A Sorcerer and a Gentleman Read online

  A Sorcerer and a Gentleman

  Elizabeth Willey

  www.sfgateway.com

  Enter the SF Gateway …

  In the last years of the twentieth century (as Wells might have put it), Gollancz, Britain’s oldest and most distinguished science fiction imprint, created the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series. Dedicated to re-publishing the English language’s finest works of SF and Fantasy, most of which were languishing out of print at the time, they were – and remain – landmark lists, consummately fulfilling the original mission statement:

  ‘SF MASTERWORKS is a library of the greatest SF ever written, chosen with the help of today’s leading SF writers and editors. These books show that genuinely innovative SF is as exciting today as when it was first written.’

  Now, as we move inexorably into the twenty-first century, we are delighted to be widening our remit even more. The realities of commercial publishing are such that vast troves of classic SF & Fantasy are almost certainly destined never again to see print. Until very recently, this meant that anyone interested in reading any of these books would have been confined to scouring second-hand bookshops. The advent of digital publishing has changed that paradigm for ever.

  The technology now exists to enable us to make available, for the first time, the entire backlists of an incredibly wide range of classic and modern SF and fantasy authors. Our plan is, at its simplest, to use this technology to build on the success of the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series and to go even further.

  Welcome to the new home of Science Fiction & Fantasy. Welcome to the most comprehensive electronic library of classic SFF titles ever assembled.

  Welcome to the SF Gateway.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Gateway Introduction

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Website

  Also by Elizabeth Willey

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Copyright

  “For herein may be seen noble chivalry, courtesy, humanity, friendliness, hardiness, love, friendship, cowardice, murder, hate, virtue, and sin. Do after the good and leave the evil, and it shall bring you to good fame and renown.”

  —Caxton

  1

  IT IS A PROVERB OFTEN QUOTED but seldom applied, that all a gentleman needs to travel is a good cloak, a good horse, and a good sword. Indeed, given the style and comfort in which those on whom society bestows the appellation “gentlemen” usually travel, the picture of a well-dressed, handsome young man on a fine horse, armed with a blade housed in a long silver-chased scabbard, the end of which protrudes from his full-cut sea-green cloak with its shoulder cape flaring in the haste of his travel, would inspire a beholder to identify the gallant as anything but a gentleman. “A highwayman,” one might say; or, on a closer look, “a special messenger for the Emperor, who dwells in this great city here in the distance”; or more cynically, “a rake fleeing the city on account of his debts and his mistress’s husband”; or any of a hatful of titles might one append to this picture, before “a gentleman” be suggested.

  And that one would be instantly derided as inaccurate. For, look! This man has no baggage but the saddlebags on his horse; he is alone, without a single servant to attend him; moreover he is on horseback rather than in a carriage with the fine horse ridden by his lackey; and furthermore, he is plainly galloping, as may be seen from the billowing of his cape and the elevation of his horse’s hooves, and his hair is blown about and his clothing disordered by the exercise. Lastly and most tellingly, it is night-time in the picture, as the swollen moon breasting the horizon and a few stars show, long after sundown, a time when any true gentleman would long since have been snugly established in his chosen inn for the night with a good dinner and a bottle of wine.

  Thus do many antiquated proverbs suffer derision when they venture into the harsh environment of the modern world. Can he truly be a gentleman, though he ride swiftly, at night, away from the security of the city, alone and armed?

  Only the rider knows. He is quite secure about his own estate, and perhaps is now observing to himself that he is the very picture of that proverb mainly quoted nowadays by gouty earls at the fireside deriding the softness of the younger generation, who travel with everything but a wine-cellar and purchase and consume one as they go. (The earls suffer amnesia regarding their own pasts and curse the present gout whilst recalling fondly wines of bygone days.)

  He has no question in his own mind as to what he is, and if you were to ask him, he might tell you without hesitation.

  You could not ask him. He was already gone by the time it occurred to you; his horse swift and his purpose clear, he went left at the crossroads on the hill where the moon cut a black shadow beside a kingstone. His first goal was to pass that crossroads at that time, exactly as the moon was clearing the horizon and casting the kingstone’s shadow as a pointer down the road he took. When he turned, he faded from sight, as if he rode into a fog bank when there was no fog there at all.

  2

  “ARIEL!”

  “Here, Master!”

  “The full moon’s rays are requisite for work I plan tonight. Dispel these scudding clouds without harsh wind or undue storm, that the rising lunar light may fall unfiltered on the world.”

  “All of it, Master Prospero?” Ariel asked, dubious.

  “This part where I am,” Prospero clarified, not unkindly. “Let us say, the eastern region of this continent, including this island. All night.”

  “The breath of your order shall be gale, good Master,” Ariel said, and left with a gust of wind, racing east.

  Prospero’s black-lined blue cloak flared and rippled with the Sylph’s passage; his dark hair stirred; the island’s trees soughed and whispered among themselves, then calmed. From his place by the mighty tree that crowned the island’s hill, he gazed over the river to the east and saw Ariel’s rippling wake pass over the landscape, out of sight, purling and streaking the fat gilt-shouldered clouds. Now he took his silver-wound staff and struck its bright heel on the ground three times.

  “Caliban!” he called.

  “Aye,” grunted a voice beneath his feet. The stone roiled and rose: a torso; a rough head coarse-featured; a square slab-body and hard arms textured like fine-grained unpolished granite. Caliban squinted in the beating midsummer sun.

  “Here at this living tower’s roots I’ll have a basin sculpted in the stone whereof it grips,” Prospero said, lifting his staff and then setting it down, “a hollow which is spherical, circularly exact, such that the diameter be measured from here—” he struck the stone with the heel of the staff and paced—“to here at its broadest point below the surface
of the ground, and such that its opening be from here—” and he paced again— “to here.”

  There was a perplexed silence, and then, “Ah. Like an orange with the top cut off to suck at it.”

  “Even so.”

  “That will fill with the waters of the Spring that rises here in its middle, Master—”

  “Even so.”

  “Ah.” The black stone over which the tree’s roots ran and into which they had forced their way rippled as Caliban moved. “If it’s a well you’d have me delve, Master—”

  “No well, but a bowl, which shall cup the Spring’s unstinting flow for my night’s work.”

  “The basin shall be scoured as you command, Master.”

  “Be finished ere the sun sets,” Prospero said, “ere the sun’s disk is a fist’s width above the long horizon, for it must fill, and I’ve preparations to complete.”

  “Aye, Master.” Caliban sank into the stone, which hissed and heated with his hasty passage.

  Prospero watched as the stone began to move. The rest of his preparations were made; the stage was being set; there remained but one vital piece of business before the hour of his sorcery came. He left the hilltop and its great tree and went down a footpath, winding through the straight trunks of high-crowned trees and along a rocky outcrop, until he came to an end of the cool-shaded wood. A garden lay before him in casual beds and terraces, clumps of fruiting trees and clusters of exuberant blossoms, and at its farthest end he descried a bent back and a mill-wheel of a yellow straw hat radiant in the sun.

  A neat gravelled path led him to the gardener.

  “What cheer, daughter?”

  She sat back on her heels, grubby and smiling, dark curling tendrils falling from under the hat to nourish themselves on her damp neck. “I suppose you want strawberries,” she said.

  “Were they less sweet and thy care of them less fruitful, I’d have none,” he replied, smiling, “so ’tis a tribute to thy own hand that I have devour’d so many; they are the very heart of summer and their goodness nourished of thine, therefore must I love them as I love thee. But nay, ’tis thee I’ll have. The heat’s great, the day wears long; thy labor’s never done, and as well ceased now as ever. I bid thee lunch with me.”

  “It’s early,” she said.

  “Not untimely so,” Prospero disagreed mildly. “Go thou, bathe and dress; I’ll look to the meal, and we’ll meet on the green where the table is. Take our ease as the wise beasts o’ the wood do when the sun is fiercest on the flesh.”

  “It is hot. Yes. We must have strawberries, though—they’ll rot if we don’t eat them, and the idea of cooking even more jam …” Her voice trailed away.

  “Well enough. Hast thy basket?”

  Prospero picked the strawberries with her, though they both ate any number of the winey-ripe ones as well, and carried them off while she ran ahead to fetch clean clothes and a towel. He had already made some preparation of the meal, and now he finished and laid a cold roast pheasant, poached fish, a salad of peas and tiny vegetables dressed with vinegar and mint, a dish of hot-spiced grain with raisins, and a pyramid of fruits out invitingly on his huge dark table, its single-slab top upheld by the wings of two carven birds of prey which clutched lesser earthbound creatures in their brass claws. The table, as was their summer custom, stood outside beneath a spreading tree on the little lawn before the small scarp wherein lay his cave, its thick door open to the soft air.

  He was just opening a cool bottle of sweet white wine when his daughter came up the path that led to the river, bathed and fresh-gowned in gauzy green. Prospero set the bottle down and watched her approach, approving and appreciative. Her tailoring skills were simple, thus all her dresses were little more than smocks, ribboned and laced to fit: indecent in civilized society, but charming here in the wilderness.

  “In such heat,” she said, “the forest is a better place to be. Tomorrow, will you hunt with me?”

  “What of thy garden?”

  “Oh, well, as you say, ’tis never done.”

  “No ground to shirk,” he chided her gently, and poured wine for her.

  She curtseyed slightly, as he had taught her, and took the cup. “Thank you, Papa. It was you who tempted me from work with swimming and a lovely luncheon; you can hardly blame me for wanting a holiday.”

  “I blame thee not at all. Come, all’s ready, and my appetite as well.”

  “This breeze is good,” said she. “It is nearly cool here, in the shade.”

  They ate side-by-side, looking down the slope below their tree and table, which she had planted with flowers and small trees. When the cold fish and meat were gone and the fruits being picked at leisurely, Prospero turned the conversation abruptly from the flowers.

  “I have in mind to make some alterations in our life,” he said.

  She set down her wineglass and tilted her head to one side, puzzled. “Alterations?”

  Prospero leaned back. “Long ago I told thee, Freia,” he began, “that I am a Prince in my own realm, far-distant Landuc—a Prince, and should be King, but that my brothers conspired against me and denied me my rightful place.”

  “I remember,” she said.

  “Dost remember? ’Twas many winters past, and we’ve not spoken of’t since. For it displeaseth me to chew it over.”

  “I do remember,” she said, “for you told me of your friends there, and of beautiful Lady Miranda, and of the great city and the Palace gardens.”

  “Thou rememb’rest, then, that my pompous brother inflated himself from King to Emperor ’pon his accession to the stolen throne.”

  She nodded.

  “Thou rememb’rest that I told thee ’twas not finished.” His eyes were like high grey clouds with the sun behind them.

  She nodded again, wary of his intensity.

  “Time’s come,” Prospero said, “for me to make my move ’gainst that false popinjay and knock him down. I’ve labored long here and elsewhere, setting my plans in slow motion, and now the hour is nigh for swifter action.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  He seemed not to hear her. “To move that action shall require changes here. I warn thee now; I’ve spoken of some to thee ere this, and I saw them little please thee. Yet change cannot be denied.”

  Freia tensed, straightened. “Why not? Why shouldn’t we live as we have, here, you and me and your sorcery and my garden and things? I like this. Don’t you?”

  “I like it well, wench, but a man cannot sup on strawberries all the days of his life,” Prospero said. “ ’Twill change, I tell thee, and we’ll change too. My idleness ill-fits my nature, and it must end and this idyll withal.”

  She shook her head, contrary. “This is perfect, just as it is, and there’s plenty to do and I’m not idle. What are you going to change? What is lacking? Why shouldn’t we stay the same?”

  “Freia, Freia. Think’st thou that I was always as I am today? Wert thou? Nay; I’ve bettered thee, hast said it thyself. What thou art today, is what I’ve made of thee; my daughter, a lady, and soon a princess: bettered again.” He had taken her hands in his and held them as he held her gaze.

  “I don’t want to be a Lady or a Princess! Why do you want to be a Prince, or a King? Aren’t you happy here?”

  “Freia, ’tis more than a thing I wish to be. ’Tis what I am. This place is comfortable enough, were I but a sorcerer, but I am not. I did not choose this place to be comfortable in, but to labor, and my labor here draws near completion; the fruits of my patience come ripe, e’en as thy garden beginneth with hard work and small shoots, then groweth to savorous maturity. And thou, thou didst not choose this place; ’tis all thy world, I know, and though thou’rt content enough here solitary ’mongst thy fruits and flowers, I know the little discontents that shall fret thee to aversion in morrow-days. Better to remember thy garden-isle fondly later than to hate it.”

  “I love this place, I always shall, I love it as it is,” she said, heart-wringingly. “Please
don’t change it. Please. What are you going to do, Papa?”

  “We must have a city, Freia, walled and strong—”

  “No!”

  “—and bridges o’er the river, therefore great numbers of hardy men to build—”

  “No!”

  They stared at one another. Freia’s expression of stubborn determination mirrored Prospero’s, and Prospero’s hands tightened around hers balled into stone-hard fists. “Darest thou contradict me?” he snapped. “I’ll not countenance it; the world moveth forward, be thou retrograde as thou wilt. It must happen, Freia, and it shall, and thou’lt see: ’Twill like thee better than thou think’st.”

  The Prince of Madana, Heir of Landuc, lay on his bed fully clothed and stared at the white-and-blue scrolled ceiling.

  Something had happened to him last night. It was something unpleasant. He was dressed, and that was wrong; he never slept in his clothes—he would sooner go naked to dinner. His head ached. Shreds of dreams still clung to his thoughts: suffocating dreams, drowning dreams, entangled dreams of nets and sticky webs.

  “Sir?” someone said.

  The Prince turned his head and saw the concerned faces of five people who stood at his bedside. They were all leaning toward him, eyes wide, and the same expression of relief and rejoicing washed over all five.

  “Doctor Hem,” said the Prince, wondering what was wrong with him.

  “Tell the Emperor and Empress,” said Doctor Hem to the footman beside him, who hurried out. “Yes, Your Highness,” he added to the Prince, smiling, bowing.

  “What’s that stink?” The Prince frowned, swallowing and beginning to sit up.

  “No, no! Do not rise, Your Highness, the crisis is only just past; do not rise, lest the balance of humors be disrupted again,” cried the Doctor, and made him lie down again.

  “What the blazes is going on? What’s the matter?” demanded the Prince, grabbing the Doctor’s arm.

  The door banged and the footman cried hurriedly, “His Majesty Emperor Avril—”

  “Silence,” said the Emperor impatiently, entering, and glared at the others as he did. “You. What are you doing here? Nothing? Out! We know you, you’re Hem’s boy. Out.”