Her Majesty's Wizard #1 (51 page)

   They churned down to engulf the body. But one scream of total despair rang louder than any of theirs, a human cry-the soul, realizing its doom.

   The first demon touched the corpse, ripping it open.

   Earth and sky boomed with titanic thunder. A vast, foul cloud boiled out of the body, stinking of sulfur and evil, to tower over the field, overshadowing all.

   Matt felt his soul shrink gibbering into the middle of his being, trying to pull him in after it. Every human being on the field shrank down cowering, seeking to hide where there was no cover.

   A voice boomed out of the cloud. "Bow, vermin, to a high lord of Hell!"

   Above the armies, a huge devil began to form from the cloud. And its voice thundered about them.

   "'Twas I made blood-contract with this puling sorcerer. My power was his in return for his soul and his willing acceptance that I dwell within him. Now I am loosed! Now I am master! Fall down and worship me, vermin, or die!"

   A compelling impulse surged up in Matt, beyond his conscious control. He lifted his head and shouted,.

   "Aid us now, preserving Power, Lest we die within the hour! Ancient patron, Kaprin's guard, Save us now, our only ward!"

   "Who speaks?" the demon shrieked. "Cease those words!" A huge, shadowed tentacle extruded from the roiling cloud, arrowing down toward Matt.

   A voice crashed through the valley. "Be still in your evil!"

   Ail eyes snapped to the top of the northern cliff. There, glowing brightly, stood a stocky figure in a gilded chasuble, with an archbishop's cope and miter. He stood in a circle of light, but Matt made out the face.

   "The priest who confessed me and Sayeesa!"

   "Nay," Alisande gasped. "'Tis Saint Moncaire!"

   "Who seeks to sully God's mead?" the saint thundered. "Go down whence you came! Vile demons, I have come to counter your power! Now I command you, by Him Whom I serve, to be gone!"

   The cloud shuddered and quaked, then erupted in screaming imprecations in languages older than humanity's knowledge. The valley floor began to tremble.

   Saint Moncaire held up his hand and began to chant in sonorous Latin. Flames pricked up all about the valley, rising, expanding, and dancing. Men shrank back, moaning in fear. The shrieking, ancient tongues rose to a piercing screech; but the Latin thundered over them, building and rising. The saint grasped his staff in both hands, lifting it above his head. Then he thundered, "In Nomine Domine!" and the staff snapped down to point at the demon. A ray of dazzling light lanced out into the depths of the Hell-cloud. It exploded with a roar that shook the valley.

   Then, slowly, the light faded, and Matt's eyes adjusted until he could make out the field of huddled, trembling men. He looked out to see the tangled armies as they had been when the sorcerer died.

   But in their midst was only a great, blackened ring with the crumpled, charred bodies of a man and a woman at its center.

   With a despairing cry, Astaulf flung down his steel helmet and threw his sword into the charred ring. "Save my soul! Do what you will with my body, but grant me first a priest to shrive me!" He huddled on his knees, hands clasped, head bowed. "Never did I truly believe in Heaven or Hell until this moment! Now I know, and know the full foulness of my deeds! Draw and quarter me if you will; only allow me the Sacraments ere you deliver me up to the death I have earned!"

   He buried his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking.

   It was too abrupt, Matt thought-until he remembered that the influence of Evil was gone from the field and the presence of Good still lingered.

   "Kill me, but save my soul from Hell!" a baron cried, casting down his sword and falling to his knees.

   "Let me die in the Church!" another begged,

   Matt stood watching as enemy after enemy surrendered, until the whole army of foemen was kneeling, heads bowed.

   "Will you accept their surrenders, Lady?" Sir Guy asked gravely from beside Alisande.

   She glanced at the Black Knight, then looked at the enemy, nodding. Her back straightened and her chin lifted. "Your surrenders are accepted," she called. "Dwarves, gather their swords!"

   A single, joyful shout of triumph rose from the allied army. Then the dwarves scuttled over the field, gathering weapons.

   "You must pronounce sentence upon them now, Highness." The abbess stepped up to Alisande, her gaze severe. "You have won the day. Prounounce their fates."

   "Nay," Alisande answered, with equal firmness. "I have not the right. I am not yet crowned queen, and none here has the authority to serve me so."

   "But one has," Colmain rumbled. He strode across the field toward Sir Guy.

   "To be sure. One has." The knight skipped aside from the giant's path and lifted his head. A single name seemed to ring from his lips across the valley. "Moncaire!"

   "Aye, Sir Guy de Toutarien." The voice spoke from above, and Matt turned to see the saint again standing atop the cliff, lambent in his halo. "'Tis meet that the princess should be crowned queen. Let the princess ascend to me. And do you, Sir Guy, attend and aid."

   Alisande took the arm that Sir Guy offered, and together they began moving across the field. As Matt stared, he saw that a trail, steep but climbable, ascended to the top of the cliff. Had it been there before? He could not remember. But with the help of the knight, the princess began climbing, until she stood before the saint.

   Moncaire's voice was deep and resonant, though he seemed to speak quietly. "You will serve as witness, Sir Guy. And who has the crown?"

   For once, the knight's face registered total surprise. He stared about helplessly. Then his eyes turned to the Lord Wizard.

   Matt saw that the saint was also looking at him, and he nodded-, hastily shaping words into a spell:

   "For the ceremony here,

   Let the royal crown appear

   From wherever it now lies. Make it just the proper size; Have it polished squeaky clean, Suitable to grace a queen."

   Sir Guy grabbed at the object that appeared in the air. The crown shone brilliantly clean in the light of Moncaire's halo.

   Saint Moncaire faced the forces on the field, and his voice lifted to reach the farthest man. "This night it is granted to me to give you a queen." Then he spoke to Alisande. "Kneel, daughter."

   Poised now and certain, she knelt before the saint, while Sir Guy held up the crown for all to see. The soldiers were silent, eyes locked on the golden bauble. Then the knight gave the crown to Moncaire, who blessed it and turned to the princess.

   "Do you, Alisande, swear to guard this land, to rule it for the welfare of all people within it? And do you swear to rule for Good and God, abhoring Evil all your days?"

   "I so swear," she answered. "And may God strike me dead if I forget my vow!"

   The saint set the crown gently on her head and stepped back. "Then rise and rule, Queen Alisande of Merovence!"

   The soldiers shouted their acclamation as she rose, and the saint retreated farther.

   A moment later, when Matt turned to look for him, there was no sign of the saint.

CHAPTER 19

   The last few hours of night had been ones of fevered activity. The surviving Moncaireans had busied themselves in shriving the repentant enemy. Men had begun building a crude platform on the field and setting up the captured tent of Astaulf for the new queen. She had retired into it with Sir Guy and a few others, promising to give judgment in the morning.

   Matt had not been among her councilors. She seemed to avoid him. But he had found work enough to fill his time, returning the Greeks to whatever time and place had been their origin and fulfilling his promise to the ogres.

   Now the false dawn lighted an orderly field. The severely wounded, bandaged as well as they might be by the nuns, lay in rows at the side. Some still moaned, but most lay quiet in enchanted sleep that Matt had administered.

   Beyond them, in every direction, were mounds of freshly turned earth, some marked with rough, improvised crosses, some not marked at all.

   Those with lesser wounds or none knelt in ordered lanes, filling the center of the valley, their heads bowed over clasped hands. The defeated were in the middle, under the watchful eyes of soldiers. That was a mere precaution; their elbows were immobilized by loops of rope that passed behind their backs, and their wrists were bound before them. Their feet were hobbled.

   Astaulf and his barons knelt in chains; they seemed to listen most devoutly of all to the abbot of the Moncaireans, who stood on the crude platform before a rough field altar, his stole about his neck. As he finished the cleansing and veiling of the chalice, the monks and nuns chanted the Requiem. The high funeral mass, begun by moonlight, was ending by early dawn.

   Matt knelt behind the barons, ready with his sword and spells for the slightest misstep and glad he wasn't needed.

   During Communion, the priests had distributed the Eucharist impartially to victor and vanquished alike. At peace with God, Astaulf and his barons knelt, seeming not to care what happened to their bodies. The depth of faith that could grant such tranquility had hit Matt more and more heavily as the Mass progressed, until he knelt now in awe of the meaning of the ancient ritual. He was realizing anew the significance and depth of the symbols, realizing that in this world, each symbolic movement and Scriptural reference was not an empty repetition of a memorized formula, but part of the most powerful spell of all, affecting lives past and present, and changing the world about them at the same time that it held all constant.

   The abbot turned to the armies, spreading his hands. "Ite, Missa est." Go, you are sent forth; go, the Mass is ended.

   With the rest of the impromptu congregation, Matt replied,

   "Deo gratias."

   The abbot bowed his head, folding his hands, and turned to take up the veiled chalice and the altar stone. He went down the steps slowly while the choir sang a dirge. Two soldiers mounted the platform and folded the camp altar, then took it down and away.

   Suddenly the choir voices broke into the triumphant notes of the Gloria. As the hymn reached its peak, Alisande mounted the stairs, regal in a purple robe contrived from Astaulf's apparel,, her golden hair graced with the crown. She stepped to the center of the platform. The choir soared into a fervent Alleluia. Their voices rang through the valley, then stilled.

   The men below seemed frozen, motionless and silent.

   From below came the prompting voice of Sir Guy. "Judgment!" he cried. "Let there be judgment upon the foul traitors-Astaulf and his barons!"

   A dark, rumbling mutter filled the valley. Alisande held up her hands, and the rumbling died.

   "We may not judge them here," she cried. "Justice must be calm and well considered, not merely of the moment's whim. We shall have these barons and their suzerain Astaulf to our capital in chains. There, in Bordestang, they will await the verdict of their peers and our sentence."

   No one seemed to breathe. They stared in amazement. Matt nodded slowly. There was a lot to be said for due process as a check on tyranny. It looked as if Alisande's reign might be off to a good start.

   "But the soldiers." Alisande's voice softened. "They who had no choice in service, who fought in fear of their commanders, or of vengeance being wreaked upon their wives and children-these can have small blame. Let them return to their families and their homes, to forswear the sword and spear and take the plow again."

   This time the cheering nearly split the mountains. Loyal soldiers joined with the captured in the fervor of their applause. It seemed that Alisande would be not only a good ruler, Matt thought; she would also be a popular one.

   When the chaos had quieted a little, Sir Guy called out, "And what of the sorcerers, your Majesty? The lesser sorcerers whom Malingo forged into an evil corps?"

   "They are for burning, if any man can find them." Her voice crackled over the valley. She turned slowly, her face stony again as her eyes found Matt's. "Hunting them should be the task of our rightful Lord Wizard."

   Then Alisande turned back as the nuns and two Moncaireans came up, bearing improvised stretchers, cloaked and shrouded, to lay before the Queen.

   "What of these?" the abbot called. "What of Father Brunel, our fellow priest?"

   "And this, my hopeful daughter?" the abbess stepped up beside Sayeesa's pallet.

   "Take them home to the Houses of your Orders," Alisande commanded. "Let shrines be raised over their bodies, for they died as martyrs upon the field. Their souls, I doubt not, bask now in the bliss of Heaven."

   There was silence as the abbot bowed in thanks, then led to a waiting horse, where the pallet bearing the remains of Father Brunel was quickly tied. He mounted and turned to the knights remaining to him, swinging his arm overhead and bawling, "Ride!"

   The Moncaireans moved out behind him, following the bier in solemn procession, chanting a dirge.

   "Come, daughters!" the abbess cried, hoisting herself up sidesaddle. "Let us bear her home. Our sorrow is our own!"