Suddenly, the great black horse jolted to a stop, legs stiff, its head swinging down between its fetlocks. Geoffrey barely managed to keep from being thrown by sheer momentum, but he turned at bay, blocking blades that rained at him from every side. In the back of his mind, he rejoiced that if Fess had had to have a seizure, he I had waited until he was directly in front of Quicksilver. On her other side, Alain was hewing mightily about him with sword and dagger. He was already bleeding in two places, but before him was a heap of crumpled outlaws, and their horses were running wild back into the press of their fellows, creating more confusion than Quicksilver's men.
"Will you leave me none for my anger?" Quicksilver cried in frustration. "Nay, then, step aside!" And she leaped past Geoffrey, sword flashing and thrusting, a veritable whirlwind of death in embroidered skirt and bodice, the flower ring still holding to her hair even as her white blouse sprouted stains of her enemies' blood.
"They call for quarter, Quicksilver!" Minerva cried. "Give them the quarter they gave the villagers!" Quicksilver raged.
"No quarter!" Minerva cried. "No mercy!"
"Nay, save one!" Alain called. "Save one at least! One for the King's judgement!"
"The King?" Quicksilver cried, outraged.
Then, suddenly, it was all over. A score of outlaws stood with their hands high, devoid of weapons, either on horseback or a-foot, and Quicksilver's men and women hovered with swords and spears at their throats and chests, each thinking that perhaps this was the one who should be saved for the King.
"The King?" Quicksilver turned on Alain in fury. "What service has the King ever done us, that we should thank him? Has he protected us from rape or despoiling? No! Has he protected us from the banditry of Count Laeg? No! Has he enforced the poor man's share of his own crops? No! All we have had from the King is an increase in taxes, so that he may take his share!"
Cordelia landed behind Alain and stepped up beside him, but Quicksilver showed no sign of having noticed. "We owe the King nothing!" she said. "No, nothing, and least of all one of these cattle we have just taken by the might of our own arms, not his!"
Alain took it well, standing against the blast of her anger. "Then save one for Duke Loguire's justice."
"Duke Loguire! The King is Duke Loguire! Which is to say, there has been no Duke Loguire since the King's father died! Oh, I will own the poor man was safe whiles the old Duke lived, and such villainy as old Count Laeg did, he had to do secretly, so that only we peasants knew of virgins debauched and poachers flogged to their deathsbut not these last twenty years!"
Alain frowned. "There were the Crown's reeves!"
"Aye, each living in fear of Count Laeg, or taking his coin! Nay, if the King had cared for us as he should have, I would not be an outlaw today!"
"If you did not send word..."
"It was his duty to know!" Quicksilver snapped. "Or Duke Loguire's, at least! Oh, aye, I know he gave the title to his younger son—but what good is a child Duke? The more so, when he dwells a hundred miles and more away, in Runnymede! What use is he then?"
"He dwells in Castle Loguire now," Alain told her, "and he is not a child any more."
All the bandits went silent. Even Geoffrey stared, amazed, and realized how far out of touch with the events of the Court he had become while he wandered the roads of Gramarye, looking for fun—or wrongs to right, which were one and the same to him. So Diarmid had been installed as Duke Loguire? No wonder his brother was here in the South, to help him settle in—and Cordelia with him!
"Where have you had this news?" Quicksilver demanded.
"At Castle Loguire," Alain said, "from which we have come to aid you."
Quicksilver calmed, eyeing him warily as she prowled about him. Cordelia stepped between them protectively. "I have heard he is a milksop, this Duke Diarmid," the outlaw chief finally said. "I have heard he cannot lift a broadsword, nor has the courage to order a murderer hanged."
"You shall find him otherwise," Alain replied. "I can testify to his ability with the broadsword..."
"With what proof?"
Alain's mouth tightened with impatience, but he pulled up the sleeve of his doublet to show a long white scar. "That proof! And this was only from practice, mind you, not done in earnest!"
"Practice indeed," Quicksilver said with contempt. "Has he had more than practice, this dukelet of yours? Has he ever fought in a true battle? Has he ever had to say who will live and who will die?"
"In battle, he has fought beside me," Alain testified, "though 'twas only against a band of cutthroats, not a proper army."
Quicksilver's bandits stirred, muttering with displeasure. Alain ignored them. "As to judgement, he has never had to sit in the seat himself, but has given good advice to those who have."
"The quality of his governance has not yet been tested, then," Quicksilver said, "nor his good sense, nor his justice. I am not about to bid my outlaws disband and trust to his sense of fairness quite yet."
"None have asked you to."
"Nay, but you have asked me to save one of this worthless rabble to tell lies about me and my band, that this new Duke may be sure we are villains!"
"There are those who can testify to the truth or falseness of his words." Alain glanced significantly at Geoffrey. "I do not ask you to trust yourselves to Duke Diarmid's judgement, but only one of your enemies, that the Duke may know into what chaos his demesne has fallen, and the magnitude of the task he must undertake."
Quicksilver stood glaring at him, unwilling to argue further, sensing a grain of rightness in what Alain said. "Come, how great a risk is it?" Cordelia coaxed. "You have slain a score of villains, and have a score more to try according to your own code! May not the Duke have one?"
"Only if you bear witness to him of what you have seen in Aunriddy!"
"Why, that I will," Alain said, "and I do not doubt we shall find others who will speak against these bandits."
"And this parish must be taken from Count Frith! He has failed to protect it! It is mine now, to protect and nurture as I will!"
Alain stared a moment, then said, "But you are a royal prisoner."
Quicksilver stared at him, her face emptying. Geoffrey couldn't stand to see her so forlorn. He stepped forward and asked softly, "Is that what you shall charge before the King? That the title of Count Laeg is now yours, by right of good governance?"
Quicksilver shot him a look of surprise that transformed into gratitude, then as quickly transformed into something else that made Geoffrey go weak in the knees. "Aye," she said, "even so shall I maintain! Let him judge me guilty of thievery when I maintain my cause by Right as well as Might!"
Alain frowned. "There is no precedent . .."
"Come, my love." Cordelia smiled up at him, taking his arm. "You know full well that anything that is a precedent had to happen one first time."
Alain beamed down at her, all sternness disappearing. "Why, 'tis even so! How clever you are, to think it!"
A murmur went through the outlaws, and Minerva stared in surprise, then looked strangely uncertain—but Quicksilver only gave him an acid smile. "I think you are a fool for a woman, sir."