Matt stared in shock, and the other three cried out in dismay.
"Then we had better find Prince Brion very quickly," Matt said, "and pray he is alive and can be restored, for John has the perfect combination of malice and incompetence to plunge Bretanglia into chaos. Can you lead us to him?"
"Of course," said the pouka. "What one spirit of the land knows, all know. You only had to ask."
Matt woke in the night, heart hammering, looking about him wildly. He almost thought he could still hear the voice shouting...
Sergeant Brock heard him rise, and turned from his sentry place at the edge of the camp, concerned. He came close, whispering so as not to disturb the others. "Are you well, Lord Wizard?"
"Guess so," Matt said. "Just a bad dream..."
"Ah." The soldier nodded wisely. "Surely you have had enough strains upon you to cause them—and there are unfriendly spirits about us, I doubt not."
"Yeah, I know." Matt nodded. "I expect our pouka guide is out there somewhere telling them to back off, but there's a good chance they won't listen to her."
"I cannot guard your dreams," the sergeant said. "Would that I could."
"So do I," Matt sighed. "Well, maybe I can get back to sleep. How long has it been, Sergeant?"
"Since you lay down? It may be an hour, by the position of the moon."
"Got to sleep longer, if I can," Matt muttered. "Thanks, Sergeant. Good night."
"Good night, Lord Wizard." The sergeant tugged his forelock and turned away.
Matt lay back and closed his eyes, willing himself to relax. He tried to think happy thoughts, Celtic thoughts—Osian seeking the Land of Youth—and began to grow drowsy as the wonderful old story drew him in. He drifted toward slumber...
"What are you doing to find my murderer, I said!" the voice ranted.
Matt managed to keep from jumping up, but every muscle went stiff.
"Aside!" Prince Gaheris' voice snarled. "He has my murderer to find first! I died before you!"
"I am your father, boy!" the first voice shouted. "I am the king! Yield precedence to me!"
"There is no precedence in the world of the dead," Gaheris said, full of venom, "and you are king no longer. If it comes to sheer force of will, I fancy my rage and bitterness are greater than yours, especially toward you, for it is you who have bred them!"
"I?" Drustan bleated. "What did I do to earn your hatred?"
"Ignored me," Gaheris snapped. "If you did notice me, it was only to berate me for my failings, or to bellow at me for not following your orders instantly. You showed your jealousy and spite in a thousand ways."
"Jealousy! What cause had I to be jealous?"
"Because I would have your crown when you were dead," Gaheris snapped, "and you begrudged it even then!"
"Uh, guys," Matt put in, "do you suppose you could go argue someplace else besides the inside of my head? I'm trying to get some sleep here."
"Aye!" Gaheris snapped. "Let him sleep, so that he can seek the man who murdered me!"
"Let him devise my revenge instead," Drustan commanded, "for I know who my murderer was!"
"Oh, really?" Matt sprang to full mental alertness, then settled his mind to listen. "Go on. This could be very interesting."
CHAPTER TWENTY
Two minutes later he wished he hadn't said that. In fact he wished Drustan hadn't come calling at all. He was only glad that Drustan's memories hadn't included smell as he saw Prince John's gloating face from Drustan's point of view, bending over the dying king to ask, "Do you remember your philandering, Father? Of course you do, it was your pride and your boast! The number of times I had to listen to the sickening accounts of your conquests nearly made me die of nausea! But do you remember those horrible howling fights with Mother whenever she found out about your little paramours? Do you remember how she refused to live in the same castle with you? Did you even care that you drove her away and thereby robbed me of my mother, and my chance to win her love? No, of course not! All you cared about was your own pleasure, and indulging your own temper!"
A gargle of denial sounded in Matt's ears, filling his whole head, and he realized it was Drustan's response, seen and heard from the viewpoint of a dying, aphasic king.
"Do you remember how you sat back and watched when Gaheris beat me?" John snarled. "Oh, you could have told him to stop, but no—you had to yell at me to put my fists up, to block his blows, and scold me for failing! You could have protected me from Brion's contempt, from his rebukes and his lectures—but you were too busy with things of greater importance. After all, one lonely child couldn't have been all that important, could he, Father?"
Again, Drustan gargled a protest.
"Where were you?" John asked. "When I was a little boy, tormented and beaten by my brothers, where were you? Off fighting the Irish and gaining a few miserable square miles of bog, that's where! Or off wenching with one or another of your paramours! Even after you took me away from my mother, where were you? Gone on missions of state as often as not, until I was old enough to be useful as a weapon against Mother and Gaheris and Brion, by your threat to make me king!"
The king croaked something in protest; Matt, inside his memories, understood it: "But I loved you!"
"Loved me?" John's lip curled. "If you had loved me, you would have kept me with you! Oh, now and again you felt fatherly, and took me out to give me a drubbing with a stick and call it teaching me swordplay! If you loved me, you had a very odd way of showing it! But that's all right, Father—I loved you, too, and my way of showing it is to set you on the road to your reward more quickly than you would have gone otherwise."
Drustan's brows pulled down in puzzlement.
"Can't understand?" John jeered. "Where is the vaunted genius of statesmanship now? It is I who have killed you, Father—I who fed you your bowl of gruel this morning, and a dram of poison with it."
Drustan's eyes widened in horror.
"Oh yes, you understand now," John said, grinning with glee. "I've set you off on the road to Heaven, all right, but it will be a long, long road, Father, because you've committed enough sins for an army in your life, not the least of which was my upbringing! You'll burn in Purgatory for thousands of years to pay for those sins, and I will delight in imagining every wince, every torture, every scream!"
A roar rang through Matt's head, and the room seemed to tilt downward as Drustan forced himself up. John retreated in fear—but the room swung again as Drustan fell back, eyes filming over, breath rattling in his throat. The room was silent for a second; then John's face swam into view again, grinning once more. "At the end, of course, I goaded you into enough anger to make your poisoned heart burst—and to make sure you died in sin, in the sin of wrath. Sleep well, Royal Father. I'll think of you every morning—think of you, and delight in your torments." He stepped up to close the king's eyes, saying softly, "Good-bye."
Darkness closed in, and Matt could feel the king's desperation and clamoring fear of the supernatural as consciousness dimmed and was gone.
In the darkness of dream and memory Matt drew a deep, shaky breath. He realized that what he had seen might have been augmented by the king's own guilty memories, but that didn't matter—it was memory, however distorted, and he didn't doubt for a second that John had really boasted of killing his father as the king was about to cross the threshold of death. He could almost sympathize with the prince, but not enough—he could have found another form of revenge, after all, such as succeeding where his father had told him he would fail.
"So I know who murdered me." Drustan's voice seemed to echo all about Matt. "I know it by his own confession—nay, his boast! Go you now and see justice done!"
"Give me justice first," Gaheris demanded, "or I'll never give you a night's peace!"
Drustan started a roar of outrage, but Matt cut him off—after all, it was his mind. "Shut up, both of you! I can't help either of you if I'm so groggy from lack of sleep that I can't think straight. Besides, why should I?"
"Because if you don't—" Gaheris began in his most threatening manner.
But Matt cut him off again. "Remember, I'm a wizard, and if I want to clear you out of my skull, believe me, I can. But it so happens that getting rid of John is now probably the only way to save Merovence from war, because if we let him have Bretanglia, sooner or later he'll attack Merovence."
"Why, that is so," Gaheris said in surprise. "The fat little toad is that envious!"
"He will lose," Drustan said with certainty.
"Sure, he'll lose, but tens of thousands of soldiers will get killed in fighting him off. No, if I can come up with a good reason for kicking him off the throne he has stolen, I will!"
"Is not the murder of his father and his king reason enough?" Drustan thundered.
Matt winced. "Hold it down, there. I can't think too well if I've got a headache, either. Besides, what proof do I have? Only your word."
"The word of a king!"
"Yeah, but anybody who hears me say it will only have the word of a wizard that he has the word of a king's ghost. Would you have believed anybody who came before you with a story like that?"
Drustan grumbled something incoherent.
Gaheris crowed with delight. "Well asked, wizard! What say you, O Mighty King? Would you have believed such a tale?"
"I have to be able to back up your charge with evidence." For a dizzy moment Matt felt like Hamlet, trying to find physical proof of what the ghost of his father had told him. Trouble was, Matt knew he couldn't afford several years of indecision. "Was there any proof that John poisoned you?"
"The doctor," Drustan said, "he who examined me as I lay dying. I saw the alarm in his eyes, then the look of soul-sickness."
"Probably from realizing he knew too much, and that John would have him killed," Matt inferred. "We'll have to find out where he is and try to keep him alive, if he still is. Where did John find the poison? He doesn't strike me as knowing enough to brew it himself."
His answer was a startled silence from both ghosts. Then Gaheris said, "He is right, Father—the little toad wouldn't know how to brew beer, let alone poison."
"It is well asked," Drustan said, musing. "I will think on it."
"That would be nice," Matt told him. "In the meantime, we do have one other way of getting John off the throne, and maybe even into prison."
"'Prison is not enough!"
"Yeah, but it will keep him from doing anything worse while we dig up evidence against him."
"A good point," Gaheris said. "How will you oust him?"
"By bringing Brion back," Matt said.
Another startled silence followed, then Gaheris burst out, "That sanctimonious prig, sit on my throne? That lumbering self-righteous booby?"
"He is dead," Drustan said.
Matt was surprised to hear a genuine note of sadness in his voice. "Maybe not, Your Majesty. Is his soul there where you are?"
A third shocked silence followed, then both voices said, "No... I have not seen or sensed him... if he is dead..."
"Enough!" Matt commanded. "Any chance he would have gone on to Heaven?"
"That young goat?" Gaheris scoffed. "There are several young mothers who were kitchen wenches when he met them, and have been taking his gold every month to raise his brats."
"He is a fool of chivalry who gallops off to battle at the slightest sign of a war," Drustan said heavily, "and has slain more than a few enemies on the battlefield. Besides, I have seen him go to confession often, far more often than is healthy for a virile young warrior. No, he has committed too many sins for Heaven, but not enough for Hell."
"How about Purgatory?"
"Purgatory calls to me constantly, and with voices I recognize!" Gaheris snapped. "Surely we would know if he were here!" Then, more subdued, "At least, I hope it is Purgatory..."
"But there's such a huge population," Matt said automatically. Most of his mind was wondering how could they be called to Purgatory if they were in his dream—but he remembered that the afterlife was more a state of existence than a place. "Isn't this a bad location for you to be looking for revenge?"
"I ask only justice," Gaheris said, his voice surly.
"I, too," Drustan grumbled, "but I am also concerned for the fate of my land. I wish to save my people from John."
"And make sure that he doesn't profit by your death, of course."
"Well, of course," Drustan said in a tone of surprise.
"Just your duty, I'm sure," Matt said sourly. "By the way, Your Majesty, if you wanted somebody to bring justice for you, why didn't you appear to the Earl Marshal or the Lord Chancellor or somebody else in your own country? Why come to me?"
"Because I knew you would listen," Drustan growled. "No one else ever would—certainly not Petronille or any of my sons."
Matt tried to suppress a stab of sympathy.
"I thought John did," Drustan's ghost said, with a sardonic echo, "but he listened only as an enemy listens—to find my weaknesses, my points of vulnerability."
"And to think he seemed such a fool!" Gaheris marveled.
"Be still, boy," his father grumbled, "and be glad you did not live long enough to learn in your own turn."
They woke with the sun, made a quick breakfast, and were just breaking camp when the pouka stepped out of the bushes in horse form. She let Rosamund ride, but none of the men. Sir Orizhan thanked her for carrying his princess, but Sergeant Brock kept his bola ready to hand.
Matt walked beside the pouka, marveling that she could have seemed so absolutely breathtaking as a woman but seemed merely pretty as a horse. Of course, a stallion might not have thought so—but it did raise an issue. "If you don't mind my asking a personal question—what's your true form?"
The tawny mare turned to him, puzzled. "What is a 'true form'?"
It was still unnerving, hearing a horse speak.
Rosamund answered from her seat on the pouka's back. "It is the form into which we are born, and from which we mortal folk can never change, except by growing."
"Ah." The horse nodded. "But if you could, you would—and therefore there is no such thing as a 'true form.' "
"Plato would disagree with you," Matt sighed, "but I don't think I'm quite up to arguing philosophy with a shapeshifter."
They wound their way through the amazingly green hills of Ireland, going steadily inland and steadily higher, steadily northwest. Finally, after three days' travel, they came to a cleft between two hills, spilling an outcrop of rocks that glowed golden in the sunset. The pouka halted, so the rest of them had to, too.
"I take it this is where we pitch camp for the night?" Matt asked.
"If you live that long," the pouka answered.
Matt was instantly wired for alarm. "If we live? What might stop us, pray tell?"
A band of stocky men in tunics, breeches, and cross-gartered sandals stepped out of the woods. They all looked tough, hardened, and resolute—just like the spears they held leveled at the companions.
"Behind us," Sergeant Brock warned, his voice tense with battle-readiness.
Matt risked a quick glance. The Irishmen seemed to have appeared out of the very roadside, and had them completely surrounded.
One man, older than the rest, with gray streaking his red beard, called a question in Gaelic.
Matt spread his hands. "How can I answer a question like that?"
"With the truth," the pouka answered. "Come down from my back, maiden."
Rosamund slid to the ground quickly.
The leader called the question once more, sounding a little angry.
The pouka changed into a woman again.
The Irishmen stared, catching their breaths. Then some of them crossed themselves and began to back away, white showing all around their eyes. The others stood transfixed.
The pouka stood poised in the glow of the setting sun for a minute, making sure of her effect on the sturdy sons of the sod, then called to Sir Orizhan, "Your cloak again, Sir Knight."
Sir Orizh
an whirled his cape off his shoulders and about hers. The stupefied Irishmen blinked and shuddered, awaking from a trance of beauty. The others moaned with superstitious fear and kept backing away.
The leader called out in angry protest.
The pouka turned a level gaze upon him and answered in Gaelic, in a tone of authority.
The leader stared, then placed his hand over his heart and called back to her.
She turned to Matt. "I have told them that you are people who may be trusted, though you are foreigners. You may go with them in safety. They will not harm you so long as I am near."
"Uh—thanks," Matt said, "a lot." He looked around at his companions. "Put away the weapons, folks."
Rosamund brought her hand out from under her mantle. Matt wondered how long her dagger was. Knight and sergeant both took their hands away from the hilts of their swords.
"Okay, we're following," Matt said.
The pouka called out to the leader in Gaelic, a phrase that must have meant "lead on," for the men lifted their spear points and turned to follow the eldest through the cleft. They still formed a ring around the companions, but nobody seemed to be ready to stab anymore. In fact, each one glanced at the pouka from time to time, glances filled with both admiration and awe.
Matt followed the leader, too. After all, he didn't have any choice.
They walked a mile or so, while the sun slid below the horizon, leaving the moon to grow brighter and brighter. At last they came to a grove of huge old oak trees, heavy with mistletoe, silvered by moonlight.
Seven figures stepped forth from the trees, their white robes also glowing like silver. They stood in a V with the point toward Matt, a point that was a man with hair and beard as silver as his robes. He held up a palm, intoning a question in Gaelic.
Matt shrugged and shook his head.
"He asks who you are, and why you have come," the pouka interpreted.
"That makes sense," Matt said. "Tell him we are the Princess Rosamund and her bodyguard, seeking the body of Prince Brion of Bretanglia."
The pouka made a brief statement in Gaelic. The lead druid stared at the group in surprise, a surprise that quickly focused on Matt. He answered in a tone that sounded considerably more respectful.
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