DRAGON COMPANION 293.
Eton Callander enter here privately so that this a persona can talk in peace with her father before our presence is general knowledge. Can you arrange this?"
"Certainly, Lord Murdan! I'll send a most reliable officer to lead you to a postern gateway. No one will suspect you are anything but wandering minstrels or jugglers reporting for work. This is suitable for a this person?"
"It'll do," said Manda, waving a brief gesture of thanks. "Strongoak, my father, the king, will offer you shelter, I know."
"It were better if we camp in the open at the Boscery, as we always do," said the Chief Forester. "With your permission I will wait upon you and Their Majesties tomorrow morning at the normal visiting time."
"That suits me," said the Princess Royal, turning her forest pony to follow the young officer waiting to show them the way. Murdan lagged behind a moment.
"Listen, Colonel! If word gets out prematurely, I shall know immediately who leaked it. Do I make myself clear?"
"Most clear. Lord Historian! No one shall learn the news from me."
Murdan nodded in satisfaction, pulled his hood back over his face, waved farewell to the foresters, and followed Manda, Momie, and the officer around the Pal-ace named for Manda's great grandmother, who had built it.
^27^ Trial and Errors "THE Royal Historian has at last appeared," sneered Gantrell, standing again before the throne in Session Hall. "I insist, Lord King, that he either bring charges against my man Brevory, or apologize for his slanders!"
"Anger is uncalled for. Lord Peter," warned Eduard, coldly. "You push your prerogatives a bit too far and too fast. There are other concerns the crown has here, not to mention the concerns of our subjects who have petitions to present."
"I happen to know that petitioning will end this afternoon," said Gantrell, switching on a gracious smile. "Will I be unreasonable if I ask that mine be considered tomorrow?"
"Monday, rather," said the king mildly. "As you know, Session Ball is tomorrow night and it's traditional to adjourn for the day of the ball, to allow everyone time to prepare."
"I again respectfully remind Your Majesty," added Peter, now glaring at Murdan, who sat to one side of the dais with Manda, "that I have a personal petition to present. I have waited patiently in line, but I do not intenda-"
"Careful!" said the Historian, raising his hand. "You may say something you would not want on record for history to read, m'lord."
"I am in control of my tongue!" snapped Gantrell. He turned to the king, trying to smile smoothly again and almost succeeding.
"I wish to settle the business of Brevory, as a matter of pride and honor, sire, and I insist we shall discuss the succession, a matter of utmost importance to us all, including the abduction of the Princess Royal from my brother's household last spring."
"We shall take up the charges against Sir Fredrick of Brevory on Monday morning," the king decided. "And the rest will be on the agenda at the very end of Session, as it will depend on the outcome of the trial, in some part. As for Manda, I have spoken to her as her father, and she assures me no abduction occurred."
"We shall see about that!" snapped Gantrell, but he resumed his seat in the front row before the throne.
Eduard beckoned to Manda. She rose and bent over her father, the better to hear his whisper.
"This young man of yours, Manda? Do you have any idea how long he intends to be gone? Recapturing Brevory, I mean."
"I'm sorry. Father. All I can tell you is that Tom's fully aware of the need for haste. I trust him. Father!"
"As do I," agreed her father, patting her hand. "Well, 294 Don Callander DRAGON COMPANION 295 the ball will give us another day of respite, but I can't put Gantrell off past Monday, I'm afraid.
"Tom and Clem and Retruance have four days to find the Sponge, then," said the princess, with more confidence than she felt.
"Sponge?" Eduard chuckled. "Ah! Yes, I've heard that man is entirely too fond of the bottle and cask."
"He is a sniveling, cowardly browbeater, a child stealer, a constant whiner, a foulmouthed drunkard," Manda told him levelly. "And a few other things for which I have no evidence, merely hearsay."
The king threw his head back and laughed aloud. From his seat on the floor, Peter of Gantrell turned from a conversation with three henchmen to scowl at Manda and the Historian.
"Get you to Plaingirt at once," he ordered the tallest of the three bullies. They were dressed for the road, booted and spurred and armed with long sabers. "Brevory is a damned nuisance at all times and now he is liable to be a deadly embarrassment. Kill him and hide his body in the mountains. Cover your tracks well!"
"Aye, m'lord!" said all three, and they paced arrogantly from Session Hall.
RETRUANCE curled himself about the campfire while his companions toasted buns and sausages furnished by the foresters. The night was cold, smelling of autumn and suggesting rain to come.
"I've been racking my so-called brain," said the Dra-gon, "since we met, but I cannot deduce where Gantrell, blast his liver and lights, would hide anyone, let alone twenty-five soldiers, fifteen courtiers, and a drunkard."
They were camped on a south-facing hillside overlooking the Royal Highway that wound north from the capital to the mountains and the northeast frontier.
"Probably not on his own lands, even scattered as far as they are," mused Clem, popping a hot sausage into his mouth and following it with a last piece of bun.
"As far as Freddie's concerned, certainly not more than a day's ride from the capital," Tom reasoned. "That limits our search a little, anyway."
The other two were silent. They watched the fire bum down to embers until the Dragon dozed and the young men crawled into their blankets.
"We'll scribe an arc with the capital in the center," decided Tom, "and ask anyone we see if he's seen a large body of men being marched anywhere at all."
"Uuumph," agreed the sleepy Dragon.
WELL after midnight the Librarian suddenly sat erect and exclaimed aloud.
"What is it?" asked Clem, fully awake at once.
The Dragon emitted a puff of steam and smoke to show he was awake, too.
"Listen, fellows! Peter wouldn't put them at one of his own castles or farms. And he probably doesn't trust any of his friends to hide them and keep silent, not even Granger, for all he is a brother."
"Hardly an observation worthy of a rude awakening," grumbled Retruance.
"Who would he trust with such a matter? Someone he can control? Someone he could distance himself from, if the Overhallers are discovered?"
"Granted," said Clem. He placed a fresh billet of wood on the embers. The log flared at once and the three realized that it had begun to snow while they slept.
"I can think of only one kind of person he might trust," said Tom. "Someone bought and paid for. A mercenary!"
"The Mercenary Knights? It's worth looking into. You may have guessed aright!" exclaimed Retruance. "But where are they, anyway? I only see them wandering from job to job."
"I guess onlya-that they would return home between commissions. And the Chief of the Mercenary Knights at Overhalla-what was his name?"
"Basilicae!" said Retruance Constable.
"Yes! Basilicae said he would return to a place he called Plaingirt. He said it was in the mountainsa-"
The Dragon interrupted. "Yes, I've heard of it. It's bit more than two days' fast ride on horseback from Lexor."
"More like two days and then some. The town is off the main road, hard to find," said Clem.
"But not for us!" cried the Librarian. "We can fly there in a few hours, can't we?"
296 Don Callander "Of course," said Retruance. He heaved his great bulk gracefully to his four feet and stretched his wings, shaking off a blanket of soft snow. "Shall we go now?"
There was nothing left to eat for breakfast, so they carefully drowned the campfire and climbed aboard the Dra-gon' s brow, brushing away an inch-thick crust of wet snow to clear their place.
"It's snowing harder and harder," observed Retruance. He leaped into the air with a rush of cold wind and swirl of ice crystals. "We'll have to fly lower down to make sure we see the road."
"As I recall, this highroad forks not far north of here," said Clem, who had spent a number of afternoons, while Tom attended the king and queen at Sweetwater Tower, poring over the king's collection of charts and maps.
"Maybe we should return to Sweetwater and get some of those maps," Tom suggested.
"No time! No use, either!" exclaimed Retruance. "The way this snow is coming down, we'll have a hard time finding landmarks, anyway."
The Dragon skimmed low over the foothills of the Snow Mountains, between solid screens of hardwood forests. His riders leaned out over the Dragon's eyebrows, as far as it was safe, to scan the highway.
For the most part the road was empty, except for an occasional farmer or wandering craftsman hastening home ahead of the deepening snow. Once they had passed the fork in the highway and taken the north-tending way, they saw no one at all for an hour, until Tom pointed ahead.
Three horsemen rode doggedly against the north wind, heads bowed to the driving snow. The wind whipped the cloak from the foremost rider's back, flipping it high in the air.
"The Standing Bear!" cried both Clem and the Dragon in unison. "They are Gantrell men, for sure!"
Retruance was circling to pounce on the riders when they noticed a fourth horseman, coming from the opposite direction. The wind was at his back. As the Dragon pulled up, the newcomer waved his arm and drew up, waiting for the three Gantrell henchmen to come up to him. They saluted him politely.
Hidden by the heavy fall of snow, Retruance glided DRAGON COMPANION.
297.
silently behind a stand of fir just out of earshot of the riders.
"By my tail feathers!" whispered Retruance. "That's Plume, Murdan's comptroller. He wasn't with the party that left for Lexor but he wasn't asleep at Overhall, either! What is he doing here?"
"Being a traitor," growled Tom. "There's the culprit who betrayed Manda and Murdan on the road from Lakehead, I am sure of it!"
"He'll know where the Overhall folks and Brevory are held, then," Clem snarled, "Let's take him!"
Said Tom, "Wait until he's alone again."
The Gantrell riders and the traitorous accountant spoke briefly, then parted, going their opposite ways.
"Now!" cried Tom.
The Dragon made a great bound over the firs and landed in the road in front of Plume's startled horse.
"Hold just a minute. Master Comptroller!" yelled the Librarian. "We'd like a word with you!"
Plume tried to rein his mount about to flee, but the horse slipped on the icy surface and fell heavily, screaming with fright and throwing the miserable accountant neatly into a snowdrift.
Tom and Clem leaped from the Dragon's head and fell on Plume as he struggled to rise.
"He made me do it! Gantrell made me do it! He threatened me with prison and torture," wailed Plume, letting his body go limp. "Spare me, dear friends! Don't hurt me. I'm but a pawn in Gantrell's game, please believe me. I dared not say him no."
It took them several minutes to calm the hysterical sneak enough to answer their questions, but when he realized at last that they didn't intend to kill him on the spot, he rattled off his whole sordid tale of deceit and treachery.
"Peter of Gantrell offered you a large sum of silver to report on the doings at Overhall?" Tom recapitulated when the man had finished and fell silent, weeping.
"Yes, yes, noble Librarian!" sobbed the comptroller. "All I was supposed to do was write him a letter every week or so and tell him what was done and said at Murdan's hearth."
"So last spring," guessed Retruance, "you told him I was away, Murdan was off to Spring Session, and Princess Z98.
Don Callander Manda was at Overhall, having run away from Granger of Momingside. And you opened the postern to let the Mercenary Knights in."
"I had no choice! No choice at all! It was worth my life to refuse!"
"No doubt of that," said Tom to Clem.
"He could have gone to Murdan and confessed," said Clem sternly. "I don't think the Historian would have had him burned for it."
"And," Retruance went on, "when it came time for Fall Session, Gantrell forced you unwillingly to lead his men-at-arms to the North Shore Road to lie in ambush for Murdan and the princess? I imagine Gantrell bought the snowstorm from some magician or other?" "Yes, wise and wonderful Dragon! He did. There was no chance to it, that snow!"
"Nor this one, either," muttered Clem. "When one begins to mess with climate, there's no telling what*11 follow. This snow is even more unusual than the first, for who would expect two such storms in a little over a week at this time of year? It's going to lay down a yard or two before dark, if I know anything at all about weather."
"You have yet to tell us where the Overhall people are being held," Retruance growled menacingly to Plume.
"But Lord Murdan and the Princess Royal are not with them!" cried Plume. "They were taken elsewhere. I don't really know where, believe me."
"We're more interested in someone else," said Tom.
"B-B-Brevory?"
"That you've guessed so quickly shows you are not as ignorant of Gantrell's plans as you pretend," the Dragon charged angrily, snorting a short, hot flame at the groveling villain.
"Oh, mercy, mercy! Lord Dragon! The soldiers and Brevory and the Overhall household are held by the Mercenary Knights in Plaingirt! I swear it! It's but a half day's ride of here. I've just come from there." Tom was surprised. "Gantrell holds Freddie prisoner?" "Truly, Lord Librarian! He is held in a cell at Lord Peter's bidding. He weeps and curses all day and half the night."
"He may have good reason," said Clem thoughtfully.
DRAGON COMPANION 299.
"Who were the three you met on this road a while back?"
The comptroller gulped, "They were sent by Lord Peter to a to a slay Brevory, they told me. Those three are Gantrell's hired killers! Sirs, may I go before night catches me on this lonely road? I could be of assistance to you, perhaps. I could spy on Gantrell for you, couldn't I?"
"Now doubly a traitor! We should leave you here to freeze, rather," growled Clem. "I recommend it, Tom."
Tom considered what to do while the weak little man howled pitifully, pleading for his life.
"Let him go. Here, Plume, I am going to give you a note to Murdan, telling him you have told us all you know. Take it to the Historian in Lexor and throw yourself on his mercy. We'll leave it to him to decide the fate of a back-stabbing servant!"