In desperation he hauled out yet more line from the hands of the soldier on the bank and took another step along Josephine's tail. The dragon groaned, a startling thing for somebody so used to her normal silence. Nothing could show more plainly how painful it was for her to keep supporting him on her tail: it was as if Hal was trying to hold aloft a horseshoe on his little finger. He felt her trembling underfoot and the tail sink lower, so that he was up to his knees now in filth. But the toad had reached its mistress!
Hal thanked his Gods as he saw her take one hand off the broomstick in a hasty snatch at the rope and then lift up the dripping loop. With one deft movement she dropped it over her head and wriggled the free arm through it before seizing the broom again in a double handed hold. Then she removed her other hand, pulled down the free arm and slipped it up through the other side of the loop whilst grabbing at the broom again. The loop was safely under her arms and now they could act!
Hal waved to the Corporal and the soldier on the bank. A twirl of rope around one of Josephine's spikes and she was pulling on it, and so were the soldiers, stamping their feet into the turf as though they were trying to pull the castle walls down. The problem was that everybody was worried about the witch, not about Hal, and even Josephine moved so quickly he was left behind in the mire as her tail jerked forward. He lifted his feet clear of her spikes, then toppled sideways with a cry of despair and grabbed at the rope. It was certainly moving, moving too quickly, piling up waves of slime and shit into his face as he clung on to the slippery strands. The only recourse left to him was to roll onto his back and clutch the rope desperately to his chest, the back of his neck then taking the impact of the crusted filth.
A brief glimpse of the witch behind showed her in much the same situation, but at least luckier than him by being able to lift her upper body higher because the broomstick was traveling with her, still offering the woman as much support as it could. Not that anybody could have recognized her as a man, woman or demon, not with the slime plastered over her limbs, her face, and her hair -- and Hal was in no much better condition when the Corporal's men hauled him onto the bank. The expressions of their faces as they had to touch him showed that: not that he had any sympathy for their fastidiousness; they should try his privy bucket emptying job once in a while.
On the other hand he had every sympathy with the reluctance the soldiers showed in hauling the witch out of the midden. A dislike of scraping shit off somebody is one thing, getting up close and dirty to an enraged witch was akin to putting a muzzle on a mad dog. Worse, in fact, much worse. A mad dog might bite your balls off, but with a mad witch you could end up pissing out of your ear for the rest of your life. Which is an embarrassing place to have your cock put on display. But already the King was galloping out over the drawbridge on his white stallion and, whatever the witch might do, everybody else knew what Argud the Defiler would certainly do if his orders weren't carried out to the letter. So the soldiers helped the woman out onto the turf, where she shook them off her arms as easily as if they were half grown children. Then she strode across the lumpy turf to Hal, the broomstick drifting after her at waist height and two steps behind.
Like a dutiful wife following her husband in a public place, Hal thought, a hurt wife yet silent and submissive in showing off her injuries. But there was nothing submissive about the hot coals glowing in the witch's eyes behind her mask of mud. And behind her and underneath the hovering broomstick was that revoltingly ugly toad, hopping along in great leaps which almost reached the broomstick at their highest points. Hal's reckoning was that in about five seconds he was going to be transmuted into something just as revolting. Unless he was fated to mix his ashes with the Master-At-Arm's. How odd if he should die the way he was now, as naked as when he was born -- and never of any more importance to the world than a coney born in a burrow and eaten by a fox.
He looked around for the last time with mortal eyes and saw Chelinde and Caelia now wrapped in soldier's cloaks, staring at him with pity on their faces. Caelia waved at him, sadly, on this moment of parting. Perhaps it was some consolation that the girls seemed more upset about his fate than their father's.
So when the witch turned, plucked the broomstick from the air and then knelt down in front of Hal, holding it in front of her as if it were a sacrificial offering to a Druid, every onlooker was stunned. Soldiers, girls, Corporal Clint and, most of all, Hal.
"Take it, Master. Take it, as I have promised the warlock."
"What?
She lifted her face, those hot eyes fanned into blue burning coals with anger: "Put your hand on this broomstick, you butt ugly little fucker, or I'll skin you alive!"
Hal instantly stretched out a trembling hand and touched one of the hand grips. It was like holding onto part of a water mill built over a raging torrent, the fierce energy of the rushing waters below passing through the structure for a curious bystander to feel. But before he could learn more he snatched his fingers away again as a shriek of anger came to his ears. Behind the King's magnificent stallion was an old donkey, the thin legs of Gaunt Gregory astride it, his even thinner voice cawing like a squabbling crow. Completely disregarding all the normal rules of the court he hacked at the donkey's side with his heels and rode past the king, limbs flailing and jerking in his haste like a scarecrow dancing with the wind, the long staff held out over his mount's big ears in a parody of a knight's lance.
"What, Morgana -- you break your oath given to another who has crossed the Abyss between the worlds and returned? You dare to defy the Great Ones themselves?"
"I gave my word to you to yield my person and my powers to my rescuer. This boy was my rescuer and I have kept my word, you jumped up little shit of a half achieved adept. I have submitted and forsworn myself to him. Now go hence and lick your own mortal master's backside!"
Nobody present had ever heard or seen the like, a witch and a warlock squabbling like urchins over a wind fallen apple. And there wasn't one of the watchers who didn't wish to be many safe leagues away from the scene. But one at least had no intention of remaining a mere spectator. King Argud swung out of his saddle, dropping as lightly as a feather despite his huge bulk and large belly. He thrust the horse's reins into the hand of one of the soldiers, a man who blanched with fear as he realized that the strange events had lured him into a fatal error of lese majesty by not acknowledging his sovereign's presence until now. The soldier hastily dropped to his knee and bowed his head, an example followed equally quickly by all present save the two sorcerers, still bristling at each other.
"Come, Gregory, what's amiss here? You promised to tame this hawk for me. Yet she sits not quietly on your gauntlet."
There had once been a court jester unwise enough to make fun of the King's appearance by reddening his cheeks, puffing up his cheeks and somehow bulging his eyes so they seemed twice their normal size. The secret of how he'd managed that had died with him, in a unusual and distinctly revolting way, and since then nobody else had taken any gambles on finding King Argud in a good mood. Which was clever reckoning, because he never had any good moods. The best that could be said for his temperament was that sometimes he managed to control his blood lust if there seemed to be a good enough reason -- but that was never more than a temporary deferment of his appetite for death and agony. Even the warlock acknowledged the monarch's worldly power and presence by awkwardly dismounting from the donkey and bowing low to the wearer of the crown.
But not so the witch. For all the scum and shit on her, she stood like a queen, arms folded in open contempt of King Argud, warlock and soldiers. Hal's eyes moved towards the now abandoned donkey which seemed uninterested in anything but eating grass. Would he have a chance of escaping on it if trouble erupted? Odin alone knew what this business of the witch and her broomstick was all about but, irregardless, Josephine had killed the Master-At-Arms as the court official was getting ready to kill Hal for tupping his daughters. That was enough to have Hal impaled on a spike in the market place for as long as it took to die. Better to perish trying to run away than wait until the King got around to passing the death sentence. Let the magicians fight each other and then he and Josephine could flee behind a curtain of fire none would be able to pass. Left and right Hal glanced, awaiting his chance.
