The Secular Wizard - Wis in Rhyme - 4 (28 page)

Matt noticed one of these more mature women leading a young girl away-only this time, both of them were sobbing. Matt couldn't detect any family resemblance.

He decided the young weren't the only ones having their hearts broken.

Nor girls, either. One young man was huddling in the shadow of a cask, glaring down into his mug and muttering, "I told her I loved her!

Why would she lead me on like that, then turn away to that great lout?"

"At least she let you bed her last night," said his buddy. "Yes, and I thought it meant she loved me! All day I was burning for her, aching for her! Then she laughed at me and turned away with him!"

"Courage!" His friend clapped him on the back. "Give as good as you've gotten! There is no shortage of willing wenches here!

Bed an-other and let her see how little she meant to you!" The brokenheart looked up with a glint in his eye. "That would be the fitting revenge, would it not?"

They got up and sallied forth into the crowd, while Matt watched with his blood running cold. Okay, so the kid would bury his pain in some other girl-but what would that do to her?

You worry too much about other people, he told himself sternly, but himself wasn't listening.

Now that he looked around with those last few conversations in mind, he detected the signs of the aftermath-the hard, brittle tone to the laughter, the determination, the desperation with which the young folk were pushing themselves to have fun. The girls were throwing themselves away, the boys were scalp-huntingall of them trying to convince themselves that sex didn't really matter. Pleasure shouldn't be so much work, Matt thought. He remembered when he'd been in the same state, after the breakup of his first big romance. The rebound had been hard, and he'd ricocheted for a long time, slam-ming into a lot of walls. He winced at the memory of the people he'd collided with, and wondered how badly he'd hurt them. Any pain Al-isande had caused him, he'd more than deserved ...

He wouldn't do that to her. Never.

He wondered about Pascal. What kind of shape would the boy be in, come the morning? What would happen to him tomorrow night?

"A tankard, friend!" A buxom woman at least ten years Matt's senior sailed up to him with a foaming mug in each hand. "Will you not join in the revelry?" The look she gave him left no doubt as to what she thought his place in the festivities should be.

"Why, thank you!" Matt took the tankard with forced cheerfulness. "But before I take part, I must give part, for I am a minstrel, and song is my donation!" He took a drink that wasn't as deep as it looked, handed back the flagon, and struck the strings of his lute.

After all, she couldn't quibble if his hands were busy making music, could she?

"Will there not be time for music later?" she asked, pouting. She was still a very attractive woman, and Matt wondered how much of her own escape from mundanity had to do with a desperate determination to enjoy using her charms before they finally faded. He rippled out a sequence of chords, grinning at her, and tried to remem-her that the verses would work magic, and which song would have the least ruinous effect.

What else?

Alas, my love, you do me wrong To cast me off discourteously, When I have loved you oh, so long, Delighting in your company!

"Greensleeves was my delight, Greensleeves was all my joy, Greensleeves was my heart of gold, And who but my lady Greensleeves?

The crowd quieted and turned to look at him, listening. There were still pockets of giggling and sighing and moaning, but the simple fact that he could hear them meant people were paying attention. Matt sang on, remembering how many verses Childs had chronicled, and choosing among them carefully. He thought he was having a good effect-but remembering what one professor had told his class, about which feminine profession wore green sleeves in the high Middle Ages, he could only hope. He struck the last chord and bowed, doffing his cap as the crowd broke into applause with cries of "More!

More!" But before he could begin again, several women of all ages crowded in, eyes shining, with such choice comments as, "Can you finger me as well as you do your lute, minstrel?" "Shall we make music together? " "Is it true you only sing about things you cannot do?"

"Never run away with a musician," Matt counseled. At least they had crowded out the matron with the first invitation ... A shout of anger, the sound of a blow, and a chorus of cries of alarm and excitement. The women swung around, avid for the sight, and Matt's heart sank. Was that what came of singing about broken hearts in this universe?

Apparently not-the wench who was the cause of it all stood to the

side, eyes glowing as she watched two stalwart youths face off, each with a knife, one with his shirt open and the love bite already swelling on his chest, the other with a day-old mark on his neck and all his clothes buttoned more tightly than he no doubt wished.

"Villain! She is mine!" He shouted, and leaped forward, slashing at his rival.

The rival jumped back, but not far enough-a streak of crimson appeared across his belly. The girl screamed, though whether with horror, delight, or both, Matt couldn't tell. The rival blanched and leaped farther back-into a wall of hands that shoved him forward to meet the blade of his foe. He howled with anger and slammed a fist into the other man's jaw-a fist with a knife sticking up from the top. The jealous lover reeled back, blood welling from a gash on his cheek, then charged back with a roar.

The rival lunged, but the jealous lover blocked the blade with a cloth-wrapped fist and struck for the chest. The rival blocked, but he had no wrapping, and the blade nicked his knuckles. He shoved hard with a shout of rage, though, then sprang back to yank a shawl from a woman in the crowd, who shrieked protest-but he paid no attention, only began whipping his fist in circles to wrap the cloth around his forearm as a shield.

The jealous lover struck before he could finish.

The rival blocked and stabbed, but the jealous lover blocked, too, and they sprang apart.

The crowd booed.

They actually booed, incensed that nobody had been slashed. That did it. Matt decided he had to put a stop to this, somehowespecially since he was hearing angry shouts from two other places in the crowd, and quick glances showed a fistfight breaking out off to the left, and a couple of older men going after each other with cud-gels, off on the right. Matt swung his lute into firing position, took

aim, and struck a chord-not that anybody could hear it. They couldn't hear his voice, either, amidst all the yelling, but he sang anyway:

"Gonna lay down my sword and shield, Down by the riverside!

Down by the riverside, down by the riverside!

Gonna lay down my sword and shield, Down by the riverside, Ain't gonna study war no more!"

Nobody could hear him, of course, but he went on singing doggedly away. It did cross his mind that a religious song might attract some very unwelcome attention in a country like this, but though the particular song on his lips might have been a spiritual, it didn't actually mention the Deity or the Savior, or any other specifically religious words. Maybe it was those very associations that gave it the power to cut through the magical inertia of Latruria, for it did seem to be working-the duelists in front of him slowed, the anger fading, uncertainty replacing it until, finally, the jealous lover hurled down his knife with a snarl-right between the rival's toes-then turned on his heel and stalked off. The onlookers crowded back out of his way, wary of his thunderous face. The rival watched him go, frowning, then sheathed his knife and turned away. The girl who had been the cause of it all ran to touch him on the arm, but he shook her off with a snarl and strode away into the crowd. Neither felt proud of himself, that was obvious. The girl glared after the rival in indignation, then pivoted to glare after the jealous lover in fury, then finally tossed her head, a dangerous light in her eyes, and stepped up to a good-looking youth who had been watching. "Would you forsake a damsel so easily as that, handsome lad?"

The boy answered with a slow grin. "Nay, surely not! Not one so fair as yourself! Come, shall we dance?"

"Pay the piper first," the girl said-and sure enough, now that the excitement was over, an older man was unlimbering a small set of bagpipes. Matt felt a bit indignant about the competition, but he couldn't really claim that the man was homing in on a songster's territory. The young fellow paid him, and the piper coaxed his instrument into a wheeze. Matt winced. No, he certainly didn't have to worry about competition.

The bag inflated, the pipes droned, and the chanter began a merry melody. The boy and girl began to dance. Others joined them, and soon a score of couples were prancing merrily over the turf while the sounds of the other two fights ceased. Matt glanced at the two areas uneasily, but all four men were still on their feet, though glaring blackly at one another, so Matt decided to take a little credit for it. Not aloud, of course-especially with that piper going. He was into full swing now, and if he wasn't very good, he was certainly loud. Well, as long as the young folk were dancing, they couldn't very well be fornicating-although, looking at some of their movements, Matt wasn't all that sure. The postures and undulations became steadily more suggestive, and Matt turned away, suddenly realizing how very much he was missing Alisande.

As long as he'd been staying busy, he hadn't thought of her more than once every couple of hours, and that in a rather platonic way-but work had suddenly begun to remind him that he was male, and therefore to remind him of his chosen. What was it doing to Pascal?

There he went, flying by in a stamping, hip-thrusting dance, movements that Matt was quite sure he had never known until nowbut he was a fast learner, and the girl who was teaching him was very dedicated. Not very pretty, but dedicated-and with a figure well calculated to cheer a disappointed lover.

Then they were gone, faces flushed with the dancing, but also with drinking. Matt looked about him and saw that they weren't the only ones. Only an hour after sunset, and most of the young folk were staggering-and at least half of their elders, too, the ones who were still standing. Of the forms on the ground, some were madly coupling; the ones who weren't, were passed out cold, reeking of ale. Most of the bushes were shaking their leaves and rustling, but the ones that weren't emitted the sounds of abused stomachs rebelling. Come to think of it, the innkeepers may have been giving the ale away for free, but they weren't exactly shabbily dressed. Matt tried to picture each of the three he'd seen, noticed that they were all wearing unpatched clothes of good cloth and that their wives wore jewelry. That might have come from selling food and renting rooms, but he had a notion a lot of it came from selling beer, too. By local standards, they were wealthy-but if they could afford to give the stuff away to buy off potential troublemakers, it wasn't because they charged high prices. in fact, the first innkeeper's prices weren't bad at all. If he'd been doing well, it was only because his countrymen drank a great deal of beer.

Everything considered, Matt decided, it was lucky that medieval Europe hadn't had access to much in the way of narcotics. Pascal went whirling by in the round of dancing again, laughing too hard and eyeing his partner with desperate purpose. He had definitely thrown himself into it with a

certain wildness, with the air of a man who is anxious to forget.

"Dance with me, handsome minstrel!"

Matt turned in surprise. The woman was about thirty, still attractive, and her figure was generous.

"Why thank you." Matt forced a smile. "But if the minstrel dances, who will play the music?"

"Why, the piper." She swayed closer, fluttering her eyelashes. Matt thought he must be a fool or a testosterone deprivation case, to feel only the slightest stirring of response. "The piper will tire."

"But will the pipe?" she asked, and stretched up to plant her lips on his in a firm, demanding kiss. Her tongue teased his lips, and he was shocked to feel them part-by reflex? But her body was pressing against his, he could feel each curve all too warmly, and he realized it had been far too long since he had spent an evening alone with Alisande ...

The thought of his wife cooled his heating ardor, and he broke the kiss, gasping. "I ... thank you, damsel, but-" She broke into a peal of laughter. "Damsel? Why, thank you, gallant sir, but 'tis ten years and more since I was wed!"

Matt knew better than to ask if she was a widow. He was dimly aware that the crowd had mostly swirled away, that they were standing at the fringes now. "It has only been a year for me, plus a few months. No, my wife and I are still very new to the business, and still very excited about it."

"Give it a few years," the veteran advised. "You will find it boring enough-and find that a kiss and caress on the side will rouse you to greater heights with your wife." She demonstrated with another kiss. This time Matt was warned, and he kept his lips firmly closed-until he felt a hand smoothing over his buttock and sliding around to-ward the front. He gasped out of sheer surprise, and that maddening tongue deepened the kiss. She felt his response and moved back with a low, throaty chuckle. "So then, you are not so faithful as all that, are you? Come, sweet chuck!" And she kissed him again. This was definitely too much. Never mind that a healthy body will respond to any touch-Matt didn't want to respond, damn it!

He took the lady by the waist and pushed her firmly away-but she clung, her mouth a veritable suction cup ...

Pain rocketed through his head, a rocket that must have been heading for the stars, because they were there suddenly, and the world was tilting, more and more, until it jarred up behind him. Dimly, he could

hear the woman chuckle again, feel her hands, though they weren't searching in any way armorous this time, they were searching for his purse, and there was another pair of hands busy, too, trying to wrench at his belt, his sword ...