"Vile temptress!" the little witch screamed, circling ten feet overhead. "Vice and seductress!"
But above her a bigger witch dipped down, riding sidesaddle, calling "Lord counts! Good knights! Wilt thou let such a serpent writhe free? Nay! Catch her and bind her!"
Her voice was compelling with more than mere overtones.
The counts finally shouted and leaped forward in the relief of action, and a dozen knights charged with them to wrest the Lady Mayrose from the Archbishop's arms. He roared, finally charged with anger again, catching the mace from her hands and whirling it down at the nearest knight.
Geoffrey appeared with a gunshot crack, floating in midair, one hand upheld, and the mace bounced off an invisible shield about him as he shouted, "Wouldst thou attack, then? Thou, who hast preached the word of Christ? Thou, who dost dare to instruct knights and dukes? Thou corrupter of Gospels! Thou renegade cleric! Thou most unworthy of the cloth thou dost wear!"
In panic the Archbishop rained blow after blow at the boy, but Geoffrey parried them all in sheer reflex.
A man-at-arms laughed in disbelief. Then another did, and another, and soon the whole field roared in hilarity at the ridiculous spectacle of the dreaded Archbishop, balked by a boy.
Di Medici bellowed in dead-end despair and charged out.
"The hell you do!" Rod roared. "Now, Fess!"
The great black horse screamed and leaped toward the duke.
Di Medici saw him coming and turned to meet him, sword flashing out.
Rod parried one cut and slammed into him, body to body, and Fess's unyielding form staggered the duke's charger. He swayed in the saddle, and Rod twisted him around, the duke's throat in the crook of the Lord Warlock's arm. " 'The Lord has given him into my hand!'" Rod roared. "Yield, my lord, yield! All who follow this traitorous duke, lay down your arms, or he dies!"
One by one the knights threw down their swords, and the men-at-arms, grinning, dropped their pikes.
Except, that is, for the knights who had finally managed to drag the Lady Mayrose down off her horse, to bind her arms as she screamed and screamed, cursing them in more vile language than ever they had heard from a lady—and too loudly for them to have heard the Lord Warlock.
The mace slipped from the Archbishop's exhausted fingers.
"Down on your knees!" McGee thundered. "Repent while you can!"
Ashen-faced, the Archbishop slid from his horse, stood a moment, then toppled in a dead faint.
Panting, Rod looked up over Di Medici's squirming shoulder, and saw Tuan sitting his horse with one knee hooked around the pommel, wearing the broadest smile he owned.
Rod scowled. "You could at least have helped out a little, Your Majesty!"
"Wherefore, Lord Warlock?" the King asked, all innocence. "Thou and thy bairns did so well of thine own!"
Chapter Twenty
The rays of the afternoon sun slanted in through the high windows of the Great Hall, gilding the ranks of the assembled noblemen and their knights. The King and Queen sat framed in purple draperies under a silken canopy above their thrones.
Before them, in a clean tunic and hose, was Hoban, trying to stand tall and proud, but more terrified than he had ever been before the Archbishop and all his monks.
"Know ye all," cried a leather-lunged herald, "that this good man, hight Hoban, did bravely go into the monastery of St. Vidicon, knowing his peril, yet determined to discover the news that Their Majesties did need. He sent to them intelligence that did bring the traitor Alfonso into their hands, and thereby did strongly abet their victory at Despard Plain. In recognition thereof, Their Majesties do bestow upon him the honor of the Order of the Wheel!"
The chamber burst into murmuring, for the order was the highest that could be awarded a member of the Fourth Estate. Tuan nodded to Sir Maris, who stepped forward to place a chain over Hoban's head. Hoban stared down in amazement at the medallion hanging on his breast.
The herald blew a blast, and the courtiers fell silent. Catharine lifted her head and called out, "In further recognition of thy worth, good Hoban, we raise thee now from thy bond to the land, and declare thee henceforth a yeoman, with the surname Bravura!"
The crowd's murmur was much louder, but very much approving. Hoban turned beet red. "Majesty… I am not worthy—"
Tuan silenced him with a lifted palm, then signed to the herald, who blew another blast. The courtiers quieted again, and Tuan said, "We grant to thee ten acres of land, to have and to hold for thyself and all of thy line, as long as it shall endure—ten acres within the County of Schicci, formerly of the demesne of Di Medici, but now within the estates of the Lord High Warlock!"
Hoban nearly fainted from shock, and the crowd burst into a roaring hubbub. It was fitting that the traitor's lands should be awarded to a loyal man, but it was the first sign of the Crown's justice.
"My lord, 'tis far from our cottage, o'er the mountains!" Gwen said into his ear.
"I know, dear," Rod said glumly, "but I don't think this is quite the time to tell him I hate the idea of being a landlord."
Hoban was being conducted from Their Majesties' presence by a footman, and he needed the help—he was so dazed, he scarcely knew where he was going. Tuan let the hubbub grow, then slacken, before he nodded to Sir Maris again. The seneschal beckoned to some guardsmen, and they stood aside as a train of knights escorted the Due Di Medici and his supporters in to face the thrones, their heads held high in spite of the load of chains that weighted them. They lined up, and if looks could have killed, Tuan and Catharine would have been dead that instant.
Catharine returned glare for glare, but Tuan only held his face hard against their hatred as he stood.
The room grew very quiet.
"Thou dost stand convicted of high treason," the King declared. "Hear now our judgment: That thine estates shall each be diminished, and thy loyal neighbors' increased, and that thou shalt have one day and night to make such peace with God as thou canst, ere thou dost go to the block, to have thy heads hewn off from thy bodies."
Their glares held the resignation of fatalists now; they had gambled, and they had lost. But the courtiers around them were impressed at the King's mercy; noblemen or not, he could have insisted they be drawn and quartered.
So they were almost scandalized when Count Ghibelli stepped forward from their ranks and cried, "Mercy! I cry mercy for my father!"
"Be still!" Di Medici hissed furiously, but Tuan turned to the young nobleman and nodded gravely.
"My lord Ghibelli, thou hast well and faithfully served us in this coil. Speak; we attend."
Ghibelli fell to one knee, and Marshall and his other companions stepped forward beside him, falling to their knees also. "He hath offended grievously," Ghibelli pleaded, "yet I beg thy gracious mercies! Let not our fathers be slain! Grant them, at least, the opportunity for penance and remorse, we beseech thee!"
"A lord must not beg," Di Medici grated.
Tuan met Catharine's glance, then turned slowly back to Ghibelli, nodding. "It shall be as thou dost ask; this boon, at least, we may grant. Thy sires shall retire to the monastery they have so lately supported, or to a well-guarded hermitage at a castle remote."
"Thou art merciful." Ghibelli bowed his head. "I thank thee from all that I am!"
"Thou shalt be greater henceforth," Tuan answered, and the crowd stiffened, suddenly knowing what would be said. It was the rule of the game, after all, for the young lords had sided with the Crown.