"The old ways—trial by combat, and trial by ordeal!"
"So that the man who's stronger and has a higher pain threshold will always go free to beat up his neighbors, eh?"
"Have not the stronger the right to thrive?" the man demanded, his voice rising. "Have not the..."
Matt let him rave while he muttered,
"Let a sudden fire grow
Right beside this fellow's toe,
So that its flame and ruddy glow
Shall light his face up from below!"
Light burst between the man's feet, and Matt had half a second to study the face—square and blocky, mature, a little gone to fat, with a tawny jawline beard and close-cropped moustache. Bushy brows cast shadows over deep-set eyes.
Then he shouted, leaping back into the shadows—shouted a singsong verse in a language Matt didn't know, and the fire died. The courtyard seemed much darker, for Matt's eyes had started to adjust to the sudden glare. He could scarcely see his opponent at all. Alarm shot through him—his fugitive was a sorcerer!
"Aren't we clever now, managing a bit of light to see my face?" the man snarled. "You'll wish you hadn't, my bawcock!" And he rapped out another verse.
Matt hated not knowing what spell he had to counter until it happened. On general principles, he chanted,
"Avaunt, avoid! What e'er befalls,
Turn aside from my frail frame!
Strike me not! Confound the calls
Of him who seeks myself to maim!"
Something slammed into the earth beside him. Shaken, Matt spared it a quick glance; it was a fallen gargoyle.
The stranger shouted another verse. Fire burst from the ground. Some sixth sense gave Matt just enough warning; he was already leaping back as the flame roared upward. Even so, he howled as it singed the side of his leg before he landed on the far side of the stony monster. But the gargoyle gave him an idea; he chanted,
"Thing of stone, arise and walk you!
Let no spell or magic balk you!
Seize that man who struck you down!
Stop his voice and see him bound!"
With a grinding of granite joints, the half-human, half-draconian sculpture rose to its hind feet and spread its wings.
The stranger leaped back, arm snapping down to point at the gargoyle as he shouted a verse.
Matt was ready for him this time, though—the man couldn't aim a verse at him when he had to stop the gargoyle. Matt had the precious moments he needed to seize the offensive. He pointed at his enemy and shouted another verse.
"Wee, sleekit, tim'rous, cowerin' beastie!
Ah, what a terror's in thy breastie!
Thou must become four-foot and furry,
And in the dust must surely scurry!"
The gargoyle froze, its eyes glazing as it turned to stone again—but the sorcerer screamed as he shrank, his body transforming. Those screams turned into a chant, though, in that strange musical foreign language, and he stopped shrinking, two feet tall and with paws instead of hands thrashing their way out of sleeves three times too long for his arms—or front legs. His face bulged into a muzzle with a sharp nose, but his tongue was still human enough to intone another verse in a high, squeaky voice as he pointed upward.
The picture he presented was so ludicrous that Matt couldn't help but laugh. He was still laughing as the end of the hayloft broke off from the stables and buried him under several hundred pounds of wooden beams.
The invisible envelope of his first spell kept the boards from hitting Matt, but they knocked him to the ground anyway—hard, since the beaten earth of the innyard hadn't been trying to do him any harm. He landed on his back, pain shooting through his abdomen, and he fought to breathe, but his diaphragm wasn't cooperating. He heard a howling battle cry with a Bretanglian accent, but it was cut short. Then Sir Orizhan shouted in anger, but the sorcerer shouted back in his own language, and Sir Orizhan's voice cried out in pain before it fell silent.
Matt struggled for breath, but couldn't pull in enough to speak.
Footsteps came near, and the enemy sorcerer's voice said, "I know you are alive and whole in there, for you spoke a spell that told anything falling not to strike your body. Listen well, Lord Wizard. I know who you are, but you do not know me. You will, though, be sure of that—for King Drustan will declare war on Merovence now, in revenge for the death of his son. He has wanted to battle Alisande for some time, for he seeks to rule both Bretanglia and Merovence. Now he has an excuse, and will defy you to find a way to keep him from it." There was a sound of gloating in his tone as he went on. "Try to stop this war, and you will find yourself fighting me at every turn. Let the war run, and you shall meet me on the battlefield. In either case, we shall meet again, and fight. I cannot kill you now because you have cobbled up some sort of spell to defend yourself, but I shall be ready to counter it when we meet again."
Matt caught his breath and shouted,
"With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,
Revolving in his alter'd soul
The various turns of chance below..."
"Aroint thee!" the enemy sorcerer cried, and chanted a couplet in his flowing language. A soft explosion sounded, and Matt ended his verse with a curse, knowing his enemy had escaped and thereby won the fight.
Matt resolved the man wouldn't win the war. He tried crawling forward, and beams bounced off the unseen bubble that protected him. At the edge of the pile Matt shoved himself to his feet, and boards fell around him. He stepped out into the moonlight, gratefully drawing a breath of clean air and looking about him.
He saw Sergeant Brock lying facedown in the dirt, and ten feet across from him, Sir Orizhan, on his back and unconscious with his sword by his hand.
Matt stared in alarm, then ran to the sergeant first, to flip him over and make sure he had clear breathing. He did, so Matt checked for a pulse, found it, then went over to Sir Orizhan, still concerned—but as he came close, the knight sat up suddenly, shaking his head. "What... where..." He looked about, then shoved himself up, catching his sword as he looked about wild-eyed. "Where did he go?"
"Disappeared," Matt said. "He's a wizard."
"I saw," Sir Orizhan told him. "He struck me down with a chant and a wave of his hand. Why did you not call us to attack him sooner, Lord Wizard?"
"I thought I could handle him by myself," Matt answered, and the words were gall on his tongue. "He turned out to be a better sorcerer than I thought."
"A sorcerer?" Sir Orizhan frowned. "How can you be sure that he uses his powers for evil?"
"Just a feeling," Matt said, "but when you've held magic duels with enough sorcerers, you begin to recognize that feeling. Besides, he helped murder a man, maybe even did it himself, and is trying to start a war." He started toward Sergeant Brock. "Come on, let's see if we can get this soldier on his feet again. We have to go back to the castle and tell the king—" He broke off, gritted his teeth, then forced himself to say, "—tell the king I lost, and the murderer got away."
"He will not like that." Sir Orizhan joined him, scooping an arm under Brock's shoulders and pulling him up.
"No, he won't." Matt shuddered at the thought of facing the king. "He's going to like it even less when I tell him the man was Bretanglian."
"He will not believe you," Sir Orizhan said flatly.
"No, he won't," Matt agreed, "but you heard his accent—didn't you?"
"I heard most of what passed between you, yes."
Matt started patting Sergeant Brock's cheeks. "Where would you say the man came from?"
"Bretanglia—but I have seldom heard so strong an accent."
Matt paused. "You mean he might have been laying it on too thick because he wanted me to think he was Bretanglian when he wasn't?"
"That, or making sure you could not mistake him."
"Makes sense, if he's trying to start a war," Matt said grimly, "which is what's going to happen, when I have to tell the king I failed."
"Are you sure the man you fought w
as indeed the murderer, though?"
Matt froze, the light dawning. Then he turned to Sir Orizhan with a smile. "No, I'm not. We really should try to make sure before I report in, shouldn't we? Come on, let's wake up this man and visit the crime scene."
Matt cured Sergeant Brock's headache by massaging his temples and reciting a verse. Then the two men led him deep into the twisting alleys of the oldest part of the town, to the Inn of the Courier Snail. They came in to find the common room silent, with sixteen very glum patrons, an extremely worried landlord with trembling serving wenches, and a dozen grim-faced soldiers stationed around the room, their halberds on guard, Merovencians on one side, Bretanglians on the other.
"I guess it really is a good thing we came," Matt said.
"Aye, milord, unless you wish the war to start here," Sir Orizhan said.
The soldiers all looked up. The Merovencians smiled with relief, the Bretanglians glared. The civilians quaked.
Matt decided it was time to be authoritative. "I am Matthew Mantrell, Lord Wizard of Merovence, come to investigate this night's doings."
The Bretanglians turned surly. Matt was a lord and a knight, so they had to do what he said, unless they'd had orders not to—and they hadn't.
Matt strode up to the landlord. "Okay, mine host. Tell me what you saw."
"Very little, my lord," the man said quickly. "We were very busy, no time to be nosing into anything but business, when this horrible scream tore the room and we all turned to see the prince—well, we didn't know that's what he was then, did we? But we saw Laetri come flying down the stairs and slamming into the wall, with the prince stalking after her calling her a thief."
Matt frowned. "Who's Laetri?"
"One of the regular prostitutes who visits here, my lord," the innkeeper said.
Well, Matt hadn't really believed Gaheris was killed defending a maiden's honor. He fixed the innkeeper with a steely gaze. "And you didn't chase her out?"
The innkeeper squirmed. "This is a public house, my lord. I serve all who come."
"Of course, and I'm sure you don't charge extra for letting them use the rooms upstairs—which they must have done, or the prince wouldn't have thrown Laetri down the steps." Matt said evenly, "You know that pimping is against the law, don't you?"
"I know," the innkeeper said with dread.
"And visiting a prostitute, too?"
"Yes," the innkeeper said in a faint voice. Then he rallied. "Why does the queen not make it a crime to be a prostitute?"
"Because prostitutes are usually victims, not perpetrators," Matt told him. "Very few of them choose their line of work. Most of them are forced into it by their pimps. For the rest, it's whore or starve."
The innkeeper didn't look convinced, but few men wanted to believe the facts when it came to sexploitation. Matt said, "What happened when the prince caught up with Laetri?"
"He raised his hand to strike her again," the innkeeper said, "but Pargas, her pimp, stepped in to stop him and ask the reason for his anger, and the prince told him that Laetri had stolen his purse. She denied it, of course, and Pargas sided with her, again of course, and the prince struck at Pargas. Well, Pargas didn't know the man was royal, so he struck back, and this sergeant here"—he nodded at Brock—"stepped in to protect his prince, and in a few seconds the whole common room was one big brawl. I tried to stop it, but it was like spitting into the wind. Then Laetri screamed again..." He shuddered. "It was the worst scream I've ever heard, sir, and when we turned around, we all saw why—the prince lay there in a pool of his own blood, and Pargas stood over him, bloody but with his club in his hand. Then I saw a man trying to climb out the window, so I raised the hue and cry, and everyone ran out into the night to catch him—except Pargas and Laetri, of course, and I tried to kick them out to end the trouble, but this nobleman stopped me." He pointed to Sir Orizhan.
"Even so." Sir Orizhan nodded. "The man Pargas had clearly killed the prince, and I wasn't about to let this fellow help him escape."
"And that was the end of it?"
"As far as I know," Sir Orizhan said.
Matt turned back to the innkeeper. "How did you get all your customers back?"
"The soldiers brought them, sir, when they couldn't catch the one who went out the window."
"All?" Matt turned to Sergeant Brock.
"We lost him quick enough," the sergeant said, "and herded the rest of the civilians back in here, though you may be sure they didn't like it. We might have lost one or two, but no more, I'll wager."
"Yeah, but that one or two might include the murderer." Matt turned away with a sigh.
"The murderer?" Sergeant Brock stared. "Are you ma—I mean, it's clear Pargas killed him, sir!... Isn't it?"
"Then why did you all chase the man who went out the window?"
Sergeant Brock stared at him, at a loss. Everyone else stared, too, and Matt could see they were all asking themselves the same question.
"It's an instinct," Matt explained. "If somebody runs, it's natural to chase them, because why would they be running if they hadn't done anything? But in this case the man was trying to decoy you all out of the inn so the real murderer could escape."
Sir Orizhan frowned. "How can you be sure it was not Pargas who struck the fatal blow?"
"Because you said the prince was lying in a pool of blood," Matt told him, "and Pargas only had a club."
CHAPTER FOUR
Sir Orizhan stared, then whirled to exchange glances with Sergeant Brock, who only stared back at him.
"Where did the prince fall?" Matt asked.
"Over here." Sir Orizhan led the way to the foot of the stairs, where a dark stain covered the floorboards, three feet across.
Matt looked down, nodding. "Pool of blood, all right. What time did it happen?"
"Time?" Sir Orizhan frowned; the medieval mind scarcely thought in terms of hours, let alone minutes. "In the middle of the night, my lord. What more can we say?"
Matt raised his voice. "Is there a man of the Watch here?"
"Here, my lord." One of the Merovencians stepped forward. He didn't wear livery, like the soldiers, but only a brassard to show his office.
"How far into your Watch did this happen?"
"We were almost done, my lord, when a pot-boy came running to summon us. We were in time to see the folk come streaming out of the inn."
"An hour before midnight, then." Matt had set up the duty rosters himself. The first Watch began their shift at dusk, which would have been about seven o'clock in this season. "Where is the body now?"
"We brought it back to the castle, milord," Sir Orizhan said. "We thought his parents would wish it."
"I'm sure they do. And Pargas and Laetri?"
"At the castle also, milord," Sergeant Brock said, "but in the dungeons."
"Of course," Matt said sourly, gazing down at the stain. "But you saw the prince's body. Where was the wound?"
"In his back, my lord." Sir Orizhan's face writhed with disgust, and he spoke with contempt. "It was truly the stroke of a base coward."
"But Pargas fought the prince face-to-face, with only a club."
"Two clubs, milord," Sergeant Brock told him. "Small ones. I fought him myself, till some fool of a Merovencian pulled me away and stabbed at me."
The Merovencian soldiers' faces darkened, and Matt hurried on. "Two small clubs? Why did he only have one when he was standing over the body?"
"Because someone had stabbed his left shoulder, milord."
"You?"
"No, milord," the sergeant said. "He had both clubs when I was torn away from him. Then another brawler came at the prince's back, felling the soldier who warded him there, and I had to leap to guard him from behind until I was laid low in my turn by some other Merovencian bully boy."
"Probably the prince who stabbed Pargas, then." Matt turned away before the sergeant could object, and measured the distance from the stain to the bottom step with his eyes. "Ten feet clear of the stairs, at least. The pri
nce fought a good way into the room."
"He was a decent fighter with a knife, milord." The sergeant's tone was neutral.
"And not very many noblemen are good knife-fighters, hm? Not his first tavern brawl, no doubt. Unfortunately, he made it far enough away from the walls so that virtually anyone could have come at his back."
The room was very quiet.
Into the silence, Sir Orizhan said, "Then anyone here might have struck that blow?"
"Anyone," Matt agreed. "Start asking questions, Sir Knight. You, too, Sergeant. I want to know where everyone was when the prince fell."
They started asking. Half an hour later Matt had a complete picture of where everyone had been. Each one of them remembered whom he had been fighting, and their stories all checked—except for two men whose opponents had disappeared chasing the fugitive, but Matt was inclined to believe them, so the escapees couldn't have been the murderers. One of the Bretanglian troopers even remembered that he'd been fighting Pargas when Laetri screamed, and that he'd seen her over the pimp's shoulder the whole time. The serving wenches had all been hiding behind the bar, and all remembered each other's presence.
"It would seem that the murderer was the man who went out the window after all, milord," Sir Orizhan said.
"That," Matt agreed, "or somebody's lying. Let's go back to the castle, Sir Orizhan. I want a look at the body before I talk to its father."
"A look at the body? But why?"
"Tell you outside," Matt muttered, then snapped, "Come on, Sergeant. Let's go!"
They strode out into the night—and Matt halted, turning to face the two men. "I didn't want to say this where the bystanders could hear—but if the man who went out the window didn't stab the prince with his own hand, and everyone else remembers who they were fighting, there's a very good chance the prince was killed by magic."
The knight stared, face sickening, eyes filling with dread—but Brock's expression turned stone cold.
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