What had he ever done to him? They were total strangers!
He brushed the thought aside—all that mattered now was staying alive. Could a peasant knife artist really bring down a belted knight?
He could, Matt saw in the next two passes. The man's skill was just too great; he had to be a pro. What was he doing here, at a roadside inn near a rural village?
File the fact for later. For now, leap back from that blade, draw him into lunging, then lunging again, then again and again...
Finally the attacker lunged just that much too far, off balance for just half a second, and Matt whirled in, catching the knife arm in an elbow lock and pushing down. The man howled with the sudden pain, and his knife dropped from suddenly nerveless fingers. The crowd shouted with delight, but Matt just spun back in, set his blade against the man's throat and growled, "Who paid you to kill me?"
"None!" the man blustered. "None needed to, when you butted into a fight that was none of your—" The sentence choked off in a rattle of pain as Matt hit a nerve center. "Nay, no more! I'll tell! The man who paid me was—" Then, suddenly, his eyes rolled up and he crumpled to the ground.
The crowd cheered, and half a dozen men surged in to lift Matt up on their shoulders. Matt held on, their clamor ringing in his ears while he let the sudden numbness within him fade. When they set him down inside the tavern and thrust a mug into his hand, he faked laughter and sipped a little, nodding thanks for their shouted compliments, then started a drinking song. In a few minutes the men were all swinging their tankards in time to the music and bawling the chorus, leaving Matt free to welter in morose remorse.
Why? Well, the peasant who burst in the door said it best. "He is dead!"
The whole room went instantly silent. Matt froze.
Then Forla asked, in a trembling voice, "Who?"
"Simnel," the man cried, and Forla burst into tears, wailing, "Oh, my love! To have found you so late, and lost you so soon!"
"Be still, woman!" her husband snarled as he staggered in the door. His face was a mass of bruises, and blood trickled from a cut on one cheek, but he lurched toward her, lips drawing back in a snarl.
She saw him coming and screamed.
Then a man in a fur-collared velvet robe strode in the door. A gold chain held a medallion over his breast, and his gray hair and lined face made him look all the more stern as he pointed at Perkin and shouted, "Seize him!"
A dozen men leaped to obey with shouts of glee.
"Who is this guy?" Matt muttered to Pascal.
"The local reeve, by the look of him," the youth answered. "Someone with more sense than blood lust must have gone to fetch him."
The reeve stepped over to the biggest table in the room and sat himself down majestically. "The court is now convened! Who will serve as jury?"
There was an instant clamor of eager willingness, and hands waved to volunteer.
"You, you, you..." The reeve picked his jury by pointing at them one by one, until he had twelve good men and true.
Well, twelve men, anyway. Out of the corner of his eye Matt noticed Forla edging toward the door, then slipping out. The reeve may not have known how the case was going to come out, but she sure did.
On the other hand, the reeve probably had made up his mind before the trial, to judge by the way he ran it. "Perkin, husband of Forla!" he snapped, pointing at the cuckolded husband. "You are charged with the killing of Simnel, of your own village!"
"He had cuckolded me!" Perkin cried. "He had bedded my wife!"
"Then you admit to killing him?"
"I had every right!"
"Did you kill him? Yes or no!"
"Yes!" Perkin shouted. "As I would kill any man who laid a hand upon her! Do you tell me I am wrong?"
"Do you tell him he is wrong?" the reeve demanded of the jury. The twelve men put their heads together for a quick, muttered conference, then turned back to the judge. The tallest said, "He was right to kill Simnel. It was adultery."
"The killing was justified!" The reeve slapped his hand on the table. "Set him free!"
The men holding Perkin stepped back, letting go, and the cuckolded husband stood looking about him, rubbing his arms where they had gripped him, looking dazed. Then fire lit his eye and he demanded, "Where is she? Where is my faithless wife? Where is Forla?"
The whole room went silent. Then the men began to mutter to one another, concerned but excited, and the women exchanged uneasy glances.
"Where is she?" Perkin shouted.
"They can't think it's right to let him kill her, too!" Matt protested.
"I think not," said Pascal, "but they shall not mind if he beats her sorely." He was very pale.
"Where is she?" Perkin bellowed at the women. "You know, do you not? Tell me where!"
They rocked in the blast of his rage, but the stoutest woman said, with determination, "We know not where she is fled—but fled she has, and the more fool she if she has not!"
Perkin snarled and raised a hand, but the reeve thundered, "Nay! This one is not yours to abuse!"
Perkin cast an uneasy glance at him, then turned and bolted out into the night, bellowing, "Forla! Where are you, Forla? You may as well come forth, for I shall find you soon or late!"
"Come on," Matt said urgently, and led Pascal toward the door.
But a matron stopped him with a hand on his arm to say, "Do not fear for Forla, minstrel. You are a good man, and no doubt seek to save her, as you sought to save Simnel—but you need not. Where she has gone, no man can follow."
Matt wasn't sure what she was referring to, but it did reassure him. "Thanks. I need to be going anyway, though. Good night, goodwife."
She flushed. "Good woman, rather! Though I was a good wife indeed, till my husband fled." Then anxiety creased her face. "Do not follow Perkin—for he is maddened now and might strike you down without knowing what he did!"
"I'll stay out of his way," Matt promised. He patted her hand. "By the way, what do you think the jury would have decided if it had been the other way around—if Simnel had killed Perkin? If the adulterer had killed the husband?"
"Simnel would have been outlawed," she said grimly, "with his life forfeit to anyone who wished to kill him, for revenge or for pleasure, or for any reason at all."
Pascal blanched dead white.
The woman noticed and scowled at him. "Are you an adulterer, too?"
"Not yet," Pascal answered, "and I think not ever—now."
As they slipped out the door, Matt said, "Wise decision, if running away with Panegyra, or even officially kidnapping her, would give her fiancé grounds to kill you out of hand, and the local reeve and jury would virtually ignore it."
"It does seem the wisest course," Pascal agreed. "Do you think they would do that to me even if we eloped before she married him?"
"I don't doubt it for a second," Matt assured him. "In fact, even without having done anything, I think we'd better go, and go fast!"
Pascal glanced at him in surprise, saw the grimness there, and hurried down the path toward the main road with him.
As they came out onto the highway, Pascal asked, "Shall we not wait for our fellow travelers?"
"Yes," Matt said, "five miles down the road. Then we'll let them catch up."
"Why the haste to go so quickly now?"
"Because that man I fought is dead," Matt said, "and I don't want to be around when the locals discover it."
Pascal's eyes went wide and frightened. Then he turned away, paying serious attention to making speed. "They will be after you with the reeve and all his men!"
"I don't think so," Matt said. "I don't think any of them will even recognize him—I'm pretty sure he's from out of town."
"Why?" Pascal was getting very used to staring.
"Because he was a professional assassin—I could tell by his style."
"Oh! Then you killed him because if you did not, he would have killed you!"
"No."
"Then why?"
"I didn't kill him at all," Matt explained. "I forced him to tell me who had hired him to kill me—but before he could talk, he died."
"Sorcery!" Pascal gasped.
"That was my guess, too. You might want to find a different traveling companion, Pascal. Almost anybody would be safer."
The young man didn't answer for several minutes; he only hurried along, watching the road and keeping pace with Matt. When he did speak, it was only to say, "I must think over my future again."
"Yes," Matt agreed. "That might be wise."
"Hell and damnation!" Rebozo swore. "Can you not find a single assassin who is competent?"
The secretary cowered away from his master's anger—Rebozo was, after all, a sorcerer, and a powerful one. Now was not the time to remind him that, so far, he had chosen all the assassins himself.
"First that fool of a knightling in Merovence, then that debacle of a manticore, followed by a ghost who proved to be as easy to bribe as any clerk—and now this! Two tavern brawls in a row, and neither slays him? Are your assassins all fools and oxen, or is this wizard of Merovence proof against any assault?"
The secretary grasped at the last phrase. "Perhaps, Lord Chancellor. He is, after all, Queen Alisande's Lord Wizard—and her husband. Perhaps he is invulnerable to all but the mightiest spells."
"Yes, perhaps he is." Rebozo calmed with amazing speed, gazing off into space. "Her wizard—and her husband! Ah, if we could capture and hold him, we could bring that proud queen to her knees, and all of Merovence with her, at our mercy!"
The secretary shivered at the audacity of it—and the danger. "How could we hold so mighty a wizard?"
"With sorcery," Rebozo told him, "sorcery of the foulest sort. The king might have to join with me in such an effort, if the wizard proves too much for me alone—but we shall attempt it! Send word to that chowder-headed reeve that he has tried the wrong man! Bid him arrest this wizard for the murder of your agent!"
"It shall be done, Lord Chancellor." LoClercchi scribbled out a quick note, then passed it to Rebozo, who sealed it—carefully not signing it—then worked his magic over it until it disappeared in a flash. He leaned back and nodded, satisfied. "The note shall appear by him, no matter where he may be. He shall lead forth his men to capture and hold that wizard forthwith! If all goes well, he will be in our power by dawn!"
But the secretary knew better than to think all would go well—at least, if the minstrel really was Matthew Mantrell, Lord Wizard of Merovence. And if he was, it might be better if they did not capture him—for rather than ransom him by money or deed, Queen Alisande might very well march south against Latruria, with all her armies behind her. The secretary found himself wondering if King Boncorro was really ready for a war.
Alisande was ready for a war, and growing more ready with each passing minute. The only problem was that so far, she had no one to fight. Of course, they were still in her own country...
As they rode, peasants working in the fields looked up to see the marching army and the silver figure at its head with the glitter of sunlight on her crown. They shouted to one another and came running, to cheer their queen and bow as she passed. No one rode out to command them, none forced them—they came to catch a glimpse of her of their own free will. Alisande's heart expanded within her at the sincerity of their devotion. Perhaps she was doing right by them, after all. She turned to watch them straggling back to their work as the vanguard passed...
...and saw a flutter of wings beating upward, a bird launching itself into the sky.
Launching itself? Surely not! It sprang up too smartly for that, lofted too high as it was still unfurling its wings. Was some loyal peasant releasing his tame pigeon to honor her?
A crossbow quarrel sprang up to meet the bird—sprang up from her own army, behind her, and a soldier broke ranks to run and catch the tumbling, bloody ball of feathers as it fell from the sky!
Alisande stared, outraged, frozen by the sudden, callous stroke. Then anger broke loose. "Bring me that man!"
The soldiers looked up, startled, then amazed by their queen's wrath. Red with anger they might have understood—but pale with rage? Over so little a thing as a pigeon?
A squadron hustled the luckless crossbowman out of the field and up to the queen, where he stood like the Ancient Mariner with a very small albatross, while his queen sat fuming above him. "For shame, sirrah!" she cried. "Are you so starved that you must seize upon every tiniest scrap of meat? For surely, one pigeon cannot make a pie! Do I feed you so poorly that you must devour every feather that floats by? Is there not enough food in my wagons to feed an army, that you must seek your own provisions from the countryside?"
It was her tone that did it, more than the words—the sheer icy rage that daunted the crossbowman and made his hands tremble. Again and again he tried to protest, but he was so terrified that no words came. "Royal rage" was no empty phrase, not now!
"Surely there was but little meat on its poor tiny carcass—but there was as much life in it as in you or me! By what right do you deprive a fellow creature of breath? What need was there for killing?"
In answer, the soldier held out the tiny carcass with shaking hands—but two fingers held up a foot, so that Alisande could clearly see the capsule tied to its leg.
She stared, taken aback. Then she glanced at the sergeant and nodded. He plucked the capsule from the bird's leg and passed it up to her. Alisande opened it, shook out the scrap of parchment inside and read. Her face settled into hard, grim lines.
Nonetheless, she looked down at the crossbowman. "You could not have known this was there."
"Nay, Majesty." The man swallowed thickly. "I am countrybred, and saw only the escape of meat that might help feed a peasant's family."
"Give it to the next peasant we pass, then!" Alisande commanded. "For now, get you back to your sergeant! Good fortune has saved you—but see to it that you shoot no more birds without reason!"
"Yes, Majesty! I thank you, your Majesty!" The crossbowman ducked his head, then ran off, relieved.
Alisande sat staring after him, amazed at her own reaction. Why had she taken the death of a mere pigeon so hard? She had killed hares, even deer, for her own supper, and never thought twice about it! She had flown hawks to seize just such birds as this, and never given it a thought! Where had this sudden concern for even the tiniest life come from? And what did it bode for her prowess as a general?
"What was it, Majesty?" asked Lady Constance.
The woman was right—she should have been far more concerned about the message, than about the messenger. "A spy's report, to the Chancellor of Latruria," Alisande replied. "Some one of my peasants has learned to read and write, and taken the pay of another sovereign!"
"Or is not truly one of yours at all?" Lady Constance said quietly.
"If that is the case, he is a most brave man," Alisande said grimly. "Sergeant! Alert the home guard to seek out a peasant who keeps pigeons and can read!"
The man ducked his head and ran back along the ranks.
"What did it say?" Lady Constance asked, eyes wide and round.
"Only that the Queen of Merovence rides south with her army."
"Why, that is not so damaging!" Lady Constance said in surprise. "There is no secret in this—every peasant in the parish knows it, and rumor will spread the word almost as fast as that pigeon could fly!"
"True," Alisande agreed. "It is not the news itself that angers me, but the simple fact of a spy living so close to my castle."
"Small wonder in that," Lady Constance said with irony.
"Again, true—we must expect that every monarch about will set spies upon us, even those who are our friends. But to know that we will be shadowed every mile of the way, that the Chancellor of Latruria will not only know of our coming, but will surely know our exact strength, down to the man! And what the chancellor knows, King Boncorro shall know!"
"We could not hope to take him by surprise, I suppose." Lady Constance sighed.
&nb
sp; "No, we could not," Alisande said with regret. "I suppose it means no more than that King Boncorro is competent, or has competent men about him—but it serves notice on me to brace for a true battle." She turned to her adjutant. "Give orders to shoot down any pigeons that we see flying near."
The man nodded and turned away, but that odd pulse of pity welled up in Alisande again, the lament that any living thing should die without need, and she called out, "No, stop! It is ridiculous to even attempt it, when for every bird we see, there will be five that we do not! Let them go, mine adjutant—it is better that we know how much King Boncorro knows, than that we believe he knows nothing."
And she set her face firmly to the south, ignoring the adjutant's stare of confusion, no matter how quickly it was masked.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Five miles was all it took for the twilight to thicken to the point at which Matt had to call a halt. "If we go any farther tonight, we might as well go wandering among the trees—we won't be able to see any more out in the open."
Pascal shuddered. "Not the forest, I pray you, friend Matthew! There are still so many outlaws that one does not ask whether one will be robbed, but when."
"Doesn't sound too good," Matt said. "This road passes through the forest, doesn't it?"
"Aye, but my relatives have told me that the road itself is safe. The king's foresters and reeves have seen to it that the trees are cut back for seven yards to either side, and the reeves' men patrol it frequently."
"So travelers are never robbed anymore?"
The Secular Wizard Page 20
