The Haunted Wizard

by Christopher Stasheff

  Up the stairs they went, snapping and snarling at all about them, then into the solar, slamming the door behind them. There, Petronille sank into an hourglass chair, covered her face and loosed a torrent of sobs.

  "Oh, be still!" Drustan snapped. "If you hadn't insisted on taking the boys along, this never would have happened!"

  "I!" Petronille snapped bolt upright, glaring at him through her tears. "If you hadn't taken it into your head to go gallivanting off to Merovence, our son would be alive this day!"

  "You were quick enough for the jaunt when I mentioned it!"

  "Aye, to make sure you would not be trying to bed every wench you found!"

  "At least they would not have made my bed a battleground!"

  "Better your bed than our children!" Petronille blazed.

  "Then why did you shower Brion with praise and John with criticisms? Not to mention poor Gaheris, which you did not, and look what has come of it!"

  "Oh, indeed!" Petronille sprang to her feet. "And who was ever telling him that he must be cruel to be a man, and must prove his manhood by bedding every wench he saw?"

  "Who told him he must never touch a woman at all?" Drustan returned.

  "Save his wife!"

  "Ah, but you did not tell him that!"

  "You never heard! You were always far too busy planning your next slaughter and your next seduction—if you can so dignify commanding a helpless woman to submit to your embraces!"

  "Submit?" Drustan roared. "They were glad enough to come to me, and you were too, till you saw I would not bow and scrape for it!"

  "So because I would not shower you with honeyed words every hour of the day, you turned to Rosamund and sought to seduce a child under our protection!"

  "There will certainly be no need for seduction now!" Drustan retorted. "Not when she must face the prospect of marrying your lapdog Brion!"

  "See to it you dare not dog her lap, sirrah! Any woman would faint with delight at the thought of wedding Brion! It is the prospect of marrying your depraved little John that makes her faint with nausea!"

  "A woman wants a man who is his own master, not forever the slave of his mother!"

  "His own master, but not hers! Brion is a true knight and troubadour, chivalrous to the last, and will treat her with the respect due the lady she is!"

  "Set her on a pedestal and never touch her, you mean! Let her pine and waste away! I'll save her from such a fate by marrying her to John!"

  "To John?" Petronille screeched. "To yourself, you mean, for if she is betrothed to John, she will live with you, and you'll be quick to take advantage of her!"

  "So that's why you want her for Brion!" Drustan's eyes glittered with malice. "You wish to keep her by you out of sheer jealousy!"

  "Out of duty, you great ninny! My duty to protect the child from such libertines as you! That I shall do in any case—but I wish her for Brion solely because he is now heir, and she was betrothed to the heir of Bretanglia!"

  "John, too, is the heir!"

  "Aye, after Brion! Will you slay your second son, too, only to steal Rosamund for yourself?"

  "I, slay my own son?" Drustan turned purple. "I would never so much as dream of such a thing! How corrupted and base your mind must be, that you think of it!"

  "Corrupted by learning what a king may be!"

  "Corrupted by years of marriage to a southern prince who taught you all manner of nasty games!"

  "Louis? There was nothing he could teach me but the Bible! If he'd known any manner of games, I'd surely never have divorced him for you!"

  "But you did, and liked my games well enough," Drustan said, with a vindictive grin.

  "Aye, so long as you played them only with me! But it is a dance for partners, sir, not a crowd of maidens 'round a maypole, and little Rosamund shall not dance attendance upon you!"

  "And how shall you prevent it?" Drustan challenged. "By betrothing her to Brion? Little fool, whether to Brion or John, she will still live in the same castle with me!"

  Petronille narrowed her eyes. "Not if I do not."

  "What choice have you?" Drustan countered. "If I say John shall be king, he shall, youngest or not! You may remove yourself from me, but Rosamund shall stay!"

  "You wouldn't dare!" Petronille hissed.

  "Of course I would." Drustan grinned. "I shall do it now!" He strode to the door, threw it open, and stepped out to the rail that overlooked the Great Hall. "Hearken one and all! Hear the word of your sovereign! Prince John shall succeed me! Prince John is heir apparent! Prince John shall be your new king!"

  "Brion shall be king, by right of law!" Petronille shouted. She whirled out of the room to face Drustan, glaring up at him. "Will you or nil you, Brion shall rule! It is his right!"

  Doors opened; John and Rosamund stepped out, eyes sleep-blurred, staring in fear. But Brion's door opened, too, and though his face was flushed with sleep, his eyes were bright and clear, ready for anything that might come, and there was no fear in his face.

  "Away!" Somehow, Petronille had found a cloak, and swung it about her shoulders as she pivoted to Brion. "He seeks to disinherit you! You must fight for your right, and the welfare of your people!" She caught Rosamund's hand and pulled her away toward the stairs.

  Drustan roared and came after her, but brought himself up short to avoid the point of Brion's sword. "Well, now we know with what mistress you sleep!"

  "As always, my father, you are correct," Brion said. "Not right, but accurate."

  "So you would stab your own father, would you?"

  "Never," Brion assured him, "but if he chose to throw himself upon my sword, how could I interfere with his will?"

  "Then obey my will indeed, and put up your sword! It is your sovereign who commands!"

  "Your sovereign seeks to break the law of the land by displacing the legitimate heir!" Petronille cried from the stairwell. "In Bretanglia, no king is above the law! He has defied it, he is rightful king no longer! Hail Brion, true King of Bretanglia!"

  There was a startling lack of response from the crowd of servants and soldiers.

  "Stop them!" Drustan shouted at the guards.

  Two dozen men moved forward on the instant.

  "To me, men of mine!" Petronille cried. "Protect me, all men of Pykta! Guard your princess, all men of Toulenge!"

  Thirty men leaped to surround the two women.

  "Beware, woman!" Drustan bellowed. "Walk out down that stair and across that drawbridge, and this means war!"

  "Then let it be war!" Petronille cried. "Let it be war for virtue and right, and the true king come to replace the false! Down with the disgraced king! Let the right prevail!"

  "And you?" Drustan fixed his middle son with a vengeful glare. "Do you cleave to your true king, or to this rebel woman?"

  "I am a knight," Brion said simply. "I must defend women in distress."

  "A pox upon your chivalry!" Drustan roared. "I knew I should never have let your mother fill your head with that troubadour nonsense!"

  "It is no nonsense, but the only possible salvation of the world." Brion backed away, down the stairs, sword still level. "It allies the might of the knight with the mercy of Christ, alloying the strength of arms with Christian charity."

  "Yet the dauntless knight dares not turn his back on his unarmed father," Drustan sneered.

  "I would never turn my back upon my sovereign," Brion rejoined.

  "Guard him!" Petronille commanded, and half a dozen men broke away to meet Brion at the foot of the stairs. Armed and wary, they retreated to join her men at the door.

  "Take one more step at your peril!" Drustan warned them all. "Leave this hall, and you are traitors one and all, rebels to king and country, who deserve only the noose or the headsman's block!"

  "So speaks the man who seeks to break the common law and custom of Bretanglia!" Petronille cried. The words sounded strange in the accent of Merovence. "So speaks the traitor to his land, the tyrant who breaks his covenant with his people and his God! We s
hall remember your words, O Traitor, when you kneel before us on the day of your defeat and our triumph."

  "I shall never kneel to you!" Drustan roared.

  "You did once," Petronille reminded him, then stepped backward out of the Great Hall, pulling Rosamund with her. Her son and her men followed.

  Out they went into the courtyard, where horses waited for them all, held by a score of Pyktish soldiers, the rest of Queen Petronille's private guard, save for the few who had already secured the gatehouse. They rode through it, under the portcullis and out across the drawbridge, the rearguard leaving the barbican and riding flat out to join them.

  Inside, Drustan roared, and all his knights and men ran to saddle their horses, mount, and ride out into the night to catch the queen and her party.

  They rode and searched until dawn, but the queen and her entourage had disappeared. Superstitious rumors began in the army and ran through the country in a week—that the queen had spoken truly, that Drustan had indeed violated the old law of Bretanglia, the bond between people and soil, and that the land itself had hidden the rightful king and his mother from the false king.

  By that time a dozen discontented barons had rallied to Petronille's banner and Brion's command, while Drustan had called down his nobles all, and the armies had begun to march.

  It wasn't a hard rain, only a gentle drizzle, but it was constant, and the boots and cloaks of the companions were almost soaked through, so they threw back their hoods with a sigh of relief as they stepped into the wayside inn.

  "This will be far more agreeable than sleeping in an open field," Sir Orizhan observed, "or even that ruined cottage where we slept last week."

  "It sure will." But Matt couldn't help glancing over his shoulder. He wasn't at all sure that Buckeye was going to stay gone. The "adoption" had sounded like pretty strong magic, after all, especially since he had been so careless as to give the creature a nickname. True, he hadn't seen the bauchan in days, but constantly had the feeling they were being watched. Also, he kept finding things—the stack of wood that appeared while they were setting up camp, the dazed rabbits that hopped into the campsite fairly asking to become dinner, the fourth shadow that joined theirs under the morning sun though there was no one to cast it. All in all, Matt was glad to have a lot of people around.

  The big common room was noisy enough. Maybe it was the rain that made business so good, but Matt hoped it was the ale. The only seats he and his companions could find were at a round table where four peasants were already eating. They ordered a pitcher and the special of the day, which was what most of the people were eating, not having money enough for chops. The special turned out to be hash. Matt hoped for the best and started eating.

  "Sad news from Bretanglia," one carter was telling another across the table.

  Matt didn't bother pricking up his ears—Sir Orizhan and Sergeant Brock were tense as pointers in pheasant season.

  "Aye, Ian," the other carter agreed. "War is always bad for business. I'll have trouble enough finding the merchant who ordered my cargo, let alone another load to carry home."

  "If the soldiers let you into Bretanglia at all," Ian said darkly, "and you're lucky enough not to run into an army."

  "The war has started," Sir Orizhan whispered.

  "Not too much worry of that," the second carter said. "The news is all from the midlands now. The queen's army took the high ground at Lochlar and fought a pitched battle against the king's forces under Duke Golarrig. The duke retired in defeat, and the queen invested the town. She has her another stronghold now, and thousands of men to press into her army."

  "War, yes." Sir Orizhan stared in shock. "But not between Bretanglia and Merovence!"

  Matt stared, too. "Civil war?"

  Sergeant Brock managed to keep the groan so quiet that only his companions heard it. "Alas, my poor country! For how long now shall Pyktans spill Anglian blood again?"

  Matt's mind took refuge in the thought that he had guessed correctly about the origin of the country's name. Apparently the invading Angles hadn't won anywhere near the clear-cut victory in this universe that they had in his. They'd been forced to make friends with the country's current inhabitants.

  "And what of Princess Rosamund, Much? What of the cause of this war?"

  "There are some as say she's not the cause at all," Much said darkly. "Some say the cause is Prince Gaheris himself."

  "But he is dead," Ian protested.

  "Aye, but Rumor says he did not die quite as the proclamations say."

  Ian shrugged. "There's no surprise in that. All knew of the prince's roistering. Not a man in all of Bretanglia believes he died defending a maiden's honor."

  "The queen did, says Rumor, and fights because the king insists on the truth—that a pimp stabbed him in the back while he was beating one of the man's whores."

  Matt was amazed that the rumor was even that accurate.

  "If that were said of Prince Brion, the queen might fight to defend his good name," said Ian, "but Gaheris? He was never her favorite."

  "Aye." Much grinned. "I think you had the right of it at first. With Gaheris dead, they fell to fighting over Princess Rosamund—whether she would marry Brion, and live with the queen, or wed John, and live with the king."

  "He would wish that, surely," Ian agreed. "But where is she hidden, while they fight?"

  "Rumor has it that the queen sent her to Castle Eastwind with a hundred men for guard, but while they were on the way, Earl Marshal attacked and stole the princess away for the king."

  Prurient interest gleamed in Ian's eye. He hunched closer. "And what has the king done with her?"

  "Nothing yet," Much answered. "He was already in the field, so the marshal took her to a moated grange at Woodstock, and set a strong guard around her—for her safety, says Rumor. Then he rode away to raise the west country."

  "Woodstock?" Ian frowned. "There's a royal castle there."

  "There is, and the moated grange is hard by its walls."

  "How convenient for the king," Ian said with sarcasm.

  "Aye, if he comes back to it alive."

  "Surely the queen cannot win! The king must have five times the men and horses that she can call up!"

  "You never know, in war," Much said philosophically. "At least their marching to and fro should keep them far from the borders."

  "The news is old," Ian cautioned. "The fighting may have moved southward. Surely the queen must capture Dunlimon if she has any hope of winning."

  "Small enough hope, I would say," the second carter replied, "though Queen Petronille is not the kind to ever consider defeat. Aye, she must capture Dunlimon—or the king."

  Ian shook his head sadly. "She cannot do either, unless all the folk of Dunlimon are secretly for her, not with the king's armies so outnumbering hers."

  "She can make a lot of Bretanglians suffer, though." His friend rose from the table, taking his mug. "I hear a minstrel tuning his lute. Let's approach and listen—I could do with a song."

  "I, too." Ian rose and went with him.

  "So my queen shall drive half the midlands before her against the king's men," Sergeant Brock moaned, "and the land shall drink their blood!"

  "Maybe the king's a better general than you think," Matt consoled. "Maybe he'll knock her out in one quick battle."

  Sir Orizhan smiled mirthlessly. "Or perhaps she will find a wizard who can capture the king without a battle. Come, my friend, let us talk in realities."

  "Actually, your idea isn't all that far-fetched." Matt's eyes lost focus as he considered how to craft a spell that would transport King Drustan to him.

  Another peasant sat down where Ian had been, a mug in his hand.

  "Does the king have a wizard on his side?" Matt asked.

  "Aye," said the newcomer, "but the elves and the pixies will fight for the queen."

  Matt looked up in surprise, and felt a shock run all through him. The hood and tunic were those of a very ordinary peasant, but the hand that held
the mug was covered with silky, tawny hair, and the face was Buckeye's.

  The bauchan grinned. "You did not think I would stay banished, did you?"

  Through stiff lips Matt demanded, "Where's the peasant who used to wear that outfit?"

  "What outfit?" Sergeant Brock looked up, frowning.

  "Don't fear for him," Buckeye said. "He sleeps in the stable, quite well, and will find his clothes by him when he wakes."

  Matt turned to Sergeant Brock. "You see that peasant sitting across from us?"

  "Peasant!" the bauchan said indignantly.

  "The one whose hood hides his face?" the soldier asked. "He is nothing to worry you. You may speak freely, milord."

  "Not too freely, 'milord,' " the bauchan mocked. "You would not want them to think you daft, now, would you? Or, by the rook! Haunted! Forfend!"

  That made Matt mad. Blackmail attempts always had that effect. His eyes narrowed, his lips thinned, and he said to his companions, "By the way, have I told you I've picked up a mascot-spirit?"

  "Spirit!" Sergeant Brock leaned away, eyes wide.

  "Mascot?" Sir Orizhan frowned. "What is that?"

  "A sort of a pet." Matt ignored the hoot from across the table. "It goes wherever I go. It's a bauchan."

  "A bauchan!" Sergeant Brock turned pale.

  "What is that?" Sir Orizhan asked, interested.

  "It's a Bretanglian spirit," Sergeant Brock explained. "I knew they came down into the north of Merovence, but I never thought to have met one." His eyes widened. "That empty cottage! I should have known it would be haunted! 'Twas there you met him, was it not?"

  "It was, yes," Matt admitted.

  "The man is canny," Buckeye said with approval, letting the sergeant and the knight hear him.

  "I am flattered." But the whites showed around Sergeant Brock's eyes as he glanced at their new neighbor.

  "What, that fellow a spirit?" Sir Orizhan frowned. "I see naught but a peasant!"