A Wizard in Mind

CHAPTER 9

Armor rattled, the stick thwacked, and the heavy boots paused at a shout from the other side of the road. “What?” The soldier sounded as though he were right in Gianni’s lap—as he would be, in a minute. “What was that?”

“Only a hare,” the other soldier’s voice came, disgusted. “But for a moment, I hoped.”

Hoped! Why? He was as lowborn as Gianni, they were both commoners … Or was that why …? The tramp of boots began again—incredibly, moving away!

“Make sure you search every cranny,” a deeper voice commanded.

“I have, Sergeant,” the trooper said, his voice growing distant. “No crannies over here.”

Gianni sat frozen, unable to believe his ears, unable to believe his luck. Had the man really not noticed? Impossible!

The hare. It had to have been the hare. Saved by a rabbit!

But that was only one soldier, and the first in line on their side of the road. Gianni tightened his grip on his rock once more, gathering himself, tensing to fight all over again. One of them had to grow curious about this nook between boulder and wall …

But they didn’t. One by one they passed by, calling to one another and hurling joking insults, with the sergeant barking them back to work whenever they laughed too loudly. Maybe it was because they didn’t want to find the fugitives, maybe it was because they didn’t care—or maybe it was some other, eldritch reason; but they passed. One by one, they passed by, the horses’ hooves passed by, and the voices of the chancellor and his prince receded with them, off into the distance, gone.

Still Gianni crouched, hand on his rock (though no longer clenched), not quite believing they had escaped.

Finally Gar stirred, crept out on hands and knees, peered around the boulder, then finally stood, staring after the soldiers, his face blank, eyes wide.

“Are they gone?” Gianni began to uncurl.

“Gone.” Gar nodded firmly. “All. Gone.”

Slowly, Gianni stood to look. Incredibly, it was true—the soldiers had passed them by, had disappeared into the trees that hid the road, and the dust of their passage was settling.

“Go now?” Gar looked down at him.

“Uh—yes!” Gianni snapped back to the here and now. They must not lose this chance! “But not down the road, Gar. Up over the ridge—and the next ridge, and the next, until we stand a fair chance of coming nowhere near Prince Raginaldi or his men!”

They found another road, but it went east and west. Still, the road from Pirogia had led them west into the mountains as well as north, so Gianni led Gar east. At the worst, he supposed, he could follow this road to the seashore, where they could build a raft and float home if they had to.

When darkness came, Gar plucked at Gianni’s sleeve, pointing toward the wooded slope to their right, then set off exploring. Gianni followed him, frowning, until Gar pointed to a fallen tree—an evergreen that must have fallen quite recently, for very few of its needles were brown. Gianni saw the point immediately: the trunk had broken below the line of boughs, but not broken completely—it angled downward, giving room enough to sit upright beneath it. He set to work with Gar, breaking off enough of the branches beneath to make room for them to stretch out full-length, and they had a tent. The broken branches would even serve as mattresses.

Then Gar surprised him further by coming up with a handful of roots and some greens, so they didn’t go to bed hungry after all—well, still hungry, but not starving. As they ate, a thought sprang in Gianni’s mind, and he looked up at Gar, weighing the risk of saying it. Curiosity won out, and he asked, very carefully, “Have your wits begun to return?”

“Wits?” Gar looked up in surprise, then frowned, thinking the question over. Finally he judged, “Yes.” A wave of relief swept through Gianni, but caution came hard behind it. How quickly would all those wits return?

And, of course, there was still the possibility that Gar was pretending.

The next morning, they set off down the road again, with Gar stopping every now and then to strip berries from a bush and share them with Gianni, who concluded that the giant had been trained in woodlore from his childhood, and old knowledge surfaced with hunger at the sight of the berries without his actually having to think about it. For himself, city-born and city-bred, Gianni would have been as apt to pick poisonous berries as nourishing ones.

They came out of the pass onto sloping ground, with an entire valley spread out before them. Gianni halted in amazement—he hadn’t paid much attention to the view coming up, since his back had been toward it, and he had been too concerned about his drivers and mules and cargo. Now, though, with no goods to protect, he found himself facing the vista, and even though he was cold and stiff, the sight took his breath away.

“Beautiful, yes?” Gar rumbled beside him. “Yes,” Gianni agreed, then looked up sharply. “How much do you remember now?”

“More.” Gar pressed his hand to his head. “Remember home, remember coming to Talipon, meeting you.” He shook himself. “I must make an effort; I can talk properly again, if I work at it.”

“Do you remember our meeting with the Gypsies?”

“No, but we must have, mustn’t we?” Gar looked down at his gaudy clothing. “I … do remember soldiers looking for us.”

Gianni nodded. “The Gypsies told them about us.”

“Then we would do better to go naked than in the clothes they gave us.” Gar began to pull his shirt out, but Gianni stopped him.

“The mountain air is cold. We can say we stole the clothing while the Gypsies slept.”

Gar paused, staring at him. “Steal from Gypsies? And you thought I was the one with addled wits!”

Suspicion rose. “Were you shamming, then?”

“Pretending?” Gar gazed off over the valley. “Yes and no. I was tremendously confused when I waked and found myself with you in a mire, and I couldn’t remember anything—neither my past, nor my name, nor how I came to be there. You seemed to be a friend, though, so I followed you. The rest?” He shook his head. “It comes and goes. I remember sleeping under a wagon, I remember the soldiers going by, I remember everything since I waked this morning.” He shrugged. “I’m sure the gaps will fill themselves in, with time. Even just talking with you now, I’ve begun to recapture the habit of proper speaking.”

“Praise Heaven your wits were addled no worse than that,” Gianni said with heartfelt relief—but the suspicion remained: Gar could be lying. He tried to dismiss the thought as unworthy, but it wouldn’t stay banished.

Gar pointed downslope. “There’s the fork in the road, where you told me we could go northeast to the coast or northwest to Navorrica. It would seem that, like Shröedinger’s cat, we have gone both ways.”

“Shreddinger?” Gianni looked up, frowning. “Who was he?”

“Why, the man who owned the cat.” Gar flashed him a grin. “It never knew where it was going to be until it was there, because it was in both places at once until the moment came when it had to decide—somewhat like myself these last few days. Come, let’s retrace our steps southward from the fork, and it may be that both parts of me shall pull together again.”

He set off down the slope, and Gianni followed, not sure that he hadn’t preferred the big man without his wits.

As they came to the fork, though, they saw two other people coming down the other road. Both pairs stopped and eyed each other warily. “Good morning,” Gar said at last. “Shall we share the road?”

“I have never seen Gypsies without their tribe and caravan,” one stranger answered.

“Oh, we aren’t Gypsies,” Gianni explained. “We only stole some clothing from them.”

The man stared. “Stole clothing from Gypsies? I thought it was supposed to be the other way around!”

“The Gypsies have always been blamed for a great many thefts they didn’t really commit,” Gar explained. “It was very easy to put the loss on them, for they were gone down the road, where they could neither deny it nor admit it. In any case, they don’t seem to guard their laundry lines any better than anyone else.” He offered a hand. “I am Gar.”

The other man took it, carefully. “I am Claudio.” He nodded to his partner. “He is Benvolio.”

“A pleasure,” Gar said, and glanced at Gianni. The young man smiled, recognizing a signal, and stepped forward with his hand open. “I am Gianni. We lost our clothes to the Stilettos when we had the bad luck to run into them.”

“You, too?” Benvolio stared as he took Gianni’s hand. “I thought we were the only ones with such bad luck.”

“Oh, really!” Gianni looked him up and down. “You fared better than we, at least—they left you your clothes.”

“Yes, they did that.” Benvolio let go of his hand with a grimace. “Took our cart and donkey and all our goods, yes, but they did leave us our clothes.”

“They took our whole goods train, and our drivers to sell to the galleys,” Gianni said, his face grim. “They would have taken us, too, if they hadn’t thought we were dead.”

Claudio nodded, commiserating. “I’m sure we would be slogging toward Venoga and an oar this minute, if we hadn’t run as soon as we heard them coming, and if the woods hadn’t been so thick that they couldn’t ride in to follow us. It seems Stilettos would rather lose their prey than chase it afoot.”

“Wise of them,” Gar said sourly. “For all they knew, you might have had a small army of mountaineers waiting to fall on them.”

Claudio looked up in surprise. “A good thought! Perhaps we should have.”

“Only if we had been mountaineers,” Benvolio said, with a sardonic smile. “Since we are not, they would have taken our cart and donkey before the Stilettos had their chance.”

“True, true.” Gar nodded. “More true, that they might not be averse to taking us to sell to the Stilettos if they find us. Perhaps we should travel together?”

Claudio and Benvolio took one look at Gar’s great size and agreed quickly.

They had only been on the road another hour before they met two more wayfarers—but one of these was leaning on the other and limping badly, so badly that now and again he would hop, his face twisted with pain. Both wore rags, and the one with two good legs was sallow and pinched with hunger. He looked up at Gianni and his party with haunted eyes and seemed about to bolt; probably all that prevented him was his lame friend.

“Good day,” Gianni cried, holding up an open hand. “We are poor travelers who have lost all our goods to the Stilettos, but moved too fast to be taken for their slave parties. Who are you?”

“A thief and a beggar,” the lame man snapped, “just released from the prison of Prince Raginaldi.”

“Released?” Gianni stared. “Fortune favors you, and all the saints too! I thought that once a man vanished into that dark and noisome pit, he vanished forever!”

“So did we.” The thief still looked dazed, unable to understand his good fortune. “But the jailers cast us out, cursing us and spurning us, saying we would have to find our own bread now, for the prince needed his dungeon for more important prisoners than we.”

“More important?” Alarms sounded all through Gianni. “What manner of prisoners?”

“They didn’t say,” said the thief, “only that there would be a great many of them.”

“Has he turned you all out, then?” Gar asked. “Almost all,” said the beggar. “There were a murderer or two he kept, but the rest of us are set free to wander. Some went faster than us.”

“Almost all went faster than we did,” the thief said in a sardonic tone.

The beggar looked up with a frown. “If you feel that I hold you back, Estragon …”

“Hold me back?” the thief snorted. “You hold me up! Can you not see how heavily I lean on you, Vladimir? I’m a thief, not a fighter—and you and I were always last to the bowls of leavings the warders shoved into our pen!”

Gianni had a brief nightmare vision of a dozen men clamoring and fighting over a bowl of garbage. “You must rest,” he said, “and eat, as soon as we can find food.”

“Food?” The thief looked up, grinning without mirth. “Find it if you can! This night and day since we were set free, we have had nothing but a few handfuls of berries that we found by the wayside, shriveled and bitter, and some stalks of wild grain.”

“Can we find them nothing better than that?” Gianni asked Gar. The big man frowned, but didn’t answer. Instead, he picked up a few pebbles and went loping off into the fields beside the road. He was back ten minutes later with a brace of hares. Gianni decided he liked Gar better in his right mind.

While they ate, though, two even more bedraggled specimens came hobbling up to them—a man in worn and grimy motley, who leaned upon the shoulder of another, who wore a black, wide-sleeved gown that was stiff with dirt, almost as stiff as the mortarboard he wore upon his head. Gianni could see at a glance that the sleeves held pockets for ink and paper, and knew the man for a scholar, while his companion was a jester.

“Ho, Vladimir!” the jester said in a hollow voice. “Have you found food, then?”

“Aye, because we have found charitable companions,” the beggar answered. He turned to Gianni. “Would you take it amiss if we shared with Vincenzio and Feste?”

“Not at all,” Gianni said.

Gar seconded, “If we had known they would join us, I would have brought down more rabbits.”

“Oh, do not split hares over us.” The jester sat down stiffly, folding his legs beneath him, and raised an open hand in greeting. “I am Feste.”

“I am … Giorgio.” Some innate caution kept Gianni to using his alias. “This is Gar.”

The giant inclined his head.

“I am Vincenzio.” The scholar, too, held up an open hand.

“Should we not call you ‘Doctor’?” Gar asked.

“Oh, no,” Vincenzio said, with a rueful laugh. “I am only a poor Bachelor of Arts, not even done with my studies to become a Master. I ran out of money, and needed to wander from town to town, hiring out my knowledge to any who had need of it. The prince’s men assumed I was rogue and a thief, and clapped me in irons.”

Understandably, Gianni thought. He had heard of many wandering scholars who were just such thieves and rogues as Vincenzio mentioned—and he would not have wagered on the man’s honesty himself. “No greater cause than that?”

“Well,” said Vincenzio, “it might have been the conversation I was having with the village elders, about the ancient Athenians and their notions that all human beings have the seeds of greatness within them, and deserve to be treated with respect—even to have some control over their destinies …”

“Which means their government,” Gar said, with a sardonic smile. “Yes, I can see why the soldiers clapped you in irons. They gagged you, too, didn’t they?”

“And a most foul and noisome cloth it was.” Vincenzio made a face. “Indeed, I had thought we would be thrown right back into that dungeon when those Stilettos stopped us half an hour ago.”

“Stilettos?” Gianni looked up sharply. “What did they do to you?”

“Only searched us, as though they thought we might have gold hidden in our garments for the stealing,” Feste said with disgust.

“Did they beat you?” The beggar looked up with wide, frightened eyes.

“No, they seemed too worried for that,” said Vincenzio. “They sent us packing, and we blessed our good fortune and fled, thanking all the saints.” He frowned at the others. “I’m surprised you didn’t run afoul of them, too—they were set up to block the road so that they might search every traveler who came by.”

“We saw them from a curve of the road above,” Vladimir confessed, “and thought it wiser to risk a slide down the slope than an encounter with mercenaries.”

“Nearly broke my ankle,” Estragon grumbled, rubbing that joint. “It seems I chose wrongly, as usual.”

“Did they say what they were searching for?” Gar asked.

“Nary a word,” Feste said, “and we didn’t stay to ask.”

“No, I’m sure you didn’t,” Gianni said.

“They were even too worried to beat you for their amusement?” the thief asked, wide-eyed.

“Even that,” Vincenzio assured him. “Did I not tell you we blessed all the saints?”

“Let us say a blessing again.” Gar took the spit off the fire. “We’re about to dine. Does anyone have a knife?”

No one did, so they had to wait for the meat to cool before Gar could break it to portion it out. The next day, they kept a wary eye on the road ahead, and at the slightest sign of soldiers, they took to the underbrush. In that fashion, they crept warily by two separate roadblocks, closely enough to hear the soldiers muttering and griping about such senseless duty—but there was an undertone of nervousness to their grumbles, almost of apprehension. After the second, they came back onto the road and fell in with a trio of peasants in tunics as filthy as anything the other recent prisoners wore. They looked up, startled, at Gianni’s hail, saw Gar’s size, and leaped aside—then stared.

“Peace, peace!” Gianni cried. “We are only poor travelers, like yourselves.”

“Very like yourselves,” said the oldest peasant. “Vincenzio! Feste! Why have you moved so slowly? I can understand why Vladimir and Estragon would, since the one is lame and the other so deeply weakened—but why you?”

“We move more slowly, Giuseppi, because we are wary of the Stilettos,” Vincenzio answered.

“Wisely said,” Giuseppi said ruefully. “With each set of them, we thought surely this must be the last. Three of them have searched us now, searched so thoroughly that we had thought they were going to turn us inside out. Praise Heaven they let us go our way without beating us!”

“They seemed to be worried,” Vincenzio agreed. “By your leave, Giuseppi, I’ll continue to go slowly, and step off the road if I see any sign of them.”

“I think we’ll join you,” Giuseppi said. “Who are these?”

“Giorgio and Gar,” Vincenzio said, by way of introduction. Both raised palms in greeting.

“We won’t starve, so long as they’re with us,” Estragon explained, “and there’s a hare to be found in the woods about.”

“A hare would be most welcome indeed!” Giuseppi said fervently, and Gar was off on another hunting expedition. This time he brought back partridges and plover eggs, and by the time they were done eating, they were all on friendly terms.

In midafternoon, they saw a lone man striding wearily ahead. Gar called to him, his tone friendly, but the man looked up, stared, then dashed madly into the wood. Gar frowned and waved their little troop to a halt. “Come out, friend!” he called. “We mean you no harm, no matter how rough we look! But there are condotierri on the road, and we will fare more safely together than alone!”

“How truly you speak!” came the quavering voice; then the traveler appeared again, holding a staff at the ready. “What assurance do I have that you are not yourselves bandits?”

He had good reason to fear them, Gianni saw, for by his clothing, the man was a merchant, and a prosperous one at that.

“Only the assurance that we too fear the Stilettos, for most of us have been searched by them, and all of us have suffered at their hands,” Gar answered. He held up an open palm. “I am Gar.”

“I am Rubio—and Heaven has preserved me from a beating, at least.” The man kept his staff up. “But as to searching, they have surely done that, aye, and kept what they found, too!”

“Found?” Gar was tense as a hunting dog. “What did they steal?”

“My jewels! All my jewels!” The man held out his robe, that they might see where the hems had been slashed. “All the wealth that I was taking from Venoga to Pirogia, that I might begin business anew away from the conte and his kin! But they couldn’t suffer to let me go, no, but robbed me blind on the highroad!”

“Poor fellow!” Gianni felt instant commiseration. “Why didn’t you take at least one guard?”

“Where could I find one who could be trusted?”

“Here.” Gianni gestured toward Gar. “Of course, you hadn’t had the good fortune to meet him.”

The merchant looked up with a frown. “Is this true? Are you a guard who can be trusted?”

“I am.” Gar pressed a hand to his head. “At least … so long as my wits stay with me …”

The other travelers drew back in alarm, but the merchant said, “What ails you?”

“Too many blows to the head,” Gar explained. “They come and go … my wits …”

Gianni looked up at him anxiously, and the other men drew back farther—but Gar opened his eyes again and blinked about at them, then forced a smile. Gianni heaved a sigh of relief, then turned to the merchant. “So the Stilettos are only about their old game of thieving—but why are they in so much of a hurry?”

Whistling sounded ahead.

They all looked up in surprise, to hear someone sounding so cheerful in a country beset by bandits. “I confess,” said Gar, “to a certain curiosity.”

“I do, too.” Gianni quickened the pace. “Who can this be, who is so carefree when the times move on to war or worse?” He and Gar paced ahead of the group, around a turn in the road, and saw a tradesman, in smock and cross-gartered leggings, strolling down the road with his head thrown back and his thumbs thrust under the straps of his pack, whistling. From the tools that stuck out of that knapsack, it was clear that he was a craftsman of some sort.

“Good day to you, journeyman!” Gianni called as they came near.

The tradesman looked up, surprised, then grinned and raised an open hand. “Good day to you, traveler—and to …” His eyes widened at the sight of Gar. “My heavens! There is a lot of you, isn’t there?”

“Not so much as there has been,” Gar said, smiling. “I haven’t been eating well.”

“Who has?” the tradesman rejoined. “If I have bread and cheese, I count myself fortunate. I am Bernardino, a poor wandering carpenter and glazier.”

“A glazier!” Gianni was impressed. “That’s a rare trade indeed. I am Gia—Giorgio, and this is Gar. We are travelers who have fallen afoul of the Stilettos. We had to steal new clothes.”

“Took the shirts off your backs, did they?” Bernardino chuckled. “Well, at least they left you your boots! Me, I had the forethought to be paid in food, and they didn’t think it worth stealing when they searched me.”

“There’s some wonder in that alone,” Gar said, “though it speaks well for your prudence. Tell me, how do you find work as a glazier?”

“Rarely, which is why I’m also a carpenter—but when I do, it pays well.”

“A whole cheese, no doubt,” Gar said, grinning. “Aye, and several loaves.” Bernardino beckoned him closer and whispered, “And several silver pennies, hidden where even the Stilettos shall not find them.”

“Tradesmen were ever ingenious,” Gianni sighed, and forbore to ask in what part of the cheese Bernardino had hidden his wealth. “You have just had work as a glazier, then?”

“Yes, at the castle of Prince Raginaldi, mending the leading where it had worked loose from the glass.” Bernardino shook his head in wonder. “It’s strange, the faith people have in glass, even when they know there are gaps between it and the leading. Do you know, the prince went right on haggling, even though I was there outside his window on my scaffolding and heard every word he said?”

“Haggling?” Gianni stared. “Isn’t that beneath the dignity of a prince?”

“It would seem not,” said Bernardino, “though I suppose the man he bargained with was so important that only a prince would do. Though,” he added reflectively, “he didn’t look important—rather dowdy, in fact; he was dressed so somberly, only a long robe and a round hat the color of charcoal—and he spoke with an accent so outrageous (not to say outlandish) that I will swear I had never heard it before, and could scarcely understand him at all! Nor could the prince, from the number of times he had to ask the man to repeat what he’d said, or to judge by the questions he asked.”

“What were they discussing?”

Gianni looked up at Gar, surprised by the sudden intensity of his tone. Bernardino was startled too, but answered readily enough. “The buying of orzans.”

“Orzans?” Gar turned to Gianni, frowning. “Those rich orange stones? Tell me more of them.”

“They can only be found in the depths of limestone caves,” Gianni explained, “and you can see new ones growing on the stalagmites and stalactites, I am told—but they won’t be true orzans for hundreds of years. The new ones are still cloudy, and very soft. Your true orzan, now, that has lain under huge weights of rock for hundreds of years, I doubt not, is pure and clear as the sun, which it resembles, and hard enough to cut anything but diamond.” He frowned up at Gar. “You still don’t recognize them?”

“I do,” Gar said slowly. “I’ve seen them for sale in a market far from here, very far—but they gave them a different name.”

“Orzans or oranges, what matter?” Bernardino shrugged. “The stone does not care.”

“They cannot be dug for,” Gianni explained, “because the pick that beaks the rock away is as likely to fracture the jewel as its surroundings. No, the gatherers can only walk around the cave every day, waiting for a new segment of wall to break away—and it may disclose an orzan, or it may not.”

“What of limestone quarries?”

“There are a few orzans found there,” Bernardino admitted, “though they are far more likely to be broken than whole. Still, even a scrap of orzan fetches a price worth picking it up.”

“And this outlander offered the prince a high price for orzans?” Gar asked.

“A high price indeed, which is strange, because they’re not all that rare.”

Gianni nodded. “Semiprecious at best.”

“But the price the strange somber trader offered for one alone would feed me and house me for a year! Though not a family.”

“A high price, surely,” Gar said with strange sarcasm.

“Oh, His Highness offered the man a variety of jewels—he laid them out on black velvet, a riot of color that made me faint to think of their value,” Bernardino assured them, “but the stranger wanted only orzans.”

“I’m sure he did,” Gar said softly.

“It has taken long enough for us to catch you,” Vincenzio said. Gianni looked up and discovered the rest of his new companions gathering around them on the road—but Gar turned instantly on the merchant and demanded, “The jewels the Stilettos took from you—were there orzans among them?”

“Two or three, yes,” Rubio said, startled. “Indeed, they took them first, and their sergeant was about to spurn me away with the rest, and I was about to thank my lucky stars, when he thought again and took the rest of my jewels—the swine!”

“No doubt,” Gar said to himself. “Those, I’m sure, were his pay.”

Rubio frowned. “What do you mean?”

Gar started to answer, but broke off and whirled to stare ahead.

Giuseppi suddenly looked up, then gave a shout, pointing. They all followed his gaze and saw a cloud of dust boiling out from a curve in the road ahead.

“Soldiers!” Rubio cried. “Hide, one and all!” He turned away to the underbrush as horsemen emerged from the dust cloud. That was all the former prisoners needed; they bolted off the road, with Gianni right behind them …

Until he heard the huge, hoarse roar, and turned to see Gar charging down at the horsemen, arms flailing like the sails of a windmill, bellowing in incoherent rage as he attacked a whole party of cavalry, on foot and bare-handed. Gianni’s stomach sank as he realized the giant had lost his wits again.