Fadecourt and Sir Guy let out a cheer. Matt and Yverne managed to join in while it was ringing.
So it was the old don who stooped and threw a rope at the prow of the dinghy. Maid Marian caught it and pulled them in to bump against the rock ledge. An outlaw caught the ring set in the stone at the stern and held them against the rock as Robin sprang out, followed by Little John and Will Scarlet. "Lord Matthew!" He clapped Matt on the shoulder with a grip that made the wizard wince and think about bone doctors. " 'Tis right good to see you again! We had feared you lost, and were lurking about the duke's castle with a thought to breaking through, when we saw the dragon rise with you on his back. You are well, then? And the cyclops and the maiden?" He nodded to Sir Guy, apparently assuming that a steel suit was a sign of good health.
"Came through it almost unscathed." Matt found himself grinning; the man's enthusiasm was infectious, almost contagious. "We were worried about you, too."
"You need not have been." Marian was out of the boat and towering behind Robin. "None could best my lord and dear."
"I don't doubt it. Uh, Maid Marian, Robin Hood, this is our host, the Don de la Luce."
"My lord!" Robin seized his hand and began pumping. "How good of you to take us in!"
"Is it truly the Robin Hood of fable and legend?" Aristocrat or not, the don was staring round-eyed.
"The same, dragged hither by this good wizard to aid the poor against the proud and mighty." Robin was still pumping.
Matt reached out and disconnected their hands; Robin was closer to striking oil than he knew. "And therefore feeling responsible for you, which is why I was worried. Did you have a chance to look at the king's castle on your way?"
"Aye, and 'tis not a fair sight." Robin frowned and was about to go on when the old don interrupted.
"This has the sound of the start of a conference of war, and such should be held seated around a roaring fire with mulled wine, not tarrying on a rocky ledge whiles your men shiver with the chill and damp. Nay, Lord Wizard, conduct them up to my hall. You know the way by now."
"Yes, I do." Matt turned away, then turned back. "But you, milord! Surely you're not going to stay here in the damp!"
"Only for a brief while, I assure you," de la Luce answered. "My sea-maid will come soon, or not at all; 'tis nigh on the hour of the day when she approaches."
Matt gazed at him for a moment, then smiled. "Sure. See you soon, then, alone or in company. Speaking of companies, Robin, shall we go?"
"What maid is this?" Marian asked as they turned the first bend in the staircase.
"A delusion," Matt answered. "The poor old geezer has been alone most of his life, and his subconscious has manufactured a pretty girl who lives in a mysterious underwater castle and comes to visit him now and then."
"That has the sound of Ys," Marian said
Robin asked, "Wherefore do you think it a waking dream?"
That halted Matt for a moment. To him, it had been pretty obvious. He checked back for signs, and said, "For one thing, she stays young while he gets older—and for another, she isn't a mermaid, but just somebody who can breathe either water or air, which is highly unlikely."
"In a world of magic?" Robin asked, with a grin, and Matt started to answer; but Marian touched his arm with a smile of sympathy. "Say no more till I've told you of Ys," she said, "but not here, I pray you. Let us speak of it above."
And they did, around the roaring fire the don had spoken of.
There was a cask near the hearth now, no doubt courtesy of the well-wists, and the merry men dug flagons out of their packs.
Curled up on a few cushions, Marian looked surprisingly dainty, and Yverne was, beginning to look a little jealous. "Ys," the maid said, pronouncing it Eess, " 'twas a city to inspire awe, so legend says—a clustering of towers, with golden streets between, its palaces of jasper built, and jade, and ancient, oh! So ancient! Ys was old when Egypt was young, so legend says, yet vital still."
"Legend says many things," Robin murmured to Matt, "and adds the gloss that fact would scorn."
Well, Matt figured, he should know if anybody should. Nonetheless, he paid close attention to Marian's tale.
"Yet most wondrous of all," the maid said, "was its situation—for Ys stood below the level of the waves."
"How can that be?" Yverne asked. "The sea would have drowned it in an instant."
"Nay," Marian said, "for the sea was held out by a soaring wall, with massive gates. There ruled the king of Ys, over a court of constant mirth, his courtiers dazzling in their finery and glittering with jewelry—yet none shone so brightly as his only daughter."
Allan-a-Dale began to caress his harp, bringing a breath of melody to underscore the maid's words.
But Sir Guy frowned and said, "I have heard something of this demoiselle of Ys. I mind me that she was not kind-hearted."
"Nay, quite otherwise," Marian said, "for she was mean of spirit, froward, shrewd, and cruel. Yet all deferred to her, for the sake of her royal father—and fear of her sorcery."
"Ah, then! She was a sorceress!"
Marian nodded. "A witch of great power—and one who could bend any man to her will. Yet therefore did she disdain all males, regarding them with ridicule and contempt—till she found one who was proof against her wiles, yet loved her for her beauty. Then at last did she become betrothed, and dallied with him a year and more—till love's sweet spell began to wane, and he came to some notion of her true and twisted nature."
"Then she broke him for her pleasure?" The minstrel wrung a discord from his harp.
"She would have, aye, and did brew potent magics against him—but he threw himself on her father's mercy, and the king spread his aegis over the poor wight, commanding his daughter to spare him. She withdrew from the palace, hate and rage commingling in her breast, for puissant though she was, she could not match her father's magic. Yet that night, whiles he slept, she cast a spell of deepened slumber over all the palace and stole back in, to pluck the keys to the city from her father's neck, and she opened the gates to let in the sea."
"Why, I cannot credit this!" Fadecourt scoffed. "Such a one would have valued her own safety and comfort above all else, and would have known that she would perish with her citizens!"
Marian shrugged. "She may have sought to bargain with the Sea King, may even have thought she had compelled his mercy with her spells. Yet if she did, her magic once more could not match a king's, for his sea horses destroyed her."
Matt frowned, trying to pick out the root of fact beneath this tree of legend. A port city, then, that had erected dikes to hold back a rising waterline, but was finally flooded by the sea it had depended on for its wealth—or buried by a tidal wave, more likely, considering the reference to the wall and the gates.
"So perished Ys," the maid murmured, and the harp rippled and was silent.
The merry men stirred, sighing, and began to talk to one another again.
Sir Guy asked, "Does our host, then, think this buried palace lies beneath his own?"
"So it would seem," Matt replied, "and if a legend like that is standard in this countryside, it's no wonder—it would be just the thing for a lonely old man to fasten his imagination to. But we can't depend on dreams to help us now."
"Nay, surely," Robin said with a grin, unaware of his own irony. "How shall we invest this castle, Lord Wizard? For surely, its walls must needs be proof against mine arrows."
"A trebuchet might make some mark upon its walls," Fadecourt offered.
"A mark," Sir Guy allowed, "but no break—scarcely a gouge. No, my friend, that castle has never been taken by force of arms, and never will be."