The Warlock in Spite of Himself

"And how may I serve you, good master?"

"With a tankard of ale, a steak as thick as both your thumbs, and a table alone." Rod smiled as he said it.

The innkeeper stared, his lips forming a round O— Rod had apparently done something out of the ordinary.

Then the old man's eyes took on a calculating look, one that Rod had seen before; it was usually accompanied by a remark to the waiter, sot to voce , "Soft touch. Soak him for all he's worth."

Rod had smiled.

He should have known better.

Some things can be undone, though. Rod let his smile droop into a scowl.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" he barked. "Be quick about it, or I'll dine on a slice off your backside!"

The landlord jumped, then cringed, bowing rapidly.

"But of course, m'lord, of course! Quickly it will be, good master; yes, quickly indeed!" He turned away.

Rod's hand clamped onto his shoulder. "The table," he reminded.

The landlord gulped and bobbed his head, led Rod to a table beside an upright log that served as a pillar, and scurried away—cursing under his breath, no doubt.

Rod returned the courtesy, but enlarged the object to include all "that the landlord stood for, namely the mercenary ways of mankind.

And, of course, wound up cursing himself for having catered to Mammon by getting tough.

But what could he do? SCENT agents were supposed to remain inconspicuous, and a softhearted medieval bourgeois was a contradiction in terms.

But when the landlord said quickly, he meant it. The steak and ale appeared almost before Rod had sat down. The landlord stood by rubbing his hands on his apron and looking very worried. Waiting for Rod to accept the cooking, probably.

Rod opened his mouth to reassure the man, and stopped with a word not quite past his larynx. His nosed twitched; a slow grin spread over his face. He looked up at the landlord.

"Do I smell garlic sausage?"

"Oh yes, your worship!" The landlord started bobbing again. "Garlic sausage it is, your worship, and very fine garlic sausage too, if I may say so. If your worship would care for some… ?"

"My worship would," said Rod, " and presto allegro , sir-rah."

The landlord shied, reminding Rod of Fess regarding a syllogism, and ran.

Now, what was that all about ? Rod wondered. Must have been something he said. And he'd been rather proud of that sirrah…

He sampled the steak, and had just washed it down when a plate of sausage thunked ! onto the table.

"Very good," said Rod, "and the steak is acceptable."

The landlord's face broke into a grin of relief; he turned to go, then turned back.

"Well, what is it?" Rod asked around a mouthful of sausage.

The landlord was twisting his hands in his apron again. "Beg pardon, my master, but…"His lips twisted too, then the words burst out. "Art a warlock, m' master?"

"Who, me? A warlock? Ridiculous!" For emphasis, Rod jabbed his table knife in the landlord's general direction. The huge belly shrank in amazingly; then it bolted, taking its owner along.

Now where did he get the idea I was a warlock ? Rod mused as he chewed a mouthful of steak.

Never had a better steak , he decided. Must be the smoke. Wonder what wood they're using ?

Must have been the presto allegro bit. Thought they were magic words, probably …

Well, they had worked wonders.

Rod took a bite of sausage and a swig of ale.

Him, a warlock? Never! He might be a second son of a second son, but he wasn't that desperate.

Besides, being a warlock involved signing a contract in blood, and Rod had no blood to spare. He kept losing it in the oddest places…

He drained his tankard, set it down with a thump. The landlord materialized with a jug and poured him a refill. Rod started a smile of thanks, remembered his station, and changed the smile to a sneer. He fumbled in his purse, felt the irregular shape of a gold nugget—acceptable currency in a medieval society— remembered the quickness of the house to gyp the generous, and passed over the nugget in favor of a sliver of silver.

The landlord stared at the small white bar in the palm of his hand, his eyes making a valiant attempt to turn into hemispheres. He made a gargling sound, stuttered elaborate thanks, and scurried away.

Rod bit his lip in annoyance. Apparently even so small a chunk of silver was enough to excite comment here.

The touch of anger dissipated quickly, though; a pound or two of beef in the belly did tend to make the world look better. Rod threw his legs out in the aisle, stretched, and slumped backward in the chair, picking his teeth with the table knife.

Something was strangely wrong in this common room. The happy were a little too professional about it—voices a shade too loud, laughter a trifle strained, with a dark echo. The glum, on the other hand, were really glum; their brown studies were paneled in walnut.

Feaf.

Take that pair at three o'clock on the third table from the right, now—they were awfully earnest about whatever it was they were hashing over. Rod gave his ring a surreptitious nudge and pointed it at the twosome.

"But such meetings do no good if the Queen is continually sending her soldiers against us!"

" Tis true, Adam, 'tis true; she won't hear us, for, when all's said and done, she won't let us close enough to speak."

"Why, then, she must be forced to listen!"

"Aye, but what good would that do? Her nobles would not let her give what we demand."

Adam slammed his open hand on the table. "But we've a right to be free without being thieves and beggars! The debtors' prisons must end, and the taxes with them!"

"Aye, and so must the cutting off of an ear for the theft of a loaf of bread." He rubbed the side of his head, with a hangdog look on his face. "Yet she hath contrived to do summat for us…"

"Aye, this setting-up of her own judges now! The great lords will no longer give each their justice, by style and taste."

"The nobles will not bear it, and that thou knowest. The judges will not stand long." One-Ear's face was grim; he traced circles on the wet tabletop.

"Nay, the noblemen will stand for naught that the Queen designs!" Adam plunged his knife into the tabletop. "Will not the Loguire see that?"

"Nay, speak not against the Loguire!" One-Ear's face darkened. "If 'twere not for him, we would still be a ragtag horde, with no common purpose! Speak not against Loguire, Adam, for without him, we would not have the brass to sit in this inn, where the Queen's soldiers are but guests!"

"Oh, aye, aye, he pulled us together and made men of us thieves. Yet now he holds our new manhood in check; he seeks to keep us from fighting for that which is ours!"

One-Ear's mouth turned down tight at the corners. "Thou hast hearkened too much to the idle and envious chatter of the Mocker, Adam!"

"Yet fight we must, mark my words!" Adam cried, clenching his fist. "Blood must be shed ere we come to our own. Blood must answer for blood, and 'tis blood the nobles have ta'en from—"

Something huge slammed into Rod, knocking him back against the table, filling his head with the smell of sweat and onions and cheap wine.

Rod braced an arm against the table and shoved with his shoulder. The heavy form swayed away with a whuff ! of breath. Rod drew his dagger and thumbed the signet ring to off.

The man loomed over him, looking eight feet tall and wide as a wagon.

"Here now!" he growled. "Why doncha look where I'm going at?"

Rod's knife twisted, gleaming light into the man's eyes. "Stand away, friend," he said softly. "Leave an honest man to his ale."

"An honest man, is it!" The big peasant guffawed. "A sojer, callin' hisself an honest man!" His roaring laughter was echoed from the tables.

On an off bet, Rod decided, strangers weren't popular here.

The laughter stopped quite suddenly. "Nay, put down your plaything," said the big man, suddenly sober, "and I'll show you an honest villager can outfight a sojer."

A prickle ran down Rod's spine as he realized it was a put-up job. The landlord had advised the big ox of the whereabouts of a heavy purse…

"I've no quarrel with you," Rod muttered. He realized it was the worst thing he could have said almost before the words were off his tongue.

The big man leered, gloating. "No quarrel, he say? now. He throws hisself in the path of a poor staggering man so's he can't help but ran into him. But, 'No quarrel,' sez he, when he's had a look at Big Tom!"

A huge, meaty hand buried itself in the cloth at Rod's throat, pulling him to his feet. "Nay, I'll show you a quarrel," Big Tom snarled.

Rod's right hand lashed out, chopping into the man's elbow, then bouncing away. The big man's hand loosened and fell, temporarily numbed. Big Tom stared at his hand, a look of betrayal.

Rod pressed his lips together, tucked his knife into the sheath. He stepped back, knees flexed, rubbed his right fist in his left palm. The peasant was big, but he probably knew nothing of boxing.

Life came back into Tom's hand, and with it, pain. The huge man bellowed in anger, his hand balling into a fist, swinging at Rod in a vast roundhouse swipe that would have annihilated anything it struck.

But Rod ducked under and to the side and, as the fist went by him, reached up behind Tom's shoulder and gave a solid push to add to the momentum of the swing.

Big Tom spun around; Rod caught the man's right wrist and twisted it up behind Tom's back. Rod jerked the wrist up a little higher; Big Tom howled. While he was howling, Rod's arm snaked under Tom's armpit to catch the back of his neck in a half nelson.

Not bad, Rod thought. So far he hadn't needed boxing.

Rod planted a knee in Tom's backside as he released his holds; Tom blundered into the open space before the hearth, tried to catch his balance, and didn't make it. Overturned tables clattered and thudded as the patrons scuttled back, all too glad to leave the fireside seat to Big Tom.

He came to his knees, shaking his head, and looked up to see Rod standing before him in a wrestler's crouch, smiling grimly and beckoning with both arms.

Tom growled low in his throat and braced a foot against the fieldstones of the hearth.

He shot at Rod head-first, like a bull.

Rod sidestepped and stuck out a foot. Big Tom went flailing straight for the first row of tables. Rod squeezed his eyes shut and set his teeth.

There was a crash like four simultaneous strikes in a bowling alley. Rod winced. He opened his eyes and forced himself to look.

Big Tom's head emerged out of a welter of woodwork, wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

Rod shook his head sadly, clucking his tongue. "You've had a rough night, Big Tom. Why don't you go home and sleep it off?"

Tom picked himself up, shin, wristbone, and clavicle, and put himself back together, taking inventory the while.

Satisfied that he was a gestalt again, he stamped a foot, planted his fists on his hips, and looked up at Rod.

"Here now, man!" he complained. "You don't half fight like an honest gentleman!"

"Not hardly a gentleman at all," Rod agreed. "What do you say we try one more throw, Tom? Double or nothing!"

The big man looked down at his body as if doubting its durability. He kicked at the remains of an oak table tentatively, slammed a fist into his own tree-trunk biceps, and nodded.

"I'll allow as I'm fit," he said. "Come on, little man."

He stepped out onto the cleared floor in front of the hearth, walking warily around the perimeter, keeping one baleful eye on Rod.

"Our good landlord told you I had silver in my purse, didn't he?" said Rod, his eyes snapping.