The Oathbound Wizard

CHAPTER 26 Passing Review

"People," he should have said—there was no way Maid Marian was going to be left behind. Matt would have liked to make it "beings," but he thought the king might draw the line at Stegoman and Narlh.

Of course, that meant he still had to explain it to them.

"You're opposite elements, you see," he said. "He's a king of water, and you're spirits of fire."

Stegoman exchanged a jaundiced glance with Narlh.

"Right, fire-breath," the dracogriff grunted. "He's making excuses."

"No, now, really! I mean, how would you feel if a water monster came into your nest and..."

"Lord Wizard." Sinelle touched his arm. "My great-father will not object to one of these beasts, if you truly wish it."

Matt stared.

"See, now?" Narlh grinned. "Should've asked, shouldn'cha?"

"Well...I just assumed..."

"Natheless,—'tis only the one of us," Stegoman snorted, "which I can comprehend readily enough. Nay, Wizard, say which it shall be."

Matt swallowed and turned back to look from monster to monster.

"I have more of fire in me," Stegoman allowed, "and am the stronger flier."

"Stronger?" Narlh yelped. "Look, lizard-brain—who's got the feathers here?"

The dragon turned, scowling. "Dost thou think to best a dragon in the far reaches of the air?"

"Hey, just because I don't enjoy it, doesn't mean..."

"Gentles, gentles!" Sinelle held up a hand, repressing a smile. "Did I not sense that the dragon did mean to be so gracious as to step aside and let the dracogriff have the place of honor?"

Narlh's head swiveled to stare at Stegoman.

The dragon shifted restlessly. "In truth, I had liefer go than stay.—'Twill be a glorious exploit, live or die, and—"

"Yeah, that's right!" Narlh snapped his beak for emphasis. "And I need the reputation more than you do!"

"And are not the dragon's equal in courtesy," Sinelle said sweetly.

"Hey, now, wait a minute! You can't say he's willing to be more self-sacrificing than I am! i'm just as humble as he is! And I'll prove it! Dragon, you can go jump in the pool! I'll stay with the siege!"

"I would not rob thee of so rich a courtesy," Stegoman began.

"Then do not." Sinelle snapped both hands wide in a gesture of finality. "Allow him the gallant gesture. Do you let him ride the high air, whiles you do accompany us beneath the sea."

Narlh stared, as if wondering if he'd been tricked out of something good, after all.

Matt wondered, too. Sinelle had managed it very deftly—he had to keep reminding himself that she was twice his age. And she had definitely wanted Stegoman on the submarine raid. He wondered why.

Not that he had time to think about it. Robin Hood touched his arm, saying, "Lord Wizard, we are in readiness. Do you pass in review, and say if anything lacks."

He was going to tell Robin Hood if everything was ready for a raid? He, the little boy who had read Howard Pyle with the reverence due the Bible?

But he was the resident wizard, and it was the magical side of things Robin was asking him to check, not the physical. Matt dutifully paced the line of recruits, merry men and peasants, knights and squires, all the defenders who had stood together against the siege of evil at the castle, about to become besiegers in their own turn.

They looked ready. Very. If there was any flaw, Matt certainly couldn't spot it.

Then the irony struck—Robin Hood asking him for a magical review, when he had a wizard of his own handy. Or did he realize it? Slowly, Matt turned to Friar Tuck. "Good Father, may I ask you to survey us all and say if you see any defect of spirit that might weaken us before the army of evil?"

Robin and Marian both looked startled, and Tuck fairly blushed. "I am only a meek and humble friar..."

Little John nearly choked on a smothered laugh.

"It's part of your office," Matt nudged.

Tuck stood still for a moment. Then he lifted his head with a sigh and stepped forward to scan the troops.

And, suddenly, there was a great deal of tension in the room. Either these men knew Tuck's powers, no matter how modestly he disguised them, or they were taken by surprise—for everyone in the room felt a sudden, searching pressure pass over them all.

It vanished as Tuck turned away, eyes unfocused, as if still in a trance.

"Is all well?" Matt asked softly.

"With them, aye," Tuck answered, as if from far away. "Lord Wizard, step aside with me."

The troops stared, and Matt felt a thrill of alarm pass through him—but Friar Tuck was stepping over into a small chamber that opened off the great hall, into a screened passage, and what could Matt do but follow?

There, the monk slipped his stole out of his pocket, kissed it, and slipped it around his neck. He folded his hands, bowing his head, and waited.

Matt realized it was time for confession.

Trouble was, he had no idea what to confess. Sure, he'd made a lot of mistakes since he'd come to Ibile, but he hadn't exactly been absent from the confessional, and surely his chat with the angel had counted as reconciliation. He hadn't committed any major sins since then, if you didn't count killing sorcerers and their henchmen in self-defense. "Father...I have no idea..."

"Why have you come to Ibile?" The friar's voice seemed wafted to him on a breeze from distant places.

Matt began to realize he was talking to more than just Friar Tuck. "Why, to unseat the usurper from the throne and restore goodness to Ibile." A sudden urge for truthfulness overwhelmed him. "Or, at least, to open the way to goodness. I don't know if I can do any restoring myself."

"In essence, that is good. But your motive may contaminate your purpose, Lord Wizard. Why? What is your personal desire in this? Have you come to be a king?"

"Well...yes," Matt admitted. "I had planned on taking the throne. What's wrong with that? I'm certainly better than the current inhabitant. On the other hand, that doesn't take much—"

"Yet it requires a great deal, to be a good king." The monk sighed. "You are not of the blood royal, Lord Wizard; you have not the qualities required of a prince."

Anger sprouted, but Matt recognized that Tuck was not entirely speaking for himself alone. Maybe he had no right to catechize Matt, but Whoever was speaking through him did. "You're saying that I am no more the rightful monarch than the current king."

"Even so. Ask of yourself, Wizard-'Why do I seek to rule? Is it for the good of the people, for the greater glory of God?' "

"No—it's so that I can qualify to marry Queen Alisande." The words were out almost before Matt realized he was saying them, and he stood there, appalled at what he had just heard.

Tuck made a sound like the air expiring from a concert organ and said, "You must not take the throne for your own personal purposes, Lord Wizard, no matter how worthy. It is of the people we speak, and what is best for them. Know, too, that the rightful heir to the throne of Ibile stands within this Great Hall hard by us."

That was hard—it jolted Matt like a short circuit. His head snapped up, and he stared at the monk—who was staring past Matt at something that he couldn't see. No, he didn't doubt for a moment that Tuck had spoken the truth. "The...real heir? Not Sir Guy de Toutarien!"

"Nay. 'Tis the maiden holds clear title."

Yverne? Matt stared. Sure, she was noble—but he couldn't quite see her as a reigning monarch. Alisande, she wasn't.

Then he stood stock still, letting that last thought filter down through all the layers of his consciousness. No, she wasn't Alisande, was she? Beautiful, gentle, kind—but not his Alisande.

The pang of loss was sudden and huge. "But Father! All my plans, all my pain—and I still can't marry the woman I love?"

"If it is best for the kingdom and the people, you will wed." But Tuck went on inexorably, "If it is not, you will not. You must chance that loss, wizard. For you to seek to win a throne is hubris."

Matt knew the term. The ancient Greeks had used it, for the overweening pride of a man who sought to rival the gods. In his own time and place, it had meant a man who had thought he was something he wasn't—who had sought to become something that was alien to his true nature. Hubris—overweening pride, stemming from lack of self-knowledge.

"Neither a throne, nor a queen," the monk droned. "If you are not born a king, you cannot become one—you can only usurp, which is a heinous sin as well as a heinous crime."

"Usurp...a wife?" Matt croaked.

"Even so. If she is yours, God will bring you together. If she is someone else's, or no man's, He will not."

The rage boiled up, and for a moment Matt was on the knife's edge, near the point of bellowing his frustration at Friar Tuck and telling them all where to go...But he caught himself at the last moment, held back the words, let the rage fill him and start to slacken...

And remorse rushed in to fill the void where the anger had been. Matt bowed his head, realizing how close he had come to being untrue to himself, and therefore to Alisande; how close he had come to making both their lives miserable, and those of hundreds of thousands of common people, too. For a moment, he had almost played into the hands of the lord of evil; but thanks to Tuck, he had sheered off at the last second.

That didn't mean he had to like the friar for it, though.

"Thanks, Father," he muttered. "I abjure the throne. I will unseat the sorcerer if I can, even as I've sworn—but I will seek to place the rightful monarch on the throne, not myself."

"It is well." Tuck sketched the Sign of the Cross in the air. "Go in peace, my son—and in hope, for she may yet be yours. I assure you, I shall search without rest, to seek a way to justify the marriage of a lord born a commoner, with a monarch reigning. But though you may be a consort, you shall never be a king."

"All I want is to be her husband," Matt muttered. "Put the titles on the shelf, Friar. I'll read them later."

The field was empty of foemen, except for the dead. There were no enemies wounded or dying—their own knights had slain them as they retreated.

"But wherefore?" Sauvignon's agony of soul was written in his face. "Why would they slay their own men?"

"Wherefore not?" the sergeant said dryly. "These were of no more use to the sorcerer, after all."

"But they might have escaped! They might have gone back to the sorcerer's army!"

"None go willingly to Gordogrosso's armies, I think," Alisande said slowly. "Belike they would choose to stay and fight for us, if they could surrender."

"Would they slay these men for treachery that they might commit?"

"They would," the sergeant confirmed. "Wherefore give strength to the enemy? Yet I think 'tis more than that, milord."

Sauvignon turned to him, scowling. "What should it be?"

But the sergeant only glanced at him, then glanced away.

" 'Tis their souls, Marquis," Alisande said gently. "If they had not slain them, these men might have repented on their deathbeds and have cheated Hell of a few more souls."

Sauvignon only stared at her, then turned away. The sight of bloody entrails and torn limbs hadn't sickened him, but this did.

"Peace, milord," Ortho murmured. " 'Tis not the speaking that matters, nor e'en the unvoiced words in the mind, but the thought itself, the upwelling of repentance in the single sharp surge that takes but a moment; and such could have come to each of these, in the moment of their deaths."

"And if it did not?" Sauvignon grated.

"If it did not, they have gone where they chose."

"But how if they did not so choose?" Sauvignon rounded on him. "How if many among them would have repented, if they'd known of their deaths—but did not, for the blow that laid them low came from behind! As, look you, it did, for most among them."

Ortho didn't bat an eyelash. "How if they would have repented, if they could have? Ah, my lord!" He heaved a sigh. "Were not most of these constrained to fight, whether they would or no? How many among them did already repent, and secretly asked forgiveness of God for not having courage enough to face the death by torture that would have come of saying no to the sorcerer's press-gang?"

Sauvignon stared at him for a moment, then said, "Well asked. How then?"

But, "I know not," was all Ortho could answer. "These are questions for a priest, my lord, not for a poor sexton whose soul was too wild to stay in cloister long enough to become so much as a deacon."

Sauvignon held his gaze, then nodded with gruff apology. "'Tis even so. I thank you for this much hope, at least." He turned to the queen. "Majesty, may we summon the chaplain?"

"We may, my lord, when he is done with the work of his office." Alisande gestured down-slope, and Sauvignon turned, surprised, to see the priest who had accompanied the expedition on his knees in the mud, his vial of blessed oil in his hand, marking the Sign of the Cross on each dead soldier, reciting the words of the last annointing in a quick mutter before he rose and went on to the next corpse.

"They may be damned," Alisande said, "but he, at least, finds room for doubt."

Sauvignon saw, and his eyes gleamed. He straightened, and she could almost see his spirit rise.

Ortho saw, too, and smiled. "The sorcerer may have dominion in this world, my lord, but not in the next."

"Why, then, let us reave him of even that!" Sauvignon clapped a hand to his sword hilt and looked up at Alisande with the lust for battle in his eyes. "Let us march, Majesty! Unleash us 'gainst the tyrant!"

Alisande decided that even the ugliest man might have a beautiful soul.