A Wizard in Chaos

CHAPTER 3

Madam, master—Lieutenant Cort has come to call.” Cort pushed past the butler, pulse thumping, smile wide with anticipation. Bruiser Ellsworth and his wife were rising to greet him, he alert, watchful, ready for anything—but she looked troubled, even, perhaps, afraid.

Alarm vibrated through Cort. “Is Violet well?”

“Oh, yes, quite well, young man,” Mistress Ellsworth said, “but she isn’t at home.”

“Well, that’s a relief. I was afraid—I mean—”

“A young man is always afraid for the young woman who has caught his eye,” Bruiser Ellsworth said, “and rightly so, in a world like ours. Violet is well, but she isn’t with us just now. Will you sit, lieutenant?”

“Yes, thank you, sir.” Cort took the chair the older man indicated.

“Port, I think, Barley,” Ellsworth said. The butler nodded, turning away to leave the room.

An awkward silence fell, but Curt didn’t mind it, really; he reveled in the warmth and home-feeling of the house and of Violet’s parents. All were solid and stable, reassuring in the way the two older people clasped hands still, even at their age. Mistress Ellsworth’s figure was matronly, but scarcely portly, and she was still handsome, with hints of the beauty she had been in her youth. She wore a long, dark blue gown with a broad white collar, her gold-and-silver hair in a coil that seemed more like a coronet. As for her husband, the title “bruiser” seemed very ill-fitting—he was still muscular and sharp-eyed, of course, but his hair had streaks of silver now, his beard and mustache were almost completely gray, and he seemed so prosperous and contented that it was hard to imagine him as a man of war.

As to the room, it was pleasant, somehow combining luxury and thrift, letting the visitor know that the owners had more than enough money, but were careful how they spent it. A fire burned in a small fireplace, only waist high, but tiled and with a mantelpiece elaborately carved. The walls were painted butter-yellow, reflecting the fire’s glow with warmth, and the walnut flooring was polished to a similar glow. A brightly patterned carpet covered most of it. Furniture consisted of only a chest against one wall and a settee on one side of the fireplace facing the two chairs on the other, all of dark, carved wood, all padded, all solid and comfortable. It was more than spartan, less than extravagant, and very much a home.

The bruiser stirred and broke the silence. “So you’ve won your battle, then?”

“Aye, and only two small wounds to show for it,” Cort confirmed. “How did you know, sir?”

“Well, the lack of serious wounds spoke somewhat, but the energy and eagerness in you spoke more. A mercenary is downcast when he’s lost a battle, lieutenant, and not only because he’s lost the second half of his pay.”

“I don’t think the boss was any too happy about having to pay that,” Cort said with a grin.

“They never are,” the bruiser assured him. “Fifteen years as a mercenary, though, and only twice did I see a boss or a bully try to renege on that second payment when we’d won his war for him.” His smile was hard. “We took it from them both, of course.”

Cort remembered the clash of arms and a boss crying, “Enough, enough!”

“They don’t try it often.”

Ellsworth nodded. “Bruisers and boots only fight once a year or so, and a quarter of our force is always straight from the plow. Mercenaries fight every month. There are few bosses indeed who can stand against even one free company.”

Cort frowned. “Then why…” He caught himself in time, realizing his rudeness. “Excuse me, sir.”

“Why did I take service with a boss and become a bruiser instead of trying to build my own free company?” Ellsworth smiled. “Well asked, young man, and the more so because you’ll have to make the choice yourself, some day. Well, a bruiser’s life is more certain—when you only fight once a year, there’re twelve more chances you’ll come home to your wife and children alive. And the pay is just as good as a lieutenant’s. True, a captain has greater income, but greater expenses, too, and a greater risk of losing all. Even if my boss were beaten and he had to yield some of his land, I’d still be his man, and still have the income of the farms he bids me supervise for him.”

“And if yours were the lands he yielded to the victor, the new boss would probably still have you watch over his new farmers for him.” Cort nodded.

“Oh, he might have a mercenary officer who wanted to become his bruiser,” Ellsworth said, with a grin that as much as said that was how he’d come by his own land and title. “Even then, though, I’d still be my boss’s man, and though my family would have to yield this house to the new bruiser, we’d still have housing within the boss’s castle.”

“It is a more certain life,” Cort agreed. “In fact, it’s enough to make me wonder why any man would become a captain.”

“Wealth,” Ellsworth said simply. “If a captain manages to hold a winning company together for even ten years, he can retire as rich as any boss. But the price is heavy, young man. I’ve seen very few who married before they retired, and fifty is late to begin a family.”

Cort thought about that—then suddenly thought about nothing, because there, through the great window facing the front of the house, he saw his Violet coming down the walk, laughing, bright-eyed, vivacious, beautiful, thoroughly desirable …

And on the arm of a young civilian, gazing up into his face, and there was no mistaking the light in her eyes—it was love.

Cort hadn’t been aware he’d come to his feet, but Ellsworth was saying, “Sit down, now, lieutenant, sit down. It’s not as though you’d been betrothed, after all, and a maiden does have the right to change her mind as her heart tells her—a right, and even a duty.”

“You could have told me.”

“We were warming to it,” Dame Ellsworth said, voice trembling.

It was true, Cort realized—the bruiser had led the conversation to marrying, and not marrying. Ten minutes more, and he probably would have broken the news to Cort as gently as he could.

“Thank you for trying to be kind,” he said in a brittle voice that he scarcely recognized as his own. “I’d better go.”

“Surely not!” Dame Ellsworth protested, and there was definitely fear in her voice now. Cort would have told her not to worry, he wouldn’t beat up his rival right there on her doorstep, but his anger choked him to silence. He strode to the door, yanked it open, and went out and down the path, walking quickly, but managing a stiff “Good evening” to Violet and her swain as he passed by. She stared at him in shock that turned quickly to fear, and the young man looked up with a scowl that turned to wariness as he recognized a mercenary officer. He was soft as a slug, Cort thought with disgust, but he had to admit the man was handsome, and jealousy gnawed at his vitals. He walked even faster, through the gateposts and out into the street, Violet’s wail of distress fading behind him.

His stride ate up the ground, even though he was stiff with hurt and rage. Blind misery choked him, choked his mind; it was ten minutes before his thoughts cleared enough to realize where his feet were taking him: not to the inn, but down a side street to the row of cheap taverns, where his rowdiest men would be carousing, taverns that served brandy, not ale, taverns where they didn’t mind a bit of brawling, and the wenches were outright whores.

Cort wasn’t sure which he needed most: the whore, the brandy, or the brawl. Then he decided there was no need to choose, and strode on down a street that rapidly narrowed to an alley and left the broad ways, and the lights, behind.

By sunset, the merchant caravan had come out of the woods and was plodding across a wide, flat land with low grass and, here and there, cattle grazing. Too little water for good farming, Gar thought. A hill bulged up in the middle of the flatness, seeming very much out of place, its sides sweeping up in a slope gentle enough for cattle to graze on, its top a perfect dome. Gar had a notion a gas bubble had been trapped in molten rock there, in the early days of the planet when everything was in flux.

Master Ralke looked about him anxiously. “I don’t like this, don’t like it at all. We’re too much of a danger to those mercenaries—they don’t dare have us bear word to their captain.”

“Wouldn’t they be more afraid to attack you again?” Gar asked. “After all, if their captain would flog them for stealing, what will he do to them for murder?”

Ralke cast him a peculiar look. “What womb did you just crawl out of? If we hadn’t fought them off, they’d have killed us all!”

Gar stared. “Killed us? Just for a few mule-loads of goods?”

“They’re mercenaries,” Ralke said. “Killing means nothing to them. They do it for money every time they go into battle. Why not do it for loot?”

Gar felt a chill down his back. “Then we’d better find ourselves a campsite we can defend easily, where they won’t have much chance of sneaking up on us.”

“Where, on a flat and featureless plain?” Ralke demanded.

“The plain is our friend,” Gar told him. “There’s nowhere to hide, no cover to help them sneak up on us. But atop that hill would be even better.” He pointed.

“On top of a Hollow Hill? Are you mad?” Ralke cried. “But I forget—you’re a foreigner. Don’t you have them at home?”

“Not like that one, no.” Gar said, bemused. “How do you know it’s hollow?”

“Because it’s a dome! Those are the hills the Fair Folk choose for their palaces!”

“Fair Folk? What are they?”

“Bad luck just to talk about! Not even a boss dares bring their displeasure down upon him! Armies never fight in the shadow of their hills, for fear the Fair Folk will be angry and come out to slay them all with their magic!”

It did sound something like the Wee Folk of Gar’s home planet—but it also sounded useful. “Then let’s camp on its slopes, if the mercenaries are afraid to attack us there.”

“Oh, wise indeed,” Ralke said, with withering scorn. “We’ll be safe from the bandits, sure enough—but the Fair Folk will come out and kidnap us all! I think perhaps I had better choose our campsite, soldier!”

“If you will,” Gar sighed. “I’d suggest right out in the middle of the plain, though, and as close to the hill as is safe. After all, if we’re afraid of the Fair Folk, maybe the soldiers will be even, more so.” Superstition, he reflected, had its uses.

Cort was almost to the tavern alley when he heard the call for help—the scream, rather; a young woman’s scream, high, piercing, and terrified. His anger instantly transmuted into savage joy—action was the tonic his wounded heart needed. Cort ran toward the cry, kicking garbage out of the way as he went. He skidded around a corner and saw three of his own soldiers laughing and dancing about a young civilian and his lady. She clung to his arm, effectively barring him from drawing his sword, but he flourished his torch valiantly, thrusting it at any soldier who came too close. The troopers laughed and jeered at him.

“Come, pretty boy! Draw your tin sword, so we can chop it off!”

“Chop off the hand with it,” a second soldier said, and guffawed.

“No need to get hurt,” the third soldier advised. “Just walk on home and leave her to us. We’ll be her escort.” He leaped in, hand reaching for the girl.

“Get away from her!” the young man shouted, thrusting with. the torch. The soldier laughed, stepped aside, and plucked the torch from his fingers. His mates howled with glee and stepped in, fists pumping. The young man fought valiantly with his single arm for about fifteen seconds before a haymaker caught him on the side of the head. He slumped to the ground.

“Tenn-hut!” Cort barked, and the three troopers came to attention out of sheer reflex. One had the good sense to hold the torch up anyway.

“You mangy scum!” Cort prowled about them, though all his instincts screamed to join them in their sport, not stop them. After all, it was a civilian man who had stolen his sweetheart, and a civilian woman who had hurt him. But he was an officer, and had his duties to his captain. “What in blazes do you think you’re doing? What’s the captain’s one rule about civilians?”

“Leave ‘em alone, sir,” one of the soldiers said through stiff lips.

“Too right, leave them alone!”

“Unless they swings first, lieutenant,” one of the other men objected.

“First, and often, and show no sign of stopping! Don’t even try to tell me this lad was attacking you, trooper! Or were you afraid his lady might beat you to a pulp?”

The trooper reddened, but held his brace.

“You lousy excuses for human beings!” Cort raged. He couldn’t yell at Violet, after all, but he could damn well yell at his own men—especially since they deserved it. “You scrapings from the trash barrel! You slime off the bottom of a boat! Fifty women willing to go with you for a coin, and you have to pick on a maiden!”

“There was a long line, lieutenant,” one of the men offered.

“What, were you afraid you’d be too drunk by the time your turn came? Well, it’s going to be a hell of a lot longer wait now, trooper—a month or more!”

One of them, a newbie, opened his mouth to protest, but Cort bellowed, “And if you don’t, look sharp, you’ll spend that month in the guardhouse! Now apologize to this lady! And her escort! Of course, I don’t expect you know how to be polite, so I’ll show you!” He turned to the young woman, who was kneeling with her escort’s head in her lap, sobbing.

The tears left Cort at a loss, so he did the only thing he could. Doffing his cap, he said, “My deepest apologies, young lady. My troopers are a bunch of ruffians who ought to be kept in a cage. I humbly ask your pardon for their misbehavior.”

The young man blinked, gave his head a shake, then stared up at Cort in alarm.

“They won’t trouble you again, sir,” Cort assured him. “My most humble apologies. I can only say that they were drunk and didn’t really know what they were doing.”

“But we do!”

Cort spun about and saw six hard faces lit by another torch. Three of them carried quarterstaves, three carried naked swords. They wore no uniforms, and with a sinking heart, Cort realized what they were—an amateur citizens’ patrol, cobbled together as soon as they’d heard the soldiers had come to town.

“Our fellow townsman down with his lady cowering by him, four soldiers standing over them—oh, we know what they were doing, all right! Beat their heads in, men!”

The citizens shouted and started forward. The woman screamed.

“Guard!” Cort shouted, and his three troopers spun about, pulling out the only weapons they had: their daggers. Cort’s sword and dagger hissed out of their sheaths, and the citizens hesitated; even outnumbered and underarmed, the professional soldiers were frightening.

Then the citizen leader snarled and started forward.

“Protect yourselves!” Cort shouted.

Daggers whipped up; the professionals caught the slashing swords on their knives, then slammed punches to the stomachs. Two of the citizens folded, but the staff-men waded in over them, and the third swordsman swung at Cort.

“Truce!” he shouted, even as he caught the man’s blade on his own. “I’ve called them off! Truce!”

The swordsman grinned, and Cort realized the man thought he had the soldiers on the run. “Footpad!” the civilian shouted, and swung again.

Cort parried with his own blade, suddenly afraid of these amateurs, even more afraid of the captain’s rage if he found they’d slain even one civilian, but most afraid of all that he might have to tell his hard-boiled fighting men to let themselves go.

“Put down your swords, and we’ll sheathe our daggers!” he cried. “We don’t want to hurt you!”

“Don’t want us to hurt you, you mean!” the swordsman called back, and thrust at him. Cort whirled aside, struck the blade down with his own, then kicked the man in the belly. He folded, but the girl’s escort had recovered, and leaped for Cort with his own sword out, shouting, “Bastard!”

Cort just barely caught the blade on his dagger, then lifted his sword to parry, ready to thrust if he had to, the command to unleash his human hounds on the tip of his tongue.

But a quarterstaff struck downward, knocking both blades aside, and a strongly accented voice rang in Cort’s ears, crying, “Put up your weapons! Soldiers and townsfolk both! Put up your weapons, or I’ll break them all, and you into the bargain!”

Whoever he was, he was already behind Cort. The officer spun and saw that quarterstaff whirling, then lashing out to crack against one of. the civilian’s staves and leaping back into its whirl. Another civilian reached up his staff with a shout; the stranger struck it out of his hands. The third townsman dropped his staff, holding his hands high.

“Stand!” Cort roared, and the three soldiers froze.

The civilian swordsman thrust at the stranger, who leaped aside, his staff whirling. It cracked down on the blade near the hilt, and the sword flew clattering along the street. Its owner yelped with pain and nursed his hand.

One of the soldiers started for the sword. He barely leaned toward it before Cort snapped, “Hold!” and the man froze, tilting to the side.

Cort turned to the young woman’s escort.

“Sheathe your sword, and I will, too. If we don’t, that madman will break both our blades.”

“Oh, you’d better believe it!” the stranger assured them.

Watching them warily, the escort sheathed his weapon slowly. Cort matched him movement for movement, then turned to the stranger, making sure he could still see the escort out of the corner of his eye.

One look at the stranger, even by guttering torchlight, and Cort knew why he’d been able to fight them all to a standstill. The staff was sheathed with a foot of iron on its tips, which made it both harder and heavier—and when something like that spun so fast as to be a blur, as the stranger had done, it was equal to a sword indeed. “I’ve never seen your style of fighting before,” he said.

The man smiled, showing a lot of teeth. “Want to see it again?”

Cort shuddered, more at his look than at the thought of the danger. “Thank you, no. Who are you, anyway?”

“Dirk Dulaine, at your service.” The stranger turned to the civilians. “I’m from out of town, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“From far away, by your accent.” The leader glowered, still nursing his hand.

“Far away indeed,” Dirk agreed, “so I don’t particularly care about you or these soldiers—but I don’t like seeing a young woman in danger, either. If you’ll all put up your weapons and let her go home with her escort now, I won’t need to swing again.”

“We could make mincemeat of him,” one of the soldiers blustered.

“Be still, you fool!” his mate snapped, and the man fell silent, glancing at the other soldiers in surprise and fright.

“Let the young couple walk out of sight, and we’ll go,” the citizen growled.

“Officer, bid your men step aside,” the stranger advised.

“Back, two steps!” Cort barked, and his men retreated. Cort bowed. “Gentleman, lady—again, my apologies.”

“Taken, with thanks.” The escort finally remembered his manners, then led his lady out of the torchlight, still gasping in little, sobbing breaths. They passed down the alley, and the two groups stood stiffly, watching each other warily.

“Out of sight, I said,” the stranger reminded them.

The couple reached the end of the lane and turned into the alley that led to the main street. Dirk stepped back, lowering his staff. “Okay. You guys can kill each other now, for all I care.” The civilian leader darted to pick up his sword.