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!”