Christopher Stasheff - Rogue Wizard 4 - A Wizard In Peace

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A Wizard In PeaceA Wizard In Peace
The Fourth Chronicle of Magnus D'Armand, Rogue Wizard
By Christopher Stasheff
ISBN: 0-812-56797-8
CHAPTER 1
Miles fled swiftly through the forest or as swiftly as he could, in the dark.
That was still fairly quickly, for he knew the forest well, this close to home.
Nonetheless, fear chilled him, and the thought of turning back flitted through
his mind-but through it he went, with all his heart helping it on its way, for
he fled from Salina.
Well, from the magistrate, really. The thought brought the man's face instantly
before his mind's eye, heavy fowled and hard-eyed, glowering down from behind
his high bench against the paneled wall of the courtroom, with the clerk looking
on from his desk in front of the bench and the other petitioners watching from
their stools. The magistrate orated, "Salina, daughter of Pleinjeanne, and
Miles, son of Lige, I have given you each five years and more to find mates, and
you have found none."
"But we don't fancy one another, Your Honor," Miles protested.
Didn't fancy Salina, indeed! He glanced up at her--quite plain, rawboned and
scrawny, with squinting eyes, a long, sharp nose, and a tongue quick to insult
and blame linked to a mind that could find every fault unerringly and instantly.
She was only five years older than he, but was a shrew already. "Salina, you
came of age ten years ago," the magistrate intoned. "Miles, you came of age five
years ago. If I leave you to find your own partners, you never will."
"Give me time, Your Honor!" Salina glared at Miles in a way that made it clear
she was as appalled as he at the thought of marrying, for he was no prize. He
was short, a full head shorter than she, and so stocky that he seemed fat. He
was round-faced, with too strong a chin and too short a nose, quiet and
reticent-too quiet for Salina's taste. She proclaimed far and wide that she
loved a good quarrel. Miles hated them.
"Give me time," she said again, "and a permit to travel, and I'll find a man
before I'm thirty."
"By thirty, fifteen years of childbearing will be past! Eight children you could
have borne 4n that time-and you have already wasted ten years, forgone the
bearing of five more citizens for the Protector."
Citizens and taxpayers, Miles thought sourly.
"But you, Miles." The magistrate frowned down at him, puzzled. "You've always
been a good boy, never any trouble. You haven't broken a single rule in your
whole life, never even gone poaching!"
Miles winced at the thought of the public punishments the reeve meted out to
anyone the foresters caught. No, he had never gone poaching! He shuddered at the
memory of the last flogging he had seen-a man from two villages away hanging by
his wrists from the pillory while the cat-o'-nine-tails smacked across his back.
His whole body had convulsed with every stroke; he had cursed at first, then
begun to scream, and finally mewled before they cut him down. Miles had heard
that he had lived, but hadn't walked straight again for six months.
"What has made you so stubborn now?" the magistrate demanded. "You know the
Protector decreed long ago that everyone over eighteen must be safely bound into
marriage, so that the men won't make trouble for the reeves and the women won't
raise havoc among the men. Salina shouldn't waste her life in spinsterhood when
she can bear many healthy babies nor should you, when you could be earning a
living for a wife and family."
"But I don't love him," Salina snapped, glaring at Miles. "Love!" the magistrate
snorted. "What has love to do with it? We speak of marriage and child-rearing,
and since you two have not spoken nor been spoken for, you shall marry or go to
the frontier farms, so that the Protector shall have some use from you!" He
banged his gavel on the bench, and that was the end of it.
Until nightfall.
As he ran, Miles wondered if perhaps he should have chosen the frontier farms
after all. He remembered what he had heard of them, those places that the
Protector wished to see used, so that people wouldn't become crowded in their
homelands as they increased. Some were in the north, where it was cool in summer
but frigid in winter; some were in the western desert, where people broiled by
day and froze by night. They were prisoners, those folk, lawbreakers-waste
people for the wastelands-turning the desert into a garden or the frozen lands
into oatfields for a few months of every year, making the land livable for their
children, if they had any, or for settlers whom the Protector would send when
the land was fertile. Then the prisoners would move on, always in the
wastelands, always where the work was backbreaking and constant, always where
life itself was a punishment.
But could it be worse than the punishment for trying to leave the village
without a pass?
With the thought came the memory of Lasak in his shackles, the long chain
stapled to the side of the courthouse, dressed in rags and striking blow after
blow with sledgehammer or pickax, trimming blocks to shape for the magistrate's
walls, smashing broken blocks into cobblestones, fourteen hours a day,
gray-faced and haggard, his eyes losing luster with every sunrise. He had stayed
at that labor for a year, and when the magistrate released him, he did whatever
he was told, looking up in fear at the slightest word from the Watch, cringing
at a word from the magistrate, going when he was told, coming when he was
bidden, marrying the worst shrew in town as he was ordered, and going almost
eagerly out to hoe all day in the fields, glad to be away from her. His spirit
hadn't just been broken-it had been extinguished.
And here was Miles, daring to leave the village without a pass just as Lasak
had, courting disaster just as Lasak had-but bound and determined that he would
escape, as Lasak had not. He resolutely put the memory out of his mind-he would
rather hang slowly than marry Salina. She might feel insulted at that, but she
would thank him secretly, and who knew? The next husband the magistrate chose
for her might be more to her taste. At least she wouldn't be sent to the
frontier farm for disobeying, not when the crime was his.
So here was Miles, fleeing through the wood, though the punishment would be far
worse if he were caught, far worse than for either refusing to marry, or for
poaching, or any of the hundred other things the Protector forbade. Still, the
difference between giving up a few hours' sport and a week's meat on the one
hand, and sacrificing a whole lifetime's chance of happiness on the other,
wasn't worth thinking about.
He slipped between trees, went down almost-hidden gametrails at a trot, for,
poacher or not, he knew the ways of the forest well. He, like every other
village boy, had hunted every fall during the open season. He didn't doubt that
he could escape if he could be far enough away before the magistrate discovered
he was missing and sent the foresters after him.
But hang, emigrate, or grind, Miles was leaving the village, and Salina would
thank him for it. He would live a bachelor all his days, stay free to marry for
love as the minstrels sang of it-or die trying.
The two men sat in soft chairs that tilted back and molded themselves to their
occupants' bodies. Each had a tall, iced drink on the table between them, and
sipped now and then as he watched the pictures changing on the huge wallscreen
in front of him. The lounge in which the men sat was lit with subdued splashes
of light that illuminated the copies of great paintings hung on the walls, and
other pictures the great artists had never painted, although each painting
looked as though they had. The subdued light that spilled over from those pools
gave a glow to the thick wine-red carpet and the golden oak of the walls.
"All right, Gar, so they all could be better off--but I haven't seen a single
one where I'd say the people were suffering," the smaller man grumbled. "At
least, not most of them."
Actually, he was fairly tall, by the standards of his home planet but his
companion was seven feet from toe to crown, and wide-shouldered in proportion.
The picture changed, and Gar said, "This one does look fairly standard,
Dirk-like a picture from old Earth. They've built up plant life and oxygen,
enriched the soil with fertilizers and carbon, and seeded it with Terran
lifeforms."
Dirk nodded. "It's been settled for a few hundred years, then." "I'd guess a
thousand, if Herkimer is right about there being walled cities in the middle of
the forest. People don't build that way.
"I know-they chop down the trees and plant crops. Besides, he said his sonar
probe showed that the biggest of them was built over the buried hull of the
colony ship, and they wouldn't have tried to land it on top of all those trees.
So you're pretty sure those cities are abandoned?"
"Herkimer is," Gar answered, "and a ship's computer that size is almost never
wrong. He'll plead ignorance sometimes, but when he doesn't, be has so much
evidence that it's no use to dispute."
"Of course, there could be a fact he doesn't know about," Dirk said sourly.
"Yes, and he doesn't know anything about the current government on this planet."
Gar frowned as the picture changed to an overhead view of a town. "There isn't
that much we can tell, sitting up'here inside a spaceship."
"What do you know about the people, Herkimer?" Dirk asked.
The computer's mellow voice answered from all about them. "Nothing, Dirk, except
that their parents were Earthmen who left to escape crowding, and to gain fresh
air and sunshine."
"That's very strange." Gar frowned. "There's usually something in the database."
"Well, he's got the best one around, when it comes to lost colony planets," Dirk
agreed. "Absolutely nothing about what happened after Earth withdrew . all
support from the colonies, huh?"
"You know we don't even have an idea whether or not the people survived," Gar
reminded him.
"Well, we just found out." Dirk gestured at the screen, where they seemed to be
descending as the camera expanded the picture. They found themselves looking
down on people walking fairly quickly along the streets, wearing dark clothing.
The women wore bodices and skirts and bonnets; the men wore knee pants, tunics,
or short robes, and some wore conical hats with flat tops and wide brims. "These
pictures are live, right?"
"Yes, Dirk," the computer answered. "Of course, I am recording them, and will
store them for you."
Dirk frowned. "Odd to see the physical layout so similar on every continent,
especially when none of them are very big."
"True," Gar agreed, frowning thoughtfully. "Every single one shows a lot of
small towns in expanding rings around a few big cities with a network of roads
and canals tying them together. No huge forests with occasional villages in
clearings, no vast grasslands with tiny tribes following great herds, no
wide-open spaces broken into patchwork fields around Neolithic villages. . ."
"And no medieval castles on hilltops overlooking collections of villages ringed
by more patchwork fields," Dirk finished for him. "Not what you'd expect of a
colony that crashed when it couldn't get spare parts, or trade with Terra for
new machines."
"Still, it's scarcely modern," Gar pointed out. "There's no sign of automobiles
or electricity, not even steam engines and railroads."
"So it crashed, but not very hard," Dirk inferred. "At a guess, the political
system kept some kind of infrastructure going:"
"If that's so, then there may not be any need for us." Gar sounded almost
gloomy. "Not if their government fits their needs."
"Don't rush to judgment, there." Dirk held up a cautioning palm. "Just because
it kept them alive, doesn't mean it made them happy. Besides, after the crisis
was over, whatever command structure saved them, might no longer be needed."
"True," Gar agreed, his eyes coming alive again, "and the look of the land does
seem to indicate a strong-arm government of some sort. The layout being so much
the same everywhere indicates a common social and political structure."
"Probably," Dirk cautioned his friend.
"But what kind?" Gar asked. "I've never seen a lost colony that looked so
organized from space!"
"At least those people on the screen look well-fed and healthy," Dirk said.
"Not very many of them look happy, though," Gar said, "and that is enough to
arouse my suspicions."
"Mine, too. Definitely we want a closer look."
"I'm also suspicious because there's no sign of king or noblemen, even though
the culture seems to have regressed to late medieval."
"Or early modern-take your pick." Dirk shrugged. "But what strikes me as strange
is that there's no sign of clergy or churches."
"Most unusual, for a culture in this stage. Yes, I'd say we have reason to
investigate." Gar rose from his chair and strode off toward the sally bay. "Down
we go, Herkimer! Down to the nightside!"
Orgoru trudged homeward, his hoe over his shoulder, his face wooden as they came
into the village and Clyde whooped to everyone who could hear, "Three! Orgoru
only cut down three stalks of maize in his hoeing today!"
"Only three?" Althea looked up from snapping beans by her mother's door. "Better
and better, Orgoru! Maybe we'll actually have corn to grind this fall!"
Orgoru took the gibe with a straight face, but he could feel his treacherous
skin growing hot.
"Hear how they mock you, boy!" his father growled beside him. "Must you shame me
every day of your life?"
The angry retort leaped hot to Orgoru's lips, but he held it within; he knew
from bitter experience that talking back would only win him blows and kicks-and,
full-grown or not, with the vigor of youth on his side or not, he knew that his
father was stronger than he was, quicker than he was, in all ways a better
fighter than he was.
"Can't even manage a hoe!" his father grumbled. "Thank heaven we never trusted
you with a plow or a scythe!"
He'd certainly never taken the trouble to teach the use of them to his son-but
Orgoru shrugged off the older man's complaints, telling himself once again that
it was no wonder he was so useless with peasant's tools.
He had known he was clumsy since he was five, struggling so hard to please his
mother in drawing water for her, sweeping, gathering kindling-but always she
scolded him for spilling some of the water, for gathering too many rotten
sticks, for missing a spot in his sweeping. His earliest memories, and his
latest ones, were all of such scoldings, such blaming:
Little Orgoru tripped, stumbled into the table, and his mother's only vase
crashed to the floor. "What was that?" she cried, and came running. Orgoru
flinched away from her, trying to make himself as small as possible; but it did
no good; she screamed, "My vase! You clumsy, stupid child!" and began beating
him, beating and beating and beating....
Papa's fist caught him on the side of the head, making him sit down hard.
Through the ringing in his ears, he heard the man shout, "You've left half the
weeds in that row still standing!"
Orgoru whined, trembling. "I didn't know they were weeds, Papa."
"Stupid boy! Anything that's not corn is a weed!" Papa's big hand came around to
slap his head again. "Do them again now, and chop down the weeds, but leave the
corn!"
Orgoru had tried, had really tried his best, and he had chopped down all the
weeds-but a quarter of the corn, too.
There was no dinner for him, and his father beat him with a strap that night. He
cried himself to sleep lying on his stomach.
He didn't have a hoe in his hands that fall, when the children came running
after the grown-ups, who were tired from reaping and binding sheaves all day-but
in spite of having done their share of binding, the children still had energy
enough to run and shout.
The blow took Orgoru full in the back. He stumbled, nearly fell, but managed to
catch his balance in only a few steps. He turned to see who had struck him,
fighting down anger....
Clyde grinned down at him, a head taller and two years older, with his friends
laughing behind him. "Sorry, Orgoru," Clyde said. "I stumbled."
Orgoru scrambled to his feet, knowing what was coming, dreading it....
The kick took him in the seat and sent him sprawling on his face. "Aw, now you
stumbled! Get up, Orgoru! Can't you get up?"
Orgoru tried to stay down, knowing their rules, knowing they wouldn't hit him if
he didn't stand up, but two of the boys yanked him to his feet, and they all
took turns giving him a punch or two.
Finally they ran off; finally he heard the heavy tread, and looked up to see his
father's face wrinkled in disgust. "Can't even fight back, can you? All right,
come along home-but cowards get no dinner."
He had missed so many dinners that it was amazing he had grown up at all. It was
completely unfair that he had become chubby-he hadn't eaten that much!
So Orgoru had grown up knowing that he was useless as a peasant. He had known it
because his father growled at him for being too clumsy to throw a ball, for
losing every fight, for always being the butt of every prank. He had struggled
to please, tried harder and harder with every complaint, but no matter how hard
he tried, his mother always found something wrong with what he had done, his
father always demanded to know why he couldn't be like the other boys-until one
night, whipped for knocking a loaf of bread onto the dirt floor, then denied his
dinner for having shouted at them for the injustice, Orgoru went to bed weeping,
feeling as though his little heart would break-and suddenly understood.
All at once it burst on him-why he was so clumsy at peasant's chores, why he
couldn't even talk to the other children and be liked-because he wasn't like
them! Wasn't of their kind! So unlike them indeed, that this man and woman
couldn't possibly be his true parents! They didn't love him, they were ashamed
of him, they behaved every day as though he were a burden they had to carry, but
only grudgingly-so he couldn't actually be their child! His real mother and
father must have left him with these surly grouches for some mysterious and
important reason-and would come back for him someday!
Orgoru fell asleep that night hoping that they would come back soon, and
wondering what they were really like. He mulled over the question whenever his
mind had time free, and his mother soon took to scolding him for his
daydreaming, too. But Orgoru didn't mind-he had found a much better world than
hers, in his imagination. He daydreamed of parents who were wise and kind.
When puberty hit, and he began to notice how lovely some of the girls were, he
shyly began to try to talk with them, but they only laughed, amused, or let him
talk long enough to find something they could mock in his words. The other boys
began to pick fights with him even more often, which always ended in disaster,
for if he ran away, he was too slow-because his legs were too short-they caught
him and pummeled him all the worse.
Then Mayday came, and the boys stood in a line, waiting for the girls to each
choose a boy for the dancing. The young men stood waiting, and one by one they
went to step to the fiddle. Althea chose Burl the handsome with the boyish
smile, her bosom friend Nan chose Am of the broad shoulders and bulging muscles,
their crony Seli chose Gori who won all the races, and so it went, the prettiest
choosing the most handsome, the strongest, the most skilled.
Finally Orgoru remained standing alone and turned away quickly, for Ciletha was
chatting and giggling with two older girls but glancing at him with concern, and
he didn't want her choosing him out of pity. Truth to tell, he had no great wish
to dance with her, either, for she was almost as plain as he, though not so
misshapen.
Misshapen! Who was to say he was shaped wrong? So he had a long torso and short
legs, whereas the rest of them had long shanks and short waists-what of it? He
stumped up to the village pond and stood glaring at his reflection. Yes, his
face was round where theirs were long; yes, he had a snub of nose where they had
long, straight blades; yes, his eyes were too large for a man's but too small
for a woman's, and dark brown where theirs were blue or green or gray-and yes,
he was plump, but that didn't make him worse than they!
Then it was as though light exploded in his mind, and Orgoru suddenly
understood. No, it didn't mean he was worse-they were! He was so different
because he was so much better! After all, they were only peasants, all of them,
but he had known for a long time that they who raised him were not his real
parents! He must be of a higher station, the son of parents who were gentry at
least, but more probably noblemen, such as the ones who figured in the stories
grandmothers told their grandchildren, those who were lucky enough to have
grandmothers.
Once he realized that, it all made sense. Of course his parents resented
him-they knew what he really was! Of course he didn't fit in-he was different
indeed! Of course none of these peasant girls would choose him, for he was so
far above them that they couldn't even recognize him for what he was!
He turned away from the pond a new man, vibrating within at the wonder of it
all, aching to tell someone-but of course, there was none he could speak to, not
about this.
There would be, though. One day they would come back for him-or he would find
out where they had gone, his parents.
Then he would go to them, and no silly law or magistrate's command would stop
him!
He went back among the roistering, the drinking, the singing. The other boys
shoved him, yanked the last tankard from before his reaching hand, sneered at
him, mocked him, but he smiled up at them with an amazing new serenity. He
didn't care what they did, these peasants, these lowborns. He knew what he
really was, and one day he would know who!
CHAPTER 2
The huge golden disk glided down in the darkness, its outer edge revolving
around a stationary center that held gun turrets, sensor dishes, ports-and
people. It spun down into a meadow just beyond a forest, a few miles from a town
whose lights had blinked out several hours before. It sat immobile for a few
minutes as its guiding computer sampled the air, analyzing it to make sure there
was enough oxygen for its passengers-and no toxic gases or microbes to which
they weren't immune. The ship's edge spun more and more slowly until it hissed
to a stop; then the ship extended a ramp, and two men came down, dressed in
broad-shouldered jackets over bell-sleeved shirts, and balloon trousers gathered
into high boots. If worse came to worst and some poacher saw them, he wouldn't
think their clothing odd, though he might wonder about their transportation.
"The ruling class on this planet would wear robes," Dirk grumbled. "They're very
awkward when it comes to action." He glanced down at his loose-fitting,
square-shouldered jacket and equally loose-fitting trousers, both garments
gathered tight at wrists or ankles. "At least the military dresses sensibly. A
little extravagantly, but sensibly."
"Don't let the clothes worry you, Dirk," Gar said soothingly. "We'll probably
wind up naked, filthy, and pretending to be madmen again, anyway."
"Well, it works on most planets," Dirk admitted. "I keep hoping, though, Gar,
that we'll find a planet where they keep the mentally ill in decent housing of
their own."
"If they did, we wouldn't need to be there," Gar returned. He gazed at the
countryside about him. "It looks peaceful enough, and the people certainly have
their physical needs fulfilled."
"Yeah, but once they're well-fed and well-housed, they have time to pay
attention to other needs," Dirk sighed. "We're a very ungrateful species as a
whole, Gar."
"Yes, we keep wanting unreasonable things like happiness and love and
self-fulfillment," Gar said with a wry smile.
"No government can guarantee those."
"No, but the wrong kind of government can certainly block them." Gar took a
firmer grip on the pike he carried as a staff. "Let's see which kind we're
dealing with here, shall we?" He stepped down off the ramp. Dirk followed suit,
and the metal walkway slid quietly back into the huge gleaming hull.
Gar pulled a locket from inside his jacket and said into it, "Lift off,
Herkimer. Wait for us in orbit."
"Yes, Gar," the locket replied, and the huge golden disk rose slowly, then shot
up into the night until it was lost among the stars-but the locket said, -"I
will keep you under surveillance whenever I can."
"Yes. Please do," Gar said. -"After all, you never can tell when I might lose my
communicator."
"Surely, Magnus. Good luck."
"Thank you, Herkimer. Enjoy the rest." Gar tucked the locket away, ignoring the
difference between his birth-name and his professional name, and turned toward
the forest.
"Lose your communicator?" Dirk scoffed. "What difference would that make? You
were born with one!"
"Yes, but it's so demanding, sending thoughts on UHF frequencies," Gar said
mildly. "Do you think we can find a road, Dirk?"
"There's a pathway over there that might lead to one." Dirk pointed. "You don't
suppose we could land during the day sometime, do you?"
"Of course, if you enjoy attracting a great deal of attention."
"Uh ... no, I think not." Dirk gave a somewhat theatrical sigh and asked, "Why
do we do this, Gar? Why do we hunt down planets where the people are oppressed,
just so we can go in and free them? What business is it of ours, anyway?"
"I have the perfect reason," Gar said, somewhat smugly. "After all, I'm an
aristocrat, and our occupational disease is ennui. I'm fighting off boredom.
What's your excuse?"
"Me?" Dirk looked up. "I'm an exile. You know that-you landed on my planet and
linked up with me so you could start the revolution there!"
"Yes, but you're a self-exile," Gar corrected.
"Speak for yourself," Dirk countered, "and I think you do. Me, I was born a
serf, you know that, and when the other escaped serfs helped me get away, they
recruited me into their high-tech, space-cargo company, to spend my life the way
they did-working from off-planet to free my fellow serfs. But once I gained some
education and became part of the modern world, I lost touch with the people I'd
been born among-and lost my home." He looked up with haunted eyes. "I have to
find a new home now-and find a woman who's enough like me to fall in love with
me, which isn't going to be easy-a lowborn lady of culture and education."
Gar nodded, eyes gentle with sympathy. "Which is more important, Dirk? The
woman, or the home?"
"I suppose it comes to the same thing in the end. How about you?"
"I?" Gar shrugged and turned away, seeming suddenly very restless, though he
took only a few steps. "I have a home, at least, but I have no purpose there-no
woman for me, I found that out the hard way. Besides, I'd always live in my
father's shadow."
"But you don't really think you'll find another home," Dirk said softly.
"I don't." Gar turned back, meeting Dirk's gaze. "I don't think I'll find
another home, and I don't think I'll find a woman who can be gentle enough to
trust but strong enough not to be afraid of me. But a man has to have some
purpose in life, Dirk, and if I can't find love and can't rear children of my
own, I can at least spend my days trying to free slaves and make it possible for
them to find their true mates and be happy."
"As good a reason for staying alive as any," Dirk said, "and better than a lot
I've heard." He grinned. "So we're just like boys hanging out on a street corner
in a modern city, aren't we? Trying to find some way to pass the time while we
wait for the girls to come by."
"I suppose." Gar smiled in spite of himself, Dirk's optimism was catching. "And
as long as we're helping other people, we aren't wasting our time."
"They aren't going to thank us, you know."
"Yes, we found that out the hard way, didn't we? But gratitude doesn't really
matter, does it?"
"Why, no," Dirk said. "I suppose all we really want is to feel we've put the
time to good use."
Miles came panting up from the stream's ford, careful to walk on the gravel of
the road that led down to it. Dogs might pick up his trail, but no one would see
footprints-and the hounds would have a long time casting about for his scent,
since he had waded and swum for almost a mile.
Now, though, every muscle screamed with fatigue, and his feet felt like lumps of
lead, so hard did he have to strain to lift them. His head ached, and spells of
dizziness took him now and again. He had jogged all night and traveled all day,
alternating between wading, swimming, and walking the gravel of the riverbank.
But there was no sound of pursuit--either no one in his village had noticed his
absence, everyone thinking he was at some other chore, or the foresters were
being uncommonly merciful, pretending to take even longer about finding his
trail than was necessary. He had heard rumors that they would do that, if they
thought the fugitive's cause right and just-and Salina's cousin was a forester.
Still, it was only a matter of time before the thrill of the chase caught them
up and, sympathetic or not, they would be hunting him in earnest. They probably
were already.
But he was so bone-tired and weary that he felt as though he couldn't take
another step. The thought penetrated the murk in his brain enough to make him
realize that he would have to sleep soon, or he wouldn't be able to run
anymore-he would fall down where he stood, and lie unconscious till the dogs
found him.
So, when he saw the haystack standing high in the field, he felt a surge of
relief that washed him up onto its prickly sides and left him beached, to burrow
his way in. With the last strands of consciousness leaving him, he pulled a few
wisps of hay down to cover the hole he had made, then collapsed into sweet and
total oblivion.
Gar and Dirk strolled down a broad road, lined with thick old trees that shaded
the sides well. The traffic was light, but they were scarcely alone-there were
two others going their way: a hundred feet behind, a woman driving a cart with a
man walking beside it, and a hundred feet ahead, a lone man with a pack on his
back and a staff in his hand. Both men wore trousers, scuffed boots, and smocks
belted at the waist. The woman wore a long, dark blue skirt and a light blue
blouse under a black shawl.
"Working men-farmers, at a guess," Dirk said. The others were so far apart that
there was no chance of being overheard. "I'd place the one ahead as being a
tradesman of some sort," Gar mused. "No clay on his boots."
"Sharp eyes," Dirk said. Then, a little more loudly as another traveler passed
them, "No, the storm clouds are too far ahead-it won't rain before sunset."
"Oh, I think it might," Gar said, equally loudly. "Stiff breeze in our faces.
It'll bring the thunderheads sooner."
The carter looked up, startled, and frowned at them as he went by before he had
to turn back to tend to his team of oxen. "Not too hard saying what he is," Gar
muttered. "Fullscale wagon crowded with barrels-he's a delivery boy for a
vineyard."
"Or for the wine seller," Dirk said. "Of course, those barrels could hold ale."
"They could. At least we're both agreed he's not the merchant himself."
"Of course-not well-enough dressed." Dirk nodded at another man with a wagon, a
hundred feet farther down the road and coming toward them. "Now, he's a
merchant."
Gar looked; the man wore tight-fitting trousers and a tunic, like the carter,
but his were clearly of better fabric and livelier color-deep blue for the
trousers and light blue for the tunic. More importantly, he wore an open coat
over them, and it was of brocade. "Yes, I'd say he's a bit more affluent, but
still has to be on the road with a wagon. Besides, he has hirelings."
Two other wagons followed, each with a driver wearing the usual earth-toned
trousers and belted tunic.
"O-ho! Here comes somebody important!" Dirk pointed. Around a curve in the road
ahead came a small closed carriage, square and Spartan, painted a somber black.
Before it rode two men on horseback with another two behind, dressed alike in
dark red jackets and trousers with broad-brimmed, flat hats of the same color.
They carried spears stepped in sockets attached to their saddles and wore swords
and daggers very obviously at their belts.
"Soldiers, wearing the livery Herkimer used as models for our costumes." Gar
frowned. "Presumably, ours being brown only means we work for a different boss."
"Yes, but ours isn't here, and theirs is inside the carriage," Dirk pointed out.
"This might be a good time to see what the backs of the roadside trees look
like."
"I think we'd be a little obvious," Gar replied. "We'd better brazen it out. I
hope they speak our language."
The thought hit Dirk with a shock. "My lord, we did come down here unprepared,
didn't we?"
"Not hard, when we didn't have any information," Gar said dryly. "But their
ancestors spoke Terran Standard, so there's no reason to think they don't."
"Yeah, and it'll give us a way of guessing how restrictive their culture is,"
Dirk said, smiling. "The worse their accent, the more permissive the culture-the
closer to Standard, the more their authorities insist everything be done just
right."
"We should be in an excellent position to study the authorities," Gar said,
"considering who's in the coach."
As they passed, the soldiers saluted them. Each held his arm straight out to
the.side and bent up at the elbow, hand a flat blade. Gar and Dirk copied the
gesture, careful to smile no more than the real soldiers did. As the coach
passed, they caught a glimpse of a man in his thirties with a square black hat,
and a robe that matched the color of his soldiers' livery. He had spectacles on
his nose and was trying to study some papers in spite of the coach's lurching
and swaying. Then the rear guards were saluting, Dirk and Gar were returning the
salutes, and the coach was rumbling off down the road.
"Well, we passed the first test," Dirk sighed.
"Now we know how the local military salute works," Gar said. "Not much more than
a ritualized wave of the hand, I'd say."
"I'll view that as a hopeful sign, if you don't mind. What do you think of the
local ruling class?"
"Professional administrator, by the look of him-not a part-timer, like the
merchants of Venice or the Athenian citizen-assembly."
"I think I prefer amateurs . . ."
"Oh, give this one the benefit of the doubt. At least he's probably trained for
the job."
"Yeah, and has figured out how to hand it on to his son, definitely not his
daughter. At least the amateurs don't have a vested interest in bloating the
bureaucracy."
"You're being unfair," Gar chided. "One look at the man is scarcely enough proof
to convict him of so many crimes."
"Why not? He's old enough to have children. And if he's a trained paper-pusher,
he's part of a bureaucracy."
"Aren't you using a rather broad definition of 'bureaucracy' . . . ? Wait,
what's this?"
The torrent of babble from the curve ahead had finally become loud enough to
force itself on their attention.
"A crowd," Dirk said. "Don't look at me that waysomebody had to state the
obvious. They don't sound threatening, anyway."
"No, rather happy-a holiday sound, in fact. Let's see what's going on."
They rounded the curve and saw peasants lining both sides of the road,
chattering and gesturing to one another, smiling, bright-eyed, excited. Some had
packs over their shoulders and were sharing food and drink with one another.
There was a sprinkling of merchants, carters, and other wayfarers among them,
laughing and sharing their own provisions.
"You were right," Dirk said, "it is a holiday. When does the parade start?"
"Let's join them and see if we can overhear anything." Gar stepped off the
roadway, leaning on his staff and looking about with a gentle, interested smile.
Dirk followed, growling, "Why do I feel conspicuous?"
The peasants glanced up, and conversation muted for a few minutes-benign smile
or not, Gar was still a scary figure. But he offered no harm, only spoke quietly
with Dirk-so quietly that none of them could hear-and the people went back to
chatting with one another. Dirk could almost see Gar's ears prick up, and
wondered what his own looked like-but he was hearing words that he recognized.
Yes, there was an accent, broader vowels and lazier consonants, but he had no
difficulty at all eavesdropping.
"I can understand them," Gar muttered.
"Me too," Dirk said. "That's not a good sign."
"No, not at all," Gar said, with a casualness that made Dirk's skin crawl. "It
bespeaks a very rigid government, one that's stonily conservative."
That raised several interesting possibilities, none of which Dirk really wanted
to think about at the moment. To put the unpleasant implications of this out of
his mind, he paid attention to what the nearest people were saying.
"The Protector himself! What would bring him so far into the countryside?"
"I don't know, but they say he travels around when folk least expect it, to see
that his officials do as he tells them and don't cheat."
"Cheat him, or other folk?" The woman who had asked the question grinned. "I
know, I know-neither."
"But are they sure he's coming?" a carter asked, frowning. "How do they know?"
"A crier came riding, calling out to all to clear the road, for the Protector
would be passing!"
"I told you we should have made an earlier start," Dirk growled. "We might have
heard the leather-lungs ourselves."
"He must be riding quite far ahead," Gar said, surprised. "We've been on the
road an hour already."
"Oh, he came through last night," one woman was telling the farmwife from the
cart. "The Protector is kind enough to give us all a chance to see him."
"And mobilize public support by making sure there's a cheering throng all the
way along," Dirk muttered.
Far down the road, trumpets sounded. The crowd oohed and aahed, but didn't start
摘要：

AWizardInPeaceAWizardInPeaceTheFourthChronicleofMagnusD'Armand,RogueWizardByChristopherStasheffISBN:0-812-56797-8CHAPTER1Milesfledswiftlythroughtheforestorasswiftlyashecould,inthedark.Thatwasstillfairlyquickly,forheknewtheforestwell,thisclosetohome.Nonetheless,fearchilledhim,andthethoughtofturningba...

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