“I do not doubt it for a second,” Matt murmured. “Come, sit down!” The count waved at the seat on the bench Matt had been occupying before. “You must still be my guest at board, and yet stay the night in my castle! You shall find our other sports more congenial than this, I trust!”
Matt sat, but he didn’t trust anything, not for a second. A footman showed him to his room with a flambeau and lit a candle on the table before he left. Matt suppressed the urge to tip, and locked the door securely behind the man, then looked out the arrow slit to make sure there was no convenient way for anyone to climb in before he sat down to think over the day’s events. There wasn’t a question in his mind that Camano d’Arrete had meant to kill him, making it look like an accident-not hard, considering what a klutz the boy was when it came to using a sword. He had taken Matt by surprise, and Matt hadn’t really been all that far from using magic. Everything considered, it made for a very full report to his queen. Matt took parchment, quill, and ink out of his saddlebags and sat down to write. “My dearest darling,” the letter began, and what came after that is absolutely none of our business, at least for the first paragraph or two. Suffice it to say that the letter reassured Alisande on a number of points, then went on to report on the mission she had given him: There doesn’t seem to be anything resembling a definite plan to make the people discontent. It’s just that the families down here have relatives on the other side of the border, and they visit back and forth-and, of course, they talk about the really important things in life, such as taxes and houses and how well the children are eating. For a long time, the Merovencian branches of the families have been able to brag about how well-off they are-but now, the Latrurian relatives are catching up, and even getting ahead in some ways. This is happening with serfs, yeomen, gentry, and nobility alike-the Smiths suddenly feel as if they’re falling behind the other Smiths, and the Joneses in Merovence feel that they’re not keeping up with the Joneses in Latruria. It’s happening in the marketplaces, too. Peasants come in from Latruria to sell produce for themselves and for their lords, and while they’re standing around waiting for customers, of course they get to gossiping with the peasant in the next booth, who’s from Merovence. A few potential customers happen by-Merovencian, of course-and overhear the conversation, then ask a few more questions. First thing you know, rumor is spreading through the market that the peasants in Latruria are living in outright luxury. With the gentry and the lords, the greed is different. After all, they don’t have much choice about their houses-they inherited the castles, and there’s always the chance of war, so they can’t just move out and build mansions. Nonetheless, some of the Latrurians are bragging about building palaces and just keeping the castles as forts. They all have the luxuries, too, so there’s no point in wanting more. But the young folk can crave excitement-and they do. The rumors of King Boncorro’s court are that it is a positive paradise for sybaritic devotees of vice. Of course, rumor doesn’t say “vice,” it says “fun,” but the upshot is the same-there’s always something to do, always something exciting going on, always the chance of a duel or an affair, and just time enough to recover from one ball before you start getting ready for the next. The tales of old King Maledicto’s court are still hanging around, but where they talked about cruelty and depravity and vicious old men ruining the young folk, the stories about Boncorro’s court are of the good-natured, generous king letting his people play and have fun while he watches, getting his kicks out of seeing people be happy. The bind is that there might be some truth in that. If there is, it’s going to be awfully hard to fight, because rumors that have facts to back them up have a certain gloss of sincerity to them. I suppose we could close the border and keep the Latrurians out, but somehow it just doesn’t seem right to keep relatives from visiting each other, especially since, to these people in the marches, borders are a nuisance during peacetime. It would be wrong to set up and enforce a rigid border watch unless it was really necessary. Besides, it probably wouldn’t work. My world has seen some pretty strong evidence that no border guards can keep out ideas and news. I’ve picked up some strong hints that the peasants on both sides of the border are accomplished smugglers, and there’s no way they’re not going to swap stories as they barter goods. So the only thing to do is to boost the standard of living in Merovence and make your court the kind of shining, ideal place that Emperor Hardishane’s court was-at least, in the legends. That’s if the stories are true. If they’re false, all it takes is a few eyewitnesses to start spreading the truth. I know that truth has a hard time competing against sensational lies, but believe me, I can wrap such a fascinating story around the truth that people really will listen. First, though, I have to find out what the truth is-and there’s only one way to do that. So I’ll start out for Latruria in the morning, to see for myself. I should cross the border about mid-afternoon, and have some idea of what’s really going on by noon the next day. Of course, if the rumors turn out to be true, I’ll have to go on and visit King Boncorro’s court, but that shouldn’t take long-I expect to be home in a week, maybe two. Till then, take care of yourself-and try to look forward to our reunion as much as I’m going to. Thereafter followed a few more paragraphs that were, to say the least, very private, and certainly no business of anybody but Matt and Alisande. They would have reduced Alisande to an emotional puddle, if she had read that far. Unfortunately, she never got past the bit about King Boncorro’s court. By the time her ladies-in-waiting had revived her, they had begun to suspect that something was wrong. Actually, the ladies-in-waiting had been suspecting for a couple of weeks that something was very, very right-but the queen fainting when she read a letter from her husband made the very right turn very wrong, especially when revival brought a flood of tears. Such emotional behavior was very much unlike Alisande-but very like the woman who had been contending with early-morning bouts of nausea for the past fortnight. They had been looking forward to widespread rejoicing as soon as the news became official-the kingdom was due for an heiring-but their high hopes might be brought low if the poor queen had so bad a shock as to make her miscarry. Almost as bad was the possibility that the child might be born with his father fled or defected to the side of Evil, and a shriek such as Alisande had uttered just before she fainted was cause enough to make them worry almost as much about that. So two of them fluttered about trying to revive her while a third ran for the doctor, and the fourth picked up the letter to scan it quickly. She blushed at the first two paragraphs, turned pale at the next few, and dropped it before reading the last. “No wonder her Majesty fainted! The Lord Wizard sends to tell her he will go into Latruria!”
“Into that land of iniquity?” Lady Julia gasped. “Surely he would not be so foolish!”
“Would he not?” Lady Constance said grimly. “He went into Ibile for no stronger reason than that he had misused the name of God. In truth, his championing of her Majesty’s cause when she was in prison scarcely speaks much for his prudence!”
“Ah me, the woes of wedding a gallant but reckless man!” Lady Julia sighed. “Still,” said Lady Beatrice, “he should be reckless only on her behalf, not in spite of… See! Her eyelids begin to flutter!”
“Oh, where is that doctor?” Lady Constance cried. “No… doctor!” Alisande protested, forcing herself to sit up. “No, Majesty!” Lady Constance cried in alarm. “Do not rise so suddenly!”
“Do not speak as if I am ill!” Alisande snapped. “It was a moment’s shock, nothing more!” But she stumbled as she pushed herself to her feet. Lady Constance was there to catch her arm. “What could there have been in that letter to so affright your Majesty?” She glared Lady Beatrice to silence. Alisande hesitated, torn between her very human need for a confidante and her monarch’s duty to take the full weight on her own shoulders. Then she remembered that word of Mart’s expedition was bound to become public knowledge, very public and very quickly, and allowed herself to speak. “My dunce of a husband has gone into Latruria!”
The women g
asped in shock. It wasn’t difficult-they had never heard the queen refer to the Lord Wizard so rudely before. “But Majesty!” Lady Constance regained her poise first. “Latruria is a kingdom of sorcery and dark Evil!”
“Perhaps no longer,” Lady Julia said quickly. “The young King Boncorro may not be so bad as his grandfather!”
“Or may be worse,” Lady Constance said darkly. “I have heard tales to chill the blood about the doings of old King Maledicto!”
“Aye-the maidens ravished and tortured, the rebels flayed and quartered.” Lady Julia shuddered. But Lady Beatrice turned deadly pale. “More unnerving are the stories of the folk he had tortured so that he and the folk of his court might laugh at their screams!”
“Laugh, and worse,” Alisande said darkly. In spite of herself, she shivered, and her hand went automatically to her abdomen-but she forced it away. “It is whispered that he commanded his sons be slain,” Lady Beatrice gasped, “even that he slew the eldest with his own hand!”
“Aye,” Lady Julia said severely, “and that only the youngest was saved from his murderous sire, by his devotion to God-surely a miracle, in the midst of a court dedicated to the Devil!”
“Surely,” Lady Constance agreed, “and it is said that it was lust overcame him, and that one sin cracked his holiness enough to make him subject to the evil will of King Maledicto!”
“And that the king would then have slain his grandson,” Lady Beatrice finished, “had not some virtuous soul spirited him away into hiding-a hiding so complete that even King Maledicto’s sorcery could not spy him out.”
Lady Elise burst through the door with a dark-robed graybeard right behind her, puffing as he lugged a heavy satchel. Elise cried, “Here is the… Oh! Your Majesty is well!”
“No doctor, I said!” Alisande waved the graybeard away angrily, then instantly relented. “Your pardon, Doctor. It was only a faint, a moment’s giddiness, nothing more.”
The doctor didn’t exactly look reassured. “Still, your Majesty should permit-”
“Nothing! I need nothing! There is too much to do, too suddenly, to permit of time for medicine!”
The doctor started to interrupt, but Alisande overrode him. “Away, kindly doctor! I must turn to planning strategy!” And she very deliberately turned away from him. The doctor glared in outrage-he was one of the few members of the court privileged to do so-but when he saw she was not looking, gave it over and went out the door, shaking his head and grumbling. “I regret your bootless errand, Lady Elise,” Alisande said, “but it was truly for naught.”
All four ladies exchanged a very significant glance as Lady Elise said slowly, “A hundred bootless errands I will run gladly, your Majesty, so long as the one that is truly needed be among them. But what gave you cause for such distress?”
Alisande opened her mouth to deny, but before she could lie, Lady Julia said, “Her husband goes into Latruria.”
“Oh!” Lady Elise gasped, covering her mouth. “Into that cesspool of evil, where the king is a triple-dyed villain?”
“The new king may not be,” Alisande said with asperity. “I have had reports of the conduct of this young King Boncorro, and many of his works are good. In truth, I hear no evil spoken of himself, barring what any monarch must sustain…”
“Even yourself?” Lady Elise’s eyes went round. “Even I have had to order the occasional beheading, and the more frequent hanging,” Alisande said grimly. “In truth, I have ordered soldiers to their deaths in two wars now, and I do not pretend there was no evil in it.”
“But it was for a good cause! Indeed, it was to fight Evil itself!”
“Even so, men slew other men at my orders,” Alisande said inexorably, “and I cannot pretend I was innocent of all guilt. No, any monarch must strain her conscience in defense of her people-for the welfare of the commonwealth must be guarded, and where a common man can plead self-defense, a monarch cannot.”
“No-she can plead the defense of others!”
“I can and do,” Alisande agreed, “and so, I doubt not, does King Boncorro.”
“Does he?” Lady Constance said darkly. “Or does he only secure his own power and fortune as well as he may, with least risk to his soul?”
“There is that,” Alisande admitted. “Still, if reports are true, I need not fear for my husband’s safety.”
“Then why do you fear?” Lady Constance retorted. “Because reports may not be true.” Alisande shivered again. “Send for the Lord Marshal, Lady Elise, and summon Master Ortho the Frank, my husband’s assistant. I must call up my armies.”
Still pale-faced, Lady Elise bobbed a curtsy and fled out the door. Queen Alisande turned to Lady Beatrice. “Do you send a fearless groom to Stegoman the dragon, milady-and send a courier to seek for Sir Guy de Toutarien.”
Lady Beatrice departed, wide-eyed. It must be truly an emergency for the queen to seek the aid of the elusive Black Knight! But Alisande and the party she assembled had to go out into the courtyard to meet Stegoman. The dragon could fit through the hallways of her castle in a pinch, but a pinch it was, and quite unpleasant for him, especially since his wings had been mended. Stegoman lowered his head and raised it in salute-he was one of the Free Folk, not a subject of her Majesty; never mind that he lived in her castle compound now and scarcely ever saw another dragon, except on vacations. “Majesty! Thou dost wish me to fly and bring back my errant companion, the Lord Wizard, dost thou not?”
“You are as perceptive as ever, Stegoman,” Alisande answered. “Yes, I do ask that of you-for he has sent to tell me that he will cross the border into Latruria!”
“I knew he would fall into trouble if he did not travel in company with me,” the dragon huffed. “But would he listen? Nay, never!”
“He was supposed to move in secret,” Alisande hinted. “And is a dragon so rare a sight as all that? Oh, aye, I know-we are, most especially in company with a mortal! Yet I could have laired nearby where’er he sought danger! Then, at least, I would have known where to find him!”
“That much, I can tell,” Alisande answered, “or where he was three nights ago, when he wrote his most recent letter: at the castle of the Count d’Arrete.”
“That is something, at least,” the dragon rumbled, “though as thy Majesty hath said, it was three nights agone!”
“Two days ago he was at the border station near the Savoyard Pass,” Alisande offered helpfully. “That is something more,” Stegoman mused. “There should be a road running south from the pass. At least I know where I shall begin to search.”
Anxiety stabbed Alisande, and she put out a hand to the warm, dry scales. “Go as cautiously as you may, Great One. I would be loath to lose a friend.”
The dragon’s mouth lolled open in a sort of laugh. “It is even as you have said, Majesty-the Free Folk cannot travel in secret. Still, I shall fly warily. Fare you well!”
Alisande barely had time to leap back before the dragon sprang into the air, pounding his way aloft with wing beats that boomed and blasted them all with grit and sand. She shielded her eyes, then looked up to watch him circle the keep and fly off toward the south. “God be with you, great friend,” she murmured, “and bring you back safely, with my Matthew on your back.” Then she turned to the Lord Marshal. “Have you sent to seek out Sir Guy de Toutarien?”
“Aye, Majesty.” The grizzled old knight smiled. “His path is like the wind, I know-but he cannot be so footloose as once he was, now that he is wed.”
Alisande wasn’t altogether sure she liked the tone in which the old knight said that. “If he wed the Lady Yverne,” she reminded him. “The Princess Yverne, rather, though none knew that of her till she was about to leave. We know only that she rode off into the mountains in his company, and that they meant to find a priest along the way.”
“I never knew the Black Knight not to do as he had said he would,” the marshal told her. “Still, as you have said, he shall be difficult to find. I have sent not one man, but ten, to quarter the
mountains and seek him out. Nonetheless, it is a trail two years old, and discovering it will take time.”
“Unless he wishes to be found,” Alisande amended. “Send also to Matthew’s friend Saul.”
“The Witch Doctor?” The marshal stared in surprise. “I doubt he will come, Majesty. He seems to have little liking for people generally, now that he has found one to dote on.”
“His wife Angelique does seem to be world enough for him,” Alisande admitted, “at least to judge by report, for we have not seen the man since the two of them went off into the wilderness together. Still, danger to his friend Matthew may bring him out, just as it brought him to our world-and at least we know where to seek him.”
“Aye, in the Forest Champagne,” the marshal grunted, “and surely there was never a place so well-suited to a man! A forest named for open land! A wizard who declares he cannot work magic and will not believe in Good and Evil as sources of magical power! Oh, the contradictions are apt, Majesty, most apt indeed!”
“He swears by paradox, I know,” Alisande agreed, “and to hear him swear at all makes me shiver with apprehension. Still, we shall need his help if Matthew is truly endangered. Send for him, milord.”
“By all Baal’s brass!” Rebozo swore. “Could that sniveling young lordling truly be so inept as this?”
LoClercchi shrank away from the chancellor’s anger. “Surely, milord, you did not truly expect the lad to slay the Lord Wizard himself!”
“No. but I had fondly thought he would at least be a strong enough opponent to force the man into using his magic! Yet what do I find? He was so poor a swordsman that this so-called ‘Sir Matthew’ scarcely had to work up a sweat, much less resort to wizardry! What do we know now that we did not before? That he poses as a knight and calls himself ‘Sir Matthew’-which is a name not uncommon in these lands, even among knights! And that he fares southward, through the pass-which he was almost certain to do, if he came south at all!” He crumpled the tiny note and threw it at the wall. “Nay, this boy Camano has achieved nothing, nothing! Send him a stomachache! Send him a flux! I should give him worse, but pain is fitting for a pain!”
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