A shadow fell across him, darkening the niche where they hid-the shadow of a man in helmet and breastplate: a soldier!

CHAPTER 9.

Armor rattled, the stick thwacked, and the heavy boots paused at a shout from the other side of the road. "What?" The soldier sounded as though he were right in Gianni's lap-as he would be, in a minute. "What was that?"

"Only a hare," the other soldier's voice came, disgusted. "But for a moment, I hoped."

Hoped! Why? He was as lowborn as Gianni, they were both commoners ... Or was that why ... ? The tramp of boots began again-incredibly, moving away!

"Make sure you search every cranny," a deeper voice commanded.

"I have, Sergeant," the trooper said, his voice growing distant. "No crannies over here."

Gianni sat frozen, unable to believe his ears, unable to believe his luck. Had the man really not noticed? Impossible!

The hare. It had to have been the hare. Saved by a rabbit!

But that was only one soldier, and the first in line on their side of the road. Gianni tightened his grip on his rock once more, gathering himself, tensing to fight all over again. One of them had to grow curious about this nook between boulder and wall ...

But they didn't. One by one they pa.s.sed by, calling to one another and hurling joking insults, with the sergeant barking them back to work whenever they laughed too loudly. Maybe it was because they didn't want to find the fugitives, maybe it was because they didn't care-or maybe it was some other, eldritch reason; but they pa.s.sed. One by one, they pa.s.sed by, the horses' hooves pa.s.sed by, and the voices of the chancellor and his prince receded with them, off into the distance, gone.

Still Gianni crouched, hand on his rock (though no longer clenched), not quite believing they had escaped.

Finally Gar stirred, crept out on hands and knees, peered around the boulder, then finally stood, staring after the soldiers, his face blank, eyes wide.

"Are they gone?" Gianni began to uncurl. "Gone." Gar nodded firmly. "All. Gone."

Slowly, Gianni stood to look. Incredibly, it was true-the soldiers had pa.s.sed them by, had disappeared into the trees that hid the road, and the dust of their pa.s.sage was settling.

"Go now?" Gar looked down at him.

"Uh-yes!" Gianni snapped back to the here and now. They must not lose this chance! "But not down the road, Gar. Up over the ridge-and the next ridge, and the next, until we stand a fair chance of coming nowhere near Prince Raginaldi or his men!"

They found another road, but it went east and west. Still, the road from Pirogia had led them west into the mountains as well as north, so Gianni led Gar east. At the worst, he supposed, he could follow this road to the seash.o.r.e, where they could build a raft and float home if they had to.

When darkness came, Gar plucked at Gianni's sleeve, pointing toward the wooded slope to their right, then set off exploring. Gianni followed him, frowning, until Gar pointed to a fallen tree-an evergreen that must have fallen quite recently, for very few of its needles were brown. Gianni saw the point immediately: the trunk had broken below the line of boughs, but not broken completely-it angled downward, giving room enough to sit upright beneath it. He set to work with Gar, breaking off enough of the branches beneath to make room for them to stretch out full-length, and they had a tent. The broken branches would even serve as mattresses.

Then Gar surprised him further by coming up with a handful of roots and some greens, so they didn't go to bed hungry after all-well, still hungry, but not starving. As they ate, a thought sprang in Gianni's mind, and he looked up at Gar, weighing the risk of saying it. Curiosity won out, and he asked, very carefully, "Have your wits begun to return?"

"Wits?" Gar looked up in surprise, then frowned, thinking the question over.

Finally he judged, "Yes." A wave of relief swept through Gianni, but caution came hard behind it. How quickly would all those wits return?

And, of course, there was still the possibility that Gar was pretending.

The next morning, they set off down the road again, with Gar stopping every now and then to strip berries from a bush and share them with Gianni, who concluded that the giant had been trained in woodlore from his childhood, and old knowledge surfaced with hunger at the sight of the berries without his actually having to think about it. For himself, city-born and city-bred, Gianni would have been as apt to pick poisonous berries as nourishing ones.

They came out of the pa.s.s onto sloping ground, with an entire valley spread out before them. Gianni halted in amazement-he hadn't paid much attention to the view coming up, since his back had been toward it, and he had been too concerned about his drivers and mules and cargo. Now, though, with no goods to protect, he found himself facing the vista, and even though he was cold and stiff, the sight took his breath away.

"Beautiful, yes?" Gar rumbled beside him. "Yes," Gianni agreed, then looked up sharply. "How much do you remember now?"

"More." Gar pressed his hand to his head. "Remember home, remember coming to Talipon, meeting you." He shook himself. "I must make an effort; I can talk properly again, if I work at it."

"Do you remember our meeting with the Gypsies?"

"No, but we must have, mustn't we?" Gar looked down at his gaudy clothing. "I ...

do remember soldiers looking for us."

Gianni nodded. "The Gypsies told them about us."

"Then we would do better to go naked than in the clothes they gave us." Gar began to pull his shirt out, but Gianni stopped him.

"The mountain air is cold. We can say we stole the clothing while the Gypsies slept."

Gar paused, staring at him. "Steal from Gypsies? And you thought I was the one with addled wits!" Suspicion rose. "Were you shamming, then?"

"Pretending?" Gar gazed off over the valley. "Yes and no. I was tremendously confused when I waked and found myself with you in a mire, and I couldn't remember anything-neither my past, nor my name, nor how I came to be there.

You seemed to be a friend, though, so I followed you. The rest?" He shook his head. "It comes and goes. I remember sleeping under a wagon, I remember the soldiers going by, I remember everything since I waked this morning." He shrugged. "I'm sure the gaps will fill themselves in, with time. Even just talking with you now, I've begun to recapture the habit of proper speaking."

"Praise Heaven your wits were addled no worse than that," Gianni said with heartfelt relief-but the suspicion remained: Gar could be lying. He tried to dismiss the thought as unworthy, but it wouldn't stay banished.

Gar pointed downslope. "There's the fork in the road, where you told me we could go northeast to the coast or northwest to Navorrica. It would seem that, like Shroedinger's cat, we have gone both ways."

"Shreddinger?" Gianni looked up, frowning. "Who was he?"

"Why, the man who owned the cat." Gar flashed him a grin. "It never knew where it was going to be until it was there, because it was in both places at once until the moment came when it had to decidesomewhat like myself these last few days.

Come, let's retrace our steps southward from the fork, and it may be that both parts of me shall pull together again."

He set off down the slope, and Gianni followed, not sure that he hadn't preferred the big man without his wits.

As they came to the fork, though, they saw two other people coming down the other road. Both pairs stopped and eyed each other warily. "Good morning," Gar said at last. "Shall we share the road?"

"I have never seen Gypsies without their tribe and caravan," one stranger answered.

"Oh, we aren't Gypsies," Gianni explained. "We only stole some clothing from them."

The man stared. "Stole clothing from Gypsies? I thought it was supposed to be the other way around!"

"The Gypsies have always been blamed for a great many thefts they didn't really commit," Gar explained. "It was very easy to put the loss on them, for they were gone down the road, where they could neither deny it nor admit it. In any case, they don't seem to guard their laundry lines any better than anyone else." He offered a hand. "I am Gar."

The other man took it, carefully. "I am Claudio." He nodded to his partner. "He is Benvolio."

"A pleasure," Gar said, and glanced at Gianni. The young man smiled, recognizing a signal, and stepped forward with his hand open. "I am Gianni. We lost our clothes to the Stilettos when we had the bad luck to run into them."

"You, too?" Benvolio stared as he took Gianni's hand. "I thought we were the only ones with such bad luck."

"Oh, really!" Gianni looked him up and down. "You fared better than we, at least- they left ,you your clothes."

"Yes, they did that." Benvolio let go of his hand with a grimace. "Took our cart and donkey and all our goods, yes, but they did leave us our clothes."

"They took our whole goods train, and our drivers to sell to the galleys," Gianni said, his face grim. "They would have taken us, too, if they hadn't thought we were dead."

Claudio nodded, commiserating. "I'm sure we would be slogging toward Venoga and an oar this minute, if we hadn't run as soon as we heard them coming, and if the woods hadn't been so thick that they couldn't ride in to follow us. It seems Stilettos would rather lose their prey than chase it afoot."

"Wise of them," Gar said sourly. "For all they knew, you might have had a small army of mountaineers waiting to fall on them."

Claudio looked up in surprise. "A good thought! Perhaps we should have."

"Only if we had been mountaineers," Benvolio said, with a sardonic smile. "Since we are not, they would have taken our cart and donkey before the Stilettos had their chance."

"True, true." Gar nodded. "More true, that they might not be averse to taking us to sell to the Stilettos if they find us. Perhaps we should travel together?"

Claudio and Benvolio took one look at Gar's great size and agreed quickly.

They had only been on the road another hour before they met two more wayfarers-but one of these was leaning on the other and limping badly, so badly that now and again he would hop, his face twisted with pain. Both wore rags, and the one with two good legs was sallow and pinched with hunger. He looked up at Gianni and his party with haunted eyes and seemed about to bolt; probably all that prevented him was his lame friend.

"Good day," Gianni cried, holding up an open hand. "We are poor travelers who have lost all our goods to the Stilettos, but moved too fast to be taken for their slave parties. Who are you?"

"A thief and a beggar," the lame man snapped, "just released from the prison of Prince Raginaldi."

"Released?" Gianni stared. "Fortune favors you, and all the saints too! I thought that once a man vanished into that dark and noisome pit, he vanished forever!"

"So did we." The thief still looked dazed, unable to understand his good fortune.

"But the jailers cast us out, cursing us and spurning us, saying we would have to find our own bread now, for the prince needed his dungeon for more important prisoners than we."

"More important?" Alarms sounded all through Gianni. "What manner of prisoners?"

"They didn't say," said the thief, "only that there would be a great many of them."

"Has he turned you all out, then?" Gar asked. "Almost all," said the beggar.

"There were a murderer or two he kept, but the rest of us are set free to wander.

Some went faster than us."

"Almost all went faster than we did," the thief said in a sardonic tone.

The beggar looked up with a frown. "If you feel that I hold you back, Estragon . .

"Hold me back?" the thief snorted. "You hold me up! Can you not see how heavily I lean on you, Vladimir? I'm a thief, not a fighter-and you and I were always last to the bowls of leavings the warders shoved into our pen!"

Gianni had a brief nightmare vision of a dozen men clamoring and fighting over a bowl of garbage. "You must rest," he said, "and eat, as soon as we can find food."

"Food?" The thief looked up, grinning without mirth. "Find it if you can! This night and day since we were set free, we have had nothing but a few handfuls of berries that we found by the wayside, shriveled and bitter, and some stalks of wild grain."

"Can we find them nothing better than that?"

Gianni asked Gar. The big man frowned, but didn't answer. Instead, he picked up a few pebbles and went loping off into the fields beside the road. He was back ten minutes later with a brace of hares. Gianni decided he liked Gar better in his right mind.

While they ate, though, two even more bedraggled specimens came hobbling up to them-a man in worn and grimy motley, who leaned upon the shoulder of another, who wore a black, wide-sleeved gown that was stiff with dirt, almost as stiff as the mortarboard he wore upon his head. Gianni could see at a glance that the sleeves held pockets for ink and paper, and knew the man for a scholar, while his companion was a jester.

"Ho, Vladimir!" the jester said in a hollow voice. "Have you found food, then?"

"Aye, because we have found charitable companions," the beggar answered. He turned to Gianni. "Would you take it amiss if we shared with Vincenzio and Feste?"

"Not at all," Gianni said.

Gar seconded, "If we had known they would join us, I would have brought down more rabbits."

"Oh, do not split hares over us." The jester sat down stiffly, folding his legs beneath him, and raised an open hand in greeting. "I am Feste."

"I am ... Giorgio." Some innate caution kept Gianni to using his alias. "This is Gar."

The giant inclined his head.

"I am Vincenzio." The scholar, too, held up an open hand.

"Should we not call you 'Doctor'?" Gar asked.

"Oh, no," Vincenzio said, with a rueful laugh. "I am only a poor Bachelor of Arts, not even done with my studies to become a Master. I ran out of money, and needed to wander from town to town, hiring out my knowledge to any who had need of it. The prince's men a.s.sumed I was rogue and a thief, and clapped me in irons."

Understandably, Gianni thought. He had heard of many wandering scholars who were just such thieves and rogues as Vincenzio mentioned-and he would not have wagered on the man's honesty himself. "No greater cause than that?"

"Well," said Vincenzio, "it might have been the conversation I was having with the village elders, about the ancient Athenians and their notions that all human beings have the seeds of greatness within them, and deserve to be treated with respect-even to have some control over their destinies . . ."

"Which means their government," Gar said, with a sardonic smile. "Yes, I can see why the soldiers clapped you in irons. They gagged you, too, didn't they?"

"And a most foul and noisome cloth it was." Vincenzio made a face. "Indeed, I had thought we would be thrown right back into that dungeon when those Stilettos stopped us half an hour ago."

"Stilettos?" Gianni looked up sharply. "What did they do to you?"

"Only searched us, as though they thought we might have gold hidden in our garments for the stealing," Feste said with disgust.

"Did they beat you?" The beggar looked up with wide, frightened eyes.

"No, they seemed too worried for that," said Vincenzio. "They sent us packing, and we blessed our good fortune and fled, thanking all the saints." He frowned at the others. "I'm surprised you didn't run afoul of them, too-they were set up to block the road so that they might search every traveler who came by."