"There is one source of power that need not cause me anxiety," Brion said with relief.
"Yes, John won't have a horde of howling kilties to throw against you," Matt said, finding the thought reassuring, too. "Your Majesty, this noble dragon is Stegoman, my friend since the first day I came to Merovence."
"And until the last." The dragon bowed his head, neck forming a graceful curve. "I am honored to meet Your Majesty."
"I never knew a dragon could speak with such courtesy!" Rosamund said, staring in wonder.
"My dear, may I present you." Brion caught her hand, then turned back to Stegoman. "Noble Stegoman, may I present my betrothed, the Princess Rosamund."
A cheer went up from the whole hidden army. Rosamund blushed, lowering her gaze, and Stegoman bowed his head to her, too. "I am fortunate indeed to meet so beauteous a lady!"
Now Matt knew it was courtesy—Stegoman's standard of beauty ran more to iridescent scales and lidless eyes, and what he meant by "sweet breath" was a color of flame only dragon eyes could perceive.
"Even more fortunate," Stegoman went on, "to meet not only Bretanglia's rightful king, but also its future queen!"
Rosamund gave a start, then peered more closely at the dragon. "Can you see the future, then?"
"No more than any mortal who is not a wizard," Stegoman told her, "but no less, too, and seeing the zeal of the men who follow your betrothed, and their devotion to both him and yourself, I can see the future as clearly as though I read runes."
Rosamund looked even more surprised, then turned thoughtful. "I had not thought any man but Sir Orizhan was devoted to me."
"Had you not?" Brion turned to grin at her. "I assure you, love, this army follows as much in awe of your beauty as in loyalty to their rightful king."
Rosamund turned to meet his gaze, and for a moment her own was blinding.
Matt felt a need for another of his quick changes of subject. "Can you march with us?" he asked Stegoman.
"I had liefer fly," Stegoman said, "but since that would be as good as to announce to all the world where Brion's army lies, I would prefer to scout ahead and behind and to the sides, then join you at nightfall."
"A good thought," Brion said, "though I am not foolish enough to think I can keep so many men secret. Indeed, I am certain that my brother knows to the yard where I am, and his pet sorcerer with him."
For the first time, Matt found himself wondering who was the pet and who the master.
"Return, men of mine!" Brion called. "This is no enemy, but a mighty friend."
Slowly and warily the army regrouped.
They marched through the land, southward and eastward, searching for an army to fight, for druids to match spells against, but finding them strangely elusive. They did, however, find crops standing ripe in the fields with no one to harvest them, and flocks of sheep, their wool heavy and ready for shearing, but with no shepherd to guard them. Cattle grazed among the crops with no idea that they should stay in their pastures, and ravens gobbled the grain with only scarecrows to defy them.
In fact, they marched through a lovely, green-and-amber late summer countryside, but one with scarcely a human in sight. Now and then they saw a silhouette atop a ridge and knew John's spies were tracking them, but other than that the land might have been abandoned. Now and again they passed by a farmstead or village and found it burned to the ground, though there was seldom any sign of the people who had lived there. Matt didn't doubt they had been taken to sacrifice—or had run off following some stray false druid with promises of an endless supply of food and drink for the worshipers of the old gods. The wreckage of farm and town was enough to show where those druids found their provisions.
Flocks of ravens whirled overhead, filling the air with raucous cries, then arrowing away even more directly southward.
"Follow the flock!" Brion pointed at the noisy receding mass. "They go to bear word of us to John! Where they go, he lies!"
"Oh, I don't doubt that he lies," Matt agreed. "Probably never told the truth in his life."
"Seven times, I think," Brion corrected him, "though he meant the comments for insults to Gaheris and myself, and probably did not realize their honesty."
Matt frowned up at him. "What truth could he tell you that would be an insult?"
"That I am pompous, self-righteous, and arrogant," Brion said darkly. "I searched my soul when he told that to me and found all three charges true. I strive to master them, but fear I fail."
"You are prevailing most excellently against them," Rosamund said, and slipped her hand into his.
"But that is only because I have you by me," Brion told her, his eyes glowing, "and know I can never be good enough for you."
Rosamund started to answer, then hesitated.
"Don't contradict him, Your Highness," Matt advised. "That's an excellent way for him to think—excellent for your purposes, anyway."
Rosamund smiled and tossed her head, giving Brion a saucy smile. He grinned back and pressed her hand to his lips.
The army cheered.
Brion blushed, lowering Rosamund's hand. "Can we never be alone?"
"Oh, we shall," she promised him, nudging her horse nearer his, "but you must win your kingdom first."
Matt decided that she'd probably make a pretty good queen.
Two nights later, as Matt sat at the campfire with his parents and their unwelcome guest, Buckeye suddenly snarled, "This takes too long! Why, we are scarcely a day's ride from the border with Merovence! Much more, and we shall have to swear allegiance to Queen Alisande! If nothing else can make these druids stand and fight, I shall!"
He stalked away into the night, and the Mantrells exchanged stares of surprise.
"What troubles him so suddenly?" Papa asked.
"It has been building for days," Mama offered. "He has been growing more and more moody with every hour."
"I think he's been looking forward to a battle where he can really cause trouble," Matt said, "and is feeling very frustrated to find things so peaceful."
"What do you suppose he intends to do?" Mama asked.
They never found out, at least not the specifics, but the next day, as Brion rode out of a woodland and into a meadow, he saw a peasant come running across the open field with a pack of howling peasants fifty yards behind him, with three men in white leading the way, shaking gilded sickles.
Behind them came a virtual army of peasants.
Not just a virtual army—it was a real army, marching double-quick and without synchronization, but marching. Knights rode in the van, on the flanks, and at the rear, as though to cut down any stragglers, and a mock druid whose white robe was decorated with gold rode before them all.
Brion turned to Matt, astonished. "How have you brought them here?"
Matt could only spread his hands and shrug. "If I'd known they were coming, Your Majesty, I'd have given you warning."
"Would that you had!" Brion spun to his men, shouting, "Take the high ground!" then kicked his horse to a canter and rode up the side of a nearby ridge. The knights-errant who had joined him echoed his shout, "To the high ground!" and rode after, some leading the peasant army, some following and urging them on.
At the top of the ridge, the peasant army turned, faces grim and determined. The knights rode up and down the line, transmitting Brion's orders. "Spearmen in front! Aye, that means all fishermen with harpoons, and all peasants with pruning hooks! Archers to the sides—when the king commands, turn the enemy into hedgehogs! But wait for the king's command, wait for it, wait for it! Those in back, wait, and if the man in front of you falls, then step over him and take his place! Don't try to elbow him aside in your eagerness—there will be slaughter enough for all. Stand, don't charge! Even if they flee, do not run after!"
Then the bauchan came barreling straight into the center of the army. Peasants took one look at him close up and squalled, pulling away.
"Close up!" the knights bellowed.
Buckeye kept on going, all
the way to the back of the six ranks and on out, up to the hillock where Matt stood with Brion and his companions, watching the chasing mob slow as it realized what it had come against. The druids called orders, and the mob turned into the van of the army, men falling into line and waiting for the mass behind them to catch up.
"What in blazes did you do to get them to come after you?" Matt demanded.
"I tracked down their archdruid and waited for his ceremony," Buckeye said between gasps; he was still panting. "That was not so much of a wait; he holds his revels every night, and slays at least one on his stone table. I transformed myself into the form of a demon and burst in as he was about to stab his naked victim. The depraved congregation screamed in terror and would have run, but Niobhyte knew me for what I was and denounced me instantly, with a spell that dispersed my illusion and showed me as I really am."
"So you ran," Matt interpreted.
"Aye, and he roared at them to follow until they caught me, for he knew that what I had done at his own ceremony I might well do at others, many others, and bring his whole charade down in fear and trembling, showing it for the falsehood it was. A dozen times they caught me, a dozen times I disappeared, a dozen times they came shouting after, and as one mob wearied and slowed, another came charging forth from the peasant horde that followed." He grinned up at Brion. "A spirit of the land has brought them to you, O King, an army of peasants against an army of peasants. What will you do with them?"
"Let them wear themselves out in charges against me," Brion said, his voice iron, "then loose my hounds upon them!"
Wings thundered above them. Everyone looked up, startled, and the dragon's great form darkened the sun. "Beware," Stegoman called down in a voice like thunder, "for half a mile behind those peasants marches a real army of veteran soldiers, and the man at their head wears a crown!"
"John," Brion hissed. Then his face turned to misery and uncertainty. "How can I slay my own brother?"
"For the good of your people and their land!" snapped Buckeye. "Can mortal folk truly be so blind? He has slain your father and your brother, and would have slain yourself if he could have! What is the punishment for king-slaying, O Monarch?"
"Death." Brion's face was still a mask of grief. "But my own brother, the playmate of my youth!"
"If he cheated then as he cheats now, the memories should not be dear," the bauchan told him, thin-lipped. "Are you a king or not? Oh, a pox upon it! Catch him first and try him later!"
Brion's face firmed with resolution. "Aye. That I can do."
"What you will do, do quickly," Stegoman advised. Then, with an explosive clap of his wings, he was up and away again, riding the ridge's thermals to gain altitude.
The attacking army saw and slowed, moaning with fear.
"Amateurs!" Sergeant Brock sneered.
The druids shouted at the peasants, upbraiding and insulting them to move forward, but Niobhyte strode ahead, hand upraised to stop them.
Matt braced himself.
"We can have these men slay one another until only a score is left," Niobhyte called up to Brion, "but in the end it will come to a duel between the Lord Wizard and myself. Why not begin with that, and spare some lives?"
"Beware, Lord Matthew!" Brion said instantly. "This is a maneuver, nothing more. He hopes to best you, and knows if he does, my army is apt to flee!"
"What His Majesty says is true," Sir Orizhan agreed, "but more to the point, if we stand and fight, we shall likely overcome his rabble, who have nothing but greed and cruelty to push them on."
"Both true." Matt's stomach tied itself in a knot. "But what Niobhyte says is true, too. If I can beat him, his side will surrender without any bloodshed. I have to try."
"Are you so sure you can win?" Brion challenged.
"No," Matt said, "but I am sure you can hold your men in place even if I'm beaten—if you start exhorting them now." Then he stepped forward, and was into the ranks of his own men before Brion could call out a command to stop—and once he would have had to make it loud enough for the men to hear, he couldn't make it at all.
A pathway opened for Matt as men pulled back, doffing their caps in respect. He strode down from the front ranks to the level ground between the two armies to meet the leader of the false druids at last.
But as he drew closer he recognized the man. He stopped, staring in outrage. "You!"
"Of course, me," sneered the Man Who Went Out the Window, "and if you'd had an ounce of brains, you would have realized it long ago."
Matt could, at least, recognize a gambit for destroying his self-confidence. He replied in kind. "A man with any real power wouldn't have had need for such subterfuge. He would have told me his name straightaway."
Niobhyte flushed with annoyance, even though he, too, obviously recognized the gambit. "You meddling fool! If you had stayed in your own country, you would not now face your death!"
"Be careful what you say," Matt told him. "If you really slew Drustan, you should remember that his son sits atop that hill listening."
"Let him hear then!" Niobhyte shouted. "Drustan was a fool and an incompetent!"
"Meaning that he wouldn't endorse your so-called religion, and even tried to execute you for it!" Matt matched him decibel for decibel. "Who do you think you are, to sit in judgment upon your own king?"
"I am Niobhyte, heir to the last High Druid!" the sorcerer thundered in anger. "Who are you to dispute my judgment, lowborn oaf?"
That stung. "I am Matthew Mantrell, Lord Wizard of Merovence. So all along it was you who had slain Prince Gaheris!"
"It was not my plan, but it was of my arranging, though not of my hand." Niobhyte smiled, enjoying himself. "All that I myself did was to steal the prince's purse while he was distracted with his doxy, then set one of my most ardent acolytes the task of actually shoving his blade in the prince's back. But I will admit that it was masterfully thought out. It was upon hearing him say it that I first understood King John's true merit."
His voice rang off the hillside, and Brion started with surprise, his face turning tragic.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
But Matt didn't even trust Niobhyte to lie straight. "Don't tell me it was really John's scheme!"
"Oh, yes," the chief druid said. "Don't believe the show of stupidity he puts on. He learned the pretense well while he was a child—it protected him from his brothers' jealousy, and from ambitious courtiers who thought he might be a threat."
"And saw other people punished for his crimes, because no one believed he was smart enough to figure out new ways of killing a cat or making dishes fall to the stone floor," Matt said grimly.
Above on the hillside, Brion's face turned gray. He began to walk his horse downhill, and the soldiers opened up an avenue for him.
"Ah, you knew of the last?" the chief druid asked.
Matt hadn't—it had just been an example of a vicious boyhood prank. But he gave a contemptuous shrug, and Niobhyte interpreted it as assent.
"Not only duplicity—he also began to learn magic at a very early age," the chief druid told him. "He fled into the wood when some courtiers humiliated him during a hunt. There, he found the hut of an old witch-woman. He threatened to bring the hunt down upon her unless she taught him magic, and thus he began. Once he had learned all she had to teach, he found grimoires aplenty—but he slew her so there might be no one to tell what he had learned."
Matt shuddered. "Nice kid."
"A lad of great promise, I assure you," said Niobhyte, with a gleam in his eye. "I heard hints and rumors from other sorcerers, and came looking for this prince who had already devoted himself to evil in order to gain power. I tempted John with the notion of stabbing and poisoning his way to power. He seized the idea like a miser finding a gold coin in the dust—but was concerned that the Church might balk him. 'Give me protection from the law,' I told him, 'and I shall build so strong a following that no Church shall be able to stand against it.' He gave me a keen glance and said, 'I had wondered what you
expected to gain by helping me,' and we have understood each other perfectly from that day."
"Able to trust one another because you were each able to predict perfectly what the other guy would do," Matt said dryly.
"Whatever would gain us more power and wealth." Niobhyte nodded.
"Perfect prediction, perfect trust."
"Even so—though I still must do as he commands." The chief druid grinned. "But not much longer. I shall soon have so tight a hold on the land that John will virtually have to do my bidding."
"Wait a minute." Matt held up a hand. "He's been giving orders to you?"
"Did you think I was the master?" Niobhyte laughed, with the ring of triumph. "Fool! No, John is quite evil enough to make Bretanglia miserable all by himself—and therefore have I been delighted to take orders from him. But it will be even more satisfying to give those orders when the king has become my puppet."
Brion reined his horse to a stop, his brow thunderous. "John shall never be your servant, for I shall be crowned instead of him, and shall see you and your evil minions stamped out root and branch!"
So much for the parley. Matt groaned. Brion may have had honor, but he also had a lousy sense of timing.
"A curse upon you both!" Niobhyte recoiled, raising his staff. "So you thought to lull my suspicions with meaningless chatter while you surrounded my army and your wizard tailored a spell to hold me, did you?"
"I have not surrounded your army!"
"No, not yet! And you shall not!" Niobhyte raised his staff over his head, rattling out a verse in a foreign language that didn't sound anything like Gaelic.
Matt started chanting, too, even faster. He couldn't know what was coming, so he had to pull up something for a general purpose and hope it would give him time to shape a counterspell to match what came.
Of course, he didn't see his parents muttering their own spells and gesturing behind him.
Matt called out,
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