The Secular Wizard - Wis in Rhyme - 4 (3 page)

"Yes, perhaps," Rebozo said, a trifle disconcerted. "And how have you been faring, your Highness?"

"oh, well enough, though it was somewhat rough at first. I have friends now, or acquaintances, at least."

"Yes, Lord Garchi tells me you have made companions of his sons, and that you were hunting even now."

"They are skilled at that." Actually, the boys had led Boncorro to a knothole they had discovered, where they could peek into the chamber-maids' sleeping quarters. They had taken turns watching the strapping young women disrobe and slip into their beds. Boncorro had dutifully taken his turn, though he couldn't really understand why his playmates seemed so excited about the whole matter. Way down deep, he had felt some stirring within him as he watched a well-curved peasant lass go through her ablutions, and he had to admit it had been somewhat pleas-ant-but surely nothing to make such a fuss about.

"I remembered it was your birthday soon." Rebozo drew a package from beneath his robe. "I regret we cannot celebrate it more elaborately-but take this, as a token of good wishes." Boncorro took the package, astonished. "Why, thank you, Chancellor! What is it?"

"Well, there would be no surprise if I told you." Rebozo smiled.

"Go ahead, unwrap it."

Boncorro did, and held the book up, staring. "A book of spells!"

"You had said you meant to learn magic," Rebozo explained. "They are only simple spells, scarcely more than a village herb wife would use-but enough for a beginning."

"Yes indeed!" Boncorro stared at it, round-eyed. "Thank you, Chancellor! Thank you deeply!"

"Guard it well!" Rebozo raised an admonitory finger. "Simple or not, those spells could cause a great deal of trouble if everyone were to know and use them. Let no one else open it! The first charm inside is one that will keep any but you from opening that cover-learn it at once, and use it often!"

"Lord Chancellor, I will." Boncorro held the book close to his chest, almost hugging it, and looked up at Rebozo with shining eyes.

"Thank you, oh, thank you deeply!"

It was almost a shame, Rebozo thought, that the lad had been born to be a prince. He would have made a fine sorcerer-if he were led down the path ...

As Rebozo was leaving the next day, Garchi cleared his throat and said, "Understand the boys have been getting up to ... to some mis-chief with the, ah, wenches. I'll see to it that there's no more of that sort of thing."

"You'll do nothing of the kind!" Rebozo turned to glare at him.

"The lad must learn to be a man, Lord Garchi-in all ways!"

"Why, yes, Lord Chancellor," Garchi muttered, staring in surprise, and found himself wondering if the lad might not be Rebozo's own, after all.

Boncorro learned a great deal in the next few years-learned from watching through knotholes, and from reading the book of spells. Some of them seemed anything but harmless, and he recoiled naturally, but others he learned and practiced avidly. He stayed firmly away from any that invoked Satan, or worked magic by any other name-but that left a great many, and some of them afforded him views that surpassed any-thing he saw through a knothole. He began to be interested in that, after all. When Rebozo brought him a thicker book, he was ready for more direct activity in both spheres. As the years went by, he became quite skilled-in all aspects of manhood. just as Rebozo wanted.

The king had lost heart. Oh, it wasn't in anything he said or did-he kept on extorting taxes from the merchants and noblemen, who respectively gouged their customers and robbed their serfs in order to pay. The king continued to encourage them, just as he kept the taxes low on the brothels and made sure the Watch never imprisoned a pimp; he subsidized the gambling dens and kept the tax high on malt and fruit and juice, but low on beer and wine and taverns. In a word, he did all he had ever done to encourage corruption and wickedness and poverty-but he did not think of anything new.

More than that-it wasn't what he did, so much as how he did it. He never ranted and raved any more, even if a courtier disobeyed or sneered. He would bark out a rebuke, yes, and signal to a guardsman to beat the foolish rogue, but he seemed too weary to do anything more. He would snarl at a messenger who brought bad news and signal for the whip, but he never killed one outright with his own hands anymore, nor flew into a towering rage. He seemed to be only a shell of the villain he had once been, and didn't even seem to listen to his chancellor any longer-he would only gaze into space, nodding automatically as Rebozo spoke. He spent hour after hour alone in his chambers, gazing out the window and sipping from a tankard. At first the tankard held brandywine, and he would be red-eyed and staggering at dinner-if Rebozo could talk him into coming to dinner. The chancellor was not too concerned, though he had to take more and more of the burden of running the kingdom upon his own shoulders. His only fear was that Maledicto would die before Boncorro came of age-or begin a campaign to ferret out the boy. Indeed, when he was

deep in his cups, the king would ramble on about having to see his grandson, finding out where the boy had fled. Rebozo would have to remind him that Boncorro was dead, had died hunting the day after his father's death. But Maledicto waved him away irritably, as if he knew the truth, but did not particularly resent what the chancellor had done. The reason was clear when he was sober, for then he would drop occasional scathing remarks about what little monsters children were, especially ones who thought themselves royal, and how the world would be a better place if there were none of them-but in the evening, drunk and staggering, he would turn maudlin and querulous, wondering aloud if his grandson were well.

Then he turned to white wine, though, and his drunkenness lessened. That concerned Rebozo, though not too much-he merely made sure there was always a measure or two of brandywine mixed with the white in the king's jug.

But he nearly panicked when the king turned to a brew of herbs boiled in clear water.

. He was right to be alarmed, for as the king's sobriety returned, so did his will-or, rather, his resolution. What he was resolved to do, though, he would not say, neither to Rebozo nor to anyone else. Finally, ten years after his son's death, King Maledicto sent Rebozo on his annual tour of the provincial barons, watched him out of sight, then turned to his court with grim resolution. He summoned Sir Stic-chi and Sir Tchalico, ordered them to be ready to ride the next day be-fore dawn, then retired to his bed, where he lay a long time gazing at the canopy-and trembling.

Cold or fear notwithstanding, the king arose in the darkness of predawn, dressed himself for a journey, buckled on breastplate and helm, and went out to meet his two knights. They mounted their chargers and rode out across the drawbridge in the eerie light of false dawn. They rode for several hours without a word, but the king seemed never to doubt where he was going. Sir Sticchi and Sir Tchalico ex-changed puzzled glances now and then, but neither could enlighten the other at all.

They came into a little village, scarcely more than a hamlet gathered around the ruins of a church, and the two knights moved together. "The king has heard of some priest who has gone into hiding," Sir Sticchi said to his companion, sotto voce. "No doubt he has come only to appre-bend the rogue." But his face was taut and his voice quavered. "If it were only apprehending, why would he come himself?" Sir Tchalico sounded angry in his fear.

"He could have sent us alone!"

"We, the only two of his knights who are secretly pious? Oh, do not look so scandalized, Tchalico-I heard it from court gossip; it is widely known, just as I'm sure you must have heard about me." "Well-I have," Tchalico admitted. "I wondered, now and again, why the king let us live, let alone keep our rank."

"Why, because he had some such use as this in mind for us, no doubt! What shall we do now, Tchalico? He must have brought us here as a test! No doubt he means to torture the poor monk to death, and force us to watch!"

"When he knows we shall not stand idly by," Sir Tchalico agreed, his face grim, "knows we shall leap to the priest's defense-whereupon we shall be unmasked, and he shall slay us with magical fire or some such torture." He felt a sudden cold clarity thrill through him, and straightened in his saddle. "It has come, Sticchi-the hour of our martyrdom." Fear showed in Sticchi's eyes, cavernous fear-but it passed in a moment, and the fierce delight of battle burned in its place. "Then let us go to meet our deaths with joy, for tonight we'll dine in Heaven!"

"To Heaven let us sail," Sir Tchalico agreed, "and here is our boat-man, though it is doubtless the last thing he intends." They drew rein only a few feet behind the king, who had himself stopped in front of a hovel meaner than the rest, so illkempt one might think it was vacant, and tumbling with neglect.

But the king sat straight and roared out, "Friar! Monk and shavepate! Come out to meet your king!"

Eyes watched from huts all about, and a few burly peasant men emerged, fear evident in every line of their bodies, but their faces grim and determined, their fists clenched, sickles and flails in their hands. But the king paid no heed; he only called out again, "Man of the cloth! Man of the clergy! Come forth!"

Still the village sat in silence. The king took a deep breath to call again, but before he did, a peasant came out, one no cleaner than the rest, with a tunic just as patched and frayed as theirs, his hands just as callused from toil-but he wore a hat beneath the sun of June, where the rest of them did not.

"Uncover before your king!" Maledicto roared. The peasant raised a trembling hand and took off his hat. The bald spot was too regular, too perfect a circle to be natural; it was a tonsure. "Do you deny you are a priest?" Maledicto demanded. Suddenly, the fear was gone, and the peasant straightened with pride.

"Nay, I will boast of it! I am a priest of the Church, and I serve God and my fellow man!

I9 Why did the evil king not wince at the

holy Name? Why did he not raise his whip to strike, or draw his sword?

And why was he kneeling in the dust before the peasant, hands clasped and head bowed, intoning, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned!" The peasants stared, flabbergasted.

" Turn away!" Sir Sticchi barked. "Have you never heard of the seal of the confessional?"

The peasants came to themselves with a start and turned away into their houses. In seconds the village seemed empty.

The words came pouring forth from the king's mouth, the tale and toll of a century of sins; the priest barely had time to whip a worn, threadbare stole from his pocket and yank it around his neck. As he listened to the list of horrors, his face grew haggard and his shoulders slumped. In a few minutes he was kneeling beside the king; in a few more he had clasped the old man's trembling hands and was listening, nodding, wide-eyed, in encouragement.

"It would seem we are not to be martyred after all," Sir Sticchi said, staring and numb.

"Do not believe it for a second," Sir Tchalico snapped. "I doubt not the Devil heard as soon as the king said 'Bless me,' and dispatched a demon before he'd said 'sinned.' Sell your life dearly, Brother Stic-chi-for the king's sake, and for the kingdom's! We will pay with our lives, but we must buy him enough time to-" Flame erupted not ten yards from them.

The priest cried out and shrank away, but King Maledicto held his hands with an iron grip and kept him near enough to hear as the sins poured out of him, so fast as to be scarcely intelligible. it was no demon, but a horrible, glittering serpentine thing that stood on a dozen clawed feet while four more pawed the air. A saddle was fastened between those upper legs, a saddle for a man in a flame-red robe, masked and hooded, nothing showing but his eyes. In his hand swung a battle-axe two feet across, far too big for any mortal man to swing.

Sir Sticchi bellowed, "For God and Saint Mark!" and kicked his charger into a gallop.

"For the Saints and the Lord!" Sir Tchalico echoed, and came charging after.

They careened into the monstrosity before it could take two steps. it screamed and lashed out at them with steel-sha@ claws; its rider bellowed rage in a voice that shook the village, and swung his sword.

Sir Sticchi shouted in pain as the blade cut through his armor and

into his shoulder, but he struck anyway, his sword thrusting into the monster's chest. It screamed in agony and anger, blasting him with breath that blackened and pitted his helmet. His horse screamed in fright, but the knight held it in place, hewing and hacking and madly singing a battle hymn. Sir Tchalico joined in, striking from the other side, and beast and rider alike howled in pain and rage. Sword and tooth and talon struck, and struck again. Sir Sticchi fell, blood found-taming from a torn throat; his horse screamed and ran. Sir Tchalico howled in agony as flame enveloped him; then he fell, and the monster stamped down, through his armor, through his chest, and the horse neighed in terror and wheeled to run. But the twisting sword cut it down, and the monster stepped over the bodies, reaching out for the king.

"Ego te absolvo!" the priest cried an instant before a huge battle-axe flashed before his face, and the king fell headless to the ground. A second later, the priest's head rolled beside it in the dust. The monster screamed in terrible pain, and its rider howled in frustration-for the king was dead, as was the priest who had shriven him, but three souls had gone to Heaven, and one to Purgatory in-stead of Hell. Satan was cheated, and his minion suffered far more than the victims had. Fire exploded around them, and monster and rider were gone-but the peasants did not come out to bury the hod-ies until the smell of brimstone had faded away.

"So good to see you again, Lord Chancellor!" Garchi raised a hand to pound the chancellor on the back, then remembered and withdrew the slap. "Your lad does well, very well indeed."

"You have followed my instructions, then?"

"We have-but alas, it did no good," Garchi said with a sigh.