"Yes, I can see that would be a problem." Mentally, Matt tried to fight off the dread; he was a wizard, he could handle one country spirit! "But if you're so sociable, why are you hanging around this abandoned hut?"
"Because it belonged to my last family." The bauchan wiped away a tear. "They were good folk, grandfather and father and daughter, but none came to marry her, and she dwelled alone in this cottage until she died, a good old woman of three score years and ten."
That was the Bible's allotted life span. Matt wondered if she'd forced herself to hang on until she turned seventy. "Rough life."
"Aye. She had few friends, fewer who came to visit her."
The vagrant thought drifted through Matt's mind that the bauchan might have had something to do with that.
"She did try to slay herself once or twice," the bauchan said, his eyes glittering, "but of course I could not allow that."
"Sure, you wouldn't want to be lonely." Matt shivered. "What happened to the rest of her family?"
"Oh, they died, too. They were a very nervous lot."
"I'm beginning to see why. No one else has ever tried to stay the night here, huh?"
"Nay, they have not. The place has a bad name among the villagers."
"Gee, imagine that." But Matt and his friends had flown over the village, not ridden through it and heard the warning. "How long ago did she die?"
"Thirty years."
"Yes, that's a considerable length of time. Why have you stayed?"
"Why, because I'd adopted her family, do you see. There was no point in leaving without another family to go to."
"Very loyal of you, I'm sure." But Matt's doubt sounded in his voice. "How does a bauchan find a new family?"
"He waits until someone stays the night in his old family's house, then adopts that person and stays with him and his family."
The tendrils of dread whipped tight around Matt. Ever the optimist, he said, "And you've chosen the sergeant here."
Grinning, the bauchan turned its head from side to side.
"The knight, then."
Again the bauchan slowly shook its head.
"You can't be thinking of—" Matt swallowed. "—me."
The bauchan lifted its head up and down, eyes glowing.
Matt stared, frozen, while a chill passed over him. He gave himself a shake, cleared his throat and said, "I'm afraid that's not possible."
"Oh, but it is," the bauchan assured him. "I've adopted you, you see."
"I'm not up for adoption," Matt said firmly.
"Ah, but you've no choice there." The bauchan's teeth glinted in the firelight. "I've adopted you, and there's no more to say."
"How about 'no'?"
"You could not; you'd regret it."
"I think I'd regret 'yes' even more."
The creature's eyes flashed. "Do you refuse the gift of my company, then? You'll rue it if you do, mortal!"
Those eyes really were like those of a stag. Matt cleared his throat, resolved to straighten out this presumptuous creature. "Now look here, Buckeye—"
"Buckeye I am!" the creature crowed with delight. "You'll never be rid of me now, mortal! Buckeye you've named me, and Buckeye I shall be, as long as I stay with you and your family! That's the way the spell works, you see!"
The dread sank in around Matt and pooled in his belly. "Then I'll make it work backward."
"You cannot, for you've chosen to name me of your own free will! Try to break that bond, and you'll regret it sorely!"
"If I do," Matt said, "you'll regret it even more."
"Do ye not ken who brought yon pallets for your sleep?" The bauchan pointed at the piles of straw under the companions' blankets. "Do you not think I can make you rue the night you slept on them?"
"Maybe, but I can make you rue your threat." Matt pointed a finger at the creature and chanted,
"Away! The moor is dark beneath the moon,
Rapid clouds have drank the last pale beam of even:
Away! For night's swift steeds will ride the darkness soon,
And bear you off beneath the lights of heaven!"
Far away there was a sound like distant hooves that went on and on, coming nearer.
The bauchan frowned. "What is that?"
"Your exit approaching," Matt told him.
The sound grew louder.
The bauchan grinned, but a bit uncertainly. "Oh, is it now! And what do you think you are—a sorcerer?"
"No," Matt said, "a wizard."
With the thunder of a cavalry regiment, something unseen and unseeable swept through the cottage, darkening the firelight for a minute. The sound was so loud that Matt could scarcely hear the bauchan's angry squall of surprise. Then the cottage lightened, and the creature was gone.
Matt felt a twinge of conscience, but it only lasted a second—he hadn't specified that any harm come to the bauchan, only that it be relocated far away from him. He let himself smile—he had turned the tables neatly, using magic to banish a magical spirit. He just hoped Shelley wouldn't mind his making a few modifications.
Matt let himself relax, surveying the room, once again on watch, noting Stegoman's sleeping bulk outside the doorway and the slow rise and fall of the mounds that were Sir Orizhan and Sergeant Brock. The bauchan hadn't been joking about its own magical powers—whatever sleep spell it had cast on Matt's companions had certainly worked well.
Then Matt felt a sting in his left buttock. He spun off the pallet and onto his knees, brushing at every part of his anatomy that had been in contact with the blanket. Looking down, he saw that the straw had come alive with bedbugs, and very large representatives of their species at that. He swore softly. Sleep wasn't the only spell the bauchan could cast. He hadn't been joking about his power over the pallets.
On the other hand, Matt had some influence over them himself—and he needed to speak quickly before his companions were welted.
"Hey! Where y'goin', y'crawlin' ferlie!
Your impudence protects you sairly:
I canna say but ye strut rarely
O'er straw and hay.
Though faith! I fear ye dine but sparely
In such a place.
Why not go where pelt is furry?
Get you hence in hungry hurry
To him who sent you.
You'll find him savory as a curry.
Quick, go to his venue!"
The bedbugs all froze in position, and Matt could imagine their diminutive antennae sticking up straight in surprise. Then, suddenly, they were gone.
Matt nodded with satisfaction, then cocked his head, listening. After all, there had been more to the spell than banishment...
Outside, he heard a howl of shock and anger which broadened into a squalling that rose, then fell and diminished, fading away into the night. Matt grinned and settled himself cross-legged on his nice, fresh, clean pallet again. The bauchan wouldn't try its pranks on him again in a hurry.
Or would it? Uneasily, Matt wondered if, once having said it adopted him, the bauchan was bound to him whether it wanted to be or not. He resolved to be very vigilant for a while.
Mama woke at the knock on her door and clucked her tongue in annoyance with herself for sleeping so late. "Come in!" she called, pushing herself up in bed.
The door opened and a serving maid came in, caroling, "Good morning, milady!" with just the right degree of optimism.
"Good morning to you, Meg," Mama said, smiling.
Meg balanced the bed-tray dexterously while she closed the door with one foot, then came over to set the tray over Mama's lap and plump up the pillows for her to sit up. Mama leaned back with a happy sigh. Before coming to Merovence, she had only had breakfast in bed on Mother's Day and her birthday. It was a very pleasant way to start each morning.
In this case, it was also useful. As Meg bustled over to open the curtains, Mama asked, "Has the week been as difficult for you belowstairs as it has been for us?"
"Oh, a proper fright, milady!" Meg turned back
to her, eyes wide. "No lass dared turn her back on those princes, not that it—" She blushed and clamped her mouth shut.
"Come, come, I too know the ways of men, both good and bad," Mama cajoled. "So even facing them did not protect you from their gropings? Well, there have always been noblemen who thought all women of the common folk were theirs to do with as they would. Was it only the princes, or their father, too?"
CHAPTER SEVEN
"My lady!" Meg gasped, blanching.
"There are only the two of us here, and I will never say where I learned this news," Mama assured her. "Do I shock you by the mere thought, or only by the fact that I dare speak of it?"
"Well..." Meg turned away. "How did you know?"
"The tone of his voice, and the look in his wife's eyes when he spoke to a younger woman." Mama didn't mention that the younger woman had been Gaheris' fiancée. "So he did treat all the serving women as though they were there for his pleasure?"
"Yes, milady, though I will say he did not press us to come to his bed, as his sons did."
"No doubt because his wife was here," Mama said. "How did you deal with the princes?"
"We spoke to Sir Martin the seneschal, milady, and he spoke to the king. None knows what passed, but the servants in the hall spoke of hearing the king's shouting through a three-inch-thick door of oak, and of Sir Martin coming out looking more stern than usual, and the king being in a right royal rage when he sent for his sons. They ceased to press us to their beds after that, though they stole as many kisses and caresses as they could, and poured lascivious remarks into our ears."
Mama made a mental note to get to know Sir Martin better; apparently, his devotion to chivalry gave him such standing as a knight that even a king dared not seek to punish him. "Even Prince Brion?"
"Oh, he never troubled us, Majesty, though he did cast admiring glances our way." She blushed. "Perhaps more than admiring, but less than lustful. Then, too, we saw him often in conversation with Sir Martin and Sir Orizhan, quite earnest conversation, about chivalry and the meaning of a knight's vows."
"But not a knight's love for his lady?"
"Not his lady, no," Meg said slowly. "The talk was of loving from afar, of how a knight must acquit himself when he loves a lady he may not court—even, I think, of when that knight may wear her favor, and when he may not."
In tournaments, a knight could tie a lady's scarf about his arm to show she was hoping for him to win, even if they were not in love—but Mama strongly suspected that Brion was in love with his brother's fiancée, and this overheard remark confirmed that he would not have committed murder to gain her—it would have been unchivalrous.
Mama sighed, looking up at the ceiling with its pattern of stars, suns, and moons. "I cannot understand how a family could stay together when there is so much sniping and snapping at one another."
"They are royal," Meg said simply. "They need not stay together."
"True," Mama said thoughtfully. "They can live in separate castles." She smiled at Meg. "And who could blame them?"
"They were quite—" Meg bit her tongue again, reddening.
"Quite unpleasant? Say it, my dear—I have told you I shall not repeat it. Whether it is spoken or not, most of the people in this castle will think it, from the queen to the scullery maid."
"The scullery maid! She is not even pretty, but still the princes—" Meg cut herself off again.
"If you do not stop biting your tongue," Mama said, "you will wear a hole in it. So they pursued every woman, whether she had beauty or not?"
"Prince John did," Meg explained.
"Well, like will to like. No doubt the king blames us all for guarding our virtue, for if Prince Gaheris had found his sport within the castle, he might have felt no need to go out of it."
"He may feel that," Meg said grimly, "but it will not be true. Gaheris was the sort to think that every woman is a conquest waiting. He could never be satisfied."
"Not as long as there was a virtuous woman undespoiled," Mama agreed.
"I do not think he insisted on virtue," Meg said, "though virginity might have added spice to his conquests." She shuddered. "Vile or not, though, his death has made a horrible ending to this week."
"Yes, but he and his family saw to it that it would be a horrible week. I will except Prince Brion from that, though, and Lady Rosamund." She shook her head in pity. "Poor child! I wonder where she was while her fiancée was out wenching."
"Oh, I can tell you that!" Meg said.
That was exactly what Mama had intended. "Really? Where?"
"When the princes went out to roister, she went to her room, pleading a headache."
"I can understand that." Mama shuddered at the memory of the dinner. "I hope it passed."
"She went right to sleep, it seems, for she locked her door, and when her chambermaid came with a draft of wine to help her slumber, Princess Rosamund told her through the door, voice thick with sleep, to go away, she needed no wine."
"Then she slept, which was well, for she had a very rude awakening." Mama shook her head. "And we thought it was a blessing when those three princes left the castle in peace for a few hours!"
"Oh, not all the princes, milady."
"Oh?" Mama looked up. "Brion stayed behind, then?"
"Brion? No, he went carousing with his brother, and Sir Orizhan to ward them, with a troop of guards." Meg shook her head. "It was Prince John who stayed behind."
"Prince John?" Mama demanded, suddenly intent. "Are you certain?"
"Quite certain, milady." Meg seemed taken aback by Mama's sudden intensity. "He was most surely in the castle until he took to his bed—he went nosing about in the kitchens, asking me to his chamber, and when I told him no, he went into the hallway and pressed his demands on poor Alia. She told him nay, too, of course, so he went to his chamber in a sulk. Then Coquille fetched him mulled wine to help him sleep, and did not come out."
Mama stiffened. "You do not mean he held her prisoner!"
"Oh, nay," Meg said, with a little laugh. "Coquille is very hard and calculating. She threw herself away long ago, for the man who stole her maidenhead with a promise of marriage then jilted her, and she resolved to have gold from men, for she claimed she could depend on them for nothing else. She fairly boasted to us the next morning that she had sported in bed with Prince John until midnight, and that she took coins from him both before and after."
The assassin had killed Gaheris about eleven o'clock, so John had a very thorough alibi. Mama frowned; she had been expecting him to be patently guilty, and was rather sorry to hear he was not.
"He still might have hired the assassin," she told Papa when they went walking in the garden after breakfast.
"So might Drustan and Petronille," Papa reminded her. "I never thought they might have wielded the knife themselves, but it is reassuring to know that they were both with Alisande and ourselves until ten."
"After that, though? The murder happened only an hour later, after all."
"I shall check to see if either of them went out." Papa smiled. "It pays to cultivate the acquaintance of soldiers, particularly those who guard the chambers of royalty."
The dragon banked low, struck the earth, and ran a short distance as it slowed, folding its wings.
"Thanks, Stegoman!" Matt climbed down. "You may have cleared up another problem for me."
"Which, if I may ask?" the dragon rumbled.
"Well, I think you could say that if anyone wants to follow our trail, they'll find it very difficult when we've just flown fifty miles."
Sir Orizhan looked up, one hand steadying himself against the dragon's side. "Who will follow us?"
"You never can tell," Matt said. "How was your trip, Sergeant?"
"Better than yesterday's." Brock climbed to his feet; he had as much fallen off the dragon's back as climbed. "I should be quite used to it by tomorrow."
"Oh, don't worry—we walk from here on."
"Walk?" Stegoman fumed. "Wherefore, when you might
ride?"
"Well, we're trying to gather information," Matt explained, "so we have to try to be inconspicuous. We'll be across the border and into Bretanglia soon, so we have to go on foot. But thanks for the ride."
"Can I do no more to aid you?" the dragon protested.
"Well, actually, you can," Matt said. "Saul sent Narlh to check out conditions in Scotia and to watch for any signs of invasion, but the local dragons probably won't accept him. Could you go along and see how bad things are there, and back him up if he needs it?"
"The valiant dracogriff? Of course!" Stegoman huffed. "Woe to any drake who seeks to singe him! Nay, I'll fly north immediately!"
"Oh, I don't think it's that crucial," Matt said quickly. "You could spend one more night with us—you know, have a cow and settle down for some chat."
"The journey has been long and tiring," Stegoman agreed. "Very well, I'll seek a steer and join your company for one more night."
Matt sighed with relief. If the bauchan did manage to find them, it would probably think twice about causing trouble with Stegoman near.
Unless, of course, it managed to put him to sleep again.
Hastings Castle was small, as royal fortresses went, but the castellan and his family lived in a lodge in the courtyard, leaving twelve rooms for the use of the royal family. The structure was quite well situated to be the first dwelling to welcome its king and queen on their return to Bretanglia.
King Drustan strode into the Great Hall, yanking off his gauntlets, hurling them at a squire, and snarling at everyone about him. "I could have ridden in here with an army, and none to stop me! Castellan, have you no more sentries for the walls? Confound you, steward, send your bottler for wine! You knew I was entering the castle, the goblet should have been ready for my hand! Or are the sentries so lax that you did not know I was coming? Be done with that curtsying, wench, and fetch me bread and meat! Ninny, do you think I care for your homage? Varlet, you barely nodded your head! Do you not bow to your king?"
Queen Petronille was right behind him, snapping, "How long is it since these walls have been scrubbed? Sloven, are those tapestries never beaten? I see rust on the trophies and dust on the royal coat of arms! You there, do you call yourself a gardener? I shall stroll through your handiwork after dinner, and if I see so much as one weed, you'll spend the rest of your life mucking out stables!"
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