“I should say,” Rod agreed. “You do that kind of thing often?”

“Nay.” Simon collapsed onto the board seat. “Never in my life.”

“Then you’ve got one hell of a talent for it.” Privately, Rod had a strong suspicion that Simon was at least a little bit of a projective, but didn’t realize it.

Even with his nerves ajangle from facing down a mob for the first time, Simon remembered the fugitive. He turned, looking back into the cart. “Art thou well, countryman?”

“Aye,” the stranger wheezed, “thanks to thee, goodmen. And thou hadst not come, there had been naught but a bloody lump left of me. E’en now I tremble, to think of them! From the depths of my soul I thank thee. I shall pray down upon thee one blessing, for every star that stands in the sky! I shall…”

“You shall live.” Rod couldn’t repress the grin. “And we’re glad of it. But if you’re a warlock, why didn’t you just disappear?” Then a sudden thought hit him, and he turned to Simon. “Is he a warlock?”

“Aye.” Simon nodded, his eyes on the stranger. “There is the feeling I’ve had, twice aforetime, when I’ve met another warlock and heard his thoughts—that feeling of being in a mind enlarged, in a greater space of soul.”

Rod knew the feeling; he’d met it himself. With a variant form and intensity, it was one of the great benefits of being married to another esper—and one of the curses of being an esper himself, when he was near another telepath whom he didn’t like. He’d decided some time ago that it was mental feedback—but controlled feedback. It must’ve been, or it would’ve torn both minds apart. The born witch, he thought, must develop a perceptual screen in infancy, a sort of blocking mechanism that would reduce the recycled mental energy to comfortable levels.

“He is a warlock,” Simon said again. “Why, therefore, didst thou not disappear, goodman?”

“Why, for that I could not.” The stranger smiled apologetically, spreading his hands and cocking his head to the side. “What can I say to thee? I am a very poor warlock, who can but hear others’ thoughts, and that only when they’re hard by me. E’en then, I cannot hear them well.”

“I, too,” Simon said, with a sad smile. “I can but hear one that’s within the same house as I.”

“And I, only when they are within a few yards,” the stranger said, nodding. “But so little as that is enough, I wot, so that, now and again, summat of others’ thoughts do come into mine head, unknowing—the thought comes that so-and-so is a-love with such-and-such, or that this one wishes the other dead. And, again and now, I let slip an unguarded word or two, and the one I’m speaking to doth stare at me, in horror, and doth cry, ‘How couldst thou know of that? None have heard it of me; to none have I spoken of it!’ ”

“So they figured out what you were.” Rod nodded.

“Aye; and it cost me what few friends I had, from my earliest years; yet it made me no enemies; for I am, as I’ve said, a most powerless warlock, and all, thankfully, knew that I meant no one harm.”

Rod could believe it. The stranger was short, slump-shouldered and concave-chested, flabby, with a little potbelly. His hair was dun-colored. He had large, pale eyes, a snub nose, and a perpetual hangdog look about him. He couldn’t have been much over thirty, but already his cheeks were beginning to sag. In a year or five, he’d have jowls. A schlemiel, Rod decided, a poor soul who would never intentionally hurt anybody, but would always be clumsy, both physically and socially. “Nobody really wanted you around, huh? But they didn’t mind you, either.”

“Aye,” the stranger said, with a rueful smile.

“I know the way of it,” Simon sighed. “There was such a lad in my village.”

“There always is,” Rod said. “It’s a necessary social function. Everybody needs somebody whose name they can’t quite remember.”

“Well said.” Simon smiled. “And thou dost touch my conscience. How art thou called, goodman?”

“Flaran,” the stranger answered, with the same smile.

“Flaran,” Simon repeated, thoughtfully. “Tell me, Flaran—when Alfar the sorcerer began to rise to power, did thy fellows expect thee to hail him?”

Flaran’s smile gained warmth. “They did that. Thou hast endured it thyself, hast thou not?” And, when Simon nodded, he chuckled. “So I thought; thou hast spoke too much of what I have seen myself. Aye, all my neighbors did think that, solely because I’ve a touch of the Power, I should cry that Alfar was the greatest hope this duchy hath ever seen. Yet I did not. In truth, I said I did not trust the man.”

Simon nodded. “Yet they thought thou didst give them the lie.”

“They did,” Flaran agreed. “Straightaway, then, mine old friends—or neighbors, at least—began to mistrust me; in truth, as Alfar’s fame and power have grown, they have doubted me more and more.”

“Still, thou’rt of them.” Simon frowned. “When last came to last, thou weit of their clan and kind. I would think they would not hound and stone thee.”

“Nor did I—and still I misdoubt me an they would have. But folk began to pass through our village, pushing handcarts and bearing packs upon their backs; and, though we did not have great store of food or ale, ‘Stay,’ we urged them. ‘Nay,’ they answered, ‘for the sorcerer’s armies do march, and we do flee them. We dare not bide, for they’ll swallow up this village also.’ Then they turned, and marched on toward the South.”

Rod and Simon exchanged a quick glance. Simon nodded in corroboration. Rod understood; Simon had been one of the ones who had come marching through the village, and had not stayed. “And this small ball of a man with the great mouth?” Simon turned back to Flaran. “Was he of thy village, or of the strangers?”

“Of the strangers,” Flaran answered, “and he did come into our village crying doom upon all who had any powers.

None could be trusted, quoth he, for all witch folk must needs hate all common men, and must needs fight them; therefore, any witch or warlock must needs be an agent of Alfar’s.”

Simon’s eyes burned. “Indeed? Would I could have done more than send him back to thy village.”

“Nay, friend. Thou wouldst but have made my neighbors certain in their hatred. Even as ‘twas, he did turn my fellows against me—though, in all truth, the news from the North had made them so wary, they needed little turning. I came into the inn for a pint, but when I stood near to the landlord, I heard his thoughts, his rage and mistrust, his secret fear that the fat little stranger might be right, that mayhap all witch folk should be stoned. Nay, I dropped my flagon and fled.”

“And, of course, they all ran after you.” Rod reflected that the pack instinct must have taken over.

Flaran shuddered. “Tis even as thou dost say. ‘Twas not even an hour agone. I dodged and hid, then dodged and ran. At last they found me out, and I could hide no longer. Nay, I fled off down the road—but I was wearied, and must needs fight to stay running. Heaven be praised that thou didst come up the High Road then, or I had been a paste of a person!”

Simon reached out to clap Flaran on the shoulder. “Courage, friend—this bloodlust shall fade, as it hath aforetime. Ever and anon have they come out hunting witches—and ever and anon hath it passed. This shall, also.”

Flaran braved a small smile, but he didn’t look convinced.

Rod wasn’t, either—the whole thing had too much of the deliberate about it. It was preplanned, well-organized whipping-up of sentiment, and there was only one group organized enough to do the whipping-up—but why would Alfar be trying to work up antiesper sentiment?

The answer hit him like a sap, in instant balance to the question: Alfar would whip up the witch hunt to eliminate his competition. After all, the only force in the duchy that could stand against him, were the witches who hadn’t signed up with him. Left alone long enough, they just might band together in self-defense—as Simon and Flaran were doing, even now. If they organized a large enough band of fugitive witches and warlocks, they would constitute a power that might actually unseat him. And what better way to eliminate the independents, than the time-tried old witch hunt?