“Speak not so to her!” Another young man stepped in front of the girl. “People, people!” Matt held up his hands placatingly. “How about I just play it, and you figure out what it is?”
The suggestion met with unanimous protest, but it was too late-Matt had already started playing. “Hail to the Chief sounded a little odd when played on a lute, but nobody knew the lyrics, so they couldn’t very well protest about the sentiments. They did gripe about the rhythm, loudly and vociferously, but when Matt kept on playing in spite of the griping, they simmered down and started dancing to it. At a guess, Matt decided, it was a reel-some kind of line dance, anyway. He plucked the final chord, and instantly a boy was calling, ‘Too sedate! More spirit, minstrel!”
“Why?‘ Matt returned. ”Is the castle haunted?“
Wrong line-everybody immediately glanced over their shoulders. “Of course it is,” the squire said, scowling, “and our ghosts are not the sort of which we wish to be reminded. Play something jolly, minstrel, or I’ll see you given the haunted chamber this night!”
Matt wondered if the spectral company could be any more disagreeable than the live, but he said, “As you will, your Honor,” and began to play a tune that had recently been popular in Bordestang-ever since Matt paid a minstrel to start singing it around the streets. The young people looked up, startled, then began to nod in time, smiles growing, and turned to one another to begin a dance that Matt decided was well on its way to developing into a minuet. As they finished, one girl cried out, “How pretty! Are there words to it?”
“Yes, and they’re even out of copyright,” Matt answered, then rode over the confused looks as he began one of Shakespeare’s hits: “Tell me, where is fancy bred? Or in the heart, or in the head? How begot, how nourished? Reply, reply! It is engendered in the eye, With gazing bought, and sighing fed. Let us all sing Fancy’s knell! I’ll begin it-‘Ding, dong, bell!’ ”
“Sing it with me!” he cried, then repeated the line. A slight murmur answered him, and he called out, “I can’t hear you!” then played it again, with a little more verve from his impromptu chorus, but not enough, so he called out, “What did you say?”
“Ding, dong, bell!” everybody called back, looking angry. Sheesh, Matt thought, what a bunch of sourpusses! One fat and surly squire in a rich but gravy-spotted brocade surcoat under a velvet robe, scowled and said, “Have you nothing more fitting?”
“Squire Naughtworthy is to marry my daughter,” Matt’s host explained. “Surely he would not wish to hear of the death of true love.”
Marry his daughter? Matt took a closer look at Squire Naughtworthy. He was graying-fifty, at least, with little piggy eyes, a blotch of nose, and a ruff of beard. The mere thought of an old satyr like that with pretty young Panegyra made Matt’s blood run cold-but he noticed that Pascal was drawing the young lady aside for some private conversation, so he went on to the next verse. The audience sang the chorus line with a bit more verve this time, and Matt, emboldened, switched over to the version from The Tempest. “Full fathom five thy father lies. Of coral all his bones are made. Those are pearls that were his eyes. Nothing of him that doth fade, But all doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell. Hark! I hear it…”
And everybody joined in, with relish: “Ding, dong, bell!”
Everybody, that is, except Squire Naughtworthy, who turned purple and bellowed, “Would you rush us to our graves?”
The whole room fell silent, the whole family staring at him, taken aback. “My pardon, your Honor,” Matt said slowly. “I did not know you had a son.”
“I have not! But you clearly spoke of a man my age!”
Matt smiled with feigned relief. “No, good squire. I did not tell you how old the son was.” And before Naughtworthy could blast another objection, Matt struck the strings again, calling out, “Ding, dong, bell!”
“Ding, dong, bell!” The young folks grinned and sang it all the harder for Naughtworthy’s grousing. He turned magenta and swelled up for another blast-but his host very obviously disagreed with his complaint. He looked pleasantly surprised, and Matt guessed that it was the first time he had ever heard all the young folk agree on something-rather quarrelsome household, this. But Pascal and Panegyra were edging away toward the screened passage, so he decided to give his hosts a lesson. “Oh, the Hatfields and McCoys, They were jolly mountain boys, Till they both came down to town to do some dancing, And a McCoy there, stamping low, Trod on a Hatfield’s toe. And old Anse, he hollered loud to stop their prancing. ”Now, a swollen toe’s not bad, But this sullen Hatfield lad, Bore grudges long way out of all abettin‘, So he hid behind a rock Where McCoys were known to walk, And as one passed by, the Hatfield shot his head in. “Anse Hatfield took exception, Complained of vile deception, and led a troop of clansmen to the border. But the oldest male McCoy, Known as Randall, pride and joy, Saw them coming and laid ambush for a slaughter.”
Matt had them spellbound, but the greedy looks on their faces weren’t quite what he had hoped to evoke. Still, he was started now and couldn’t very well change songs in mid-verse-and Pascal had disappeared with Panegyra in tow, so Matt figured he had better hold the company’s attention awhile longer. Accordingly, he finished up the whole feud, managed to wipe out both families more thoroughly than the original feud had, then treated them to a brief scene in Hell where “old Devil Anse” met the real thing. The last part had them shuddering and looking over their shoulders again as he finished, and the squire frowned. “Has Pascal told you the history of our house, then?”
“Nay, cousin.” Panegyra had led Pascal back in during the last verse, looking flushed and very pleased with herself-but Pascal had a hangdog look that made Matt’s heart sink. He obviously needed a jolt, so Matt said, “You didn’t tell me you had resident haunts here.”
Pascal looked up, but didn’t quite focus. “Haunts?… Aye. What house of any age has them not?”
Matt was possessed of a sudden overwhelming curiosity at just what the girl had told his young friend, but he couldn’t very well come right out and ask. Instead, he said, “That’s true, but most of the ghosts I’ve heard of haven’t been malicious-just misunderstood.”
Pascal came out of his mood with a shudder. “Not this ghost, I assure you! Or the worst of them, I should say.”
“True,” the squire said judiciously, “and you have not even seen him, only heard tell of him.” He turned to Matt “We think him to be the ghost of my ancestor Spiro, who built this house-and seems to think himself still entitled to hold it.”
“He’s not willing to share?” Matt said carefully. “He would not if he could prevent it,” the squire said, “but he cannot-he is bound to the chamber in which he died.”
Matt grinned. “And that’s the room you were going to put me in if I was a bad boy, eh?”
“Oh, I would not truly have done so,” the squire protested-but Matt didn’t believe him. Still and all, when finally he retired, he had no complaint with the room they did give him-obviously a guest room, since it seemed to have been dusted in a hurry, though not too successfully, and the soot on the hearth looked to be ready for carbon 14 dating. The wall hangings were old enough to be brittle, but they were heavily embroidered and very attractive, and there was a very nice painting on the wall, though Matt really preferred his nudes to be somewhat less Neolithic in build. He did wonder why he had been moved out of Pascal’s room, then realized it might have been by Panegyra’s request. Well, getting away from the young man’s snoring wouldn’t be all that tough. He was just starting to unbutton his doublet when there was a knock at the door. He froze with a button halfway through the hole and called, “Who is it?”
“Pascal,” came the muffled voice. “Let me in, I pray!”
Well, so much for getting away from him. Matt stepped over to the door, drew the bolt and let the young man in. “Thought you were planning to sleep someplace else tonight.”
“Matthew!” Pascal stared at
him, genuinely shocked. “Surely you do not think the fair Panegyra would-”
“No, but I figured you might.” Matt raised a hand to forestall the youth’s hot rejoinder. “I see I was wrong, though. No, you wouldn’t do a thing like that, would you? Not to her, anyway. So what did the two of you talk about?”
“Alas!” Pascal sank down on the bed, head in his hands. “She owns that she does not find me detestable, even finds me comely-but she will not bend from her father’s rule!”
“She won’t run away with you, eh?”
“Aye, and she owns that it is because she shudders at the life of poverty and hardship such a course of action would mean, even for the few years it would take before I built a good living for us.”
Matt thought it would take a bit longer than a few years, at least for the kind of living Panegyra had in mind. “She likes the soft life, huh?”
Pascal nodded heavily. “Not so much that she has a love of luxury, as that she fears poverty-and she fears what my fate would be if her father should catch us.”
Well, at least the girl was honest, though she added a bit of embroidery. Still, if it spared Pascal’s feelings, what harm was there? “And she doesn’t shudder at the sight of Squire Naughtworthy?”
Pascal shivered. “She claims to think him handsome, though I cannot see why!”
“Some women are attracted to older men,” Matt said slowly, even to men old enough to be their fathers-and they find strength and, urn, prosperity, attractive. Signs that the man would be a good provider. It’s possible, Pascal.“ But in Panegyra’s case, be didn’t think it was likely. The youth moaned and dropped his head back into his hands. ”She is sure he shall be a veritable kitten in her hands, that she will even persuade him to take her to King Boncorro’s court!“
“Men will do a lot for a pretty bride,” Matt sighed, “but I don’t think this one can get her into court-he’s just a squire, after all. She might change her mind, Pascal.”
“What could change it?” the young man said bitterly. “A knighthood,” Matt said slowly. He had to give the boy something to work for, something to hope for. “Or even becoming a squire with a definite chance of graduating to knight.”
“Aye!” Pascal’s head snapped up, his eye catching fire. “Women ever do dote upon men of arms-and a knight’s rank is surely better than that of an elderly squire with no prospect of rising higher!”
Matt wouldn’t have called Naughtworthy “elderly,” but he wasn’t about to slacken the head of steam he’d been trying to build. “That’s the spirit. A uniform always gets ‘em, even if it’s made of iron.” Privately, though, he doubted that Pascal had much of a chance of climbing the social ladder, or that Panegyra would really care much if he did. From the sound of her, she would definitely choose the older, wealthy squire over the younger but penniless knight. No, all in all, Matt didn’t think Panegyra was worth all the devotion Pascal was heaping on her. Love never did have much to do with the head, though. A cold gust suddenly struck, and the candle went out. In the sudden darkness, Matt froze, then asked carefully, “Pascal?”
“Aye.” The younger man’s voice trembled. “Did I leave the window open?”
“This chamber has no window!”
Matt was just beginning to realize that his host might have a peculiarly nasty sense of humor, when a faint moan began, swelling in a second to surround them, battering at their eardrums, and a pale, misty, glowing figure seemed to rise out of the bed to tower over them, grinning and drooling into its beard. It was a man, wearing a robe over a belted, knee-length tunic, with a medallion hanging from a chain about his neck. His eyes were holes, and his mouth split into a grin of malice and gloating pleasure, then split farther to reveal pointed teeth as he raised his hands, showing fingernails that stretched into claws, poised to stab and pierce. Pascal shrieked and dove under the bed. An eldritch howling filled the night, and he came bolting back out, shrieking even louder, pursued by a ghostly hound the size of a German Shepherd. “Get behind me,” Matt snapped, and stepped between the dog and Pascal just in case the young man was already too far gone to be able to understand. “Fool!” the ghost chortled, winding up to pounce, and the hound howled and sank its teeth into Matt’s leg. Fear clamored through him, but he reminded himself thatectoplasm can’t interact with protoplasm, and felt only piercing cold in his leg. He ignored it and recited, “From ghosties and ghoulies and long-legged beasties, And things that go bump in the night, Dear Lord, preserve us!”
It didn’t rhyme, but boy, did that old formula work! The dog gave a howl that sounded as if its tail had been twisted in five places, then sank out of sight even as the ghost of the man screamed in frustration and fear, and winked out. The darkness was awfully quiet for a minute. Then Pascal asked, in a quavering voice, “Friend Matthew?”
“Here.” Matt tried to sound reassuring. “Just stay put, Pascal, while I kindle the candle.”
“Do not!” the ghost’s voice snapped out of the darkness. “Begone from my chamber! Or even your L-your appeal will not save you from my wrath!”
“Oh, come off it!” Matt snapped “If you could have resisted the Lord-”
The ghost gasped in pain. “-you wouldn’t have run at the mention of the word,” Matt finished. “And it’s a pretty general word, at that! I didn’t even specify Whom it referred to! Can you imagine what it would have done to you if I’d used a Name?”
“And what I would have done to you!” But the ghost’s protest sounded feeble. So feeble that Matt ignored it. “What are you getting so huffy about, anyway? You’ve got to know that we’re just guests…”
“That man who is with you is of my blood!”
“Nonsense-you don’t have any left.” But Matt wondered how the ghost could tell. Ectoplasmic genetic imprints? Could ghosts read DNA code? “Even so, you know he’s not a regular part of the household, and that we had no choice about which room we were given. What makes you so territorial, anyway?”
“I built this house!”
“And left it to your son,” Matt finished. “What’s the matter? Was he too eager to inherit?”
The room was ghastly quiet for a moment. Then the ghost’s tone was bloodcurdling. “How did you know?”
Chapter 10
“Just basic reasoning,” Matt said quickly. “That would give you something of a score to settle, and even if you had no way to do that-”
“No way?” the ghost said bitterly. “He laughed at my anger; he mocked at my pain!”
“Yes, the younger generation has no respect for its elders. Couldn’t you get back at him after he died, though?”
“Nay. He was not tied to his chamber by the violence of his death, he-his soul plunged like a stone into the depths, screaming as it went.” Sparks glowed in the ghost’s hollow eyes. “That was my revenge!”
“Then why do you keep trying to take it out on whoever sleeps in your room?”
“If you had suffered as I have suffered, you, too, would pounce upon any who happened within your reach!”
Matt shuddered. “I hope I wouldn’t! Is that all it is-just a colossal bad temper?”
The ghost fixed the glowing sparks on him. “What else should it be?”
“An attempt to communicate,” Matt said. “If it is, I’m not getting the message.”
The ghost just stood glaring at him, and Matt felt a thrill of accomplishment. Pascal stared at him as if he were a superman from another world. “There was a broken promise,” the ghost finally said. “And you think the current generation might be able to mend it, if they cared enough to do the research? You’re not exactly behaving in a manner calculated to inspire concern.”
“Nay, but any should wish to be rid of me!”
“Enough to look through the family records and try to find a reason for your haunting.” Matt nodded. “Well, I’m only here for the night, so I don’t have time for extended research. How about you just tell me?”
The ghost glowered at him, but said, “I am Spiro,
the first squire of this manor. I built it-but I did not mean to lie near it for eternity.”
“Then it sounds as if your goals coincide with the current squire’s,” Matt said. “I’m sure he’d like to get this room back-though I must admit he seems to find it useful to hold over people’s heads as a threat, if they’re naughty.”
The ghost’s head snapped upright. “You mean he uses me as his whip and his goad? Why, the poltroon, the vile villain, the-”
“-inheritor of tradition,” Matt said, cutting him off. “I gather he’s just keeping up what his forefathers have done. So where-” Then the significance of the name hit. “Spiro? That’s Greek!”
“Your perception amazes me,” the specter said dryly. “Aye, I am Greek-and longed to return to my native Athens, to the Parthenon and the groves of Academe. I had intended to depart in two years’ time, and my son would have been rid of me-but he could not even wait that long!”
“Sure-you were going to take all the money with you. Probably sell the land, too, and he knew he didn’t have money enough so buy it”
“I doubt it not,” the ghost said with disgust. “Yet I had always intended that if I did not return to Greece to finish my days, then my bones would!”
Matt lifted his head slowly. “So. If they were to ship your coffin back to Greece, your ghost would go with it.”
“Aye-and once there, I could shuffle off that mortal coil and pass to my reward.”
“You… sure you want to do that?”
“I have naught to fear of the Afterlife, foolish youngling!”
“Maybe some time in Purgatory, but all in all, you think you did as much good as bad in your lifetime? Well, then, be glad you died before King Maledicto came to power.”
Squire Spiro shuddered. “I am. That blackguard would have made short shrift of any man who sought to abide by the rules of chivalry, let alone the Commandments!”
Secular Wizard Page 17