They looked ready. Very. If there was any flaw, Matt certainly couldn't spot it.
Then the irony struck—Robin Hood asking him for a magical review, when he had a wizard of his own handy. Or did he realize it? Slowly, Matt turned to Friar Tuck. "Good Father, may I ask you to survey us all and say if you see any defect of spirit that might weaken us before the army of evil?"
Robin and Marian both looked startled, and Tuck fairly blushed. "I am only a meek and humble friar..."
Little John nearly choked on a smothered laugh.
"It's part of your office," Matt nudged.
Tuck stood still for a moment. Then he lifted his head with a sigh and stepped forward to scan the troops.
And, suddenly, there was a great deal of tension in the room. Either these men knew Tuck's powers, no matter how modestly he disguised them, or they were taken by surprise—for everyone in the room felt a sudden, searching pressure pass over them all.
It vanished as Tuck turned away, eyes unfocused, as if still in a trance.
"Is all well?" Matt asked softly.
"With them, aye," Tuck answered, as if from far away. "Lord Wizard, step aside with me."
The troops stared, and Matt felt a thrill of alarm pass through him—but Friar Tuck was stepping over into a small chamber that opened off the great hall, into a screened passage, and what could Matt do but follow?
There, the monk slipped his stole out of his pocket, kissed it, and slipped it around his neck. He folded his hands, bowing his head, and waited.
Matt realized it was time for confession.
Trouble was, he had no idea what to confess. Sure, he'd made a lot of mistakes since he'd come to Ibile, but he hadn't exactly been absent from the confessional, and surely his chat with the angel had counted as reconciliation. He hadn't committed any major sins since then, if you didn't count killing sorcerers and their henchmen in self-defense. "Father...I have no idea..."
"Why have you come to Ibile?" The friar's voice seemed wafted to him on a breeze from distant places.
Matt began to realize he was talking to more than just Friar Tuck. "Why, to unseat the usurper from the throne and restore goodness to Ibile." A sudden urge for truthfulness overwhelmed him. "Or, at least, to open the way to goodness. I don't know if I can do any restoring myself."
"In essence, that is good. But your motive may contaminate your purpose, Lord Wizard. Why? What is your personal desire in this? Have you come to be a king?"
"Well...yes," Matt admitted. "I had planned on taking the throne. What's wrong with that? I'm certainly better than the current inhabitant. On the other hand, that doesn't take much—"
"Yet it requires a great deal, to be a good king." The monk sighed. "You are not of the blood royal, Lord Wizard; you have not the qualities required of a prince."
Anger sprouted, but Matt recognized that Tuck was not entirely speaking for himself alone. Maybe he had no right to catechize Matt, but Whoever was speaking through him did. "You're saying that I am no more the rightful monarch than the current king."
"Even so. Ask of yourself, Wizard-'Why do I seek to rule? Is it for the good of the people, for the greater glory of God?' "
"No—it's so that I can qualify to marry Queen Alisande." The words were out almost before Matt realized he was saying them, and he stood there, appalled at what he had just heard.
Tuck made a sound like the air expiring from a concert organ and said, "You must not take the throne for your own personal purposes, Lord Wizard, no matter how worthy. It is of the people we speak, and what is best for them. Know, too, that the rightful heir to the throne of Ibile stands within this Great Hall hard by us."
That was hard—it jolted Matt like a short circuit. His head snapped up, and he stared at the monk—who was staring past Matt at something that he couldn't see. No, he didn't doubt for a moment that Tuck had spoken the truth. "The...real heir? Not Sir Guy de Toutarien!"
"Nay. 'Tis the maiden holds clear title."
Yverne? Matt stared. Sure, she was noble—but he couldn't quite see her as a reigning monarch. Alisande, she wasn't.
Then he stood stock still, letting that last thought filter down through all the layers of his consciousness. No, she wasn't Alisande, was she? Beautiful, gentle, kind—but not his Alisande.
The pang of loss was sudden and huge. "But Father! All my plans, all my pain—and I still can't marry the woman I love?"
"If it is best for the kingdom and the people, you will wed." But Tuck went on inexorably, "If it is not, you will not. You must chance that loss, wizard. For you to seek to win a throne is hubris."
Matt knew the term. The ancient Greeks had used it, for the overweening pride of a man who sought to rival the gods. In his own time and place, it had meant a man who had thought he was something he wasn't—who had sought to become something that was alien to his true nature. Hubris—overweening pride, stemming from lack of self-knowledge.
"Neither a throne, nor a queen," the monk droned. "If you are not born a king, you cannot become one—you can only usurp, which is a heinous sin as well as a heinous crime."
"Usurp...a wife?" Matt croaked.
"Even so. If she is yours, God will bring you together. If she is someone else's, or no man's, He will not."
The rage boiled up, and for a moment Matt was on the knife's edge, near the point of bellowing his frustration at Friar Tuck and telling them all where to go...But he caught himself at the last moment, held back the words, let the rage fill him and start to slacken...
And remorse rushed in to fill the void where the anger had been. Matt bowed his head, realizing how close he had come to being untrue to himself, and therefore to Alisande; how close he had come to making both their lives miserable, and those of hundreds of thousands of common people, too. For a moment, he had almost played into the hands of the lord of evil; but thanks to Tuck, he had sheered off at the last second.
That didn't mean he had to like the friar for it, though.
"Thanks, Father," he muttered. "I abjure the throne. I will unseat the sorcerer if I can, even as I've sworn—but I will seek to place the rightful monarch on the throne, not myself."
"It is well." Tuck sketched the Sign of the Cross in the air. "Go in peace, my son—and in hope, for she may yet be yours. I assure you, I shall search without rest, to seek a way to justify the marriage of a lord born a commoner, with a monarch reigning. But though you may be a consort, you shall never be a king."
"All I want is to be her husband," Matt muttered. "Put the titles on the shelf, Friar. I'll read them later."
The field was empty of foemen, except for the dead. There were no enemies wounded or dying—their own knights had slain them as they retreated.
"But wherefore?" Sauvignon's agony of soul was written in his face. "Why would they slay their own men?"
"Wherefore not?" the sergeant said dryly. "These were of no more use to the sorcerer, after all."
"But they might have escaped! They might have gone back to the sorcerer's army!"
"None go willingly to Gordogrosso's armies, I think," Alisande said slowly. "Belike they would choose to stay and fight for us, if they could surrender."
"Would they slay these men for treachery that they might commit?"
"They would," the sergeant confirmed. "Wherefore give strength to the enemy? Yet I think 'tis more than that, milord."
Sauvignon turned to him, scowling. "What should it be?"
But the sergeant only glanced at him, then glanced away.
" 'Tis their souls, Marquis," Alisande said gently. "If they had not slain them, these men might have repented on their deathbeds and have cheated Hell of a few more souls."
Sauvignon only stared at her, then turned away. The sight of bloody entrails and torn limbs hadn't sickened him, but this did.
"Peace, milord," Ortho murmured. " 'Tis not the speaking that matters, nor e'en the unvoiced words in the mind, but the thought itself, the upwelling of repentance in the single sharp surge that t
akes but a moment; and such could have come to each of these, in the moment of their deaths."
"And if it did not?" Sauvignon grated.
"If it did not, they have gone where they chose."
"But how if they did not so choose?" Sauvignon rounded on him. "How if many among them would have repented, if they'd known of their deaths—but did not, for the blow that laid them low came from behind! As, look you, it did, for most among them."
Ortho didn't bat an eyelash. "How if they would have repented, if they could have? Ah, my lord!" He heaved a sigh. "Were not most of these constrained to fight, whether they would or no? How many among them did already repent, and secretly asked forgiveness of God for not having courage enough to face the death by torture that would have come of saying no to the sorcerer's press-gang?"
Sauvignon stared at him for a moment, then said, "Well asked. How then?"
But, "I know not," was all Ortho could answer. "These are questions for a priest, my lord, not for a poor sexton whose soul was too wild to stay in cloister long enough to become so much as a deacon."
Sauvignon held his gaze, then nodded with gruff apology. "'Tis even so. I thank you for this much hope, at least." He turned to the queen. "Majesty, may we summon the chaplain?"
"We may, my lord, when he is done with the work of his office." Alisande gestured down-slope, and Sauvignon turned, surprised, to see the priest who had accompanied the expedition on his knees in the mud, his vial of blessed oil in his hand, marking the Sign of the Cross on each dead soldier, reciting the words of the last annointing in a quick mutter before he rose and went on to the next corpse.
"They may be damned," Alisande said, "but he, at least, finds room for doubt."
Sauvignon saw, and his eyes gleamed. He straightened, and she could almost see his spirit rise.
Ortho saw, too, and smiled. "The sorcerer may have dominion in this world, my lord, but not in the next."
"Why, then, let us reave him of even that!" Sauvignon clapped a hand to his sword hilt and looked up at Alisande with the lust for battle in his eyes. "Let us march, Majesty! Unleash us 'gainst the tyrant!"
Alisande decided that even the ugliest man might have a beautiful soul.
CHAPTER 27
Submarine Raid
They came back into the great hall, Friar Tuck folding his stole and putting it away, Matt trying to straighten his shoulders and put something resembling a smile on his face.
He didn't do too well, of course.
"Be of good heart, Wizard," Maid Marian murmured, stepping close. "She may yet be thine."
Matt looked up at her, startled. How had she known?
Marian smiled and gave him a gentle punch on the arm. "I have seen your face when you have spoken of the queen of Merovence—and you have told us why you have embarked on this quest. Nay, if a man is a-love, what else can make him so glum?"
Quite a few things that Matt could think of—but he couldn't knock it; the lady had read him rightly. The shock did help pull him out of himself, though. He straightened his shoulders and smiled at the stalwart woman. "Thank you, milady. Let's see about setting a siege now, shall we?"
"No," Robin Hood said. "This venture is mine, with my merry men. We must undertake the risk. You must wait until we have, at the least, begun to take up our positions before the castle, before you go below the waves. Only when the sorcerer is assured that we mean to front him outright, may we hope to surprise him from within."
"But while I'm submerging, you'll be dying! He'll haul out his mightiest spells and pulverize you!"
"We shall place our faith in Tuck, and God," Robin answered. "Be of good cheer, Wizard—and be quick. If you strike swiftly, most of us will live."
"'Most' includes some dead bodies," Matt grumbled.
"How did you say?"
"Nothing—just grumbling."
"He is envious, in that he may not join you in the assault." Yverne laid a hand on Matt's arm. "Go, my lord Earl, and may you prevail."
Robin doffed his hat and gave her his most gallant bow, then turned on his heel and strode out of the tower room.
Marian stared after him, her eyes glistening. "He cannot die!"
"Right." Matt nodded. "He can't. He always rises again, doesn't he?"
"He ever has before..."
"Then he will again." Matt turned away to the window, trying to hide his feelings. "Come, ladies, gentlemen. Let's watch for our cue."
They looked on in trepidation, waiting, almost breathless, but there was nothing to see—their tower faced the mainland and the castle, and the fishermen were smuggling Robin Hood and his band around behind the forest on the point. They waited, the minutes trickling away until, finally, some spots of green separated themselves from the darker gray-green of the somber forest—Lincoln green, a dozen, a score, a hundred, filing out to take up stands before the castle. They were just a little too far from the walls for crossbow or mangonel to reach them—but not, Matt suspected, too far for Robin Hood's clothyard shafts to strike, driven by longbows.
They were scarcely in position before a fireball lofted from the castle wall. and roared toward them.
Force of habit—Matt started to mutter a fire-quenching spell.
"Nay," Fadecourt rumbled at his elbow. "They shall have to hold off the sorcerer without your aid, Wizard. At the least, wait until you are sure your help is needed."
Matt held the final line on the tip of his tongue in an agony of suspense, aching to say it.
Suddenly, the fireball darkened and slowed. Its flames died, and it crashed into the sere grass of the dusty meadow, well short of Robin's lines.
Matt stared.
"What spell was that?" de la Luce asked.
"One I don't know." Matt didn't blame the old don—anything that could quench fire put de la Luce in danger.
"Don't worry, milord—the one who put it out is on our side." Privately, he suspected Tuck had just prayed. Matt could only be glad his desires coincided with the Almighty's.
But then, Saint Iago had blessed this whole enterprise, hadn't he? Now it was his turn to help out.
"They come!" Fadecourt cried, pointing to a file of men trooping out of the forest.
Matt frowned. "So what's so great about that? Those are Sir Guy's people from the castle. We knew they were being ferried out right after Robin's band."
"They are not my stalwarts," Sir Guy said, peering keenly at the distant dots. "Nay, those are peasants' clothes, Lord Wizard, and peasants' weapons—scythes and flails. They have not the look of those who dwelt with us, and that knight at their head is not one of my friends; I know all their arms, but his are new."
"Another comes!" Yverne pointed off toward the north.
"And another!" Marian called from the southern window. "Yet these are stout burghers, from their look, with tradesmen and the city's poor behind them."
"None such labored with us at the castle." Sir Guy turned to join her, frowning out at the file of men marching up from the south.
"Where are they all coming from?" Matt asked, goggling.
"Why, from all about!" Fadecourt crowed. "Word of your stand has spread, Lord Wizard! These are those with old grievances 'gainst the sorcerer, and good folk who have the courage of their faith! From hither and yon, all about Ibile, have they come, needing but a man of courage to stand against the king! They will rise up in support of such a one, where they would have feared to come singly! Robin Hood and his band will not stand alone in this!"
"Talk about miracles," Matt said, his voice gone shaky. He turned away from the window. "Come on, folks. We've got to do our share in bailing them out."
As they came down into the Great Hall, Stegoman looked up, frowning. "Can none talk to this man o' gossamer? I speak, and he doth profess to fail in understanding."
Matt looked and saw the ghost, huddling in the darkened corner, staring at Stegoman with wide, frightened eyes.
"He can't hurt you, you know." Matt stepped over to the ghost. "You're ectoplasm
, and he's protoplasm. No interaction."
But the ghost shook his head, eyes still on Stegoman.
Matt frowned. "What's the matter? Does he remind you of someone?" Then a hunch crunched, and he stared. "It was you! You're the one who spread the word to all the people with a shred of goodness left in them! You're the one who brought them out to join the siege!"
The ghost lowered his eyes, and Matt could have sworn he saw a faint tinge of rose to the ghost's translucency. Then the phantom looked up with a smile, gesturing and mouthing words.
"Not just you, but a lot of other ghosts you knew?" Matt nodded. "Makes sense. The specter network. But that's no reason to be afraid of a dragon."
"What, have other folk come forth in aid?" Stegoman waddled forward, scales clashing, and the ghost shrank back. "Nay, be of good heart, faded phantom. Be mindful, dragon folk, too, wish the foul sorcerer haled down, and all his ilk; there will be many fewer hatchling hunters abroad, I promise you! Nay, but send word to the Free Flyers, and I doubt not that a score or more will answer your call!"
"It'll be dangerous," Matt warned, "even for dragons."
"What matter danger to those of stout heart?" Stegoman thundered. "Go to them, ghost! Or send one of your number who fears them not! What—are there no dragons' spirits among your kind? Send word! Or I promise you, they will be wroth to have been cheated of the glory of this battle!"
"Well, we wouldn't want them to feel offended." Matt nodded to the ghost. "Can you call them?"
The ghost nodded, but he didn't look happy about it. His eyes flicked from Matt to Stegoman and back; then he flicked out.
Matt still found it unnerving, but put a happy face on it. "Great! We'll have an aerial arm."
"If the specter brings word to my kinsmen in time," Stegoman reminded him.
"Good point." Matt frowned. "How fast can a ghost travel, anyway?" Then the thought of another reason for speed chilled him. "The siege can't last long."
"Nay," Sir Guy agreed. "The sorcerer will destroy them ere the sun has set."
"Therefore, let us be quick, that they may live." Fadecourt turned to the demoiselle. "Pray lead us to the castle, milady."
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