"I shall check to see if either of them went out." Papa smiled. "It pays to cultivate the acquaintance of soldiers, particularly those who guard the chambers of royalty."

The dragon banked low, struck the earth, and ran a short distance as it slowed, folding its wings.

"Thanks, Stegoman!" Matt climbed down. "You may have cleared up another problem for me."

"Which, if I may ask?" the dragon rumbled.

"Well, I think you could say that if anyone wants to follow our trail, they'll find it very difficult when we've just flown fifty miles."

Sir Orizhan looked up, one hand steadying himself against the dragon's side. "Who will follow us?"

"You never can tell," Matt said. "How was your trip, Sergeant?"

"Better than yesterday's." Brock climbed to his feet; he had as much fallen off the dragon's back as climbed. "I should be quite used to it by tomorrow."

"Oh, don't worry—we walk from here on."

"Walk?" Stegoman fumed. "Wherefore, when you might ride?"

"Well, we're trying to gather information," Matt explained, "so we have to try to be inconspicuous. We'll be across the border and into Bretanglia soon, so we have to go on foot. But thanks for the ride."

"Can I do no more to aid you?" the dragon protested.

"Well, actually, you can," Matt said. "Saul sent Narlh to check out conditions in Scotland and to watch for any signs of invasion, but the local dragons probably won't accept him. Could you go along and see how bad things are there, and back him up if he needs it?"

"The valiant dracogriff? Of course!" Stegoman huffed. "Woe to any drake who seeks to singe him! Nay, I'll fly north immediately!"

"Oh, I don't think it's that crucial," Matt said quickly. "You could spend one more night with us—you Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

know, have a cow and settle down for some chat."

"The journey has been long and tiring," Stegoman agreed. "Very well, I'll seek a steer and join your company for one more night."

Matt sighed with relief. If the bauchan did manage to find them, it would probably think twice about causing trouble with Stegoman near.

Unless, of course, it managed to put him to sleep again.

Hastings Castle was small, as royal fortresses went, but the castellan and his family lived in a lodge in the courtyard, leaving twelve rooms for the use of the royal family. The structure was quite well situated to be the first dwelling to welcome its king and queen on their return to Bretanglia.

King Drustan strode into the Great Hall, yanking off his gauntlets, hurling them at a squire, and snarling at everyone about him. "I could have ridden in here with an army, and none to stop me! Castellan, have you no more sentries for the walls? Confound you, steward, send your bottler for wine! You knew I was entering the castle, the goblet should have been ready for my hand! Or are the sentries so lax that you did not know I was coming? Be done with that curtsying, wench, and fetch me bread and meat! Ninny, do you think I care for your homage? Varlet, you barely nodded your head! Do you not bow to your king?"

Queen Petronille was right behind him, snapping, "How long is it since these walls have been scrubbed?

Sloven, are those tapestries never beaten? I see rust on the trophies and dust on the royal coat of arms!

You there, do you call yourself a gardener? I shall stroll through your handiwork after dinner, and if I see so much as one weed, you'll spend the rest of your life mucking out stables!"

Up the stairs they went, snapping and snarling at all about them, then into the solar, slamming the door behind them. There, Petronille sank into an hourglass chair, covered her face and loosed a torrent of sobs.

"Oh, be still!" Drustan snapped. "If you hadn't insisted on taking the boys along, this never would have happened!"

"I!" Petronille snapped bolt upright, glaring at him through her tears. "If you hadn't taken it into your head to go gallivanting off to Merovence, our son would be alive this day!"

"You were quick enough for the jaunt when I mentioned it!"

"Aye, to make sure you would not be trying to bed every wench you found!"

"At least they would not have made my bed a battleground!"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"Better your bed than our children!" Petronille blazed.

"Then why did you shower Brion with praise and John with criticisms? Not to mention poor Gaheris, which you did not, and look what has come of it!"

"Oh, indeed!" Petronille sprang to her feet. "And who was ever telling him that he must be cruel to be a man, and must prove his manhood by bedding every wench he saw?"

"Who told him he must never touch a woman at all?" Drustan returned.

"Save his wife!"

"Ah, but you did not tell him that!"

"You never heard! You were always far too busy planning your next slaughter and your next seduction—

if you can so dignify commanding a helpless woman to submit to your embraces!"

"Submit?" Drustan roared. "They were glad enough to come to me, and you were too, till you saw I would not bow and scrape for it!"

"So because I would not shower you with honeyed words every hour of the day, you turned to Rosamund and sought to seduce a child under our protection!"

"There will certainly be no need for seduction now!" Drustan retorted. "Not when she must face the prospect of marrying your lapdog Brion!"

"See to it you dare not dog her lap, sirrah! Any woman would faint with delight at the thought of wedding Brion! It is the prospect of marrying your depraved little John that makes her faint with nausea!"

"A woman wants a man who is his own master, not forever the slave of his mother!"

"His own master, but not hers! Brion is a true knight and troubadour, chivalrous to the last, and will treat her with the respect due the lady she is!"

"Set her on a pedestal and never touch her, you mean! Let her pine and waste away! I'll save her from such a fate by marrying her to John!"

"To John?" Petronille screeched. "To yourself, you mean, for if she is betrothed to John, she will live with you, and you'll be quick to take advantage of her!"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"So that's why you want her for Brion!" Drustan's eyes glittered with malice. "You wish to keep her by you out of sheer jealousy!"

"Out of duty, you great ninny! My duty to protect the child from such libertines as you! That I shall do in any case—but I wish her for Brion solely because he is now heir, and she was betrothed to the heir of Bretanglia!"

"John, too, is the heir!"

"Aye, after Brion! Will you slay your second son, too, only to steal Rosamund for yourself?"

"I, slay my own son?" Drustan turned purple. "I would never so much as dream of such a thing! How corrupted and base your mind must be, that you think of it!"

"Corrupted by learning what a king may be!"

"Corrupted by years of marriage to a southern prince who taught you all manner of nasty games!"

"Louis? There was nothing he could teach me but the Bible! If he'd known any manner of games, I'd surely never have divorced him for you!"

"But you did, and liked my games well enough," Drustan said, with a vindictive grin.

"Aye, so long as you played them only with me! But it is a dance for partners, sir, not a crowd of maidens 'round a maypole, and little Rosamund shall not dance attendance upon you!"

"And how shall you prevent it?" Drustan challenged. "By betrothing her to Brion? Little fool, whether to Brion or John, she will still live in the same castle with me!"

Petronille narrowed her eyes. "Not if I do not."

"What choice have you?" Drustan countered. "If I say John shall be king, he shall, youngest or not! You may remove yourself from me, but Rosamund shall stay!"

"You would dare!" Petronille hissed.

"Of course I would." Drustan grinned. "I shall do it now!" He strode to the door, threw it open, and stepped out to the rail that overlooked the Great Hall. "Hearken one and all! Hear the word of your sovereign! Prince John shall succeed me! Prince John is heir apparent! Prince John shall be your new king!"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"Brion shall be king, by right of law!" Petronille shouted. She whirled out of the room to face Drustan, glaring up at him. "Will you or nil you, Brion shall rule! It is his right!"

Doors opened; John and Rosamund stepped out, eyes sleep-blurred, staring in fear. But Brion's door opened, too, and though his face was flushed with sleep, his eyes were bright and clear, ready for anything that might come, and there was no fear in his face.

"Away!" Somehow, Petronille had found a cloak, and swung it about her shoulders as she pivoted to Brion. "He seeks to disinherit you! You must fight for your right, and the welfare of your people!" She caught Rosamund's hand and pulled her away toward the stairs.

Drustan roared and came after her, but brought himself up short to avoid the point of Brion's sword.

"Well, now we know with what mistress you sleep!"

"As always, my father, you are correct," Brion said. "Not right, but accurate."

"So you would stab your own father, would you?"

"Never," Brion assured him, "but if he chose to throw himself upon my sword, how could I interfere with his will?"

"Then obey my will indeed, and put up your sword! It is your sovereign who commands!"

"Your sovereign seeks to break the law of the land by displacing the legitimate heir!" Petronille cried from the stairwell. "In Bretanglia, no king is above the law! He has defied it, he is rightful king no longer! Hail Brion, true King of Bretanglia!"

There was a startling lack of response from the crowd of servants and soldiers.

"Stop them!" Drustan shouted at the guards.

Two dozen men moved forward on the instant.

"To me, men of mine!" Petronille cried. "Protect me, all men of Pykta! Guard your princess, all men of Toulenge!"

Thirty men leaped to surround the two women.

"Beware, woman!" Drustan bellowed. "Walk out down that stair and across that drawbridge, and this means war!"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"Then let it be war!" Petronille cried. "Let it be war for virtue and right, and the true king come to replace the false! Down with the disgraced king! Let the right prevail!"

"And you?" Drustan fixed his middle son with a vengeful glare. "Do you cleave to your true king, or to this rebel woman?"

"I am a knight," Brion said simply. "I must defend women in distress."

"A pox upon your chivalry!" Drustan roared. "I knew I should never have let your mother fill your head with that troubadour nonsense!"

"It is no nonsense, but the only possible salvation of the world." Brion backed away, down the stairs, sword still level. "It allies the might of the knight with the mercy of Christ, alloying the strength of arms with Christian charity."

"Yet the dauntless knight dares not turn his back on his unarmed father," Drustan sneered.

"I would never turn my back upon my sovereign," Brion rejoined.

"Guard him!" Petronille commanded, and half a dozen men broke away to meet Brion at the foot of the stairs. Armed and wary, they retreated to join her men at the door.

"Take one more step at your peril!" Drustan warned them all. "Leave this hall, and you are traitors one and all, rebels to king and country, who deserve only the noose or the headsman's block!"

"So speaks the man who seeks to break the common law and custom of Bretanglia!" Petronille cried.

The words sounded strange in the accent of Merovence. "So speaks the traitor to his land, the tyrant who breaks his covenant with his people and his God! We shall remember your words, O Traitor, when you kneel before us on the day of your defeat and our triumph."

"I shall never kneel to you!" Drustan roared.

"You did once," Petronille reminded him, then stepped backward out of the Great Hall, pulling Rosamund with her. Her son and her men followed.

Out they went into the courtyard, where horses waited for them all, held by a score of Pyktish soldiers, the rest of Queen Petronille's private guard, save for the few who had already secured the gatehouse.

They rode through it, under the portcullis and out across the drawbridge, the rearguard leaving the barbican and riding flat out to join them.

Inside, Drustan roared, and all his knights and men ran to saddle their horses, mount, and ride out into Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

the night to catch the queen and her party.

They rode and searched till dawn, but the queen and her entourage had disappeared. Superstitious rumors began in the army and ran through the country in a week—that the queen had spoken truly, that Drustan had indeed violated the old law of Bretanglia, the bond between people and soil, and that the land itself had hidden the rightful king and his mother from the false king.

By that time a dozen discontented barons had rallied to Petronille's banner and Brion's command, while Drustan had called down his nobles all, and the armies had begun to march.

It wasn't a hard rain, only a gentle drizzle, but it was constant, and the boots and cloaks of the companions were almost soaked through, so they threw back their hoods with a sigh of relief as they stepped into the wayside inn.

"This will be far more agreeable than sleeping in an open field," Sir Orizhan observed, "or even that ruined cottage where we slept last week."

"It sure will." But Matt couldn't help glancing over his shoulder. He wasn't at all sure that Buckeye was going to stay gone. The "adoption" had sounded like pretty strong magic, after all, especially since he had been so careless as to give the creature a nickname. True, he hadn't seen the bauchan in days, but constantly had the feeling they were being watched. Also, he kept finding things—the stack of wood that appeared while they were setting up camp, the dazed rabbits that hopped into the campsite fairly asking to become dinner, the fourth shadow that joined theirs under the morning sun though there was no one to cast it. All in all, Matt was glad to have a lot of people around.

The big common room was noisy enough. Maybe it was the rain that made business so good, but Matt hoped it was the ale. The only seats he and his companions could find were at a round table where four peasants were already eating. They ordered a pitcher and the special of the day, which was what most of the people were eating, not having money enough for chops. The special turned out to be hash. Matt hoped for the best and started eating.

"Sad news from Bretanglia," one carter was telling another across the table.

Matt didn't bother pricking up his ears—Sir Orizhan and Sergeant Brock were tense as pointers in pheasant season.

"Aye, Ian," the other carter agreed. "War is always bad for business. I'll have trouble enough finding the merchant who ordered my cargo, let alone another load to carry home."

"If the soldiers let you into Bretanglia at all," Ian said darkly, "and you're lucky enough not to run into an army."

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"The war has started," Sir Orizhan whispered.

"Not too much worry of that," the second carter said. "The news is all from the midlands now. The queen's army took the high ground at Lochlar and fought a pitched battle against the king's forces under Duke Golarrig. The duke retired in defeat, and the queen invested the town. She has her another stronghold now, and thousands of men to press into her army."

"War, yes." Sir Orizhan stared in shock. "But not between Bretanglia and Merovence!"

Matt stared, too. "Civil war?"

Sergeant Brock managed to keep the groan so quiet that only his companions heard it. "Alas, my poor country! For how long now shall Pyktans spill Anglian blood again?"

Mart's mind took refuge in the thought that he had guessed correctly about the origin of the country's name. Apparently the invading Angles hadn't won anywhere near the clear-cut victory in this universe that they had in his. They'd been forced to make friends with the country's current inhabitants.

"And what of Princess Rosamund, Much? What of the cause of this war?"

"There are some as say she's not the cause at all," Much said darkly. "Some say the cause is Prince Gaheris himself."

"But he is dead," Ian protested.

"Aye, but Rumor says he did not die quite as the proclamations say."

Ian shrugged. "There's no surprise in that. All knew of the prince's roistering. Not a man in all of Bretanglia believes he died defending a maiden's honor."

"The queen did, says Rumor, and fights because the king insists on the truth—that a pimp stabbed him in the back while he was beating one of the man's whores."

Matt was amazed that the rumor was even that accurate.

"If that were said of Prince Brion, the queen might fight to defend his good name," said Ian, "but Gaheris? He was never her favorite."

"Aye." Much grinned. "I think you had the right of it at first. With Gaheris dead, they fell to fighting over Princess Rosamund—whether she would marry Brion, and live with the queen, or wed John, and live with the king."

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"He would wish that, surely," Ian agreed. "But where is she hidden, while they fight?"

"Rumor has it that the queen sent her to Castle Eastwind with a hundred men for guard, but while they were on the way, Earl Marshal attacked and stole the princess away for the king."

Prurient interest gleamed in Ian's eye. He hunched closer. "And what has the king done with her?"

"Nothing yet," Much answered. "He was already in the field, so the marshal took her to a moated grange at Woodstock, and set a strong guard around her—for her safety, says Rumor. Then he rode away to raise the west country."

"Woodstock?" Ian frowned. "There's a royal castle there."

"There is, and the moated grange is hard by its walls."

"How convenient for the king," Ian said with sarcasm.

"Aye, if he comes back to it alive."

"Surely the queen cannot win! The king must have five times the men and horses that she can call up!"

"You never know, in war," Much said philosophically. "At least their marching to and fro should keep them far from the borders."

"The news is old," Ian cautioned. "The fighting may have moved southward. Surely the queen must capture Dunlimon if she has any hope of winning."

"Small enough hope, I would say," the second carter replied, "though Queen Petronille is not the kind to ever consider defeat. Aye, she must capture Dunlimon—or the king."

Ian shook his head sadly. "She cannot do either, unless all the folk of Dunlimon are secretly for her, not with the king's armies so outnumbering hers."

"She can make a lot of Bretanglians suffer, though." His friend rose from the table, taking his mug. "I hear a minstrel tuning his lute. Let's approach and listen—I could do with a song."

"I, too." Ian rose and went with him.

"So my queen shall drive half the midlands before her against the king's men," Sergeant Brock moaned,

"and the land shall drink their blood!"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"Maybe the king's a better general than you think," Matt consoled. "Maybe he'll knock her out in one quick battle."

Sir Orizhan smiled mirthlessly. "Or perhaps she will find a wizard who can capture the king without a battle. Come, my friend, let us talk in realities."

"Actually, your idea isn't all that far-fetched." Matt's eyes lost focus as he considered how to craft a spell that would transport King Drustan to him.

Another peasant sat down where Ian had been, a mug in his hand.

"Does the king have a wizard on his side?" Matt asked.

"Aye," said the newcomer, "but the elves and the pixies will fight for the queen."

Matt looked up in surprise, and felt a shock run all through him. The hood and tunic were those of a very ordinary peasant, but the hand that held the mug was covered with silky, tawny hair, and the face was Buckeye's.

The bauchan grinned. "You did not think I would stay banished, did you?"

Through stiff lips Matt demanded, "Where's the peasant who used to wear that outfit?"

"What outfit?" Sergeant Brock looked up, frowning.

"Don't fear for him," Buckeye said. "He sleeps in the stable, quite well, and will find his clothes by him when he wakes."

Matt turned to Sergeant Brock. "You see that peasant sitting across from us?"

"Peasant!" the bauchan said indignantly.

"The one whose hood hides his face?" the soldier asked. "He is nothing to worry you. You may speak freely, milord."

"Not too freely, 'milord,'" the bauchan mocked. "You would not want them to think you daft, now, would you? Or, by the rook! Haunted! Forfend!"

That made Matt mad. Blackmail attempts always had that effect His eyes narrowed, his lips thinned, and he said to his companions, "By the way, have I told you I've picked up a mascot-spirit?"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"Spirit!" Sergeant Brock leaned away, eyes wide.

"Mascot?" Sir Orizhan frowned. "What is that?"

"A sort of a pet." Matt ignored the hoot from across the table. "It goes wherever I go. It's a bauchan."

"A bauchan!" Sergeant Brock turned pale.

"What is that?" Sir Orizhan asked, interested.

"It's a Bretanglian spirit," Sergeant Brock explained. "I knew they came down into the north of Merovence, but I never thought to have met one." His eyes widened. "That empty cottage! I should have known it would be haunted! 'Twas there you met him, was it not?"

"It was, yes," Matt admitted.

"The man is canny," Buckeye said with approval, letting the sergeant and the knight hear him.

"I am flattered." But the whites showed around Sergeant Brock's eyes as he glanced at their new neighbor.

"What, that fellow a spirit?" Sir Orizhan frowned. "I see naught but a peasant!"

"Look at his hands," Sergeant Brock said.

"He wears gloves with the hair on the outside. What of it?"

"Gloves with nails?" the sergeant asked.

Sir Orizhan studied the bauchan's hands. Buckeye grinned and, very slowly, raised the tankard to his lips and tilted his head back to drink, letting the light from the tallow lamps show them his face. Sergeant Brock shuddered.

"He is quite ugly," Sir Orizhan said, "but surely no spirit"

Matt's heart warmed to the man.

"Ugly!" Buckeye slammed his mug down on the. table. "Forsooth! I suppose you think you are comely, fellow?"

"I am a knight." Sir Orizhan frowned and rested his hand on his sword. "I'll not have a varlet call me Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

'fellow.' "

"I don't think you want to draw on him," Matt said nervously. "Unfortunately, that face is the most human thing about him."

"If a sharp edge will not harm him, cold steel will," Sir Orizhan countered.

Buckeye frowned. "I like ye not, soft man of warm climates."

"It won't do any lasting good," Matt warned. "I tried to banish him right off the bat, but the spell seems to have worn off."

"He did not fry a bat," Buckeye corrected. "That might have lasted a wee bit longer."

"A bat for a bit?" Matt turned to him, interested. "I'll remember that."

Buckeye's glance flashed with malice; then he was all mischievous grin again. "It will do ye no good."

"It will not that," Sergeant Brock agreed. "When a bauchan attaches himself to a man, he'll never forsake him—nay, neither him nor his family." He shook his head sadly. "I pity you, Lord Wizard. Not all your power will make this spirit flit."

"Oh, I'll find a way." Matt wished he felt as confident as he sounded. "But I can't ask you guys to suffer along with me while I'm trying. If you want to go off on your own, go ahead."

"Go off!" Sir Orizhan exclaimed, affronted. "When my queen has commanded me to accompany you? I am a better knight than that, Lord Wizard!"

"And I have my good name to restore." Sergeant Brock had recovered from his first fright. "I'll stand by you night and day, Lord Wizard, until we've hung the murderer by the heels and proved I fought my best to save my prince." His eyes narrowed and held steady on the bauchan's ugly face.

"A murderer and a dead prince?" Buckeye asked, interested. "I may have come upon more fun than I expected! Whatsoever it may be like to follow you, wizard, I doubt it will be dull!"

"You don't know how I've wished for some boredom," Matt sighed.

"Still, I cannot let you suffer that, can I?" Buckeye reached out with a long arm that stretched even longer and caressed a waitress' bottom as she was passing Matt.

The girl shrieked even as she turned and whacked Matt soundly across the face.

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

CHAPTER 8

"And you with a wedding ring!" the serving wench scolded. "My master has thrown men out for mauling girls who don't wish it!"

Matt glared at Buckeye, but the bauchan only grinned back. His lips moved, but the sound seemed to come from Matt in Matt's own voice. "Lasses who don't wish it, aye— but will he throw me out for stroking those who like it? Might you be one such?"

"I am none such!" the girl declared, and pivoted away crying. "Master! Here's an unabashed womanizer for certain!"

The innkeeper bulled his way to the table just as Matt's voice was saying, "None such is nonesuch, and a nonesuch is a thing of great rarity, and a virtuous woman is a rare thing indeed. Next she will be telling me she is a virgin!"

"I am a virgin!" the serving maid cried.

"I will not permit harassment, countryman," the innkeeper warned.

"Meant?" Matt's voice asked. "Well, if her—"

"I didn't say that," Matt interrupted.

"Indeed! Then how was it your voice I heard? I tell you, fellow, I'll not have my serving maids touched!"

"Saving them all for yourself, are you?" Matt's voice asked.

The innkeeper reddened. "Enough!" He grabbed Matt by the tunic and yanked him to his feet. "I'll serve you no longer! Out of my inn, fellow, and a cold wet night to you!"

"You may not speak so to a lord!" Sir Orizhan snapped, rising and grasping his sword.

"A lord, is it?" The innkeeper turned on Sir Orizhan. "A lord, dressed in a peasant's smock? And I suppose you are his knight, and the other your squire?"

"Don't blow our cover!" Matt hissed.

Sir Orizhan ignored him. "You have guessed the truth of it, landlord. Now unhand His Lordship or—"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"Take him, then!" The innkeeper threw Matt at Sir Orizhan.

Sergeant Brock shouted in anger and swung his staff at the innkeeper, who leaped back, letting the staff swing by—to crack across the shoulders of another patron. The man leaped to his feet with a howl and waded in swinging.

The serving maid screamed and backed away, her tray up as a shield.

Matt spun away from Sir Orizhan and blocked the man's haymaker. "Now, wait a minute. We didn't mean to—"

"A coward!" the man cried, and slammed a punch at Matt's midriff.

The innkeeper yanked a short cudgel from his belt and swung at Sergeant Brock.

Matt blocked again and counterpunched. The man's mates howled and leaped into the fight.

Sergeant Brock blocked with one end of his staff and swung with the other. He caught the landlord on the hip. The steady customers shouted in anger and jumped on Brock.

The innkeeper stamped on Matt's toe and swung his cudgel. Matt shouted with pain even as he ducked.

He heard the stick strike somebody, hoped it was the bauchan, and caught the innkeeper's wrist. He was about to twist when another fist caught him on the cheek. He staggered away, feeling somebody catch him. The spell he'd readied to use on Buckeye hovered on his lips, but he remembered that these were good, ordinary men fighting to defend their own, and choked it down. Whoever had caught him threw him back at the innkeeper just in time to meet the stick swinging down— but Matt doubled over and kept on going, butting the innkeeper in the stomach. The man's breath went out in a whoosh as he slammed back against the wall. The move lacked elegance and finesse, but it did give Matt a softer landing. He scrambled back up, cocked a fist—and felt a dozen hands grab him.

Five minutes later he landed in a puddle outside the door with a score of bruises. He started to struggle to his feet, but his pack came sailing to strike him square in the kidneys, knocking him full-length in the puddle. Four more splashes told him Sir Orizhan, Sergeant Brock, and their packs had landed, too.

"And stay out!" the innkeeper bellowed, then slammed the door behind him.

A hairy hand reached down for Matt. "Let me help you up."

Matt looked into the ugly grinning face of the bauchan, and snatched his arm away. "No, thanks. I can do without your kind of help."

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"That's unjust." The creature actually sounded wounded. "I can be a great help, when I've a mind."

"Yeah, but I don't trust your mind." Matt struggled to his feet and looked down at his sodden, muddy clothes. "This isn't what I'd call assistance."

"Ah, but that was when I meant you ill," the bauchan said, grinning, "to show you what can happen if you seek to be rid of me. If I mean you well, it will be just as striking."

The look Matt gave him verged on mayhem. "Don't talk to me about striking."

"Nor to me," Sergeant Brock groaned, struggling to his feet. "Why did you not use your magic against them, Lord Wizard?"

"I thought of it," Matt admitted, "but I remembered that they're good plain folk, fighting to defend a friend and his inn. They didn't deserve to be blasted."

Brock looked up at him in surprise. "You're an odd lord, to be so caring about the common folk."

That's because I'm really a commoner, too. But Matt couldn't say that out loud. Instead he said, "I'm married to a queen who cares for every single one of her people, Sergeant, and that's one of the qualities that made me fall in love with her."

Sergeant Brock turned away, looking very thoughtful, and helped Sir Orizhan to his feet. The bauchan asked, "What sort of spell would you have used on them, wizard?"

"Oh, one like this," Matt answered.

"Pleasures are like poppies spread—

You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;

Or like the snow falls in the river—

A moment white—then melts forever.

Thus let be a bauchan's presence,

Here some minutes, then gone for pleasance."

Buckeye squalled in shock and surprise as an invisible hand caught him up and whirled him into a tiny dot that winked out. They listened to the sudden peaceful susurrus of rainfall. Then Sergeant Brock Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

quavered, "He seemed to stay where he was, yet was also whisked far away."

"Very perceptive, Sergeant That's exactly what happened."

"How can that be, Lord Wizard?"

"Oh, it's not hard. It's just a question of where he was being whisked, and in what direction."

"Where?" Sir Orizhan asked, staring in awe.

"Into another dimension," Matt said, "and as to direction, it was at right angles to the three we know."

"How can that be?" Sir Orizhan asked with foreboding.

"I… don't know," Matt admitted. "Hey, look—I just cast the spells. That doesn't mean I understand 'em."

"How can you not?" Sergeant Brock asked.

Matt shrugged. "It's like driving an automobile. I know how to make it go where I want, but I don't know how it works inside—not in detail, anyway."

"Oh." Sergeant Brock seemed to be thinking that over.

"I suppose that makes sense," Sir Orizhan allowed. "But, Lord Wizard…"

"Yes?"

"What is an 'automobile'?"

They found a barn, peeled off their wet clothing and set it to dry, rubbed themselves with hay, then put on their spare clothes and rolled up in more hay to sleep. Sir Orizhan took first watch, and Matt had absolutely no trouble dropping off to sleep. Unfortunately, he dreamed. At least, he hoped it was a dream.

In the darkness of slumber a voice ranted, "Pay attention, blast you! I haven't been shouting at you all these days for my pleasure!"

"Well, then, why have you been shouting?" Matt demanded.

There was a brief silence, but somehow Matt could feel the astonishment in it. Then the voice erupted with delight. "I've broken through! He has heard me! Do you know who I am, Lord Wizard?"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"I haven't the faintest." Matt was beginning to have a bad feeling about this.

"I am Gaheris! I am Prince Gaheris of Bretanglia! And I may be dead, but I'm not deaf! I heard you say you would find my murderer! Who is he?"

The bad feeling was proving true. Matt reassured himself that he must be dreaming and said, "Don't you know?"

"Know? How could I know? The villain came at me from behind! I felt the sword go in, felt a pain that seemed to rip the world apart—then all went dark. At last a dot of light broke that darkness and swelled to a hollow. I could see a long way into it, saw it was a tunnel with a sublime light at its end. I thought I heard voices that I knew calling from it, and my heart went cold within me. I turned my back on it with a shudder and fought to sit up, but my body would not answer. I thought I must have fallen asleep, and fought to waken, fought and fought—and bit by bit I regained my senses, but found myself looking down at my own body and hearing folk talking of who had slain me! I snapped at them that I wasn't dead, shouted at them that I wasn't dead, roared and bellowed at them that I wasn't dead—but they did not answer, and my stomach sank as I realized they had not heard me. Then I saw the wound in my own back, and knew that I was dead indeed."

Matt felt rather than saw the shudder. In fact, so far he wasn't seeing anything. "Why did you come to me?"

"I came to everyone! Mother, Father, Brion, John, Sir Orizhan—waking and sleeping, I came to them, ranted to them, howled at them, but none seemed to hear me! Well, I was scarcely surprised when it came to Mother and Father—if they hadn't heard me alive, why should they hear me dead? But I had always been able to rouse Brion's anger, or John's fear—yet now even they seemed not to hear!"

"Why me?" Matt said again.

"Because you're a wizard, blast you! And it worked!"

"Sure—all you had to do was catch me when I was asleep. How many nights have you been trying?"

"All day. This is the first night."

"Must be because ghosts are a sort of magic, or related to it;" Matt mused.

"Never mind the why! Only tell me who slew me!"

"I'd love to," Matt told him sincerely. "Even more, I'd love to tell your parents, and rob them of their excuse to attack Merovence. Unfortunately, everybody seems to have had a reason to want you dead—"

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"Aye. They all hate me, the jealous sods!"

"—and everybody has an alibi." From what Matt knew of Gaheris alive, jealousy hadn't entered into it.

When you try to hurt people, they tend to resent you. "Can you think of any way I can tell who was there that I don't know about?"

"Whom do you suspect?"

"Everyone who was in the inn that night."

"How the devil should I know who was in the inn that night?"

"That's right," Matt sighed, "you were only there. Well, if you don't have a notion who killed you, how can you expect me to know?"

"Because you're a wizard, damn your eyes!"

"I'd be kind of careful with that word 'damn' if I were you," Matt advised. "Has the tunnel appeared to you again?"

"Aye, twice more." Gaheris' voice was hollow with fear. "But I ranted and railed at it, cursed my murderer aloud, and it went away."

"Unfinished business," Matt muttered.

"What did you say?" the ghost-prince demanded.

"Nothing important." Matt had a notion that if he found and punished Gaheris' murderer, the light-tunnel wouldn't go away the next time it appeared. All that was holding the prince's ghost to this universe was his anger at his murderer, and his thirst for revenge. On the other hand, Matt didn't particularly want the ghost to know that. He didn't like being haunted, dreaming or waking, and wasn't about to let Gaheris know he had a way of avoiding the afterworld. "Look, nobody can see you, right?"

"True." The ghost sounded wary.

"Well, then, you can flit around and watch them when they think they're safe and alone."

"Who would you have me watch?"

"Everyone in your family, for starters. More importantly, there was a sorcerer in the inn that night—"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"A sorcerer?" the ghost cried. "Of course it was he who slew me!"

"Why? Because he had magic? Believe me, I haven't found the slightest sign that he shoved the knife into your ribs, or made a knife stab you by itself. Besides, he denies it."

"Of course he would, you dolt!"

"Hey!" Matt snapped. "Do you want me to try to find your murderer, or not?"

"Of course I do! How dare you even ask?"

"Because I'm the one who can do it—maybe. You talk to me with respect, or I'm walking off the job."

"You cannot speak so to a prince!"

"I can when I'm married to a queen," Matt reminded him. "In fact, if you want to get technical about it, that makes me a prince, too—and one who's got a bit more power in this situation than you do. Just give me a good reason to drop this investigation and I will."

"If you do, I shall haunt you all your days!"

"You're a little late," Matt told him. "Somebody already got there—a bauchan. You want to cross horns with him over haunting territory?"

Gaheris spluttered incoherently, but there was a definite tinge of fear to it. Matt reflected that the superstition of the Middle Ages could be very useful. Here the prince was, a haunt himself, and he was still afraid of the bauchan!

"Go away," Matt grumbled. "I need my sleep. How can I catch your killer if I'm groggy?"

"You will rue this one day, wizard!" Gaheris blustered.

"I doubt it," Matt snapped, and mentally rolled over and pulled the metaphorical blanket over his head.

"Go away."

Amazingly, Gaheris did—possibly because Sir Orizhan woke Matt for his watch. Half an hour later he decided that after that dream, being awake was very restful.

The army of Earl Salin, the Marshal of Bretanglia, came striding behind its knights along the high road—

really high, for the ground fell away to both sides. Ahead, though, it passed through a cleft in the hills.

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

Atop one of those hills, Sir Gandagin, a knight in his forties, sat on his horse, shielded by a great boulder to either side, and counseled Prince Brion, "We may hold the high ground, Your Highness, but they still outnumber us by half, and Earl Marshal is the most excellent knight in Bretanglia. Saving your presence," he added hastily.

"Spare me flattery, Sir Gandagin," the prince said. "Though I might hope to equal a knight of Earl Marshal's excellence in chivalry, I know I cannot compare in prowess with a man thirty years my senior.

I own you have sense on your side— but the marshal is all sense and no nonsense, with great faith in the order in which he has drilled his men. If we come upon him like wild Celts, we may do to him as Queen Boadicea did to the armies of Reme when she found they had cheated her of a whole county, by trading it for gems she discovered to be glass. She chewed them to bits, for they knew not how to counter her disorder."

"Soundly planned," Sir Gandagin admitted. "Still, my prince, do remember that Reme eventually brought Boadicea to heel."

"Eventually," Brion reminded him. "I need not win the war—only this battle."

Below, the vanguard of the marshal's army entered the notch.

"Out upon them!" Brion commanded, and swung his sword high with the same eerie, ululating battle-cry that had struck fear into the hearts of legionnaires a thousand years before, a battle-cry taken up by five hundred mouths, echoing from both sides of the road as men in half-armor came charging down, spears leveled.

"Close ranks!" the marshal bellowed, and the double file of soldiers pivoted to face outward, shields coming up to present a solid wall that bristled with spears.

But the attackers had spears, too, and were striking downward. They hurled their javelins, and a score of soldiers fell dead. Then they struck into the shield-wall, long spears stabbing down over the tops of the shields. Most of the soldiers snapped their shields up, deflecting the spears and striking back with their own, but a few were slow and fell, blood streaming down over their breastplates. The attackers caught the spears of the shield-wall on their own shields, though another score fell in trying. Then the two forces grappled one another in a desperate melee that filled the road. One by one, men fell and rolled down the sides, defenders and attackers alike.

Through the press rode the knights, hewing and hacking about them as they sought to come to grips with one another. They roared with anger, and footmen stumbled out of their way as quickly as they could, but stumbled and went down as often as they stumbled to safety.

Prince Brion chopped his way to Earl Marshal, blood singing high within him, head filled with visions of the honor of crossing swords with one of the finest knights in Europe. He chopped, he roared, and the Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

marshal turned his steed at the last minute, shield rising to meet Brion's broadsword. Then they hewed and hacked at one another while their warhorses circled about and about until finally the old knight struck a third blow in exactly the same line on Brion's shield, and the metal and wood fell apart. Brion snatched at his dagger, better than no defense at all, but the marshal spurred his horse and struck the prince squarely with his own shield. Brion fell, and the marshal bellowed, "Surrender! Your prince is down!"

His knights echoed the cry, and the foot soldiers froze. Then, one by one, the attackers threw down their spears, but kept their shields high.

"Mercy, Lord Marshal." Prince Brion struggled up to his knees, hands upraised.

"Mercy?" The marshal glowered down at him. "Wherefore should I show mercy to a traitor and a would-be parricide?"

"Mercy for my men and knights!" Brion cried. "This is no work of theirs! No will of their own has driven them to fight their king, only loyalty to me!"

The marshal towered above him, immobile as a rock, for long seconds. Then he said, "Even so. We shall show them quarter." He turned to his aide-de-camp. "Bid the knights surrender their swords; we shall hold them for ransom."

"It shall be done, my lord." The aide lifted his visor. "What of the footmen?"

"Bind them and march them back to Castle Westborn," the marshal commanded.

His footmen lowered their spears. The attackers finally set down their shields and turned their backs; the defenders drew thongs from their belts and tied wrists together. A knight with a dozen men started them back the way the marshal's army had taken, the knight visibly reluctant to miss his chance of glory in the main battle yet to come.

"Take up the march again," Earl Marshal told his aide, "and pray that we have not come too late to aid our lord the king."

The aide nodded and turned away to relay the order. As the army moved off down the road, the marshal turned back to the prince. "For your deeds, Your Highness, I should smite you down where you kneel.

But you are the son of my sovereign liege, and for that I will spare your life."

"I—I thank you, my lord." But Brion could only stare up at Earl Marshal, stricken by so stinging a rebuke from so chivalrous a knight As the marshal turned away, Brion bowed his head, for the first time doubting the rightness of his cause.

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

Earl Marshal spurred his horse to a canter, to overtake his own army. As he neared them, though, a soldier looked back at the sound of the earl's hooves, looked back and stared, mouth and eyes wide in shock.

The earl turned to look back even as he turned his charger, and saw a knight in blue armor riding down the trail toward the prince, who was struggling to his feet with the aid of a roadside boulder. He heard the galloping hooves and looked up just in time for the huge broadsword to strike him down again.

The marshal shouted in anger at so foul a blow against a knight unhorsed, and spurred his charger, riding to the rescue of the man he had just condemned.

Brion looked up and saw his death. He held up a hand, crying, "Hold! Grant me this boon, since you mean to take my life—let me at least look upon the face of the man who slays me!"

The Blue Knight hesitated for a moment, then lifted his visor, revealing only darkness and emptiness within.

Brion screamed with fear, but even as the huge sword stabbed down, his cry changed to anger. He seized the steel leg of his opponent and tried to pull himself up, bellowing, "Sorcery!" Then the sword lanced into the crack between breastplate and gorget, down beneath the collarbone toward the heart. The prince's eyes rolled up as his body fell full-length into the dust of the road.

The Blue Knight turned his horse and rode away.

Seconds later the Earl Marshal pounded to a halt and swung himself down to kneel by the prince's body.

He swung open the visor, but one look at the pallid face told him all. Slowly, he slipped off a gauntlet and reached down to close the prince's eyes. More slowly still, he closed the visor. He looked up as several knights reined in their horses beside him. "Take up his body and bear it in state to his father, men of mine," he told them, "for he died with honor, though he died by a foul blow."

The knights lifted their visors in respect. Then two of them reached down to help the marshal mount again, while footmen came to lash spears and a cloak into an improvised litter. They used it to take up the body of the murdered prince and hand it to the knights, who bore it gravely onward as they turned to follow the marshal to the battle.

But when they came to the plain on which the armies contended, there was no time to take the body to King Drustan, for they arrived in the midst of a melee. Queen Petronille and her army had taken their stand atop rising ground with a hillside at their backs, but their ground was not high enough, for the army of the king had surrounded them on three sides, and the fourth was too steep for horses. The queen sat her charger, armor glinting from the waist up, mail skirt hidden beneath silk, hewing about her desperately, crying, "Hold them! Strike down upon them! Hold them till their cowardly master comes to strike his own blows! Oh, where is my relief? Where is my son, my Brion, with all his knights and his Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

men?"

At the edge of the fray Earl Marshal drew rein, holding up a gauntleted hand to halt his army.

"We have come too late," said his aide-de-camp. "Could they not have waited battle for us?"

"They have not," the marshal returned, "but we can shorten it for them. Lay the prince's body atop the hill and set knights and a dozen men to guard it! Then follow me, for we must attack the queen from the rear and shorten this battle. We may yet save some hundreds of men's lives by this!" Then he spurred his mount and charged into the melee, bellowing his war-cry. His army followed him, yelling for blood, as four knights turned away with regret to lead a dozen soldiers up the nearest slope, bearing the prince's body with them.

The soldiers, however, were not disappointed.

With the marshal striking from the rear, the battle was short indeed; even Queen Petronille saw she would have to surrender, and called for mercy. When her knights and men were disarmed and bound and she herself was hemmed about by armored men, she endured her husband's gloating as he decried her for a traitor, then jeered further at her for an unnatural mother and wife. The marshal then dismounted and approached them both, with a solemn pace and thunderous brows. Even Drustan, late arrived to the scene, realized that the news must be bad, for he broke off his sneering just as Petronille's throat was swelling with a scathing retort—but she swallowed it as she saw the Earl Marshal's face.

"What news have you for us, my lord?" the king demanded.

Ponderously, the marshal knelt and bowed his head. "The worst, Majesties."

"Call her 'Majesty' no more, for she has abdicated by this rebellion," Drustan commanded, but apprehension filled his face.

"What news could you give me that is worse than my defeat?" Petronille asked, but spoke with foreboding.

That, of course, was exactly what the marshal had intended—some slight warning, so that his sovereign and his queen might brace themselves at least a little. "It is the prince, my lord—Prince Brion."

"Tell us," Drustan commanded, his face granite.

Petronille held her breath.

Earl Marshal launched into an account of Brion's ambush and defeat, of the sparing of his life—then of Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

the treacherous attack of the Blue Knight, and the prince's death.

"Surely it cannot be so," Drustan said, his face white.

"I shall not believe it until I see his body!" Petronille exclaimed.

"Come, then," the marshal said gravely.

Footmen helped him to mount. King and queen alike were horsed and followed. Up the hill they rode.

They found four knights and a dozen men lying unconscious. Of the prince's body, there was no sign.

"He has been stolen away!" Earl Marshal cried, then dismounted and wrenched off his helmet, bowing his head. "Strike if you will, Your Majesty, for your son's body was in my keeping!"

Then Queen Petronille began to scream.

The stick swung high. Papa lifted his own staff to block it, then swung the lower end at his opponent.

The soldier dropped his own staff, and Papa's stick cracked against it a second before the soldier caught him a glancing blow on his crown with the tip.

It was only a tap, and though it hurt, it wasn't any major pain. Papa stepped back, laughing. "Well struck, Trooper Cole! I yield me!"

"Well struck yourself." The trooper lowered his staff, grinning. "Your pardon, milord, but I never expect noblemen to be as skilled with the quarterstaff as we peasants."

"I studied it quite seriously at one time." Papa remembered his army pugilstick training. "Though I own I've improved considerably since coming to this castle and always having sparring partners available.

Still, I think that's enough for one morning, Cole. Shall we rest a moment and take a stoup of ale?"

"Gladly, if Your Lordship pleases." Cole grinned and followed Papa to a table at the side of the yard, where they each tapped a small mug from a huge keg. Papa sipped, reflecting that to these people, ale was only a beverage, and surely its alcohol content was low enough to qualify it as such. Soldiers frequently drank ale with their breakfasts—and lunches, and dinners. In fact, they were joining a group of other soldiers who were taking a break in their morning practice, watching their fellows who still swung and blocked in the exercise yard and discussing their merits.

"Elbert is quick, but he is still clumsy," one soldier opined.

"Aye, but improved," a sergeant pointed out. "A little more instruction, and he'll be able with a spear as Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

well."

"Will he then be ready for the halberd?" Papa asked.

A silence fell on the group. The sergeant broke it. "Ready to begin the halberd, yes. Your pardon, milord, but we are still amazed that a nobleman will practice with us commoners."

That is because I was born one, Papa thought, but aloud he only said, "I may have to command you, if King Drustan brings war to this castle, Sergeant, and I believe in coming to know my troops as well as I'm able. Besides, you have knowledge that I lack."

The men shifted from foot to foot with a brief mutter, and the sergeant said, "Begging your pardon, milord, but most knights consider the quarterstaff and halberd to be below their notice."

"Until one cuts them in the midst of battle," Papa said dryly. "Still, I'm not only speaking of arms and weapons, Sergeant. For example, I suspect there is much you men saw and heard about the Bretanglian royal family that we above the salt did not."

Several of the troopers laughed, and the rest grinned. Cole nodded, and the sergeant smiled as he said,

"Might be we did, milord, but I doubt you'd want to hear it."

"Try me," Papa invited, returning his grin.

"Well…" The sergeant glanced to both sides elaborately and leaned close to Papa, muttering behind his hand—and winning a few more laughs for his performance. "Those of us set to guard the guards who guarded King Drustan's and Queen Petronille's suite did notice that they argued whenever they were alone. Quite loudly, too."

"That doesn't surprise me," Papa told him. "You couldn't understand the words, though."

"No, we were too far away—but I think the Bretanglian guardsmen caught the odd word or two, and it made them, shall we say, nervous."

"I should think it would." Papa considered the range of topics for royal argument—adultery, control over the Merovencian provinces, adultery, which son should inherit what, adultery … "How long did they argue on their last night here?"

The soldiers fell silent again, finding great fascination in the patterns of their bootlaces.

"Come, come," Papa cajoled. "No one is blaming any of you—and I certainly won't say where I heard it.

How long?"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"Perhaps the half of an hour," the sergeant told him. "Then, say the guards who were in the hall, the king stalked out in high dudgeon, whipping his cloak about him. But he wasn't even gone an hour!"

"Home in plenty of time to start arguing with his wife again, eh?"

"Of course." The sergeant spread his hands. "What else would they do?"

"What indeed?" Papa could have mentioned Drustan's rumored libido, and Petronille's still-vibrant beauty, but he was too busy wondering if Drustan really could have found the Inn of the Courier Snail, sneaked in to stick a knife in his son's ribs, then run back to the castle in less than an hour.

The sergeant kept his eyes carefully on his boot toes. "They say that with some couples, fighting leads to lovemaking."

"I've heard that, and seen a few," Papa agreed, "but those fights always have the quality of a game about them, keen enjoyment just in the shaping of clever phrases. Such fights are not as bitter as those between King Drustan and Queen Petronille."

"I suppose not," the sergeant agreed in chagrin.

Another soldier said, "I'd say their love has died."

"Not died, perhaps," Papa said, "but it's certainly in a coma."

Ordinarily, Rosamund loved rainy days. Even now, gazing through the ripply glass in the leaded panes of her window, she watched the pot-boy poling his little skiff back to shore with a string of fish dragging in the water—her supper, no doubt. The rain had caught him unawares, in spite of the lowering sky. He would probably curse it, but she blessed it. The gentle susurrus of the raindrops soothed her, and the rain's blending of the trees and bushes with the wall enclosing her country house lulled her, letting her own melancholy harmonize with the world around her…

… until the mist lifted and showed her the walls of the castle, only a hundred yards distant.

The royal castle. The castle where her nemesis, King Drustan, would live if he won the war. Rosamund imagined the king coming to call on her with news of his victory, stepping too close to her, smiling down possessively, lecherously, reaching out to touch…

She turned away from the window, shuddering, and prayed with all her heart for the queen to win.

Without Petronille's protection, without Brion's, shorn even of the mild protection of a betrothal to the heir, she would be at the king's mercy in every way, and with no defense. She swore to herself that she would rather die. She touched the front of her bodice to caress the small hard oval of the crystal teardrop Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

she wore between her breasts, the clear little tear in its basket of leaden strips that held the single drop of poison old Aunt Maude, her grandmother's sister, had given her the day before she left her father's palace in southern Merovence.

"God grant that you shall never need it, my dear," the old woman said, "but if it is a choice between your virtue or your life, choose virtue, for a life without it is a torment for a woman in this day and age."

Little Rosamund had shied away from the crystal drop, asking, "Is there no other way?"

"There is this." Aunt Maude turned to show her a log of wood lying on a velvet cushion.

Rosamund stared. "What good is a log? And why do you treat it with such luxury?"

"Because that is where a princess should lay her head."

Aunt Maude passed her hand over the wood, chanting a rhyme in archaic words—and the air about the log shimmered, its form seeming to melt and reorder itself, and there lay a perfect likeness of little Rosamund's own head! She cried out, hand covering her mouth, and Aunt Maude explained, "It is now no longer a stick, but a stock. Find one that is as long as you are, and it will take on the appearance of your whole body. Moreover, another spell will make it walk with your gait and talk with your voice for three days. Then the spell will wear off and let it become only a log of wood again. Come, recite the spells after me, learn them by heart, for they may someday give you time to escape. Even then, though, you may need the drop of poison, for you may be caught, and life without virtue or love is worse than no life at all."

She hadn't explained, but she hadn't needed to—Rosamund understood her full well now, had understood for several years, ever since she blossomed into womanhood and King Drustan's eye had glinted whenever he saw her. Her own future husband had been worse, for Prince Gaheris had pressed her not to wait for the wedding, whenever he could catch her alone.

"A betrothal is almost a wedding," he had protested.

"It is not," Rosamund asserted, "or you would be willing to wait for it."

Even so, she had dreaded the day it would come, for her flesh shrank whenever Gaheris touched her.

A knock at the door brought her back to the present. Her heart hammered with apprehension, but she kept her voice calm as she called out, "Who knocks?"

"Count Sonor, my princess," the rich baritone answered.

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"Enter, my gaoler," Rosamund said. After all, she could scarcely deny him. She braced herself for an unpleasant interview.

"Scarcely your gaoler, my lady." Count Sonor entered "Say rather, your host." But his smile belied his words and told her that he relished his task.

No, worse—his smile was unctuous, his eye glittered. Rosamund's heart beat more faintly at the sight, for there was a gloating air about the nobleman that made her demand, "Have you news for me, milord?"

"The best." Count Sonor's eye flashed with malice. "King Drustan has put down the rebels and will ride home in triumph tomorrow."

CHAPTER 9

Rosamund fought to keep her composure while panic screamed within her. When she could trust herself to speak, she asked, "What of the queen and the princes?"

"The king has accorded Durif Castle to Her Majesty as her royal residence," Count Sonor told her, "with a company of soldiers to protect her, four ladies to wait on her, and a dozen maids in attendance."

"Alas, my lady!" Rosamund whispered, turning away. She knew a sentence of imprisonment when she heard one. The thought of that brave, daring spirit shut up within four stone walls, never to go forth again, made her heart ache in sympathy. She had heard of Durif Castle—small, even cramped, with no courtyard and a garden only ten paces' walk in either direction. It was scarcely larger than her own moated grange— but it was all of stone, hard stone, and the only entrance was through the gatehouse.

The count went on, pretending he had not heard. "Prince John stands by his father's side in victory, even as he stood by him in battle."

John, stand courageously in battle? Fighting like a cornered rat, perhaps—but that Drustan had made him stand near, Rosamund didn't doubt; it was the only way to make sure the savage little weakling wouldn't run and hide.

"What of Brion?"

Count Sonor fought down a vindictive smile. "As Prince John stands with his father, so Prince Brion stands with his grandfathers and their grandfathers."

Rosamund spun to face him, aghast. "You do not mean he is dead!"

"He rode upon the Earl Marshal from ambush," Count Sonor told her. "The earl left him afoot and Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

unarmed, but alive—yet before he had ridden out of sight, a knight in blue armor came riding from hiding and slew the prince with two strokes of his sword. None knows who he was, for he rode away into the mists from which he'd come."

Rosamund didn't even know if she had turned away, for the whole world darkened, and there was a roaring in her ears. She did know that she fought to stay on her feet, reached out and caught hold of something hard, leaned against a wall. Her world had fallen apart, for her enemies lived, and the queen and prince who might have protected her were imprisoned and dead.

Dead! Brion could not be dead! That great, capable, brave loon who could scarcely talk to a woman without stammering, but who could face a dozen common soldiers with only his sword and shield, and win! She had seen him do so, could remember the scent of him, the feel of him as she unwillingly took his arm when he escorted her in his brother's absence—Brion dead! It could not be!

"Milady?" Count Sonor's voice finally penetrated the roaring, for it was diminishing, and the world seemed to be lightening again. Looking up, Rosamund saw that it was his arm she had caught in her blindness, his armored chest against which she had leaned. She stepped away quickly, though her feet were still unsteady, and saw the mockery in his eyes, the veiled satisfaction at her discomfiture.

"Is there anything you require?" the count asked.

"Wine," she said, and shivered, drawing her shawl about her shoulders. "Mulled wine, and a log as long as my hearth is wide, for I am suddenly chilled."

"Very good, my lady." The count gave her a slight bow, and she saw a reluctant respect in his eyes. He stepped out and closed the door behind him. She heard the key grate in the lock.

Not that it mattered. Not that anything mattered anymore. She turned away and rested her forehead against the cold glass of the window, closing her eyes and letting the despair take hold of her, but dizziness came with it, and she forced her eyes open in fright. Now more than ever, she must keep her wits about her!

The raindrops spattered against the leaded pane, and Rosamund could only think how much they were like the tears that sprang from her own laden pains. Overcome with grief, she admitted to herself at last how much she had depended on the great bumbling hulk that had been Brion, so graceful and confident in war, so uncertain and awkward with herself! If only he could have been a bit less of a prig, a little less sure of the rightness of his chivalry and a little more willing to step an inch beyond its boundaries, willing perhaps even to kiss the hand of his brother's betrothed! If only he had not been so arrogant and so condescending toward her! But now when it was too late, now she could admit that she had relied upon him to take her side against his brothers, to shield her from their advances, to comfort her in her loneliness, if only with his inept arguments.

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

But he was gone, Queen Petronille was imprisoned, and she stood alone and defenseless against the importunings of King Drustan. Worse, she would now surely be wedded to that slug John, for he was the heir—but he would never dare say nay to his father, even if it were to defend his betrothed from becoming one more of the king's conquests! She could not endure it, she would not endure it! Her fingers touched the cold lump of the poison vial at her breast, but she forced herself to strength, reminding herself that Count Sonor might lie, that Brion might still live—so she must, too. She was not quite completely without defenses yet. Like all noblewomen of her time, she had been taught the rudiments of swordplay, for when married, she would surely be called upon to defend her husband's castle at one time or another—and she had learned a few spells, though none but she and Aunt Maude knew of them.

Someone knocked at the door. "Enter," she called, not caring who it was.

Two soldiers, hardly more than boys, wrestled a huge log in through the doorway. "You called for wood, my lady?"

"Aye. Set it in the grate." Rosamund drew her shawl about her again, once more shivering.

The soldiers rolled the log onto the andirons, then bowed and left the room. She barred the door behind them, drew the curtains closed, then took off her gown so as not to dirty it, and somehow, she never knew from where she found the strength, wrestled the huge balk of timber out of the fireplace. When it lay upon the cold stone of the floor, Rosamund walked its length, waving her hands in the pattern her great-aunt had shown her so many years ago and chanting the antique words she had memorized, only half aware of their meaning.

Mist seemed to gather about the log. As though it were heated wax, its form wavered, remolded itself, bleached— and a naked duplicate of Rosamund lay on the cold flags, so lifelike that it made her gasp.

She glanced at her body to make sure she still stood. Reassured, she walked back along the stock, waving a new set of patterns and chanting the second spell. Then she turned anxiously to see if she had succeeded.

The molded eyelids fluttered, opened, revealed blue orbs so much like her own—but lifeless, dull.

An eerie feeling washed over Rosamund, but she shook it off and commanded the stock, "Arise!"

The wood-woman stood, awkwardly but well enough. Rosamund dressed it in her own gown, her skin crawling at its touch. When she was done, she stepped back and commanded it, "If anyone knocks, say

'Enter!' If they speak words to you, nod your head ever so slightly! When the room darkens, take off the gown and go to bed. When the room lightens, arise and put on a different gown from that rack." She pointed to a wardrobe.

The stock began to take off the gown.

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"Not yet!" Rosamund snapped, and ran to open the drapes. She turned and gasped, for in the light the stock looked even more like herself—and if it seemed dead and lifeless inside, what matter? None would care, least of all King Drustan!

Turning to the wardrobe, she took out a traveling dress, boots, and a hooded cloak, and dressed. Then she positioned the stock by the door where it would be hidden by the opening of the panel and commanded it, "When the guard lifts his helmet, strike his head!" So saying, she rapped upon the door and stepped back.

The guard came in, frowning. "My lady?"

"Do you not uncover and kneel when you speak to your princess?" Rosamund demanded coldly.

The soldier sighed at the woman's whims and knelt, taking off his iron skullcap.

The stock stepped forward and struck with its little fist— small, but still of wood. Without a sound, the soldier's eyes rolled up, and he fell.

"Guard!" Rosamund called in pretended exasperation, "show this fellow his manners!"

But no one came. Greatly daring, she peeked out, and saw the hallway empty. Elation soared; the soldier would waken and see only the stock and the door, closed now, and think himself a fool for submitting to her whims—but he would never dare tell how his prisoner had outwitted him. Most likely he would curse the stock and take up his post again, and no one would know.

Then Rosamund stepped out into the hallway, looking to left and right, and crept away, her heart hammering. What followed was a harrowing half hour as she crept from darkened doorway to dim-lit hall, thankful that it was raining and the whole castle dimmed thereby. Thrice she barely hid in time as guardsmen passed; twice she almost stumbled upon a servant carrying wine and meat to the count, or scrubbing the floor. At last, though, she dodged through the screens passage and out into the cold, sharp air of the waning day. Wet or not, it tasted of freedom.

Sure enough, the pot-boy had left his little skiff tied by the kitchens. She stepped in, loosed it from its mooring, and set the oars in their hole-pins, remembering afternoons on the river with her father. As silently and quickly as she could, she rowed across the moat, praying to St. Jude to aid her. He must have heard, for she gained the farther shore without a single cry from the grange. She set the oars back in the skiff and shoved it away into the moat; people would think it had simply pulled loose from its pier during the storm.

She could have shouted with triumph, but reminded herself that she was still far from free. Off she went into the rain, welcoming the drubbing it gave her, blessing the mud that squelched beneath her boots, off Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

into the dimness of the weather until she came into the shelter of the deer park, tall trees gathering close to hide her. There she let herself rest for a few minutes, let the shivering of close escape take her, then remembered that she should feel victorious, for she was free, and no matter what dangers she faced, they could not be worse than King Drustan and his puling son.

Off into the wood she went, the rain only the occasional drop striking through the leaves, off to hide herself in the deepest forest she could find, and remember all her father had ever tried to teach her about hunting and fishing.

The footman poured mulled wine into the goblets, bowed to Alisande, and backed out of the room. She watched him go, frowning and toying with her standing cup. "I do not know if this Latrurian conceit pleases me entirely. A subject should be able to bow and turn about so that he can see the door through which he goes."

"It is a mark of respect, my dear," Mama reminded her.

"Respect? If King Drustan had done it to me, it would mean only that he did not trust me behind his back!"

"Wise of him," Papa said.

"Indeed." Alisande's lips thinned. "But are my subjects not to trust me? No, I think I shall return to my father's protocol. I never asked for this, after all."

"Odd that your noblemen should feel the need for more elaborate ceremony," Papa said.

"They have begun it only because Queen Petronille insisted they behave so to her—but she was reared much closer to Latruria than I. No, I think I shall insist on northern ways."

"She has played havoc even with your domestic arrangements," Mama sighed.

"What greater havoc could she play than beguiling my husband and your son away from us?" Alisande demanded, then softened. "Though I cannot fault the poor dame, when she has lost a son of her own!"

"I cannot believe she had anything to do with his murder," Mama stated.

Papa nodded. "By the guards' report, she stayed in her chamber from the finishing of our conference till the horrible news of the tragedy came, and she quarreled with King Drustan for the first hour of that time."

"Only the first?" Alisande caught the discrepancy immediately. "Did they finish their dispute so Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

quickly?"

"I doubt that it ever ends," Papa said with irony, "but King Drustan did stalk out in wrath, to walk abroad for most of the second hour."

"Surely that would not have been time enough for him to murder his son and come back!"

"I should think not," Papa agreed, "and the guards have inquired, and assure me that he did not pass through the gatehouse or the postern in that time. Wherever he stalked, it was inside the castle."

"Prince John was in his chamber all the while," Mama sat a little straighter, her whole body expressing disapproval. "We have a witness to the fact."

Alisande glanced at her, caught the message of her body language, and did not ask for particulars. "And Prince Brion?"

"So far as I can tell," Mama answered, "he went out wenching with his brother, but was too much imbued with the ideals of chivalry to patronize a prostitute."

"But perhaps not too chivalrous to stab his brother in the back?" Alisande shook her head. "It is far too unlikely. Did no one see him at the Inn of the Courier Snail?"

"None I have talked to saw him there," Papa told her. "I can only think that he went to a different inn."

"Or came in disguise with a dirk," Mama said, troubled. "I think he loves Rosamund, but will not admit it. Still, Gaheris treated her most rudely, and Brion might think of killing Gaheris as defending Rosamund's virtue."

"He might have been right to have thought so," Alisande said grimly. "Did no one see the stabbing?"

"None," Papa said. "The assassin struck from behind, and none saw the blow itself. We only know that a Bretanglian guarded Gaheris' back as long as he could. Minutes after that soldier fell, Gaheris died."

"Brion, in a soldier's garb?" Alisande shrugged. "If they were to disguise themselves as commoners, it would have been the habit he would have preferred. Still, I cannot believe he would have fought to protect his brother one minute and stabbed him in the back the next."

"It is hard to believe," Papa said noncommittally. "Still, on the face of it, none of Gaheris' family struck the fatal blow."

"Nor did Rosamund," Mama said, "for she, too, was in her chamber all that time. None actually saw her Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

sleeping, but none saw her come out, either."

"I think we must assume that if any of the family were involved at all, it was by hiring the assassin,"

Alisande said, "and Matthew's Man Who Went Out the Window is still the most likely to have been the actual killer, no matter his denial."

"What murderer would boast of his deed to the queen's husband?" Mama agreed.

"Or her Lord Wizard," Papa seconded.

There was a knock at the door. There were several knocks, then a storm.

Alisande rose and turned to face the portal, calling, "Enter!"

The door opened; the guards stepped in, and between them came a man in stout broadcloth leggins, tunic, and cloak, still coated with dust, his face lined with fatigue. "Your Majesty!" He sank to one knee and almost fell.

A guard caught him.

"Rise," Alisande commanded, and the guard helped the courier to his feet. "What news?" the queen demanded.

The man's words fairly tumbled over each other in his urgency. "The war is done, Your Majesty!"

"Done?" Alisande stared. "It has scarcely begun!"

"The king met the queen in the field, with an army six times her number," the messenger told her.

"Prince Brion ambushed Earl Marshal on his way to the battlefield, but the marshal struck him down, vanquished his men, and took the princess sword."

"He let Prince Brion live, though?" Alisande demanded.

"He did, though unhorsed—and before the marshal's men had ridden from sight, a knight in blue armor came riding out of the mists and slew the prince. Earl Marshal carried his body to the battleground, but someone stole it away during the fighting."

"Stole a dead body?" Alisande stared. "Why?"

The spy shook his head. "Your Majesty can imagine the reason far better than I."

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"I can indeed." Alisande's face darkened. "We shall soon hear rumors that the prince was not slain, but lives, and gathers an army in the hinterland to free his mother and claim the throne. Queen Petronille is imprisoned, is she not?"

"She might as well be," the spy told her. "The king has sent her to Castle Durif, where she will have a score of servitors and every luxury but freedom."

"A gilded cage," Alisande said grimly. "What of the king and Prince John?"

"Prince John stands by his father's side in victory, even as he did in battle," the spy told her, "though Rumor says he fought like a cornered rat, not like a loyal knight."

"What else does Rumor say?"

The spy tossed his head in disgust. "That Prince Brion's body was stolen away by fairies, which I highly doubt…"

"But thus is discontent kept alive and given hope," the queen said, "and the next rebellion born. What else?"

"That the king won by sorcery," the spy said, "and will repay the sorcerers by letting them spread their heathen rites across the land."

"What need for sorcery, with six-to-one odds and the Earl Marshal by your side? Speak on!"

"There are folk who wonder why the Earl Marshal spared Prince Brion's life," the spy said darkly.

"Why, because the marshal is a chivalrous knight and a loyal servant of the king who would not slay his suzerain's son! What does Rumor hint?"

"That the marshal had a more personal reason. That is all, only a hint, but it will grow."

"Soon we shall hear that the earl was secretly in league with the prince, or left him alive because he had hired a murderer to slay him," Alisande said with scorn. "You do not believe any of this, do you?"

"Not a bit," the courier confirmed. "I know no details of the battle, but I would not believe them if I did.

It will take weeks to thresh the kernels of truth from the chaff of gossip."

"Is there any rumor that you do believe?"

"One," the spy said slowly, "that Princess Rosamund is a prisoner in a moated grange near the king's Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

castle at Woodstock."

"Alas, the poor child!" Alisande squeezed her eyes shut. "Is there word of her betrothal to Prince John?"

"Not even rumor, Majesty—but there is gossip as to the king's intent in keeping her so near to his castle."

"Even I do not need to hear the substance of that gossip!" The queen spun away to her writing desk and took up a quill. "I shall send to demand the princess be returned to me at once, since she is no longer betrothed to any prince of Bretanglia!" She paused with quill on parchment and turned back to the messenger. "Great thanks for your news, good fellow. Take food and drink, and sleep for a few days.

Then back to Bretanglia with you, for I must have more news of what transpires there!"

"As Your Majesty wishes." The man bowed his head, his delight at her praise glowing through his weariness.

He turned away, but stumbled, and Alisande told a guard, "See him to food and a bed."

The guard took the agent away, but Alisande directed the other guard, "Send word to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to lay aside ten pieces of gold for that man, and to send him a note saying it is held for him."

The guard bowed and stepped out, closing the door behind him.

Alisande scribbled a note, sanded it, and said, "That will be set into proper form in the morning, and dispatched to the king."

"Do you not risk war?" Papa asked, frowning.

"Risk?" Alisande laughed bitterly. "Drustan will declare war on us himself, as soon as he has rallied his forces and buried the dead. He has sought an excuse to capture away from us those provinces he feels should be his. It will probably do no good to demand the return of Rosamund, but it can do no harm, either. At least this spat between himself and Petronille has won us a month or two more to prepare for war."

"That will not help the princess, though," Mama pointed out.

"Yes, and if the rumor of her imprisonment is true, she will need help most sorely." Alisande scowled.

"What can I do, though?"

"For one thing, we can discover whether or not that rumor is true," Mama told her, "or whether she is Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

safely gaoled with Queen Petronille."

"I doubt that," Papa said darkly.

"I, too," Alisande agreed, "and I am troubled about these 'details' that my agent did not yet know. Mind you, he did right to bring me the great news at once—but the small news can hide great problems."

Mama glanced at Papa; he nodded. She turned back to Alisande. "If you wish, we can go among the people of Bretanglia and learn what news there is."

Alisande froze, glowering down at her desktop.

"I dislike leaving you alone," Mama said gently, "but surely the situation is now grave enough to ask Saul to come guard the castle from evil magic."

"It is grave enough that I need you here! Let the Witch Doctor go among the people!"

"He is young," Mama explained, "and less skilled at prying information from the unwary. Then, too, folk are more likely to confide in mature people."

Alisande had to admit that was true—Mama's motherly air had induced her to confide more than once.

"Then, too," Papa said, "it is perhaps more important that we do what we can to keep war from coming to Merovence, than help to win it once it does."

"Keep the war away?" Alisande looked up, frowning. "How can you do that?"

"For one thing, we can find our son and make sure he doesn't work himself into greater trouble than he can handle," Papa said with a smile. "More to the point, we may be able to find ways to distract King Drustan—say, by using magic to free Queen Petronille and spirit her away."

"He will not attack if he fears rebellion at home while he is gone," Alisande admitted. Her voice gained an edge of desperation as she asked, "But why must you both go? Surely Papa Mantrell is enough of a spy by himself!"

"He is quite capable, of course," Mama said carefully, "but you know as well as I that women know things men do not, and are reluctant to speak of them to any but other women. Matthew certainly will not be able to learn such secrets, nor will my Ramon."

"There is truth in what you say," Alisande admitted, "particularly news regarding Queen Petronille and Princess Rosamund. Yes, there is some chance you may be able to keep Merovence safe from war."

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

The older couple relaxed. If it was better for her country, the queen would let them go.

The queen went to the door, opened it, and told the guard, "Summon Ortho the Frank."

Mama smiled at Papa and squeezed his hand. Ortho was Matt's assistant, and a powerful wizard in his own right. If he pronounced the castle safe in their absence, they would go.

When Ortho came, he listened to Alisande gravely, then sighed. "Ah me! War again! Well, if we must face it, we must. But surely King Drustan will give us some warning—an embassy with a declaration, perhaps."

"He is chivalrous enough for that," Alisande admitted.

"Then I shall send to inform the Witch Doctor of events, and ask him to hold himself ready to come.

There will be time enough to send for him once war is declared."

"But if evil magic is directed against us before that?" Alisande couldn't help glancing in the direction of the nursery.

"I can deal with it," Ortho said, with a quiet smile that bespoke a wealth of confidence, "or should I say that I believe I shall be able to cope with any magicks that are likely to be thrown against us, especially with the new spells Lord and Lady Mantrell have taught me. Surely if enemies attack, the ones that conjure defense by the name of El Cid should be particularly useful." He acknowledged his colleagues with a bow of his head.

They returned the nod, smiling. Mama said, "The Song of the Emperor Hardishane, which you have taught us, will doubtless prove most useful if we encounter difficulties, Master Ortho."

"Let it be done, then," Alisande sighed. "Go forth in disguise, lord and lady—go forth to protect your son and my husband and to discover the true nature of what passes in Bretanglia." Then her face creased with anxiety. "Though Heaven knows, I shall miss you both sorely!"

Mama rose and went to her, and Ortho had the good sense to leave without asking his sovereign's permission.

Three days after Rosamund's escape, the guard threw her door open and bawled, "His Majesty the King!"

King Drustan marched in, resplendent in velvet cloak and satin doublet, crown on his head and a gleam in his eye. "My dear, good news! We have won!"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

He saw Rosamund standing at the window in a cream-colored gown embroidered with pale roses—only gazing out at the moat, nothing more.

Drustan frowned at the lack of response. "Do you not rejoice with me?"

"Rejoice with you." The voice was dull; its owner raised dull eyes to his.

"Come now, is that any way to greet the conquering hero?" Drustan chided. He stepped over to her, snapping at the guard, "Close the door!" As it shut behind him, he cupped Rosamund's chin and lifted her lips to his. They were cold, unresponsive, but not repelling him, either. Somewhat surprised, he tried a deeper kiss, and again received no rebuff, but no response, either. Still, the flavor pleased him and he drank deeper.

His hands began to shake with years of desire as he caressed her more and more intimately. The taste of her was sweet, though it would have been sweeter if she had returned his ardor or, better still, tried to fight him off. Nonetheless, he was glad of her resignation, glad that he would finally make her his own, no matter who married her. With trembling fingers he stripped her gown, caressing as he went, stepped back to admire her naked body—though its contours were not quite as rich as he had hoped—then swung her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. He was amazed at her weight.

She watched him calmly, with a composure that was almost unnerving, as he undressed, and seemed to find the sight of his nudity neither repelling nor inflaming. Drustan frowned, determined to make her gasp with pleasure, and lay down be-side her, saying, "You'll learn now the delights of royal lovemaking, my dear, and I'll not let it cease till I hear you moan with longing." He reached out to touch her breast as the fast rays of the setting sun colored her pale flesh, pale flesh that suddenly hardened, roughened, darkened, and Drustan froze, staring at shaggy bark. He shot a glance up at Rosamund's face, but saw only a single knothole and the roughly sawn end of the log.

CHAPTER 10

Superstitious fear froze King Drustan for several moments. Then he sprang from the bed, shouting angry curses.

The guard hammered at the door, his muffled voice crying, "Majesty! Are you well?"

"Well enough!" Drustan cried, and dove for his clothes. Dressed, he turned to the door, then with a last thought turned to kick Rosamund's gown under the bed. He turned back to yank the bar off the door. The guards tumbled in, weapons at the ready. "Who dares strike at Your Majesty?"

"A witch!" King Drustan pointed a trembling finger at the log. "Or perhaps that puling Lord Wizard of Merovence!"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

The guards turned to stare, then paled with fear of the supernatural, making signs to ward off evil.

"Oh, be done with your womanish fears!" King Drustan snapped in disgust, all the greater because of the reminder of his own brief terror. "Send men out to seek for the princess! Send more to discover who has kidnapped her! Find me a wizard of my own, to discover whose work this is!"

The soldiers bowed and ran from the room, all too glad to get away from the scene of witchcraft.

Drustan stood his ground, glaring at the log and fuming. He didn't really believe that Matthew Mantrell had done this, but he would learn who had, and they would suffer for his embarrassment!

It was another night and another inn—but this time they were in Bretanglia, for during the day, they had crossed the Calver River, the border between Bretanglia and Merovence. Matt was constantly on edge now, and acting all the more casual because of it, very much aware of being an alien in his enemy's land.

At least he was accompanied by a knight who had acquired the accent of Bretanglia's nobility, when he chose to use it, and a peasant who had been born with the burr of the village folk of the North Country.

The common room was full, peddlers and carters jostling elbows with the local farmers as serving wenches threaded through the maze of tables with handfuls of mugs and laden trays. The companions elbowed their way through to a few seats and wedged their way onto the benches.

"Good e'en to you, travelers!" A jovial carter raised his mug in welcome. "Have you come far?"

"From Bordestang, good fellow," Sir Orizhan told him.

The man sobered at hearing his accent. "A weary trip, sir."

"Weary indeed," Sir Orizhan agreed, "but liable to prove unhealthy, if we had stayed."

"So!" The carter raised his eyebrows. "The rumors are true, then?"

"Which rumors?" Sergeant Brock asked.

"That Prince Gaheris was murdered in Merovence, and King Drustan may make war upon Queen Alisande in revenge?"

"True enough," Sergeant Brock said, "though who can tell how a king thinks?"

"But there's no proof that he has call for revenge," Matt said. "The killer might not have been a man of Merovence."

The carter turned to him, frowning. "You've an odd way of speaking, friend. Where is your home?"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"I grew up far to the west," Matt said, "very far."

A peddler next to the carter leaned in and said, "We have heard it was a Merovencian sorcerer what struck the prince."

"It might have been a sorcerer," Matt agreed, "and it might have been a Merovencian—but the truth is that no one saw it happen, or who did it. They only know that a man leaped out the window right afterward, and he was both a sorcerer and a man of Bretanglia."

"Was he! We've not heard of that!" the carter said.

But the peddler frowned. "Where have you heard this, fellow?"

Matt forced himself to ignore the "fellow"; after all, he was disguised as a peasant. "From those who saw it," which was true enough.

"Did they?" Another peasant leaned in, his hood still up. "How did they know he was a sorcerer?"

"Someone saw him work magic." Matt didn't feel obliged to say whom. "As to his being a man of Bretanglia, that was his accent."

"Phaw!" the third peasant said in disgust. "Any man can fake an accent!"

Matt shrugged. "It's all just rumor, as our friend the carter said. But what news have you heard? There must be some folk come down from the north with word of the war there."

"Ah." The carter glanced to left and to right, checking who was in earshot, then leaned even farther forward and said in a conspiratorial tone, "They say that when the Earl Marshal left Prince Brion alone, on foot and unarmed, one of his troopers turned back and saw a blue knight come riding down upon the prince and slay him."

Sir Orizhan and Sergeant Brock sat stiff with shock, but Matt's mind leaped past the emotion and onto what was, to him, just as important "Prince Brion was slain? And mere was a witness to it?"

"Aye, but he says the prince claimed the right to know who slew him, and the Blue Knight raised his visor."

Matt braced himself. "What face did he see?"

"None." The carter's voice was hollow with dread. "The helmet was empty. Dark, and empty."

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

The other peasants muttered and crossed themselves—but the one with his hood still up howled as though he'd burned his hand and leapt up from the table, stalking away.

The other peasants stared, watching him go. Then one said, "What bit him?"

"Guilty conscience, maybe." Matt watched, too. "He's got awfully hairy hands, hasn't he?"

They all looked and nodded. "Most marvelously hairy," said the carter. "I know a plowman who is almost as bad."

Matt made a mental note that the bauchan was allergic to the Sign of the Cross, then realized it would probably do no good if he deliberately used it as a weapon. He sighed and braced himself for more mischief.

Apparently it was going to be delayed, though. A sudden commotion of talk swept through the room.

Everyone turned to everyone else, either asking or telling.

The carter leaned over to the next table. "What has happened?"

"A minstrel!" a farmer told him. "He has just said that Princess Rosamund is gone from her moated grange!"

"A minstrel! Will he sing of it?"

"Not until he has finished—there! He has swallowed the last bite of his dinner!"

The minstrel stepped into the clear space near the hearth, lifting his lute. As he tuned it, the bauchan, on his way out the door, stopped and turned back to listen. As the strains of the lute grew louder, the people gradually fell silent, and Buckeye settled down, leaning against the wall.

Matt made another mental note—that the bauchan liked music—for it might come in handy, whether he meant to use it as a charm or not.

The minstrel began to sing.

"Queen Petronille was a sick woman,

And afraid that she should die,

So she sent for a monk of Merovence

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

To come to her speedi-lye.

King Drustan called down his nobles all,

By one, by two, by three,

Then sent away for Earl Marshal

To come to him speedily."

The minstrel slipped into a slightly higher voice for King Drustan.

"Do you put on one friar's coat,

And I'll put on another,

And we shall to Queen Petronille go,

One friar like another."

The women in the crowd exclaimed in indignation, and the men muttered in agreement—everyone seemed to think that hearing confession under false pretenses was pretty low.

"Now, God forbid, said Earl Marshal," the minstrel sang in a deeper voice,

"That such a thing might be.

Should I beguile madame the queen,

Then hanged I would be!"

A murmur of approval ran through the crowd. The true knight had remained true.

The bauchan looked up and turned his head, frowning at the crowd's idealism.

The minstrel slipped into Drustan's voice again.

"I'll pawn my living and my lands,

My scepter and my crown,

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

That whatsoever Queen Petronille says,

I shall not write it down!"

"Which conveniently explains any lack of evidence," Matt muttered to Sir Orizhan. The knight looked surprised, then nodded slowly.

The minstrel went on.

"So thus attired, they both did go

Till they came to Whitehall,

And the bells did ring, and the choristers sing,

And the torches did light them all.

'Are you of Merovence,' she said, 'As I suppose you be?

For if you are Bretangl'n friars, Then hanged you shall be!' "

"They really like hanging people in your country?" Matt muttered to Sergeant Brock.

"Just a minstrel's nonsense," the sergeant said, but he didn't look all that sure.

" 'We're monks of Merovence,' they said,

'As you suppose we be,

And we have not been to any Mass

Since we came over the sea.' "

Matt frowned. "Why's that important?"

"Monks say Mass every day," Sir Orizhan explained, surprised. "They had only arrived that day, and after Mass-times."

"Oh, of course," Matt said, abashed. "Silly of me."

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"The first vile sin that e'er I did, To you I shall unfold…'"

Indignant or not, everybody leaned forward, eager for gossip. Some sixth sense made Matt look at Buckeye just in time to see the bauchan's lips moving as he made an intricate, double-handed gesture toward his mouth, then blow a kiss toward the minstrel. Matt turned back to watch, his stomach roiling.

The minstrel sang on in happy ignorance.

"…Earl Marshal had my maidenhead

Underneath this cloth of gold.' "

The whole room broke into a furious hubbub, everyone denouncing such a vile accusation—but doubt shadowed many faces. The minstrel himself looked shocked at his own words, but his lips kept moving, as though of their own accord.

Matt glanced at the bauchan and saw him grinning. He didn't know how this was going to rebound onto himself, but he braced for the worst The minstrel began to sing in the King Drustan voice: "

'That is a vile sin,' said the king,

'God may forgive it thee.'

'Amen, amen,' quoth Earl Marshal,

With a heavy, heavy heart spoke he.

'The next vile thing that e'er I did,

To you I shall uncover—

I poisoned fairest Rosamund

There in her Woodstock bower.' "

The crowd went wild, and the minstrel clapped his hand over his mouth, appalled. People were on their feet, shaking their fists at him and shouting angrily—but he was a veteran and realized that he had to get them under control somehow. He kept playing until they had quieted a little, then called out over the noise, "I only sing what I have heard, good folk! But if it offends you…" He stopped playing and started to swing the lute over his shoulder.

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

Matt had to admire the man for a graceful exit from an explosive situation. It almost worked.

"No, no! Go on!" a dozen people cried at once.

The minstrel hesitated, looking uncertain.

"A penny to sing us the rest!" one man cried, and a copper flew through the air to land near the minstrel's feet.

"A silver penny!"

"A shilling!"

Coins rained on the singer. Reassured, he took up his lute again, playing while he waited for silence.

"Nice technique," Matt said slowly. "I can see minstrels are going to be singing this version of the song all over the country, if it brings them that kind of cash."

"There are a few towns loyal to the queen," Sir Orizhan said noncommittally.

"So they won't perform there. I wonder how this song would have sounded if the minstrel could have sung it the way he intended."

Sergeant Brock stared at him. "What makes you think he does not?"

Matt jerked his head toward the bauchan. Sergeant Brock looked, saw, and went stiff.

The minstrel, not one to let a good thing go, lifted his lute again and took up the song.

" 'That is a vile sin,' said the king,

'God may forgive it thee.'

'Amen, amen,' spoke Earl Marshal,

'And I wish it so may be.'

" ‘The next vile thing that e'er I did,

Or for which laid my plan—

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

I brewed a box of poison strong,

To poison King Drustan!' "

The crowd took it in stride, exclaiming in tones of delighted horror but staying in their seats. The minstrel managed to look nonchalant, as though those were the words he had planned to sing. When they quieted, he went on.

" 'And do you see yonder's little boy,

A-throwing of that ball?

That is Earl Marshal's son,' she said,

'And I love him the best of all!' "

The crowd erupted into exclamations of excited condemnation.

"That conveniently explains why Earl Marshal let Prince Brion live," Matt said, thin-lipped. "Very neat."

"Who could have invented such calumnies?" Sir Orizhan protested.

"The bauchan." Sergeant Brock nodded toward Buckeye.

Sir Orizhan stared at the spirit, then whipped his gaze back to the minstrel. "You mean the creature makes the words come out of the minstrel's mouth?"

"No, he can't do that." Matt frowned, suddenly alert. "I thought he was just putting the thoughts into the minstrel's head, but… Watch the singer's lips, closely!"

His companions stared at him as though he were mad, then shrugged and turned to watch the minstrel again. The man sang,

" 'And do you see yonder's little boy,

A-catching of that ball?

That is King Drustan's son,' she said,

'And I love him the worst of all!' "

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"By my troth, it's true!" Sir Orizhan exclaimed. "His lips form sounds we're not hearing!"

Matt nodded. "Buckeye is blocking the words the minstrel's really saying."

"So the bauchan is making up the words we do hear?" Sergeant Brock guessed.

"Maybe." But Matt wasn't so sure. He was a good American boy who had grown up on commercials and politicians' promises, and he was very much aware how well the song fitted King Drustan's purposes. He wondered if it was really the bauchan who was making up those words, after all, though he didn't doubt it was Buckeye's mischief that opened a channel for whoever really was broadcasting them. He had a sudden vivid image of the minstrel as a radio, picking up signals from someplace farther north.

The minstrel sang on:

" 'His head is like unto a bull,

His nose is like a boar!'

'No matter for that,' King Drustan said,

'I'll love him the better therefore!' "

Then the king pulled off his friar's robe,

And appeared all in red.

She shrieked, she cried, she rubbed her hands,

And she said she was betrayed."

Who really was transmitting? King Drustan was suddenly no longer the obvious source—that last verse favored Prince John too much, as the legitimate heir. Somehow, though, Matt just couldn't believe such an obvious loser could have the intelligence to compose a ballad like that, let alone think of broadcasting it magically to any minstrels with nothing on their minds—or coming out of their mouths, as the case might be. Also, John was a prince, not a sorcerer.

The minstrel was still singing. Matt concentrated on his words, hoping for a clue.

"Then the king looked over his left shoulder,

And a grim look looked he,

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

And his said, 'Earl Marshal, but for my oath,

Then hanged thou wouldst be!' "

He struck a final chord, and it echoed in a room suddenly silent, as everyone stared, appalled, at the thought of one of the most chivalrous knights in the land suddenly transformed into a treacherous villain.

It numbed Matt, too. Somebody was trying to destroy the credibility of one of the pillars of goodness and principle in Bretanglia. He suspected sorcery in a big way—but who was a big enough sorcerer?

The Man Who Went Out the Window.

Suddenly, he was back at the top of Matt's suspect list. Matt began to see that, no matter who lost, the sorcerer won.

Then the crowd rose in one roaring monstrous wave, rolling toward the minstrel.

The man blanched and shrank into the nearest corner.

The reaction took Matt by surprise. He sat frozen for a second, appalled at the transformation from shouting to charging.

Then the shock wore off, and he leaped out of his seat, running to put himself between the minstrel and the crowd, then spinning to face the customers, drawing his sword. A second later Sergeant Brock was at his left with his quarterstaff up to guard, and Sir Orizhan was at his right with his sword out and ready.

The sight of naked steel gave the crowd pause, even a second of silence. Matt took his opportunity.

"Freedom of speech!"

A roomful of blank looks answered him—the phrase was nonsense to medieval peasants.

"Let him sing what he pleases," Matt explained, "and anyone who can argue the queen's side, go ahead and argue! The rest of you use your common sense and decide who's right!"

"We know who's wrong!" A man leaped into the front rank, a man with his hood up and a very hairy forefinger pointing past Matt at the minstrel. "Stop him! He's going out the window!"

"That doesn't make him guilty!" Matt shouted, but his voice was lost in the roar as the crowd charged.

Cudgels appeared, striking at the knights' swords, then snapping back as Matt and Sir Orizhan slashed.

Sergeant Brock was beating a mad tattoo on three other staves and taking a few knocks himself. Matt stepped in front of him and snapped, "Out the window!"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

Sergeant Brock was too experienced a soldier to argue with an officer under battle conditions. He went.

Matt cut off a couple of cudgels, then snapped at Sir Orizhan, "Out!"

"I shall not leave you— Ouch!" The knight took a blow on his left shoulder.

"That could have been your right! Get OUT!" Matt stormed, and as the knight faded behind him, he whirled his sword in a figure-eight. The commoners pulled back at his sudden ferocity, pulled back but waited—wisely, too, because Matt couldn't have kept it up for long. On the other hand, he didn't need to.

"Away, away! For I will fly to thee, Not through the window where you've clambered hard, But on the viewless wings of poesy, To land beside Sir Or'zhan in the yard!"

He fell a foot and a half as the candlelight disappeared, but he was ready for it and only stumbled. He looked up, saw Sergeant Brock and Sir Orizhan staring at him, and beyond them, the minstrel. "Don't just stand there," Matt told them. "Run!"

"What from?" Sir Orizhan demanded.

"From the mob!" Matt cried, exasperated. "Who do you think I'm running from—Keats?

They ran.

They had a good enough head start so that they were already lost in the shadows of the village huts before the vanguard of the crowd came charging out of the tavern, howling for blood. They ran about thirty feet, then slowed, stopped, and milled about, baffled and enraged. The wind blew Matt and his companions shreds of conversation.

"Where did they go?"

"Through the huts toward the south road, most likely!"

"Road? That was a sorcerer's spell!"

"Aye! How else could they all disappear like that?"

"What sorcerer ever had need of a road?"

"Disappear?" Sir Orizhan stared back at the mob.

"We climbed out the window!" the minstrel protested.

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"They saw me disappear, and found an empty corner," Matt explained. "They jumped to conclusions—

no surprise, since that's what they've been doing all evening. Let's make tracks while we can, gentlemen.

It's going to be another cold night."

An hour later Matt halted and pronounced them far enough away to be able to risk camping. He and his companions set about their usual tasks without even discussing them. He was surprised and pleased to see the minstrel pitch in and help— gathering wood, clearing a fire ring and rolling stones for it, and cutting boughs for sleeping. The wood he chose was very dry, so their minimal campfire gave off very little smoke. The minstrel pulled out a small kettle and went to fill it with water from a nearby stream.

By the time he came back, Sergeant Brock had rigged a greenstick pothook to hang the kettle over the fire.

"I think we could all use a warm draft." Matt took out some dried herbs and crumbled them in. His companions shied a little, so he told them, "Don't worry, it's just chamomile. Congratulations on your performance, minstrel."

"I've seldom sung with so great an effect," the singer said with a wry smile. "I hope I can remember the words."

"You made them up on the spur of the moment, then?" Sergeant Brock hunched forward, intent on the answer.

"Made them up? I didn't even sing them!" the minstrel shuddered. "The words I did sing were only the tale of the queen's regrets for her son's death and her ward's kidnapping."

"Kidnapping?" Sir Orizhan pressed close.

The minstrel looked at his face and shrugged uneasily. "How else explain her disappearance from a moated grange?"

"Escape." Sir Orizhan leaned back. "My lady is far more resourceful than most would think, to look upon her—so pale of complexion and hair, and so quiet in her manner."

The minstrel looked keenly at him. "Your lady?"

"He's from southern Merovence—the princess' home district, in fact," Matt said quickly. "But about your song, minstrel—could vow hear the words you were singing?"

"Not those I sang myself, no. I knew what words I meant, knew which sounds my mouth shaped—but I, too, heard only this treacherous slander of the queen's confessing an adultery she never committed." The minstrel shuddered again. "I cannot wonder that my listeners should be so angered!"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

Sir Orizhan frowned. "Why should they suddenly attack, though? These same people had already listened to the earl being blamed for deflowering the queen, though all know King Drustan was her second husband and wedded to her before she ever met Earl Marshal. Worse, they had heard him named as Prince Brion's real father, both with nothing more than shouts of outrage. Why should they turn violent so suddenly?"

Within Matt's head, Memory recited, Peace. The charm's wound up. Aloud, he said, "I think it was another effect of the spell."

"Spell?" The minstrel stared, eyes almost bulging. "What foul magic was this?"

"Well," Matt said, feeling sheepish, "I'm afraid part of it came from a spirit who has picked me out as the target for his mischief."

"Spirit?" The minstrel began to inch away from him.

"A bauchan," Matt explained. "I picked him up by accident when we camped in a deserted cottage. Now he won't leave us alone."

"Aye. Such is the way of bauchans." The minstrel kept inching.

"He could have created the illusion of different words coming out of your mouth," Matt said, "but I don't think he could have made up those verses."

"Indeed!" exclaimed an indignant voice behind him. "Do you think I'm lacking in cleverness, then?"

The minstrel froze, staring, as Buckeye stepped out of the shadows to hunker down by the fire, dressed only in his own hair, which admittedly was total cover. He fixed Matt with a malevolent glare. "You should know by now there's no end to my deviousness."

"Being devious doesn't mean you can craft verses." Matt thought of Auden and wondered about that. He glanced at the minstrel. The man had stopped trying to get away and was following the conversation with fascination. Matt could almost hear him thinking, What a great song this will make! He tried to ignore unwanted publicity and went on. "But clever or not, be honest for once. Did you make up those words, or did you just say the first thing that came into your mind?"

Buckeye glared at him, but admitted, "The latter. I thought the verses quite inspired, myself."

"Quite," Matt said dryly. "The question is, who inspired them in you?"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"Why, myself!"

"Was it?" Matt challenged. "Or did somebody put them in your head for their own purposes?"

The bauchan reared back, affronted. "Who could invade my mind so?"

"Well, for the first part of the song," Matt said, "I thought it was some sorcerer who was working for King Drustan, since the words made Queen Petronille look so bad—but by the end, the lyrics added up to making John look like the only legitimate heir. Maybe he has a sorcerer who worked on you." Even as he said it, he felt a thrill of discovery—John having a pet sorcerer would explain an awful lot.

"No sorcerer or wizard could scramble my thoughts so!" the bauchan spluttered. "I am a creature of the land! Bretanglia itself protects me!"

Inspiration struck Matt again. "Unless the sorcerer was himself a creature of the land."

The bauchan glared at Matt.

"It's true, isn't it?" Matt pressed. "If the sorcerer was using magic that had grown up in Bretanglia, or if he was the descendant of generations of Bretanglian village magicians, he might be able to meddle with Bretanglian spirits, mightn't he?"

Buckeye glared at him silently, but the minstrel found his voice. "Aye. He could."

"If I did not craft the verses myself!" Buckeye snapped. "Credit me with some intelligence, wizard!"

"Wizard?" The minstrel glanced at Matt, wide-eyed, then at Sir Orizhan, who gave a one-inch nod. The minstrel's gaze snapped back to the bauchan.

"If you think you're such a great poet," Matt told him, "prove it."

"I will!" the bauchan cried, and began to recite, "Whan that Aprille, with her flowers soote—"

"Foul!" Matt cried. "How do I know you're not reciting that from memory?" In fact, he suspected the bauchan was doing just that—or Chaucer had a lot of explaining to do.

Buckeye shut up and glowered at him. "How would you have me prove my cleverness, then?"

"I'll give you a list of words," Matt suggested. "You have to make a verse that uses them."

"What words did you have in mind?" the bauchan asked warily.

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"Oh… let's say…" Matt thought fast." 'Self, pelf, send, bend, spice, sand, ice, and land.' "

"Ha! Nothing easier!" the bauchan crowed. "You've made them rhyme yourself! Let me think… I have it! I'll craft the stave!

"My powers I'll bend

To favor my self

And fairly send

Bone, blood, and pelf

By spicy sand

To icy lands!"

"There!" Buckeye slapped his knee, staring at Matt in triumph. "I can craft a verse as well as—YAWK!"

He disappeared so quickly that air whooshed in to fill the space his body had occupied. Somehow the companions were left with the fading impression of eyes wide and appalled in a rubbery face.

Sergeant Brock stared. "What happened to him?"

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."

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"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 Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

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."

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

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 Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

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!"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

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."

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"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:

"Amazing grace,

How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like thee!

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

You once were lost,

But now are found,

Were blind, but now you see!"

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."

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"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?"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"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."

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"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 stone-walled 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.

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"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 Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

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 Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

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 sword-play, 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."

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"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."

CHAPTER 12

John went to the side table, his steps unsteady, and poured a goblet of wine with hands that trembled from the release of tension. "The spell worked as you said it would—I understood him, but no one else could. How did you persuade the elves to shoot him?"

"There are some things sorcerers must not confide." Niobhyte didn't tell John that the stroke had been as much of a surprise to him as to everyone else. He had been quicker to take advantage of it, though. "Did I not promise you that you would rule within six months of our pact?"

"You did," John acknowledged. "I had not known it would come at the price of a war, though."

"The war would have come in any event," Niobhyte said easily. "Your parents would have made war upon Merovence if not upon one another. As it is, you can blame the elf-shot on the Lord Wizard, and claim he did it to keep Bretanglia from attacking his queen and wife."

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

John's eye gleamed. "Yes, I can see that would serve." He sat in a chair opposite Niobhyte's.

"I regret that your road to power came at the cost of the lives of your brothers, and your father's illness."

Niobhyte's expression said that he was anything but sorry.

John waved away the half apology. "Believe me, it scarcely tears at my heart. I would have slain my brothers myself, for all Gaheris' hurts and Brion's arrogance and condescension. As to my father, he has suffered only a fraction of the hurt due him." John's hand tightened on the goblet as he remembered his mother's furious denunciations of mistress after mistress. They must have been true, for his mother had said it.

"I understand." Niobhyte nodded. "Always the youngest, always the smallest. It is only your due if, after all, you rise to rule."

"Yessss." It was more a hiss than a word as John gazed into his cup.

"You rule already," Niobhyte reminded him, "in fact if not in word."

"Yes, I must have the shadow of my father behind me for some few weeks more," John agreed, "until all the barons have accepted my authority. Of course, I will only deliver those of my father's commands that serve my own interests, and if I issue a few orders of which Father knows nothing, who will care?"

"Quite true," Niobhyte agreed. "However, you do indeed need your father for some time yet, if your only power is as his regent."

"True, very true." John's nose wrinkled as though at a foul smell. "Curse Brion for having made his body disappear! If I could prove his death, I could be king in my own right."

"Believe me, he could not have transported his own corpse away from us," Niobhyte told him. "I would suspect the Lord Wizard of Merovence of the deed."

John darted a quick, suspicious look at him. "You blame him for all my troubles, don't you?"

"And with good reason," Niobhyte maintained. "His purpose is to keep Bretanglia too weak and too disorganized to attack Merovence. The more confusion he can create, the less the danger to his wife. No, Highness—Majesty that will be—you must wait until you have consolidated your power over the nobles and the Church before your father can pass to his reward. Whether you are crowned or not, they will rebel against you if they can. Even King Drustan has had to put down rebellions from time to time, though the people love him for making the land safe and prosperous."

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"Oh, I shall make it safe and prosperous, too," John purred, gazing into the fire. "I shall make it safe and prosperous indeed—for myself."

Two nights later Matt and his companions found an inn as the sun was setting. As they were about to go in, Matt noticed something. He stopped Sir Orizhan with a hand on the shoulder.

"What troubles you?" the knight asked, then followed the direction of Mart's gaze.

"The bird." Matt pointed.

Looking, his companions saw a big black avian, like a very oversized crow, sitting on a windowsill and peering into the inn.

"It hopes to beg a crust or two, I doubt not," Sir Orizhan said.

Sergeant Brock nodded. "It was ever the way of ravens to wait for what was left."

"If you say so," Matt said, with misgivings, and started to follow them in, when the bird turned and fixed him with a bright black bead of an eye. A chill passed through Matt; he felt that he had never seen such malice in a bird's glance, such sheer gloating malevolence and eagerness to pounce.

Then the raven turned its attention back to the interior of the inn, and it was only a large black bird again. Slowly, Matt followed his companions into the inn.

They walked into a blast of noise—conversation, laughter, snatches of song, and the clattering of wooden platters. Serving wenches swiveled through the crowd, trays held high. Glasses lifted in toast.

"Quite a party," Matt observed. "What do you think they're celebrating?"

Sir Orizhan shrugged. "Life."

"Do you think we will be able to stay the night this time?" Sergeant Brock asked.

"We can only hope," Matt sighed.

"I mean no offense, Lord Wizard," Sir Orizhan said, "but this bauchan of yours is proving to be a most pernicious nuisance."

"Not so loud," Matt hissed. "He might hear, and take it as a compliment." Then, in a more normal voice,

"I'm really sorry about this, guys, but he isn't my bauchan—not willingly, anyway."

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"So long as he does not take us for your family, I suppose we will be well enough," Sir Orizhan said. He surveyed the room and shook his head. "We have come late—there is no table empty."

"There is one in the back corner." Sergeant Brock pointed. "There is only the one man at it."

The one man in question was hunched over, glowering at his tankard and muttering to himself.

"Not the world's most savory company," Matt said warily, "but it's the only table with any room. Brace yourselves for an unpleasant meal."

"I would say that we should go on to the next village and chance the inn there," Sir Orizhan said, "save that we have already done so, and the darkness is upon us. It may be that you should stop urging us to just one more village, Lord Wizard."

It was getting to be a running argument. "But we're going so slowly as it is," Matt protested. "We run into so many delays."

Sir Orizhan sighed. "Then we shall have to suffer the company of a drunkard."

"Pooh! We'll only listen for the space it takes him to drink three more stoups of ale," Sergeant Brock told him. "Then he'll fall asleep and we'll be rid of his talk."

"Oh, really?" Matt regarded the drunk with a jaundiced eye. "How is he going to get three more stoups?"

"Why, you will buy them for him." Sergeant Brock grinned. "Is it not a small price for peace?"

"I suppose so," Matt sighed, "and money's no problem yet. Gentlemen, be seated."

Sir Orizhan sat with him, but Sergeant Brock stared, offended. He started to speak, but caught himself.

Matt frowned up at him. "What's the matter? Sit down."

The offense turned into disbelief. "But I am not a gentleman!"

Matt felt a surge of guilt as he remembered that no one below the rank of squire counted as a gentleman in this medieval world, and gentlemen did not dine with lower classes outside of common rooms. He started to correct the error, but before he could speak, Sir Orizhan beckoned the man close. "You are my squire for the space of this venture. I raise you to it, and shall make it lasting with all due ceremony if we succeed in our venture."

Conflicting emotions warred in Brock's face for a moment— disbelief, joy, and apprehension. Matt Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

could understand it— peasants were almost never raised to the gentry, and if they didn't succeed, this amazing prize might be snatched away from the sergeant. But he must have remembered that if they didn't succeed, they'd probably be dead, because the joy won the skirmish, and he sat down beside Sir Orizhan, bowing his head. "I thank you, Sir Knight. From the depths of my heart."

"You honor me as much as I you," Sir Orizhan said generously.

"Honor!" the drunk across the table snarled. " 'S only a 'scuse for killin'a good onezh!" He lifted his tankard, glare defying them to disagree. "Long live Prince Brion!"

The three companions exchanged glances. Then Matt said, "Long life, and we'll drink to it as soon as we get mugs."

A serving wench overheard and swirled by their table. "Would you have ale, sirs?"

"Yes, and meat and bread," Matt told her. "Dinner, in fact."

"As soon as I may," she promised, and whirled away.

"Busy place tonight," Matt commented.

" 'S'a minshtrel," the drunk informed them. "Came in f'r shupper. Landlord fed 'im while he shent boyzh out t' tell ev'yone."

"So the whole village crowded in to be ready to listen by the time the minstrel finishes." Matt nodded.

"Smart businessman." Then he turned to Sir Orizhan. "Does it seem to you there are an awful lot of minstrels running around these days?"

"Far more than I am accustomed to seeing," the knight agreed. "One might almost think them to be troubadours, and us to be in the south."

A man dressed in bright clothes stood up and struck an off-key chord on his lute.

"Or perhaps not," Sir Orizhan amended.

The minstrel tuned a string, then struck the chord again. It was much better, and he nodded in satisfaction.

"Tell us the news ere you sing, minstrel!" one man called, and a chorus of voices took up the cry. "Aye, the news! First, the news!"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"Well, my songs are news enough in themselves," the minstrel said, laughing.

"If they have tunes, that is news indeed," Sir Orizhan muttered.

"Just my luck," Matt sighed, "traveling with a critic."

"Still, I'll tell you the most recent in short sentences," the minstrel went on. "Which will you have first—

the bad, or the good?"

"The bad!" a dozen voices cried with relish.

"The worst of it, then, is that King Drustan has fallen ill."

A furious babble broke out as people asked each other if it could be true, and assured that it could be, wondered about the benefit-to-damage ratio of the results.

When they had quieted, and begun to realize that the damages might well outweigh the benefits, the innkeeper called out, "Then what is the good news, minstrel?"

"The good," the minstrel cried with false heartiness, "is that our loyal Prince John has assumed rule as regent! The king has spoken through his son, and appointed him to care for us all!"

The announcement was greeted with stunned silence. The minstrel tried to grin around at them all, but his smile faltered. Then the murmuring began, dark, ugly, and apprehensive.

"I've heard of it," a tinker told his neighbor, much too loudly. No doubt he'd been disgruntled at having to give up the attention of the crowd as news bearer.

"What have you heard?" a woman at another table asked.

"Why," the tinker said in a voice to fill the room, "that there is more to His Majesty's 'illness' than meets the eye."

"How do you mean?" The minstrel's tone was threatening; he didn't like having his thunder stolen, either.

The tinker's tone sank to a dramatic whisper—one that carried to most of the room. "There's some as say the queen poisoned him."

"Ridiculoush!" the drunk exploded. "Queen couldn't've! She been in prizhon!"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

Matt started to edge farther away from the man. So did Sergeant Brock; they converged on Sir Orizhan, who sat across from the drunk.

"Worsht of 'em all, that Zhon!" the drunk grumbled. He glared into his ale, but his voice grew louder and louder. "That Gaherish, he wazh a mean 'un, but wazhn't a puling little coward, at leasht! An' who wazh that blue knight that did in Prinsh Brion, eh? Just a shuit of armor with nothin' in-shide? That'sh bad magic, I tell yuh, bad! Sumthin' really bad, when only the sniveling slug of a grubby little coward'zh left t'ruleush!"

Out of the corner of his eye Matt caught movement. He turned just in time to see the raven fly away from the window-sill. Somehow, it gave him a very bad feeling. He stood up, tugging at Sir Orizhan's shoulder. "Come on. I don't think I want to stay and hear this."

"Give up housen again?" Brock protested.

Sir Orizhan started to object, too, until he saw the look on Mart's face. Then he nodded and stood up.

"Yes, of course. There is bound to be another inn down the road."

"Oh, I'm not good enough fer yuh, hey?" the drunk called after them. "Jus' cauzhe ol' Dolan'zh tellin'a truth, nobody wantsh 'im aroun'."

"Might have more to do with how much ale you've drunk," Matt told him as he hurried his friends toward the door.

The innkeeper rushed to intercept them. "No, goodmen, by your leave! Stay! I'll toss out that fool Dolan!

I should have done it long ago!"

But Dolan had no doubt been paying for his drinks. Still, three dinners would bring the innkeeper more than a dozen stoups of ale.

Sergeant Brock sighed. "I would dearly love to stay in an inn for the night," he said.

"All right, we'll stay." But Matt felt a twinge of sympathy. "You don't have to kick him out, mine host.

Just tuck him into the inglenook, okay?"

"And keep feeding him ale," Sergeant Brock added. "My… employer will pay for it." He nodded at Matt.

"Well, if it's the price of a good night's sleep, okay," Matt said, and they went back to the table. The landlord preceded them and hustled Dolan off to the inglenook, protesting every inch of the way. As they sat down, Matt wondered if maybe he really would have been doing the man more of a favor to let the landlord kick him out.

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

He thought so even more after dinner, when the soldiers burst in.

They came following a hound that looked to be more wolf than dog, its cry more a howl than a bark. It padded straight toward the inglenook. The patrons exclaimed in horror and fright and leaped out of its way, overturning chairs and tables in their haste.

Dolan looked up and saw the hound coming. "Nooooo!" he wailed, hands up to shield him. "Save me, goodfolk!"

But the dog stopped inches from him, growling a threat. Dolan climbed up on his stool and pressed himself back into the inglenook, still wailing his denial and staring at the beast in terror.

"Down with you, then!" A soldier struck his knees with a spear shaft, and the poor man fell with a scream.

The soldier yanked him upright, and Dolan yammered, "But I've done nothing!"

"You've spoken against the prince!" The sergeant's voice rang through the great common room. "Don't try to deny it! We know!"

"Sit down, my masters," Sergeant Brock muttered, yanking at Mart's sleeve.

Matt looked down in surprise; he hadn't even realized he'd stood up. Sir Orizhan stared, too, looking down at himself.

"We can't let them haul him away just for being drunk," Matt muttered, but it was halfhearted.

"You can't throw away a kingdom for a single drunken fool!" Brock hissed. "Sit down, my masters, for if you fight the king's men-at-arms, everyone will know you for what you are!"

It was a point well taken—they couldn't compromise the whole mission, and risk the war they might prevent, to save one single man. Matt forced himself to sit, and Sir Orizhan, equally reluctantly, sat, too, and watched the soldiers drag Dolan out, wailing and weeping.

"Be calm, Sir Knights," Brock muttered. "We do not know what punishment they will give him, after all."

"True," Matt said stiffly. Since Dolan was just a drunken loudmouth, presumably the punishment wouldn't be terribly severe.

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"It is not as though he were really talking treason, after all," Sir Orizhan muttered, but he didn't look convinced.

The door closed behind them all, dog, soldiers, and victim, and the patrons turned back to talking to one another, trying to strike up conversations again—but their efforts were subdued and listless. Finally the innkeeper called, "Your songs, minstrel! Are you not one who has the gift of raising folks' spirits?"

"I shall try, mine host," the minstrel answered, and struck some chords from his lute, then began to sing

"Queen Petronille's Confession."

"Amazing how that song is getting around," Matt said in an undertone.

"Yes, but it is even more amazing how carefully that minstrel sings it," Sir Orizhan answered, "as though he were afraid each and every word might bring that hound of menace back again."

It was true, and Matt saw that the minstrel, along with everyone else who had witnessed the scene, had realized its meaning—that there was to be no freedom of speech of any kind, not even the slightest hint, in Regent John's England.

Just across the border in Merovence, Mama and Papa were hearing the same song in a very similar inn that same night.

Papa frowned as he listened, and considered how to talk to Mama in public without worrying about eavesdroppers. He couldn't speak the English of his own world!—being his native tongue and the first words that answered the impulse of speech, it emerged here as the language of Merovence. Then he realized that French wasn't a native language to either of them, and should emerge here as words no one else understood. "Ma cherie, comprends-tu cette langue?" My dear, do you understand this language?

Mama looked up in surprise, then realized what he was doing and smiled with delight. She answered in the same language, "Yes, I understand. So we can speak French here, though we cannot speak English?

How clever of you to think of it!"

"Thank you, my dear. What do you think of this song we have just heard?"

"That it is slander," Mama said instantly, "and the proof of that is that it makes John out to be the legitimate heir, even if Brion had still been alive."

"I knew it was slander, but I didn't think of the purpose," Papa told her. "Do you think there can be any truth to it at all?"

"That Drustan might have disguised himself to learn Petronille's secrets, I might believe," Mama told him, "but Earl Marshal is far too chivalrous to stoop to such a deed, even if his sovereign commanded Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

him to do so."

"He is indeed," Papa agreed, "and too chivalrous to commit adultery, even if he had been in love with Petronille—the kind of love the troubadours praised was love from afar."

"Well, sometimes not," Mama demurred, "but when it was anything else, it involved years of courtship.

No, I think we can safely rule out Brion's being anyone's son but Drustan's— especially since John needs to sway the people to his side, and it would be amazingly convenient for him if Brion, the people's darling, turned out to be a bastard, dead or not."

Papa nodded. "A propaganda piece, then. And to think our politicians think they invented mudslinging!"

Mama stood up, blazing with indignation. "We must tell everyone the truth!"

"No, wait." Papa forestalled her with a hand on her arm, and jerked his head toward the rafters. Looking up, Mama saw two ravens squatting on the beams, glowering down at the people.

"Hugi and Munin?" she guessed.

"Like them, at least. They may not be spying for Odin, but I feel sure they are someone's eyes and ears.

We know there is a sorcerer involved in this affair somewhere, my dear."

"Yes, we must assume the worst." Mama sat down and looked out over the room with a stern gaze. "And we dare not put those birds to sleep, or we will reveal that there are master wizards here."

"I had not thought of that, but you are certainly right," Papa said, frowning. "No, my dear, for the time being, I'm afraid we must watch and learn, and wait for the time to use our knowledge."

"And hope those ravens do not speak French," Mama replied.

The road opened out into a huddle of huts before the companions, and Brock reminded Matt, "You said we should stop at the next inn."

"Yes, but there's a good two hours of daylight left!" Matt protested.

"Who says that they will be good?" Sir Orizhan asked airily. "Besides, we might not find another village with an inn before midnight."

Well, Matt doubted that—the villages tended to be about two hours apart, even by the back roads they were traveling— but he gave in with a sigh. "Okay. If there's an inn here, we'll stay the night."

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

They sauntered down the single dusty street, with wary eyes watching them from every window and women's cries warbling from every door. Children heard and scurried for cover behind their mothers.

Sergeant Brock grinned. "Cautious, but not frightened. The war has spared this place."

The cottages opened out into the village green, with a two-story thatched inn at one side and the church at another. In the center of the green a man in white robes and sandals stood atop a small knoll, his head wreathed in mistletoe. He held high a staff carved into a snake as he cried, "Come at sundown, come!

When your day's work is done! Come to the gods of your ancestors! Take up again the Old Worship!

Come with Banalix the Druid, to honor Toutatis!"

A score of villagers surrounded the man already, and housewives were drifting closer. The men coming in from the fields looked up with interest.

"What have we here?" Sir Orizhan looked up, on his guard.

"Someone trying to bring back that Good Old-Time Religion," Matt said slowly. "Talk about a revival meeting!"

"He is a druid," Brock said with certainty.

Something in the tone of his voice made Matt turn to study him. He was somber, but not angry or contemptuous—and Matt realized he had expected the sergeant to be so. Why? He looked at the so-called druid again, and caught the flash of something bright at his belt…

A gilded sickle.

Suddenly Matt remembered the sickle in Sergeant Brock's pack. If the soldier really had fought these latter-day druids, he should be angry at the mere sight of Banalix, the more so because the man was standing boldly forth in broad daylight and openly calling people to his religion in defiance of the Church.

"The Old Gods knew the ways of war!" Banalix orated. "They shall protect you from the bloodthirsty hordes of Merovence!"

Sir Orizhan stiffened. Matt took umbrage himself.

"The Old Gods shall lend skill to your hands and show you once again the use of weapons, not merely the handles of a plow! Come to the Old Gods! Grow strong again!"

"You lie, rogue!" thundered a voice from the church, and the village priest came striding forth, his face Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

red with anger. "There is great strength in the Christian God, but His strength is tempered with mercy!"

"Strength?" Banalix turned to meet the attack with a relish that spoke of success; he had meant to provoke this cry of defense. "When did the Christ ever wield a sword?"

"He stood barehanded against blades, for He told us that any who live by the sword must die by the sword! Yet He had the courage to stand unarmed before soldiers!"

"Surrendered himself meekly, you mean!" Banalix sneered. "When did He ever fight?"

"When He threw the moneychangers out of the Temple! To cleanse the House of God! For a good and godly reason, Christ fought, as must we all!" He turned to the crowd, raising his arms. "Fight against the seduction of this man's lies! Fight in your hearts for the salvation of your souls!"

"Fight?" Banalix jibed. "What weapon did your Christ ever use? Only a whip of knotted cords!"

"That, and the force of His anger, against which no man can stand!" the priest declared. "Beware, impostor, for that anger shall be directed against you!"

"I am not an impostor!" Banalix cried, reddening. "I am a true druid!"

"There are no true druids anymore," the priest shot back. "They all died, because they had no worshipers to wait upon them and feed them!"

"As your worshipers wait upon and feed you!" Banalix returned.

"I feed my flock, not they me!"

" 'Tis true!" an old woman cried from the back of the crowd. "Friar Gode sees that none of the poor starve!"

"Say that your neighbors and the viscount feed you, for it is they who give me food to bring you." But the friar flashed the old woman a smile of gratitude. Then he turned back to Banalix. "This is the strength of the Christ—that people care for one another, help one another in their hour of need!"

"Care for one another? Aye, and slaughter one another in battles!"

The friar smiled. "I thought you said that Christians did not know how to fight!"

The so-called druid scowled. "How many of your sheep could fight off a wolf?"

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

"All the men practice at the archery butts every Sunday, as you know!" Friar Gode turned to the crowd again, his arms upraised. "You have heard it! He will say any lie he finds to blind you, then counter it with another lie to confuse you! This is no priest of an ancient religion, but a rogue who seeks to enslave you by using only those parts of the heathen faith that entice you!"

"So you admit the Old Gods are enticing!" Banalix snapped, eyes glittering.

"Say rather that it is you who make the Old Gods seem enticing—all your doing, for the heathen gods never existed as anything more than stories to warn children!"

The people moved back a little, muttering fearfully at such a denial.

"But your enticement lasts only until you have them enslaved!" Gode turned to the crowd. "Then he will tell you that his gods demand blood! You have all heard the news, even if it is only whispered, never said openly—how his kind kidnap virgins to slay on their bloodstained altars!"

"They are hard gods, but they bring power and prosperity!" the "druid" thundered.

"They bring death and destruction to those who worship them," Friar Gode countered, "or their false priests do!"

"Beware," Banalix cried, "for my sickle is not false, but sharp and hard!"

"Whoever heard of gold that was hard, or could hold an edge?" the friar returned. "It may be gilded, but it is not gold—false, like its owner!"

Matt glanced at Sergeant Brock. The man's face was impassive, hard as rock.

"False? You dare call me false, when you worship a man whose disciples stole his body and claimed it had come back to life?" Banalix was getting carried away now. "Disciples who made up stories about his walking on water and feeding thousands with seven loaves and two fishes? Aye, you must know falsehoods well!"

The people murmured and backed away farther, fear sharpening.

"Those were no lies, but true miracles!" Friar Gode returned. "True miracles, such as His saints work even today by His power! Now you are not only a liar, but a blasphemer as well!" He folded his hands and looked up to Heaven, silent for a moment as he calmed his soul and focused his thoughts on prayer.

All the villagers were mute with apprehension, for in this universe, a friar's prayers were powerful indeed.

Stasheff, Christopher – Wizard in Rhyme 6 – Haunted Wizard

Brock leaned close to Matthew and muttered, "We must stop this!"

"We can't let them know who we really are!" Matt muttered back.

"O God!" Friar Gode cried. "O Great and Powerful Father of All! O Jesus, Who art both Man and God!"

Banalix began to swing his hand in a circle, muttering.

Matt stiffened, and began gathering verses to chant.

"Suffer not untruth to prosper, I pray thee!" the friar cried. "Expose all lies, strike down all enemies of Right!"

If Matt hadn't been watching closely, he wouldn't have seen Banalix's left hand open the small ceramic box at his belt, wouldn't have seen the right hand dip in, then circle twice more before he hurled a fireball at Friar Gode.

The ball struck, and flame exploded over the friar's robe. He screamed, running, batting at the flames—

and, of course, making them worse.

"Behold the power of Belenos!" Banalix cried in triumph, but the crowd only pressed away from the burning friar, moaning.

"Help me!" the friar howled, running toward his parishioners. The flames roared higher, and the villagers flinched even farther away, moaning.

But Matt was running, too, shouting, "Fall down, friar!" and whipping off his cloak.

The monk didn't hear him over his own screaming, only went on running from one villager to another.

Matt knocked him to the ground and dropped his cloak over the man, rolling him in it and rolling again and again until all the flames were out.

"See how Belenos triumphs over the Christ!" Banalix cried.