"Aye," Sauvignon agreed. "Better that our goose should be cooked, than we ourselves."
The queen finally spoke. "I'll not say nay to that" She turned to Ortho the Frank, Matthew's apprentice sorcerer. "Good clerk, you may be a novice in wizardry, but you are a veteran of many battles. How say you? How shall we ward our arrows from this sorcerer?"
"Ay de mi!" Ortho sighed. "Would that I had retained the profession of arms."
"But you were a poet."
"And a swordsman, Majesty. 'Twas useful, when men spoke of my verses. Yet now I'll seek among the scraps of verse my master hath taught me and see if I can find one that is apt to the condition.
A few minutes later, a second flight of arrows sprang up from the Merovencian lines. At apogee, they burst into flames—and rain appeared out of nowhere.
The arrows flew on, surrounded by their own private drizzle, while the flames hissed, sputtered, and died. But just before the darts hit their target, their points shot downward, and they fell short, rattling against one another.
"What can he have done?" Sauvignon cried.
A moan swept the enemy line as cloaks snapped in a sudden gust, and hats went flying.
"A gust of wind." Ortho nodded. "Brief, but strong—a `downdraft,' as Lord Matthew would call it."
A sudden chill engulfed them, then swept past them, and they shivered, but not at the temperature alone.
"When it struck the earth," Ortho went on, subdued, "it splashed out, as water does in a pool. Its gust struck the men of ibile—but when it reached us, it was only a breeze."
"Yet one that breathed despair!" Sauvignon shuddered. "Whence comes such a wind, that chills even the soul?"
"I shall find a remedy for it," Ortho said quickly, ignoring the question. "You shall see, Majesty—with each flight, our shafts shall come nearer the mark."
"They shoot!" the sergeant cried, and they looked up, startled, to see arrows sailing down at them. Ortho, however, muttered a rhyme about someone lighting someone else's fire, and added a reference to a lady who was still carrying a torch for someone. He understood neither, but Matthew had insisted he memorize them—and he was vindicated, for the line of arrows blazed. Well before they reached the Merovencian lines, they had guttered and gone out. Alisande could distinctly hear the tinkling of a rain of arrowheads—uphill.
"This Ibilian sorcerer is most instructive," Ortho mused. "Between his example, and the Lord Matthew's spells, I may yet begin to think of myself as a wizard."
Strangely, Alisande found herself beginning to be optimistic.
CHAPTER 21
Rack and Rune
The first thought through Matt's head, when he came to, was wondering why he had. After all, if King Gordogrosso had finally decided he was a big enough nuisance to swat, why would the king settle for a capture instead of a quick, clean kill?
Somehow he didn't like the sounds of "quick" and "clean." He wished he hadn't thought of them in just that way. With trepidation, he opened his eyes.
He saw a round, grinning face with a bowl haircut and a gloating smile. "I am Reginald, the Duke Bruitfort."
Matt squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them just a crack, hoping the face would go away, but it didn't. In fact it laughed. That irked Matt, so, carefully he began to raise his head—and found he couldn't. He tried to move his arms, but they were fastened down somewhere above his head. His stomach shrank and tried to crawl away. Yes, that was why the man hadn't killed him. He liked to make his pleasures last.
The duke must have seen that in his eyes, because he laughed and reached out, pushing Matt's head to the side. Matt squeezed his eyes shut, but not fast enough—he'd seen the torturer with the hot iron, at work on a half-naked peasant. Finally, Matt realized he'd been hearing screaming for a while.
A blow rocked his head, and a gravelly voice grated, "Look!"
That made Matt mad. He squeezed his eyes shut, but managed to bite back the retort.
A hard thumb jabbed his forehead, pulling up an eyelid and poking the eye in the process. Matt yelped in spite of himself and saw that there was a woman strapped down beyond the peasant man, one who might have been pretty once, but was scarcely enchanting now as she strained against her bonds, screaming at the things the torturers were doing to her.
The duke, however, apparently liked the sight—his breathing rasped, hoarse. He shuddered and snapped, "Cease! Matters of state must be resolved! We shall finish with these two anon!" He said it in the tone usually reserved for an extra helping of dessert. Matt wondered about moral obesity. Anything to keep from thinking about what he was seeing.
Especially as the duke seized his chin and yanked, turning his head the other way. Matt saw Yverne, strapped down and stripped to the waist. It was a sight he'd been secretly yearning for, but not in the current setting. Especially since Sir Guy lay strapped down beyond her, also with his torso bared and his hands manacled above his head, with Fadecourt in a similar bind between them. The knight's eyes, though, were calm, in spite of the bruises that marred his face and had welted his chest. His gaze seemed to counsel Matt to courage and steadfast faith.
Then a hot iron came between them, and touched Yverne's upper arm. Only a touch; she screamed, and the duke waved the instrument away, chuckling. "Do you not find the sight stimulating, Wizard?"
"No," Matt said. "Not at all." It wasn't quite true; it was stimulating him to some very lurid thoughts about what he wanted to do to the duke.
"Indeed! Would you rather be the banquet guest, or the roast? Come, join me in this sport! Or I shall set my torturers to work on you." To prove it, he snapped his fingers, and pain seared through Matt's belly. He let out a howl before he managed to choke it off, and looked down, amazed, to see a red-hot iron lifting away from his skin.
"The next shall be lower." The duke grinned, and a thin trickle of saliva oozed from the corner of his mouth. "Lower, and lower yet. Therefore, join me in eliciting delightful, musical shrieks from this wench, and we shall work our way down together. Then up, and I shall raise you to chief among my sorcerers. You shall have power, vast power—over my estates, over half the kingdom! And, at last, over all of Ibile." His grin widened, sweat starting from his brow. "After that, who knows? You have cause for revenge on Merovence, have you not?"
Understanding hit Matt almost like a physical blow. "You're trying to usurp the throne!"
"Certes." The eyes narrowed, the grin hardened. "And I have need of strong magics to aid me."
It all made sense. If Matt joined the duke in his torturing, he would be corrupted—and doubly corrupted, since the people they'd be torturing would be his friends. Then he would indeed have devoted himself to evil and could be trusted to become a sorcerer who would labor diligently for his wicked lord. Matt managed to get his voice working again. "What is this? If you can become evil enough, you get to be king? It's a corruption competition?"
"That is the way of it in Ibile," the duke verified. "Succession is usurpation. It is accomplished by assassination, either before or after the taking of the throne."
Matt frowned. "But the king's got all the power! He's a puissant sorcerer—and he has Satan's power backing him up!"
"So it may seem. But know, foolish meddler, that Satan will aid any pretender who seeks the crown—for the result of that is civil war, and amid the strife and suffering it brings, many lose faith and curse God."