The Enchanter General 03 - Merlin Redux

by Dave Duncan

  If Leopold’s enchanter was present in the castle, he or she made no attempt to assault me or even make contact. Most likely he or she was being kept close to the royal prisoner and the trap I had encountered was a permanent feature of the castle. But my visit to Dürnstein had taught me one important lesson—the Myrddin Wyllt was not infallible. Other magic could block it. As the Church insisted, prophecies could never be certain, because then they would limit the powers of God.

  St. Stephen’s day was quieter than Christmas, with many people nursing headaches or vengeful intestines, but Jehan and I were still expected to provide entertainment, because it was a local feast day. When the gate was opened at sunrise of December 27th, I departed, wrapped up in my cloak against the bone-cracking cold.

  1193

  anything that William Legier agreed to do, he did in style, and he had purchased not four but six excellent horses, together with fine-quality tack. Four spares would not be much harder to lead than two, he argued, and a purchase of that magnitude had let him pay with one of the king’s gold hyperpyrons. An armed foreigner flashing wealth on that scale must seem suspicious, so now both of us needed to leave as soon as possible. I mounted and we rode off into the interminable forests of Germany.

  “Do tell me, Baron,” I said, “how you found such magnificent steeds in such an anthill of a village.”

  “I just whistled and they came,” William said with unbearable smugness. But eventually he explained that a horse trader and his train had been passing through, on their way to Vienna. I retorted that Myrddin Wyllt must be looking after us, which put my companion into a two-hour sulk, because he saw that my statement might be true and he hated being beholden to magic.

  I had taken the chance to pull on the boots I had bought in Vienna, putting my previous footwear in the pack sack that had held the new ones. Of course, I was now limited to a grotesque lurching walk without my iron step, but as long as I could stay mounted, only the horse would notice that one of my stirrups was higher than the other. I hoped that this flimsy disguise would deceive any guards who waited at city gates and might have been told to look out for me.

  And so we rode off into the seemingly endless forest. At first, we headed upstream along the river, west and north, which we knew to be the right direction for England. Everything that lay between us and home was still a mystery to us. There was little traffic, and the weather stayed dry and cold for the first few days, and most nights we found shelter in some barn or woodshed, with or without the owners’ knowledge. The land was hilly, the road a braid of trails, so that any pursuit would be lucky indeed to find us.

  Out of the blue one day, William asked, “What’s Lionheart doing now?”

  “He’s on his way to Regensburg. Leopold’s taking him to meet the emperor.”

  “Durwin!” William shouted. “You’re doing it again! Did you prophesy for the king like this?”

  “Not often,” I admitted. The late Myrddin Wyllt was keeping me informed in more detail than he ever had before. To my annoyance, he had no interest in Lovise or our children, and would show me nothing of their activities. Knowing that William had briefly considered becoming a sage himself and could be trusted, I then told him about the ancient appeal to Carnonos.

  “Maybe they really should hang you as a pagan witch,” he said, but I knew he did not mean it. William was a very practical man, and I was much too useful to be wasted on a gallows.

  As much as the terrain allowed, we stayed close to the Danube. If you wonder why we did not travel on the river itself, the answer is that very few craft sail upstream on it. The river people build their boats in the headwaters, then float them down to Vienna, where they sell both their cargo and then the boats themselves, for lumber. Then they walk home.

  The weather turned bad after the first few days, and few things are more unpleasant than a day on horseback in drenching rain. Thereafter it varied between horrible and even worse, but the German Empire has much colder winters than England does. Also miserably hot summers, so I have been told, but William and I did not stay around to find out. There were many days when I could envy King Richard, warm and dry back in Dürnstein, for Myrddin Wyllt kept me aware of his condition. I was happy to see him recovering his health, although returning strength brought the torments of boredom and impatience with it.

  In effect I was the best-informed man in Christendom, and I passed on all the news to William. Leopold’s letter announcing Richard’s capture reached the emperor just a week after the event. Henry at once wrote to Philip of France, whose joy at the news was even greater. I saw him dictating a reply, so excited and close to drunk that his scribes could barely make out his Latin. He reminded Emperor Henry of the agreement they had made in Milan, and of his relative, Conrad of Montferrat, who, so he claimed, had been murdered on Richard’s orders. The fact that there was not a shred of evidence that the Lionheart had been involved in that crime in any way was completely irrelevant, of course.

  One day soon after that, William saw me with tears in my eyes, and I explained that Queen Eleanor had just learned of her son’s imprisonment. She and Justiciar Walter of Coutances would now be faced with the problem of raising the money to pay Richard’s ransom. Fortunately, at that unhappy moment, they had no idea how enormous that ransom would be.

  By then the bargaining was underway, with letters flying back and forth between Vienna, Paris, and wherever the emperor happened to be, for he had no fixed capital. William and I traveled fast, considering the state of the roads, but we could not match the pace of the imperial couriers. We avoided the cities as much as we could. It was only two days after we passed by Regensburg that Leopold arrived there with his prisoner to show him to Henry.

  The emperor, who ruled even more of Christendom than Richard did, was a much less impressive person. His grandiose raiment and high heels failed to hide the fact that he was of short stature, and seemed excessively so compared to the English king, or even Leopold. He wore no beard, and his enemies whispered that he could not grow one. As successor to Charlemagne and all the Caesars, he liked to regard himself as rightful ruler of the entire world, but his mind was fast and his eyes were never still.

  Believe me when I say that the prisoner was not allowed to remain there for long, because the duke was frightened that his liege would steal his treasure away from him. So once Richard’s identity had been confirmed, he was packed off back to Austria, while the other two settled down to do some furious arguing. My German wasn’t up to understanding much of what was being said, but the sheer loudness of most of it was enough to convey the emotions involved.

  We had already learned—because it was on everybody’s lips—that the emperor was in grave danger of seeing his empire fall apart. Half or more of his greatest vassals were in open revolt, including a couple of archbishops. His attempt to retake Sicily from the usurper Tancred had been a military disaster. The prospect of a king’s ransom must seem like a gift from Heaven to him right then.

  Near Regensburg, William and I fell in with a band of merchants heading the same way we were. At first, they were suspicious of us, naturally afraid that we might be spies for a gang of outlaws that preyed upon innocent travelers, but they eventually accepted our story of being honest crusaders on our way home. By then I had gone back to wearing my iron shoe, having traded my matched boots to a village blacksmith in return for a sword. It wasn’t much of a sword, and I was never much of a swordsman, but I was able to show the merchants’ paid guards that I could wield it passably well, if not as well as I played my gittern. However ancient we might seem to these youthful huskies, two extra swordsmen were a welcome addition to the company.

  Of course, we were often questioned—at bridges or fords or even upon entering small villages. Usually our stories were believed. When they weren’t, I used the Præcipio tibi spell to compel obedience. Our merchant companions knew the country, and led us away from the Danube and over the hills to Nuremberg and so into the drainage of the Rhine, which flo
ws into the Narrow Sea in the Duchy of Brabant, another part of the German Empire. That was a comforting thought, but we were still a very long way from home.

  I had given up worrying about my king by then, being convinced that he was a lot safer in prison than he would be at liberty, when he would most certainly ride off to fight someone, probably either King Philip or brother John. I had taken instead to keeping an eye on that treacherous John. A year had passed since I warned Justiciar Walter Coutances and Queen Eleanor that he was heading over to Paris to conspire with Philip. Then she had managed to keep him in England. She couldn’t do that now, since he had learned of Richard’s capture. Convinced that his hour had come, the faithless worm insisted to anyone who would listen that Richard was never coming back. To Paris he went, and that morning, as my horse ambled along a grassy trail, I was watching a great ceremony in the Louvre Palace. Fortunately, but as usual when I was foreseeing, my riding companion was William, who was accustomed to my long silences and knew what they signified. On this occasion I exploded in a string of foul oaths. The couple ahead of us looked around, but did nothing more.

  “What’s eating you?” William asked. “Seen your own funeral?”

  “I think I would prefer that. I’ve been watching Lord John doing homage to King Philip for all of his brother’s lands in France—the duchies of Normandy, Aquitaine, Brittany, the counties of Anjou, Touraine, and Maine. I know that last night he swore to marry the wretched Aalis and give the Vexin territory back to Philip.”

  William spat. “Does this surprise you? Loyalty has never been an outstanding attribute of the Plantagenet tribe.”

  “But then he did homage for England itself!”

  He actually lost color. “God’s teeth! His father never did that. Philip has no claim on England!”

  “He does now.” This was by far the worst treason yet.

  “If that scum ever becomes king, then Lord Jesus help us all.” I had known that my companion had no love for Lord John, but now he told me why, and even on that forest trail he lowered his voice. “A friend of mine . . . I won’t mention his name. He has no title beyond his knighthood, but he inherited a goodly estate by marrying a rare beauty. She was sixteen and could have stepped right out of a dream. I doubt if he even bothered to ask what her dowry would be. But one night, a couple of weeks after the wedding, who should ride in but Lord John and a troop of armed men. He demanded hospitality, and when your king’s brother does that, you don’t tell him to say ‘Please.’

  “My friend obeyed, and tried to play the gracious host, although the banquet must have cost him a month’s rents. That was bad enough, but right after the meal, John announced that he would sleep with his hostess that night. My friend refused, of course. John had him beaten up—ribs and both legs broken, fractured jaw, and so on. Then he dragged the girl into the bedroom by force and kept her there for the night. That’s the sort of belly worm that stands next in line for the throne of England.”

  “I’ve heard similar tales,” I admitted. I’d also heard many stories of Richard seducing pretty girls, but never by outright rape. With his attitude to money, he could buy the Queen of Sheba for a night or two.

  “We ought to round up Queen Berengaria and send her to that Dürnstein place to give the king something to do in all this spare time he has.”

  “Good idea,” I said. Of course, I thought of the king’s worries about his own fertility, but did not mention them.

  The sooner the Duke and the emperor could agree on an asking price for their prisoner, the better it would be for the peace of Christendom. Why wasn’t the Pope thundering about their violation of the Truce of God?

  That night we slept at one of the better inns we had encountered. William and I shared a bed, for neither the first nor last time in our lives. I was weary and hoped for sleep, but it failed to come. I tried to see my dear Lovise, but Myrddin Wyllt refused me. He sent instead a view of King Philip and Lord John celebrating their new relationship—just the two of them, plus a couple of busty wenches, all four of them well lubricated by wine.

  This was of no interest to me. I tried to withdraw, but Myrddin Wyllt seemed determined to keep me there. What was I supposed to see?

  Suddenly another figure appeared in the room, facing me and apparently unnoticed by the others. Tubby, swarthy, with a forked beard and a curious sort of tonsure, Bran of Tara bared his teeth at me in triumph, and made a strange two-handed gesture. The seeing vanished.

  The shock of it jerked me out of my trance. I cried out, wakening my bed mate.

  “What’s wrong?” demanded a sleepy voice.

  “Lots,” I said. “Lord John is using magic. I always suspected, and now I know.”

  “I’m not surprised.” William rolled over, back to his previous position.

  But it was a serious development. Once again the Myrddin Wyllt had been overruled by opposing magic. And John would not take kindly to being spied upon. I must hurry! I was needed back in England, and if any serious magical contest developed, I must have the use of all those spells I kept in my workroom in Oxford.

  On the 14th of February, Emperor Henry VI and Duke Leopold signed a treaty in Würzburg, Bavaria. They agreed that Richard would pay a ransom of 100,000 marks, an amount so mind-boggling that William refused to believe me when I told him. The two kidnappers were to split this loot equally. Of course, they did not call it a ransom, because then they would fall afoul of the Truce of God. Instead they agreed that one of Leopold’s sons would marry one of Richard’s nieces, a daughter of the late Duke Geoffrey and sister of the infant Arthur. The 100,000 marks was to be her dowry. Even Helen of Troy had not cost that much.

  They also tagged on a lot of petty conditions that Richard must agree to, such as providing galleys and troops for Henry’s reconquest of Sicily, and persuading the Pope to absolve them of any breach of the Truce of God. Also, Richard must stand trial for his alleged crimes. That clause worried me a lot, because how could he prove that he had not poisoned the Duke of Burgundy, or hired the Old Man of the Mountain to have King Conrad stabbed?

  By then, William and I were making better time, because we had reached navigable water on the Rhine. We sold our horses at a small profit and bought passage on boats. Our travel was still not trouble-free, for every town and petty baron along the way expected to be rewarded for the trouble of watching us go by, but most of the time we could stay out of the wind and snow, which was more than could be said for horseback.

  The end of the month brought us to Antwerp, the main port of Brabant. March is not a good time for sailing, but we still had much of the money the king had given us, and enough money will buy anything. We sailed on the third, and four days later landed safely in a village called Grimsby. I won’t describe the voyage, except to say that the moment we set foot on dry land we both fell on our knees and gave thanks to God. And when I stood up, the first thing I saw was Lars’s wildly grinning face.

  “There’s a church here,” he said. “You’re too late for mass, but at least you could say your prayers out of the wind.” In our embrace, he lifted me clear off the ground. When he set me down, he said, “You’re lighter than you used to be, Father. God save you, too, Godfather.”

  “And you, Godson,” William retorted. “You’ve grown a span since I saw you last.”

  “It’s these boots, my lord.” He hadn’t lost his jackanapes sense of humor.

  “You also seem to have inherited your father’s skill at prophesying.”

  “I rummaged through his grimoires while he was gone.”

  “How did you get here?” I asked, although I knew that Myrddin Wyllt must be involved.

  Lars shrugged, and then shivered, for the wind on the beach was biting. “The Queen sent me. As soon as I told her you would be landing here on Sunday, she threw gold at me and told me to get here and bring you to her as fast as you could travel. They have a meal waiting for you over there at the inn,” he added hopefully.

  William chuckled. “Good plan
ning! At the moment, hot food counts for more than the queen’s nightmares. Your father hasn’t kept one mouthful down since Wednesday, and I could eat a harbor seal myself. Lead the way.”

  Like a common porter, Lars scooped up our—admittedly scanty—packs and led the way. The inn was merely the front room of some fisherman’s house, but his wife was a good cook. I hadn’t known I was hungry, but after draining a horn of watered ale I changed my mind. Lars had eaten earlier, so he did most of the talking, while William and I gulped her excellent herring and onion potage.

  “So how long have you been spying on us?” I asked.

  “About a fortnight. Before that you seemed to be outside my range. As I told the queen.” I suspected that Lars was lying, at least to some extent. He had lied to the queen, too. What I wanted to know was whether he had seen me betraying King Richard to Duke Leopold. If he had, and had let anyone else know, there was either an ax, a rope, or a skinning knife in my future.

  He glanced uneasily at William, and obviously decided that he could be trusted—and would have to be, since he knew that Lars could not have known of our arrival by any mundane means.

  “Yes, I used the same enchantment you did,” he went on. “But it is finicky, you know? It wouldn’t show me anyone but you, Father, and nothing before you took to the river.”

  “That’s good. And how is Her Grace?”

  “A lightning bolt in a wimple, as always. The justiciar held a meeting of the great council in Oxford last week, and she sent for me. That was when I told her that you were to be landing here today. She tore chunks out of my hindquarters for not keeping her better informed.”