“No,” Rebozo said with a shudder. “He is an evil man, your Highness, and commands me to do wicked deeds. I shall tell you truly that some of them disgust me, even though I can see they are necessary to keep order in the kingdom. But there are other tasks he sets me that frankly horrify me, and in which I can see no use.”
“Then why do you do them? Why do you carry them out?”
“Because I am afraid,” Rebozo said frankly, “afraid of his wrath and his anger, afraid of the tortures he might make me suffer if he found that I had disobeyed him-but more than anything else, afraid of the horrors of his evil magic.”
“Can you not become good, as Father was? Will not… no, of course Goodness will not protect you,” Prince Boncorro said bitterly. “It did not protect Father, did it? In the next life, perhaps, but not in this.”
“Even if it did,” Rebozo said quickly, to divert the boy from such somber thoughts, “it would not protect me-for I have committed many sins, your Highness, in the service of your grandfather-many sins indeed, and most of them vile.”
“But you had no choice!”
“Oh, I did,” Rebozo said softly, “and worse, I knew it, too. I could have said no, I could have refused.”
“If you had, Grandfather would have had you killed! Tortured and killed!”
“He would indeed,” Rebozo confirmed, “and I did not have the courage to face that. No, in my cowardice, I trembled and obeyed him-and doomed my soul to Hell thereby.”
“But Father did not.” Boncorro straightened, eyes wide with sudden understanding. “Father refused to commit an evil act, and Grandfather killed him for it!”
“Highness, what matter?” Rebozo pleaded. “Dead is dead!”
“It matters,” Prince Boncorro said, “because Father’s courage has saved him from Hell-and yours could, too, Rebozo, even now!”
There was something in the way he said it that made Rebozo shiver-but he was shivering anyway, at the thought of the fate the king could visit upon him. Instead, he said, “Your father has gone to a far better place than this, Prince Boncorro.”
“That may be true,” the prince agreed, “but I do not wish to go there any sooner than I must. Why did Father not learn magic?”“Because there is no magic but evil magic, your Highness.”“I do not believe that,” Prince Boncorro said flatly. “Father told me of saints who could work miracles.”“Miracles, yes-and I don’t doubt that your father can work them now, or will soon. But miracles are not magic, your Highness, and it is not the Saints who work them, but the One they worship, who acts through them. Mere goodness is not enough-a man must be truly holy to become such a channel of power.”Prince Boncorro shook his head doggedly. “There must be a way. Chancellor Rebozo. There must be another sort of magic, good magic, or the whole world would have fallen to Evil long ago.”
What makes you think it has not? Rebozo thought, but he bit back the words. Besides, even Prince Boncorro had heard of the good wizards in Merovence, and Chancellor Rebozo did not want him thinking too much about that. What quicker road to death could there be, than to study good magic in a kingdom of evil sorcery? “Will Grandfather ever die?” Boncorro asked. Rebozo shook his head. “Only two know that, Highness-and one of them is the Devil, who keeps the king alive.”
The other, Prince Boncorro guessed, must be God-but he could understand why Rebozo would not want to say that Name aloud. Not here in Latruria-and not considering the current state of his soul. It was half a year before Chancellor Rebozo came to Baron Garchi’s gate again. “Welcome, welcome, Lord Chancellor!” cried the bluff and hearty lord. “Come in and rest yourself! Take a cup of ale!”
“Ale will do.”
The implication was clear, so Garchi sighed and said, “I have wine, if you’d rather.”
“Why, yes,” Rebozo said. “The cool white wine that your country is so famous for, perhaps?”
“The very stuff.” Garchi reached up to clap him on the shoulder, but thought better of it. “Come in out of the sun!” He started to lead the way, then remembered himself and bowed the Lord Chancellor on before him. Rebozo acknowledged the wisdom of the move with a nod, then asked, “How is your charge?”
“Oh, the lad thrives! Our country air is good for him-and it is also good for him to run and play with my own cubs.”
Rebozo fixed him with a steely glare. “They do not mistreat him, I trust?”
“Not a bit,” Garchi assured him. “Oh, there was the beginning round of fights, as there always is with boys…”
“You supervised it carefully, I trust!”
Garchi nodded, a little nettled. “Carefully, but without their knowing. When it got too rough, one of my knights just ‘happened’ to come by.”
“How rough?” Rebozo snapped. “Well, your little wolfling had my middle boy down and was setting in to beat him with a fierceness that took me quite aback, I can tell you. My youngest had already picked a fight with him and been soundly trounced-they’re the same age, I’d guessed- and my eldest was standing by, looking as if he was going to jump in to help his brother, for all I’d told him not to. Lad’s fourteen,” he explained. “But your knight stopped them?”
“Aye, and saved my middle boy a nasty beating, I fancy! Had to take your lad aside and explain to him that fights between boys don’t need to be for life or death, that it’s only a little more serious than a game.”
“I’m surprised he believed you.”
“Not sure he did, but he’s been nowhere nearly so vicious since-and they’ve had their dustups, of course, for all they’ve been fast friends from that first day; boys will be boys, y’know.”
“They will,” Rebozo agreed, with the air of one who doesn’t really understand. “Where are they now?”
“Oh, out rabbiting, I expect. Quite taken to hunting, the lad has, though he’s so demmed serious about it that it makes me chill inside.” He gave the chancellor a keen glance. “Is he really yours? Thought powerful sorcerers like you didn’t indulge.”
“We do not, but you need not concern yourself with whose bastard he truly is.”
“Oh, I don’t, I don’t,” Garchi said quickly. “Shall I send for him?”
“No, I’ve time enough to wait an hour or two-and refresh myself. You will have a bath drawn?”
“They’re heating the water now,” said Garchi, who didn’t understand this obsession with washing. “I’ll have the boy sent ‘round to you as soon as he comes in, eh?”
“Oh, let him clean up first. After hunting, I expect he’ll need it.”
It was only an hour later that Boncorro stood before the chancellor-or the other way around, perhaps; Rebozo was amazed at the way the boy made him feel as if it were he who had been summoned. The lad was smiling, though. “It is so good to see you again, my Lord Chancellor!”
“I am sorry that it has been so long, Highness,” Rebozo said. “I had to wait until your grandfather sent me on a tour of the provinces, to remind the lords of the tax they owe him.”
“Of course. I knew I would have to wait long for news of home.”
Rebozo took the hint. “Your grandfather continues in good health, and has somewhat emerged from his gloom. He still lapses into long periods of brooding, though, and gazes out the window at nothing.”
“I should feel sorry for him,” Boncorro conceded. “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 chambermaids’ 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 seem
ed 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 pleasant-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 mischief 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 anything 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 quit 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 noble 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 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 lid 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 sipping from a tankard. At first the tankard held brandy-wine, 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 re-sent 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 brandy-wine 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 Sticchi and Sir Tchalico, ordered them to be ready to ride the next day before 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 exchanged 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 voice. “No doubt he has come only to apprehend 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 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!”
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