The Secular Wizard - Wis in Rhyme - 4 (5 page)

In an-other world, perhaps, but not in this one! And this is all the world you will ever know! Every single action in this world sends you either one step closer to Hell, or one step closer to Heaven!

Every thought you cherish, every breath you draw!"

"Then I shall play one off against the other," King Boncorro told him, "as good statesmen have ever done with powers that they cannot conquer. Go send my word to the dukes, Chancellor-and to the earls, and the barons."

Rebozo knew a royal command when he heard one, especially since the young king had addressed him by his title, not his name. He

bowed, resigning himself to the worst. "As your Majesty wills. Am I dismissed, or is there more you would tell me?"

"oh, I think that is quite enough for one morning," Boncorro said smiling. "Go do your work, Chancellor, while I think up more troubles for you."

Rebozo wished he could be sure the young man was joking.

Matt fingered a turnip absently as he eavesdropped with all his might. It wasn't easy-the marketplace was alive with noise and color, particularly noise. Rickety booths draped in bright-hued cloth crowded every available inch of space; the fair's marshals kept having to order merchants to move their booths back to leave the mandated three yards of aisle space, especially where those pathways opened out into the small plazas where the acrobats and minstrels performed. There were even fiddlers and pipers, so the fair always had strains of music underlying its raucous clatter.

There was a surprising variety of produce for a town so far inland-but then, Fairmede had grown up around the merchants, for it sat right against the Alps, at the foot of a pass through the mountains, and beside a river, too-a small river, but one that ran northwest to join a larger, and the towns grew bigger as the river ran farther. Merchants came down on barges to meet other merchants coming in over the Alps, and peasants came flocking from the countryside on both sides of the mountains, to sell food to the merchants. There were vegetables and fruit, pork and poultry, cloth and furs, ribbons and thread, pots and pans and crockery-even spices and silks from the East. Those were being sold by the few professional merchants; most of the other vendors looked to be peasants, trying to turn a few pennies by selling the surplus the lords allowed them to keep. Matt knew that in Merovence, Queen Alisande insisted her lords leave their serfs at least a little for a cash crop; and the new King of Latruria, the king

dom to the south, seemed to have decided on the same policy-at least, to judge by the conversation Matt was working so hard at over-hearing.

At the next booth the serf who was selling fruit was boasting a bit. "We have two cuttings of hay each summer now, and the harvests of wheat and barley have been rich these last three years, very rich."

"That may be so," said a goodwife, "but how much of it do you take home?"

"Half now! A full half! Ever since young King Boncorro came to the throne, we have paid to our lord only half of what we grow!"

"Truly?" asked a musclebound peasant. "Your young king made his noblemen give you that much?"

"Aye! And of our share, my wife and I live on three parts and sell one! She has copper pots now! I have an iron hoe, and our children wear shoes!"

"Shoes?" A third peasant stared, eyes huge. She was young, with a baby in her arms, and the hulking youth beside her was as amazed as she. "Real shoes, of leather?"

"Aye! No more of wrapping their poor little feet in rags to keep out the winter's chill! Real shoes, of soft leather, with hard soles!" The girl turned to her husband. "Mayhap we should follow him home.

"' "'Tis not so far." The youth frowned, his gaze still on the fruit seller. "We could journey home easily enough, to pass the holidays with our parents."

"You do well enough here," the older woman protested.

"Well enough, but still we must give two parts in three to Sir Gar-lin!" said the girl. "'Twould be sweet indeed to have shoes for the lit-tie one, when she is old enough to walk."

"There's truth in that," the young husband admitted.

"We have built ourselves new houses," the fruit seller boasted.

"No more of such tumbledown huts as we had seven years ago! We live behind walls of wattle and daub now, and new straw for the thatch every year!"

"A cottage," the girl murmured, eyes shining. "A true cottage!"

"Are you going to make love to that turnip, or buy it?" the peasant behind the vegetables growled.

Matt came out of his reverie with a start, realizing that he'd been squeezing the turnip for several minutes. "No, I guess not." He put it back. "Kind of soft on one side-I think it might be rotten."

"Rotten! Do you say my produce is bad?"

Matt surveyed the rest of the display with a jaundiced eyerub-bery carrots, sickly looking parsnips, and radishes that had a distinctly brown tinge to them. "I've seen sounder produce in a silo."

"THIIIEEEF!" the man yelled. "Ho! Watchmen! Here is a hedge sorcerer who steals!"

" Shhhh! Hush it up!" Matt glanced around frantically-this wasn't exactly the way to be inconspicuous when you were trying to gather information. "Shut up, will you? I'll buy it, then!

I'll give you a real, genuine copper penny! A whole penny, for that one measly turnip!

"THIIIEF! " the man called again. "HO! HO, THE WATCH!"

"Okay, forget it!" Matt turned away, meaning to walk fastbut before he'd gone two steps, a hand the size of a loaf clapped down on his shoulder and swung him around to confront the men of the Watch.

"Where do you think you're going, peasant?" Well, what was Matt supposed to say? "I'm not really a peasant, I'm just dressed like one because I wanted to wear something comfortable"? "Hi there, boys, I'm the Lord Wizard of Merovence, glad to see you're on the ball"? He was supposed to be gathering information in disguise, not starting a riot. How was he going to get out of this one, without letting them know who he really was? "I didn't steal anything, watchmen-I just refused to buy."

"Because he said the turnip was rotten!" the peasant shouted.

"If it was, he must have turned it himself, because when I brought it, it was-" His eye lit with inspiration. "-it was sound! All my vegetables were good! Now look at them! Why he should hate me so much as to turn my produce bad, I can't thinkI've never met him before in my life!"

"Or mine," Matt snarled. "What would I want your moldy vegetables for?"

"Moldy! Do you hear, watchmen? He has turned them to mold!"

"This is a serious charge, fellow," the beefy watchman said.

"If

what he says is true, you have practiced magic without leave from the t! It

"How about if I had leave from the queen?" The watchman gave him a sour smile. "Oh, aye, and how if I had a gold sovereign for every word you've said? What would a ragtag road conjurer like you know of the queen?"

For a moment Matt was tempted to conjure up a dozen gold coins, just to prove the man wrong-tempted to reveal himself as really being the Lord Wizard of Merovence; but he reminded himself that if he did, he could forget about learning anything more in this market F

about the discontent that was brewing here by the southern border with Latruria. He improvised fast. "But I'm not even a conjurer!

just a packman looking for something to pack!" The watchman frowned. "This man accuses you of turning his vegetables bad."

"And he did!" the peasant cried. "Would I have set out from La-truria with a cartful of vegetables that were not sound? What could I hope to get for them?"

The same as any con man hopes for, Matt thought, but aloud he said, "There! See? You've heard it yourself! His vegetables are sound! " "Were sound!" the peasant brayed. "Were sound, until you came to finger each one and bewitch it!"

"That's nonsense!" Matt grabbed a turnip, muttering, "Here's old Penny, coming to town, With a whole load of veggies,

Not one of them sound!

But the rot shall be gone As each tuber I touch, And the healing shall run Through each leaf and each bunch!

Hard times in the country, As we for pennies farm!" It wasn't much of a verse, but improvisation had never been Matt's strong point. He had started it with a folk song, though, so it should have some effect.

And it did-the bad spot on the side of the turnip diminished and disappeared even as he thrust it under the watchman's nose.

"There! See? No rot! And this one!" He put the turnip back and pulled out a dingy parsnip. As soon as he touched it, the root began to look distinctly healthier, and by the time it reached the watchman, it was positively glowing with vitamins. "Not a spot of decay! Try a carrot!" Matt turned back to the booth and noticed that the Vegetable Revivification Project was spreading out in a circular wave, just as he had ordered. He grabbed a limp carrot for show and held it up.

"Fresh and crisp as if it had just been pulled." And sure enough, it was.

"It would seem that is not the only thing being pulled." The watchman shouldered past him, glaring at the vendor. "We've too much to do to have you wasting our time on pranks, peasant!"

"I beg your worships' pardon." The peasant bowed, trying to re strain a gleeful smile. "I must have been mistaken; no doubt it was just the one turnip he was fingering that was bad."

"Another false alarm, and we will be fingering you," the watchman promised, and turned away to join his mates, grumbling.

Matt chose the course of prudence and followed them away from the booth before the peasant could try to blackmail him as a sorcerer-because the whole load of vegetables had been about as bad as you could get and still be marginally edible. Not that Matt had anything to fear, of course-he just couldn't retaliate without blowing his cover. So he followed the Watch, seething, because the man who had made trouble for him was going to make a lot more money than he would have if he hadn't gone picking on Matt. The Lord Wizard hated to see vice re-warded. No, be honesthe hated to lose. For a moment, he was tempted to recite another quick verse and turn all the peasant's pro-duce to mold and mildew, but he resisted the temptation-petty re-venge wasn't worth it. Besides, using magic for hurt, rather than benefit, was the first step on the road toward black magic, and Matt didn't dare go that route. The Devil had too many grudges to settle with him.

It was just lucky for him that magic in Merovence worked by verse. How else could an English major have made a living? Matt had been looking forward to a quiet, inoffensive, and unrewarding existence as an impoverished graduate student, about to graduate to an impoverished instructorship, when Saint Moncaire of Merovence had plucked him off his college campus and into an alternate universe where he was needed to help unseat a usurper and put the rightful queen back on the throne. It helped that he had fallen in love with that rightful queen and, after proving to her that marrying him was the best policy for her country, managed to take her to the altar. But it had been two years since the wedding, and they still didn't have any children. Matt couldn't help feeling that he must be doing some-thing wrong-and in Merovence, doing something wrong could have very serious consequences. Consequences such as going to the fair and being accused of witch-craft, for all the wrong reasons. Matt finally managed a smile as he saw the irony in getting out of a charge of black magic by working white magic-all magic in this universe worked by the power of Good, or the power of Evil. Somehow, Matt had a notion the peasant could appreciate the humor of it, too. He wondered how he had got-ten himself into such a fix.

Of course, he hadn't, exactly-Queen Alisande had helped a lot. She had received reports of discontent along the border between Merovence and its neighbor to the south, Latruria-discontent that seemed to have its roots in rumors of fine living in a country that had, only five years before, been mired in poverty. Matt remembered his frustration at trying to find something more substantial in the way of information.

"Isn't there anything a little more specific?" he asked Alisande.

"A boost in the gross national product, maybe? An increase in capital in-vestment? Subsidies and price supports, maybe?" Alisande made an impatient gesture. "Speak clearly, Matthew. Terms such as these are only for wizards."

Matt was tempted to agree with her, but he tried to translate any-way. "Are Latr-uria's farmers having better harvests all of a sudden? Are her craftsmen making more carts and wagons? Are they building more new hovels?"

"I do not know," Alisande said, "nor do my informants. They speak only of rumors of better living-aye, even better than here in Merovence. " Matt frowned. "Thought you had done pretty well at boosting the standard of living, and in less than ten years, too."

"I had hoped so," Alisande admitted, "but these rumors do make me wonder. How have they come into Merovence? Has this new King Boncorro sent agents to spread discontent among my people?"

"I wouldn't put anything past a sorcerer-king. Of course," Matt amended, "we don't know that he is a sorcerer-but his grandfather was, and his father died from too much goodness, if your spies had the story right. So it would make sense for Boncorro to be a sorcerer, too."

"Certainly we have had no word that he is saintly," Alisande agreed, "and until we have such, we must assume he is a pawn of Hell, as was his grandfather before him. Certainly the fruits of these rumors are such as would please the Devil-our serfs are growing quarrelsome and fractious, and more indolent in their farming." "Which makes for a smaller harvest, and that makes them grumble all the harder," Matt said dryly. "How is the nobility taking it?"

"The elders are only concerned, as of yet-but they are concerned even more about their children."

"The younger generation is getting rebellious, huh?" Alisande frowned. "An odd notion-and no, I would not say they challenge their parents, though I hear they do become surly and contentious. " "How about 'insolent' and 'impertinent'?