The Haunted Wizard

CHAPTER 22

Matt stared. “You followed your brother because you know him? I’m sorry, but that doesn’t make sense. You’re leaving something out. Why did knowing him make you want to follow him?”

“I knew he would begin a brawl of some sort,” Brion answered, “and so he did. I followed both to protect him from those with whom he picked his fight, and to protect those others from him. If the whore’s pimp had not stepped up to protect her, I would have done so myself.”

Matt’s head reeled in amazement. “A belted knight, fight to save a prostitute?”

“I am sworn to protect the weak, my lord, no matter their virtue, or lack of it,” Brion said severely. Then he seemed to thaw a little and added, “Besides, I have never been certain that prostitutes were not more victims than sinners.”

He spoke softly, but Rosamund heard nevertheless, and looked up at him in surprise. Then her gaze turned thoughtful.

“So you saw the fight,” Matt interpreted.

“I saw it begin,” Brion corrected. “Once the melee began, though, and I saw the harlot was safe, I leaped to defend my brother’s back.”

Matt stared. “You defended Gaheris? I thought you hated each other!”

“He was my brother,” Brion said simply.

Once again Matt was amazed by the medieval concepts of honor and duty.

“I turned three blows that would have felled him,” Brion reported, “and stretched their assailants cold on the floor. They were common men, only enjoying a good fight. I doubt they knew Gaheris for a prince.”

“So how come you didn’t see who struck the killing blow?”

“Because some foul knave came upon me from behind, and laid me low.”

Matt looked Brion up and down in one quick glance. He was taller than Matt, which made him much taller than most men of his time, and even more broad-shouldered and muscular. It was hard to imagine anyone being able to hit hard enough to knock him out, especially through a trooper’s boiled-leather helmet.

“So you don’t know who knocked you out.”

Brion shook his head.

“Was anyone else helping you guard Gaheris?”

Brion stared, then swung about in his saddle to transfer that stare to Sergeant Brock.

Brock stared back, then frowned slightly, puzzled.

Brion turned back. “It was your sergeant! I did not recognize him until now!”

“That figures,” Matt said with chagrin. “That’s why he and Sir Orizhan are with me—they both lost honor when a prince who was officially under their protection was slain.”

“As though any could protect Gaheris from the consequences of his own wickedness!”

“Just a matter of time, huh? But I thought Brock was fighting in front of Gaheris.”

Brion shrugged. “It was a melee, Lord Wizard, a mass of confusion. Like as not the ebb and flow of battle carried him around the prince, fighting as strongly as he could, until he was beside me. However, it was not long after that the world went dark around me.”

“Well, you can’t fault a man for protecting his prince from every possible direction,” Matt said. “Unfortunately, he’s already told me everything he remembers, and that ain’t much.”

Brion sighed. “My brother died in combat, Lord Wizard, albeit it was a brawl in a tavern, not a battle on the field of honor. Is that not enough for you?”

“For me, yes,” Matt said. “For your mother, no.”

Old Meg was waiting in the moonlight with her little boat, though how she knew to which stretch of rocky beach they were coming, Matt didn’t know, especially since he had steered the party well away from their original landing place on the theory that unwelcome visitors might have been waiting for them along the road they had already traveled.

They climbed into the glorified skiff, which somehow managed to hold all of them, and Brion’s warhorse, too. Since it had been just barely large enough for the four of them and the old woman on the way to Erin, Matt wasn’t about to ask questions. Instead, he made sure he was the last one aboard, on the excuse of saying goodbye to the horses. “We appreciate the favor,” he told them. “Back to your homes, now, whether they be in the meadows or the barns.” He withdrew four silver coins from his wallet and slipped one under each saddle. “That’s to thank your masters for the loan. ‘Bye, now.”

He turned and walked away, and was about to get into the boat when the old woman commanded, “Shove off!”

Matt stared, deciding that he ought to be angry, until he realized that she meant the term literally. “Well, that’s what I get for being last.”

“What, Lord Wizard?” Brion asked, frowning.

“Wet clothes,” Matt sighed, and set his feet. He shoved hard, and the little craft floated free. He waded out knee-high before he clambered over the gunwale, not wanting his weight to ground it again. Then he looked back at the shore, already receding—and saw a man in peasant’s clothes holding all three horses. The fourth was missing.

Matt stared.

The peasant lifted a hand in farewell.

Matt waved back, then turned around to shiver with his companions.

Sir Orizhan noticed. “What troubles you, Lord Wizard?”

“I just found out that poukas can shift their shapes to include clothing,” Matt said. “Makes sense—what else would they do with all that horsehair?”

Sir Orizhan glanced back at the shore, then forced a smile, though he shivered, too, as he turned back. “They came to us with saddles and bridles, my lord. Who can say what was in the saddlebags?”

“Good point,” Matt acknowledged. “Me, I didn’t check.”

“Nor did I,” Sir Orizhan confirmed. “There were other matters more pressing.”

Old Meg was a very poor host, at least for the original three companions—she spent the whole crossing in quiet but earnest conversation with Rosamund, who seemed dazed by what she learned, then with Brion, and the young man’s face became more grave with every sentence. Matt felt indignation mushroom within him, but tried to stifle it—the old druid priestess had paid enough attention to him on the way to Erin, after all, most of it unwelcome.

But when the ship grounded on the Bretanglian shore and Old Meg clambered out after her passengers, Matt had an even bigger surprise in store, for the old woman knelt stiffly before Brion and cried, “Hail, rightful King of Bretanglia! Long may you live, and long may your line flourish!”

Matt stared, astounded, and Rosamund’s face seemed to close into a mask, no doubt resenting Meg’s presuming the princess’ part in the flourishing of the royal line, but Brion seemed to grow and swell with every word, becoming something greater than human. Matt realized all over again that in this universe it was no mere fable that the king became the embodiment of his people and his land.

“You have given me honor and countenance,” Brion told her, “and for that, I shall name you—”

“You shall name me nothing!” the woman said sharply, glaring up at him. “I am only Old Meg, as I have been these many years, and nothing more—nothing that any king or sheriff need know of, at least.”

“Meaning that you are and always have been a druid priestess,” Matt said quietly.

Old Meg turned her glare upon him. “The fisher-folk know me only as a wise woman, young man. Who are you to say otherwise?”

“A wizard,” Matt answered, “and one whom you sent to Erin. But if you’re a druid, why do you kneel to a king of Bretanglia, and one who, moreover, hasn’t an ounce of Celtic blood in him?”

Brion stared at Matt, startled, but Old Meg said evenly, “Not all of us fled to Erin or Scotland, or even Wales. I am a druid and a Celt, aye, but I am a Celt of Bretanglia, and no matter his parentage, this young man is rightwise born king of this country. By his deeds and his actions he has shown that he cares immensely about the common people and their land, cares as much as he does for the nobility and their castles— and more than he cares for the lands in Merovence from which his mother and father sprang.”

“That is so,” Brion said quietly. “I fought to inherit my mother’s patrimony and would have taken it gladly, but my heart was truly in Bretanglia.”

“Then you are the first of your line of whom that is true,” Old Meg said, “since the first of those foreign hussies wed your great-grandfather and turned the eyes of your house southward. It is for that I kneel to you, not for your father’s crown or your mother’s heart.”

“Then, Your Majesty,” Matt said, “you have as much as been crowned by a bishop, for this woman is of the clergy, too, though not Christian.”

Brion turned back to Old Meg, startled, but the woman rose stiffly. Sergeant Brock sprang to her aid and she took his arm gladly, smiling up at Brion with triumph. “It is true what he says, Your Majesty. I am as much a senior druid as any woman, as my age should tell, and am very much like one of your archbishops. I will tell you further that a great number of your people still follow us druids, though many of them are also Christians. That is why there was never any great chance that these mock druids would ever gain the whole land—there are too many of us who knew them for what they are. Oh, there are far more of your people who are Christians, or were before they flocked to the false priests for the pleasures and cruelties your church would never allow—but there are enough druid folk to form an army or two, and these will rise and march behind you wherever you go.”

Then Old Meg stepped aside, gesturing down the beach. “Behold your first legion!”

Looking where she pointed, Brion saw a crowd of fishermen marching toward him along the sand, hard-faced and hard-handed, each with his filleting knife and his belaying pin thrust through his belt, each with his harpoon or his sharpened gaff hook in his hand. The young king seemed to expand still more, a smile glowing on his face, and when the fishermen knelt and cried with one voice, “Hail, King of Bretanglia!” he spread his arms wide, as though he would embrace them all.

Then an older man with grizzled hair and beard stood up before him. “We are come to march against the false druids and their cattle, Your Majesty! Where would you have us go?”

“Why, inland,” Brion said quietly. “Let us march!”

Then two men came from the trees that lined the shore, each leading two horses. They bowed to Sir Orizhan and Matt, handing them the reins.

Sir Orizhan turned to Rosamund. “My lady, will you ride?”

“I thank you, sir,” she said. “I shall.”

She mounted, but her gaze was on Brion—a troubled gaze, even hurt, for he seemed oblivious to her of a sudden, mounting his huge warhorse with the help of two of the fishermen, then turning to give them a quick, encouraging speech. They all cheered in answer, waving their weapons, but as Brion turned to lead the march, he gave Rosamund one brief, dazzling smile, and reached out to clasp her hand. Almost shyly, she gave it to him, squeezed the chain-mail palm of his gauntlet, then let it go and rode after him, seeming much reassured.

Matt mounted and fell in behind her, wondering if he would ever again be able to trust any steed. Then he noticed that the fourth horse followed Sir Orizhan on a leading rein with its saddle empty. Looking around, he saw Sergeant Brock marching beside the older fisherman, already deep in conversation. Matt smiled to himself, reflecting that the sergeant had already taken his natural position as leader, whether he realized it or not.

Into the forest they rode, with a fisherman walking before them, one who seemed to know the trails well, and Matt wondered how many midnight smuggling trains the man had led down this very path.

They were deep into the woods when howls broke out on every side, and four knights charged out of the leaves with a hundred footmen behind them, spears flashing through the leaf-filtered patches of sunlight.

Matt cursed his own stupidity even as he lugged out his sword and parried the cut from the nearest knight. He had known he was fighting a powerful sorcerer; of course the man had served where they would come ashore and what route they would travel!

But the fishermen were proving their worth against the spearmen, harpoons cracking against spear shafts, then stabbing home through leather armor. Other spears jabbed back at them, and here and there a fisherman screamed and fell, but more of them whirled even as they jerked out their gaff hooks and swept the next spear aside, then struck the spearmen low with an iron-tipped blow.

Matt parried and thrust, crying,

He thought he heard someone call, “Why, here I am!” but couldn’t turn to look—he was too busy ducking under a slash and catching the knight’s arm, yanking hard and turning his horse. Caught off balance, the knight shouted in anger as he fell from the saddle. A fisherman accidentally-on-purpose kicked him in the helmet, hard, since he happened to be passing by, and the knight went limp. His charger stepped over his fallen body, rearing and striking out with his hooves at anyone who came near—who just happened to be another knight, riding in to cut at Matt. The hooves struck him on helmet and shoulder, and the knight fell, out cold before he hit the ground.

Brion, roaring, finished dispatching the third knight by more conventional tactics—but the fourth shouted, “Retreat!” and galloped away, his men running to catch up with him. A scream of rage floated after him, and Matt, looking up, saw Rosamund facedown over the knight’s saddlebow, kicking and flailing with her fists.

“They have taken the princess!” Brion cried, agony in his voice. “After them, men of mine! They must not have her!”

“Majesty, no!” Matt caught Brion’s bridle. “That’s just what the enemy want you to do—go chasing off over half of Bretanglia instead of standing to battle against their army! Out there, they can lay a dozen ambushes for you, slay you before you’re halfway to Gloucester!”

“What matter!” Brion cried. “What use is my life without Rosamund? Let John rule, let the mock druids run rampant for all I care! Cast away my crown and my kingdom! Nothing matters, nothing has any worth without her!” He turned to the fishermen. “Run, to rescue the princess!”

The fishermen answered with a shout of determination, and Matt realized that no king would be able to keep the loyalty of his people if he couldn’t even rescue his queen—or lady-love, in this case. Matt let go of Brion’s reins. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

Brion’s stallion leaped ahead. Matt kicked his heels into his horse’s sides and took off after the king, but Sir Orizhan was already ahead of him.

They left the fishermen to their headman and Sergeant Brock as they rode pell-mell through the forest. The knight and his surviving soldiers had left a broad trail and weren’t at all hard to follow. Within ten minutes Brion came in sight of them.

The rearguard heard the drumming of hooves, looked back and shouted with dismay, leaping aside from the virtual tank that was Brion in full armor on a Clydesdale. They knew he wasn’t after them. But they recovered from their terror in time to jab at Matt and Sir Orizhan, who weren’t armored. It was a mistake, for both men laid about them with swords. One or two footmen bled for their temerity, but the rest were smart enough to pull back.

Brion swerved his horse in front of the knight, meeting him with a body block that shivered both their horses but held them firm. The enemy knight instantly set the tip of his sword against Rosamund’s back. “Strike, and she dies!”

“Coward and caitiff, to hide behind a woman!” Brion raged.

“Oh yes, you are a man of honor,” the other knight sneered. “How much is that—”

Then the lasso settled about his neck, Matt jerked backward, and he went sprawling over his horse’s hindquarters, squalling.

Brion caught Rosamund to him, pressing her fervently against himself even as he settled her on his saddlebow. “My lady, I thought you were lost, and all the world lost with you!”

Rosamund only gave a single cry of relief and joy, pressing herself against his breastplate, then shoved herself away and leaped to the ground. “Do as you must, my lord and king!”

“As I must indeed!” Brion glared at the enemy knight.

The man was just fighting free of the loop of rope, crying, “What coward’s weapon is this!”

“A coward’s weapon for a coward,” Matt returned, “and a treacherous attack for treachery.”

“I shall sever your—” Then the knight saw Brion, sitting like a mountain above the foothills of his horse, impassive and immobile, his sword raised to guard.

“I am unarmed!” the knight protested, holding up empty hands.

“Give him his sword,” Brion grated, and a fisherman sprang to scoop the blade from the ground and offer it hilt first to the enemy knight.

“I would advise you to take it, sir,” Matt told the man. “You know the punishment for cowardice in a knight.”

Actually, he didn’t, but the enemy knight must have, for he accepted the blade and held it up to guard even as he fumbled his shield up from its hook on his saddle.

“Lay on!” Brion shouted, and struck.

Five blows later the enemy knight lay stretched on the ground.

“Shell him,” Brion grunted, “then bind his wounds and chain him. He may yet prove of some worth as a hostage. Heaven knows he had little enough as a knight.”

Then he sheathed his sword, turned his horse away, and dismounted heavily. Sergeant Brock sprang to take the shield from him, men the helmet, as Brion turned to fold Rosamund into his arms with a glad cry. She came willingly, and he buried his face in her hair, murmuring, “My lady, I feared you were lost to me!”

“I was not,” she told him, head on his shoulder. “I knew you would prevent it.”

“I would defend you against all Hell’s legions,” Brion declared fervently.

Matt didn’t doubt it, even though Brion was bound to lose—if he hadn’t had several patron saints on his side.

What else they said to one another was lost to Matt and everyone else, it was so softly spoken. Of course, it didn’t help the eavesdroppers that Sir Orizhan sternly pressed them back, saying, “Give them space, if you value the freedom of your country.”

The fishermen moved away with looks that ranged from impatience through sly grins to tenderness.

Later, as they rode behind Brion, with peasants acclaiming him loudly at every crossroads, Matt managed to press his horse up beside Rosamund’s long enough to tell her, “When they kidnapped you, he went kind of crazy.”

“Crazed?” Rosamund turned to him, suddenly intense. “In what fashion?”

“He said to cast away his crown and his kingdom, because nothing else mattered, nothing had any worth without you.”

“Did he truly?” Rosamund turned back to watch Brion with a slight smile and a glint in her eye. “Perhaps there is some truth to his troubadour’s extravagant phrases, after all.”

Nonetheless, when they pitched camp that night, and the peasants and fishermen were passing the aleskins and getting to know one another by discussing the relative merits of pruning hooks versus gaff hooks as weapons, Brion came up to Rosamund where she sat by her campfire, his armor laid aside, his manner stiff and formal. “Highness, I must ask your pardon.”

Rosamund looked up at him with a glad smile that froze as she saw the stiffness of his face. “Apologies for what, Majesty?”

Inwardly, Matt groaned.

“For presuming to show you affection,” Brion said, every word creaking, “when we cannot be betrothed.”

Rosamund went rigid. “My pardon is given, Majesty.”

This time Matt groaned aloud. “What is it with you two? Can’t you see that how you feel about each other is what really matters?”

Sudden vulnerability showed in both faces, and Brion protested, “But we cannot wed without the leave of our fathers!”

It is given, it is given! howled a voice inside Mart’s head.

Matt ignored it “Her father betrothed her to the heir to the crown of Bretanglia. Do you really think he’d take that back just because the actual person has changed?”

Brion hesitated, but Rosamund said, almost angrily, “He certainly would not!”

“But there is still my father to be considered,” Brion protested.

Loyalty can go too far, exclaimed the exasperated voice inside Matt’s head.

“All right, let’s consider your father,” Matt said. “Why does his opinion matter?”

“Why, because a prince may not wed without the permission of…” Brion’s voice trailed off as his gaze drifted away from Matt to Rosamund.

She gazed back, speechless.

“You may not marry without the permission of your king,” Matt finished for him. “But you are King of Bretanglia now. At least, you’re the rightful king, and the man who wears the crown is a usurper, brother or not!”

“Why, that is so.” Slowly, Brion knelt before Rosamund and asked, “My lady, will you marry me?”

“Oh, yes, Brion, with all my heart!” Rosamund threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, tolerating no nonsense about chaste symbols.

Matt turned away to find his pallet. After all, it had been a long day.

His last thought was wondering which spirit of perversity had come to help him when he had called for accidents during the ambush.

They marched through the countryside, and as Old Meg had predicted, peasants joined him at every crossroads. Soon there were merchants with them, then squires, then knights. No lords joined them—they had estates to consider—but several of their younger sons came in.

“Doesn’t that show the lords’ hearts are with you?” Matt asked.

“No, it shows only that they wish to be sure that no matter who wins, their families will still keep their estates,” Brion told him. “We must watch those younger sons closely, Lord Wizard. There may be traitors among them.”

Matt set his spies to watching—fishermen and peasants, and a squire or two—but they found nothing suspicious about the younger sons. In fact, they reported that the young men seemed to burn with eagerness to strike a blow against John and his reeves, for they had heard of the insults he was offering the nobility, trying already to make them bow to his tyranny.

Then at a crossroads in the wood, a dozen outlaws with bows and staves stepped out of the leaves in front of the king.

Brion leveled his lance and cried, “Declare yourselves!”

“We declare for King Brion and the welfare of the kingdom,” the foremost said. He carried himself like a nobleman, but he knelt, bowing his head.

“For Brion and Bretanglia!” his followers shouted, and likewise knelt even as the same slogan rang from the trees all about them: “For Brion and Bretanglia!”

Matt’s scalp prickled. He realized that there were a hundred archers all around them, probably with bows drawn. Worse, he realized what those bows could do, and doubted that anyone else there did.

The leader stood. “There is not a man of us who is not sickened by the slaughter and rapine with which this self-named ‘King’ John treats the common folk. There are already many among us who have fled to the greenwood because his soldiers have beaten the poor to pry from them every copper coin. There are more who have fled to us because the king’s druids have tortured and slain their families or sweethearts.”

“They are false druids,” Matt called out quickly.

Everyone turned to stare at him, but Brion confirmed, “They are false indeed! It is the true druids who saved my life!”

“Why, that makes most excellent sense,” the outlaw leader said, “for no true holy man could drench the land with blood as their chief Niobhyte has done! Down with the false druids, and up with the true king! We hail Brion as the savior of Bretanglia—if you will have us!”

“I welcome you, and am right glad of your allegiance,” Brion told them. “I cannot promise a pardon to every man, for I know not what crimes each has committed, or what his circumstances were—but I can promise you justice if we win!”

That didn’t seem to faze a single man; apparently they were all sure of their innocence, or at least of their justification. “We will depend upon your justice,” the outlaw chief said, “for you shall triumph, and the crown of Bretanglia shall rest upon your brow!”

“That shall be as God wills,” Brion told the man. “We can only strive as mightily as we can, and leave the victory to Him!”

“Ah, but a victory for Brion is a victory for God,” the outlaw returned. “None could think otherwise, who knew even half of what the soldiers and the druids have done.” Then he spun about and punched his forearm straight above his head, calling to his men, “For God and Brion!”

The answering shout blasted from every side: “God and Brion!”

Somehow, the word spread ahead of them. By the end of the day, every new handful of men at each crossroads greeted them with the cry, “For God, Brion, and Bretanglia!”

Still, Matt couldn’t help worrying about something the bandit leader had said—that anyone who knew even half of what Niobhyte’s minions had done would know them for what they were. He wondered just how bad the situation had become, but wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

He learned anyway, for the company passed by a monastery, and the monks streamed out to watch and to cheer. Matt was just hoping that John’s agents wouldn’t hear about their enthusiasm and burn down their abbey, when he noticed the middle-aged man and woman standing at the forefront of the crowd, waving and cheering with the rest, even though they looked somewhat haggard. Matt leaped down with a shout of delight and threw his arms around them.

“Halt!” Brion held up a hand, and the whole column slowed, then stopped.

Rosamund looked down at the older couple, who were laughing and hugging Matt with tears in their eyes. “Lord Wizard,” she asked, “do you know these people?”

“Since the day I was born, Your Highness!” Matt turned to her and gestured to the couple. “You remember my mother and father, Prof—uh, Lord and Lady Mantrell!”

Mama and Papa bowed to Rosamund.

“Your apologies,” she stammered. “I did not know you. But why are you dressed in peasant garb?”

“To hear the peasants’ grievances, Your Highness,” Mama told her, then turned to bow again to Brion, crying, “Your Majesty!”

“I must thank you both for bringing this man into the world and for rearing him so well,” Brion returned, “for without him, I suspect I would still be sleeping in Erin, and the fairest gem in the land might have been lost.” He reached out and caught Rosamund’s hand. “Will you join our march?”

That evening, when they pitched camp, Matt made a separate campfire for his parents and, over dinner, asked what he didn’t want to know.

“It has been horrible,” Mama said with a shudder. “We have fought it wherever we can, of course, but it sweeps the land like wildfire.”

“The false druids are preaching what people want to hear,” Papa said, “that they can do whatever they wish without worrying about the consequences.”

“But there are consequences,” Matt said softly. “There always are.”

“Always,” Mama agreed, “but by the time they begin to show, the druids are too thoroughly in power, backed by so-called acolytes who are really only bullying sadists who revel in the misery they cause in their false sacrifices to the old gods.”

Matt braced himself. “How bad are they?”

“Very bad,” Papa said with a shudder. “They practice all the tortures that the real druids used for sacrifice on their feast-days, such as making giant wicker-work statues with living people inside, then burning them alive.”

“But they have invented other obscene rites that the true druids never imagined.” Mama shuddered. “I have seen the beginnings, but have managed to turn away, then chant my spells and turn their own cruelty back upon them.”

“I watched while she chanted,” Papa said. “I saw, and hope I shall someday forget.”

Matt felt panic rising. “You should have gone home to Merovence the minute you saw you couldn’t stop them!”

“We could not,” Mama said simply. “There was too much suffering we could prevent.”

“How?” Matt cried. “The sorcerers must have been able to tell who was interfering with their own gruesome magic!”

“Ah.” Papa almost smiled. “In that, we were fortunate—I think.”