Luthien's Gamble

28 The Word

Luthien and Katerin sat astride their mounts on a hill overlooking the shining white-and-pink marble of Princetown. The sun was low in the eastern sky, beaming past them, igniting the reflected fires along the polished walls of the marvelous city. In the famed Princetown zoo, the exotic animals were awakening to the new day, issuing their roars and growls, heralding the sunrise.

Other than those bellowing sounds, the city was quiet and calm, and the panic that had begun after the news that Duke Paragor was slain and the garrison slaughtered had settled.

“Brind’Amour told the Princetowners that neither the Eriadoran nor the dwarfish army would enter the city,” Luthien remarked. “They trust in the old mage.”

“They have no choice but to trust in him,” Katerin answered. “We could march into the city and kill them all in a single day.”

“But they know we will not,” Luthien said firmly. “They know why we have come.”

“They are not allies,” Katerin reminded him. “And if they had the strength to chase us away, they would do so, do not doubt.”

Luthien had no reply; he knew that she was right. Even though he knew of Brind’Amour’s intention of retreating back to Eriador, Luthien had hoped that, after the massacre in Glen Durritch and if the folk of Princetown embraced the Eriadoran cause, they might continue this war, indeed might take it all the way to Carlisle. It had been as Oliver had predicted on that day of planning the attack. The Princetowners were calm now, trusting, praying that the threat to their personal safety was ended, but they made no pledges of allegiance to the Eriadoran flag.

“And know, too,” Katerin said grimly, pounding home her point, “that our army will indeed enter the city and lay waste to any who oppose us if we find another of Greensparrow’s armies marching north to do battle.”

Luthien hardly heard the words, because he had not wanted to hear them, and also because he noticed Oliver upon Threadbare, riding up the hill to join them. Also, to the left, the south, and still very far away, Luthien noticed the expected entourage approaching the captured city. Several coaches moved in a line, all streaming pennants, fronted and flanked by cyclopians upon ponypigs, the one-eyes smartly dressed in the finest regalia of the Praetorian Guard. Luthien did not recognize all of the pennants, but he picked out the banner of Avon and figured that the rest were the crests of the southern kingdom’s most important families, and probably the banners of the six major cities, as well. Most prominent among the line, along with the banner of Avon, was a blue pennant showing huge hands reaching out to each other across a gulf of water.

“Mannington, I think,” Katerin remarked, watching the same show and picking out the same, prominent banner.

“Another duke?” Luthien asked. “Come to parley or work foul magic?”

“Duchess,” came a correction from below as Oliver hustled his pony toward the pair. “Duchess Wellworth of Mannington. She will speak for Greensparrow, who is still in Gascony.”

“Where have you been?” Luthien and Katerin asked together, for neither had seen the halfling in the five days since Duke Paragor was dispatched.

Oliver chuckled quietly, wondering if they would even believe him. He had used Brind’Amour’s magical tunnel to cross a thousand miles, and then a thousand miles back again. He had met with dignitaries, some of the most important men in Gascony, and had even, on the occasion of passing the man in the hall, tipped his great hat to King Greensparrow himself! “It was time for me to go home!” the foppish halfling roared cryptically, and he would say no more, and Luthien and Katerin, too involved in speculating about the meeting that would soon take place, did not press the point.

Luthien had wanted to attend that parley, but Brind’Amour had frowned upon the notion, reminding the young Bedwyr that the coming negotiator was probably a wizard and would be able to recognize the young man, perhaps, or at least to relay information about Luthien to the king in the south. As far as Greensparrow and his cronies were concerned, Brind’Amour realized that Eriador would be better served if the Crimson Shadow remained a figure of mystery and intrigue.

So Luthien had agreed to stay out of the city and out of the meeting. But now, watching the line of coaches disappearing behind the gray granite wall, the young Bedwyr wished he had argued against Brind’Amour more strongly.

By all measure, Duchess Deanna Wellworth was a beautiful woman, golden hair cut to shoulder length and coiffed neatly, flipped to one side and held in place by a diamond-studded pin. Though she was young—certainly she had not seen thirty winters—her dress and manner were most elegant, sophisticated, but Brind’Amour sensed the power and the untamed, wild streak within this woman. She was an enchantress, he knew, and a powerful one, and she probably used more than her magic to get men into difficult situations.

“The fleet?” she asked abruptly, for from the moment she had sat down at the long, oak table, she had made it clear that she wanted this parley concluded as quickly as possible.

“Scuttled,” Brind’Amour answered without blinking.

Deanna Wellworth’s fair features, highlighted by the most expensive makeup, but not heavily painted in typical Avon fashion, turned into a skeptical frown. “You said we would deal honestly,” she remarked evenly.

“The fleet is anchored near to the Diamondgate,” Brind’Amour admitted. The old wizard drew himself up to his full height, shoulders back and jaw firm. “Under the flag of Eriador free.”

His tone told Wellworth beyond any doubt that Greensparrow would not get his ships back. She hadn’t really expected Eriador to turn them over, anyway. “The Praetorian Guards held captive on that rock of an island?” she asked.

“No,” Brind’Amour answered simply.

“You hold near to three thousand prisoners,” Wellworth protested.

“They are our problem,” Brind’Amour replied.

Deanna Wellworth slapped her hands on the polished wood of the table and rose to leave, signaling to the Praetorian Guards flanking her. But then the other negotiator across the table from her, a blue-bearded dwarf, cleared his throat loudly, a not-so-subtle reminder of the additional force camped in the mountains, not far away. Princetown was lost, and the enemy was entrenched in force, and if an agreement could not be reached here, as Greensparrow had instructed, Avon would find itself in a costly war.

Deanna Wellworth sat back down.

“What of the cyclopian prisoners taken in Glen Durritch?” she asked, her voice edged in desperation. “I must bring some concession back to my king!”

“You are getting back the city,” Brind’Amour said.

“That was known before I was sent north,” Deanna protested. “The prisoners?”

Brind’Amour looked at Shuglin and gave a slight chuckle, an indication of agreement, and he explained with a wide and sincere smile, “We have no desire to march a thousand one-eyes back into Eriador!”

Deanna Wellworth nearly laughed aloud at that, and her expression caught Brind’Amour somewhat off his guard. It was not relief that fostered her mirth, the wizard suddenly realized, but agreement. Only then did the old wizard begin to make the connection. Mannington had always been Avon’s second city, behind Carlisle, and a seat of royalty-in-waiting.

“Wellworth?” Brind’Amour asked. “Was it not a Wellworth who sat upon Avon’s throne, before Greensparrow, of course?”

All hint of a smile vanished from Deanna’s fair face. “An uncle,” she offered. “A distant uncle.”

Her tone told the keen-minded wizard that there was much more to this one’s tale. Deanna had been in line for the throne, no doubt, before Greensparrow had taken it. How might she feel about this rogue wizard who was now her king? Brind’Amour dismissed the thoughts; he had other business now, more pressing and more important for his Eriador.

“You have your gift for your king,” he said, thus bringing the meeting to conclusion.

“Indeed,” Deanna replied, still tight-lipped after the inquiry about her royal lineage.

Luthien and Katerin watched, Oliver and Siobhan watched, and all the army of Eriador and all the dwarfs of the Iron Cross watched, as Brind’Amour, Shuglin beside him, and Duchess Deanna Wellworth close behind, ascended the tallest tower in Princetown, the great spire of the cathedral. When he was in place, his voluminous blue robes whipping about him in the stiff breeze, the wizard spoke out, spoke to all the folk of the land, Eriadoran and Avonite alike, in a voice enhanced by magic so that it echoed to every corner of Princetown.

“The time has come for the folk of Eriador to turn north,” the old wizard declared. “And for the dwarfs of the Iron Cross to go home.”

And then he said it, the words that Luthien Bedwyr and Katerin O’Hale had waited so very long to hear.

“Eriador is free!”