by Mike Ashley
“You will rid your realm of a monster,” said the Duke. “Perhaps my own men could aid in the search. I would have taken him myself before this, but I have no right to do so in your realm.”
“Very proper of you,” said the King, “but you should have known that I would have forgiven you.”
“You are most kind, Majesty. Oh, by the way, would you ask your men to be very careful not to harm the horse? The stallion belongs to me. It was a gift from a friend, and this cur stole it.”
“Your horse? Yes, it would be, having your name. Well, we can just add horse stealing to the list of crimes which we shall hang this villain for.”
MacCullen sipped quietly at his mulled wine. So the Duke’s Christian name was Roderick, eh? The last piece of the puzzle had fallen into place.
The Duke had made a very bad mistake. He had assumed that he had outsmarted everyone.
VII
The third day of the tournament. For a week, now, the search had been going on for the “murderous villain” who was supposed to be following the Duke, and there had been no trace of him. It was conjectured that a troll or a dragon had disposed of him, since he was supposed to be traveling alone. MacCullen knew what had made the Duke wary of the knight in black armor. Sir Griffith de Beauville had heard the Empty Knight call out Roderick’s name and had reported the unusual incident.
MacCullen had heard things, too. Duke Roderick of Duquayne was not well-loved in his duchy. In the past year, he had become a tyrant. That explained the attack in the George and Dragon. Those men had evidently thought that “Sir Roderick the Black” was the Duke. He was sorry now that he and the Empty Knight had dealt so harshly with them. Still, what they had attempted to do had been illegal, even if possibly justifiable. Besides, none of them had been killed. The punishment had been light.
MacCullen had been watching each day’s jousting with a critical eye, and he saw that Duke Roderick was out to win by fair means or foul.
Well, let him try. The Magus MacCullen had tricks of his own.
“Look here, good Magus,” the Empty Knight said on the third day, “why haven’t you let me get out there? Am I to sit in this pavilion all through the jousting?”
“No, Sir Knight, you fight today. I have matched you against your old friend, Sir Griffith de Beauville – he of the ‘Argent in fesse four fusils gules’. That will qualify you for the final round.”
“Ahh-ha! I’ll slaughter him.”
“I’ll say you will. Frithkin, have you got that sand ready?”
The goblin chuckled. “All ready, Master Magus.”
“Very well. Let’s get started. You’ll be called in fifteen minutes, Sir Knight.”
“What are you going to do?” the knight asked.
“Well, one of the things I’m going to do is give you a head. It will just be a simulacrum, but when the herald asks you to raise your visor, there will have to be a face behind it. I’m going to make you look like my older brother.”
“Your brother? But why?”
“Because it’s necessary. Besides, I have to give you some face, and it is a law of magic that a simulacrum has to be a copy of some living person. It can’t be imaginary, and the person can’t be dead, do you see?”
“I see. Very well, good Magus. Go ahead.”
Fifteen minutes later, the Black Knight rode to the lists on “Black Beauty” – who had had a small white blaze painted on his forehead. MacCullen did not want the Duke to recognize the horse too soon.
MacCullen and Frithkin watched expectantly as the two knights, Sir Griffith and the Black Knight, faced each other across the jousting field. They had met in the center, raised their visors, and cantered back to the ends of the field.
Now, visors down, they prepared to charge.
The signal was given. The herald dropped his flag. The two great warhorses began to move. Faster and faster they gained momentum until, at the moment of impact, they were hurtling along at a full gallop.
Like the first time they had met, Sir Griffith’s aim and poise were not as good as his black-armored opponent. His own spear struck just off the fesse point, while the Black Knight’s lance struck dead center.
But this time, it was Sir Griffith who shot out of his saddle as though he had been propelled from a gun. The Black Knight hardly budged in his saddle as his lance cut through Sir Griffith’s shield and pierced the armor. Sir Griffith landed crashingly in the sand of the jousting field. He wasn’t quite dead, but he would be a very sick man for some time to come.
Frithkin had been avenged.
“Very beautifully done, Sir Knight!” said the Magus as the Black Knight rode back into the pavilion. “Beautifully done! Listen! The crowd is still cheering! How do you feel?”
“Sort of stuffy.”
“I don’t blame you. Be careful getting down off Roderick. If you slip, I can’t catch you.”
Slowly and carefully – and some what stiffly – the Empty Knight dismounted.
Not really an empty knight any longer, for his armor had been filled with three hundred pounds of sand.
The next day, Magus MacCullen watched the jousting carefully. He was not interested in any bouts except those fought by the Duke of Duquayne.
The Duke was doing quite well, as a matter of fact. He had arranged to take on as many knights as possible on the last day, and he was knocking them over one by one.
Has to be a hero, MacCullen thought to himself. It didn’t matter how many he jolted from their saddles; he would have to take on all who challenged him, and if he lost the last one, he lost the tourney. MacCullen was letting him do all the hard work he wanted to do, saving the Not-Quite-Empty Knight for the final round.
The Duke was not a particularly good jouster, though, and it took MacCullen a little while to see why he was winning. If one wasn’t looking for it, it would have been easily overlooked. The Duke was using a confusion spell on his opponent’s eyes. They saw him just a few inches to the right of where he actually was.
You are in for a surprise, my lord Louse, MacCullen thought grimly.
At last, the Duke of Duquayne reigned supreme in the field. No one appeared to challenge him. He rode up to the grandstand, to the King’s box.
The herald blew a trumpet.
“If there are no further challenges,” he cried in a loud voice, “His Majesty will award the golden cup to His Grace, Duke Roderick of Duquayne!”
“All right, Sir Knight!” MacCullen whispered. “You know what to do! Get out there and do it. And don’t forget what I told you!”
“I’ll follow your instructions to the letter, Magus,” the knight promised.
Then he rode out into the arena and shouted in his booming voice: “I challenge!”
Duke Roderick, who had been about to take the cup from King Huon’s hands, looked around at the sound of the voice. “Who is that man?” he asked the King. “Or doesn’t anyone know?”
“I can assure you, my friend, that he is worthy of your steel.”
“Very well. One more.”
And the two knights took their positions.
And thirty seconds later, the Duke of Duquayne was lying unconscious on the ground.
As his seconds came out and dragged him off to his pavilion, the Black Knight rode up to the King’s box. Again the herald sounded his trumpet. Again challengers were asked for.
And this time there were none.
The King stood up, the golden cup in his hands. “My lord,” he said, “you have done well this day. You have defeated the champion. In token of which, I give you this cup.”
The Black Knight took the cup in his hands.
Instantly, it changed. Before, it had been a chalice of carved gold. Now, it was encrusted with dazzling gems – diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds in a coruscating array.
The onlookers gasped. King Huon had, of his own free will, given away the Great Chalice! He was King no longer; he was just Huon du Cor, sometime Duke of Bordeaux.
And then
the new King, the Black Knight, did a strange thing.
“Huon of Bordeaux,” he said in his booming voice, “I, of my own free will and pleasure, return to you the Great Chalice, symbol and instrument of the Sovereignty of Faerie!” And he put the cup back in Huon’s hands. Huon was King again.
MacCullen had been working his way through the silent, shocked crowd to the King’s box.
“My lord King,” he said, “perhaps it would be best if you come with me. I can explain this whole thing. It was a plot of the most dastardly kind. Will you come with me to the pavilion of the man who calls himself Duke of Duquayne?”
Dumbfounded, the King could do nothing but follow.
The Duke was just regaining consciousness when the King, MacCullen, and the Black Knight, followed by a score of Royal Guardsmen, entered his pavilion.
“What happened?” he asked feebly. Then his eyes focused on the stern face of the King.
“Yes. That’s what I want to know,” said the King. “What happened?”
“Permit me to show you, Your Majesty,” said the Magus MacCullen. His fingers made intricate patterns in the air, and he constructed, syllable by syllable, a sestine of great power.
And the Duke’s face changed. The hard-eyed, wrinkle-faced wretch who lay on the pallet was quite obviously not the Duke of Duquayne.
“The Magus Prezhenski!” said the King. “But he’s supposed to be dead!”
“A hoax,” said MacCullen. “He wanted everyone to think he was dead. You see, he had to come as Duke Roderick to pull off his plot against the Throne of Faerie. He put an enchantment on the Great Chalice so that you would think it was the prize cup and give it to him. Not content with usurping the place of the real Duke of Duquayne, he wanted to be King of Faerie.”
“What did he do with my friend, Duke Roderick?” King Huon asked in a cold voice. “Kill him?”
“No. The Duke had to be alive in order to allow Prezhenski to use a simulacrum of his face.” The Magus MacCullen pointed a finger at the Magus Prezhenski. “You have bartered your soul, Prezhenski. You have dealt with His Satanic Majesty and signed away your life in eternity. Shall we call him and tell him to collect, or will you remove the enchantment on the true Duke of Duquayne?”
“I’ll remove it!” the frightened Magus Prezhenski quavered. “Give me a chance.”
“Very well. And remember, I know as much magic as you and a great deal more. Don’t try any trickery.”
“I won’t! I won’t! I promise!” He began moving his fingers and mumbling verses.
And, quite suddenly, the suit of armor which had been the Empty Knight collapsed to the floor of the pavilion.
“What’s this?” said the King.
Outside, there was a commotion.
And then, with Frithkin by his side, in walked the Duke of Duquayne, stark naked except for the horse blanket he had wrapped around him.
“It worked!” he said happily. “It worked, Magus MacCullen! I remember everything!”
“It must be a sort of double memory,” the Magus said with a grin. “You should remember being both horse and knight.”
“I do! Very odd sensation, I must say.”
MacCullen started to say something, but he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Prezhenski was muttering and moving his fingers. MacCullen made one gesture, and the evil magician froze, paralyzed.
“I suggest you put that man under arrest, Your Majesty. Duke Roderick, I should like to speak to you later.”
It was only an hour later. Prezhenski had been safely locked away, and a team of three magicians had put tight binding spells on him that he could never throw off by himself.
The King, the Duke, and Frithkin listened to MacCullen explain.
“The Empty Knight, you see, could only remember things that were extremely important to him, things that had registered strongly after the enchantment. I thought it odd from the first that he couldn’t remember his own name, but could remember the name of his horse.
“By the way, Your Majesty, I should like to call it to your attention that you owe the Duke a boon. He gave you back your kingdom. Legally, he could have kept it.”
“Really, Magus,” the Duke said, “Huon knows I wouldn’t do anything like that to an old friend.”
“Nevertheless,” said the King, “what he says is true. If you have a boon to ask, I will grant it if it is within my power.”
“Well-l-l . . .” the Duke began. “You tell him, Magus.”
“He wants a pardon for a certain dryand named Naaia,” said the Magus. “That was another name he remembered. What happened was this: Prezhenski, using black magic of the blackest kind, transformed Duke Roderick into a horse. A magnificent black stallion. Naaia, as far as I know, must have seen him do it.”
The Duke nodded. “We were out hawking together. I trusted him, and he got me in the woods – near a big oak – and . . . well, suddenly I was a horse. I was too confused to think of what to do. He tied me to the tree and went away.”
“And Naaia,” said the Magus, “didn’t know who you were, but she had seen you as a man and had fallen in love with you. She came out of her tree and tried to help you. She couldn’t reverse the spell, but she could modify it. She partially disembodied your spirit, leaving enough in the horse’s body to make a good horse – all the horse sense, as it were – and put the rest into the armor. At least, that way you could go out to find the magician who had wronged you.
“Prezhenski, meanwhile, took your place. He must have been worried, though, when he found that the horse he had tied so well to the oak tree was gone when he came back to get it.”
“Magus MacMullen,” said Duke Roderick, “I shall never forget what you have done for me. You have saved my dukedom.”
“And my kingdom,” said King Huon.
“Oh, by the way, Your Majesty,” the Magus said, “I want to apologize for misleading you into thinking that the Empty Knight was my brother, but all I asked you to do was give your Royal Word that the Black Knight was worthy of any man’s steel – which he is.”
“You are forgiven, Magus. And so is Naaia. Do you love the wench, Roderick?”
“I do, Huon.”
“Then we’ll see if arrangements can be made. And now, I trust I will see you all at the banquet tonight. This is a story that will make good telling for centuries to come. Will you come with me, Duke Roderick? We’ll have to find something for you to wear besides that horse blanket. Oh, and, Magus—between us we will decide upon a suitable reward, though we can never pay what we owe.”
“Your Majesty,” said Magus MacCullen, with a wink at Frithkin, “You once said the Irish were brave but poor. It is within your power to correct that to some extent – without, of course, removing the bravery.”
APHRODITE’S NEW TEMPLE
Amy Myers
Amy Myers (b. 1938) is best known for her books featuring Auguste Didier, the Victorian/Edwardian master-chef with the remarkable deductive powers, who first appeared in Murder in Pug’s Parlour in 1987 and has built up a dedicated following. She was previously an editor for the publisher William Kimber, for whom she edited the After Midnight Stories series of anthologies. Her humour is evident in the character of Didier, but she gives it full rein here in a story which is a sequel of sorts to “Aphrodite’s Trojan Horse”, published in my anthology Classical Whodunnits (1996).
“I’ve got my new temple licence,” Artemis crowed, waving a scroll in the air. (We gods and goddesses have to apply for planning permission for new temples.)
I was not pleased to find my half-sister smirking in the Golden Hall of Olympus. Supposedly Artemis is the virgin goddess of the bow and chase – huh! There is nothing she likes more than to shoot herself a man, and it’s my belief she’s kinky. All her young men seem to meet mysterious deaths, and she’s had a whole string of them to her bow.
“It’s for the island of Albion,” she boasted. “Where New Troy is to rise.”
“What?” I shrieked. “New Troy
is mine. Destiny has decreed it, and my darling son, pious Aeneas, is in Hisperia about to found it any moment.” (Hisperia is that odd peninsula with a boot at the end of it.)
The lady laughed through her wolfine teeth. (That’s what hunting does for you.) “Destiny also decreed Aeneas’s children’s children should rule New Troy.”
Madam Snake Sister obviously had something up her sleeve other than those spotty brown arms with the overdeveloped muscles, and she couldn’t wait to tell me about it.
“I’ve promised your great-great-grandson Brutus that he can found New Troy on a riverbank in Albion. Daddy’s promised me that if I make a go of my temple, New Troy will become famous.” She sniggered at my look of horror.
“Daddy? Do you mean Great Zeus of the Sable Brows, Mighty Son of Cronos?” I enquired dangerously, while thinking furiously. Father likes us to be formal.
I was much annoyed to learn that I was a great-great-grandmother. As laughter-loving Aphrodite, goddess of love, nothing could be worse for my image. Believing my duty as a mother done, I had forgotten all about Aeneas, when the rat left the sinking ship of Troy. Take your eyes off any man, mortal or immortal, and something goes wrong.
Prompt action was needed. I whirled round on my dancing golden feet. I ordered the chariot, without Father’s permission, aware that thanks to my girdle Zeus was spending the afternoon tucked up with a shepherdess who was under the impression she was nursing a sick lamb. I would pay a flying visit to my beloved son.
I burst in with all my goddess glory upon Aeneas, as he was taking his afternoon nap with his second wife Lavinia, landing on his fat stomach to be sure he woke up. He’d aged in all directions; not surprising, since he must be well into his mortal eighties now.
“Can’t you keep tabs on your own great-grandson?” I demanded without preamble, stepping daintily to the floor. “Artemis has told Brutus he can found New Troy.”
Lavinia woke up and started screaming at finding a goddess in the middle of her best mosaic, so I sent her back to sleep.