" 'Twas the foulest of magics!" Klout was turning hysterical. "Vile twisting of ink stains and marks! You cannot come from the queen, or you would not seek to make taxes less!"
Any peasants who hadn't taken to the tall timber were tip-toeing away now. The soldiers let them go, gripping their weapons tightly and edging around to surround Gruesome, with Gilbert, Frisson, and me around him.
"Smite them!" Klout pointed at us. "The queen shall not shield them, but my magic shall shield you!"
I pulled out my sheaf of Frisson's verses.
The soldiers roared with delight and pounced.
Gilbert knocked aside a sword and sheared through the leather jerkin behind it in one blow. The soldier screamed and fell back, as Gruesome reached over the squire's head and picked up another soldier in each hand. They screamed and struck at him with their halberds, but he only giggled as the steel glanced off his hide. Then he squeezed, and the men screamed even louder. Gruesome threw them away and reached for two more.
Klout shouted something in the Old Tongue, pointing at Gruesome with both forefingers. Gruesome froze. So did Gilbert, in midswing—for a split second.
Just long enough for me to yell out:
"The sun beat down upon us,
And we gasped for cooler air,
But the sunrays melted all the ice
That held us frozen there!"
The soldiers roared with vindictive rage and swung, but Gilbert came alive again, parrying two cuts with one swing, then chopping back to shear through two halberd hafts. Gruesome came alive, snatching up soldiers and hurling them. Their mates yelped and leapt back.
Klout turned purple. He pointed at me and screamed,
"As a lying embezzler, I hearby indict you!
Let all of these numbers rise up and bite you!"
They did. They really did.
Like a fool, I was holding the book again, open—and I saw the Roman numerals pry themselves off the page. That was enough; I threw it away with a shout, but the Xs and Vs were arrowing through the air to stab at me, and the Ls and Cs were growing diminutive jaws and biting. Sharp little pains shot through my skin, none more than a mild nuisance by itself—but they were all over my face, my arms, and my hands! I had never been so glad that I wore denim and boots! I flailed at them, trying to swat them, and shouted, "Frisson! Take over! Don't worry about me, just knock out the soldiers!"
Frisson stared, taken aback, then shook himself and yanked the sheaf of poems out of my pocket.
Fortunately, Gruesome and Gilbert were keeping the troops too busy for them to take advantage of my being out of the action. The troll gathered up two more soldiers in each hand, knocked their heads together, and threw them at the five who were charging him. They went down in a tangle of steel and limbs, and Gruesome waded in, stony talons stabbing.
Klout wasn't idle, though. He was making mystic passes and chanting in the Old Tongue.
Frisson flipped frantically through the sheaf of poems, found the one he wanted, and chanted.
"Letters and numbers are toys for the playing,
Able to hurt only when saying
The vituperative injuries formed by a man's mind.
Freed now from that bondage, numbers assigned
For forays of truth, wound the men of deception!
Stab them and bite them, in justice's reception!"
The numbers froze in midair, then turned and arrowed toward Klout and his soldiers.
"Flee!" the lead soldier bellowed, and suddenly the remaining soldiers were scrambling to their feet and running in panic.
Gruesome yodeled with joy and ran after them.
They looked back, saw him, yelped, and ran faster. They pulled away—they were much quicker than he was—but he kept it up for a while, having fun, shouting and blubbering and chortling like a whole chorus of haunts.
Klout leapt on a mule and dashed away down the road. But at the village limit, he reined in, turned back, and faced me, weaving complicated symbols in the air while he chanted something inarticulate.
Frisson took the next verse from the stack and called out,
"Mule, you have labored right,
Therefore of sleep you have great need,
So vanish instantly from sight,
And rest you from your worthy deed!"
The mule disappeared, and Klout slammed down, hard, on his tailbone. His verse broke off into a yell of agony—and the numbers caught up with him. He leapt to his feet with a howl, then ran hobbling away, hand pressed over his tailbone. The numerals shot after him, buzzing like mosquitoes, catching up with him, and away he went, surrounded by a cloud of the figures of his own deception, bleating in pain until his shouts faded away.
All of a sudden, the village was awfully quiet.
Then yells of joy burst out all around us, and the peasants came charging out to hoist Frisson, me, and Gilbert up on their shoulders. They paraded us all around the square, singing our praises in terms that would have made Roland and Arthur blush.
"Did I do well, then?" Frisson called anxiously to me from his seat on the neighboring pair of shoulders.
"What do you think they're praising you for?" I shouted. "You did great! And thanks, Frisson—for saving my hide! What's left of it, anyway!"
He took the hint and got busy crafting a verse that would get rid of my integer rash.
The peasants had just about gotten the celebrating out of their systems by the time Gruesome came waddling back, grinning, whereupon they put us down, backed away, and got down to the serious business of trying to find something for the troll to eat.
They fed us, too, as it turned out. With their usual peasant shrewdness, they had managed to salt away a few staples that not even Klout and his soldiers had found. As darkness fell, full and replete, Frisson and I rolled up in our blankets with Gruesome already a snoring hill and Gilbert standing watch.
They fed us again in the morning, and we were hard put to refuse any of it. We managed to set off without being totally foundered, but the only one who had really avoided overstuffing was Angelique, and I could have sworn that, if they'd been able to see her clearly, they would have found a way.
Our breakfast was beginning to settle, and we were beginning to pick up speed, when we came to the circle. The road met another at right angles, but instead of the two crossing at your average plus-sign-shaped intersection, they all ended in a ring-shaped track, for all the world like a traffic circle. I stopped, frowning. "Awfully advanced traffic engineering, for a one-horsepower culture. How come they don't just let the two roads intersect?"
"Because," said Frisson, "that would make a cross, like to that on which our Savior was hanged."
I seemed to feel the air thicken at the mere mention of words that were forbidden here, but I did my best to ignore it.
"It was a crossroads once." Gilbert pointed. "The newer grass, growing where there once was beaten earth, is some small part browner than the old. Look closely, and you can still see the sacred sign."
The air seemed to thicken even more with foreboding. I looked closely, and sure enough, I could just barely make out where the old intersection had been. "Getting a little fanatical, aren't they?"
"I assure you, it would have inhibited the power of the queen and her henchmen," Angelique's voice murmured, though I could scarcely see her.
"Well, we do need to get across it, if we're going to keep going," I said. "Let's go, folks." I stepped out onto the circle, turning to my left.
Just then, a man wearing black velvet with a dull silver chain rode out of the woods and into the traffic circle. There were a dozen armed men behind him, so I could just barely hear him shout, "Halt!"
He shouldn't have bothered; I'd stopped already and was feeling in my pocket for the sheaf of Frisson's latest poems.
"Fool, turn!" the man in black barked. "Would you break the queen's law by going with the sun?"
I stared at him. " 'With the sun'? What are you talking about?"
"He speaks of the di
rection in which you were walking, Master Saul," Frisson said in a low voice.
The head honcho barked, "Go widdershins! Against the sun! Thus is it commanded of all who come to a road-circle!"
I stared at him for a long moment, then shrugged and turned around. "Okay, so I'll go from west to east—counterclockwise, if you insist. Big deal!"
"Hold!" he shouted again. "I like not your manner of speech."
"Well, you've got a pretty lousy accent yourself." I looked up, frowning.
He narrowed his eyes and moved his horse closer, glaring down at me. I stood my ground, beginning to feel mulish.
"Odd clothes, odd speech, insolent manner." He looked up at my companions. "And accompanied by a troll." Back down at me. "You are he who has been curing witches of their deadly ills, are you not?"
"Only two." I definitely did not like the way this was going, especially since his men were making a lot of noise rattling their sabers as they drew them. "What's the big deal?"
"Know that I am the reeve of this shire!" the man snapped. "Word has come to me that you bilked the queen of tax money yesterday, and raised your hand against a bailiff into the bargain!"
"Self-defense," I snapped, "and what's so bad about curing the sick?"
"Have you a permit for it?" he returned.
I stared. "A permit saying I can cure people? What is this, the AMA?"
"The queen has ever banned the curing of a witch on her deathbed! None who had her license to cure would ever dream of doing so! Nay, and worse—you have encouraged them to repent, to break their bonds with Satan!"
"Breaking bondage is definitely what I had in mind."
His sword whipped out. "You had no right, nor license! You shall cast a spell this instant, revoking those cures you have worked—or you shall die!"
CHAPTER TWELVE
Gruesome rumbled, and the soldiers had to quiet their horses. They started looking nervous.
I waved my group to be still and said to the reeve, "Can I see your license for breathing?"
He stared. "What license?"
"For breathing," I said, impatiently. "If you have to have a license to get well, you must have to have a license to breathe! Hasn't the queen gotten around to informing you about it? Show me your license!"
"There is no such thing!" he snapped.
"Ah-ha! You don't have it!" I waved an admonishing finger at him. "Everybody who lives in this country lives at the queen's pleasure, right?"
"Well... aye..."
"Any heart that's beating, is beating because the queen lets it beat, right?"
Well... aye, but..."
"Then anybody who's breathing is only breathing because the queen lets them! Because the queen gives them license! So where's your license to breathe?"
"I... I have not any..."
"No license to breathe? And you trying to lay down the law! Where do you get off telling me to stop curing people just because I don't have a license? If you really think that makes sense, then you stop breathing—because you don't have a license!"
That shut him up, and I thought he was just staring at me, until his face got red. Then I realized, all of a sudden, that his chest wasn't moving.
"Master!" the soldiers cried, and started forward.
Gilbert drew his sword with an entirely unnecessary clatter, and Gruesome growled loudly as he stepped up.
The reeve fell off his horse.
I leapt forward and caught him just as the soldiers shouted. They started forward again, but hesitated, seeing him in my hands.
"This is ridiculous!" I snapped. "Don't you know satire when you hear it? Now stop this silliness this instant, and start breathing again!"
He turned blue instead.
"You don't have to obey the queen!" I shouted. "Besides, she never said anybody had to have a license to breathe! I made it up!"
His face grew darker, and I realized with a shock that it wasn't just that he wouldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe. I had made the argument sound too sensible, and he had something like a posthypnotic command going that compelled him to obey the queen's will—or whatever he even thought of as her will!
But that was impossible. Hypnotism couldn't make people do something they were dead set against, I knew that.
It followed that the reeve wasn't set against being dead.
It hit me like a ton of bricks. Suettay had linked a posthypnotic command to his death wish! "Frisson! Praise life!"
The poet held up a scrap of paper in front of my eyes. I read it aloud, and quickly.
"You find yourself in love with Death,
Yet be assured, she
Is a damsel most distressing,
And confers no blessing.
Turn from her, and gain some longer breath!"
I remembered a Drayton couplet, and added it in:
"Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
From death to life, thou might'st him yet recover."
And, just so Tennyson wouldn't feel left out—but I made a few modifications:
"Drink life
To the lees; all times you shall enjoy
Greatly, as you've suffered greatly, both with those
You'll find to love you, and alone!"
The reeve's body convulsed with a huge, shuddering breath, and his complexion lightened. I went almost as limp as he did.
"You... you have saved me!" He looked up at me, staring, wide-eyed.
"Darn right I have! Another minute, and you would have been at Hell's door!" I suddenly realized an implication. "That's right—being a civil servant to a sorceress-queen, you must have sold your soul to the Devil, too, didn't you?"
"Aye! Yet I have gazed at the fiery portal! 'Tis no children's tale, but truth!" He looked shaken, but even so, his eyes were narrowing, and he was beginning to look at me as if estimating how much torture I could take before dying. I decided the view of Hell hadn't been enough for him. "Frisson, do you have a verse for empathy? Feeling what other people feel?"
There was a quick riffle of papers behind me, and the reeve shook himself, glaring over my shoulder. "Is he your scribe?"
"With his handwriting? Not a chance!" I reached for the slip of parchment Frisson was handing me—but the reeve started to chant in that confounded ancient language, so I snapped out a Shakespeare verse that had been tugging at my memory:
"My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
All several sins, all used in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all, 'Guilty! Guilty!'
Oh no! I rather hate myself,
For hateful deeds committed by myself!"
The reeve froze in mid-syllable, a stricken look on his face.
So far, so good. I held up Frisson's verse and read it.
"There is no creature but I should love,
And all that I have wronged, should feel my pity.
For hateful deeds that I have done to others
Should each and all be visited upon my heart,
That I myself should feel the pain
That I have done to others!"
The gathering malice in the reeve's face suddenly dissipated. His eyes widened, then turned into pools of misery. He bent over, as if there were a pain inside him. "Aiiee! What have you done! I remember every cruelty I've wrought; I feel the pain of those I've injured! How have you done this thing to me!"
"By poetry," I answered. "That's one of the things it's supposed to do—make you aware of what someone else is feeling."
"I ache, I burn! Oh, how could I have done such vile things! Curse you for having given me a conscience! Never again shall I be able to smite down an innocent!" A single large tear formed at the inside corner of his eye. "How can I ever make amends for those I have wronged?"
"Well," I said gently, "you could start by repenting."
"I do, I do! I repent me of my sins! Alas the day that
ever I swore allegiance to the Devil, and banished my conscience! Ah, I ken not who to hate the more—he for having taken it, or you for having given it back!" The reeve groaned. "Oh, where is there a priest? For I must confess my sins, I must be shriven!"
I stared at him a long minute; then I said, "I have a notion you know better than I do—if there are any priests hiding out in your shire, you've got a strong suspicion where they are. You just haven't gotten around to hanging them yet; too many other things to do, like whipping peasants into paying another tax."
" 'Tis even so." He managed to get his feet under him and stood, bracing himself against his saddle. "I shall find such a one, I shall confess! I must know that G... that Go... that I am forgiven by the Most High!" But his body convulsed like a whiplash as he said it, as if the mere attempt to speak of something sacred had resulted in intense pain. He set his teeth and pressed on in spite of it. "I forswear my pact with Satan! I shall turn to G... to Go..."
"Keep trying," I urged. "You'll get it out eventually."
One of the soldiers screamed and charged his mount at the reeve, his sword swinging.
Gruesome took two steps and picked them up, both horse and rider, gave them a hard shake, and threw them away. The man struck his head against a stone and lay still. The horse scrambled to its feet and bolted.
The other soldiers backed away with a moan.
"I take it that was your second-in-command?" I asked.
The reeve nodded. "He would have become reeve in my place, if he had smitten me down for treachery to the Devil and the queen. Another will do so soon enough, I doubt not, but I shall have made some amends for the harm I've done."
I looked at his glossy black hair and realized it was no longer glossy. In fact, I was definitely seeing a gray hair or two. "Uh... if you don't mind my asking, how old are you?"
"Ninety-seven," he answered. "I have preserved life and youth by black magic—and ahhh!" He almost screamed, back arching in pain. "What I did to bring about that spell, the number of those I bled! Nay, 'tis only justice if all my years come upon me now!"
The Witch Doctor Page 17