to do it!"
"This is the best reason I ever heard for poaching," Alain said.
"But how is this?" asked another peasant. "You do not mean to say the lords can be our friends!"
"I am no lord," Geordie said hotly, "for my father is attainted! I am only a squire!"
"But he is a lord by rights!" Ned proclaimed. "A lord, and our friend!"
"As I will be, too." Alain gazed at his cousin for a second, then smiled. "We are of one blood, after all, though we have never seen one another. Well met, Cousin Geordie."
Geordie gazed back at him, then decided to smile, too. "And you, Cousin Alain."
"How very touching," another peasant sneered, "reunion at long last—but they are lords nonetheless, and our enemies by nature!"
All about Alain, confused talk sizzled—until a voice shrieked, "We have come for blood! We cannot leave with nothing to show for our pains!"
"You shall have my blood if you wish it," Alain said gravely. "Choose your champion, and I shall fight him with his own weapons!"
HIGH ATOP THE north tower, Alea hovered beside Magnus, worried about the tension evident in every line of his body. "You mustn't, Magnus! Mustn't interfere! There's no cause yet!"
"My prince and childhood friend is surrounded by thousands of enemies," Magnus grated, "and you tell me there's no cause?"
"Of course there isn't! You know he has the situation under control, no matter what it may look like! You've done something like it yourself! How many times have you gone among hundreds of enemies?"
"Yes, but not to defy them!"
"Neither does he! Interfere now, and they'll lose the faith in him that he's building! I know it's the most difficult thing in the world to do nothing, but that's what you must do!"
"Unless they jump him," Magnus muttered, and almost wished they would.
THE MOB ROARED around the two cousins, who stared, each marvelling that the other could be his kinsman. The ocean of sound washed about them until one voice pierced it: "Don't trust him! It's a trick!"
"Is there none who dares fight me?" Alain called. "Surely there must be, or you would not have come! Find at least one!"
But the crowd churned about him, their noise incredulous—then died suddenly, and a channel opened as men pressed back. At the end of that channel stood a man like a wall, six and a half feet tall with shoulders like a bull's, arms thick as an ordinary man's leg. "I dare!" he bellowed, and shook a seven-foot staff. "This is my weapon! Do you dare to fight me, princeling? Do you dare shed your armor and fight me with nothing but a staff?"
Twenty-Five
AT THE CITY GATE, CATHARINE TURNED IN A FURY. "Are you mad, Tuan? Our boy shall be slain!"
"I doubt it" Tuan returned, but his own face was taut with strain. "There is far less chance of death by staff than by swords—and our lad is well-trained."
"But if he were …"
"Then Diarmid would never forgive his slayer," Tuan said, "and the peasants would have far more to fear when you die, from a King who seeks to avenge his brother's death."
"They have not the wisdom to remember that!"
"They shall have no need to." Tuan took off his gauntlets and took her hand. "We must risk his hurt in this, as we had to risk it when he rode off to help his friends. How can he ever be King if he cannot rely upon himself?"
"But those were mere bandits and woodsrunners!"
"Is this opponent any more?" Tuan stroked her hand. "Courage, my sweet. The boy is well-trained and has faced worse enemies than this—and amazingly, he has reduced this conflict from a battle between armies to a bout with a quarterstaff."
Catharine stared at her son, stalking toward the huge peasant, and said, with a touch of awe, "So he has."
Then, tense with worry, she sat holding her husband's hand fiercely as she watched her son step forth to an apparent slaughter.
THE SENTRY WASN'T the only one by the southern river—a SPITE telepath stood within the forest border nearby. She heard the cacophony of the monsters invading and ran out of the trees—then froze, staring, horrified by the sight of the invading nightmares. She closed her eyes, shaking her head to free her from paralysis, and sent a thought north to Runnymede, to her fellow SPITE espers.
One of those telepaths was in the midst of the peasant army, right by the Mocker's elbow. "They've done it, chief! The dupe has invited the monsters in!"
"Then the telepaths will be too busy with them to help out in the battle."
"I dare fight you," Alain told the strapping peasant, "and I am delighted to see that at least one of my subjects has the courage to stand against me."
It was too much for Geoffrey. With a howl of anger, he charged the crowd. They pressed back with cries of alarm.
The Mocker raised his voice, calling out, 'Treachery! Charge him! Bury him! All of them, before they bury us all!" He knew his own psis would hobble any defenders, no matter how well armed.
The peasants answered with a roar of anger, and as Geoffrey rode in among them, dozens of hands seized his horse's harness. The brave beast screamed, trying to rear, but the weight of many peasants held him down. More peasants pressed in, hands reaching for Geoffrey—but the blades that thrust at him slowed and stopped inches short of his sides.
"Why can't they stab him?" the Mocker hissed. "What are our psis doing? Tell them to block the espers who are protecting him!"
"We're trying, Chief," the man at his other side said, face taut with strain, "but the royal psis are fighting us for all they're worth. We're deadlocked!"