A Wizard in Peace

CHAPTER 21

The huge sergeant slouched into the torture chamber behind the ordinary-sized one.

“I’ve almost brought the man to the point of telling me all I—the Protector wishes to know!” Renunzio glared. “What possesses him to need the fellow right now? This is a devil of an inconvenient time!”

It struck Miles as a very convenient time indeed.

“I don’t ask questions,” the smaller man said. “Let him up now, if you please.”

A disgusted torturer moved to unbuckle the straps that held Miles down.

But Renunzio held up his hand. “Wait! I don’t need to follow that order unless I see it in writing! Show me the written document, guardsman!”

“If you must,” the smaller guard growled, and pulled a rolled parchment from his belt. He stepped down next to the rack and handed it to Renunzio, who unrolled it, scowling.

The guardsman struck him on the head with something small that only made a smacking sound. Renunzio’s eyes rolled up; he toppled off his stool. The paper floated to the floor, but as it went, Miles read the single word Surprise!

The chief torturer recovered from his own surprise with a shout of anger and turned to fight off the invaders.

There really was no contest, though. The torturers were strong, immensely strong, and brutal—but they were used to striking men who were tied up or tied down, and couldn’t fight back. The guardsmen, though, were seasoned soldiers, used to fighting men who fought back, and were armed into the bargain.

The guard blocked the chief torturer’s haymaker and drove his own fist into the man’s belly, and the chief doubled over with an agonized grunt. His two assistants leaped for the guardsman with a shout, but the giant sergeant wrapped a hand around the neck of one and yanked him off the floor. The smaller guard whirled to face his attacker, who stabbed at him with a white-hot poker—but the guard struck it aside with his halberd and whipped the butt around to crack the torturer’s head.

The giant pulled the hood off his strangling captive and gave him half a dozen slaps with a hand the size of a dinner plate. The torturer’s head rolled back, and his eyes rolled up.

But the smaller man was already unbuckling Miles. “We had to come back a little early,” he confided. “On the last planet we visited, the new king turned out to be a reformer, and had very good bodyguards.”

“Of course,” the huge one said, “anyone who claimed that Dirk had something to do with the old king’s abdicating would have been telling vile lies.”

“I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about,” Miles said fervently, “but you have no idea how glad I am to see you both!”

“I think we can guess.” Gar frowned down at his feet, then took a small jar out of the pouch at his side. “This should ease the pain a bit.”

His touch, at least, made it worse. Miles ground his teeth to hold back a howl. Dirk was busy unscrewing something above his head. He took Miles’s hands out gently and brought his arms down to his sides. Miles groaned with relief.

“Sorry,” Gar said, “but it really will feel better when I’m done.”

“No, no! I was groaning at having my arms back.” Miles realized how ridiculous that sounded, but before he could say so, Gar straightened up, screwing the lid back on the jar and slipping it into his pouch. The fire in Miles’s feet cooled instantly, and he groaned again, then said quickly, “What a blessing!”

“You’ll have to stay off them for a few days.” Gar’s voice was tight with anger. “Up with you, now! We need that bed for the next patient!” He scooped Miles up in his arms and deposited him on Renunzio’s stool. “Keep your feet up.”

Dirk steaded Miles while Gar hauled Renunzio off the floor with much less gentleness than he had shown the rebel leader, and laid him down on the rack. Miles bit his tongue to keep from protesting; he knew what was coming.

Sure enough, Gar shackled Renunzio’s ankles and wrists, then turned the wheel until the unconscious man lay stretched out on his own bed of pain. Gar stepped back, surveyed him critically, then decided, “There’s no real tension on him.”

“Gar,” Dirk said, voice shaking, “this is beneath you.”

“Just a little,” Gar qualified. He moved the wheel two more notches, then nodded, satisfied. “No damage, and no pain—yet. But I think he’ll have a very rude awakening. Gag him, Dirk.”

He turned away, and Miles realized he hadn’t put the gag on with his own hands because he couldn’t trust himself not to strangle Renunzio. Dirk tore a strip of cloth from the inquisitor’s coat and bound it around his mouth. He stepped back to survey his work critically, then offered, “I could jam it down his throat.”

Somehow, Miles found the strength to say, “No. Leave him for the guards to find. Your mercy will mean more to them than my revenge.”

“A good point.” Dirk turned back, pulling ajar of salve and a roll of bandages out of his own pouch. “I think we’d better give your thumbs a little ease, too.”

As he bandaged them, Miles looked up just in time to see Gar finish tying the chief torturer into a chair that was bolted to the floor under a bucket with a hole in the bottom. Drops of water struck his head, about one every two seconds. Miles looked around and saw the man’s two apprentices bound into torture machines of their own. Gar stepped back to survey his handiwork. “Neat enough, I think. Gag them, will you, Dirk?”

As Dirk bandaged the apprentices’ mouths, the giant turned back to Renunzio, scowling down at him. The inquisitor moaned and turned--or tried to. He froze as he realized he was bound, and his eyes flew open. He took in his situation with one quick glance, then stared up at the huge man who towered above him, resting one hand on the wheel. Renunzio went stiff with terror.

Gar saw and nodded, satisfied. “Yes, he’ll have punishment enough for the time being. We’ll leave him for you to judge, Miles, after we usher in the New Order.”

Renunzio’s gaze flew to Miles, saw the somber, weighing look on his face, and his eyes sickened with horror.

“Enough of him.” Gar turned away with sudden decision. “No one could have blamed us if we had drawn and quartered him, but they’ll respect you more for leaving him to the process of the Law. Off into the night, now! It’s high time we hauled you out of this hole!”

Dirk produced a guard’s uniform, and they helped Miles dress in it, though painfully. Then Gar slung the rebel leader over his shoulder, Dirk opened the door, and Gar turned back for one last glare at Renunzio. “Be glad it’s Miles who will judge you, torturemaster, and not I. He, at least, has some notion of mercy.” Then he turned away, and Dirk closed the door behind him.

In the hallway, Dirk snorted, “Phony!”

“I prefer to think of myself as making an insightful impact,” Gar returned placidly. “Besides, if I did have to decide his fate, my anger just might get the better of me.”

“Might.”

“Anything is possible,” Gar reminded, “including this revolution—but we’ll discuss that after we’re back in the forest.” They went up a flight of stairs, and the sentry at the top frowned. “Why can’t he walk?”

“They worked on his feet,” Dirk said shortly.

“Well, it’s your back, not mine,” the sentry said, shrugging. He opened the door. “Get on with you, now.”

They went on through, and Miles glanced at the man in surprise, then realized that Gar had told him the same story he had fed the warders at the door to the torture chamber. But the guards at the outer door were another matter—if Gar were bringing a prisoner to the Protector, he would only have to go upstairs. Why did the guards step aside without even asking? Come to that, why did they fall in behind, following Dirk and Gar? Miles craned his neck up far enough to see the guards’ faces, and felt a shock—he recognized them from the city! Tomlin winked at him, and Miles managed to muster enough poise to wink back.

His stomach felt as though it were being punched with every step Gar took, so he was immensely glad when the giant lowered him into a saddle. “Just hug the horse’s sides with your knees, Miles, don’t try to use your feet in the stirrups—they’ll take a few days more to heal.” Gar turned away to mount a huge, rangy gray. Dirk and the guards swung up on extra mounts; then the man who had been holding the horses swung up onto the last one and followed after. Miles rode amazed. “How did you manage to pull together a strike force like this so quickly?”

“It hasn’t been as quick as we’d have liked,” Dirk said grimly. “We landed two days ago, but it took us most of the first day to work our way out of the forest and into town, then to find a magistrate who was one of our agents. We found him throwing everything vital into a box and calling for his horse; his cell had just received word of your arrest, and the only thing he wasn’t sure about was whether or not you could hold out under torture long enough for all of your agents to get away.”

“We told him we were sure you would,” Gar said, also grimly. “Then we recruited him and started riding for the capital. We ambushed a few Protector’s soldiers on the way, gathered a few more of our impostor magistrates who were just packing up, and changed clothes just before we rode up to the castle. Nobody had any problem with our riding in, and it didn’t take much to knock out the sentries at the dungeon door. It did take two days, though.”

“Amazing speed, and you reached me just in time,” Miles said. “Believe me, I can’t thank you enough!”

“We didn’t quite get there in time,” Dirk muttered.

Miles decided to ignore the man’s guilt—there wasn’t anything more he could do to lighten it. “So the revolution is dead, then?”

“Not at all,” Gar said quickly. “Our agent magistrates have all fled their posts, yes, and they all appointed their clerks to run things while they were gone—and the agents who are magistrates’ wives have developed great-aunts who suddenly took ill and needed to have them go help, so they should all be safe by now. The agent nurses disappeared into the towns and forests as soon as the first was taken prisoner, and so far as we can tell, only a dozen or so have been lost to the Protector’s spies.”

Miles blew out a sigh of relief. “I did hold out long enough, then.”

“Yes, and you seemed to have held them off with talk long enough to keep them from doing much,” Gar said, in tones of surprised admiration.

“More a matter of Renunzio wanting to overawe me, than any good management of mine,” Miles confessed. “So our agents are almost all still with us, and ready to hand if we need them—but what can we do?”

“First give me a tally of your strength,” Gar said. “How many magistrates and reeves have we replaced?”

“Almost half, and most of the rest have married our agents,” Miles answered.

“Very good! How many out of each hundred?”

“Seventy-eight,” Miles said without even stopping to think. “Of the remaining twenty-two, twelve have bands of watchmen and reeve’s guards who will side with us instead of their magistrates and reeves.”

“Your nurses have done well!” Dirk said, almost in awe.

“It has something to do with their knowing more medicine than the Protector’s doctors,” Miles said, appreciating the irony. “They’re ready, though, and even in the Protector’s Army, half his soldiers will probably fight for us, not him.”

Dirk gave a long whistle, and Gar said, in tones of amazement, “You have done fantastically well, Miles!”

Miles fairly glowed with pleasure at their praise. “Only seeing that they did as you told me, my teachers. What do I have them do now, though?”

“What with the number of agents and the watchmen and guardsmen they command, they’re a small army in themselves! Send the word out to have them march on Milton Town.”

“The Protector’s spies will have warned him,” Dirk reminded them, “and he still has some soldiers loyal to him. They’ll be watching the roads.”

“Tell them to travel by night,” Gar said grimly, “and to send their foresters before them. If they find soldiers, they can ambush them and steal their uniforms.”

“Do they have to kill them, then?” Miles asked, his eyes wide.

Gar rode in silence awhile.

“It’s only going to be a few days,” Dirk said, “one way or another.”

Miles felt a chill seize his back. They could lose, they could still lose dreadfully!

But Gar was nodding. “Yes, and our agents can leave them tied up with a few men to guard them. They’ll be stiff as pikes when they’re untied, but they’ll be alive. Take prisoners, Miles—but be aware that it will be a fight trying to take them, and some men will die on each side!”

“As few as possible, then,” Miles said. “How can we claim to be freeing them, if we kill them? I’ll tell my people to keep the survivors alive.”

“As good a way to put it as any, I suppose,” Dirk sighed. He glanced about him as they rode past the last house. “One advantage to a centralized government, at least—no town feels it needs to build a wall. We’re out in the country, gentlemen.”

“Time to send word, then.” Miles turned to the impostor soldiers behind him. “You’ve all heard what we’ve decided?”

“Yes, Chairman,” one of the soldiers said. “All agents march on Milton Town. Travel by night with foresters as scouts, Beware of the Protector’s patrols, overpower them, tie up the survivors, and leave a few men to guard them. I guess that means feed them and water them, too,” he added.

Miles nodded. “A very good summary. Go tell your cells, now!”

“Yes, Chairman!” all five men said, and galloped away into the night.

Miles reined in his horse and sat, stiff and still in the moonlight.

“What’s the matter?” Dirk asked softly.

“It’s begun,” Miles said, almost unable to believe it. “It really has begun!”

“It has, that,” Gar said heavily, “and there’s no stopping it now.”

“But there is!” Miles turned to him. “I could send word out through the network, I could tell them to stop marching, to go back to the lost Cities!”

“You could,” Gar said slowly, “but what would happen then?”

“Why … the clerks would keep administering the towns, and the Protector would realize half his magistrates and reeves were gone. He’d appoint new ones, then send his spies out to…” Miles’s voice trailed off.

“To find your agents, torture them to discover where the rest were, and kill them all,” Dirk finished for him. “Then he’d garrison the Lost Cities, set full-time patrols in the forests and Badlands, and never, ever again would there be a chance to even start a revolution, let alone win one.”

“I wasn’t really thinking of stopping it anyway,” Miles mumbled. “It was just nice to think I could.”

“There comes a point in life when you have to commit yourself,” Gar told him, “or drown in your regrets.” He slapped Miles gently on the shoulder. “Cheer up! There’s every reason to believe we’ll win this one, and without much fighting, either! The Wizard who spoke in the minds of our maniacs was a Wizard in the ways of Peace, Miles, or was trying to be! You’re committed now, it’s win or die, so you blasted well had better do your all-out best to win!”

Orgoru and Gilda rode down the midnight road side by side—the magistrate’s decision to ride rather than take his carriage had raised a few eyebrows, but nobody had been about to contradict him. The superstitions of their peasant childhoods loomed up behind them, though, so they traveled closely enough for their legs to touch, and they held hands, looking about them nervously.

“We must be on watch for Protector’s men,” Orgoru muttered, and Gilda nodded, accepting the fiction.

Then dark shapes bulged out of the roadside shadows ahead, and Orgoru drew up with a choked-off oath, pulling back on the reins of Gilda’s mount as he did. The shapes turned their heads with startled exclamations, and swords whicked from their sheaths. Orgoru drew his own, the hair at the nape of his neck standing on end. Fear hollowed him, weakened him, but he held the sword up bravely.

Gilda stayed him with a light touch on his forearm. “Who are you?” she called softly.

“We are the magistrates Loftu and Grammix,” a voice called back, caution in every syllable. “Who are you?”

Orgoru slapped his sword back in its scabbard with a laugh of delight that verged on the hysterical, and Gilda called,

“Orgoru and Gilda, you great ninnies! Who did you think we were—the Prince of Paradime and the Countess d’Alexi?” The two other cured maniacs laughed with relief and kicked their horses, pounding toward their friends and throwing their arms about them. When they separated, Loftu asked, “Didn’t you get Miles’s order for the women to go back to the city to hold it, in case we needed to retreat there?”

“I did,” Gilda said, iron in her tone, “but I’m not about to fret and pace and eat myself up with anxiety while I wait to learn if Orgoru lives or dies.”

“Neither are we,” said a voice behind the two men, and Lala and Anne came riding up.

Gilda laughed with delight and threw her arms around her friends.

“I think we had better get back to marching,” Loftu said.

“A good idea; we can trade news while we ride.” The glance Orgoru directed toward the women said that if they stayed to talk, they would stay all night. He turned his horse back toward the north, asking, “You were able to marry Lala, then?”

“No, but she married the magistrate in the next village—Dumarque, his name is, and he’s a decent man through and through. But when the word came, she thought he would be safer if she went to visit her sick aunt.”

Orgoru nodded grimly. “She’ll be safer, too, if we lose.”

“We won’t,” Loftu said with absolute certainty. “There are as many of us as there are of real officials, and we have command of the Watch and the Guards.”

But Orgoru knew that the watchmen and the reeve’s guardsmen wouldn’t fight the Protector’s soldiers—their childhood “services,” magistrate-led discussion sessions, had everyone convinced through and through of the rightness of the government, and the need for all decent people to obey him.

“Word has filtered through the network that almost half the Protector’s Army is with us,” the other magistrate said.

With them in spirit, yes—but would they be with them when it came to blows? Even if they believed in the rebels’ cause, would they dare strike against their fellow soldiers with their officers’ sharp swords behind them? Orgoru could only wonder—and be glad he wasn’t the soldier who would have to decide.

If it really did come to blows, though, all the rebels had the fighting skills that Dirk and Gar had taught them. They would outnumber the soldiers—but they had no weapons. No matter how he looked at it, the outcome was uncertain. Blood might be spilled in gallons, and he heartily wished his beloved Gilda were far away, safe in Voyagend.

Onward they rode through the night-darkened wood, chatting in low tones—until more travelers loomed out of the shadows at the next crossroads. “Who moves?” a voice called.

“Magistrates of Miles,” Orgoru called back, before any of his companions could try to explain.

The strangers laughed with relief and came forward to pound them on the backs.

So they moved through the night, their company growing at every crossroad—and throughout the land, other sham officials rode as they did, gathering into companies, then regiments. They disappeared into the woods and ditches when day dawned, dispersing to sleep, though four or five always stood watch, carefully concealed.

Gilda shook his shoulder. “Orgoru!”

Orgoru came awake on the instant, stared for a disorient second, then looked up into his wife’s eyes, striving for calm while his heart thudded in his breast. “What?”

“There’s a squadron of riders coming, and they’re wearing the Protector’s livery!”

“Don’t wake the others,” Orgoru said automatically. They would be best hidden by sleeping. For himself, he rolled over and wormed his way out of the hollow where they’d spent the night, to peer through the high grass at the road.

There they came, a dozen mounted men, tall and bearded—but the officer who rode at their head was slight and short, and wore his livery as though it were strange to him.

“A Protector’s spy,” Orgoru hissed to Gilda, “leading soldiers in patrol now, since he’s the one who knows what to look for.”

“Could they be seeking us?” she breathed.

“Probably. They don’t usually go in patrols.”

“What do we do?”

“Watch where they go,” Orgoru whispered, “and see whether or not they come back.”

They were both silent as the patrol rode by and disappeared down the road. Then Gilda sighed with relief, and Orgoru felt himself begin to shake. To hide it, he glanced at the sun and said, “Almost midday. Time for my watch and your nap, anyway, my dear.”

Gilda settled into the hollow, but she looked doubtful. Orgoru rested a hand on her shoulder and said softly, “Sleep, beloved. We’re in no danger until we come to Milton Town, you know that.” He wished he did.

Gilda seemed to, though; she relaxed, nestled into the grass, and covered a yawn. Orgoru gazed down at her sleeping face, feeling a great well of tenderness opening within him, and wondered how it had come to exist.

Then he remembered that he was supposed to be watching the road.

Other men and women were on watch all across the country that day. They were the ones who saw the Protector’s patrols ride by, marked their direction, and told their fellows when they gathered in the dusk to resume their march. They warmed their rations, ate and drank, then moved off into the night again, following the trails, alert for the soldiers.

Orgoru’s company came upon their first patrol not long after the moon had risen. The soldiers were camped by a stream, banked campfires glowing, horses standing droop-headed and sleeping. Ten small tents surrounded the fire; one sentry stood guard, pacing slowly around the circle.

Orgoru waved his men back and held a quick conference. “There are twenty of us to their ten. Let two go to each tent, pull down the poles, and catch them in canvas.”

They nodded, some grim, some with grins, but Loftu asked, “Shall I take out the sentry?”

Orgoru started to answer, but Gilda spoke first. “Yes; but wait for me to play my part.”

She turned away into the night, and Loftu stared at her, not understanding. Neither did Orgoru, but it wasn’t the time or place to argue. They tied their horses and moved forward until they could all see the soldiers’ campsite. Silently, several men moved out to either side, surrounding it in a semicircle.

The sentry paced slowly—and Gilda stepped out of the trees into a patch of moonlight squarely in front of him. He froze, staring in surprise and alarm, and she moved toward him, every movement sensuous, her voice low-pitched and husky. “Good evening, soldier.”

The sentry recovered, but kept his voice low, as much in surprise as anything else. “Good evening, damsel. What’re you doing on the road in the middle of the night?”

“My horse went lame this afternoon, and I’ve been creeping through the woods ever since, afraid of bandits but hoping for—”

The shadow-shape of Loftu rose up behind the soldier and struck with his blackjack. The soldier stiffened, staring at Gilda in amazement. Then his eyes rolled up, and he folded.

Orgoru stared, amazed at the resourcefulness of the woman he had married. Then pride swept him, and the urge to be worthy of her. He waved to his men and led the way silently out to the tents.

They went two to each canvas, standing, waiting for Orgoru’s signal. He raised a hand, then swept it down and yanked the stick out of the end of the tent. His companion did the same at the other end, and the canvas billowed down to outline the form of the sleeping soldier. They dropped to their knees and tucked the canvas under the man’s body, and he came awake with a shout of alarm. A dozen other shouts filled the clearing, then curses of anger, but they did no good; willing hands were rolling every single soldier over and over, cocooning them in fabric.

“Stop!” a man bellowed. Orgoru froze, then looked up.

A slight man in dark livery held an arm around Gilda’s chest, a knife to her throat. Orgoru’s heart sank—the spy himself! He had slept apart from his men and come running at the shout! Gilda struggled, cursing, but the spy held her as though his arm were iron and called, “Stand away from those tents and keep your arms high, or she dies!”