My Son, the Wizard

Chapter Fourteen

“Yes,” Matt said slowly, “I’d say that was a good reason not to start flying again. Stegoman, do you mind a hike?”

“It is not my favorite form of travel,” the dragon grumped.

“Maybe we can get by if we scrunch down on your back and fly low,” Matt suggested. “They’re looking for me, but they’re not looking for a dragon.” He turned back to the djinna. “Either way, we stand a lot better chance of survival, now that we’re warned. Thanks.”

“It is my pleasure, though not pleasure enough.” Her eyelids drooped, her smile became lazy and inviting, and she radiated allure again. “Are you certain there is no other service you wish from your handmaid?”

Matt didn’t want to see the hand that had made her. “Not at the moment, thanks… but I’m sure we’ll meet again.”

“Oh, be very sure,” Lakshmi said with a sultry smile. “We shall meet again indeed. Until then, farewell, O most considerate of wizards.”

But her words had a sarcastic tone to them, and as she faded from sight, Matt didn’t know whether to sigh with relief or moan with disappointment. He compromised with a shudder. “I tell you, Papa, I’ve had a lot of run-ins with a lot of strange spirits and creatures here, but in some ways, I think that was the most dangerous!”

“She may have been indeed,” Papa agreed. “Son, have you begun to find amusement in dancing with tigers?”

“Well, I didn’t want to hurt her felines. Seems I remember a certain party telling me I should always be polite to strange women,” Matt said, with a pointed glance.

“Well, yes, but I didn’t mean that strange,” Papa said. “Still, I am quite proud of you, my son… I had not known that you had developed such a way with the ladies.”

Matt frowned. “Just being polite, the way you taught me.”

“Yes, but I did not teach you to win their hearts as a matter of course.”

“Oh, come on now! All I did was throttle her most murderous intentions!”

“You don’t know?” Papa said with surprise. “Your spells did considerably more than that, my son.”

“Oh?” Matt felt a very nasty sensation of foreboding creeping over him. “What else?”

“That line I had doubts about, where you told her to ‘Hearken ever to love’s call’? That, plus verse after verse praising her beauty and allure? They made her fall in love with you, at least as much as her kind seem able to do!”

“Which means fall in lust.” Matt shivered. “Help, Papa! I just got myself in deep trouble!”

“Courage, my son.” Papa clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe the spells didn’t include a compulsion.”

“Yeah, but maybe they did.” Matt frowned. “Come to think of it, though, I did follow them with a spell that liberated her from compulsions.”

“Yes, and told her she was free to go where she wished.”

“Yeah,” Matt said with relief, then frowned again. “Let’s just hope she doesn’t wish to go where I go.”

“That could be a problem,” Papa admitted.

Matt remembered that Solomon had originally imprisoned djinn in bottles and lamps because they were so dangerous. He hoped he hadn’t made a very bad mistake.

“You are on the side of the angels,” Papa said by way of reassurance. “Surely they will protect you from your enemies.”

“Enemies I can deal with,” Matt said. “Who’s going to protect me from my new friend?”

Saul and Mama began their acquaintance with a strategy conference. She was very patient with his prickliness, and he came out of the meeting with a high respect for her as a person, a strategist, and a diplomat. She didn’t seem to be the slightest bit paranoid, but she did manage to think of every conceivable enemy who might come against them and how those enemies might attack, even though she claimed to know nothing about matters military.

“I have read the old epics,” she explained, “the Songs of El Cid and of Roland, of The Madness of Roland and The Death of Arthur. I have learned from them which enemies came, and how they attacked.”

It made fine sense to Saul. He had learned from his association with Matt that a literary education in his birth-universe was an excellent preparation for life in this one. So they set out their sentries, established patrols, and took turns walking the battlements, making the rounds with a word of cheer for each sentry and the occasional brief conversation that let them come to know every soldier as a human being. So it happened that Saul was on the ramparts when he saw a rider raising a dust cloud fifty feet long, streaking flat-out toward the castle gate. “What man is that?” he asked the nearest sentry. The man shaded his eyes and peered “I cannot see clearly, Witches’ Doctor, but he wears our livery.”

“Hoist the portcullis and let him in!” Then Saul ran for the nearest steps, heading down to the courtyard.

The rider pounded into the bailey and reined in his horse Saul ran up. “What’s the news, man?”

“Moors!” the rider gasped. “Ships with triangular sails! Our squadron was riding patrol and saw them sailing up the river toward Bordestang! Fifty at least, perhaps a hundred! The fleet went on as far as we could see!”

Saul stared. His first thought was, Where did they come from? His second thought was how to stop them, but his third thought was that he couldn’t tell without more information. “The rest of your squadron still scouting?”

The man gulped air and nodded. “They ride behind the cover of the trees atop the ridge that runs beside the river, to learn what they may of this sudden enemy. They sent me to bear word. By your leave, my lord, I should ride to rejoin them.”

“Sure.” Saul was oddly touched by the man’s devotion to his buddies. “But rest for an hour and take a little food and ale first, okay?”

The man nodded his thanks, still gasping, and Saul turned away, heading for the solar. “I think Lady Mantrell needs to be told about this right away.” He didn’t even realize that he had promoted Mama… she hadn’t officially been ennobled yet. But what else do you call the queen’s mother-in-law? The solar door was open. Saul nodded to the guards and went in. “Mrs Mantrell, a little problem has just come up.”

Mama looked up from a huge leatherbound geography book. “What kind, Saul?”

“A hundred ships full of Moors. Maybe more. A lot more.”

Mama stared. Then she said, “Where did they come from?”

“Just what I said,” Saul answered. “I think the answer is ‘Morocco.’ “

“Yes, of course,” Mama said impatiently, “but how?”

“Nice question, now that you mention it. I never knew the Moors were sailors.” Saul frowned, thinking.

“The Rifs and Berbers were not, but the Arabs had excellent fleets,” Mama reminded him. Saul lifted his head, wide-eyed. “The Moors could have borrowed them!”

“They had sources for a fleet, surely,” Mama agreed, “and they did have a small colony on the European side of Gibraltar, no?”

“Yes,” Saul said, surprised at her knowledge… but why shouldn’t she know Spanish history as well as he knew English? “In fact, ‘Gibraltar’ is the English form of an Arabic name,” Mama went on, “Tariq, the general who conquered that first European province. Since the Moors hold both sides of the Strait, Algerian ships could pass with ease.”

“And around the Spanish coast to the mouth of the Seine!” Saul nodded. “Now that I think of it, Alisande has built an excellent army, but I’ve never heard anyone say much about a navy! They just sailed right on up the river without anybody so much as asking to see a passport!”

“We must send a courier to the queen.” Mama rose. “Let us hope that courier reaches her… there will be many Moors, and many agents of their sorcerers, between Her Majesty and our rider.”

“I can do a backup on that,” Saul told her. “I can send word to your son… if he looks into puddles now and then, the way I told him.”

“Excellent.” Mama nodded. “Since they are together, if one receives the message, both will. Come, let us go up to the battlements. These Moors may anchor near Bordestang before the day is out. We should prepare a few surprises for them.”

On the way up, Mama told the Captain of the Guard to dispatch three couriers by three different routes.

Saul was amazed at her air of authority and at how easily she had taken to running the castle. By evening, the Moorish ships were anchoring in Bordestang’s harbor. They found empty docks, and a waterfront so silent that its only longshoremen were ghosts. Mama and Saul looked out over the city with Sir Gilbert, Captain of the Guard under protest… he had protested not being able to ride with the queen and her army. The castle stood atop a talus slope, kept bare of all trees and bushes, sheep-cropped to smooth lawn. A road wound down its sides from the drawbridge to the first houses, a hundred yards away. There it turned into a broad avenue that ran straight downhill, between half-timbered houses, inns, and stores, to the gate in the city wall.

Outside that wall lay a ring of more modest houses and commercial buildings. The boulevard ran on from the gate, all the way down to the river. There, the buildings were all warehouses and chandlers’ shops, with a generous sprinkling of taverns with upstairs rooms for sailors between ships… all dark now, emptied of valuables and people.

Sir Gilbert chafed under restraint. “We could have fought them on the docks, Lady Mantrell! We could have prevented them from coming ashore!”

“You could not, Sir Gilbert, and you know it,” she said gently. “They would have poured in more soldiers than we have in the castle, hundreds more, perhaps thousands. Your men would have died to no purpose.”

Saul nodded. “Even if you had fought them off, they would have just landed someplace else. No, better to clear the docks and let them come ashore where we can keep an eye on them.”

“But the city!”

“Your men-at-arms have already evacuated most of the civilians,” Mama said. “They found shelter in the parts of the city away from the river, did they not?”

“Yes, and the movement out of the city has begun. With any luck, most of the common folk will be safe in the hills before the Moors draw their siege lines tight.”

“And you sent the merchant ships out upstream in a timely manner,” Mama said. “I think the citizens who have fortified their houses along the streets will prove all the defense Bordestang needs.”

“The Moors could overcome them in a day!”

“Yes, but it is the castle they seek, not the port or the suburbs, and staying to overcome the civilian defenders would cost the Moors lives they need for their siege. No, they shall secure the boulevard that leads up to our walls and be content with that. Then your militia may slip away unnoticed, if it is necessary.”

“It will be, if the siege lasts longer than a week!”

“Then we must see it does not,” Mama said calmly.

The Moorish ships were able to sail right up to the docks, tie up, and unload their cargoes of men and horses without having to ferry them ashore in longboats. Then, to Saul’s and Mama’s astonishment, the ships not only shoved off and made room for the next to unload… they sailed back down the river and out of sight!

“They are leaving their men!” Mama exclaimed. “Are they so sure of victory that they do not even feel the need to secure their line of retreat?”

“No, milady,” Sir Gilbert said, his face somber. “They disdain retreat. Those ships are returning to Morocco for more soldiers. The Moors will have to conquer Bordestang, or die.”

Papa finished the last bite of beef jerky stew and wiped his bowl with a sigh. “Well, that was filling.”

“But nothing more?” Matt shrugged apologetically. “Sorry about the menu. Too bad there isn’t a little game in this woodlot.”

“Too many refugees, even this far from the border?”

“More likely the hazards of traveling with a dragon,” Matt told him. “Just think how much slower we’d be going without him.”

“Think how much more quickly you would go if I did not need to land every time you did see a heat-flickering in the air or even the smallest whirlwind,” Stegoman huffed.

“Yeah, but who knows how many djinn we’ve avoided this way?” Matt pointed out. “Besides, we’re halfway to the Pyrenees… not bad, for one day’s travel.”

“If you must say so,” Stegoman grumped.

“I do,” Matt told him. “What’s the matter? Still hungry?”

“Nay. The roebuck that I seized from the air was ample.”

“Look, I told you it would taste better if you’d let me cook it a little,” Matt said. “Just a few turns over a hot fire… “

“And it would be inedible,” the dragon huffed. “Seared roebuck? Disgusting!”

“I must agree.” Papa looked up from rinsing his bowl. “I prefer my steaks rare, too.”

“Not as rare as he likes ‘em,” Matt retorted. “I know what I tell the waitress when I’m ordering well done, but he takes it literally.”

“Perhaps, but deer don’t moo,” Papa said.

“Yeah, I know the lowdown, and I know he isn’t really grouchy because of his dinner,” Matt sighed.

“He’s just impatient because of the delay.”

“Impatient? From what little I know of medieval travel, he has taken us much faster than any horse could!”

“And the Mahdi will wait.” Matt finished washing his bowl and put it back in his pack. “That is, unless he’s marching our way. Got a blanket, Papa? The spring’s still early enough to have chilly nights.”

“A blanket? I have none,” said a husky contralto that made every male hormone stand up and take notice

“May I share yours?”

Matt jumped to his feet… this was one antagonist he didn’t want to catch him lying down… and turned slowly, forcing a smile. “Why, Lakshmi! Nice of you to stop by!”

“When night fell, I thought of you.” The djinna was in her human-size form, fairly glowing with desire.

She stepped very close to Matt, murmuring, “When the nights are chill, beings nestle against one another to stay warm.”

“Oh, it’s not too cold for more than a blanket,” Matt assured her. He held up his poncho on display… right between them. “See? Nice, tight weave.”

“I can weave tightly, too,” Lakshmi breathed, leaning closer “Allow me to demonstrate.”

Matt swallowed through a suddenly tight throat. “Look, I told you that you were free to go where you wanted!”

“I did,” she said Her sensuous aura was so strong that it bypassed Matt’s mind and heart completely, going straight to his glands. No matter how much he was in love with Alisande, this female spirit had a very commanding presence… and he was all too present to her commands. Still, the thought of Alisande was a defense in itself. “I hate to say no… you don’t know how much I hate to!… but I’m very thoroughly married.”

“Thoroughly?” The djinna frowned. “One is married or one is not! How can one be more thoroughly so, or less?”

“Uhhhh… ” Matt thought fast, trying to put words to what he meant. “By how deeply one is in love, and whether or not one has children.”

“Are the small ones so great a seal upon union as that?”

“They are,” Papa said, “when a man loves them. The more souls he loves, the more deeply he wishes to stay where they are.”

“And you?” Lakshmi turned to him, her allure suddenly blazing at him… and leaving Matt shaking with relief. “Your child is grown,” the Djinn said. “He has left your house. You should be less thoroughly married now.”

Papa didn’t even look tense, he only smiled, a gleam appearing in his eye. “Ah, but twenty years sharing the pain and the burden and the joy of his upbringing… the bond that grew between us in that time is far deeper and far, far stronger than it was when we married. Even then, it was so powerful we could not imagine it being any stronger.”

“Ah, but has that bond ever been tested?” Lakshmi asked, hips rolling as she stepped closer to Papa.

“Several times.” Now it was Papa who stepped closer, the gleam growing more intense “It has always held.”

“But there have been times when you wished it had not?” Lakshmi breathed, swaying very close indeed

Matt stared, scandalized. Papa had been tempted? While he was Papa? “I have never wished for that bond to be broken, or even loosened,” Papa said firmly, though his eyes said otherwise. “But you have lusted after other women,” Lakshmi insisted. “Lust is not love, beauteous lady,” Papa sighed, “and gives rise to no bond. Rather, once it is satisfied, it loses what little bond it had.”

Lakshmi recoiled, revolted. “What strange creatures you humans are! If a djinni desires a djinna, he will desire her whenever he sees her!”

“We do not speak of desire,” Papa said. The gleam was still there, but his smile turned sad. “We speak of a bond, an invisible tie that holds two people together for a lifetime, a tie that is like a growing vine and must be nourished and watered and given sunlight, but which thus grows stronger and stronger with every month that passes.”

Lakshmi eyed him warily, turning pensive. “I could almost wish my soul was such that it could know the delights of which you speak.”

“Almost?” Papa asked, still sadly smiling. “Almost,” Lakshmi confirmed. “To a djinna who has only now regained her freedom, a bond smacks too much of bondage. Does it not chafe you? Do you not long for freedom?”

“There was a year or two when I did,” Papa admitted, “but even then, I wished even more to be with my Jimena. For all the rest of my married years, I have scarcely missed my freedom at all, for I have treasured my love far more.”

Lakshmi shivered “Yes, I wish I could know such a feeling,” she said slowly, “but not for long. Still, that is not possible, is it?”

Papa shook his head, eyes glowing. “If it is only for a short time, it cannot give the warmth and closeness and delight of which I speak. Do not misunderstand me… there is great pleasure in falling in love for a few months, even a few years… but it is a different sort of delight entirely.”

“Oh, a pox upon it!” Lakshmi jammed her fists on her hips, stamping her foot. Matt had to catch his breath all over again at the vividness her anger gave her. “It is disgusting, it is outrageous, and I must be done with it!” Lakshmi threw an arm around Papa, growing as she did, so that it only took her one step to seize Matt in her other arm. She continued to grow, swelling into a giant again, the men clasped to her bosom like toddlers as she sprang into the air. Her contralto deepened to basso, almost too deep to hear.

“I shall take you to the Mahdi, and be done with you for once and for all! When you have come to your goal, you shall have no need to travel where I may see you!”

Behind them, a roar of outrage split the night with flickering flame.

“Follow, dragon!” the djinna called. “But do not land within the ranks of the Moors, for they are desert folk, and may take a fancy to reptile’s flesh!”

Somehow, her expansion in size killed off Matt’s lust completely; she no longer seemed human. He glanced down past the huge curve of her bosom to the ground far below and swallowed heavily. He hoped she was still enough enamored of him to hold tightly.