The Haunted Wizard

CHAPTER 11

“He made a verse,” Matt said, “and it worked—worked magic, that is. It transported him somewhere very far to the north—or maybe very far south, where there’s ice and snow all year ‘round. Don’t worry, he’s built for it. All that body hair…” Matt wondered if bauchans were related to yetis.

The minstrel grinned. “He forgot that verses work magic, didn’t he?”

“Right,” Matt confirmed. “He was so intent on trying to make a good verse that he didn’t pay much attention to what it meant—like a lot of poets I’ve read.”

The minstrel gave him a sharp look. “I think it’s just as well I didn’t tell you my name. You were most restrained with him, wizard.”

Matt shrugged. “No need to do anything more.”

“You might have done something that would make him fear us enough to stay away,” Sergeant Brock said. “As it is, he will only use his magic to find his way back to us. Why did you not punish him sorely?”

Matt shrugged again. “This was all I needed—to get him out of our way for the night. Besides, it was more fun to trick him into sending himself on a long trip.”

“But he set that crowd against us, for surely he must have known you would leap to the minstrel’s defense! Could you not have punished him enough to teach him to cease meddling?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Matt said slowly. “It’s his nature. Anything I did would only have made him determined to have revenge.” He looked to the minstrel, the authority on local folklore, for confirmation.

The minstrel nodded.

“We have trouble enough from him when he’s just being mischievous,” Matt said. “Can you imagine how bad he’d be if he really wanted to get back at me?”

Sergeant Brock shuddered, and Sir Orizhan said fervently, “Your act of mercy was not only chivalrous, but wise.”

“Thanks,” Matt said, “but you and I both know that chivalry is wisdom, in the long run.”

Sir Orizhan looked up in surprise. “I did not know you were a knight as well as a wizard.”

“Oh, I’ve been knighted, yes.” Matt decided it was best not to go into the details. “Of course, in the short run the chivalrous action often looks foolish—for example, letting an enemy live.”

“It seems so, yes,” Sir Orizhan agreed, “but if you can turn that enemy into a friend by your mercy, it is the wiser course of action.”

The minstrel stared. “You don’t mean that you can turn a bauchan into an ally!”

“I’d better,” Matt said. “He won’t stay gone, after all. It’ll take him some time, but he’ll find a way to magic himself back to us—so let’s hope I can find a way for us to be useful to each other. After all, bauchans aren’t always malicious, are they?”

“Well, they have been known to help their hosts if the people really needed it,” the minstrel said, but added, “There’s no way to know, of course. They are completely unpredictable.”

Prince John was playing chess against himself, moving all the pawns into the center of the board one move at a time, then having the knights, bishops, rooks, and queens take turns demolishing the little men. Even with his imagination putting the faces of his brothers on the pieces, it was still boring—he’d done it too many times before.

“Your Highness.”

The prince looked up, mildly interested—anything to break the boredom. “Yes, Orlin?”

His squire was pale of face—bad news. This might be more interesting yet. If nothing else, it could be an excuse to beat the chap.

“Highness,” the young man said, “there is word come from Woodstock.”

Prince John frowned. He didn’t particularly care for Rosamund, but he did lust after her, and treasured the notion of crushing the look of disdain from her haughty features and replacing it with total, abject fear. Besides, she came with the crown—and vice versa. Betrothal would strengthen his claim, and he knew enough of court intrigue to know that, even with Gaheris and Brion dead, he would need every bit of strengthening he could gain, to make the barons accept his reign.

“Highness?” The squire’s voice trembled with fear.

John smiled, liking the sound. Everyone knew his father’s rages and feared his would be every bit as bad, once he had power. “Your news had better not trouble me,” he warned. “Speak.”

“The princess is gone, Your Highness.”

“Gone?” John frowned. “What do you mean, ‘gone’?”

“Disappeared, Your Highness.” Squire Orlin swallowed heavily. “The news is that the king went to bring her the news of victory himself, and found a lifeless likeness in her place— a wooden statue.”

John smirked, having some idea of the way in which his father had intended to bring Rosamund the news, and gloating over his discomfiture. “Where was the true princess?”

“Nowhere.” Orlin was used to John’s ability to ignore what he didn’t wish to hear. He took a deep breath and said, “She had vanished.”

“Vanished?” John frowned. “How? She had guards at her door, a wall around her grange, and a moat around the wall! How could she have vanished?”

“I have no idea, Your Highness.”

John finally registered the fact that his intended—well, he had intended to have her, anyway—was gone. “Say not so, knave!” He swung backhanded at the squire. Orlin knew from long practice just how far to lean back—enough to take most of the sting out of the blow, not enough so that John would think he had missed. He fell down for good measure.

“Poltroon and liar!” John raved. “Gone, do you say? Let her jailers be jailed! Let her guards be imprisoned! How could they have failed so in their duties?” Then he froze, eyes widening, “Witchcraft, that’s how! Stolen away by witchcraft— and that means Mother!”

“But—But the queen is herself imprisoned!” Orlin protested from the floor. “The queen is not a witch!”

“Not a witch? Fool, could she have cost Father so dearly in battle if she were not? No, it must be Mother’s doing!” John turned away, glowering, rubbing his left hand around his right fist “She has found a way to cheat me of my prize again, to cheat me of my rights again! But I shall have my due! I shall be revenged!”

“Upon your own mother?” Orlin gasped.

“Of course not!” John turned back to him, scowling. “What fool would risk his mother’s love? No, I’ll be revenged by finding the princess!”

Orlin reflected that John had lost his mother’s love long ago, but was wise enough not to say so.

Mama and Papa walked the high road dressed as peasants, but Papa’s staff was of rowan, and would focus his spells with the accuracy of a rifle. Mama’s hazel wand was hidden in her flowing skirts. Neither expected to use them, of course— they’d found that broadcast spells worked much more effectively, though with less intensity. Still, it never hurt to be prepared, and peasants weren’t allowed swords.

Papa frowned at the trees about them. “Strange to see so much ivy! I hadn’t known that England grew it by the mile.”

“It doesn’t,” Mama told him with certainty, “at least, not in any of the herbal books I’ve read. And so much moss!”

“I knew England was wet, but not so soggy as this,” Papa agreed. “See how many of those vines are mistletoe! Almost as bad as kudzu in our universe!”

“Mistletoe?” Mama looked more closely. “Yes, it is. I didn’t know you had taken up botany, husband.”

“I haven’t.” Papa turned to her with a gleam in his eye. “But if there is one plant I will recognize, it is mistletoe.”

Mama blushed and turned away, but reached out for his hand nonetheless. Lifting her gaze, she looked for a change of subject. “They are as thick as ever, Ramon.”

“The ravens?” Papa looked up, frowning. “Yes, I know. I would have expected them to cluster thickly around old towers, but there seem to be a dozen of them on every tree, too.”

“And the nights are filled with the hooting of owls,” Mama said. “I could swear someone doesn’t want us to sleep.”

“Don’t swear,” Papa said quickly. “You never know what it will bring, here.”

“Of course,” Mama said with scorn. “Oh, look! A crossroads, and a village. It will be good not to have to eat biscuit and jerky again.”

But as they came near the village green, a voice behind them called, “One side! Make way!”

They had been in medieval Europe long enough to know what that meant. They scurried to the side of the road and watched the knight come trotting past, grinning, with a dozen men-at-arms behind him. Several of them leered at Mama, but apparently decided she was too old, and turned away with scorn.

“You may relax, husband,” Mama said gently. “They could see I was old enough to be their mother.”

“Really?” Papa turned to her with a smile, relaxing a little. “To me, you always look to be nineteen.”

Mama gave him a roguish smile, then turned serious. “Let us follow quickly, husband. There is something about that entourage that troubles me.”

The knight drew up in front of the inn, crying, “A fabulous victory! A grand triumph! I stood beside Prince John as he cut down the Count Haltain! I was his shield mate as he hewed and hacked like a madman! The king is still king and has locked the queen into a castle for a prison! Bretanglia is whole again!”

“How did he spell that?” But Papa spoke absently; he was watching the parents and sons of the village crowd around the warriors with loud cries of praise while the young women turned away, not daring to run. Taken by surprise, they could do no better than turn their faces to the nearest wall.

From his mount, the knight caught sight of a form that was shapely even in the baggy peasant skirt and blouse. He pushed his horse through, grinning at the lone despairing cry, and leaned down to catch the peasant girl by the shoulder and turn her around. “Here, lass! Let’s have a look at your face!”

The girl tried to twist away, but the knight caught her chin and held it fast. He wet his lips and nodded. “Not bad, not bad at all.” He dropped her chin, caught her by the arm, and tossed her to one of his men. “Here, Sergeant! Bring her to my chamber! Landlord, take me to your finest room, and quickly!”

But the girl managed to twist free from the sergeant’s hold and dodge behind the broad back of the innkeeper. “Father, no! Hide me!”

“Oh, she’s your get, is she?” The knight grinned, reveling in the double pain he would cause. “Well, you should be honored to send her to a knight.”

“Nay, sir!” the innkeeper protested, looking up at the knight. “She is still a virgin!”

“What, at her age?” the knight said in scornful disbelief. “She can have one of me or twelve of my men, innkeeper. Choose!”

“Why, you scoundrel!” Mama cried, and ran to put herself between the knight and the innkeeper. “How dare you call yourself a man of chivalry when you would debauch a virgin?”

Papa stiffened in alarm, but the innkeeper, with vast relief, turned to a boy nearby and snapped, “Friar Thomas! Run as you never have!”

The boy sped away, even as the knight turned purple and roared, “How dare you so address a belted knight, fishwife? Aside!” He swung a backhanded blow at her.

It struck hard against Papa’s staff. The knight howled and cursed, then called to his men, “Strike down this impertinent cur!”

Mama whipped out her wand and chanted a quick Spanish couplet.

The men-at-arms shouted in anger and charged Papa—but he swung his staff in a circle, hand over hand like an airplane’s propeller, and a series of knocks sounded as the first three men reached him. They fell back into the men behind them, who jammed back against the six still trying to get forward, and the whole dozen churned into a scrambled, shouting mass.

“Witchcraft!” the knight cried, whipping out his sword.

“Overconfidence, more likely,” Papa replied. “Haven’t you taught your men never to underestimate an enemy?”

The knight froze with his sword high, glowering down from his mount in suspicion. “You do not talk like a peasant.”

“A man’s rank should make no difference to a true knight,” Papa lectured. “Chivalry extends to all regardless of rank, and a virgin peasant should be as sacred to you as any lady of the highest station.”

Anger warred with wariness in the knight’s face. “Who are you to school me so?”

“A schoolmaster and scholar indeed,” Papa replied, and probably would have gone on at some length if a lanky man in a brown robe hadn’t come running up, the top of his head shaved in a tonsure. “Here now, Sir Knight!” he scolded. “Would you break your vows of chivalry by robbing a woman of her virtue?”

The knight looked up in surprise, men darted a glare of pure venom at the innkeeper. He turned to the friar, snapping, “It is no concern of yours, shave-pate!”

“The welfare of every soul in this parish is my concern!” The friar took up a stance between Mama and the knight. They stood four deep between him and his quarry now—the friar, Papa, Mama, and the innkeeper. “You are in my parish this moment, so your soul, too, is in my care! Remember the Commandments, O Man of Might! Remember especially the Sixth Commandment!”

“She isn’t married, if she’s truly a virgin, as her father says,” the knight grunted. “That’s not adultery.”

“No, but it is fornication, which is almost as bad, and the despoiling of a virgin makes it far worse! Then, too, if she is not willing, which she plainly is not, you speak of rape, which is worse than either! Our Lord Himself has commanded us to refrain from fornication—and scandal! If your actions lead a child into sin, it would be better for you to be cast into a river with a millstone tied around your neck!”

The knight swung his sword high with an oath. “Who says so?”

“Our Lord said so!” The friar stood stiff and unflinching before that blade. “What, Sir Knight! Will you imperil your immortal soul for mere amusement? Will you send yourself to an eternity of torture for a few minutes’ pleasure?”

The knight sat his horse, sword poised, wavering.

Mama made a small set of gestures, and her lips moved, but her voice came from the middle of the crowd, behind the knight’s back:

Everyone looked up and about, startled by the sweet sounds, eyes widening as joy burst within them—and even the knight’s face was transformed. He sheathed his sword, nodding in acceptance. “Even as you have said, Father! Nay, let the lass stay whole—and I thank you for saving my soul!”

He turned to his men. “Away and go! We’ll spend this night at another village’s inn!”

A murmur of relief swept through the crowd as the entourage rode away—but the friar beckoned the little boy to him and said, “Take two friends and run to Renved Village by the beeline through the woods. Tell Friar Nollid there to welcome these men as they come into his parish, or there may yet be mischief this night.”

The boy dashed off, feeling very important, and the friar turned to the innkeeper. “You are safe now, Goodman Dalran, Maid Darsti.”

“Yes, thanks to you, friar!” The innkeeper wrung the clergyman’s hand, then turned to Mama and Papa. “And to you, good friends! By what magic you held the knight at bay until the friar could arrive, I know not, but I thank you deeply!”

Darsti caught Mama’s hand and covered it with kisses.

“It was our pleasure,” Mama assured him. “No woman should be subject to the whims of such a bully, virgin or not!”

“No woman should be forced, most certainly,” the friar said with feeling.

“You must be my guests this night!” the innkeeper said.

“It shall be my honor to serve you myself,” Darsti assured them.

Mama and Papa exchanged a glance; then Papa turned to the innkeeper. “Under the circumstances, I think we will accept your kind offer, mine host—but we were glad we could help.”

A few hours later they finally managed to close the door of a private room on their grateful hosts. Papa poured them each a glass of wine and said, “A most interesting afternoon, my dear.”

“It was indeed,” Mama agreed. “At least the brutes still respect the clergy.”

” ‘Still’ is the word,” Papa cautioned. “I have difficulty believing the knights of this land have always been such oafs.”

“Not in this universe,” Mama agreed. “Not if Bretanglia has been a godly kingdom for centuries, as we have been told.”

“Ah, but you are speaking of the past,” Papa pointed out. “King Drustan has, wittingly or not, unleashed the forces of cruelty and oppression upon his people.”

“He has,” Mama agreed, “but they are not very far gone in decadence yet. Friars can still defend the weak from the mighty but corrupt.”

“Yes, but only because the knights and their men still have enough respect for the clergy to heed their words,” Papa said. “How long can that last, my love?”

“How thickly can the ravens flock to this land?” she returned.

“Up, lazybones!” the voice shouted in Matt’s dream. “Why do you lie here sleeping when you should be seeking my murderer?”

Even in his dream Matt came up fighting. “You dare to wake me up! You dare to deprive me of sleep when I’ve been hiking all day and seeking whatever scraps of information I can to—”

“How dare you talk so to a prince!”

“We’ve been through that already,” Matt said through his teeth. “Do I have to recite an exorcism verse and kick you out of my head so I can get some sleep?”

“No, no!” Gaheris’ ghost said quickly. “Not that!”

“Sure, because once I kick you out, you can’t get in again.” It didn’t take much figuring. “So far I’m leaving the mental door open because you might be able to give me information about the crime. No, I don’t have anything to tell you yet— but I do have a job for you.”

“A job?” the prince cried, highly insulted. “For a prince?”

“Any ghost would do, but you’re most likely to know the party in question. Tell me, has Prince Brion showed up on the other side?”

“Brion?” Gaheris pounced on the name. “Has he been slain, then?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Matt told him, “and the reports aren’t exactly conclusive. It would help a lot if you could tell me you’ve seen his ghost roaming around looking for that tunnel of light you told me about.”

“It would seek out him, not he it,” Gaheris said quickly, “but he would be no quicker to go into it than I, if he’d been murdered. No, I have not seen him here…”

“Sure you might not have missed him in the crowd?”

“There are not so many who can or wish to resist that last journey, wizard! Besides, those of us related to one of the newly slain are drawn toward his ghost—several here have told me that! I assure you, if Brion were here, I would know it!”

“That helps.” Of course, Matt suspected Brion might have been more likely to seek out that tunnel of light, and its exit to the afterworld, than Gaheris was, especially since for him it would probably be the express route to Heaven, or at least to a short stay in Purgatory. Still, Brion was worldly enough to want justice for his own murder. “Yes, that helps. Okay. Thanks. Check in now and then, and I’ll let you know if I learn anything solid.”

“If! You had confounded well best learn something or I’ll—”

“Be kicked out of my head,” Matt said, cutting him off. “Now get out of here, before I do my daily exorcises.”

“But I—“

“Out!” Matt dream-shouted. “Go ‘way and let me sleep!”

“Gone?” Petronille stared, her face ashen. “From a moated grange with a dozen guards and jailers? How could she be gone?”

“I know not, Majesty.” Lady Ashmund spoke with tears in her eyes; she too had been fond of the princess. “I know only the news I have been given—that the king went to bring her the news of his victory himself…”

“And I am sure how he meant to celebrate it!” Petronille snapped.

“Perhaps, Majesty, but he found only a wooden statue. Of the real princess, there was no sign.”

“No sign, is it? No sign of which he dares tell the world!” The queen turned away to the tall, multipaned windows and stared out at the courtyard, unseeing. “He has spirited her away to some secret bower where he can have her at his mercy for as long as he wishes! Oh, a pox upon this gilded prison!”

She turned to catch up a porcelain vase and hurl it into the fireplace. The crash echoed hugely in the stonewalled room, in spite of all the tapestries and thick carpets; Lady Ashmund suppressed a start of shock.

The queen strode the length of the solar and back, raving, “I have silks and satins, I have grandeur and silver and servants, but I cannot go to find the poor child who needs me! Curse the day that ever I met that snake Drustan! Curse the day that I sought a southern princess for my son! How could I ever have believed that she could alloy his spirit with some gentleness, some courtesy, some grace? All that has happened is that Gaheris taught her his roughness and hardness, and that my husband has set his lecherous course toward her! Alas, the poor lady! How shall I ever save her now?”

Lady Ashmund sought for a word of hope to give her. “Might it not be that the Lord Wizard of Merovence has rescued her by his magic?”

The queen turned to give her a stony, contemptuous glance. “You know nothing of the old, old sorcery with which this land is imbued, my lady. Even I, who have learned some magic, can only guess at the weight and mass of this cold northern runimancy! It is heavy enough to drown any magic I seek to work, I know that, and I cannot believe that the Lord Wizard could fare better than I! Oh, a pox upon this false husband of mine! A murrain upon him, for the cruel ox he is!”

Lady Ashmund blanched at hearing the curse.

The queen raised her fists before her, calling out, “O elves and sprites of Bretanglia! O pouks and ghasts and night-walkers all! If you hear me and can do it, strike down this false king who has foisted himself upon your land! Pouks, smite him! Ghasts, fill his sleep with nightmares! Elves, aim your bolts at his temples! One and all, hear this foreign queen he has brought to misery! Save the southern princess, save the land, and lay him low!”

The king was at dinner the next night, with Prince John at his right hand and Earl Marshal at his left. Two dukes and their duchesses sat at the head table with him, the lower table filled with lesser aristocrats. Drustan was in high good spirits in spite of the nasty surprise Rosamund had left him—he was, after all, the victor, and knew that the queen who had caused him so much frustration and pain with her deprecating remarks and encouragement of his enemies was now eating her heart out in isolation.

The Duke of Boromel, sensing His Majesty’s mood and its reasons, rose and lifted his cup, crying, “A toast!”

“A toast!” the others cried, and rose, then fell silent with their cups on high.

“To our sovereign liege, who dines upon the rich fare of victory in glittering company—and to our queen, who drinks the bitter wine of defeat in solitude!”

There was a moment’s shocked silence, and Earl Marshal frowned—it was a most ungallant toast. Then the king crowed with delight, surging to his feet and lifting his cup. “To the queen!”

The other aristocrats took up the cry with relief. “To the queen!” they cried, and laughed and drank.

The king set his goblet to his lips, tilted its base high—then turned rigid, eyes bulging, and let out a single hoarse cry as he fell, the goblet slipping from his fingers and dashing wine all over Prince John.

There was another moment of shocked silence. Prince John broke it with a cry of distress and dropped to his knees by his father, lifting the older man by the shoulders and feeling for his pulse.

For himself, King Drustan knew only sudden darkness that after a while lightened. He seemed to float in a void of mist, hearing voices talk around him.

“Yes, Your Highness, I am sure he will live.”

“Praises be!” said John’s voice, though it was shaking. “But will he be well?”

“Ah! Nicely asked,” the older voice sighed. “No physician can answer that while he sleeps. We can only wait and see how he fares when he wakes.”

“I am awake,” King Drustan grumbled—but why were the words so slow to come, so hard to form? He forced his eyes open and saw Prince John and Dr. Ursats, staring at him. Behind them he saw the tapestries of his own bedchamber, and the curtains between them and himself were those of his own tester bed. He sat up, assuming his most arrogant posture— then realized that he hadn’t, that he had scarcely stirred. Panic gripped him, and he hid it by shouting. “A pox upon you! Do you not hear me? I am awake!”

This time, though, he heard his own voice—only a gargling mixed with a sort of braying, a mouthing of vowels with scarcely a consonant. The panic surged higher, and he would have screamed, only John stepped up to him, gripping his hand. “He wakes! How are you, my father?”

“What nonsense to worry!” Drustan said, mollified. “I am perfectly well!”

But he wasn’t, and he knew it. He couldn’t hear the words he had spoken, heard only a sort of cawing in their place.

Now the doctor stepped up on his other side and took his hand. “I am relieved to see you conscious, my liege. Do you remember what happened?” Then, before the king could answer, “Allow me to remind you. You were about to drink a toast to the queen when you fell down, unconscious.”

The king frowned, remembering.

“Suffer my impertinence, Majesty.” The doctor leaned over and lifted first one eyelid, then the other, staring intently into each orb in turn. Then he straightened and said, “Squeeze my hand, Majesty.”

“What idle game is this?” Drustan snapped, but heard again only an ass’ braying. Appalled, he resolved that he would never talk again. He did, however, squeeze the doctor’s hand, and Ursats nodded, satisfied. He took the king’s other hand from John and said, “Squeeze with this hand now, Majesty.”

The king repressed the urge to make a withering comment and squeezed.

The doctor’s face was completely neutral. “Have you squeezed my hand, Your Majesty?”

“What the devil sort of question…” Drustan heard his own cawing and clamped his jaw shut. He forced a very stiff nod.

“Yet I felt nothing,” Dr. Ursats said sadly.

“What does this mean?” John cried.

“That His Majesty has been elf-shot,” Ursats told him, then to Drustan, “Some malicious sprite has aimed his miniature crossbow at you, Majesty, and struck your temple with his tiny dart. Country folk find their minuscule arrowheads in the dust of a road sometimes, after a thunderstorm. This barb has lodged in your brain, though, and will be some time working its way loose.”

The king stared, and tried to ignore the fear that threatened to overwhelm him.

“Until it does,” Ursats went on, “your speech will be slurred, and the whole right side of your body will move only with difficulty, if at all.”

The king brayed denial.

“Peace, Your Majesty.” Dr. Ursats patted his hand. “Is not the life a greater thing than the body, and the body itself greater than the ability to walk without a limp?”

“No!” the king shouted, and this time they understood him.

The doctor smiled. “You see, Your Majesty? With effort, you can still make yourself understood! With practice and work, you shall one day speak again, almost as well as you did before.”

“But my leg!” Drustan howled. “My arm!”

Ursats explained as though he had understood. “You shall have to work as hard as you did when first you learned swordplay, practice as diligently as when you strove to master jousting by riding at a quintain. But with constant effort, you shall gain in strength and smoothness as the arrowhead works its way free. Then, someday, you shall walk again, perhaps with only the slightest of limps!”

“Learn to walk, as though I were a toddling babe?” The king howled at the injustice of it.

John gripped his hand again. “You shall not face this daunting prospect alone, Father! I shall be here beside you every day, here to comfort and sustain you! Only tell me what you need, and I shall see it fetched!”

“Don’t patronize me, boy!” King Drustan snarled.

John frowned. ” ‘Don’t’ … ? You said something else, then ‘boy.’”

The doctor looked up with keen interest. “Can you understand him, then?”

“A little, I think. Was I right, Father?”

Drustan stared at him, gears meshing in his brain. Slowly, he nodded.

“We captured the Count of Tundin in battle,” John reminded him, “but his youngest son fought in Earl Marshal’s entourage. Shall we hold both father and son attainted, then?”

Drustan scowled. “Why speak of such trivia at a time like this?”

“Again, more slowly,” John urged, and Drustan realized what the boy was trying to do. Slowly and with great effort he said, “Attaint the father. The son is Count.”

“You say the father is attainted?”

Hope thrilled in Drustan; he nodded.

“But the son? What of the youngest son?”

Trying even harder to be clear, Drustan said, “He is now Count.”

“Did you say that you declare the youngest son to be Count of Tundin?” John asked with great intensity.

One corner of Drustan’s mouth lifted in a leer intended to be a smile. He nodded.

“Excellent!” John squeezed Drustan’s hand with both of his own. “Thus shall you rule still, my father! I shall come to you with all the questions of state, and listen until you have made yourself clear! I shall bear all your commands to your ministers, and see that each is carried out as you would wish it! I shall come to talk to you twice a day, three times a day, as often as it takes—and at least once, at supper, only to enjoy your company!” He shivered. “For you must know, Father, how much afraid I am, without your shield to ward me! How badly I need your presence to give me the strength of will to face your ministers!”

Compassion flowed; for a few minutes Drustan’s own fear submerged under concern for his son—the only son left him now! He squeezed John’s hand and muttered, “Be brave, lad! I shall be here for you, ever at your call! How could I desert you, when you do my work?”

John smiled, reassured, and gave as good as he got. “Courage, my father! You have beaten many enemies, great enemies— surely now you can defeat one so tiny!”

Half an hour later John returned to his own apartments. He closed the door behind him and let out a long sigh, folding in on himself.

“Was it as difficult as all that?” asked a resonant baritone.

John snapped upright, remembering the rendezvous he had set. “It went well enough, Niobhyte. It went just as you said it would.”