"She didn't succeed in sacrificing you the first time, so she's saving your body to try again!"
"But would not the soul need to be within the body, in order for the queen to murder it?" Gilbert asked.
"Yeah, I'd say it would - especially if she wants to make Angelique commit the sin of despair, so Hell can have some claim on her. As it is, her soul's still too pure for Satan to have any hold on it. Angelique's goodness doesn't protect her from physical force, of course, but it does make her ghost immune. That was the whole idea of this horror show the queen just put on - the agony and terror were supposed to make her stop believing in God and Heaven!"
"It would have done so." Angelique bowed her head. "I verged on such despair; I had almost come to think that there was no God, or that the queen was right, and the Devil was stronger than the Creator. It was your words that restored my faith, if only for an instant, but in that instant, the knife fell."
"Glad I could do some good," I said lamely.
"But if she can cram your soul back into your body and torture you again, it might work this time."
"Nay." She gazed directly into my eyes. "You have restored my faith; I shall never despair again."
How about if I told her I didn't love her? That chilled me, too-it meant I didn't dare be honest, which really rankled. But we were right. I'd read enough medieval literature to know the rules, if not enough to make me sympathize with the spirit. "So she's going to be trying to get your soul!"
The ghost paled - or, in her case, turned almost transparent. "Then I must leave you! Or my presence will bring her down upon you!" And she darted away. I jumped up to call out to her to stay - but she slammed into my unseen barrier and rebounded with a cry.
"Sorry about that," I said quickly, "but we can't let you go roaming off by yourself - she'd swallow you up in an instant, and you'd be back in the torture chamber."
"I must chance it! I will not imperil you!" I realized, with a sinking heart, that I could really get to like this girl.
Fortunately, Gilbert spoke up, with quiet certainly. "We would never forgive ourselves, lady, if we abandoned a maiden in peril. Indeed, it would weigh on our immortal souls."
The ghost stilled in her frantic dashing.
"You would not wish to send us toward Hell, would you?" Frisson asked.
The ghost seemed to droop. "Nay, I would not."
"You see," I said carefully, "you've become a crucial element in the future of this country. There seems to be some sort of a campaign kick out the queen and all her ministers, and the evil going on, to that they serve. You were apparently her trump card, her ace in the hole, her secret weapon to give her more power to repel the invaders and the rebellious barons. Now that your sacrifice failed, the Devil and the lords will all drop her as having become too weak - too weak to be of any use to the Devil, too weak to defeat her barons if they rebel. That means that all the nobles will be jockeying for power, each one trying to prove to the Devil which of them is most evil and most ruthless, so that the Prince of Bullies will choose him to be the next king."
Angelique's ghost began to grow brighter, then dimmer, then brighter again, throbbing with anxiety. "But I am only a poor, simple maid of the common folk!"
"Maybe that's why you're so important," I said softly. "Really good people are hard to find, in any age." I should know; I'd been looking for a good woman for years.
"But you must not endanger yourselves for my sake!" she wailed.
"We're already nicely endangered, thank you," I told her. "Why do you think the queen brought you to us? No, I'd already made trouble for her before you came."
Angelique stared, wide-eyed. "Wherefore? 'Tis folly of the worst sort to antagonize her with no cause!"
"She wants me to leave, if I won't serve her cause," I grated, "and to me, that's reason enough to go back in. I'm not about to knuckle under to authority, unless it has won my respect and confidence. I'm going to do what I think is right, no matter what the rules say! And something tells me that trying to get your body away from the queen, and back to you, is right!"
Suddenly the chill within me stabbed all the way to my vitals, accompanying a sudden total sense of the rightness of what I had said. With a sinking heart, I wondered if I had played into the hands of somebody else - the angels. Especially mine.
"I shall accompany you, then," Angelique said slowly, "for there is merit in what you say, and I perceive that you are a good man." But the way she was looking at me said more, much more, and I went into panic. "No, I'm not! I'm a sour old cynic who's bitter about human nature in general and women in particular! I think religion was invented by priests for their own self-interest, and I scorn its rules! I'm an agnostic and a secular humanist, and by the standards of this universe, I'm thoroughly despicable!"
I ran out of gas and stood glaring around at them all, panting. Angelique shrank back, but not much, and just hovered there, staring at me out of those huge, worshipful eyes. Frisson and Gilbert exchanged judicious looks, lips pursed, and finally nodded.
Gruesome, of course, just sat blandly by the fire, looking vaguely interested. Why should he care?
Right.
"And what are you two snickering about?" I growled at Gilbert and Frisson.
"That you lack faith may be true, Master Saul," Gilbert said slowly, "but we have seen your works."
I frowned. "My works?"
"You do not have it within you to turn away from a soul in need," Frisson explained.
I glared at him, but what could I say? It's my biggest failing. It gets me taken for a chump, time and again. Emotional leeches latch onto me like piglets to a sow, and I let them take and take and take before I finally get mad enough to tell them to bug off. I'm a sucker for a hard-luck story and a gloomy face.
Gilbert delivered the final verdict. "You are a good man, and we will follow you to the death."
The chill hit again, and I snapped up a palm like a stop sign.
"Now, wait a minute. Who elected me leader?"
"Why," Frisson said, "who else has the slightest idea as to what we should do, or where we should go?"
It was a good question. But I sure as heck didn't. I was still trying to figure it out as I rolled up in my cloak, to try to eke out a little sleep from what was left of the night. But Angelique was right in my line of sight-deliberately, I was sure, the way she was gazing fondly at my battered, hairy face-and just knowing she was there played hob with my concentration. Every few minutes, I found myself opening my eyes just a little, to drink in the sight of all that lush feminine beauty, that lovely face, those wondrous curves that showed as hints through her long, gauzy gown every time she moved a little, and even when she didn't. I might not have been in love with her, but I sure got a charge out of looking.
Unfortunately, she seemed to have the same problem with me; every time I peeked, she was still gazing adoringly at me.
Suddenly, it hit me with a shock, and I went rigid, fighting to keep my eyes shut. That blasted binding song had worked both ways!
I was just as much subject to it as she was! Like it or not, reality or illusion, I was in love!
My mind reeled, trying to adjust to the facts, trying to understand romantic love as a magical spell-not just the product of a spell, but the spell itself. My mind went over and over that idea, around and around it like a squirrel in a cage, until insight struck again, and I realized what the literature had always said love was-magic.
I relaxed, just a little. Of course, I'd been hearing that since I was a kid, from every adventure novel with a love interest, and half the popular songs on the radio.
Nonetheless, the reality was something of a shock. On the other hand, I'd come to believe some time before that love was nothing but an illusion. I remembered that and got back some peace of mind.