Quiet Magic (3 page)

The Bispham looked smug.

"Such an honest troop of rovers I
doubt I've seen before, Captain. Surely, before I must insist with
my own means, you might find about you that which does not belong
to you or yours."

"We are certain, Bridgemaster," Slate
said.

"My inspectors will assist you, now,
Rove Captain. Please understand this is a courtesy we would extend
to any of your house."

* * *

THEY STOOD, EACH beside the piles of
their belongings, each with bareback horse at side, except for
Slate. Slate stood between two piles--the paltry one that was his
and the larger, more important pile that was those things that
belonged to House DaChauxma. The pack-pony was tethered, likely
grateful to be without his load. Grayling waited impatiently at
Slate's back. His saddlebags had been carefully removed, but the
gray crow stood fast on the saddle, refusing Slate's entreaties to
be gone as well as rebuffing the "assistance" of The Bispham's
minions.

Slate was inclined to think kindly of
the crow despite it, for by now it was clear that those packed onto
the bridge favored the crow. There were many people now on the
bridge, slinking in from the night, calling out that no one had the
right to stop the gray crow on his own bridge!-- and it might well
be that Slate would find his last joy here, fighting a stupid last
fight over a stupid mission while the crow laughed for him at his
enemies...

One of The Bispham's guards, braver
than the rest, or seeking favor, closed on the crow again, this
time raising a stick to jab at him. Grayling lashed out instantly
with a hind foot, knocking the man down and raising and unexpected
murmur of laughter and approval from the gallery on the
bridge.

"For the sake of rain, man," Slate
roared,"that's a war-horse! Might as well come at him straight on
with a sword and get your head bashed in!"

The Bispham glared at the proceedings
from his vantage point next to Catania's pitiful pile where he and
a scribe were inventorying the belongings cursorily. A guard stood
beside them, bored. Catania, it was plain, carried nothing worth
consideration on his person.

"You, there, Captain! You'll need to
control your horse if you wish to keep it!" The Bispham's threats
were becoming more blatant; Slate was not surprised to find his
sword still vibrating low with warning.

The downed guard rose with a limp,
looked to his corporal, who shrugged and waved him away.

Slate could hear some of the questions
Catania was answering. Did he have any jewels? None. Where had he
gotten the small silver neck pendant?

From his dead wife. Did he gamble?
That was answered with a laugh and a quick--"Only by volunteering!"
"Do you carry anything you've stolen?"

"I do not!" "Where did you get your
horse?" "From the house--it carries DaChauxma's mark, look you,
like my saddle and my weapon and my bedroll and my
life."

The magician waved several of his
various wands over Catania and his pile, snorted, and said--"Pack
this junk up. Your house does well by you with horse and gear, I
see, and pays you not at all!"

Stuart Hall was a different matter;
being born out of the Household he had trinkets and geegaws, and a
change of clothing meant for a modest Court. He also had a tongue
in his head, which became unlimbered as his crossbow was inspected.
"Did you make this?" "My uncle did. It was my gift for Twelfth
Year." "What do you carry that you've stolen?" "Not a damn thing!"
"And this jewelry? Hardly what I'd expect of a soldier in the same
troop as that pauper!" "I'm out of house, a younger son. All here
was given me or bought by me, Bridgemaster!" This last was said
with such insulting venom that the guard stepped closer in
warning.

The Bispham looked Hall in the eye and
said "We shall see, we shall see!" and brought forth some pendulous
and flashy jeweled thing, which he swung over the pile while
muttering. He also said to the scribe, "Make a note of the gold
pieces--they are foreign gold and the ownership harder to be sure
of!"

Slate winced at that, for even if they
were let go how hard would it be to do their mission with no gold
to buy food or information?

The scribe said something Slate
couldn't hear, and The Bispham simply said, "Note it all, note it
all," before turning to his next task.

The Bispham peered dismissively at
Disburno, who was standing quietly beside his painted pony, talking
in his own language as he plaited its mane gently, from saddle
forward. The little man was in his Plain's garb rather than house
clothes; and he was heedless of the magician, even when the awkward
clatter of wands should have told him he was under
scrutiny.

The wizard made several quick passes
with the wands, and then chose a different one, which he also swung
about energetically while mumbling some magic phrase or
spell.

Apparently magic spoke not of stolen
goods and The Bispham turned his attention to Arbran, next closest
to Slate, and his curiously large pile. In it, conspicuously, was
the hat that Arbran had worn when he came to the troop. That was
the very hat Slate had told him to get rid of, since it made him an
obvious target for an archer.

But the rest...the rest was the
bedroll. It was fluffed to amazing proportions and on it lay some
few odds and ends of Arbran's life--a knife, some coins, the hat, a
fancy belt, his sword.

The Bispham looked Arbran over
carefully.

"Are you a gambler?"

"No."

"Odd, that looks like a gambler's hat
to me. Where did you get it?"

"I, uh...it was a gift from my
mother."

"Ahhh...of course," said The Bispham.
"Your mother gives you a parting present of a gambler's hat while
you travel with a troop of rootless, roving
mercenaries?"

Arbran reacted as if
slapped.

"We are not rootless! We are on a
mission for House DaChauxma ..."

"And neither you nor your horse are of
that house, eh? So you are a mercenary who wears a gambler's
hat!"

"This hat is from my mother, who
insisted I take it. It is... it is in case I need to be paroled.
She will know this hat is mine, because she had it from her last
lover ere she married my father!"

"So it is a gambler's hat, and you
have it without his permission!"

"It is not stolen!"

"You are on the edge of trouble, boy,"
said the magician, and then to his scribe, "Note the hat and the
silly feather blanket too."

This time the Bridgemaster took
several wands out and waved them slowly to muttering and
mumbling...

"The permissions on some of these
items is scanty at best! You'd do well to decide which should stay
here!"

With that he harumphed his way to
Littlebrook, who was looking not at all at ease.

"Just hand over the goods. You needn't
explain how they came to you."

Littlebrook glanced over toward Slate
sheepishly and reached into his leather belt pouch. He withdrew
several things--what exactly Slate couldn't see--and tried to hand
them to The Bispham. He waved the items over to his scribe as if
unwilling to be touched by someone willfully carrying an item not
his own.

Slate shook his head in disgust as the
scribe unceremoniously shook out a handful of fine-linked
necklaces. They were likely troth-gifts or even bride-badges,
exactly the kind of things a young buck looking to show-off to his
cronies might take away from his evening's pleasure. Better a
soldier to buy an honest working girl's time for the night than
tempt fate trifling with husbands and boyfriends thus...

"What else? There's something else.
You've got it in your boots!"

Littlebrook looked appalled, but
managed to gasp out, "There's nothing in my boots but my feet and
my stockings!"

"Take them off!" said the magician,
pulling forth a wand and waving it excitedly over Littlebrook's
feet. "Yes. Take them off and we'll see!"

Littlebrook sat awkwardly on his
blanket roll, pulling first one and then the other of his boots
off. He tipped them to show that they held nothing....

The magician looked momentarily
perplexed, pulled out another wand and said several words. He tried
again, shoved that wand away, and pulled out the pendant thing he
had used earlier.

Now he smiled.

"Tell me about the boots. Where did
you get them?"

Littlebrook grimaced. "I won them. It
was a drinking bet, see and..."

"Bah! Bah! You took them from a drunk!
You did, didn't you!"

"We had a bet! We did so," Littlebrook
insisted.

"And he was drunk stupid when you took
them, wasn't he? Stolen boots! Leave them!"

Slate felt his frustration molding
itself to something like anger. What a stupid matter to be using
magic for! What a waste there was of power, to aim it all at
someone like Lyle Littlebrook!

Littlebrook looked miserable, but the
magician wasn't done with him. Littlebrook turned out every pocket,
had to account for every coin: copper, silver, or gold. In the end
he was out boots and coins, necklaces and bracelets. Still the
magician fiddled with his wands. He came back once more to
Littlebrook's feet.

With a cunning expression the magician
quickly touched Littlebrook's ankle with his wand. There was a
sharp report, as of shield meeting shield.

Littlebrook moaned, dropped his hand
to his ankle, and sat down.

"No, you'll not get away with this one
either. What are you hiding in your stockings? Or did you steal
your socks?"

Littlebrook said nothing but began to
struggle out of the stockings.

Slate stood on the balls of his feet
now, the sword comfortably humming against him, as if eager, as if
feeding on his anger. What necessity to drag a man's very
socks...

"The story!" The magician insisted,
bringing his wand toward the struggling man.

"A lady-" he began "well, she, we, we
bathed and then I needed stockings and so she put on these from her
master's linens...."

"Leave them then! Stand
up!"

"Enough! You've proved your point, now
enough is done!"

Slate wasn't sure who was most
surprised. Certainly the crowded bridge went silent; certainly the
Bridgemaster stopped his harangue; certainly Lyle Littlebrook
looked amazed. Certainly, it was Slate's own voice that had rung
out in the dim night air.

The magician was fumbling about his
robe madly, while Littlebrook hurriedly divested himself of the
tell-tale stockings. Everyone else was momentarily still, save the
hawks still circling overhead, added a course of keening to Slate's
demand.

Firelight glinted on the wand aimed
directly at Slate; yet nothing happened. The magician stood
impotent with rage for a long moment and pulled out another wand,
looked at it, and then gathered himself and waved scribe and guards
toward Slate angrily.

Slate, for his part, stood firm. What
was done was done; he only hoped Littlebrook would be able to
soldier again once they got away from this accursed place. A
captain must always care for his troops and Slate would answer for
duty if need be.

The Bispham strode distantly around
Grayling, his guard and scribe following in a rush. Behind him
Catania, Hall, and Arbran had gone to Littlebrook and had gotten
their comrade seated, though he shook mightily.

On Grayling's back the crow stirred,
watching The Bispham's elegant, glittery headgear with grave
interest-- muttering, muttering, muttering

"Braddack, Braddack, Braddack.
Carthulu Braddack, Braddack."

"Rove Captain, what a fine brave band
of honest men you bring us," the magician said as he approached.
"And what brave words. Do you tell us how to guard our own
country?"

The mage clanked somewhat, as if he'd
not placed all his wands firmly in their tucks and they now banged
against each other. His voice, unctuous as it was, hid none of the
excitement that also showed in his face. Slate had fought men in
this state, and found them dangerously overconfident.

Against his best wishes Slate's voice
was loud in the night.

"Bridgemaster, if dirty stockings were
a threat to Lamonta surely the country would have fallen long
ago!"

"Do not mock me,
outlander!"

There was no answer to give so Slate
gave none. His duty now was to get the troop beyond this madman,
and to move somehow on to the mission. Ay, at this moment he'd
gladly face the griffins rather than this wand-toting
fool.

The Bridgemaster was breathing hard
and waving his assistants to his side urgently.

"Enough!" came a voice from the
bridge. "We have a home to go to! Let us through and finish your
torture later!"

A more familiar voice called out "Huh!
They bear the crow--let them go!"

The magician glared toward the bridge
and, grabbing a wand, made a quick motion in that direction. A
sharp, lightning bright flash lit the night, bringing cries of
dismay from men and beasts alike.