Her Majesty's Wizard #1 (45 page)

   They rode out of the pass in close order. Matt made it a little closer. "Stegoman-bump up against Sir Guy's horse, will you?"

   The dragon grumbled, but moved ahead and to the left, almost colliding with the war horse. Matt leaned down to get his head near the knight's ear. "Sir Guy-did you notice the look on Brunel's face?"

   The knight nodded, "Aye. He looks like a man on the rack."

   "I don't blame him, having to ride twenty-four hours with his main source of temptation right beside him. And she doesn't seem to have gained any charity toward him ... Look, don't you think this calls for a thorough rundown on the military situation? As well as the spiritual?"

   The knight flashed a grin up at him. "Will I take the princess and priest aside, do you mean? To question them, purportedly to every last small detail of their day and night? How long do you wish this questioning to take?"

   Matt glanced at Sayeesa, then back at Sir Guy. "Maybe half an hour. If that lady can't learn to be at least polite, our little company might disintegrate from internal tension before we come anywhere near seeing a battle."

   "There's truth to that. Drop back, Lord- Wizard."

   Matt straightened, and Stegoman slackened his pace. Sir Guy turned back in his saddle, calling, "Ho! Good Father!"

   Brunel looked up; then he nudged his horse up beside Sir Guy's. They chatted in an undertone for a few minutes; then the priest shrugged helplessly and nodded toward Alisande. Sir Guy looked up and called, "Highness?"

   Alisande frowned and moved up beside them.

   Matt dropped further back, hearing only a faint mumble from the trio ahead, until he was even with Sayeesa.

   She rode straight in the saddle, eyes forward, not even glancing at him. The ice was thick this summer. "I'd, uh, like to have a word with you about the security of our little band," he began.

   "Security?" Sayeesa looked up, startled. Then her face cleared. "Ah, you mean a way of blending our magics, should need arise, to ward our friends."

   "No, I had internal security more in mind. Between you and Father Brunel, you've laid a constant tension on this crew, which just might tear it apart. Couldn't you bring yourself to be at least barely polite to him?"

   Sayeesa stiffened, lifting her head and turning straight forward again. "You ask too much."

   "Why? You obviously don't find him repulsive."

   "What means have you of knowing?" she snapped.

   Matt shrugged. "That male succubus in Brunel's form, outside the walls of the Cynestrians. When you saw it, you folded up. Was that because you don't care about him?"

   "What I care of him matters not," Sayeesa grated.

   "Oh, no! It's just tearing our happy little family apart! If you care about him, why be so insulting? Are you miffed because he escaped your clutches?"

   "Be still!" Sayeesa turned on him angrily. "What affair is this of yours? Chide me for my actions toward yourself, if you must, but never any others! What passed between himself and me is my affair and his, but never yours! Do you not know that those who meddle in others' lives may well destroy them?"

   "Your own two personal lives might destroy the rest of us," Matt countered. A slow grin spread over his face. "And why would you get so angry if he hadn't escaped you?"

   Sayeesa's face slowly set.

   "He did, didn't he?" Matt jibed.

   Slowly, Sayeesa bowed her head.

   "I should think you'd be proud of it," Matt said gently. "Even under an enchantment, you had the goodness to keep a priest from breaking one of his vows."

   "I had not," she said, so low that Matt could scarcely hear it, "nor did I wish to." She lifted her face. "There was no way to bring him to it, look you. Scarcely could I witch him into caresses, when he'd turn away and tell me, in long and tedious detail, how foul he was, how weak, how base! And all the while I desired nothing half so much as one light touch of his sweet hand! Yet worse-after speaking to this vein in some length, he'd turn to the door, saying he'd not sully me with his foul presence. Then had I to leap after him, to catch him back, to cozen, coo, and calm him, pouring praise out till he'd ceased to pull away; then slowly, gently, pull him toward embrace again. But no sooner would I touch him than he would shrink back and curse himself anew!"

   "And you'd have to start the whole thing all over again?"

   "Aye, not that it bore me any fruit! For look you, when lust comes to lust, this man is holy and is good-far too good for me! Lust he had abundantly, but 'twas not enough!"

   "With a girl like you," Matt mused, "lust shouldn't have been all that was operating. A certain degree of romantic love would have been almost unavoidable."

   She looked up, startled, then nodded slowly. "I thank you, Wizard. Yet you speak from your own heart, not his. Nay, his interest was of the body only."

   "No." Matt shook his head, frowning. "There's some interest in you as a person, strong interest, or I mistake completely."

   "Mayhap," she said somberly, "but his soul's so filled with God and ghostly duties that there's no room left for any woman. Not even the most beautiful and most holy of females could claim chore than a minor part of his affections; and how much less myself? Ah, if only he'd not been a priest! I might then have claimed him! But no; for at the last, the thirteenth time, he turned away, opened wide the door, and bade me stay, for he'd not defile my beauty with his swinishness. Ah, to be defiled so!" she breathed, closing her eyes, head back. Then the eyes squeezed shut; she trembled, tears welling forth. "Nay, I must not think on this! Yet he blessed me!"

   "He what?"

   "Blessed me," she said again, with a short, breathless, incredulous laugh. "As he turned away to shut a door between us, he gave me blessing!" Her eyes closed again; she turned her head from side to side, her shoulders shaking. "Ah, if he were not of the cloth! I might then have some chance to win his heart, even now!"

   "If only," Matt murmured. "Kind of makes him a challenge, doesn't it?"

   She pivoted to glare at him. "What do you say?"

   "If he weren't a priest," Matt said softly, "would you have given him a second look?"

   "Be still, foul tongue!" Sayeesa turned on him, rising in her stirrups. "Is there nothing of chivalry in you, nor of gallantry? What true knight would even speak so to a woman! Have I held a mirror to you, that showed only the darkest nooks within your soul! Nay! Then why must you do so to me?"

   "You haven't answered my question," Matt reminded her.

   Sayeesa glared at him, speechless. Then slowly her face darkened to brooding; she turned away. "I cannot tell," she said, so softly he could scarcely hear. "In truth, I cannot say." She looked up at him sharply. "Can you?"

   Matt tried to lock eyes with her, but his conscience gnawed at him; it had been a low blow, true or not. He dropped his gaze and rode away.

   Sir Guy looked up, caught Matt's glance, and turned back to his conference. After a few more words, Alisande dropped back, looked up, saw Sayeesa's face, and stared, appalled. She moved beside Sayeesa quickly, murmuring to her.

   Sayeesa rode stone-faced, ignoring her. Alisande glanced up to give Matt a venomous glare, then lowered her eyes and rode beside the ex-witch, looking very grave.

   Sir Guy spoke on with Father Brunel for a while, the discussion apparently growing heavier. The knight seemed to be pressing a question sharply and not getting much of an answer. Finally, Sir Guy shrugged, smiled, said a few parting words, and let the priest ride on, head bowed, shoulders slumped, brooding.

   Matt rode up beside Sir Guy. "How's it feel to play father confessor to a priest?"

   "Unusual, to say the least." Sir Guy's eyes still held on Brunel. "And to no point. Let me advise you, from this moment: Never seek to tell a priest that he should not blame himself too harshly, for he'll argue you out, verse and chapter, why he should."

   "Yeah." Matt eyed Brunel's back thoughtfully. "But from my little chat with Sayeesa, I can't figure out any sins they might have committed together that could account for this much tension between them. In fact, they didn't, which is much better reason why."

   "I believe you have the right of it. The best I could piece out from his circumlocutions is that, at the worst, he has kissed her and, mayhap, given her a passing caress; but no more. From all I did hear, and all I can read into his words, he has ne'er bedded her-no, nor any woman."

   "What?" Matt whirled about, staring.

   "Never." The Black Knight turned his head from side to side, marveling.

   "Oh, come on! What was all this garbage he was feeding us, about his being a sinner? One of the all-time greats, the way he made it sound!"

   "Ah, but he says that he is. For, though he did not, in actuality, bed any woman, he oft did decide to do so. And all that is needed for the committing of mortal sin is the deciding."

   Matt sat still for a moment, then nodded slowly. "Yeah, I seem to remember something about that, from my childhood catechism-seriousness, knowledge, and will: the three components of a mortal sin. It has to be wrong enough to be mortal; you have to know it's that bad; then you have to decide to go do it."

   Sir Guy nodded. "Thus said the priest. The act itself, it seems, is not necessary."

   "But he reneged on the decision! He reversed it! He drew back! He didn't do it!"

   "Nay; for there came another moment of decision. On the verge of committing the act, he became uncertain; and had he, at that moment, decided again to do the deed itself, he would have committed a second mortal sin."

   "Come on!" Matt tossed his head in exasperation. "Two sins for the price of one? What is this, bargain week at the Devil's booth?"

   "It would seem that it is."

   "So even though he's never been anything but celibate, he considers himself a sink of depravity."

   "He does, Lord Wizard, he does. And can you gainsay him?"

   Matt started to answer, then remembered which universe he was in, and bit back on the response. Even in his own universe, the traditional theology agreed with Brunei. These days, of course, there was some talk about a sort of relative morality ...

   He shook his head. This was Aristotle's universe, not Einstein's. Nothing was relative, here; there were only absolutes.

   Father Brunel was educated in local theology, which came perilously close to also being local science. No doubt he was right-in this universe. No doubt, at all-or he wouldn't have turned into a wolf.

   The sun was out of sight behind the peaks, firing the Western sky, when they rode down into a small valley nestled among three mountain peaks. Alisande reined in her horse. "Here is our camp for the night."

   Matt frowned and looked around. It was a pretty place, but not much by military values. "Have you been here before?"

   "Nay; but I know of it, and Sir Guy has doubtless seen it."

   "Oh?" Matt raised an eyebrow at the Black Knight. "What do you think?"

   "That we must see the dawn here, Sir Matthew." The knight swung down from his horse. "Come, setup camp."

   Matt clambered down from Stegoman, still dubious. "If you don't mind, Your Highness-why here?"

   "Because," said Alisande, "one of two yonder peaks is Colmain."

   Matt stared. "Which one?"

   "That I cannot say. 'Twill take some time to ascertain it, more than there's light left."

   "Oh?" Matt raised an eyebrow. "How are you going to go about it? Ask the natives?"

   "None would live near here; 'tis said to be cursed. Yet I will know, wizard, just as I know now that we are near him."

   "But how..." Matt cut off the rest of the sentence and turned away to hunt fuel. It made sense, of a sort; and he was sure

   Alisande wouldn't be able to tell him how she knew, other than that she'd have a feeling. Which figured. When Saint Moncaire brought Colmain to life in the first place, he'd probably included Hardishane's genetic imprint, or its spiritual equivalent-a sort of psychic fingerprint. And being psychic and therefore of energy, it would resonate to its harmonic waveform-the "print" of Alisande's soul. Just as Matt could feel forces gathering about him when he worked a spell, so Alisande would be able to feel Colmain's presence.

   Which meant the spirit still lived, in the rock...

   Matt veered away from the idea and laid kindling on a flat stone. "Hey, Stegoman! Got a light?"

   "Must I?" the dragon growled.

   Matt looked up, frowning. "What makes/you so surly all of a sudden? ... Oh. Your tooth."

   The dragon nodded miserably.

   "I thought it had rotted away, since it hasn't bothered you in so long! Better have it out, or it will really get fierce."

   "Must I?" But Stegoman already sounded resigned.

   "No question about it." Matt stood up, wiping his hands on his metal pants. "We might be fighting a battle tomorrow-and it would kind of slow you down."