“And they must be right,” she said, with a jaundiced look, “and for that, I am not altogether certain I trust these teachers you would bring.”
Matt shrugged, “Politicians never do. That’s why they make the budget renewable every year.”
“Still, there is merit in the notion.” Alisande gazed out the window pensively, and Matt wondered if she was thinking about the children they didn’t even have yet. “It is for the future, though,” she said at last, “and we must deal with this matter in the present. I tell you frankly, Matthew, that I suspect subversion from the sorcerous kingdom of Latruria.”
“Fair guess,” Matt said judiciously. “Just because we chased the sorcerers out of your kingdom once, doesn’t mean that they’ve given up on trying to win it back. So you think King Boncorro might be sending agents across the border to stir up discontent?”
“Yes, and to make the young folk of all classes yearn for a life of leisure and luxury.”
Matt smiled. “Don’t we all?”
“True, but those of us who are grown know that we must labor for it and earn it. Yet even for mature folk, if rumor says there is Heaven on Earth for free, many will flock to seek it.”
“Or start agitating for you to provide it for them,” Matt said, nodding, “carefully avoiding the issue of who is going to provide the food, or build the houses.”
“I do not say that King Boncorro is doing that,” Alisande said, “but only that he might.” She turned to look at her husband. “Would you travel south to discover the answer for me, Matthew? I know you have been restive of late.”
“Well, yes,” Matt admitted. “I can take only so much of court life before I start going a little crazy from all the intrigue and backstabbing. I don’t know how you can take it, darling.”
“I glory in it.” Alisande gave him a toothy smile. “There is a certain thrill and excitement in keeping these courtiers in line, and making them be productive for the land as a whole to boot.”
“Yeah, and I’ll bet you’re the kind who tap-dances on crocodiles for fun. Okay, honey, I’ll go hunting-my Chief Assistant Wizard, Ortho the Frank, should be able to handle anything routine.”
“He did well for me, when we had need to follow you into Allustria,” Alisande said. “You have trained him admirably.”
“Not too well, I hope,” Matt said, with a wary glance. “Still, he’ll know how to get hold of me if anything really big comes up. Want me to leave today?”
“Soonest gone, soonest come back.” Alisande caught his hand and tugged. “Do purge your restlessness and come back to me quickly, mine husband. The nights will be long till you’ve returned.”
He followed the pull to zero in on her lips, and made it a very long kiss. After all, it was going to have to last him a while. Matt shivered at the memory of that kiss, and of what had followed, then resolutely forced his mind back to the present and this southern fair. He had indeed left that afternoon, buying a pack and some trade goods in town, then strolled south, trading and swapping pots and pans and copper coins while he absorbed information. The farther south he went, the juicier the scandal. He’d found that Alisande was right-there were murmurs of discontent, and people were beginning to think that maybe Latruria was better run than Merovence. By all reports, people in Latruria seemed to live better, even the serfs-and everybody had at least some money. The commoners were believing every rumor they heard. But those rumors weren’t coming from government agents-they were coming from relatives. Matt was amazed to learn that there was no attempt to guard the border from anything except an invading army, and no one really thought that would come. Oh, the marcher barons guarded the roads, but mostly to collect taxes and tolls-they didn’t seem to be particularly worried about invasion. And the peasants were traveling back and forth across the fields with a blithe disregard for the invisible line that presumably ran right across the pasture and down the middle of the river. Small boats crossed the river both ways, with no concern for any law but Nature’s, and that only in regard to the current and the weather. Not that there was any law, of course. The only one Matt could think of was that sorcerers were barred, along with armed bands. Everybody else was legal-if they paid a tax. Some people didn’t want to, of course. There was an inordinateamount of smuggling going on. The marcher barons didn’t seem to care, maybe because import taxes were supposed to go to the queen. Why should they care, if there was nothing in it for them? Oh, they sent out patrols, every few days, to ride through the pastures and fields along the invisible line-but they seemed far more interested in hunting small game than illegal immigrants. They made a lot of noise, too, playing pipes and joking and laughing; any peasants out to visit their in-laws on the other side had plenty of time to take cover and wait until the riders had passed out of sight.
Not that Matt objected to any of this, exactly, though it would have been nice to have the tax money. Still, he was the last person alive to try to keep relatives from visiting one another, or of taking up job opportunities-that was as apt to work in favor of the people of Merovence as those of Latruria. His travels had led him to this market, almost on the border. He had seen the river traffic, bank to bank, for himself-no one seemed to find anything wrong in it, which was fair enough, if one overlooked the little matter of taxes; and Matt personally wouldn’t really want half a bushel of turnips as a medium of exchange. The merchants seemed to be paying their import tariffs and grumbling about them as he would expect-but not grumbling with any real conviction, because the tariffs weren’t that high. Of course, they did keep mentioning that when they were taking goods into Latruria, they didn’t have to pay any tax at all… He had heard peasants bragging about how well they lived, about having meat for dinner every other week, real meat-chicken! And fish three nights out of seven; about the repeal of the Forest Laws, and it being legal to hunt and fish as much as they wanted, provided they didn’t kill too many animals, or fish the ponds empty. They bragged about their new cottages, about the woolen cloaks their wives wove with the wool they bartered for with the shepherds; about their new tunics, for they could keep more of the flax they grew-indeed, about all the things the people of Merovence had been looking down on them for lacking. Now it was the Latrurian relatives who could brag, and they were making up for lost time. No wonder the peasants of Merovence were grumbling-and meaning it.
Matt decided he had just about had enough of this disguise. He was ready for something a bit more genteel, and a little smoother on the skin. Time to check up on the moods of the aristocracy. Accordingly, he ambled out of the fair and the rudimentary town that had grown up around it-only a couple of blocks of houses and more permanent shops. The houses were long and low, built of fieldstone, but large enough for four big rooms-more than your average peasant expected, but just about right for town dwellers. The shops were two-storied and half-timbered, with the living quarters upstairs and the shop downstairs-the pride of their owners, no doubt, until their cousins from Latruria had started bragging. That was all there was to it; two blocks of that, and he was out of the town. No city wall or anything-this was a burg that hadn’t really decided to be permanent yet. Of course, Matt could have taken the road, but he had reasons to want to avoid any undue amount of notice.
He hiked across the fields, being careful where he stepped, heading for a barn he saw in the distance. It turned out to be a communal barn-the townsfolk ran some livestock of their own, at a guess. It was certainly big enough for a knight’s estate. Fortunately, the cows were all out grazing at the moment, and the pigs were wallowing in the spring mud and the May sunshine. Matt ducked into a stall, found a patch of clean straw, and pulled a doublet and hose out of his pack. Okay, they were wrinkled-but what would you expect, for a minor lord who had been on the road for a week? Which was exactly what Matt planned to claim, and it was true enough, in its way. He changed clothes, packed his peasant’s tunic and leggings away, and sauntered out of the barn, feeling a bit more his old self, in spite of the pack slung over his shou
lder. Now he wanted to meet the owner-or whoever was in charge. There he was, or at least a likely source of information: a middle-aged peasant, chewing a stalk of hay while he leaned on his shovel, surveying the pasture and counting cows. Matt sauntered up to him. “Ho there, goodman!”
The man looked up, startled. “Ho yoursel-uh, good day, milord.” But he darted a suspicious glance at the peddler’s pack. Matt swung it around to the ground. “I found an old packman hard up on his luck. I took pity on him and bought it all for three pieces of gold.”
The herdsman stared; the sum was enough for retirement, if you didn’t mind living skinny. “However, I’ve no mind to go lugging it about,” Matt said. Would you store it for me? And if I don’t come back for it by Christmas, give it to some deserving lad who wants an excuse to travel for a bit.“
“To be sure, my lord.” The gears were grinding inside the peasant’s head; Matt could have sworn he could hear them. If this foolish lord had given three pieces of gold in charity, what might there be in that pack that could even begin to justify such a sum? Matt had a notion that if there were anything of real worth, it wouldn’t make it to Midsummer, let alone Christmas. “My horse went lame,” Matt went on, “and someone told me I might be able to hire one here.”
“Well, not hire,” the man said slowly, “but Angle the cartwright has a colt he is willing to sell for five ducats.”
“Five?” Matt stared. “What is it, a racehorse?”
“It is high, I know,” the peasant said apologetically, “but the beast is still too young to discover if he will be worth anything as a warhorse, and Angle does not wish to chance losing money. Myself, if the colt were mine, I would bargain-but since it is not, I can only direct you to Angle’s shop.”
Matt sighed. “No, I’ve no wish to go hiking back to town.” He really didn’t, especially after that tangle with the Watch-having a peasant recognize him in lord’s clothing would be bad enough, but having a watchman catch him at impersonating a lord could be a lot worse. Real trouble, in fact, with the upshot being him having to reveal his true identity-and he wasn’t quite ready to do that. “Well, five ducats is far too much, but if I must pay it, I must. I’ve only the royals of Merovence, though. Will you take four of those?”
“Gladly!” the herdsman said, and watched with avid attention as Matt counted the golden coins into his hand. Well he might, Matt reflected sourly-the royal was worth almost two of the ducats; he was paying about seven ducats for a nag that couldn’t be worth more than two! It was significant, though, that the man had asked for the coins of Latruria, rather than those of Merovence. He hoped it indicated nothing more than Latruria’s nearness. Surely the peasants of Merovence couldn’t have more faith in a foreign king than in their own queen! At least, when he saw the colt, he could see it was worth two ducats-though the distinction between a plow horse and a warhorse was a bit ambiguous, when the chargers had to be built to carry a full load of armor. This draft animal was testimony to the fact that a smart stallion, scenting a mare in heat, can outwit even the strongest stable and the smartest groom, for the colt was at least half Percheron. The other half wasn’t much smaller or less massive, either-but the colt was a hand or two short of a Clydesdale and built a little more lightly; it wouldn’t quite have blended in with a team of horses pulling a TV beer wagon. All in all, Matt didn’t feel too badly about having been robbed, especially since the herdsman threw in a saddle and bridle. They were old and cracked, but they worked. So, mounted as befitted the dignity of a wandering knight, Matt rode up to the local castle, braced for them to ask where his armor was.
Chapter 2
The lords and ladies of King Boncorro’s court laughed, clinked glasses, drank, and laughed some more. Here and there a man slipped a hand beneath the long table to stroke a lady’s thigh there and here the lady returned the gesture. Some were bolder and more open, kissing and caressing above the board, where all could see; in fact, there was as much fondling as conversation. The only rule seemed to be that the interplay had to be with someone else’s spouse, but even this was not always followed to the letter. The married couples who kissed, though, did shock their neighbors. A Puritan would have said that the surroundings encouraged such behavior, for King Boncorro’s great hall was hung with tapestries depicting scenes from the newly rediscovered classics ferreted out of moldering libraries by lapsed clerics. Here Venus cuddled within the circle of Adonis’ arm; there she reached out to Mars while Vulcan stood by, fuming. Danae stood in her shower of gold; Europa rode off on the back of the white bull; Cupid gazed down at Psyche, asleep in the posture of a wanton. All of them, true to the spirit of the Classical statues that had been unearthed, were completely nude. King Boncorro, though, seemed to be quite pleased with the overall effect. He leaned back in his chair at the high table, gazing at his court over the rim of his goblet with a feeling of satisfaction as he watched the high spirits below him. “It is good to watch my courtiers enjoy themselves, Rebozo.”
“Yes, your Majesty-especially since their dallying here means they are not plotting rebellion on their estates in the provinces.” The chancellor looked up at his king with a cracked smile “Your tapestries are very well-chosen toward the encouragement of such. ”I know,“ Boncorro sighed. ”I had meant them to be an inducement to education and culture. It seems I still overestimate human nature.“
“Perhaps, though, they would be a bit more effective if your Roman gods and goddesses were being a bit more forthright in their play,” the chancellor suggested, “or if your tapestries showed them in all the various stages of the game.”
“No, I wish them to inspire my courtiers with the urge to cultivate their aesthetic senses,” the king replied. “I will have the tapestries show nothing obscene-my lords and ladies do well enough at that as it is.”
“Wherefore?” Rebozo spread his hands. “I had thought your Majesty’s aim was to have them occupy their time with pleasure, to keep them from objecting to your plans for government.”
King Boncorro looked up at the chancellor with pleased surprise. “You delight me with your insight-or am I so transparent as that?”
“Only to me, and I am used to the ways of intrigue,” Rebozo assured him. “But why seek to stimulate their appreciation of the arts, Majesty? Why not merely encourage them to wallow in the pleasures of the flesh, as your grandfather did?”
“Because those pleasures pall, Rebozo,” the king told him. “The proof of it is the increasing decadence of my grandfather’s amusements, as he strove harder and harder to pique his interest in the flesh. His courtiers, too, found that sexual pleasure required greater and greater excesses to stimulate them, when it was pleasure of the flesh alone.”
The words sent a thrill of alarm through Rebozo-new ways, always new ways!-so he tried to make light of it. “Greater excesses, and greater expenditures to buy living bodies for them to degrade and torture.”
“ ‘Living bodies,’
yes-not ‘people,’ “ Boncorro said with irony. ”Well, there is some truth to your claim, Rebozo-my courtiers are far less expensive than grandfather’s depraved coterie. My lords and ladies provide one another’s amusement and pleasure. Still, the cost of these nightly revels is substantial.“
“What cost? The tapestries, which you bought once, and once only, whereas your grandfather had need to procure new toys every week, sometimes every night? The acrobats and jesters, the musicians who fill this room with lush strains and a sensuous rhythm? They are serfs, and glad indeed to have such light work, with better lodging and food than ever they might have had in their villages! The nightly banquets and the barrels of wine, all provided by your own farms and vineyards? The occasional troupe of strolling players, who are glad of a few ducats for a week’s work? These cost only a fraction of your grandfather’s expenditures on performers of decadent amusements and providers of perverse pleasures.”
The king smiled. “Come, Rebozo! The cost is still considerable.”
“Aye, but it yiel
ds a handsome profit, though it will never show on the ledgers you so assiduously scrutinize‘”
King Boncorro laughed aloud, and the nearer aristocrats looked up alert for a joke they should share. He only smiled indulgently and waved his cup at them. They raised their own in salute, then went back to their badinage. “That must be half the reason I keep you by me, good Chancellor,” Boncorro said, “to have one about who can appreciate my scheming.”
“Your genius, you mean.” Rebozo’s smile fairly glowed with pride. “I rejoice that my risk in preserving your Majesty’s life was so richly merited. But tell me-” A shadow of concern crossed his face.-why do you not join in your courtiers’ games? Why do you hold yourself aloof, and not disport yourself among them? You, too, must have your lighter moments, Majesty!“
“I must, and you know that as you suggested, I maintain a dozen beautiful serving maids who have no work but to wait upon me in my private chambers,” Boncorro answered. “As to the behavior of my aristocrats, I do not think it politic to impose my own morality on them-or my lack of morality; I have no objection to fornication, though I do not share their delight in adultery ”
“Do you not?” The old chancellor cackled “I think you long for it as much as any man, your Majesty! I have seen the way you look at Lord Amerhe’s daughter!”
“Yes, and so has the rest of the court.” Boncorro glanced at the lady in question and felt the fire of lust blaze as he let his glance linger on her flawless cheek, her full ruby lips, her swelling bosom more displayed than covered by the cut of her neckline. For a few minutes he devoured her with his eyes, enjoying the surge of desire she wakened in him-then he forced his eyes to took elsewhere. “The new Contessa of Corvo, you mean? Ah Rebozo! You know I must not gratify my senses with such as her, no matter how I long to!”
Even as he spoke, Sir Pestilline, seated next to the countess reached past her for a tidbit from a platter on her other side; as he was bringing it back, it “happened” to drop into her cleavage. The lady squealed, clapping a hand to her décolletage, while the gentleman laughed, leaning forward, reaching-and the lady shrank away, giggling, her hand slipping lower… A hand clamped down on the man’s shoulder and wrenched him about. He stared up in surprise-at the Conte of Corvo. With a single motion, the count loosed his hold and slapped the offender’s cheek. Sir Pestilline’s head rocked; then he was on his feet catching his dagger from the table. Corvo sneered and stepped back, drawing his sword. The ladies screamed, the men shouted, benches turned over as all sprang up and away. In seconds a circle had opened around the two men, even as the count lunged at Sir Pestilhne. The knight jumped aside, dagger flicking out to parry the count’s lunge as he drew his own sword-but too slowly, for Corvo riposted, then shouted in anger as he lunged again. And again Pestilline dodged, but too slowly; Corvo’s blade slit his doublet and came away with its edge reddened. Pestilline howled in anger and leaped in, thrusting and parrying in earnest now. Corvo gave back as good as he got, and there wasn’t even the slightest sign of mercy in either of their faces. “Enough!” Boncorro cried, but the two hotheads could not hear him over the clash and clang of their swords. The king’s mouth tightened in disgust, and he waved to his guards, who plowed through the throng, halberds at the ready. But they were taking too long; one man might be dead before they came. Boncorro rolled his hands about one another, then pantomimed throwing as he rapped out an arresting verse in an archaic language. A loud report shook the great hall, and smoke billowed up between the two fighters. Ladies screamed and clung to their men; the two fighters leaped back, covering their mouths and noses, already coughing. Then the guardsmen were there; the king flung his hands up and out, and the smoke disappeared, leaving not a trace or a teary eye behind. Corvo and Sir Pestilline looked up, startled, to find crossed halberds separating them. “Not within my great hall, lord and knight!” King Boncorro called. “My lords of L’Augustine and Benicci! Act for these two while they cool their heels outside my door! Conte Corvo! Sir Pestilline! Leave this hall at once! Do not return until you have settled your differences and can sit at the same table without seeking to murder one another!”
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