“His name is Resmore,” Oliver added.
“One of Greensparrow’s dukes?” Brind’Amour asked the man, but Resmore merely “harrumphed” indignantly and lifted his fat face in defiance.
“He wore this,” Oliver explained, handing the expensive cap over to his king. “It was not so much a trick for me to take it from him.”
Luthien’s sour expression was not unexpected, and Oliver purposefully kept his gaze fixed on his king.
Brind’Amour took the hat and turned it in his hands, studying the emblem: a ship’s prow carved into the likeness of a rearing stallion, nostrils flared, eyes wild. “Newcastle,” the Eriadoran king said calmly. “You are Duke Resmore of Newcastle.”
“Friend of Greensparrow, who is king of all Avonsea!” a flustered Resmore replied.
“And king of Gascony, I am so sure,” Oliver added sarcastically.
“Not by treaty,” Brind’Amour reminded Resmore calmly, the old wizard smiling at the duke’s slip. “Our agreement proclaims Greensparrow as king of Avon and Brind’Amour as king of Eriador. Or is it that you deem the treaty immaterial?”
Resmore was sweating visibly now, realizing his error. “I only meant . . .” he stammered, and then he stopped. He took a deep breath to steady himself and lifted his chin proudly once more. “You have no right to hold me,” he declared.
“You were captured fairly,” Oliver remarked. “By me.”
“Unlawfully!” Resmore protested. “I was in the mountains, by all rights, in land neutral to our respective kingdoms!”
“You were on the Eriadoran side of the Iron Cross,” Brind’Amour reminded him. “Not twenty miles from Caer MacDonald.”
“I know of no provisions in our treaty that would prevent—” Resmore began.
“You were with the cyclopians,” Luthien promptly interrupted.
“Again, by word of the treaty—”
“Damn your treaty!” Luthien shouted, though Brind’Amour tried to calm him. “The one-eyes have been raiding our villages, murdering innocents, even children. At the prompting of your wretched king, I say!”
A hundred voices lifted in accord with the young Bedwyr’s proclamation, but Brind’Amour’s was not among them. Again the king of Eriador, skilled in matters politic, worked hard to quiet them all, fearing that a mob would form and his prisoners would be hanged before he could gather his evidence.
“Since when do one-eyes need the prompting of a human king to raid and pillage?” Resmore sarcastically asked.
“We can prove that this very band you were captured beside was among those participating in raids,” Brind’Amour said.
“Of which I know nothing,” Resmore replied coolly. “I have only been with them a few days, and they have not left the mountains in that time—until you illegally descended upon them. Who is the raider now?”
Brind’Amour’s blue eyes flared dangerously at that last remark. “Pretty words, Duke Resmore,” he said grimly. “But worthless, I assure you. Magic was used in the massacre known as Sougles’s Glen; its tracings can still be felt by those attuned to such powers.”
Brind’Amour’s not-so-subtle proclamation that he, too, was a wizard seemed to unnerve the man more than a little.
“Your role in the attacks can be proven,” Brind’Amour went on, “and a wizard’s neck is no more resistant to the rope than is a peasant’s.”
The mob exploded with screams for the man’s death, by hanging or burning, or whatever method could be quickly expedited. Many seemed ready to break ranks and beat the man. Brind’Amour would hear none of it, though. He motioned for Luthien and the others to take Resmore and the cyclopians into the Ministry, where they were put into separate dungeons. Resmore was assigned two personal guards, elves, who were quite sensitive to magic, who stood over the man continually, swords drawn and ready.
“We should thank you for your role in the capture,” Luthien remarked to Brind’Amour, walking the passageways along the smaller side rooms in the great structure beside Oliver and their king.
“Oh yes,” Oliver piped in. “A so-very-fine shot!”
Brind’Amour slowed enough to stare at his companions, his expression showing that he did not understand.
“In the mountains,” Luthien clarified. “When Resmore called in his demon.”
“You faced yet another hellish fiend?” Brind’Amour asked.
“Until your so booming bolt of lightning,” Oliver replied. “On came the beast for Luthien—he would not approach my rapier blade, you see.”
“A’ta’arrefi, the demon was called,” Luthien interrupted, not willing to hear Oliver’s always-skewed perspective.
Still Brind’Amour seemed not to understand.
“He resembled a dog,” Luthien added, “though he walked upright, as a man.”
“And his tongue was forked,” Oliver added, and it took the halfling’s two companions a moment to decipher that last word, which Oliver’s thick Gascon accent made sound as though it were two separate words, “for-ked.” The halfling’s gesture helped in the translation, for he put two wiggling fingers up in front of his mouth.
Brind’Amour shrugged.
“Your lightning bolt,” Luthien insisted. “It could not have been mere chance!”
“Say it plainly, my boy,” the wizard begged.
“Resmore’s demon ran for us,” Luthien replied. “He was but five paces from me when the storm broke, a sting of lightning rushing down.”
“Boom!” Oliver yelled. “Right on the head.”
“And all that was left of A’ta’arrefi was his blackened tongue,” said Luthien.
“For-ked,” Oliver finished.
Brind’Amour rubbed his white beard briskly. He had no idea of what the two were talking about, for he hadn’t even been looking that way; Brind’Amour had been so engrossed with events in the east and south that he had no idea Luthien and Oliver had even gone into the mountains with Siobhan, let alone that they were facing a demon! Still, it seemed perfectly impossible to him that the lightning bolt was a natural accident. Luthien and Oliver were lucky indeed, but that was too far-fetched. Obviously a wizard had been involved. Perhaps it was even Greensparrow himself, aiming for Luthien and hitting Resmore’s fiend by mistake. “Yes, of course,” was all that he said to the two. “A fine shot, that. Demons are easy targets, though; stand out among mortals like a giant among halflings.”
Luthien managed a weak smile, not convinced that Brind’Amour was speaking truthfully. The young Bedwyr had no other explanation, though, and so he let it go at that. If there was something amiss, magically speaking, then it would be Brind’Amour’s concern, and not his own.
“Come,” the wizard bade, moving down a side passage. “We have perhaps found the link between Greensparrow and the cyclopians, thus our treaty with Avon may be deemed void. Let us draw up the truce with King Asmund of Isenland and begin to lay our plans.”
“We will fight Greensparrow?” Luthien asked bluntly.
“I do not yet know,” Brind’Amour replied. “I must speak with our prisoners, and with the ambassador from Gascony. There is much to do before any final decisions can be made.”
Of course there was, Luthien realized, but the young Bedwyr held faith then that he would not be battling against his brother. Greensparrow’s treacherous hand had been revealed in full; Resmore was all the proof they needed. Visions of sailing the fleet up the Stratton into Carlisle beside the Huegoth longships danced in Luthien’s mind.
It was not an unpleasant fantasy.
Brind’Amour entered the dimly lit room solemnly, wearing his rich blue wizard robes. Candles burned softly from pedestals in each of the room’s corners. In the center was a small round table and a single stool.
Brind’Amour took his place on the stool. With trembling hands, he reached up and removed the cloth draped over the single object on the table, his crystal ball. It was with trepidation and nervous excitement that the wizard began his incantation. Brind’Amour didn’t believe that Greensparrow had launched a bolt for Luthien that had accidentally destroyed Resmore’s familiar demon. In lieu of that, the old wizard could think of only one explanation for Luthien’s incredible tale: one of his fellows from the ancient brotherhood of wizards had awakened and joined in the effort. What else might explain the lightning bolt?