“Then I shall slay the sons, too, and the grandsons, and the nephews, if I must-and all the noblemen know it. They have not yet even tested my resolve, nor, I think, will they. They know I am no saint, like my father, and fear that I may be as cruel and as powerful as my grandfather. No, Rebozo,” he finished quietly, “I do not think they will rebel.”
Rebozo shivered again, for the tone of the young king’s voice had been as remorseless and bereft of emotion as his eyes had been chill and flat. It was almost as if a man of stone had been talking, and Rebozo found that he-even he whom the king loved as much as he loved any-could not be sure whether or not King Boncorro could really rain down destruction on a rebellious army. He didn’t doubt for a second, though, that Boncorro could and would slay every single one of his aristocrats if they sought to unseat him. He might not even have to turn to the power of evil magic, for every single one of the counts and dukes had been so deeply steeped in sin that Heaven surely must aid the young king in defeating them! In fact, it was a perfect summary of Boncorro’s strategy-he would commit the sin of killing without the slightest tremor of conscience, and would thereby free his people to be good if they wished it. He would lighten their burdens of despair and fear and even give them grounds for hope-and would thus balance Good and Evil so neatly that surely the sources of magic must be confused as to which he was! In fact, Rebozo suspected that the king wasn’t sure himself-or was determined not to be either. It was impossible, of course. No man could remain exactly half good and half evil for more than half a minute. As soon as he did one more act of good than he did of evil, he would begin the progress toward Goodness-and it would take an act of outright sin to counter it True, Boncorro was determined not to fall into his father’s fate any more than into his grandfather’s-but his yardstick seemed to be the good of the people, and surely that must indeed lead him to Goodness eventually. Rebozo had to do something to prevent that. “If you are going to remove so many monopolies, your Majesty, you should balance them by instituting a new one.”
Boncorro stiffened, but he was caught by the word “balance.”
“What monopoly can I set up that will increase trade?”
“A monopoly on prostitution. No, hear me out! Only think, Majesty-if brothels were legal, but maintained under a monopoly that held the condition that all prostitutes be free of disease in order to do business, more men would patronize them!”
“Aye, to debase and abuse them!”
Rebozo shrugged. “There will be prostitutes whether the law allows it or not, your Majesty-you know it well! Still, you could make it another condition of the monopoly that the women not be beaten by their pimps or procuresses, nor injured by their patrons! You could insist that any who treated them less than gently be hauled before a court-and you could station royal guardsmen within the houses to enforce that law! But you cannot impose any conditions as long as the trade is illegal!”
“But more trade means that there will be more prostitutes,” Boncorro said, frowning, “and that girls will be forced into it whether they wish to be or not!”
“Come, Majesty,” Rebozo wheedled. “If there shall be more money being spent, as you have said, there will also be more men wanting to buy an hour with a prostitute-and if there shall be more peasants leaving the land and coming to the cities, as you have indicated, there will be more girls drawn into the trade anyway! Why not have them all legally under your own eye, where you may at least insist they not be too heavily abused?”
The king frowned, stuck for a comeback-it was an issue he had never really considered. “Besides, you know there are some women who really prefer that way of life,” Rebozo said. “Or who choose it, at least.” It was as good as a capitulation, even though Boncorro followed it with, “… though their number never has been adequate to fulfill the demands of my more depraved subjects. Still, you do make some sort of sense-the women would be better protected under the eye of a duke who is under my eye. I shall consider it, Rebozo.”
“I rejoice that my feeble counsel has been of use to your Majesty,” the chancellor said, beaming. He bowed, thinking, A blow well-struck for corruption! He knew full well that the more twisted uses of prostitutes would continue to flourish illegally, as they did now-and that the king, by condoning prostitution of any sort, would be drawn toward the side of Evil. Indeed, convinced by Rebozo’s arguments and bored with his own stable of beauties, he would sooner or later patronize some of those establishments of vice himself, the ones he was even now discussing. Done once, done a dozen times-then twenty, then a hundred. Then, as his sexual prowess began to decline with age, he would be drawn to the more depraved amusements in a desperate attempt to flag his failing powers. The long slide to damnation was well begun indeed, and Latruria would one day be as securely on the side of Evil as it was in the old days.
Everybody likes being the center of attention, but Matt was just paranoid enough for it to make him a little nervous. He dismissed it as stage fright and called out, “Come, good people! Tales and lays, poems and sagas! Listen and lose yourselves in far and fabled lands!”
They came flocking. ‘Tales from Merovence?“ one shopper asked. ”That’s neither far nor fabled, but I have the newest stories and tales.“ Matt was sure they’d be very new-in this universe, anyway. ”No songs?“ one teenager asked, disappointed. Matt grinned. ”I shall play the tunes and chant the words-but believe me, you do not wish to hear me sing.“
‘True, true,“ Pascal murmured. Matt flashed him a mock glare. ”You don’t have to agree with me, you know.“
The crowd laughed, and Matt began to realize that Pascal could be a very good straight man. In fact, the two of them could really clean up at every wayside fair between here and- He wrenched his thought back to the present with a major effort. He was supposed to be a spy, not a real minstrel! The ham in him was carrying him away, like Peer Gynt with the Green-Clad One. “A tale of the far north!” he cried. “A story of the wanderer Peer Gynt, and his fall from virtue! Who would hear it?”
The crowd clamored agreement, and some of them waved pennies. Pascal, quicker on the uptake than Matt would have thought, tossed his hat down at Matt’s feet and pitched in a penny of his own. It was like seeding the clouds, and produced a positive hail- storm of coppers. “I am persuaded.” Matt bowed with a flourish. He began to play “Morning Mood” from Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite, and intoned, “Peer Gynt was a lad of Norway, where the Vikings came from…”
“The sea robbers?” a boy cried eagerly. This far south, the Vikings were only storybook villains. Matt wondered how the story would go over even farther south-say, near Sicily. Had the Normans conquered the island in this world, too? “He was of their blood, but was himself only a poor farm boy whose father had died when he was young. His mother had reared him as well as she might, but he was always willful, and somewhat wild. He liked to ramble the mountainside with a sling and stones, claiming he was hunting, but really daydreaming.”
The boy’s eyes shone, and Matt realized the kid was hearing about a kindred spirit. Well, for him it would be a cautionary tale. ‘One day, when Peer Gynt was out hunting, he heard a wild pig’s squeal-and looking up, he saw a woman. But what a woman! Her form was everything a man could dream of, and her gossamer green gown clung to her in such a way as to show every curve!“
The women muttered, not liking the sound of this-was the minstrel going to say they should show themselves off? That was exploitation for those who did have figures worth looking at, but outright humiliation for those who did not! And the boy in front was beginning to look disappointed. Well, no matter, Matt decided-he would catch them all again when they got to the Hall of the Mountain King. He caught them sooner than that. “From the neck down she was the most lovely of women-but from the neck up, she was a sow! Aye, bristles, snout, pointed ears and all, the woman had a pig’s head!”