"Aye," she said, returning his gaze, full depth. "We have."
There was a sudden fanfare. Everyone looked around, startled—nobody had a trumpet to his lips. They looked at the throne...
And saw the ghost, standing beside the gilded chair, beckoning to Prince Rinaldo.
"Why, I know you now!" the prince cried. "Ever since I first saw you, I have known I had seen the resemblance to your face before!"
"Yeah—in a mirror." Matt looked from one to the other. Allowing for age and another fifty pounds, the family resemblance was unmistakable.
" 'Tis Tomas!" Rinaldo cried. " 'Tis the last rightful king!" The ghost hung his head.
"Why do you stand ashamed! You have done naught to regret!"
The ghost looked up, tears streaming from his eyes, and Sir Guy, that repository of all the lore of this alternate Europe, said softly, "He has—though he has now, at long last, set it aright. For look you, Tomas IV was a kind king, a just king, a good king—but the legend speaks of him as unbearably clumsy. He was ever stumbling, spilling, lurching about—"
"Still kind of clumsy, about his materializations." Matt frowned. "Though lately he does seem to be getting them right, his timing could be better..."
"Regrettably," the Black Knight said, "his clumsiness extended to matters military, and therefore did he not trust in his own instincts. He took for a counselor the infamous Gordogrosso, who advised him to be less harsh in his soldiers' training, and to keep fewer men under arms. King Tomas hearkened to these false words, and when his army was weakened, the sorcerer brought in his own hellish troops to seize power. He cut off King Tomas' head and threw his body into the dungeons, that his humiliation might be complete—for the good king did not live long enough to be shut living in a cell."
"And he blamed himself for Ibile's fall to the powers of Evil, so he's been hanging around ever since, looking for a chance to kick out the sorcerer!" Matt cried.
The poor ghost nodded, then looked up, brightening.
"And we gave him that chance." Sir Guy clapped Matt on the shoulder. "Now he can he in peace."
But, "No," Friar Tuck said, "not till he has had Christian burial."
"Why, that shall he have!" Prince Rinaldo cried. "It shall be my first act as king, the building of his tomb, and his poor remains shall have a solemn burial with the honors due a hero! You shall be free, Majesty, free to find your way to Heaven!"
The ghost turned a radiant smile upon his descendant.
CHAPTER 30
Leave it to Fates
The choir broke into song, and the Dies Irae rang through the lofty dome of the huge cathedral. The crowd standing before the altar separated as people stood back to make room, opening an aisle from the altar to the doors, and the Archbishop followed the pallbearers down the length of the nave with an altar boy swinging a censer before and two more carrying candles behind.
Matt glanced to each side as he carried his corner of the coffin, impressed all over again by the number of faces lining each side of the long center aisle. He had really been startled, two days ago, when so many had trooped into the huge church and begun scouring the dirt and graffiti from its pillars. Then he had looked again and realized that most of them were poor; dirt poor. Many were beggars; many more bore the marks of the king's justice: a missing finger or ear, or even a limb. For two hundred years, so many people had kept their faith in God! Even though they were crushed into the dirt for it. But there were more substantial citizens there, too, the burghers and master craftsmen, who had given aid and shelter to their less fortunate fellow parishioners; for all, all, had been driven to worship in seclusion and keep their faith secret for so many, many years.
But now the cathedral was clean again, and whitewashed, with new linens on the altar and a new carpet before it. A crucifix stood over the sanctuary again, albeit it was made of wood, and had been quickly carved; and priests followed the Archbishop down the aisle.
It was flabbergasting, how many priests had risked slow death by torture to keep ministering to their flocks, well hidden—but Friar Tuck had found out a dozen of them within twenty-four hours, and others had stepped forward. It was even more astounding that young men had chosen to become priests under such circumstances—though Alisande had told him that Merovence had sent its share of missionaries to the benighted land. Incredible, that men who could have dwelt securely and in comfort at home should be willing to condemn themselves to a life of fear and misery, should risk death and torture, all because they had felt a call from God!
Of course, Matt had done that, too—but he hadn't been watching his language.
They marched in solemn procession down the full length of the nave, then back up a side aisle to one of the many chapels that opened off the passageway behind the altar—a chapel that bore the catafalques of dead kings and queens.
One of these low tombs was open.
As the priests intoned the De Profundis, the pallbearers lowered the coffin into the empty tomb, then stood back as the masons spread mortar and hefted the huge stone cover back into place. The Archbishop said a final blessing, and the procession returned to the main altar, where the prelate blessed the congregation and sent them forth. Then he left the altar, and Matt and the other pallbearers—Sir Guy, Prince Rinaldo, Robin Hood, and three of the knights who had stood by Sir Guy—filed down the aisle to a chamber near the door.
There, though, they doffed their black cloaks and robes and put on clothes resplendent with scarlet and gold. Then Matt and Sir Guy turned to help Prince Rinaldo with his coronation robes.
He seemed somber, nervous. "I am not worthy of this honor, Lord Wizard."
"You are," Sir Guy said, with such total certainty that the prince looked up at him, astonished. "You have proved your worth in adversity, in suffering, in loyalty to a cause that seemed lost, and in striving when all seemed hopeless. You have been tried in the flames and found worthy."
Prince Rinaldo looked directly into his eyes and nodded slowly. "I thank you, my friend. I shall do all that I may, not to disappoint you."
" 'Tis not myself to whom you must answer," the Black Knight said, "but to God, and your people."
Not quite true, Matt knew—but Prince Rinaldo didn't. He didn't know that Sir Guy was the descendant and legitimate heir of Hardishane, the emperor who had brought all of Europe into his empire five hundred years before. If any living man knew who had the right to rule and who didn't, it was Sir Guy de Toutarien—for he had the right, but chose not to assert it. Instead, he had spent his life laboring unseen and unknown, to prevent the dominion of evil that would require his ancestor to wake and reestablish the Empire.
The choir's massed voice rang out again, but this time in a joyful hymn.
"Your people call," Sir Guy said.
Prince Rinaldo swallowed heavily and turned to the door.
Down the aisle they marched, with Sir Guy bearing the scepter and Matt carrying the true crown—found buried in the deepest dungeon and restored to its rightful place. Before them walked Alisande, garbed in gold and purple, her cloak bordered with ermine, every inch a queen.
The throne stood on the altar now, with the Archbishop behind it. Prince Rinaldo stepped up to it, but turned to his people, not yet sitting.
Alisande turned to face the crowd. "It is not the custom for one monarch to present another to his people," she cried, "but all King Tomas' noblemen are dead, and their descendants only newly come from obscurity to their estates. One alone of the old houses has remained in his demesne. Milord!"
The Don de la Luce, blinking and round-shouldered, stepped up to the altar and stood blinking at the huge crowd before him, bemused.