And what? Luthien wondered. There was something else in those orbs he thought he knew so well. Pain? Anger? He suspected that his continuing relationship with Siobhan did hurt Katerin, though she said differently to any who would listen.
The red-haired woman turned and walked out of the room, back up the stairs past the elven guards.
Of course, the proud Katerin O’Hale would never admit her pain, Luthien reasoned. Not about anything as trivial as love.
“We’ll find no volunteers to bury one-eyes,” Oliver remarked after a moment.
Shuglin snorted. “My kin will do it, and me with them,” the dwarf said, and with a quick bow to Luthien, he, too, turned to leave. “There is pleasure to be found in putting dirt on top of cyclopians.”
“More pleasure if they are alive when you do,” Oliver snickered.
“Think on dropping that building,” the dwarf called over his shoulder, and he seemed quite eager for that task “By the gods, if we do it, then the cyclopians inside will already be buried! Save us the trouble!”
Shuglin stopped at the door and spun about, his face beaming with an idea. “If we can get the one-eyed brutes to take their dead inside, and then we drop the building . . .”
Luthien waved at him impatiently and he shrugged and left.
“What are we to do about the Ministry?” Oliver asked after moving to the door and closing it.
“We have people distributing weapons,” Luthien replied. “And we have others training the former slaves and the commoners to use them. Shuglin’s folk have devised some defenses for the city, and I must meet with them to approve the plans. Now we have dead men to bury and food to gather. Alliances to secure with neighboring farm villages. Then there is the matter of Port Charley and the fleet that is supposedly sailing north along the coast. And, of course, the dead cyclopians must be removed.”
“I get the point,” Oliver said dryly, his Gascon accent making the last word into two syllables, “po-went.”
“And the Ministry,” exasperated Luthien went on. “I understand how important it is that we clear that building before Greensparrow’s army arrives. We may have to use it ourselves, as a last defense.”
“Let us hope the Avon soldiers do not get that far inside the city,” Oliver put in.
“Their chances of getting in will be much greater if we have to keep a quarter of our forces standing guard around the cathedral,” Luthien replied. “I know it, and know that I must come up with some plan to take the place.”
“But . . .” Oliver prompted.
“Too many tasks,” Luthien answered. He looked up at Oliver, needing support. “Am I to be the general, or the mayor?”
“Which would you prefer?” Oliver asked, but he already knew the answer: Luthien wanted to fight against Greensparrow with his weapons, not his edicts.
“Which would be the better for the cause of Eriador?” the man replied.
Oliver snorted. There was no doubt in the halfling’s mind. He had seen Luthien lead the warriors, had watched the young man systematically free Montfort until it became Caer MacDonald. And Oliver had observed the faces of those who fought beside Luthien, those who watched in awe his movements as he led them into battle.
There came a knock on the door, and Siobhan entered. She took one look at the pair, recognizing the weight of their discussion, then excused herself from those who had come with her, waving them back out into the street and closing the apartment door. She moved quietly to the table and remained silent, deferring to the apparently more important discussion. This was not an unusual thing, Siobhan had a way of getting in on most of Oliver and Luthien’s conversations.
“I do not think the Crimson Shadow would be such a legend if he was the mayor of a town,” the halfling answered Luthien.
“Who then?” Luthien wanted to know.
The answer didn’t come from Oliver, but, unexpectedly, from the half-elf, who had already surmised the problem. “Brind’Amour,” she said evenly.
As soon as the weight of that name registered, both the friends nearly fell over with surprise—Luthien would have had he not been sitting already.
“How do you know that name?” Oliver, finding his voice first, wanted to know.
Siobhan put on a wry smile.
Oliver looked at Luthien, but the young Bedwyr shrugged, for he had not mentioned the old wizard to anybody in the city.
“You know of Brind’Amour?” Luthien asked her. “You know who he is and where he is?”
“I know of a wizard who lives still, somewhere in the north,” Siobhan answered. “I know that it was he who gave to you the crimson cape, and the bow.”
“How do you know?” Oliver asked.
“It was he who gave to me the arrow that you used to slay Viscount Aubrey,” Siobhan went on, and that was explanation enough.
“Then you have spoken to him?” Luthien prompted.
The half-elf shook her head. “He has . . .” She paused, trying to find the right way to put it. “He has looked at me,” she explained. “And through my eyes.” She noted the surprise—hopeful surprise—on both her companions’ faces. “Yes, Brind’Amour understands what has happened in Montfort.”
“Caer MacDonald,” Luthien corrected.
“In Caer MacDonald,” Siobhan agreed.
“But will he come?” Oliver wanted to know, for the suggestion seemed perfect to the halfling. Who better than an old wizard to see to the day-to-day needs of a city?
Siobhan honestly did not know. She had felt the presence of the wizard beside her and had feared that presence, thinking that Greensparrow was watching the movements of the rebels. Then Brind’Amour had come to her in a dream and had explained who he was. But that was the only contact she had made with the old wizard, and even it was foggy, perhaps no more than a dream.
Although, considering the arrow she had found in her quiver, and Luthien and Oliver’s confirmation of the existence of such a man, she now knew, of course, that it had been much more than a dream.
“Do you know where he is?” Luthien asked her.
“No.”
“Do you know how to speak with him?”
“No.”
At a loss, Luthien looked to Oliver.
“He is a fine choice,” the halfling said, the exact words Luthien wanted to hear.
Luthien knew that the wizard’s cave was somewhere within the northernmost spurs of the Iron Cross, to the north and east of Caer MacDonald, on the southern side of a wide gap called Bruce MacDonald’s Swath. The young Bedwyr had been there only once, along with Oliver, but unfortunately on that occasion neither of them had found the chance to spy out the locale. A magical tunnel had brought them into the cave, whisking them off the road right in the midst of cyclopian pursuit. The pair had left via a magical tunnel, as well, Brind’Amour setting them down on the road to Montfort. Judging from where they were taken by the wizard, and where he had dropped them off, Luthien could approximate the location, and he knew that Brind’Amour’s sight was not limited by stone walls.
Within the hour, the eager young man selected messengers, a dozen men he sent out from the city with instructions to ride to the northern tips of the Iron Cross, separate, and find high, conspicuous perches, and then read loudly from parchments Luthien gave to each of them, a note that the young man had written for the old wizard.
“He will hear,” Luthien assured Oliver when the two saw the dozen riders off.
Oliver wasn’t sure, or that the reclusive Brind’Amour would answer the call if he did hear. But Oliver did understand that Luthien, weary of the business of governing, had to believe that relief was on the way, and so the halfling nodded his agreement.
“So bids Luthien Bedwyr, present Lord of Caer MacDonald, which was Montfort,” the young man called out, standing very still, very formal and tall, on a flat-topped hillock.
Some distance away, another man slipped off his horse and unrolled a parchment similarly inscribed. “To the wizard Brind’Amour, friend of those who do not call themselves friends of King Greensparrow . . .”