The Secular Wizard
Page 22
Tried, because Matt muscled in, holding off the boys with wine, jokes, and occasional punches that everybody could pretend were all in good fellowship. He did all this while he was giving the girl a recruiting spiel about the joys of the capital, emphasizing all the fun she could have with boy after boy, then sent her home to pack without asking whether or not she wanted to. He turned back to face a glaring semicircle of youths, but grinned easily and rested his hand on his sword hilt as he said, "Well, back to the road, eh, lads? I doubt not she'll catch up with us when she wishes."
The looks they gave him made him determined not to turn his back on a single one of them—but they glanced at his sword, noticed that he didn't have his lute on his back, and let themselves be moved by his jolly slaps on the back off toward the roadway again. Matt sang them Kipling's "Smuggler Song," with its refrain, "Turn your faces to the wall, my dear, as the gentlemen pass by," and they took the excuse to start grinning and feigning good spirits, though every glance said its owner would delight in seeing Matt spitted upon his own rapier, if he'd had one.
Of course, Matt was so intent on trying to calm them down that he temporarily forgot the power of verse in this world—and that melody strengthened the impact of the words. When they caught up with the crowd again, they found everyone reveling in the goodies that had magically appeared among them. The girls oohed and aahed as they fingered the laces, the men got drunk on the brandy, and Matt was quite content to let them give King Boncorro credit for long-distance generosity. Somehow, he wasn't eager for fame at the moment.
As twilight drew in, they came to a large open meadow where another couple of groups their size were already encamped, more or less. Local peasants were bringing in pigs, and the travelers were gleefully spitting them over slow fires. More wineskins appeared, again courtesy of the locals—anything to keep the strangers from foraging. The vagabonds proceeded to eat, drink, and make merry, and the locals faded away into the dusk—but several of them cast envious looks back over their shoulders as they went. Matt gave them two days before they hit the road themselves.
It was the wildest party he had ever been to, even including his one visit to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. There was a carnival atmosphere over the whole throng, a hundred fifty strong; inhibitions were thrown to the winds, along with random articles of clothing. No, not random—the more cloth that went sailing on the breeze, the more purposeful the selection became. Matt was shocked to see couples tumbling to the ground right out in the open, without the slightest attempt at concealment or seeking of privacy, eagerly stripping one another with laughter and lewd comments.
Of course, he was a little more shocked to discover that he was shocked. Was there still a Puritan lurking deep within him? Or just a romantic who held the quaint old notion that sex should somehow be linked to love? Of course, he supposed love didn't have to be private—but if love there was, then lovemaking grew out of intimacy, which cannot by its nature be public, for if it is, it is no longer intimate.
He didn't seem to be completely wrong, judging from the young lass sobbing on the shoulder of another girl, who was leading her toward the outer edges of the crowd, her face a study in compassion and anger.
"He told me last night that he loved me!" the teenager sobbed. "And here he is, stroking that hussy who just joined us today!"
"There, there, Lucia. Perhaps it is only the wine." But the look of hatred the older girl threw at a callow fellow who was unbuttoning a giggling young woman's garments said that she didn't believe her own lie for a second.
"He was the first man I ever let bed me! He told me he loved me!"
They passed beyond Matt's hearing, to his relief; he felt a pang of sympathetic hurt for poor little Lucia. Her dreams had already crumbled, after only a day or two. Maybe now she would go home, though...
But no, she couldn't, could she? Not in this culture, not without the man who had taken her to bed—if you could call a patch of grass a bed. He looked around for Pascal, to remind him to be a gentleman, but he was gone. A moment's panic ended with concern as he saw his traveling companion drinking and laughing with a group of five other young people. One of the girls was making eyes at him; another was stroking his arm.
Pascal? Homely Pascal?
Matt began to suspect there was something going on here besides mere lust. Of course, maybe he was being unfair—Pascal might be attractive in ways Matt couldn't see; after all, he couldn't look through a woman's eyes.
The older folk were looking on with indulgent smiles, then glancing at each other with knowing looks that turned lustful as, slowly, they kissed, decided they liked the flavor, and kissed again, deeper and longer. Work-worn hands began to loosen ties and buttons—but the middle-aged did seek some kind of cover—even if it was only a bush—before they took anything off. A bit more decorum? Or only an unwillingness to display flesh that was no longer in its prime?
Matt noticed one of these more mature women leading a young girl away—only this time, both of them were sobbing. Matt couldn't detect any family resemblance. He decided the young weren't the only ones having their hearts broken.
Nor girls, either. One young man was huddling in the shadow of a cask, glaring down into his mug and muttering, "I told her I loved her! Why would she lead me on like that, then turn away to that great lout?"
"At least she let you bed her last night," said his buddy.
"Yes, and I thought it meant she loved me! All day I was burning for her, aching for her! Then she laughed at me and turned away with him!"
"Courage!" His friend clapped him on the back. "Give as good as you've gotten! There is no shortage of willing wenches here! Bed another and let her see how little she meant to you!"
The brokenheart looked up with a glint in his eye. "That would be the fitting revenge, would it not?"
They got up and sallied forth into the crowd, while Matt watched with his blood running cold. Okay, so the kid would bury his pain in some other girl—but what would that do to her?
You worry too much about other people, he told himself sternly, but himself wasn't listening.
Now that he looked around with those last few conversations in mind, he detected the signs of the aftermath—the hard, brittle tone to the laughter, the determination, the desperation with which the young folk were pushing themselves to have fun. The girls were throwing themselves away, the boys were scalp-hunting—all of them trying to convince themselves that sex didn't really matter. Pleasure shouldn't be so much work, Matt thought. He remembered when he'd been in the same state, after the breakup of his first big romance. The rebound had been hard, and he'd ricocheted for a long time, slamming into a lot of walls. He winced at the memory of the people he'd collided with, and wondered how badly he'd hurt them. Any pain Alisande had caused him, he'd more than deserved...
He wouldn't do that to her. Never.
He wondered about Pascal. What kind of shape would the boy be in, come the morning? What would happen to him tomorrow night?
"A tankard, friend!" A buxom woman at least ten years Matt's senior sailed up to him with a foaming mug in each hand. "Will you not join in the revelry?" The look she gave him left no doubt as to what she thought his place in the festivities should be.
"Why, thank you!" Matt took the tankard with forced cheerfulness. "But before I take part, I must give part, for I am a minstrel, and song is my donation!" He took a drink that wasn't as deep as it looked, handed back the flagon, and struck the strings of his lute. After all, she couldn't quibble if his hands were busy making music, could she?
"Will there not be time for music later?" she asked, pouting.
She was still a very attractive woman, and Matt wondered how much of her own escape from mundanity had to do with a desperate determination to enjoy using her charms before they finally faded. He rippled out a sequence of chords, grinning at her, and tried to remember that the verses would work magic, and which song would have the least ruinous effect.
What else?
&nb
sp; "Alas, my love, you do me wrong
To cast me off discourteously,
When I have loved you oh, so long,
Delighting in your company!
"Greensleeves was my delight,
Greensleeves was all my joy,
Greensleeves was my heart of gold,
And who but my lady Greensleeves?"
The crowd quieted and turned to look at him, listening. There were still pockets of giggling and sighing and moaning, but the simple fact that he could hear them meant people were paying attention. Matt sang on, remembering how many verses Childs had chronicled, and choosing among them carefully. He thought he was having a good effect—but remembering what one professor had told his class, about which feminine profession wore green sleeves in the high Middle Ages, he could only hope. He struck the last chord and bowed, doffing his cap as the crowd broke into applause with cries of "More! More!" But before he could begin gain, several women of all ages crowded in, eyes shining, with such choice comments as, "Can you finger me as well as you do your lute, minstrel?" "Shall we make music together?" "Is it true you only sing about things you cannot do?"
"Never run away with a musician," Matt counseled. At least they had crowded out the matron with the first invitation...
A shout of anger, the sound of a blow, and a chorus of cries of alarm and excitement. The women swung around, avid for the sight, and Matt's heart sank. Was that what came of singing about broken hearts in this universe?
Apparently not—the wench who was the cause of it all stood to the side, eyes glowing as she watched two stalwart youths face off, each with a knife, one with his shirt open and the love bite already swelling on his chest, the other with a day-old mark on his neck and all his clothes buttoned more tightly than he no doubt wished. "Villain! She is mine!" He shouted, and leaped forward, slashing at his rival.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The rival jumped back, but not far enough—a streak of crimson appeared across his belly. The girl screamed, though whether with horror, delight, or both, Matt couldn't tell. The rival blanched and leaped farther back—into a wall of hands that shoved him forward to meet the blade of his foe. He howled with anger and slammed a fist into the other man's jaw—a fist with a knife sticking up from the top. The jealous lover reeled back, blood welling from a gash on his cheek, then charged back with a roar. The rival lunged, but the jealous lover blocked the blade with a cloth-wrapped fist and struck for the chest. The rival blocked, but he had no wrapping, and the blade nicked his knuckles. He shoved hard with a shout of rage, though, then sprang back to yank a shawl from a woman in the crowd, who shrieked protest—but he paid no attention, only began whipping his fist in circles to wrap the cloth around his forearm as a shield.
The jealous lover struck before he could finish.
The rival blocked and stabbed, but the jealous lover blocked, too, and they sprang apart.
The crowd booed.
They actually booed, incensed that nobody had been slashed.
That did it. Matt decided he had to put a stop to this, somehow—especially since he was hearing angry shouts from two other places in the crowd, and quick glances showed a fistfight breaking out off to the left, and a couple of older men going after each other with cudgels, off on the right. Matt swung his lute into firing position, took aim, and struck a chord—not that anybody could hear it. They couldn't hear his voice, either, amidst all the yelling, but he sang anyway:
"Gonna lay down my sword and shield,
Down by the riverside!
Down by the riverside, down by the riverside!
Gonna lay down my sword and shield,
Down by the riverside,
Ain't gonna study war no more!"
Nobody could hear him, of course, but he went on singing doggedly away. It did cross his mind that a religious song might attract some very unwelcome attention in a country like this, but though the particular song on his lips might have been a spiritual, it didn't actually mention the Deity or the Savior, or any other specifically religious words. Maybe it was those very associations that gave it the power to cut through the magical inertia of Latruria, for it did seem to be working—the duelists in front of him slowed, the anger fading, uncertainty replacing it until, finally, the jealous lover hurled down his knife with a snarl—right between the rival's toes—then turned on his heel and stalked off. The onlookers crowded back out of his way, wary of his thunderous face. The rival watched him go, frowning, then sheathed his knife and turned away. The girl who had been the cause of it all ran to touch him on the arm, but he shook her off with a snarl and strode away into the crowd. Neither felt proud of himself, that was obvious. The girl glared after the rival in indignation, then pivoted to glare after the jealous lover in fury, then finally tossed her head, a dangerous light in her eyes, and stepped up to a good-looking youth who had been watching. "Would you forsake a damsel so easily as that, handsome lad?"
The boy answered with a slow grin. "Nay, surely not! Not one so fair as yourself! Come, shall we dance?"
"Pay the piper first," the girl said—and sure enough, now that the excitement was over, an older man was unlimbering a small set of bagpipes. Matt felt a bit indignant about the competition, but he couldn't really claim that the man was horning in on a songster's territory. The young fellow paid him, and the piper coaxed his instrument into a wheeze. Matt winced. No, he certainly didn't have to worry about competition.
The bag inflated, the pipes droned, and the chanter began a merry melody. The boy and girl began to dance. Others joined them, and soon a score of couples were prancing merrily over the turf while the sounds of the other two fights ceased. Matt glanced at the two areas uneasily, but all four men were still on their feet, though glaring blackly at one another, so Matt decided to take a little credit for it. Not aloud, of course—especially with that piper going. He was into full swing now, and if he wasn't very good, he was certainly loud. Well, as long as the young folk were dancing, they couldn't very well be fornicating—although, looking at some of their movements, Matt wasn't all that sure. The postures and undulations became steadily more suggestive, and Matt turned away, suddenly realizing how very much he was missing Alisande. As long as he'd been staying busy, he hadn't thought of her more than once every couple of hours, and that in a rather platonic way—but work had suddenly begun to remind him that he was male, and therefore to remind him of his chosen.
What was it doing to Pascal?
There he went, flying by in a stamping, hip-thrusting dance, movements that Matt was quite sure he had never known until now—but he was a fast learner, and the girl who was teaching him was very dedicated. Not very pretty, but dedicated—and with a figure well calculated to cheer a disappointed lover.
Then they were gone, faces flushed with the dancing, but also with drinking. Matt looked about him and saw that they weren't the only ones. Only an hour after sunset, and most of the young folk were staggering—and at least half of their elders, too, the ones who were still standing. Of the forms on the ground, some were madly coupling; the ones who weren't, were passed out cold, reeking of ale. Most of the bushes were shaking their leaves and rustling, but the ones that weren't emitted the sounds of abused stomachs rebelling.
Come to think of it, the innkeepers may have been giving the ale away for free, but they weren't exactly shabbily dressed. Matt tried to picture each of the three he'd seen, noticed that they were all wearing unpatched clothes of good cloth and that their wives wore jewelry. That might have come from selling food and renting rooms, but he had a notion a lot of it came from selling beer, too. By local standards, they were wealthy—but if they could afford to give the stuff away to buy off potential troublemakers, it wasn't because they charged high prices. In fact, the first innkeeper's prices weren't bad at all. If he'd been doing well, it was only because his countrymen drank a great deal of beer. Everything considered, Matt decided, it was lucky that medieval Europe hadn't had access to much in the way of narcotics.
"Dance with me, handsome minstrel!"
Matt turned in surprise. The woman was about thirty, still attractive, and her figure was generous.
"Why thank you." Matt forced a smile. "But if the minstrel dances, who will play the music?"
"Why, the piper." She swayed closer, fluttering her eyelashes.
Matt thought he must be a fool or a testosterone deprivation case, to feel only the slightest stirring of response. "The piper will tire."
"But will the pipe?" she asked, and stretched up to plant her lips on his in a firm, demanding kiss. Her tongue teased his lips, and he was shocked to feel them part—by reflex? But her body was pressing against his, he could feel each curve all too warmly, and he realized it had been far too long since he had spent an evening alone with Alisande...
The thought of his wife cooled his heating ardor, and he broke the kiss, gasping. "I... thank you, damsel, but—"
She broke into a peal of laughter. "Damsel? Why, thank you, gallant sir, but 'tis ten years and more since I was wed!"
Matt knew better than to ask if she was a widow. He was dimly aware that the crowd had mostly swirled away, that they were standing at the fringes now. "It has only been a year for me, plus a few months. No, my wife and I are still very new to the business, and still very excited about it."
"Give it a few years," the veteran advised. "You will find it boring enough—and find that a kiss and caress on the side will rouse you to greater heights with your wife." She demonstrated with another kiss.