"It is, in truth." Beaubras swung a leg over the log. "What is this gin, Lord Gallowglass?"
"We call it a 'deadfall,' where I come from."
"Aptly named," Beaubras judged. "Hadst thou not brought it down, I would have fallen dead indeed, beneath its weight."
Rod had his doubts about that. There were things that could kill Beaubras, but a foot-thick log wasn't one of them.
On the other hand, Rod wasn't Beaubras, was he? Nice to know that the knight's apprehensions, at least, were normal.
Modwis vaulted over the log and trudged ahead. "Thy light, milord?"
"Huh? Oh!" Rod looked back at the fox fire and whistled. It rose into the air and bobbed over to him.
Modwis stared at it for a moment. Then he said, "Yes," and cleared his throat. "Shall we climb?"
"By all means."
The dwarf started up the stairs, calling back over his shoulder, " 'Ware, gentlemen. An there be one trap, there may indeed be others."
But there were no more traps. Small wonder; the stairs were almost enough to finish Rod off by themselves. By the time he came to the top, he was panting and dragging feet that felt like lead—but Beaubras plodded steadily upward, not even noticing the extra hundred pounds in steel plate he was carrying. "Talk about fantasy," Rod muttered.
"What sayest thou, Lord Gallowglass?"
"Nothing worth hearing." Rod leaned against the stairhead and wheezed. "How… about this door… Modwis?"
"We shall see." The dwarf stepped up and set his palm over the keyhole. He frowned, then shook his head. " 'Tis strange."
"What?" Rod was instantly on his guard. "Is it rigged?"
"There is naught linked to it, no. Yet there is no warding magic, either. I should have thought there would have been."
"Overconfidence?" Rod said, but he felt uneasy.
"There was magic enough in the cleft below," Beaubras pointed out. "I misdoubt me an the builder looked for any to come so far as we have, gentles."
"Good point," Rod admitted. "Who knows? Maybe this door is here to keep people /«."
"There is that," Modwis admitted. Then the lock groaned, and the door swung open.
Candlelight assaulted their eyes, seeming as bright as noon on a chalk cliff after the glow of the will-o'-the-wisp. Music and laughter swirled about them, punctuated by voices in sneering badinage. Rod squinted against the light and made out a multitude of forms, gaily dressed in rich apparel, milling about a huge open space. Distant walls hung with glorious tapestries, lit by sconces and chandeliers. "We did it," he said, half to himself. "We actually made it. Gentlemen, we're in the Great Hall!"
Then the draft blew his way, and he nearly keeled over from the thickness of the incense. It smelled as though the Buddhists and the Catholics were having a contest to see which of them was in better aroma with God. In his weakened condition, it hit him like a padded hammer. His eyes glazed and his knees buckled.
The steel chest of Beaubras held him up, and the knight murmured, "Courage, Lord Gallowglass. We must face whatever horrors the Lady Aggravate can conjure."
"I'll—adjust." Rod gasped. "I just hadn't expected the keep to be so odorous."
"Yet surely thou thyself did say that they who dwell in High Dudgeon are always incensed!"
"Yes, but I hadn't quite registered the notion emotionally. I'll manage." Rod pulled himself together and stood forth.
Actually, he stood second—Modwis had managed to push past him, so he was first in line when the guards attacked.
They seemed to materialize from each side of the portal, shouting and stabbing with pikes and halberds. Modwis's iron club whirled out, blocking desperately, and Beaubras shouldered past Rod, drawing his sword. Fear stabbed harder than the halberds, with anger right behind it; the adrenaline tightened Rod's sinews and pulled him back into fighting trim. He drew his own sword and plunged into the melee, hacking and slashing, but the only heads he managed to chop off were spear points. Beaubras's sword was a blur, and guardsmen fell back from his blade; their broken weapons littered the floor, and the circle around the companions widened as the guards retreated, step by step. Rod bellowed with joy and followed the knight, hewing mightily, with the fleeting hope that all he was really doing was stacking up kindling for the rest of the winter.
Then, suddenly, a low moan went through the throng, and the guards right in front of them drew away. The guards to either side stepped back a pace, holding their weapons at guard, and Beaubras hesitated, glancing up at the parting circle, then looking again as an avenue opened in front of them. He straightened, head high and sword ready, but he left off chopping. Modwis stepped back, too, but with a murderous glare and a ready mace. Rod was feeling a little more ready and lot more murderous, but he held off, anyway.
Fess's voice sounded in his ear. "Rod, why has the fighting stilled?"
"Because," Rod said slowly, "the Grande Dame approacheth."
Down the aisle she came, a walking mound of brocades and velvets, a maze of houppelandes and bustles and panniers. Her lantern-jawed horseface was crowned with a lofty headdress surrounded by a chaplet enclosing a coronet, and the amount of veiling that floated about her would have appalled even Salome.
"Nothing succeeds like excess," Rod murmured.
The lady stalked to a halt in front of them, jammed her fists on her hips, and demanded, "Who art thou, who dost come so unmannerly into my castle?"
Her effluvium hit like a ton of atomizers, and Rod understood why she burned all that incense. Having nearly fainted once, he was better able to withstand the onslaught, but Beaubras had had no such hardening. The knight staggered back, and Rod had to catch him, throwing all his weight against the knight to shove him upright. Even then, he tilted slowly backward until Modwis jammed a shoulder in under the knight's hip, and the two of them together managed to restabilize him. Unfortunately, Beaubras was still at an angle, and Rod was not inclined to hold up two hundred pounds of knight and a hundred pounds of armor all morning. "The amulet," he hissed. "Pull out the amulet!"
Weakly, Beaubras fumbled at his gorget, pulling the bauble out of his armor. "O magic charm," he gasped, "ward me from this olfactory ambuscade!"
The amulet's outlines softened. It seemed to flow, elongating, then became hard and clear again—as a necklace of bulbous, tissue-wrapped lumps. A reek emanated from it, surrounding Beaubras's head like an invisible shield, and spreading out to enclose his whole entourage, all two of them. The knight's nose wrinkled with disdain, but he managed to clamber back upright, protected from the lady's aroma by a necklace of garlic.
"I am the knight Beaubras, and these are my companions, the dwarf Modwis, and the Lord Gallowglass. Art thou the Lady Aggravate?"
"I am." She tilted her head back and somehow managed to look down her nose at a man a good foot and a half taller than herself. "Wherefore hast thou come?"
"Why," said Beaubras, "to free my dear Lady Haughteur from the toils of this keep!"
"Ha!" the lady cried, and managed to follow the syllable with something approximating a laugh. "Toils? All is lighthearted gaiety, in High Dudgeon! And as for thy leman, she hath not been borne here, nor is held by aught but her own desire!"
"Why," said Beaubras, "then bid her come nigh me."
"I move at no man's bidding, sirrah!"
Beaubras winced at the insult of the "sirrah."
"An she doth wish converse with thee," the dame went on, "she will come of her own accord."
"I misdoubt me of that," Beaubras said, his lips thin, "and I will judge it for myself. In what chamber dwells my lady?"
"Thou shalt not learn of her dwelling, nor shalt thou seek it out!" the dame stated, affronted. "Thou shalt betake thee out as thou didst come in!"
"Nay," said Beaubras, "that shall I not. An thou dost give so little courtesy, thou hast small cause to look for it in others." So saying, he stepped forward, shouldered past the dame, and bulled his way through the guardsmen.