Secular Wizard

by Christopher Stasheff

  Apparently, Flaminia had been a regular font of information. Matt could picture her, bubbling over to Pascal about this masculine paragon, her eyes alight with excitement-and he felt another stab of sympathetic pain. He tried to move the subject a little further from home. “Well, I gathered from my brief chat with him, that he’s been steadily putting economic reforms through, and apparently no one has successfully defied him. He does seem to be effective-especially if he can detect a love potion and induce pains in a seasoned sorcerer.”

  Pascal stared. “The doxie who sought to entrap him was a sorcerer?”

  “No, just a girl who knew a few simple spells,” Matt said impatiently, “or who had bought a potion from a village witch. I was talking about the chancellor.”

  “He is a sorcerer?”

  “I assume so, until I’m proved wrong. He’s old enough to be left over from King Maledicto’s administration, which would mean he would have had to be a sorcerer. It’s probably still a qualification for office.”

  “Perhaps not. Flaminia says the king himself wields magic like a sword, but is no sorcerer.”

  “He’s not?” Matt stared. “How would she know?”

  “Gossip, again,” Pascal sighed. “The… experienced concubines say that a man will speak more than he intends when his head is on the pillow… afterward. The women may feel compelled to hold their tongues when speaking to those not of their number, but certainly feel no such reservations among themselves.”

  “Well, this must be one thing the king doesn’t mind slipping out.” In fact, Matt found himself wondering if the king might be using his concubines as a way to plant rumors-surely an unworthy thought. But he remembered Boncorro’s insistence on not accepting either religion or wickedness, and decided the notion fit. “Where does he get his magical power, then?”

  Pascal shrugged. “I suspect that only he knows. All he has told his doxies is that he does not truly comprehend the magic that he uses, but has only memorized words and gestures, then repeats them at need-but surely that is false.”

  Matt could believe it, though, and the mere thought was enough to make his hair snap to attention. All Boncorro would have had to do was to watch sorcerers at work, then mimic what they had done-and remember which spell went with which effect. Could he have done that with good wizards, too? But where would he have seen any? Worse, if he didn’t really understand what he was doing, he could very easily make a mistake that could spell disaster. Matt shuddered and hoped the king had been lying to his concubine, as well as with her. “One way or another, he certainly seems to make sure people do what he wants-and if Rebozo really is as high-powered a sorcerer as I think he is, Boncorro must be a magical giant!” Either that, or Hell had its own reasons for keeping him on the throne. Hell, or Rebozo? “I think we’d better get you out of here,” Matt said. “Not without Flaminia!”

  “Yes, that’s what I had in mind.”

  Pascal stared. “How will you manage that?”

  “By taking a risk,” Matt said. “A risk for me, that is-shouldn’t be much hazard for the two of you.” After all, his hit-song spell had worked inside the castle, even though it was presumably saturated with sorcery. Either Boncorro or his chancellor knew him for what he was, or at least knew him for a wizard, so they wouldn’t be surprised if he worked magic within the castle. That might mean they were watching him, ready to pounce, but Pascal and Flaminia couldn’t be faulted for that. Of course, the sorcerer who had been trying to stop him from coming into Latruria, and trying to kill him once he was in, might not have been either king or chancellor, but someone else-say, the constable or lord marshal or such. Matt knew he had to keep an open mind about that, or he wouldn’t be suspecting everyone he met, which could be fatal in enemy territory. “It will make it easier if the two of you are together,” Matt said. “I’d rather make one rescue attempt than two. Can you get to Flaminia?”

  “Aye; she and her fellows are to go into the town this afternoon, to procure more finery to bedeck them for the king.”

  “A shopping trip?” Matt stared. “Isn’t the king worried that some of them might sneak off to meet lovers?”

  Pascal shrugged. “I do not think he cares. Flaminia had heard that several of the wenches have lovers among the guards, and several more have lovers in the town. The king cares not who else enjoys their company, so long as they are there when he wants them.”

  A most enlightened monarch-or one who was honest enough to admit he was running a brothel. Matt wondered if his spells included prophylactic incantations, to protect him from venereal diseases. “Makes it easier for him to dump them when he gets tired of them, huh?”

  “Aye.” Pascal’s smile was sardonic. “They already have husbands waiting, in a way.”

  Well, European peasant men had lived with the droit du seigneur for centuries, and had married anyway-not that they’d had much choice. “So we can just stroll out across the drawbridge and meet her in the garment district?”

  Pascal nodded. “As simply as that.”

  “How will you know where to find her?”

  “I think that I can send word through my new friends in the servants’ hall,” Pascal said slowly. “There should be little hazard to them-though I should think they will expect my thanks to take a rather substantial form.”

  Matt reached into his purse and handed him some substance. They were loitering, definitely with intent-just standing on the corner, waiting for the girls to go by-when a passing soldier noticed them and glared suspiciously. “He is glaring suspiciously,” Pascal said nervously. “He’s right, too,” Matt agreed, “but let’s try not to let him know that.” He slipped his lute around to the front and began to pluck the strings. “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” sounded a little odd without a banjo, but it did draw a crowd. Mollified, the soldier gave them one last glower, then went on his way. Pascal, never one to waste an opportunity, threw down his cap. Matt struck a final chord, and pennies spattered into the hat. Matt glanced around, didn’t see anything resembling a retinue, and sailed in on “Darling Corey.” The audience didn’t seem to know what “mash liquor” was, but they certainly seemed to catch the drift of the rest. But as he hit the last chorus, one of the listeners glanced up, then let out a whoop. “The king’s doxies!”

  “Profit!” cried several voices, and the crowd suddenly diminished by half as shopkeepers ran to trot out their finest finery. Matt looked up and caught his breath. That definitely had to be the largest concentration of feminine pulchritude he had ever seen in one place at one time, even counting the beauty pageants on TV. There were at least twenty girls, all of them in their twenties, every single one of them stunningly beautiful. These doxies may not have been without smocksies, but they certainly gave the impression that they were. There wasn’t all that much naked skin showing, really-only a plunging neckline here and a bare midriff there-but the cut of the clothes, and the way the girls moved in them, certainly gave the impression that you were seeing every iota of the woman’s charms, at the same time as it made you frantic to see the rest. Matt decided the garments must have been enchanted. They swept by in a cloud of perfume that dazzled the senses, and left Matt throbbing with desire. It must have been laden with pheromones-or charmed to charm. Of course, the two possibilities were entirely compatible-sorcerers and wizards only specified end results, not ways and means. A vagrant touch of sanity managed to push through Matt’s miasma of hormonal vapors-these girls might have been enchanting, but they also might have been enchanted. The king’s concubines swept by, chattering and laughing-but they left a bit of jetsam behind, a new face in the crowd, but one they knew well-Flaminia, eyes shining with the excitement of forbidden adventure. “Play for me, minstrel!”

  Matt stared. If he looked at her coldly and objectively, he would still have to say she was no raving beauty-but looking at her coldly and objectively was something he could no longer do. Whatever spell the sorcerers laid on the royal consorts, it was working overtime on Flaminia. Her eyes seemed
to beckon, no, to pull; her smile made her lips seem more than enticing-compelling. Compelling all too well-Pascal was moving toward her with a fixed gaze and robotic step. Matt managed to catch him and steer him back toward guarding the hat, then struck the strings and began to sing. “Soldier, seek not, do not find! Soldier, ask not-do not mind If she is lost or she is fled. Forget her, let her go to wed!”

  He managed another verse, enjoining the crowd to forget they had ever seen Flaminia. Since they had to forget her, they drifted away, looking bored-which was just fine with Matt. Of course, that could have just been the effect of his singing, and the songs definitely lacked both character and action. The guards might just not have noticed she was missing yet. Matt wished he could be sure whether his magic was working or he was just having good luck. As the last listener turned his back, Matt slung his lute and grabbed Pascal before he could quite manage to catch Flaminia in an embrace that would have shamed a sumo wrestler. “Come on, let’s go!”

  Flaminia looked definitely disappointed for the half second before Matt caught her wrist and yanked her along. He dragged the reluctant couple down the street and into the arcade he had checked out earlier. Keeping the two of them moving was a major task, since all they seemed to want to do was to stop in the middle of the street and grapple, and never mind who saw. But Matt did mind, and kept them in motion, even though he was right between them and they kept trying to reach around him to get at each other. In fact, they were growing frantic, and beginning to get angry, when Matt finally slung them into a shadowed alcove, panting. “Now! Go to it!”

  They did, falling into one another’s arms with a fervor that made Matt long for Alisande, and the way they were groping each other with their mouths glued together certainly didn’t help his concentration. Even so, Matt raised his hands and chanted, “In the wood, where, if they wish to, he and she Upon faint primrose beds may choose to be, Or on the fruited plain away to steal, Through magic that doth lovers’ flights conceal, Thence from Venarra turn away their eyes, To seek new friends and truer companies!”

  The combined form of the entwined lovers began to fade, then grew more vivid again. It began to fade again, but came back again-again and again, pulsing. No surprise. Matt could feel the Latrurian environment fighting his magic. In desperation, he sang the first thing that came to mind for young people: “Gaudeamus igitur, juvenestum sumus! Gaudeamus igitur, juvenestum sumus! Post jocundum juventutem, Post molestam senectutem, Nos habebit sumus, nos habebit sumus!”

  It must have been the Latin that did it, for the resistance let go with a shock. There they were-and there they weren’t! Not quite instantaneously-they sort of did a fast fade, so there was no gun-shot crack of air rushing in to fill a sudden vacuum. Matt lowered his hands, relaxing-at least they shouldn’t have attracted any undue attention. Which made it all the more puzzling when the finger tapped his shoulder and a voice right behind him said, “Most neatly done. I could not have been more adroit myself.”

  Matt froze. He knew that voice. Then, very slowly, he turned around. “Good afternoon, your Majesty.”

  Chapter 18

  “I trust it is a good afternoon indeed,” the king replied. “Let us go out from this arcade into the sunshine, so that you may look your last upon it.”

  Matt stared at him while he waited for his stomach to hit bottom. He saw Rebozo and the ranks of soldiers behind the king, and the unremitting hostility in the chancellor’s gaze, and felt his stomach take another plunge. Nonetheless, he managed to say, “Can’t have been all that neat, if I attracted your attention. You were just waiting for me to try this, weren’t you?”

  “It was a trap most neatly laid,” Boncorro confirmed. He turned to the chancellor. “I must congratulate you, Rebozo, on so adroit a piece of maneuvering. You chose exactly the right damsel to abduct.”

  The chancellor smiled and bowed. “It was nothing, Majesty. This foolish do-gooder is so lacking in suspicion!”

  Why was it that paranoids created more paranoids? “I take it your Majesty is sore about losing a very promising concubine.”

  “What, that?” King Boncorro tossed his head in dismissal. “She matters nothing, nor does her swain. Indeed, I hope they will be happy together.”

  But Rebozo’s eyes flashed with malice, and Matt realized that he was apt to track down Pascal and Flaminia out of pure spite. “You, on the other hand, matter a great deal,” the king said. “It is customary for a man of power to announce himself when he enters another country-surely when he comes to the court of its king.”

  “Who, me? I’m nothing!”

  “I think you mean that, in some strange way.” Boncorro regarded him narrowly. “I can only say that your humility is excessive. Any wizard who can overcome the spells of allure laid about my women’s quarters is no mean wizard indeed.”

  “Well, it was nice to know Flaminia hadn’t really been all that fickle.”

  “You are a wizard, of course,” Boncorro said. Well, that put it to the test. Matt wished Christianity let you deny it to save your life once or twice-but he had to declare his loyalty. “I am, your Majesty-but you are, too.”

  “I suppose I must be, since I am not a sorcerer.” Boncorro sighed. “But I will not take power from either Heaven or Hell, as you no doubt know.”

  The chancellor flashed him a glare of annoyance, very quickly masked. Matt had guessed rightly-he was a sorcerer. “I had gathered that, yes. But how, then, do you work magic?”

  “By virtue of a prodigious memory.” Revenge could always be postponed in favor of a good chance at shop talk. “You might say I grew up with it-I watched my grandfather work his spells, as I was compelled to do along with half the court, that we might tremble at the mere thought of disobeying him. He never thought that I would remember every word, every gesture, since they were meaningless to me. In like fashion, I saw my father work spells that, he claimed, drew on the power of God or His Saints-in fact, he taught them to me, most earnestly.”

  Matt had caught the word “claimed.”

  “But you don’t believe his power really came from God?” He loved watching Rebozo wince every time he said the word. “No, no more man I believe that sorcery truly draws on the power of Satan,” Boncorro said with a cynical smile. “I do not believe in either one, nor in Heaven or Hell.”

  “Is that why you’re so interested in trying to find a spell that will make your soul cease to exist when you die?” Matt asked slowly. “Be still!” Boncorro’s eyes flashed with anger. With an effort, he controlled himself and forced another smile. “Let us say, at least, that I deny that the sources of magic may be either Good or Evil.”

  “Then where does the power come from?”

  “It is all around us. To ask where it comes from is useless.”

  Matt remembered going through that stage. “So you just go through rituals you’ve seen and memorized, and don’t worry about why they work?”

  “That is the case. What matters ‘why’? All that matters is that they do most surely function!”

  “Well, it helps to be able to figure out new ones,” Matt said slowly, “or to understand why they sometimes don’t work out quite the way you expect.”

  Boncorro gave him another narrow glance. “You speak as one who knows-and only the mightiest of wizards would think so precisely about the origins of his power.”

  “I have told you!” Rebozo snapped. “He is the Lord Wizard of Merovence!”

  Matt stood very still, giving Rebozo a promissory glare. “Is this true?” Boncorro demanded. “Are you her Majesty’s wizard?”

  Again that confounded Christian insistence on honesty! If it just hadn’t been a direct question… “Yes, your Majesty. I am Matthew Mantrell, wizard to Queen Alisande.”

  “And her husband!” Rebozo’s eyes glittered with satisfaction. “We have caught ourselves a most valuable hostage, your Majesty!”

  “Yes, if we can hold him.” But Boncorro’s sudden enthusiasm seemed to be of another sort entirely. “Wh
at would you say is the source of my power, Lord Wizard?”

  “The power of kingship itself, your Majesty,” Matt answered. “A rightful king gains great power from his land and his people, for he is their head and representative. But his power is even greater if he is properly anointed.”

  “Be still!” Rebozo’s hand cracked across his mouth. Matt’s head rocked; then he glared at the old man. ‘Try that again, and I promise you can keep the wrist.“

  “Treat our guest with courtesy, Lord Chancellor!” King Boncorro rebuked. He turned back to Matt. “Though you have been somewhat lacking in courtesy yourself, coming into our kingdom as a spy.”

  “Well, I’m sorry about that,” Matt said, chagrined. “One thing just led to another, you know. I was planning on an official visit later on…”

  “If you thought I was not an evil man.” Boncorro smiled, without rancor. “Well, what is your judgment?”

  “That you are fundamentally decent,” Matt said slowly. “In fact, that you are basically a good man, and a good king. That means you are also drawing on the powers of God and His Goodness.”

  Rebozo let out a keening of pain, but Boncorro shook his head with dogged insistence. “No! I am a man of vice, and have had to work evil to hold my throne, to keep my kingdom orderly and my people prosperous! I have executed murderers and rapists; I have banished priests who preached against me; I have enslaved thieves and pimps for tens of years’ hard labor! I am no saint. Lord Wizard.”

  “I didn’t say you were,” Matt answered. “But you have had the good of the country at heart.”

  “Only so that it may increase my wealth and security!”

  “If you say so,” Matt sighed. “But I gather you have a very deliberate program of reform, to improve life for everybody. Mind telling me the overall plan?”

  Boncorro frowned. “Surely you have seen it for yourself!”

  “Yes, I think I’ve figured out what you’re doing and why,” Matt said, “but I’d like to find out whether or not I’ve guessed right. Mind telling it to me clearly and simply?”