Matt lifted his head slowly. “So. If they were to ship your coffin back to Greece, your ghost would go with it.”
“Aye-and once there, I could shuffle off that mortal coil and pass to my reward.”
“You… sure you want to do that?”
“I have naught to fear of the Afterlife, foolish youngling!”
“Maybe some time in Purgatory, but all in all, you think you did as much good as bad in your lifetime? Well, then, be glad you died before King Maledicto came to power.”
Squire Spiro shuddered. “I am. That blackguard would have made short shrift of any man who sought to abide by the rules of chivalry, let alone the Commandments!”
“You don’t fear the Lord?” Matt frowned. “Why did you back off when I recited the old charm, then?”
“You asked Him to preserve you from ghosts, fool! If I honor Him, of course I will honor those whom He protects.” Spiro drew down his brows, turning his eyes into caverns as he frowned. “But you are no mere minstrel, are you?”
“About that return to Greece,” Matt said hurriedly. “I’ll mention it to the current squire, but I can’t promise anything. If he wants a haunted chamber more than a usable one, he may opt to keep your mortal remains here.”
“If he does, then I shall howl night and day, I shall groan to break all hearts, I shall give him never a moment’s rest, I shall-”
“Haunt the whole house?” Matt said brightly. “Make it all unusable? Can you do that?”
The ghost looked daggers at him. “Nay. I am ever drawn back to this chamber. But I can make unceasing racket herein!”
“You might do better just not to bother anybody,” Matt pointed out. “Then he wouldn’t have any reason to keep you.”
“But no reason to spend the money it would take to ship my bones back to Greece and bury them and be rid of me, either!”
‘True,“ Matt admitted. ”Sure you can’t offer him some sort of inducement?“
“There is a treasure I buried,” the ghost said slowly, “since I had begun to mistrust my son. Two hundred years ago, it was only enough to take my bones back to Greece, but now-”
“-what with inflation, the price of gold has gone up, and it’s worth a small fortune?”
“Aye. When my body is buried near Athens, I shall come back to this house once, and once only, on my way to Purgatory, to tell him where to dig!”
“Giving him a nice, tidy profit.” Matt nodded, satisfied. “Good business all around, and everybody’s happy. Okay, Squire Spiro, I’ll broach the issue to your descendant in the morning. Of course, I’d be a bit more persuasive if I’d had a good night’s sleep…”
“My descendant is not the only one who needs a bribe, I see,” the ghost grumbled. “Very well, minstrel, I will leave you in peace for this night. But if you betray me, I shall find a way to smite you, soon or late! Remember that where my blood and bone may go, my spirit can go, though it takes a ruinous effort and causes me great pain!”
“Meaning that you can follow Pascal, if he sticks with me?” Matt cocked his head to the side. “Interesting! An ectoplasmic DNA link goes even further than I thought Still, not to worry, Squire Spiro-what I said I’d do, I will do. I can’t speak for your descendant, though.”
“You need not; gold speaks loudly enough,” the ghost growled. “Well, then I’ll leave you for this night-but remember your promise!” And with that he winked out and was gone. The room was totally silent, and totally dark, for perhaps a minute more. Then the candle glowed to life again of its own accord, revealing a shaken and sweating Pascal, who mopped his forehead and said, in a tremulous voice, “That was amazing, Matthew! But I think my ancestor was right-you are no mere minstrel, and are even more than a knight, are you not?”
“Me?” Matt protested, all innocence. “Pascal! If you don’t know my secrets, who in Latruria does? Off to sleep, now. If I were you, I’d take a blanket and head for the barn. I don’t particularly fancy sleeping in this bed alone, but I think I’ll get all sorts of kudos if I can emerge bright and fresh in the morning. You don’t have to, though.”
The primary kudo was the look of shocked amazement on the races of the squire and his family when Matt came in to breakfast the next morning. He allowed himself a feeling of satisfaction as he sat down behind a huge slice of bread that was serving as a plate, and accepted a portion of something fried from a serving girl. He nodded a pleasant thank-you, then looked about at the family with a bright smile. “Good morning!”
“Ah… good morning,” the squire said. “Did you… sleep well?”
“Oh, very well, thanks! Took a little while to calm down and doze off, that’s all.”
Pascal nearly strangled on his porridge. “Remarkable,” the squire’s wife murmured, and Panegyra was staring at him with awe-no, not awe, Matt realized: fear. “You had no… dreams?” the squire pressed. “No, but I did have an interesting conversation with the resident ghost.” Matt looked up. “Really very reasonable man, once you can get him talking.”
The squire turned white as a sheet. His wife nearly fainted, and Panegyra almost fell off her chair. Fortunately, she fell toward Pascal, and he caught her neatly and helped stabilize her. She murmured her thanks as she resettled herself, and Matt wondered if the move had been entirely accidental. “You… managed conversation with the ghost?” the squire stammered. “You… you were not… afraid of him?”
“Well, sure, anybody would be, the way he appeared out of nowhere!” Matt said. “But I know an old charm or two-minstrels collect those sorts of things-so he backed off and tried to order me out.”
“And… how did you refuse him?” The squire’s wife was recovering nicely. “I asked, ‘Why?’ ” Matt said simply. “And he told you?”
“Well, there was a little more to it than that.” Matt was beginning to enjoy himself. “But the long and the short of it is that he wants to go back to Greece.”
“Wants to go?” the squire said blankly, and his wife seized his arm. “Instantly, husband! Whatever he wishes, give it! If we can be rid of that specter, it will be well worth it!”
“Let us first see the bill before we pay it,” the squire said cautiously. “It is old Spiro’s ghost, then?”
“The founder himself,” Matt confirmed. “That’s why he feels he has a right to have the room to himself-he not only built it, he also died in it.”
“The grandest room in the house!” the squire’s wife wailed. “But how can he go back to his homeland?” the squire asked, staring. “He is dead!”
“Yes, but he seems to think that if you can dig up his coffin and ship it back to Greece, he’ll go with it.”
“It might be worth the attempt,” the squire said, gazing off into space. “Worth?” His wife dug her fingers into his arm. “Worth it a hundred times over! Then we can have the chamber exorcised, re-open the bricked-up windows-and we can reside there!”
“There will be some expense in it,” the squire warned. “There is the summerhouse you wished to build-that would have to wait a few years.”
His wife turned away, sulking. “All the best families have one!”
“All the best families have at least one ghost, too,” her husband reminded her. “We have two to spare-I shall not miss this one! He is so disagreeable, so malicious, so… frightening!”
“But is he worth your summerhouse?”
“Oh, aye, I would say he is!” The wife capitulated. “But there shall still be enough money to redecorate the room, shall there not?”
“Plenty,” Matt said. “He left a few gold pieces buried some place on the estate, to dig up and pay for his passage when he was ready to sail-but he was killed first.”