The Warlock in Spite of Himself

He should fear them; he should have feared to return; and if he had come back, it should have been as a thief in the night, skulking and secret.

Yet here he stood, free in their eyes, summoning them to him with bugle and drum—and where was the Mocker?

They were shaken, and more than a little afraid. Men who had never been taught how to think now faced the unthinkable.

Rod ended with a flourish, and flipped the trumpet away from his lips, whirling it in a flashing circle to land belldown at his hip.

Big Tom gave the drum a last final boom.

Tuan held his hand out to Tom and began clicking his fingers very softly.

The drum spoke again, throbbing, insistent, but very soft.

Rod looked up at Tuan, who was grinning, arms akimbo, a royal elf come into his kingdom. He looked down at the audience, shaken and fearful, staring, mouths agape, at the lordly, commanding figure above them.

Rod had to admit it was a great way to open a speech.

Tuan flung up his arms, and the hall stilled, except for the low-pitched throb of Tom's drum.

"You cast me out!" Tuan shouted.

The mob shrank back on itself, muttering, fearful.

"Cast out, thrown to exile!" Tuan called. "You had turned your eyes from me, turned away from me, thought never to look upon me!"

The muttering grew, began to take a surly, desperate quality.

"Was I not banished?" Tuan called, then, "Be still!" he snapped.

And, miraculously, the room stilled.

He leveled an accusing forefinger at the crowd and growled, "Was I not banished?"

This time there werea few muttered "Ayes."

"Was I not?"

The mutter of "Ayes" grew.

"Was I not?"

"Aye!" rolled across the heads of the crowd.

"Did you not call me traitor?"

"Aye," the crowd growled again.

"Yet here I stand," Tuan cried, "strong and free, and master again of the House of Clovis!"

Nobody disputed it.

"And where are the real traitors, who would ha' seen you all torn to bits in hopeless battle?The traitors, who ha' turned this House to a jail in my absence? Where are they now, to dispute my mastership?"

He rested his hands on his hips while the crowd took up the question in its own ranks, and Tom quickly lashed ten feet of thread to the Mocker's bonds, lashing the other end to a railing-pillar. As the mutters of "Where?" and "The Mocker!" began to grow, he served the three lieutenants likewise.

Tuan let the mutters swell and grow; then, just as they hit their peak, he gave Tom the signal.

Tom and Rod threw the bound men over, where they hung two on each side of Tuan. The Mocker had regained consciousness; he began writhing and kicking at die end of his rope.

A shocked silence filled the hall.

Tuan grinned and folded his arms.

The crowd roared, like one huge, savage beast, and pressed forward. The front ranks began to jump at the dangling feet. Obscene epithets, cursing the Mocker and his men, blasted from the packed floor.

"Behold!" Tuan shouted, throwing up his arms, and the crowd fell silent. "Behold them, the traitors who once you called masters! Behold them, the traitors, the thieves who took from you all the liberty I had gained for you!"

Big Tom was grinning, eyes glowing and fixed on the young lord, swaying to the rhythm of the boy's words.

For, truly, the lad seemed twelve feet tall now.

"Were you not born without masters?" Tuan shouted.

"Aye!" the crowd roared at him.

"You were born to freedom!" Tuan bellowed. "The freedom of outlawry and poverty, aye, but born free!"

Then, "Were you not born wild?" he fairly shrieked; and:

"Aye!" the crowd shrieked in response, "Aye, aye! Aye !"

"Did I steal your freedom from you?"

"Nay, nay!"

A twisted hunchback with a patch over his eye shouted, "Nay, Tuan! You gave us more!"

The crowd clamored.

Tuan crossed his arms again, grinning, letting the acclamation run its course.

When it had just passed his peak, he threw up his arms again, and shouted. "Did I tell you?"

Silence fell.

"Did I tell you that you must have my permission for a night's loving?"

"Nay!" they roared back, both sexes united for a change.

"And never I will!"

They cheered.

Tuan grinned, and bowed his head in thanks, almost shyly.

"And yet!" Tuan's voice dropped down low, surly, angry. He hunched forward, one fist clenched, shaking at the audience. "When I came back to your halls this dark eventide, what did I find?" His voice rose, building . "You had let these base knaves steal away all I had given you!"

The crowd roared.

Tuan flicked his left hand: Tom struck the drum with a boom that cut the crowd short.

"Nay, more!" Tuan cried. His forefinger jabbed out at the crowd, his eyes seeking hot individual faces. His voice was cold, now, and measured. "I found that in your base cowardice you had let them steal from you even that liberty you were born with!"

The crowd murmured, frightened, unsure. The front ranks shrank back.

"Even your birthright you had let them steal from you!"

The murmuring was a wave of fright at the contempt in the silver tongue.

"You would let them take from you even bed-freedom!"

He flicked his hand; the drum boomed.

"And you call yourselves men!" Tuan laughed, harsh and contemptuous.

The murmuring wave came back at him now, with sullen, protesting voices. "We are men!" someone cried, and the crowd took it up, "We are men! We are men! We are men!"

"Aye!" shrieked the eye-patched hunchback. "But give us these dangling knaves who h' robbed us, Tuan, and we shall prove we are men! We shall rend them, shall flay them! We shall leave not an ounce of flesh to cling to their bones! We shall crack even their bones and hale out the marrow!"

The crowd howled in blood-lust.

Tuan straightened and folded his arms, smiling grimly. The crowd saw him; their roar subsided to a growl, with an undertone of guilt, then broke up into sullen lumps of murmurs, and stilled.

"Is this manhood?" said Tuan, almost quietly. "Nay!" His arm snapped out, pointing, accusing. "I ha' seen packs of dogs could do better!"

The muttering ran through the crowd, growing angrier, louder and louder.

"Careful, there!" Rod called to Tuan. "You'll have them tearing us apart next!"

"No fear," said Tuan, without taking his eyes from the crowd. "Yet let it work a while."

The muttering rose sharply. Here and there a man shouted, angry shouts, fists waved at Tuan where he stood on the balcony rail.

Tuan flung up his arms again, shouting, "But I say you are men!"

The crowd quieted, staring.

"There are others who slander you; but I call you men!" Then, looking from face to face: "And who will gainsay me?"

For a moment, they were quiet; then someone called, "None, Tuan!" and another answered, "None!"

"None!" called the several, and "None!" called the many, till "None!" roared the crowd.

"Will you prove you are men?" Tuan shouted.

"Aye!" the crowd bellowed.

"Will you fight?" Tuan howled, shaking a fist.

"Aye!" they cried, crowding closer with blood-thirst.

Tuan's hands shot out waist-high, palms down, fingers spread.

The crowd stilled.

His voice was hushed, chanting. "You were born to filth and the scabs of disease!"

"Aye," they muttered.

"You were born to the sweat of your joints, and the ache of your back in hard labor!"

"Aye!"

"You were born to the slack, empty belly and the want of a home!"

"Aye!"

"Who filled your bellies? Who gave you a roof for your head in this very house?"

"You did!"

"Who gave you a fortress?"

"You did!"

"Who?"

"You!"

"Tell me the name!"

"Tuan Loguire!" they shrieked.

"Aye!" Tuan's hands went out again; he stood crouched, eye afire.

"This was the misery I took from you. But who gave it to you at birth? Who is it has beaten you down, century upon century, from father to son, age upon age to the time of your remotest grandfathers?"

The crowd muttered, uncertain.

"The peasants?"

"Nay," the crowd answered.

"Was it the soldiers?"

"Aye!" they shouted, come to life again.

"And who rules the soldiers?"

"The nobles!"

Rod winced at the hate they packed into the word.

"Aye! 'Twas the nobles!" Tuan shouted, thrusting upward with his fist, and the crowd howled.

He let pandemonium reign for a few moments, then threw up his arms again.

Then his hands dropped down to belt-level again; he fell into the crouch.

"Who!" he demanded, and the drum throbbed behind him. "Who! Who alone of all the high-born took your part? Who gave you food when you cried for it, heard your petitions? Who sent judges among you, to give you justice instead of a nobleman's whim?"

His fist thrust upward with his whole body behind it, "The Queen!"

"The Queen!" they echoed him.

"She shut her ears to the noblemen, that she might hear your cries!"

"Aye!"

"She hath shed tears for you!"

"Aye!"

"Yet," cried the hunchback, "she cast you out, our Tuan Loguire!"

Tuan smiled sourly. "Did she? Or did she send me among you!" He threw up his arms, and they roared like an avalanche.

"It is the Queen who has given you your birthright again!"

"Aye!"

"Are you men?" Tuan shouted.

"We are!"

"Will you fight?"

"We will fight! We will fight!"

"Will you fight the noblemen?"

"Aye!"

"Will you fight for your Queen?"

"Aye!"

"Will you fight the noblemen for Catharine your Queen?"

"Aye! Ayeayeayeaye/"

Then the noise of the crowd covered all. The people leaped and shouted; men caught women and swung them about.

"Have you weapons?" Tuan shouted.

"Aye!" A thousand daggers leaped upward, gleaming.

"Catch up your packs, fill them with journeybread! Burst out of this house, through the south gate of the city! The Queen will give you food, give you tents! So run you all to the South, south along the great highway to Breden Plain, there to wait for the noblemen!

"Go doit!" he shouted. "Go nowiFor the Queen!"

"For the Queen!"

Tuan flipped his hand; the drum boomed loud and fast. "Hunting call!" Tuan snapped in aside to Rod.

Rod flourished the trumpet to his lips and began the quick, bubbling notes.

"Go!" Tuan roared.

The people broke, to their rooms, to the armory. In ten minutes time they had caught up packs, staffs, and knives.

"It is done!" Tuan leaped down off the rail to the balcony floor. "They'll ha' run down to Breden Plain in two days!" He grinned, slapping Big Tom's shoulders. "We ha' done it, Tom!"

Tom roared his laughter and threw his arms about Tuan in a bear-hug.

"Whew!" Tuan gasped as Tom dropped him. He turned to Rod. "Do you, friend Gallowglass, tell the Queen, and see that the word of it goes out to her soldiers. Tell her to send meat, tents, and ale, and right quickly. And do you hurl these lackeys"—his thumb jerked at the Mocker and his lieutenants—"deep into the Queen's dungeon. Farewell!" And he was bounding and leaping down the stairs.

"Hey, wait a minute!" Rod shouted, running to the rail. "Where do you think you're going?"

"To Breden Plain!" Tuan shouted, stopping to look back up. "I must guard my people, or they'll strip the countryside worse than any plague of locusts could do, and kill themselves off in a fight o'er the spoils. Do you tell Catharine of my"—he paused; a shadow crossed his face—"loyalty."

Then he was gone, leading the mob that boiled out the great front doors of the house, running before them in a wild, madcap dance.

Rod and Tom exchanged one glance, then turned and ran for the stairs to the roof.