The line straggled across the hillside above them, and the slope that had seemed small and insignificant when it was far below seemed to be lofty and forbidding now. The soldiers who had been ants were now fearsome gargoyles, frowning down on them.
Alisande found the grizzled veteran and summoned him. "How say you now, Sergeant? Shall I lead you in a charge up this hill?"
"God forbid!" the sergeant cried. "Begging your Majesty's pardon—but I would rather save your Majesty's life!"
"l, too," Alisande agreed, "for I have not so many men that I can spend their lives like pennies. Yet how think you we are to progress, if we do not climb this hill?"
The sergeant frowned. "Wherefore does..." He cleared his throat, also his impatience, and pulled his mask of civility back on. "I am surprised that your Majesty asks."
Alisande nodded in agreement, smiling. "We may not fly up, but the gray goose shall. Go call up the archers."
A few minutes later, a flight of arrows arced up from the ranks of Merovence.
But at the tops of their arcs, they burst into bright flame. What fell on the men of Ibile was little more than ashes.
Alisande just stood staring up at the sky.
Finally, the sergeant said, "Right glad I am, that 'twas only the gray goose that rose up against that sorcerer."
"Aye," Sauvignon agreed. "Better that our goose should be cooked, than we ourselves."
The queen finally spoke. "I'll not say nay to that" She turned to Ortho the Frank, Matthew's apprentice sorcerer. "Good clerk, you may be a novice in wizardry, but you are a veteran of many battles. How say you? How shall we ward our arrows from this sorcerer?"
"Ay de mi!" Ortho sighed. "Would that I had retained the profession of arms."
"But you were a poet."
"And a swordsman, Majesty. 'Twas useful, when men spoke of my verses. Yet now I'll seek among the scraps of verse my master hath taught me and see if I can find one that is apt to the condition.
"Oh, let the rain come down!
Oh yes,
Do let the rain come down!
Oh yes, oh yes,
Do let the rain come down
Upon our clothyard arrows
'Til their fires do drown!"
A few minutes later, a second flight of arrows sprang up from the Merovencian lines. At apogee, they burst into flames—and rain appeared out of nowhere.
The arrows flew on, surrounded by their own private drizzle, while the flames hissed, sputtered, and died. But just before the darts hit their target, their points shot downward, and they fell short, rattling against one another.
"What can he have done?" Sauvignon cried.
A moan swept the enemy line as cloaks snapped in a sudden gust, and hats went flying.
"A gust of wind." Ortho nodded. "Brief, but strong—a `downdraft,' as Lord Matthew would call it."
A sudden chill engulfed them, then swept past them, and they shivered, but not at the temperature alone.
"When it struck the earth," Ortho went on, subdued, "it splashed out, as water does in a pool. Its gust struck the men of ibile—but when it reached us, it was only a breeze."
"Yet one that breathed despair!" Sauvignon shuddered. "Whence comes such a wind, that chills even the soul?"
"I shall find a remedy for it," Ortho said quickly, ignoring the question. "You shall see, Majesty—with each flight, our shafts shall come nearer the mark."
"They shoot!" the sergeant cried, and they looked up, startled, to see arrows sailing down at them. Ortho, however, muttered a rhyme about someone lighting someone else's fire, and added a reference to a lady who was still carrying a torch for someone. He understood neither, but Matthew had insisted he memorize them—and he was vindicated, for the line of arrows blazed. Well before they reached the Merovencian lines, they had guttered and gone out. Alisande could distinctly hear the tinkling of a rain of arrowheads—uphill.
"This Ibilian sorcerer is most instructive," Ortho mused. "Between his example, and the Lord Matthew's spells, I may yet begin to think of myself as a wizard."
Strangely, Alisande found herself beginning to be optimistic.
CHAPTER 21
Rack and Rune
The first thought through Matt's head, when he came to, was wondering why he had. After all, if King Gordogrosso had finally decided he was a big enough nuisance to swat, why would the king settle for a capture instead of a quick, clean kill?
Somehow he didn't like the sounds of "quick" and "clean." He wished he hadn't thought of them in just that way. With trepidation, he opened his eyes.
He saw a round, grinning face with a bowl haircut and a gloating smile. "I am Reginald, the Duke Bruitfort."
Matt squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them just a crack, hoping the face would go away, but it didn't. In fact it laughed. That irked Matt, so, carefully he began to raise his head—and found he couldn't. He tried to move his arms, but they were fastened down somewhere above his head. His stomach shrank and tried to crawl away. Yes, that was why the man hadn't killed him. He liked to make his pleasures last.
The duke must have seen that in his eyes, because he laughed and reached out, pushing Matt's head to the side. Matt squeezed his eyes shut, but not fast enough—he'd seen the torturer with the hot iron, at work on a half-naked peasant. Finally, Matt realized he'd been hearing screaming for a while.
A blow rocked his head, and a gravelly voice grated, "Look!"
That made Matt mad. He squeezed his eyes shut, but managed to bite back the retort.
A hard thumb jabbed his forehead, pulling up an eyelid and poking the eye in the process. Matt yelped in spite of himself and saw that there was a woman strapped down beyond the peasant man, one who might have been pretty once, but was scarcely enchanting now as she strained against her bonds, screaming at the things the torturers were doing to her.
The duke, however, apparently liked the sight—his breathing rasped, hoarse. He shuddered and snapped, "Cease! Matters of state must be resolved! We shall finish with these two anon!" He said it in the tone usually reserved for an extra helping of dessert. Matt wondered about moral obesity. Anything to keep from thinking about what he was seeing.
Especially as the duke seized his chin and yanked, turning his head the other way. Matt saw Yverne, strapped down and stripped to the waist. It was a sight he'd been secretly yearning for, but not in the current setting. Especially since Sir Guy lay strapped down beyond her, also with his torso bared and his hands manacled above his head, with Fadecourt in a similar bind between them. The knight's eyes, though, were calm, in spite of the bruises that marred his face and had welted his chest. His gaze seemed to counsel Matt to courage and steadfast faith.
Then a hot iron came between them, and touched Yverne's upper arm. Only a touch; she screamed, and the duke waved the instrument away, chuckling. "Do you not find the sight stimulating, Wizard?"
"No," Matt said. "Not at all." It wasn't quite true; it was stimulating him to some very lurid thoughts about what he wanted to do to the duke.
"Indeed! Would you rather be the banquet guest, or the roast? Come, join me in this sport! Or I shall set my torturers to work on you." To prove it, he snapped his fingers, and pain seared through Matt's belly. He let out a howl before he managed to choke it off, and looked down, amazed, to see a red-hot iron lifting away from his skin.
"The next shall be lower." The duke grinned, and a thin trickle of saliva oozed from the corner of his mouth. "Lower, and lower yet. Therefore, join me in eliciting delightful, musical shrieks from this wench, and we shall work our way down together. Then up, and I shall raise you to chief among my sorcerers. You shall have power, vast power—over my estates, over half the kingdom! And, at last, over all of Ibile." His grin widened, sweat starting from his brow. "After that, who knows? You have cause for revenge on Merovence, have you not?"
Understanding hit Matt almost like a physical blow. "You're trying to usurp the throne!"
"Certes." The eyes narrowed, the gri
n hardened. "And I have need of strong magics to aid me."
It all made sense. If Matt joined the duke in his torturing, he would be corrupted—and doubly corrupted, since the people they'd be torturing would be his friends. Then he would indeed have devoted himself to evil and could be trusted to become a sorcerer who would labor diligently for his wicked lord. Matt managed to get his voice working again. "What is this? If you can become evil enough, you get to be king? It's a corruption competition?"
"That is the way of it in Ibile," the duke verified. "Succession is usurpation. It is accomplished by assassination, either before or after the taking of the throne."
Matt frowned. "But the king's got all the power! He's a puissant sorcerer—and he has Satan's power backing him up!"
"So it may seem. But know, foolish meddler, that Satan will aid any pretender who seeks the crown—for the result of that is civil war, and amid the strife and suffering it brings, many lose faith and curse God."
"And Satan gets their souls!"
"He is a collector of useless things. Thus the king may be aided by the powers of Hell, but so am I."
"Then Satan's assistance cancels out." Matt nodded. "It makes sense. The sooner you challenge the king, the sooner one of you will die—and Satan doesn't have to wait as long for your soul."
Anger flashed in Bruitfort's eyes, but he contained it. "Even so. 'Tis then a contest of strength, and the king must strive mightily to overcome me ere I am grown great enough to topple him." His grin broke through again. "In that, he has failed. I have countered his magics with my own sorcery, and that of my apprentices and journeymen. I have matched his armies and beaten them back—and steadily gained ground. Already I rule half of Ibile, and 'tis soon to be more."
A random thought occurred. "Of course, you could be fundamentally good, but just pretending to be evil long enough to get Satan's support."
Bruitfort threw back his head and laughed. "Think you the Prince of Lies is so easily deceived? Nay, I assure you! He knows true evil when he sees it! He would not aid a man who was good-hearted in secret!"
"So whose soldiers did I see looting and raping in the villages—yours, or the king's?"
"Mine." The duke's grin widened.—Thus I bind them to me—by the promises of the pleasures of cruelty, and the wealth gained by looting."
And, of course, the disregard for law that made such decadence possible. "Which means the king's soldiers are no better than yours."
"Surely not. If he seeks to keep his throne, he must be all that I am, and more—and instantly ruthless in quashing the first signs of rebellion. In that, he failed—for he had need of great enough intelligence to see when a contender was rising, but he did not see through my deception, my grinning sycophant's pose, until it was too late, and I had power enough to contend with him. For that, he shall die—and in not too long a while, I think."
So that was why Matt had encountered so little trouble from Gordogrosso—he was distracted by a domestic rebellion. The thought sent insight. "It was Sir Guy's attack! That's what gave you your chance!"
"Even so." The duke turned to Sir Guy with a mocking bow. "The Black Knight struck down the overbearing lords who preyed upon their peasants—and left holes in the fabric of evil behind him."
"Which you filled."
Bruitfort nodded. "He put down the vicious outlaws who sought to prey upon the weak, and gained the allegiance of the poor. He struck down the king's tax grinders, and weakened the royal power over the villages. He gathered about him all the fools who worship goodness; they came out from their hiding places to band together, and the king, of a sudden, had to contend with a challenge to his rule that could have been fatal."
"So he had to tie up most of his army, keeping Sir Guy and his followers penned in that castle—and while they were tied up, you took over the estates of the lords Sir Guy had ousted."
The Black Knight was staring, pale and drawn.
"Even so." The duke's grin widened like a shark's. "Let others waste their time in strife; I waited, and bowed, and scraped, then struck. Yet to counter the king, I must garner all the power I can, for even maimed, his magical power is formidable. Therefore, join with me, Wizard! Swell the strength of my evil challenge! Free Ibile from the rule of this corrupt monarch!"
"And replace him with another who's even more corrupt?" Matt suggested. "One who's much more efficient about making people miserable?"
"You will thus gain power you scarce can dream of. Join in my delights, and there shall be earthly power for you second only to mine! The most beautiful lasses of the kingdom, used only once! Fine meats, fine raiment, fine wines! What say you, Wizard? Will you have wealth, luxury, and power? Or a slow, agonizing death?" He looked up and gestured, and pain ripped through the sole of Matt's foot. He howled in agony; the room disappeared behind a red film. It cleared slowly, tending to pulse in time to the diminished but throbbing pain in his foot, thinned enough to show the duke, eyes bulging, teeth bared in a grimace of mounting pleasure. "Choose," he panted. "Choose."
Matt chose.
"The screw may twist and the rack may turn,
And men may scream and men may burn,
But England's pride will cast asideAll men who for others' pain may yearn."
The duke shot back away, slamming into the solid stone wall. But he didn't fall; he stepped back, shaking his head, only dazed—and a nasty little whip with sharp bits of metal at the ends of its thongs scored Matt's chest. Matt shouted with the pain but remembered to keep bellowing:
"The lash sweeps back to score with thirst
The hand that wields it last and first!"
The thongs snapped back, and someone out of sight screamed. The thrill of victory shot through Matt, and he cried out,
"Like a mirror on the wall,
Let each new torture turn and maul,
So he who seeks another's pain
Shall feel it turn on him a—"
"Silence him!" the duke screamed.
A hard hand slapped down across Matt's mouth, which happened to be open. He bit.
The torturer screamed, but kept the hand there, and Matt started chewing in spite of the taste. Suddenly, the hand yanked away, and a wad of cloth jammed into Matt's mouth. It smelled foul and tasted worse.
The duke loomed over him, panting and wild-eyed "Well tried, Wizard! But poorly struck! There are too many of us here, ready to stop you! You cannot prevail against us!"
Showed how much he knew. Matt glared at him, gargling a few dire noises through his gag, while his mind raced, trying to dredge up verses that would be effective even though unspoken.
"Know then," the duke panted, "that your familiars are taken, and slain."
Matt frowned. Familiars? What was the man talking about?
"Your animals, your beasts!" the duke snapped. "The dragon, and that obscene hybrid! We have taken them, and drained their blood."
Matt stared, every muscle rigid. Then morality gave way—there could be no protection for so vile a man. He had forfeited all right to the protections of others' compassion or conscience. Matt would make him burn to death from the inside out, while his nails grew inward and his inner ears rocked...
Calm flooded through him, almost as if some outer spirit had filled him with charity and restraint. The man was human, after all, and though it might be Matt's duty to remove him before he could hurt anyone else, he had no right to work justice upon him. Torture could wait until after his death, if he deserved it, which Matt didn't doubt for an instant—but it wasn't his job.
Well enough. Back to high-powered, unspoken verses.
"Their blood will enhance my power enormously." The duke's eyes narrowed; he was all business now, sadism put aside for the moment. "So would your magic, though I can work quite well without it, if I must. Yet there is another source of power more vital by far." And he turned to Yverne.
Matt's heart nearly stopped. Then, frantically, he began to recite as much of the verse as he had worked out in his mind
.
The duke's' eye gleamed as his gaze moved slowly over Yverne's form, but he was all business as he explained, "Your father's lands marched with mine, damsel, but also marched with Merovence. His lands ran along its border, through the mountains, for fifty miles. That distance is long enough to admit an army that could hamstring my forces from behind. I might take the capital only to find my own hard-won demesnes lost to the Bitch of Merovence."
Matt froze for a moment; then his eyes narrowed, and he changed a line of verse for the worse.
"He was my prisoner, as you know." The duke watched her face carefully for signs of reaction to the past tense. "He was a brave, though stupid, man—he withstood all my tortures and would not cede his lands to me. Now he is dead."
Yverne stared in horror.
"It is hard, I know," the duke said gently, fairly oozing sympathy. "Let the tears fall; grief must be vented."
It was; the tears flowed, though Yverne squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip to stifle the sobs.
"Let it loose, let it loose," the duke soothed. "None here will blame you for wailing with remorse."
Remorse! For what?
"Oh, my father! My poor father!" Yverne gasped.
"Aye, aye, 'tis hard, 'tis hard," the duke commiserated. "Yet you must know, poor lass..."
Finally, the wail cut loose and wrenched into sobbing. The duke, tense as a tent rope, kept murmuring inanities, patting his captive's bound hand, completely ignoring the fact that it was he who had caused her misery.
The strategy seemed to be working. As her sobs slackened, his murmurs turned to advice. "You are but a weak woman, damsel, and a young one at that. Nay, surely you are not schooled and hardened to the governing of a dukedom. 'Twill be a burden on you, a horrible burden. You will bend under it, you will break. The administering of justice alone will torment you. Can you truly order a murderer hanged, and sleep well o'night?"
Yverne wailed.
"Let her be!" Fadecourt barked. "Can you not allow her to be alone in her misery?"
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