The Secular Wizard - Wis in Rhyme - 4 (29 page)

Then his vision cleared just enough for him to see a huge blade sweeping down at him out of the darkness. Panic shot through him and he tried to roll, but his body wouldn't respond ...

A roar filled his ears. Something slapped up under his shoulder and sent him spinning.

Under the circumstances, he didn't mind.

The roar broke again, and there was a lot of screaming, some of it masculine. There was a pounding that faded. Finally, Matt managed to push himself up off the ground. The world tilted around him, then reversed direction. He caught his breath and swallowed his stomach back down to where it belonged, squeezed his eyes shut, waited for his inner tilting to stop, then tried looking again, and saw ... A great tawny wall of fur.

It looked vaguely familiar, so he tilted his glance upward, up and up and straight into a grin-two of them, and Manny's eyes twinkling with amusement up on top.

"You said I could not eat them, man," the manticore said, "but you did not tell them that."

"Th-Thanks, Manny." Matt pulled himself up to a sitting position, amazed that he ever could have thought this beast was his enemy. "They ... they got a lot closer that time . didn't they?" "It is easier to overcome a man," Manny reflected,

"if you do not give him a chance to fight."

"There is that," Matt agreed. "Get him busy with a willing wench, then sap him from behind."

"It somewhat galled the wench," Manny observed, "that you were not willing."

Matt smiled ruefully. "Or at least, that she had to keep me rolling for a while before my engine would catch."

The manticore frowned. " 'Engine'? What device did you use?"

"Only a lute," Matt sighed, "but apparently that qualifies as a lethal weapon in this universe." He looked around and saw his instrument, miraculously uncrushed. He took it into his lap, checking, but finding no more than a scratch. "Remind me to be very careful who's around when I sing songs."

"With all due respect, minstrel-knight," Manny said, "I doubt that it was either your words or your songs that brought on this ... encounter.

"No." Matt stared down at the lute, brooding. "It's the same sorcerer who's been trying to kill me all along, isn't it? But why?"

"Why not?" Manny replied. "A manticore needs no more reason for killing than hunger. Perhaps your foe needs not even that." "Am I that big a threat? just me alone?"

"It would seem so-and in the midst of this carnival, who would know you had been slain for any reason more than jealousy over a woman?

" "if anybody even bothered to look that far," Matt muttered.

"Yes. Perfect cover for a murder, wasn't it?"

"Perhaps not perfect," the manticore said judiciously. "if it had been I who did it, now-" "Uh, yes, I'm sure you would have managed it much more efficiently." For some odd reason, Matt wasn't in the mood for hearing the gory details of the manticore's no doubt fabulous plan. He climbed to his feet, trying to ignore the piercing pain in his head. "Let's say it may not have been perfect, but it was certainly good enough. " "Nay. Almost."

"Right. Almost good enough." Matt took an experimental step.

"I'm still alive, aren't I? Thanks to you, Manny."

"It was nothing," the manticore assured him. "Anything for a friend." "I'll try to return the favor some day." Matt looked around him at the merrymakers, most of whom were no longer standing. "It just makes you wonder why putative Christians are so busy breaking the Commandments."

The manticore winced. "Please! if you must use strong language-"

"Uh, yes, sorry again," Matt assured him. He'd forgotten that the creature had been so long a pawn of evil that words associated with virtue might be offensive to it. "And I suppose nobody can be openly a Chr-religious, even under the new regime. In fact, most of them probably aren't at all."

"Not so. King Boncorro has let it be known that he will not move against any who worship as they please."

"And nobody believes him. They think it might be a ruse to bring all the believers out into the open, where he can cut them down. Having been persecuted for a hundred years might tend to make a person paranoid. Besides, there's no assurance Boncorro won't be bumped off, and his throne usurped by a sorcerer-and then where would they be, the people who had started going to church again? Still, you should be able to tell them by the way they live-by moral conduct."

"Not under the old king," Manny said. "Even if people lived morally in private, they did not necessarily want it known."

"Morality became a matter of taste, eh? And Boncorro hasn't seen any reason to change that."

"Other than to let people who want to be moral, be so, no." Matt nodded. "Besides, the moral folk wouldn't have left spouse and children to go trooping south to Venarra-and the kids might be in rebellion against moral parents as easily as they might be running away because they had no morals."

"You might say it is unpopular," Manny said thoughtfully.

"Moral living is not considered to be in the best of taste. Your northern prudery never did have all that strong a hold here. The folk of ancient Reme lived lives quite scandalous by your standards. Their descendants have been somewhat tempered by the preachers, but not overly much."

"Yes, I've heard about the Roman orgies," Matt said, "but I thought they were only for the people who could afford them." Smaller purses yielded smaller vices," the manticore agreed. "But the city was Reme, mortal, not Rome."

"Oh, yes, I forgot-the other brother won the fight here." "

'Other' brother?" Manny frowned down at him. "Why should Remus have been the 'other' brother? Surely that would have been Romulus!

Matt was about to protest that the whole story of Romulus and Remus had just been a myth, but was hit by a sudden stab of uncertainty. Sure, it had been a myth in his universe, but here it might have been documented fact. "They were orphans who were suckled by a she-wolf, right?"

"Nay. Their nurse was a wildcat."

Matt let that sink in. If the whole story of the she-wolf were just a symbol to express the inner nature of the Romans, what did that make their analogs here? A lynx was just as much of a hunter as a wolf, but went after smaller prey, and wasn't anywhere nearly asra

-pacious-except in self-defense, or defense of its young. What kind of people could have established an empire just because they were good at self-defense?

Paranoids, probably. If they defended themselves all the way into North Africa, Spain, Asia Minor, and England just to make sure no-body would attack them ...

Or diplomats?

That had a better sound to it. After all, in the myth of the founding

of Rome, Romulus was the one who had started building the wall for a future city, and Remus was the one who had made fun of him and t would be. Then Romujumped over the wall to show how useless i lus had killed him ...

But here, Romulus had lost-and his city had been founded by the descendants of the man who didn't believe in walls. "So Reme has no wall to guard it."

"Wall? Around Reme?" Manny stared at him as if he were insane.

//why would the citizens have done that? 'Twas not Babylon or Ninevah, after all!"

"I thought we were discussing its morals. But if they didn't have a wall, what happened when the Etruscans attacked?"

'Attacked'? Surely that is too strong a word for two bands of one another!"

young bloods who steal a few maidens from Matt stared. "But ... but Lars Porsena ... Horatio at the bridge. ,Ah! I have heard of Horatio. He it was who persuaded Lars Pors-ena and the other Etruscan noblemen to come confer with the elders of the Latini, under a tent on the broad plain beyond the Tiber! He it was who quieted their acrimony, who showed the Latini how the raids and even the deaths wrought by the young men's skirmishes appeared through Etruscan eyes-and Lars Porsena, not to be outdone, explained for his folk how the raids must have looked to Latini eyes.

een people! They built a bridge indeed, a bridge of understanding betw Worse luck," he said, in a sudden change of mood. "There are better pickings for manticores when war bellows loud about the land." He licked his lips, remembering the taste of human blood. Matt had to get his mind off that subject. "So what did they do about the raiding?"

"Why, each nation agreed to restrain and rebuke their young men, but to allow them to come courting properly, if they wishedand, to drain off their youthful urge for swordplay and glory, they established the Circus, where the young men could fight with blunted swords for fame-and even fortune, for both peoples paid into a fund to confer prizes upon the winners."

"The gladiators were free men?" Matt stared.

"of course." Manny scowled down at him. "What would you have valiantly would they fight, who were had them be-slaves? How forced to?"

It did make a lot more sense than the way Matt's Romans had done things. "So the Remans didn't defeat the Etruscans, they married them?

"Aye, and out of their union grew the great empire of Latruria, whose soldiers marched out to protect all the civilized world from the howling hordes of barbarians."

well, Matt had heard that line before. "Sure-and they protected a the other nations so well that they wound up owning them." Manny shook his head. "'Owned' is too strong a term.

They led, they showed the Greeks and the Egyptians the Latrurian way of fighting, and learned theirs; they learned from every nation they protected, and taught them the use of the legion. But

'conquered'? No. Each nation in turn asked to join the Federation of Latinis and Etruscans, and Latruria was glad to embrace them, for the barbarians were growing in numbers and skill. It was too much to ask that each nation be accorded a syllable in the name of the empire, though, so Latruria it remained-not Latrurigreegyptolibiberi-" "I get the point," Matt said quickly. "So it was a friendly federation of states that just happened to be ruled from Reme, huh? " Manny shrugged. "It was Horatio who built the bridge of under-standing; it was his countrymen who excelled as diplomats and teachers-aye, and in commerce, too. Of course the Senate met in Reme, and just as surely, every provincial nobleman longed to see Reme be-fore he died."

"And all voluntary and from enlightened self-interest," Matt said, feeling numb. "How about Judea? " "Those stiff-necked fanatics?" Manny said with a snort of disapproval. "They who would not ask Reme's help, Reme wisely let be, but when the Medes-" "Medes?" Matt frowned. "I thought the Eastern empire was Persian.

"Nay. Alexander had sounded the death knell of the Persian empire long before. 'Twas the Medes."

Matt shrugged. "One man's Mede is another man's Persian. So what did they do to the Jews? " "Why, conquered them, of course. They pounced upon the Jews and conquered them with the Latrurian way of waging war. I ween Judeans wished then that, rather than be conquered by a member of the Federation, they had accepted the help Reme offered."

"Sure-members of the Federation would have been barred from fighting one another." Matt felt numbed. "I assume the Medes used Reme's laws and penalties?"

"All did." Manny pursed his lips, puzzled. "Why do you ask?"

"Just making a guess as to what might have happened to a man

convicted of blasphemy. Crucifixion was still the penalty, I guess-even though it wasn't Romans who did it."

"Remans!"

"Right," Matt sighed. "Remans. What did they do about Carthage?" Manny grinned. "Outbid them, of course, time and time againand Carthage would not hear of a merger. After the defeat, it was the visionary statesman Hannibal who convinced his countrymen that if they could not beat the Remans, they should join them.

Therefore did he send an embassy to Reme with rich gifts-"

"Including elephants?"

"Then you have heard the tale!"

"No, but something like it. So Carthage stayed Carthage, but joined the Federation?"

"It did indeed, and became a mighty power for welding the empire together with strands of gold and silver."

"Commercial colonialism got an early start here," Matt reflected wryly. "Hard to see how an empire like that could ever fall." Manny shrugged. "Did it fall? Or was it merely too successful? It civilized the barbarians all about it, after alleven the Huns, when they hacked and slew their way in; but the legions engulfed them, punished their leaders, and sent them home with rich gifts for their kings."

Matt stared. "The Huns joined the empire?"

"No, but they learned from it, and ceased to roam the steppes with their herds. They became herders still, but within their own farms-if you can call it a farm, when it encompasses miles and has only grazing land and fields of oats . . .

"I'd call it a 'ranch,' " Matt said sourly. "if they managed that with the Huns, what happened to the Gauls and the Germans?"

"Oh, they became more Reman than the Remans! Even those silly folk on that northern island who painted themselves blue and stiffened their hair with chalk, even they began to build Reman houses and baths, and wear Reman clothes! But they began to think that they could fare better by themselves, and broke away from the Federation. Then older states followed their lead and one by one declared them-selves independent. Reme looked up one day and discovered that it was alone, though it had many friends.

But when those friends began to make war upon one another, it had no justification for seeking to stop them. Oh, they sent diplomats to plead and explain, but the Gauls and Germans and Goths, in their pride, would not listen. Then at last, the Vandals, in their arrogance, sacked Reme, and the day of

empire was most definitely done. Hurt and angered and bitter, the men of the Tiber turned inward, rebuilding their city and swearing to care no more about the other nations, only to take care of their own."

"So." Matt glowered down at his lute.

"They finally built Romulus' wall for him, eh? " Manny turned to him, startled. "An odd thought-but when I think of it that way, you are right. It is not a wall of bricks and stones, but of pride and bitterness-yet it is nonetheless a wall." Matt looked up. "Where did you learn all this? You don't strike me as the bookish sort."