The Secular Wizard - Wis in Rhyme - 4

by

Christopher Stasheff

The tall roan stallion looked up and nickered. The other horses crowded to the doors of their stalls to watch Accerese the groom as he came into the barn with the bag of oats over his shoulder. A smile banished his moroseness for a few minutes. "Well! At least someone's glad to see me!" He poured a measure of grain into the trough on the stallion's door. "At least you eat well, my friends!" He moved on down the line, pouring grain into each manger. "And well-dressed you are, too, not like we who-" Accerese bit his tongue, remembering that the king or his sorcerers might hear anything, anywhere. "Well, we all have our work to do in this world-though some of us have far less than-" Again he bit his tongue-but on his way out of the third stall he paused, to trace the raw red line on the horse's flank with his finger. "Then again, when you do work, your tasks are even more painful than mine, eh? No, my friends, forgive my complaining." He opened the door to the fourth stall. "But you, Fandalpi, you are-" He stopped, puzzled.

Fandalpi was crowded against the back wall, nostrils flared, the whites showing all around its eyes. "Nay, my friend, what-" Then Accerese saw the body lying on the floor.

He stood frozen in shock for a few minutes, his eyes as wide and white as the horse's. Then he whirled to the door, panic moving his heels-until he froze with a new fear. Whether he fled or not, he was a dead man-but he might live longer if he reported the death as he should. Galtese the steward's man would testify that Accerese had taken his load of grain only a few minutes before-so there was always the chance that no one would blame him for the prince's death. But his stomach felt hollow with fear as he hurried back across the courtyard to the guardroom. There was a chance, yes, but when the corpse was that of the heir apparent, it was a very slim chance indeed. King Maledicto tore his hair, howling in rage. "What cursed fiend has rent my son!"

But everyone could see that this was not the work of a fiend, or any other of Hell's minions. The body was not burned or defiled; the prince's devotion to God had won him that much protection, at least. The only sign of the Satanic was the obscene carving on the handle of the knife that stuck out of his chest-but every one of the king's sorcerers had such a knife, and many of the guards besides. Anybody could have stolen one, though not easily.

"Foolish boy!" the king bellowed at the corpse. "Did you think your Lord would save you from Hell's blade? See what all your praying has won you! See what your hymn-singing and charities and forgiveness have brought you! Who will inherit my kingdom now? Who will rule, if I should die? Nay, I'll be a thousand times more wicked yet! The Devil will keep me alive, if only to bring misery and despair upon this Earth!"

Accerese quaked in his sandals, knowing who was the most likely candidate for despair. He reflected ruefully that no matter how the king had stormed and threatened his son to try to make him forsake his pious ways, the prince had been his assurance that the Devil would make him live-for only if the old king lived could the kingdom of Latruria be held against the wave of goodness that would have flowed from Prince Casudo's charity.

"What do I have left now?" the old king ranted. "Only a single grandson, a puling boy, not even a stripling; a child, an infant! Nay, I must rear him well and wisely in the worship of Satan, or this land will fall to the rule of Virtue!"

What he didn't dare say, of course, was that if his demonic master knew he was raising little Prince Boncorro any other way, the Devil would rack the king with tortures that Accerese could only imagine-but imagine he did; he shuddered at the very thought.

"Fool! Coward! Milksop!" the king raged, and went on and on, ranting and raving at the poor dead body as if by sheer rage he could force it to obey and come alive again. Finally, though, Accerese caught an un

dertone to the tirade that he thought impossible, then realized was re-aRy there:

The king was afraid!

At that, Accerese's nerve broke. Whatever was bad enough to scare a king who had been a lifelong sorcerer, devoted to Evil and to wickedness that was only whispered abroad, never spoken openly-whatever was so horrible as to scare such a king could blast the mind of a poor man who strove to be honest and live rightly in the midst of the cruelty and treachery of a royal court devoted to Evil! Slowly, ever so slowly, Accerese began to edge toward the stable door. No one saw, for everyone was watching the king, pressing away from his royal wrath as much as they dared. Even Chancellor Rebozo cowered, he who had endured King Maledicto's whims and rages for fifty years. No one noticed the poor humble groom edge his way out of the door, no one noticed him turn away and pace quickly to the postern gate, no one saw him leap into the water and swim the moat, for even the sentries on the wall were watching the stables with fear and apprehension. But one did notice his swimming-one of the monsters who lived in the moat. A huge slaty bulge broke the surface, oily waters sliding off it; eyes the size of helmets opening, gaze flicking here and there until they saw the churning figure. Then the bulge began to move, faster and faster, a V-shaped wake pointing toward the fleeing man. Accerese did not even look behind to see if it was coming; he knew it would, knew also that ' fearsome as the monster was, he was terrified more of the king and his master.

The bulge swelled as it came up behind the man. Accerese could hear the wash of breaking waters and redoubled his efforts with a last frantic burst of thrashing. The shoreline came closer, closer ... But the huge bulge came closer, too, splitting apart to show huge dripping yellow fangs in a maw as dark as midnight.

Accerese's flailing foot struck mud; he threw himself onto the bank and rolled away just as saw-edged teeth clashed shut behind him. He rolled again and again, heart beating loud in his ears, aching to scream but daring not, because of the sentries on the walls. Finally he pushed himself up to his feet and saw the moat, twenty feet behind him, and two huge baleful eyes glaring at him over its brim.

Accerese breathed a shuddering gasp of relief, and a prayer of thanks surged upward within him-but he caught it in time, held it back from forming into words, lest the Devil hear him and know he was fleeing.

He turned away, scrambling over the brow of the hill and down the talus slope, hoping that God had heard his unvoiced prayer, but that the Hell spawn had not. Heaven preserved him, or perhaps simply good luck, for he reached the base of the plain and raced toward the cover of the woods.

just as Accerese came in under the trees, King Maledicto finally ran out of venom and stood trembling over the corpse of his son, tears of frustration in his eyes. Yes, surely they must have been of frustration.

Then, slowly, he turned to his chancellor. "Find the murderer, Rebozo."

"But Majesty!" Rebozo shrank away. "It might be a demon out of Hell . . ."

"Would a demon use a knife, fool?" Maledicto roared. "Would a demon leave the body whole? Aye, whole and undefiled? Nay! It is a mortal man you seek, no spawn of Hell! Find him, seek him!

Bring the groom who found my son, question him over what he saw!"

"Surely, Majesty!" Rebozo bent in a quick servile bow and turned away. "Let the groom stand forth!"

Everyone was silent, staring about them, wide-eyed. "He was here, against the stall door. . . " a guardsman ventured.

"And you let him flee? Fool! Idiot!" Maledicto roared. He whirled to the other soldiers, pointing at the one who had spoken.

"Cut off his head! Not later, now!"

The other guardsmen glanced at their mate, taken aback, hesitant.

"Will no one obey?" Maledicto bellowed. "Does my weak-kneed son still slacken your loyalty, even in his death?

Here, give me!" He snatched a halberd from-the nearest guardsman and swung it high. The other soldiers shouted and dodged even as the blade fell. The luckless man who had seen the groom tried to dodge, but too late-the blade cut through his chest. He screamed once, in terror and in blood; then his eyes rolled up, and his soul was gone where went all those souls who served King Maledicto willingly.

"Stupid ass," Maledicto hissed, glaring at the body. He looked up at the remaining, quaking guardsmen. "When I command, you obey! Now bring me that groom!"

They fled to chase after Accerese.

It was the chancellor who found and followed the fugitive's trail to the postern and down to the water's edge, the company of guardsmen in his wake.

"Thus it ends," sighed the Captain of the Guard. "None could swim that moat and live."

But Rebozo glanced back fearfully at the keep, as if hearing some command that the others could not. "Take the hound into the boat," he ordered. "Search the other bank."

They went, quaking, and the dog had to be held tightly, its muzzle bound, for it squirmed and writhed, fearing the smell of the monsters. Several of them lifted huge eyes above the water, but Rebozo muttered a charm and pointed at each with his wand.

The great eyes closed, the slaty bulges slid beneath the oily, stagnant fluid-and the boat came to shore.

Wild-eyed, the dog sprang free and would have fled, but the soldiers cuffed it quiet and, as it whined, cringing, made it smell again the feed bag that held Accerese's scent. It began to quest here and there about the bank, gaining vigor as it moved farther from the water. Its keeper cursed and raised a fist to club it, but Rebozo stayed his hand. "Let it course," he said.

"Give it time."

Even as he finished, the dog lifted its head with a howl of triumph. Off it went after the scent, nearly jerking the keeper's arm out of its socket, so eager was it to get away from that fell and foul moat. Rebozo shouted commands, and half a dozen soldiers ran off after the hound and its keeper, while a dozen more came riding across the draw-bridge with the rest of the pack, led by a minor sorcerer in charcoal robes.

Down the talus slope they thundered, away over the plain, catching up with the lead hound, and the whole pack belled as they followed the trace into the woods.

They searched all that day and into the night, Rebozo ordering their efforts, Rebozo calling for the dogs, Rebozo leading the guards-men. It was a long chase and a dark one, for Accerese had the good sense to keep moving, to resist the urge to sleep@r perhaps it was fear itself that kept him going. He doubled back, he waded a hundred yards through a stream, he took to trees and went from branch to branch-but where the hounds could not find his scent, sorcery could, and in the end they brought Accerese, bruised and bleeding, back to the chancellor, who nodded, eyes glowing even as he said, "Put him to the question!"

"No, no!" Accerese screamed, and went on screaming even as they hauled him down to the torture chamber, even as they strapped him to the rack-where the screaming turned quickly into hoarse bellows of agony and fear.

Rebozo stood there behind his king, watching and trembling as Maledicto shouted, "Why did you slay my son?"

"I did not! I did never!"

"More," King Maledicto snapped, and Rebozo, trembling and wide-eyed, nodded to the torturer, who grinned and pressed down with the glowing iron. Accerese screamed and screamed, and finally could turn the sound into words. "I only found him there, I did not kill ... AIEEEE! " "Confess!" the king roared. "We know you did it-why do you deny it?"

"Confess," Rebozo pleaded, "and the agony will end."

//But I did not do it!" Accerese wailed. "I only found him ... YAAHHHH!"

So it went, on and on, until finally, exhausted and spent, Accerese told them what they wanted to hear. "Yes, yes! I did it, I stole the dagger and slew him, anything, anything! Only let the pain stop!" "Let the torture continue," Maledicto commanded, and watched with grim satisfaction as the groom howled and bucked and writhed, listened with glowing eyes as the screams alternated with begging and pleading, shivered with pleasure as the cracked and fading voice still tried to shriek its agony-but when the broken, bleeding body began to gibber and call upon the name of God, Maledicto snarled, "Kill it!" The blade swung down, and Accerese's agony was over. King Maledicto stood, glaring down at the remains with fierce elation-then suddenly turned somber. His brows drew down, his face wrinkled into lines of gloom. He turned away, thunderous and brooding. Rebozo stared after him, astounded, then hurried after. When he had seen his royal master slam the door of his private chamber behind him, when his loud-voiced queries brought forth only snarls of rage and demands to go away, Rebozo turned and went with a sigh. There was still another member of the royal family who had to be told about all this. Not Maledicto's wife, for she had been slain for an adultery she had never committed; not the prince's wife, for she had died in childbirth; but the prince's son, Maledicto's grand-son, who was now the heir apparent. Rebozo went to his chambers in a wing on the far side of the castle. There he composed himself, steadying his breathing and striving for the proper combination of sympathy and sternness, of gentleness and gravity. When he thought he had the tone and expression right, he went to tell the boy that he was an orphan.