The Haunted Wizard Read online

  "As both," Drustan snapped. "Deintenir must go to my son when I die!"

  Alisande's eyes flared at the word "must," but she kept her voice level. "I care not, so long as he acknowledges me, or my heir, as his suzerain in those provinces, even as you do, Duke and Duchess."

  "I hold Deintenir from my childless uncle," Drustan said, "but my son's claim will be far stronger. He will inherit his provinces from both his parents, and therefore should hold them in his own name as part of his own kingdom."

  "He will hold Deintenir as your son, and Pykta as Petronille's." Alisande sounded weary. "Therefore he will hold each province from only one parent. Am I to give all my northern coast to your line for no greater cause than half kinship?"

  "Give the province to itself, Majesty!" Petronille urged. "I have inherited Pykta from my father, and am your vassal, but I have more sons than one. When I die, let Brion hold Pykta in his own right, and let it be a sovereign princedom in itself!"

  Drustan rounded on her. "Would you split the domain only so that your favorite need not kneel to his elder brother?"

  "Would you deny Brion everything?" Petronille returned. "You have granted all of Wales to his brother already, and refused him Scotia!"

  "Scotia and Bretanglia became one kingdom when my Scottish father married my Anglian mother," Drustan retorted. "They must not be sundered again!"

  "Then spare him Pykta as his own princedom!"

  "Done!"

  "But not by me," Alisande said, as he had known she would. Her voice rang with iron. "Pykta is mine, but I shall be proud to name Brion my vassal, if he will take seizin from me."

  Drustan surged to his feet, face red with rage, bellowing, "Do you dare deny my right? If I say my son shall have Pykta, he shall have it, by your leave or no! And when he weds Rosamund, he shall have Toulenge, too!"

  "Deintenir, Pykta, and Toulenge?" Matt cried, scandalized. "That's a third of Merovence!"

  "The law of inheritance is clear!" Drustan thundered. "If a third of your realm is my son's birthright and his wife's dowry, that is your bad fortune!"

  Alisande sat unmoving, face stony, eyes gimlets. Matt rose with a feral grin, stepping a little toward Drustan, but before either of them could speak, Petronille declared, "Brion must be his own master!"

  "Pykta is a small province, with rocky soil and no mines," Alisande pointed out. "It has little wealth and few soldiers. If it were a separate land, it would be quickly conquered by Merovence or Bretanglia or, worse, by a foreign power, most probably Ibile."

  "Pykta shall triumph and remain free," Petronille returned, "if mighty Brion defends it."

  "Is he a superhuman warrior, then, this perfect knight of yours?" Drustan demanded.

  "Are you jealous of your own son?" Petronille retorted, and they were off again.

  Alisande leaned back, unable to hide her weariness.

  They all knew that neither side would yield, and that the issue could only be settled by battle. Drustan and Petronille were simply trying to provoke Alisande into giving them grounds to declare war, and she was determined to avoid it. Fortunately, the two of them couldn't agree long enough to force her hand.

  Matt sighed; it was going to be a long evening.

  The common room at the Inn of the Courier Snail boomed with laughter, ribald verse, and off-key song. Smoke from a wide fireplace curled along the low rafters, darkened with a century and more of poor ventilation. The hearth held a fragrant kettle of stew and a variety of fowls roasting on spits. Minstrels sang in two different corners with no fear of anyone more than twenty feet away hearing them—and if the streets outside were not the safest nor the neighborhood quite the most refined, well, the kind of amusements the northern soldiers sought could scarcely have been found at a more luxurious hostelry.

  Serving wenches threaded their way through the crowds in excellent form. The landlord filled one tankard after another from a huge barrel of table wine. He was rosy-cheeked and sweating with warmth, smiling with great good cheer—the Bretanglian soldiers of the royal bodyguard were good for business. Oh, there had been the predictable quarrels with the locals, about beef and ale being better than frogs' legs and wine, but they managed to avoid coming to blows, partly because the prostitutes had beguiled the more quarrelsome away upstairs to another kind of conflict, and the Bretanglians were now playing at draughts and at dice with good fellowship and amiable insults. After all, each side could claim not to understand the other because of its barbarous accent.

  The scream tore across the common room, and Laetri, the most skillful of the inn's prostitutes, came tumbling down the stairs against the back wall. Everyone was instantly silent, all eyes turned to the scene of sudden violence, as the Bretanglian nobleman came striding down the stairs, his dagger raised. Oh, he wore the livery of a common soldier, but his bearing marked him as an aristocrat, as did his accent as he snarled, "Little thief! Give back my purse, or I'll cut out your heart!"

  "I didn't take it!" Laetri stumbled to her feet, clutching the rags of her bodice to her, and men stared at the bruises on her face, the streaks of blood on her back and arms. "I didn't touch your purse," she cried, "and you gave me nothing from it! Pargas, help me!"

  Her pimp stepped between her and the nobleman, pulling two small clubs from his belt, one in each hand. "You'll not get out of paying her wages simply by crying thief, milord."

  "What lord?" the Bretanglian cried, enraged. "I'm only a common soldier, you fool!"

  "Oh! Well, if you're only a trooper, then I might as well give you a drubbing till you pay!"

  The Bretanglian soldiers came to their feet, hands going to their daggers. Their Merovencian fellow gamblers stood up, too, reaching for clubs and dirks, suddenly much less hospitable.

  The landlord, seeing a riot coming, stepped up, crying, "Please, goodmen, not in here!"

  A tall, older man in peasant dress stepped up to the nobleman. "Your Highness, this is not fitting! You shame yourself!"

  "Get away from me with your mealy-mouthed preaching, Orizhan," the nobleman snarled, and shoved the disguised knight away. He stumbled back and fell.

  "I do not preach, and my mouth has no meal!" a Bretanglian sergeant said, stepping up to glare at Pargas. "I am Sergeant Brock, and I shall grind your bones if you defy my lord!"

  Sir Orizhan scrambled to his feet, his face red. "We are guests in this land!"

  But the nobleman took courage from the sergeant's support and snarled at Pargas. "Insolent fellow! I'll teach you some manners, and your whore some honesty!" He leaped on the pimp, dagger flashing.

  Pargas howled, stumbling back against the wall, blood spreading from a gash in his left shoulder—but his right arm swung its club.

  The Bretanglian sergeant shouted and leaped in to block the club, his own dagger stabbing. Two Merovencian toughs bellowed in anger and jumped him.

  Sir Orizhan ran to help Sergeant Brock, crying, "Put up your weapons, I beg you!"

  A Merovencian tough whacked him with a club. He fell back into the arms of the nobleman, who tossed him aside in disgust, leaving him to rise again or not, as the fortunes of battle might have it. Then the Bretanglian nobleman took a firmer hold on his dagger and went after Pargas again as two Merovencians jumped on Sergeant Brock. Two of Brock's troopers ran to help, and four Merovencians fell on them.

  As one, the foreigners turned on the locals, and in seconds the whole room was one huge brawl. Stools swung as weapons. Men lifted other stools as shields. Knives streaked, clubs cracked, and men bellowed rage at one another.

  Then a scream cut across the shouting, a scream of such horror and anguish that all the men froze and turned to stare.

  Laetri was shoving herself into a corner, screaming and screaming, and Pargas, bleeding from half a dozen knife cuts, stood in front of her, panting but with his club still raised—and staring, appalled at the same sight that terrified Laetri.

  The Bretanglian nobleman lay on his back in a pool of his own blood, a bruise on his forehead, h
is eyes wide and staring but seeing nothing, nor would those eyes ever see anything again.

  The silence of shock gripped the whole room. Then Sergeant Brock shook off the brawler who had fallen on top of him, shoved himself to his feet and sprang to the fallen man. "Your Highness!"

  Sir Orizhan moaned, sick with dread.

  "Highness?" Dread washed over Pargas' features.

  "Of course!" the sergeant shouted. "You knew he was no common soldier, no matter how he was dressed!" He glared at Laetri. "You have been honored with the touch of the heir to the throne of Bretanglia, woman—Gaheris, Prince of Wales!"

  "Hon—Honored?" Laetri could only touch the bruise on her cheek, a sob catching in her throat.

  Then the innkeeper pointed, howling. "Stop him!"

  Whirling, everyone saw the man just as he sprang out the window and into the night. With the howl of the hunting pack, locals and visitors alike tore out the door to give chase.

  The innkeeper turned to Pargas and Laetri, shooing them toward the kitchen. "Out of my house, scoundrels! Out the back door and into the alley, for I'll have no more of your troublemaking here!"

  Half a dozen Bretanglian soldiers stepped into their path, and a hard hand caught the innkeeper's arm. He turned to see Sir Orizhan, flint-eyed and grim. "A nice try, landlord, and you might indeed have helped your friends escape—but I am the companion assigned to protect the prince, and I'll not take the blame for this alone! Corin! Ferol! Bind these three and take them to the castle—and do it quickly, before that rat pack comes back!"

  Alisande's lady-in-waiting laid down the brush. "There! Your Majesty's hair glistens like the sun! Shall I braid it?"

  "I shall do that myself tonight." Alisande stood up, clad in only her shift and long blond hair. "I thank you for your ministrations, ladies, but I shall tell you good-night now. It has been a long and wearying day."

  "Good night, then, Your Majesty." The senior lady curtsied, and the others after her. They went out the door, already beginning to murmur in amazement at their young sovereign's strength in standing against the worst arguments and tempers of her royal guests.

  The door closed behind them—and Alisande turned to throw open the other door, the one that connected to Matt's suite. He stood there waiting and came in, arms up to embrace. Alisande all but fell into them, buried her face in his shoulder and let herself go limp at last, let herself stop being strong, let herself take refuge for a few moments in her husband's love. "What a horrible family!" she said into Matt's chest.

  "Not the worst I've seen, but certainly in the running for second place," he agreed. "With so much bickering, it's a wonder they can govern their kingdom at all!"

  Alisande pushed herself a little away, though not far. "You cannot entirely blame Petronille if she is a virago, though—not with a husband like that."

  "What—aside from the fact that she doesn't dare turn her back on him for a second? Look at it this way, Drustan's entirely dependable—she can depend on him to betray her anytime he takes it into his head to want something that might hurt her!"

  "Well, be fair to him," Alisande said with a half smile. "He never stops to think whether or not his actions will hurt her, or anyone else."

  "Right. He knows what he wants, and he sets about getting it, and if anybody gets in his way, too bad."

  Alisande shuddered. "How could a woman marry a man like that?"

  "Oh, I expect he looked a lot better twenty years ago," Matt said, "when he was new to kinging, and didn't realize how much power he had yet."

  "Which he may have learned from her, if the tales of her former marriage are to be believed," Alisande said.

  "She did kind of run her first husband, didn't she? But after all, she was the one who'd been born with a title."

  "Yes, and he was only a knight errant, though a handsome one by all accounts." Alisande sighed. "One wonders why he died so young."

  "Delayed action from an old wound, no doubt. Riding the tournament circuit can be dangerous."

  "So can Petronille," Alisande said darkly. She went to sit down and stare into her mirror. "Could I ever be like that, husband?"

  "Only if I didn't do my job right." Matt came up behind her, caught a stray blond lock and began to wind it about his finger. "No, I don't think you could ever be that selfish, love. You're too busy fighting off rebels and invaders, and trying to find some way to make life better for your people."

  "Sometimes it is hard to know right from wrong," Alisande said, "and one step to the wrong can begin a long slide to perdition and tyranny. What of our children, husband? How can we prevent them from becoming like those boys?"

  "By being as loving to one another and to them as we can," Matt said, remembering his own parents. "I don't think the Bretanglian princes learned insulting and pettiness on their own, after all. They tend to do what they see their parents do."

  "There's truth in that," Alisande said somberly. "I've never seen a man who matched that Gaheris for pure malice. How could the Prince of Toulenge ever have betrothed his daughter to such a one?"

  Matt shrugged. "She was only ten at the time, and I suspect Gaheris looked a lot better at fourteen. Only his parents and the servants knew the truth then."

  "And perhaps he had not begun to be such a monster, when he had little power." Alisande sighed. "Poor Rosamund! How she must have suffered in that household!"

  "You don't mean she was raised with that family!"

  "It is the custom for the fiancée to dwell with her new kinfolk as soon as they are betrothed, husband." Alisande gave him a sad smile, to reassure him for not knowing all her people's customs yet. "She must learn the ways of her new land, you see."

  "A ten-year-old girl, being torn away from home and raised among strangers?" Matt shuddered. "At least Petronille kept her close by her side."

  "So you felt that, too?"

  "Oh, yes. Besides, she had some ladies from Toulenge for company, didn't she?"

  "Aye, but King Drustan sent them all packing. He could not send Sir Orizhan away, but the ladies he could, and did."

  "I've been wondering where he came into the picture. You don't expect to find a man with a southern Merovencian accent living with the Bretanglian royal family. So he was part of the entourage that delivered little Rosamund to Bretanglia?"

  "He was appointed as her bodyguard," Alisande told him. "However, King Drustan claimed that there was no need for such while the little lady lived under his protection."

  "But he couldn't send a knight away when he was under orders from his own duke?"

  "Not without grievous insult to his new kinsman, no. Instead, Drustan assigned Sir Orizhan to tutoring his own sons in chivalry, and to keeping them from harm."

  "Broadened his assignment from one child to four, eh?" Matt frowned. "Could be that worked out for the best. If he kept an eye on the princes, he could make sure they didn't bother Rosamund too much."

  "There is that saving grace," Alisande agreed. "However, since she is so very reserved, it would appear there were times when he could not protect her."

  "Sure—whenever King Drustan or Queen Petronille were there. Maybe the queen dotes on her sons a bit more than she seems to."

  "I would say she does not seem to dote at all," Alisande said tartly, "except for her favorite, and he has not turned out so badly."

  "Brion? Yeah, he does seem to have some sense of right and wrong. I have to give the code of chivalry that much credit. Of course, his brothers know right from wrong, too. They just happen to choose Wrong."

  "John makes my skin crawl," Alisande said with a shudder. "No doubt I wrong him—he seems harmless enough, in spite of his constant whining..."

  "Not smart enough to be any danger? Hey, I've known some pretty dumb monsters, dear."

  "Perhaps," Alisande allowed, "but it is not his fault that his face is a mass of pimples and his body inclined to plumpness."

  "Still, it doesn't exactly speak of good hygiene or healthy habits," Matt pointed out. "How an
yone who claims to practice swordplay out in the tilting yard so much can still have a pasty complexion with a poolroom pallor, I can't understand."

  "He certainly seems to be a horrid little man." Alisande frowned. "What is a 'poolroom'?"

  "A place for indoor recreation, dear, like the board games that keep our knights from chopping each other to bits during the winter."

  "Only chess and the like?" Alisande smiled up at him. "I had hoped for another form of indoor recreation tonight. I need the consolation badly."

  "Well, I hope I don't do badly with my consolation." Matt leaned down to kiss her—but before his lips touched hers, there was a knock at the door.

  Alisande's lips went stiff. Matt froze for a second, then straightened with a sigh. "I could wish that the world would leave us alone for a day or two."

  "I would be glad of an hour!" Alisande turned her chair to the door and sat, squaring her shoulders. "Enter!"

  Lady Dulcet opened the door and stepped in, her face drawn and pale. "Your pardon, Majesty, but Sir Orizhan is come from town with urgent news..."

  Alisande whirled to snatch up her robe and slip her arms through the sleeves. "Bid him enter!"

  Lady Dulcet stepped aside with an air of relief. Sir Orizhan entered, stiffly erect, face taut with strain. He fell to one knee. "My liege!"

  "I am, and great is the loyalty of one who remembers such when he has sojourned nearly ten years in a foreign court," Alisande assured him. "Whatever your news, speak it straight out, no matter how grim!"

  Sir Orizhan braced himself even more. "It regards Prince Gaheris."

  Alisande stiffened. "What of him?"

  "There... there was a brawl in a tavern," Sir Orizhan told her. "The prince sought to defend the honor of a maiden, and... in the melee..."

  Alisande started out of her chair. "How badly is he hurt?"

  "The worst, Majesty. He... he is..."

  "Not dead!"

  "I fear so, Your Majesty." Sir Orizhan bowed his head as though waiting for the headsman's axe.

  Alisande sank back in her chair with a moan. She started to bow her head into her hand, then caught herself, unwilling to show such a sign of weakness even to her closest lady-in-waiting.