Free The Iron Tempest by Ron Miller Page A

no hope of defeating the Moors.”
    “So all I need do is relieve Brunello of the ring.”
    “Exactly. When we come to the sea where I must leave you, you’ll continue to follow the shoreline for three days. On that day you’ll reach the inn at which your quarry is stopping.”
    “How’ll I recognize him?”
    “All too easily. He’s a dreadful-looking man of medium build, pot-bellied, with black, greasy, curly hair, dark skin, very pockmarked, a shaggy beard and shaggier eyebrows. His nose is as flat as a mushroom and his eyes are shifty and protrude like a pekinese’s.”
    “A what?”
    “Pardon? Oh. It’s a peculiar dog favored in Cathay. It has popeyes like a frog and a face like a squashed tomato. A dreadful-looking creature.
    “Brunello,” the sorceress continued, “will be disguised as a messenger. All you need do is turn the conversation onto the subject of magical spells. Let him know that you want to confront the sorcerer, but don’t let on that you know anything about the ring. He’s a braggart and self-styled lady’s man, so he’ll offer to show you the way to the steel castle—in his gentle company, of course. Accept his offer and the moment you see the castle, kill him. Let neither pity nor gratitude make you hesitate. You must do as I tell you, without fail. Don’t do or say anything that might give you away. If you do, he’ll either hide the ring or, worse, make use of its second remarkable power.”
    “Which is?”
    “He’ll put it in his mouth and instantly become invisible.”
    “Just one more question, my lady.”
    “What is that?”
    “I understand why Agramant wishes to have Rashid back and, well, I think I understand why I want him,” (“I wonder,” murmured Melissa) “but what is Atalante’s interest in him? What does he gain by this kidnapping?”
    “Ah. That, I am afraid, is one of the things that I cannot explain to you.”
    This answer did not satisfy Bradamant at all, who, for all of her appreciation for and attraction to the sorceress, was becoming increasingly annoyed with her lack of forthrightness. The explicit secrecy and the implicit condescension did little to bolster the sense of trust that Bradamant wanted to feel but whose pride and caution kept in reserve.
    The two women soon came to where the Garonne enters the sea near Bordeaux. Bradamant had been certain that she’d be able to persuade the sorceress to continue on with her, or that Melissa would not be as adamant as she had sounded about her decision to part company so soon. But all of her entreaties, all of her arguments and all of her tears failed to keep the sorceress from saying goodbye. Seeing that there was no other way to see the knight on her way, Melissa had simply disappeared.
    Bradamant, sadly alone, plodded along the shoreline, determined to be tireless in her quest to rescue the man whom she was destined to love.
    A steep and difficult path that wandered up through the tortuous seaside cliffs eventually straightened and entered a pleasant country of vineyards and olive groves. She had lunch with a party of farmworkers who gladly shared their bread, cheese, sausage and wine in exchange for a few stories. She was glad for the food; she had inexplicably not been hungry during all the long march with Melissa, but now she was ravenous. (She wondered somewhat about this. Had time failed to pass while she was in the palace? Had Melissa’s magic kept her from needing to eat? Was it part of Merlin’s hospitality, or his parsimony? In any event, she thought it a little mean that the accumulated hunger was now allowed to catch up with her.)
    She found—as she so often did—that a woman bearing arms and armor was a great novelty and the farmers’ honest curiosity was unbounded—even more so when they discovered who she was. Bradamant told them something of her brothers and of the great feats that had gained them membership in Charlemagne’s Twelve Peers. Replying to questions she had heard a