The Secular Wizard Read online

  "Come, Majesty!" the chancellor scoffed. "If the Devil was so displeased with your grandfather as to withdraw protection, why would he now give him power to reach out from Hell?"

  "Why, because his disappointment with the grandson has become even greater than the lapses of the grandsire!" Boncorro snapped at him, then looked away again. "But I shall not yield! I shall not become what that wicked old man was—a murderer, a child slayer—"

  "What a notion!" Rebozo cried. "You who have no children, to worry about slaying them! Come, Majesty, bolster your spirits! We shall find and defeat this sorcerer yet!"

  King Boncorro lifted a brooding gaze to him. "See that you do, Lord Chancellor, see that you do! Begin with the servants, all of them—but not with torture, mind you! Take each into a separate chamber and question him or her closely, then compare their answers and see if there is any agreement! If there is, bring word of it to me before you take any action—simple consensus is no proof of truth! It could just as easily be a sign that one person is disliked by all, and since so many of them are left from my grandfather's court, dislike of one could mean that only he can be relied upon!"

  "Majesty, it shall be done as you say." The chancellor bowed. "May I congratulate you on your courage in having the determination to persevere in your reforms in the face of such concerted effort by the power of Evil to destroy you."

  Boncorro waved the compliment away. "There is little danger in it, Chancellor. The powers of Evil have little cause to be displeased with me, for whatever my purpose, it is certainly not the doing of good for its own sake. I attempt to gain power and riches, that is all."

  "Aye—by making the whole country more rich."

  "My wealth comes from the people, one way or another, Lord Chancellor. I saw that as I watched serfs plow and reap. If I would have greater riches, I must first inspire the people to produce greater wealth from which I may draw."

  "Yes, you have explained that many times." Rebozo sighed. "That, however, does not explain your determination to see justice done, and to protect the innocent from punishment or abuse."

  "Does it not? People will work harder when they feel they are safe, Chancellor, and can bend their minds to their tasks without the constant worry that the sword will fall on their necks, or their goods be plundered at a lord's whim. When they know they will keep a fair share of that which they grow, the farmers will work harder to grow more—and when serfs can be sure which efforts will not bring punishment, they will put more sweat into those that will be rewarded."

  "Yes, you have explained that time and again," Rebozo said, "and that greater assurance of safety and greater wealth should lead people to use their newfound gains to buy pleasure."

  "Why, so they do." Boncorro waved at his court. "Even here you can see it—they are better dressed than ever before, and come flocking to my castle to seek pleasure, the young most of all! For each of those you see here, Rebozo, there are a thousand serfs who are drinking more ale and buying the favors of wantons. Vice flourishes, so the Devil should be not only appeased, but even pleased."

  "Then why should the same Devil give a sorcerer power against you?"

  Boncorro shrugged. "The greater the worry and fear, the happier the Devil. Look for an extremist in sorcery, Rebozo—one who believes that any human happiness is wrong if it is not wrung from the pain and suffering of others. There shall we find my would-be killer."

  "Majesty," said the chancellor, "I will."

  "Then do." The king waved him away. "Be about your task, Rebozo—but remember, no torture! Well, not much," he amended.

  "Only a little, Majesty," the chancellor agreed, "never fear—which, unfortunately, is what the servants and bottler and cooks shall say, no doubt. Still, I shall strive." He bowed and turned away.

  Boncorro watched the old man leave the great hall, and frowned, still brooding, until he was out of sight. Then, with an effort of will, he threw off the mood, tested a whole pitcher of wine, then filled his own goblet and drank deeply. A duke's daughter came by below the table, fluttering her eyelashes at him. Boncorro laughed and sprang down off the dais, crying, "Fiddlers! A dance tune! We shall caper before we taste the next course!"

  The fiddlers struck up a gay, lively tune, and Boncorro began to dance with the beautiful young lady, devouring her charms with his eyes. She blushed demurely, lowering her gaze, but glancing up at him through long lashes. All about them courtiers left their meat and came to dance, quick to ape their king, quick to join in the attempt to cheer him, ever quick to curry favor.

  Rebozo slammed into his private exchequer, muttering darkly under his breath. LoClercchi, his secretary, looked up in surprise. "Good evening, Lord Chancellor."

  "Not when some amateurish idiot seeks to poison our king," Rebozo snapped, "who commands me to find the culprit without delay."

  "Ah." The secretary nodded in sympathy. "Not a good evening, indeed. I fear I must make it worse."

  "Worse?" Rebozo swung about, glaring. "How is this?"

  "A message." The secretary held up a scrap of parchment. "A carrier pigeon landed in the dovecote, just as the sun set."

  "News from a spy?" Rebozo snatched the message and sat down to puzzle out the tiny letters. At last he threw it down on the desk. "Oh, a pox upon it! Your eyes are far younger than mine, LoClercchi—what does it say?"

  The secretary took the tiny parchment, but did not look at it, so Rebozo knew that he had already read it. "It is from your peasant spy on the estates of the Duke of Riterra, my lord. He writes from a market in Merovence—though not very far into Merovence..."

  "Far enough!" Rebozo's eyes kindled. "What does he find that is worthy of report?"

  "He writes that a wizard is nosing about the market," the secretary said, "eavesdropping on conversations, and particularly interested in those who tout the virtues of Latruria. Our spy tested the man and thinks he may be the Lord Wizard himself."

  Rebozo rubbed his hands, nodding vigorously. "I had thought he must take notice of the remaking our young king is doing!"

  "Especially since our folk have been boasting and bragging of it whenever they cross the border," LoClercchi said with irony. "It is marvelous to have agents who work for free, my lord, and without even realizing they do our work. I do not know how you managed it."

  "Bosh! You know well enough that I sent one man about the border farms, gloating on the bragging he would do in Merovence, on the next fair day! Does our peasant informer say what manner of test he gave the wizard?"

  "No, my lord, there was no room on so small a parchment—and, frankly, I do not think he could write quickly enough. His letters are horribly clumsy, and his spelling atrocious."

  "Still, it was worth the cost of a teacher, to gain this report! Well, we shall have to wait until the man comes home, for his reeve to question him more closely. If it is her Majesty's wizard, though, we shall not have long to wait till he seeks to cross the border and stop the unrest at its source!"

  The secretary looked up in alarm. "He could set all of King Boncorro's plan awry, my lord, and your own as well!"

  The chancellor waved a hand to dismiss the notion. "The king's plans are my plans, LoClercchi, no matter how I may caution him and plead the course of prudence."

  "And your plans are his?" the secretary asked, amused.

  But Rebozo shook his head. "I cannot claim that, for I would not of myself depart so quickly from the old king's ways. Indeed, I tremble for my young master, and hope that the Devil will not too quickly become so angry as to destroy him."

  "And us with him." LoClercchi's voice trembled. "Let us hope our young king keeps his balance on the tightrope he has stretched for himself."

  "Fences have their purposes," Rebozo agreed, "but serving as pathways was never one of them. Still, we have no choice but to resign or to follow him—and I am too old to seek new work, and too deeply steeped in sin to wish to reform." He looked up at his secretary. "You, however, are still young, LoClercchi. If you wish to go, you may."


  LoClercchi stared at his employer, silently weighing the relative merits of a virtuous life of uncertain income and modest means, with the certainty of wealth and privilege that came from serving the chancellor. His decision was almost instantaneous, for he had fought the long battle against this temptation years before, and periodically since. Like many young men, he decided there would be time enough to work on salvation later—after he had made his fortune. "I am loyal to you, my lord."

  Rebozo nodded, satisfied. "Good, good. Let us deal, then, with the problem of this Lord Wizard."

  "Perhaps he shall not become a problem," LoClercchi said hopefully. "Perhaps he shall stay on his own side of the border."

  "Perhaps, LoClercchi, but also perhaps not. Certainly he is nothing to worry about—yet. But I prefer to do my worrying in advance; it makes no sense to take undue chances—and it is my duty to King Boncorro not to wait until the man becomes a threat. Write for me."

  The secretary seized parchment and ink. Rebozo began to pace as he dictated, "My dear young Camano—you are, I believe, currently in the castle of your father, the Count d'Arrete, hard by the Alps in Merovence. I suspect that a nobleman or knight may soon call at your gate for hospitality, claiming to be only a knight errant, or a messenger about the queen's business, or some such. Be not deceived—this man is a wizard, and may well be the Lord Wizard of Merovence."

  He went on to detail exactly how the young lord should test the man, and how he should deal with him—in no uncertain terms. When the secretary had finished writing, Rebozo took the quill and signed the document. Then he took it to a separate table, sprinkled it with a powder that stank abominably, muttered a verse in an arcane language, and touched a candle's flame to a corner of the document. It went up in a flash that lit the whole chamber and was gone in less than a second.

  The chancellor nodded, satisfied. "He will find that on his table when he comes to his chamber this night, a hundred miles to the north." He gathered his robe about him, shivering. "Glad I am that I do not have to suffer the rigors of that climate, so hard by the mountains! Well, we shall see what young Lord Camano may make of this wizard. In any case, we shall discover his purpose." He turned back to his secretary. "Now—issue orders that as soon as the cooks and scullery maids are done with their work, they be taken to my audience chamber. As the servers are released from their duties, let each be taken to join them. Then I shall question each one alone, and closely."

  LoClercchi looked up with a frown. "What good is that? Whoever poisoned the wine, he shall already be fled!"

  "He shall," the chancellor sighed, "if he was here at all, and not some sorcerer enchanting the wine from miles away—or a wizard; let us not forget that our young king has enemies in both camps now."

  "What sorcerer has n—" But Rebozo's glare froze the words on his secretary's tongue, and he did not finish the sentence.

  "Of course, there are his courtiers, too, any one of whom might have dropped poison in the wine when the server was ogling one of our oh-so-casual beauties," the chancellor went on, as if there had been no interruption, "but our good Boncorro would certainly never approve their questioning on so mere a suspicion. No, we shall go through the forms, LoClercchi, but we shall learn nothing. I would that we could torture a few of them as we did in the old days, so that we might at least gain a satisfying answer!"

  "Even if it were not true," LoClercchi murmured.

  "True!" cried the chancellor, exasperated. "What matters truth? Satisfying our master—that is everything!"

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Captain of the Guard gave Matt a jaundiced look. "A knight errant, without armor?"

  "I lost it at the last tournament," Matt explained. "I know, I know, I'm a little old to be a knight bachelor—but what can you do? Some of us are just more talented than others."

  "Well, you would not be the first knight to come to this door when he is in misfortune," the guard admitted. "Still, I can tell by your bearing and your raiment that you are indeed a knight."

  That gave Matt a feeling of satisfaction. He'd worked at choosing upper-class clothing that looked just worn enough to be right for a knight with a string of bad tournaments behind him. The bearing, of course, came from actually having been knighted. That was the way things worked in this universe. "Thank you, Captain! Now, if you could send someone to guide me to your lord, I should like to pay my respects."

  "Aye, and that is all you will pay," the soldier grumbled. "Ho! Page!"

  A passing boy stopped passing and sprinted up to the captain, skidding to a halt that ended in a perfunctory bow.

  "Escort this stranger to the count," the officer told him, "and be mindful that he is a guest!" Then he snapped his fingers, and a hostler came forward to take Matt's horse.

  "Sir Matthew of Bath, you say?" The Count d'Arrete gazed up at the ceiling, stroking his beard. "Ah! Now I have it! 'Tis a town in Angland, is it not?"

  Matt always marveled that England, Scotland, and Ireland had pretty much the same names in this universe as they did in his own—Angland, Scotia, and Erin—although they were collectively known as "Bretanglia," not Britain. All the other countries had names he scarcely recognized, though he could pick out their sources. On the other hand, the English language that he knew and loved didn't exist here—everyone in Angland spoke the same language spoken in Merovence, and throughout Europe, for that matter. There was no English Channel in this version of Earth, so Hardishane, this world's counterpart to Charlemagne, had conquered the Anglo-Saxons, Welsh, and Scots, too. Erin had joined of its own free will, or at least become an ally—Matt wasn't too clear on the history; the books in Alisande's library only gave him a vague general outline, and he hadn't had the time to go to Bretanglia and check on the primary sources. He did gather, though, that the Vikings had been pretty thoroughly repulsed, though he wasn't sure how. There was a lot of the history of this universe he didn't know—including what had happened in Latruria. He did know that the capital city of the ancient empire had been named Reme, not Rome, which presumably meant that Remus had won the fistfight, not Romulus—not that it made much difference. Beyond that, he had only the most sketchy outline of Classical history, and what he had was suspect—it sounded entirely too wholesome to be Roman, not that such considerations would matter now. "It is, your Lordship. There are medicinal baths there. Personally, I don't think they heal you so much as just make you feel better—lying around in hot water always has that effect on me, at least."

  "Hot water, you say? An interesting notion! I must journey there sometime and try it!"

  Matt almost pointed out that the count could heat water over the fire right here in his own castle, but bit his tongue in time—the man was likely to try a dip in boiling water. No, let him stay with the natural way.

  "So you are a knight of the Bath!" Count d'Arrete chuckled at his own witticism, and his courtiers dutifully echoed him. Matt managed to force a smile himself. He actually was a knight of the bath, of course, and the cold tub had been administered in Emperor Hardishane's secret tomb—but there was no need to mention that.

  "Ah, you have heard that jest many times, I see," the count said ruefully. "Well, stay and join us at meat this evening, stranger! We are always glad to have visitors, to bring us news of the world outside our domain—but most especially tonight, when my cousins from Latruria are at last able to join us! Their young king has opened the border these last few years, and has now even given permission for his noblemen to journey to visit kinsmen!"

  Matt pricked up his ears. Talk about good luck! Unless, of course, virtually all the marcher barons were entertaining relatives—which was probable, if permission had just now been granted. "It has been many years since kin could visit kin, my lord."

  "Generations! Not since my grandfather's time have we welcomed our southern cousins! Old King Maledicto kept his border closed by sorcery as well as force of arms! Ah, it is good indeed to see our kin!"

  "I shall look forward to meeting t
hem myself," Matt said, with more sincerity than the Count knew.

  This great hall was considerably less great than Boncorro's. Of course, Matt had never seen the royal castle of Latruria, but he had seen Alisande's court, and the castle of a mere country count suffered by comparison.

  Fortunately, Matt wasn't interested in comparing them.

  It was a cornerstone of his aesthetic that he take each work on its own merits, and within the context of its own function as well as its designer's intentions. The architect who built this castle had obviously been trying to achieve the optimum balance between comfort and defense, and had succeeded about as well as he could. The hall was large enough to shelter a small army during a siege—or the peasants of the home farms, as well as the gentry of the county, during a feast day. The peasants weren't here at the moment, but the gentry were. Count d'Arrete had meant it when he said he was glad of one more to help him celebrate.

  The countess had done at least as well as the architect, when it came to decoration. Faded old tapestries alternated with bright new ones; garlands of flowers obscured the grim old battle trophies. An oversized shield brightly painted with the family coat of arms hung over the high dais, while about the hall hung smaller shields that showed the arms of the count's knights, obscuring the old, dusty, captured flags of foes vanquished. At the far end hung another oversized shield with the arms of the Latrurian branch of the clan.

  However, those Latrurians weren't about to let the hidden dinginess go. "These old castles were well enough for defense, cousin, and as trophy cases," Conte Puvecci said with a wave of his hand. "Surely, though, it would be desirable to have a separate, and more pleasant, building for your daily living."

  Count d'Arrete smiled, but Matt could almost hear him grind his teeth. Since he knew who d'Arrete was, it didn't take much deduction to figure out that the other mature male at the high table must be his Latrurian cousin—and therefore that curled hair and pointed beards were all the rage in Latruria. Matt took a quick glance around the hall, noting curly locks and pointy goatees, so he'd know where the Latrurians were—it made for more efficient eavesdropping.