“But Majesty-why?”
“So that I can teach them that I am no less formidable than my grandfather, Rebozo, and my magic no weaker, though nowhere so twisted.”
That, Rebozo doubted-and he had no wish to see the prince he had formed and nurtured drowned under a wave of greedy barons. “Majesty, in this world, you cannot balance yourself between the Deity and the Devil. You must choose one or the other, for every single action is either Good or Evil.”
“Then I shall choose neither, but another source of power altogether.”
“Your Majesty,” Rebozo cried, exasperated, “you cannot! In another world, perhaps, but not in this one! And this is all the world you will ever know! Every single action in this world sends you either one step closer to Hell, or one step closer to Heaven! Every thought you cherish, every breath you draw!”
“Then I shall play one off against the other,” King Boncorro told him, “as good statesmen have ever done with powers that they cannot conquer. Go send my word to the dukes, Chancellor-and to the earls, and the barons.”
Rebozo knew a royal command when he heard one, especially since the young king had addressed him by his title, not his name. He bowed, resigning himself to the worst. “As your Majesty wills. Am I dismissed, or is there more you would tell me?”
“Oh, I think that is quite enough for one morning,” Boncorro said, smiling. “Go do your work, Chancellor, while I think up more troubles for you.”
Rebozo wished he could be sure the young man was joking.
Chapter 1
Matt fingered a turnip absently as he eavesdropped with all his might. It wasn’t easy—the marketplace was alive with noise and color, particularly noise. Rickety booths draped in bright-hued cloth crowded every available inch of space; the fair’s marshals kept having to order merchants to move their booths back to leave the mandated three yards of aisle space, especially where those pathways opened out into the small plazas where the acrobats and minstrels performed. There were even fiddlers and pipers, so the fair always had strains of music underlying its raucous clatter. There was a surprising variety of produce for a town so far inland-but then, Fairmede had grown up around the merchants, for it sat right against the Alps, at the foot of a pass through the mountains, and beside a river, too-a small river, but one that ran northwest to join a larger, and the towns grew bigger as the river ran farther. Merchants came down on barges to meet other merchants coming in over the Alps, and peasants came flocking from the countryside on both sides of the mountains, to sell food to the merchants. There were vegetables and fruit, pork and poultry, cloth and furs, ribbons and thread, pots and pans and crockery-even spices and silks from the East. Those were being sold by the few professional merchants; most of the other vendors looked to be peasants, trying to turn a few pennies by selling the surplus the lords allowed them to keep. Matt knew that in Merovence. Queen Alisande insisted her lords leave their serfs at least a little for a cash crop; and the new King of Latruria, the kingdom to the south, seemed to have decided on the same policy-at least, to judge by the conversation Matt was working so hard at over-hearing. At the next booth the serf who was selling fruit was boasting a bit. “We have two cuttings of hay each summer now, and the harvests of wheat and barley have been rich these last three years, very rich.”
“That may be so,” said a goodwife, “but how much of it do you take home?”
“Half now! A full half! Ever since young King Boncorro came to the throne, we have paid to our lord only half of what we grow!”
“Truly?” asked a musclebound peasant. “Your young king made his noblemen give you that much?”
“Aye! And of our share, my wife and I live on three parts and sell one! She has copper pots now! I have an iron hoe, and our children wear shoes!”
“Shoes?” A third peasant stared, eyes huge. She was young, with a baby in her arms, and the hulking youth beside her was as amazed as she. “Real shoes, of leather?”
“Aye! No more of wrapping their poor little feet in rags to keep out the winter’s chill! Real shoes, of soft leather, with hard soles!”
The girl turned to her husband. “Mayhap we should follow him home.”
“‘Tis not so far.” The youth frowned, his gaze still on the fruit seller. “We could journey home easily enough, to pass the holidays with our parents.”
“You do well enough here,” the older woman protested. “Well enough, but still we must give two parts in three to Sir Garlin!” said the girl. “‘Twould be sweet indeed to have shoes for the little one, when she is old enough to walk.”
“There’s truth in that,” the young husband admitted. “We have built ourselves new houses,” the fruit seller boasted. “No more of such tumbledown huts as we had seven years ago! We live behind walls of wattle and daub now, and new straw for the thatch every year!”
“A cottage,” the girl murmured, eyes shining. “A true cottage!”
“Are you going to make love to that turnip, or buy it?” the peasant behind the vegetables growled. Matt came out of his reverie with a start, realizing that he’d been squeezing the turnip for several minutes. “No, I guess not.” He put it back. “Kind of soft on one side-I think it might be rotten.”
“Rotten! Do you say my produce is bad?”
Matt surveyed the rest of the display with a jaundiced eye-rubbery carrots, sickly looking parsnips, and radishes that had a distinctly brown tinge to them. “I’ve seen sounder produce in a silo.”
“THIIIEEEF!” the man yelled. “Ho! Watchmen! Here is a hedge sorcerer who steals!”
“Shhhh!Hush it up!” Matt glanced around frantically-this wasn’t exactly the way to be inconspicuous when you were trying to gather information. “Shut up, will you? I’ll buy it, then! I’ll give you a real, genuine copper penny! A whole penny, for that one measly turnip!”
“THIIIEF!” the man called again. “HO! HO, THE WATCH!”
“Okay, forget it!” Matt turned away, meaning to walk fast-but before he’d gone two steps, a hand the size of a loaf clapped down on his shoulder and swung him around to confront the men of the Watch. “Where do you think you’re going, peasant?”
Well, what was Matt supposed to say? “I’m not really a peasant, I’m just dressed like one because I wanted to wear something comfortable”?
“Hi there, boys, I’m the Lord Wizard of Merovence, glad to see you’re on the ball”?
He was supposed to be gathering information in disguise, not starting a riot. How was he going to get out of this one, without letting them know who he really was? “I didn’t steal anything, watchmen-I just refused to buy.”
“Because he said the turnip was rotten!” the peasant shouted. “If it was, he must have turned it himself, because when I brought it, it was-” His eye lit with inspiration. “-it was sound! All my vegetables were good! Now look at them! Why he should hate me so much as to turn my produce bad, I can’t think-I’ve never met him before in my life!”
“Or mine,” Matt snarled. “What would I want your moldy vegetables for?”
“Moldy! Do you hear, watchmen? He has turned them to mold!”
“This is a serious charge, fellow,” the beefy watchman said. “If what he says is true, you have practiced magic without leave from the count!”
“How about if I had leave from the queen?”
The watchman gave him a sour smile. “Oh, aye, and how if I had a gold sovereign for every word you’ve said? What would a ragtag road conjurer like you know of the queen?”
For a moment Matt was tempted to conjure up a dozen gold coins, just to prove the man wrong-tempted to reveal himself as really being the Lord Wizard of Merovence; but he reminded him self that if he did, he could forget about learning anything more in this market about the discontent that was brewing here by the southern border with Latruria. He improvised fast. “But I’m not even a conjurer! Just a packman looking for something to pack!”