“Wouldn’t think of it.” Yorick waved away the suggestion. “By this time, see, I’m pretty sure there’ll be a lot of people who’re fed up with Mughorck. In fact, I even expect a few refugees from his version of justice. If you can smuggle me back to the mainland, into the jungle south of the village, I think I can make contact with quite a few of ‘em. Some of them will have friends who’ll be glad to forget any chance meetings they might have out in the forest gathering fruit, and the rumor you want circulated can get passed into the village when the friend comes back.”

Tuan nodded. “It should march. But couldst thou not have done this better an thou hadst remained in thine own country?”

Yorick shook his head. “Mughorck’s gorillas were hot on my trail. By now, he should have other problems on his hands; he won’t have forgotten about me and my men, but we won’t be high-priority any more. Besides, there might even be enough refugees in the forest so that he’s not willing to risk any of his few really loyal squads on a clean-out mission; the odds might be too great that they wouldn’t come back.”

The King nodded slowly. “I hope, for thy sake, that thou hast it aright.”

“Then, too,” Yorick said, “there’s the little matter that, if I’d stayed, there’d have been no message to pass. Frankly, I needed allies.”

“Thou hast them, an thou’rt a true man,” Tuan said firmly. Catharine, however, looked much less certain.

Yorick noted it. “Of course I’m true. After all, if I betrayed you and you caught me, I expect you’d think of a gallows that I’d be the perfect decoration for.”

“Nay, i’ truth,” Tuan protested, “I’d have to build one anew especially for thee, to maintain harmony of style.”

“I’m flattered.” Yorick grinned. “I’ll tell you straightaway, though, I don’t deserve to be hanged in a golden chain. Silver, maybe…”

“Wherefore? Dost thou fear leprechauns?”

Tuan and Yorick, Rod decided, were getting along entirely too well. “There’s the little matter of the rumor he’s supposed to circulate,” he reminded Tuan.

Yorick shrugged. “That you and your army have really come just to oust Mughorck, isn’t it? Not to wipe out the local citizenry?”

“Thou hast it aright.”

“But you do understand,” Yorick pointed out, “that they’ll have to fight until they know Mughorck’s been taken, don’t you? I mean, if they switched to your side and he won, it could be very embarrassing for them—not to mention their wives and children.”

“Assuredly,” Tuan agreed. “Nay, I hope only that, when they know Mughorck is ta’en, they’ll not hesitate to lay down their arms.”

“I have a notion that most of them will be too busy cheering to think about objecting.”

“ ‘Tis well. Now…” Tuan leaned forward, eyes glittering. “How can we be sure of taking Mughorck?”

“An we wish a quick ending to this battle,” Brom explained, “we cannot fight through the whole mass of beast-men to reach him.”

“Ah—now we come back to my original plan.” Yorick grinned. “I was waiting for you guys to get around to talking invasion. Because if you do, you see, and if you sneak me into the jungles a week or two ahead, I’m sure my boys and I can find enough dissenters to weld into an attack force. Then, when your army attacks from the front, I can bring my gorillas…”

“You mean guerrillas.”

“That, too. Anyway, I can bring ‘em over the cliffs and down to the High Cave.”

“ The High Cave‘?” Tuan frowned. “What is that?”

“Just the highest cave in the cliff-wall. When we first arrived we all camped out in caves, and Eagle took the highest one so he could see the whole picture of what was going on. When the rank and file moved out into huts, he stayed there—so Mughorck will have to have moved in there, to use the symbol of possession to reinforce his power.”

“Well reasoned,” Brom rumbled, “but how if thou’rt mistaken?”

Yorick shrugged. “Then we keep looking till we find him. We shouldn’t have too much trouble; I very much doubt that he’d be at the front line.”

Tuan’s smile soured with contempt.

“He’s the actual power,” Yorick went on, “but the clincher’ll be the Kobold. When we take the idol, that should really tell the troops that the war’s lost.”

“And you expect it’ll be in the High Cave too,” Rod amplified.

“Not a doubt of it,” Yorick confirmed. “You haven’t seen this thing, milord. You sure as hell wouldn’t want it in your living room.”

“Somehow I don’t doubt that one bit.”

“Nor I,” Tuan agreed. He glanced at his wife and his two ministers. “Are we agreed, then?”

Reluctantly, they nodded.

“Then, ‘tis done.” Tuan clapped his hands. “I will give orders straightaway, Master Yorick, for a merchantman to bear thee and thy fellows to the jungles south of thy village. Then, when all’s in readiness, a warlock will come to tell thee the day and hour of our invasion.”

“Great!” Yorick grinned with relief: then, suddenly, he frowned. “But wait a minute. How’ll your warlock find us?”

“Just stare at a fire and try to blank your mind every evening for a few hours,” Rod explained, “and think something abstract—the sound of one hand clapping, or some such, over and over again. The warlock’ll home in on your mind.”

Yorick looked up, startled. “You mean your telepaths can read our minds?”

“Sort of,” Rod admitted. “At least, they can tell you’re there, and where you are.”

Yorick smiled, relieved. “Well. No wonder you knew where the raiders were going to land next.”

“After the first strike, yes.” Rod smiled. “Of course, we can’t understand your language.”

“Thanks for the tip.” Yorick raised a forefinger. “I’ll make sure I don’t think in English.”

Rod wasn’t sure he could, but he didn’t say so.

Yorick turned back to the King and Queen. “If you don’t mind, I’ll toddle along now, Your Majesties.” He bowed. “I’d like to go tell my men it’s time to move out.”

“Do, then,” Tuan said regally, “and inform thy men that they may trust in us as deeply as we may trust in them.”

Yorick paused at the door and looked back, raising one eyebrow. “You sure about that?”

Tuan nodded firmly.

Yorick grinned again. “I think you just said more than you knew. Godspeed, Majesties.” He bowed again and opened the door; the sentry ushered him out.

Catharine was the first to heave a huge sigh of relief. “Well! ‘Tis done.” She eyed her husband. “How shall we know if the greatest part of his bargain’s fulfilled, ere thy battle?”

“Well, I wasn’t quite candid with him,” Rod admitted. He stepped over to the wall and lifted the edge of a tapestry. “What do you think, dear? Can we trust him?”

Gwen nodded as she stepped out into the room. “Aye, my lord. There was not even the smallest hint of duplicity in his thoughts.”

“He was thinking in English,” Rod explained to the startled King and Queen. “He had to; he was talking to us.”

Tuan’s face broke into a broad grin. “So that was thy meaning when thou didst speak of ‘eavesdroppers’!”

“Well, not entirely. But I did kind of have Gwen in mind.”

“Yet may he not have been thinking in his own tongue, beneath the thoughts he spoke to us?” Catharine demanded.

Gwen cast an approving glance at her. Rod read it and agreed; though Catharine tended to flare into anger if you mentioned her own psi powers to her, she was obviously progressing well in their use, to have come across the idea of submerged thoughts.

“Mayhap, Majesty,” Gwen agreed. “Yet, beneath those thoughts in his own tongue there are the root-thoughts that give rise to words, but which themselves are without words. They are naked flashes of idea, as yet unclothed. Even there, as deeply as I could read him, there was no hint of treachery.”

“But just to be sure, we’ll have Toby check out his camp right before the invasion,” Rod explained. “He’s learned enough to be able to dig beneath the camouflage of surface thoughts, if there is any.”