The Secular Wizard - Wis in Rhyme - 4 (34 page)

"But you can't," Matt said sympathetically. "Too many girls and not enough work, and you'd stop making profit."

"Profit? What is that?" the woman said impatiently. "We make a living, and so do they."

Matt's opinion of her went up. "Are you open to donations?"

"Donations?" The woman stared. "You mean gifts of money?

Whatever for?"

"To help protect more of them." Matt fished a gold piece out of his purse and pressed it into her hand.

She stared at it, then looked up at him, her composure shaken.

"Thank you, young man-but I'll hold this a week before I spend any of it, so you can come back for it if you find you have need." Matt nodded. "Very prudent. But I'm sure I won't need it back."

"I'll wait all the same," she said doggedly. "Keep it or not, I thank you-your heart's in the right place."

"Thanks." Matt gave her a sardonic smile. "Like you, I just wish I could do more." He turned back to Pascal and Flaminia.

"Time to start pub-crawling, folks."

"What is a 'pub'?" Flaminia asked.

"Anyplace where they serve beer and wine to people with more money than sense." He turned back to the matron. "Thanks ma'amand good night."

She watched them go, brow puckered with worry, shaking her head. Pascal and Flaminia seemed rattled. "There is far more wickedness in this city than I had thought," the young man said. Matt shrugged. "What would you expect, when it was the capital of evil for so long? Interesting to hear her call Boncorro 'good'-but even if he were, he couldn't reform his town completely in just a few years. " "And from what I have heard," Flaminia said, "he is not dedicated to Goodness-it is simply that he is not dedicated to Wickedness, either."

"But his reign has produced more!" Pascal burst out. "Or as much, but of a different sort! it has brought the noblemen flocking into town to prey upon the innocent, and the country folk in to be their meat!"

"That's one side of it, yes," Matt said, frowning, "and as far as that goes, Boncorro's try at a worldly culture without any teaching of values has produced a great deal of emotional suffering and exploitation of the weak-but on the other hand, nobody's starving or homeless, or at least very few."

"I have seen many beggars," Pascal objected.

"But they have been far from starvation," Flaminia pointed out. Matt nodded. "Plus, I haven't seen any dead bodies in the streets, though maybe that only means that it's the wrong time of day. No, I think I'll have to meet this king and talk with him a bit before I make up my mind about him."

I/ Meet the king?" Flaminia looked up, frightened. "Surely you are jesting! " "He must be," Pascal agreed. "Why, to meet the king might be as dangerous as it would be exciting!"

"No, I really do want to," Matt said.

"I do not," Flaminia said certainly.

"But you shall," said a voice behind Matt's ear, and he was just beginning to turn when the pain burst on top of his head and spread through it. He fought to stay conscious even as he felt himself falling, but all the good it did was to give him a quick glimpse of Pascal struggling in the hands of one bruiser while another swung a truncheon, and to let him hear Flaminia's screams as two more men closed in on her. He was just realizing that they wore livery when the darkness closed in.

Matt's first blurred impression was of a lot of cobblestones. After a minute he realized from the discomfort that he was lying on more than cobbles. Then he realized that there wasn't anyone anywhere near, though there did seem to be a goodly number off in the distance, there-lined up, pointing, gesticulating.

Then the headache hit.

Actually, it had been there all the time-it just required a certain level of consciousness to feel it. His vision stayed blurred, and he gasped with the agony of it. He begged his pulse not to beat, because every throb made his head split all over again.

Fortunately, he didn't beg in rhyme.

Through the blinding pain one thought bored: he couldn't possibly function with his head splitting, and there was only one way to make it stop. What the hell? Whoever the chief sorcerer was around here, he knew where he was, anyway.

"When headache's pounding till you're done,

Get ibuprofen on the run!

Instant-acting, long and wide, Analgesic, be inside!" The improvement startled him. Suddenly, the headache was only a dull, persistent pain at the back of his head-not as successful a spell as it would have been if he had tried the same verse outside Latruria, but good enough. He raised a hand to touch the spot the pain radiated

from, then thought better of it-he didn't need to start another explosion. In what was left of his mind, he made a note to check himself for concussion when he had time to find a mirror-or conjure one up, more likely.

With the pain reduced to a bearable level, he could take stock of his circumstances. Now that he thought of it, he remembered being hit on the head, remembered ...

Flaminia's abduction!

In a panic, he looked around for Pascal, and saw ... A wall of tawny fur.

He stared at it for a second, realizing why the onlookers were staying so far back. Then he looked up slowly to the double grin above. "Hi, Manny."

"It is good to see you alive again, mortal." Matt pushed himself up to a sitting position, very carefully.

"Somebody tried to kill me again, huh? " "Yes-one of the soldiers in wine-red tunics. He changed his mind when I oppe own besi e you."

"Dropped down? How'd you get into the city, anyway?"

"Why, I leaped atop the wall, then sprang to the nearest housetop and prowled across the roofs."

"Like any cat." Matt nodded.

"I kept you in sight all the afternoon, disappointed that there was no need of me."

"Bet you were real happy to see them jump us, huh?

"Yes. I could not prevent them from striking, but when the wench was secured and the leader turned back to you with a lifted knife, I knew my moment had come and dropped beside you with a hiss of joy. He was somewhat startled to see me."

"I'll bet. How was he?"

"Too quick to catch, alas."

"Too quick for you?" Matt stared.

"Yes. He shouted a few words I recognized from long ago, and disappeared, along with his soldiers and that scrumptious tidbit of a young woman."

Matt thought that Pascal would probably agree with him on that last, and that reminded him. "Seen Pascal?"

"Yes. He is on my other side-" Manny glanced away, then back.

-only just now waking."

"Safe, then-sort of. You say you recognized the soldier's words?"

"Aye. They were in a language from the East."

"How far east?"

"From Persia, I believe he called it-the magus who had come to Reme to teach the priests new ways to read the auspices and harus-pices. " "Auspicious indeed." So the language had been Persian, or maybe older. Chaldean? Sumerian? "What did the leader say?"

"Only, 'Return whence we came!"' The manticore frowned. "Few words indeed, to accomplish so much!"

"Not really, if he had left a spell hanging in the air and only needed a few final words to put it into action. What did he look like?"

"Difficult to say. He was masked, you see-but he had gray hair and beard, was tall and lean, and wore a robe of flaming orange."

"Just your standard sorcerer, except for the color of the robe." Matt frowned. "Could have been any senior magus. Any distinguishing features?"

"Only his knowledge of an old and arcane tongue, and the fact that he did attempt to enslave me with a spell of obedience in that tongue." Matt looked up, startled. "And it didn't work?"

"Of course not," the manticore said with disdain. "I already walk under the old geas laid upon me by the ancestor of your friend Pascal, and renewed by that young man himself. They enjoined me by the power of Goodness, which is greater than the evil source of that sorcerer's power. He would have had to remove Pascal's spell before he could lay a new compulsion upon me."

"So you were protected by loyalty."

"Protected in more ways than one." The manticore shuddered.

"It is highly unpleasant to labor in a sorcerer's command! Some tasty meals, aye, but they do not compensate for being restrained and con-strained when I wish to ramble. Would that I could take revenge!"

"But they're too powerful for you, huh? "

"Or too quick. I almost caught this graybeard on the tips of my claws, but he disappeared a half second too soon."

"Too bad about that." Matt suspected he had just personally en-countered the sorcerer who had been trying to have him assassinated all along. Apparently he had become fed up with his klutzy hirelings and decided that if he wanted the job done right, he'd have to do it himself. But why kidnap Flaminia?

just in case the sorcerer failed to kill Matt, of course. This way, Matt would have to come after the sorcerer. Or was Flaminia herself important in some way Matt didn't know about? Or maybe Pascal? It seemed unlikely, but you never knew. "How's your liberator doing?"

The manticore glanced down on his other side. "He rises." Pascal's head appeared above the manticore's back. He looked like yesterday's hashed browns unsuccessfully warmed over, but all he could say was, " Flaminia! " "Stolen away," Matt relayed. "We have to go get her back."

It didn't even occur to him that there might be another option.

"Of course, we have to figure out where she is." He pushed himself to his feet and went over to the spectators. They gave way before him, and some turned to run. "I'm not going to hurt you!" The way Matt felt, he couldn't have damaged a plate of spaghetti. "I just want to know whose soldiers those were."

They didn't even try to deny having been there when the soldiers jumped Matt and his party; they just looked at one another with wide, frightened, but incredulous eyes. "He is a foreigner, after all," one of them said.

"Aye, " said his friend. "You can tell that by his accent." Matt frowned. "What difference does that make?"

"It is why you did not recognize their livery," the man explained.

"Meaning their boss is so big and important that anybody here would know him just by his colors?" Matt didn't like the way this was going. "Okay-who is he?" But the creeping dread in his belly told him that he already knew-he was just hoping he was wrong. "They are the royal colors," the citizen said. "Those were King Boncorro's men." Matt just stared at him for a moment. Then he gave a short nod.

"Thanks. Any idea why they would want to kidnap our young woman?

"

Again, the passersby exchanged glances, and a woman said, "Why would any young man abduct a young woman?"

Matt stood frozen.

"King Boncorro is a young man, after all," one of the men said deli-antly. "He is a good king, but he has a healthy young man'sap

-petites-and he will not touch the daughters of the noblemen, as his grandfather did.',

"That is why the noblemen have come flocking back to Venarra/" another man said stoutly, "with all their money-because he treats them with respect, they and theirs."

"So he makes it up by snagging any of the peasant girls who catch his eye, huh?"

"His eye, or his soldiers' eyes," the woman said darkly.

"Still, the king may not find her to be of interest," the first man

said, in an effort at consolation. "Be of good cheer, friend-if the king does not fancy her, she will be brought back here unharmed. None dare touch her, unless the king gives his leave."

"And he never has," another woman pointed out.

"How about if one of the lords takes a fancy to her?" The woman shrugged eloquently. "A nobleman, desire a girl that the king finds unattractive? He would not dare be so far off the rash-ion!" She said it with a certain smugness-as well she might, since it was probably one of her own defenses.

Matt wondered how the king's taste ran. "Well, thanks, folks. I'll take my manticore and go now."

They looked relieved, and certainly no one moved to stop him. As he came back up to Pascal, Matt said, "Bad news. Those were the king's men who snatched her."

Pascal blanched-not that he had much color left to begin with.

"But why?"

"Because she's a reasonably attractive young woman," Matt sighed, and apparently, he has his share of vices."

Pascal began to tremble-whether with fear or anger or both, Matt didn't want to know. "We must free her! But how?"

"I was just saying I wanted to meet the king, wasn't I?" Matt sighed. "I won't say this gives us a good opportunity-but it certainly gives us a good reason."

Privately, though, he knew this had to be one of the dumbest things he had ever done. If that sorcerer really was the one who had been trying to bump him off all along, he would sure as Hell know Matt was coming-straight into his jaws. if the sorcerer worked for the king, the chances were this kidnapping, and the attempt to assassinate Matt, had all been ordered by Boncorro himself. Matt knew he would just have to go in with all enchantments up and ready. He thought of trying a disguise spell, but suspected it would be useless, since the sorcerer had already penetrated his cover once.

There was one shred of hope: maybe Boncorro had not ordered this abduction. The townspeople seemed to be familiar with peasant girls being kidnapped on spec-on the chance that the king might desire them. Maybe the sorcerer had just been out shopping for his master-and if it had been his own idea to kidnap Flaminia, maybe it had been his own idea to assassinate Matt.

Maybe. But Matt wasn't putting any money on it.

"But how are we to find a way into the king's castle?" Pascal wailed. "One does not simply walk up to him and demand to speak!"

"No," Matt said. "One walks up to the nearest nobleman. Come on, let's go find one."

He turned away. Pascal glanced at the manticore, startled, but the monster only shrugged and jerked his head toward Matt. Pascal swallowed and followed the wizard.

When they looked back, the manticore had disappeared. In this town it was always a short walk to the nearest boulevard. The districts changed from grungy to grand in two blocks. Matt took up station on a street corner and began to play. Pascal, with conditioned reflexes, threw down his hat. A passerby stopped to listen, then threw in a copper when the song ended. Another passerby joined him. Soon the hat was half full, and Matt had a crowd. Then he saw the nobleman's retinue coming.