Papa could see at least four drawn bows, and many naked swords, all with him as their targets.
Apparently any stranger was a possible assassin.
Out he came, tall and handsome, but dressed in the leather and broadcloth of a hunter. Nonetheless, there was a nobility about him that left no doubt as to his station. Papa bowed. “Your Majesty!”
“You are well-mannered,” King Rinaldo said with a smile. “I greet you, goodman. What is your name?”
“I am Ramon Rodrigo Mantrell, Majesty.”
The king seemed to go still somehow. “I know that name Mantrell.”
“It is not rare,” Papa said, “but in this instance, it is the name you know indeed, for I am the father of Matthew Mantrell, Lord Wizard of Merovence.”
“Are you indeed!” But the king was not convinced. “If you are indeed his father, and have come to seek me out, he will have told you something of our adventures together. Can you tell me what he might have to say that none others would know?”
“Yes, Majesty. He told me to ask if you were keeping an eye out for him.”
King Rinaldo winced, remembering that, when he had met Matt, he had been locked by a wicked enchantment into the form of a dwarf cyclops; his other eye had been in a bottle on a shelf in King Gordogrosso’s workroom. “Not exactly uncommon knowledge, but surely only Matthew would stoop so low as to give a watchword like that! How is it you are here, Master Mantrell? Your son told me he was very far from home!”
“He was, Your Majesty.” The thought of just how far made Papa shiver. “But we ran into difficulties, wife and I, so Matthew came back to fetch us here. He has gone back again, to fight an enemy who, he says, is an agent of the sorcerer who lies behind this war that troubles you so.”
“What sorcerer?” Rinaldo lost his smile. “I know nothing of a sorcerer, only of an army of Moors who have swept over my land, led by a boy who calls himself the Mahdi!”
“Matthew has discovered that one man, a Nirobus by name, has caused the troubles that beset us both.
He it is who excited a small group of sorcerers into inciting the Moors to conquer, and convincing a shepherd that he could lead them.”
“Indeed!” King Rinaldo frowned. “He has learned much, our Matthew!”
“It is learning in which he is trained more than in anything else, Your Majesty.” Papa couldn’t quite stifle a smile of pride. King Rinaldo grinned. “Now I know that you are his father, for only a proud papa would glisten so, simply because his son has learned how to learn. Come, enter my pavilion, Master Mantrell… but I pray you, keep your hands in plain sight, for my retainers are horribly suspicious.”
“As they should be.” Papa bowed, then followed King Armando into the pavilion. The king sat on a portable throne, rather ingeniously contrived. Everyone else stood, in accordance with protocol. Besides, that made it easier to draw then swords, or swing their halberds, in case Papa tried anything violent. “I have fought and retreated with my army only once, Master Mantrell, and realized that we could not stand against the might of the Moorish army and the power of their magicians’ magic.” A shadow crossed his face. “I would say it was evil magic, but it seems to have wreaked no more suffering than any other form of war, and the Moors, by all my spies’ reports, are as devoted to their faith as any Christian. I know their religion is untrue, but I cannot say it is evil.”
“Nor would I, Your Majesty,” Papa answered, “and although I think it contains many mistakes and allows many actions that I believe to be wrong, I must admit that the core of its beliefs is very much like our own.”
“Save that they do not recognize Christ as God,” said Rinaldo, frowning. “That above all,” Papa agreed, “but they do honor him as a prophet.”
“They do. No, I could not call them evil.”
“Nor can I,” Papa agreed. “However, as with Christians, wicked men can lead them astray. Certainly evil sorcerers can use magic to gain the victories that might of arms alone could not.”
“Even so,” King Rinaldo agreed, “and because of that, I have bidden my people to leave their houses and farms and follow me into the hills. Fifty thousand of them have seen fit to obey. The others stayed to take their chances with Moorish mercy. I cannot say that I blame them, for to uproot one’s whole life is no small thing. I have left a garrison in each city, putting up enough resistance to bog down the Moors’ advance, but I fear that any citizens who trust too much in those soldiers will be horribly disappointed.”
Papa frowned. “I had heard that the land was in the Mahdi’s hands, but that many of the cities were still free.”
“So my spies say, and I am amazed the invaders haven’t sent parties to rout my garrisons and occupy the cities. Instead, I am told they have thrust straight through to the Pyrenees.” King Rinaldo smiled bleakly.
“Perhaps the citizens who chose to stay in their cities have chosen rightly after all.”
“Perhaps, if the food and water last,” Papa said. He frowned, thinking of typhus and cholera. “I hope they will be well, my people,” King Rinaldo sighed. “My spies say that the Mahdi keeps his soldiers on a tight rein, we have heard very little of looting or rapine, or any others of the sorts of random brutality that so often accompany an army on the march.”
“He is a very devout man in his own religion, Your Majesty,” Papa said. King Rinaldo frowned. “Have you met him, then?”
Papa launched into an account of his and Matthew’s visit with Tafas bin Daoud, leaving out only Lakshmi’s contribution, he merely attributed their arrival and escape to magic, which was true enough as far as it went. King Rinaldo listened in complete silence, only nodding now and then or uttering an expletive at the Mahdi’s complete and utter self confidence. When Papa was done, the king said, “He is young and naive, then, but a man of good heart, and a genius in battle.”
“He is,” Papa agreed, “but the sorcerers behind him may be evil, and were most certainly persuaded to embark on this campaign of conquest by a man who posed as a sage, a holy hermit… but did not profess a religion.”
“And you say the same man has upset your own homeland!”
Apparently Matt hadn’t told the king about alternate universes. “He has, Majesty, as well as we can discover… and has addicted many of our young people to a drug that allows him to leach energy from them, to use for his magics.”
King Rinaldo shuddered “That is a most evil form of magic! Yes, I have done well to avoid outright battles.”
“Very well indeed,” Papa said, in pleased surprise. “How have you fought, then, Your Majesty!”
“By harassing the foe, Master Mantrell… cutting down their laggards, ambushing their food caravans, striking them hard and fast with raids that stampede their horses and slay a few soldiers, then disappearing into the night. We have slain only a few hundred, but the rest are beginning to live in fear that we may swoop down upon them at any moment.” He forced a hard smile. “I had hoped for help from Merovence, but the queen has not even replied to my appeals.”
“She has,” Papa said, surprised. “Her messengers, then, have not reached you.”
Rinaldo only stared at him for a minute, digesting the news, then said, “No, they have not. We were afraid there might have been couriers who were captured by the Mahdi’s scourers. What does Her Majesty?”
“She has marched against the Moors,” Papa said, “but the Mahdi awaits her on Ibile’s side of the mountains. While he does, he has sent a quarter of his force by sea, to besiege her capital, Bordestang.”
“So that is why the Moors have made only a token attack on the north country!” King Rinaldo cried.