"You are hurt!" Geordie stepped forward, taking his father's arm.
"Only numbed for the moment," Anselm assured him. "The snake knows some underhanded fighting tricks. At dawn we shall take this traitor to your uncle and let the King decide his fate."
Bound tightly to a cellar post with a man-at-arms giving him a stony glare, Sir Orgon bowed his head in dejection. The peasant army would reach Runnymede the next day and would no doubt do an excellent job of distracting the royal family—but there would be no cadre of lords to seize the royal castle and bring down the Queen. One more chance to win Gramarye for SPITE would slip away—and with it, Sir Orgon's career. He would be stuck on this dreary medieval planet forever, and would never again know the pleasures and luxuries of the future metropolitan capital his colleagues were working so hard to subvert!
FALSE DAWN FILLED the sky; the horizon glowed over the river, about to explode with sunlight. Diru stepped out of the woods and looked for the witch-sentries the minstrel had sung about—the crown's tame warlocks, set to guard the river to keep anyone from inviting the monsters out. There, he saw one, high atop the cliffs! But the woman only paused a minute or two, looking down over the river meadow, then turned away and paced out of sight.
Now would be the time, while she was gone! Diru dashed out across the meadow toward a huge boulder that stood twenty feet from the water. He crouched beside it, waiting for the mist to rise. Tendrils curled up from the water, thicker and thicker; the first ray of sunlight turned them golden as they merged into a swirling wall.
Now! Diru called out, "Monsters of the mist, come forth! Enter my land, and revenge me upon my enemies!"
For a minute, nothing moved, and Dim's heart sank— but that movement in the foggy wall turned into a whirlpool that opened, wider and wider. A giant tuft-eared cat leaped out of it onto the turf of Gramarye with a yowl of victory.
For behind it came a horde of them pouring out behind the giant cat, wailing and howling and chittering and bellowing, and the sight of them made Dim's blood run cold—a huge stiff-legged thing that looked to be some kind of giant insect with sharp hooks on the ends of its arm, and another with gleaming sickles for a mouth. Crowding behind them came creatures that were part wolf and part lion, great lumbering shaggy upright things grinning with multiple rows of razor-sharp teeth, huge lizards with fangs as long as his hand, and in the center of them all, riding a dragon with tentacles instead of wings, came a man gorgeously clad in robes of midnight blue and silver, grinning through a neatly-trimmed black beard as he shouted his triumph.
Then the huge cat came bounding over the meadow straight toward Dim. For a moment, he thought he was going to be praised, thanked, honored—but its mouth yawned wide showing teeth like scimitars, and Dim had just time to realize what a horrid fool he had been before he died.
THE PEASANTS CAME trooping into the meadow outside the walls of Runnymede, brandishing their scythes and flails but seeming nonetheless uncertain. Knowing they would be, agents circulated among the men, saying, "Remember your children! Do you want them to grow up to a life like yours?" And, "Why should the ladies dwell in marble palaces, wearing silk and surrounded by tapestries, when your wives wear homespun and walk on dirt floors?" or, "Bring down the lords, or your wives will forever sneer at you for cowards, and your beds will be cold all your lives!"
The men heeded and, little by little, began to remember their anger. The crowd began to chum into a restless and wrathful mob. Someone began shouting for blood; others took up the cry. Soon thousands of voices echoed the calclass="underline" "Down with the King! Down with the Queen!"
The gates of the city opened, and the mob surged toward them, howling—but a score of armored knights rode out, each followed by a hundred armed and armored soldiers. The crowd began to slow, and their shouts gained an uncertain tone.
Then someone bellowed, "Yonder!" and everyone looked up to see another score of knights riding down into the valley from the west with two thousand soldiers behind them. Another panicked cry turned the crowd to the east to see yet another army advancing. The crowd's tone took on a note of fear. One voice shrilled above the others: "They're a long way away! We can still run for… ADEEE!"
With a gasp of horror, peasants pushed backward, leaving an open space around the fallen man, blood flowing from the dent in his skull. Before they could recover from violence within their own ranks, a voice cried, "Thus be it ever to traitors!" and others took up the call, "Face the knights and chop down their horses!" Still another called, "We'll be forever shamed if we go home empty-handed!"
"The King!" a dozen voices cried, and the whole mob turned to see three men riding out from the gate, flanked by palace guards. A golden crown glittered around the helmet of the middle one.
"I AM LOATH to strike down my own people, Father," Alain said.
"I am even more loath to let them strike down you," Geoffrey said from Tuan's other side.
"Is it kill or be killed, my son?" Tuan asked. "Do you see no other way?"
"Let me talk to them, at least," Alain urged.
Tuan thought a moment, then nodded slowly. "They are your people now and will be your subjects soon. Test their loyalty."
Alain nodded and kicked his horse into a trot. Geoffrey stared, then sped after him—but Alain heard the hoofbeats and turned back with a radiant smile. "I thank you, my friend," he said, "but this I must do alone."
Geoffrey reined in, exasperated. "Do you speak as my liege lord?"
"As your future liege," Alain qualified.
"Then I shall do as you bid," Geoffrey had to force out the words, then cried, "If they harm a single hair on your head, I'll see every one of them hang!"
Alain beamed at him in answer, then turned to ride alone toward the crowd.
They murmured in awe as he rode up to them—and in among them. They parted, scarcely able to believe they were so close to their Prince—or that he dared come into their midst when they held weapons. Then a voice shrieked, "Haul him down!"
Three men turned on the rabble-rouser and clouted him cold.
"I am your Prince!" Alain called out. "Why have you come? Tell me your grievances, that I may address them!"
"Don't trust him!" a voice shrilled. "He's a lord! They only want to use …"
A meaty thud cut him short.
"We will hear you!" a dozen voices shouted.
"Nay, it is I who shall hear you!" Alain called in reply. "Speak! Do your lords' soldiers beat you? Do your lords starve you or force you to work so long on their lands that you cannot tend your own? Tell me!"
The crowd milled about for a few moments, muttering to one another; then a man called out, "Why must we live in mud huts while your kind live in castles?"
"There will always be rich and poor, alas," Alain answered. "Were I to forsake my castle and give you all I own, it would be gone in a fortnight, and some other man would fight his way to owning that castle and making you work for him."
"Not if we killed all the lords!" another man shouted.
"Some of your own would gather more and more bullies about them," Alain answered, "and seek to make you all their slaves. Their grandchildren might begin to think they have some obligation to you, but how many of you would have died in misery by then?"
"How many of us shall die in misery now?" demanded another.
"Well asked," Alain replied, turning toward the voice. 'Tell me who lives in misery, and I shall give him food and clothing of my own. If you know any old folk who dwell in poverty and are like to die in misery, give me their names and places, and I will send helpers to them."