Witch Doctor - Wiz in Rhyme-3 (21 page)

Klout took another glance at Gruesome and didn't seem disposed to dispute my claim. He only turned a lighter shade of ashen and snapped to one of the soldiers, "The ledger!"

"Cook the books!" I whispered at Frisson. He stared at me as if I'd gone crazy. "What, Master Saul?"

"Give me a verse to make his accounts show he's lying! Quick!" Frisson formed an 0 with his lips and turned away, pulling out his charcoal pencil and a scrap of parchment.

The soldiers were collecting their nerves and themselves, pulling together into a knot in front of Gruesome, who grinned and licked his chops. The soldiers faltered, and the ones standing guard at the back and sides of the crowd began to pull together into clumps. T at left some unguarded peasants, who began to sneak away between the huts.

The soldier brought the book from a saddlebag and set it in Klout's hands. He opened it and held it out before me. "There! You shall see every penny that each of these villagers has paid, and shall see that each has rendered no more than the levy set for him!" Beside me, Frisson was muttering.

I paged backward, frowning. "Where does your tenure in this office begin?

"On page thirty-one," he said.

I found it, and saw the change of handwriting-but I also saw the handwriting change. Nothing obvious, just a few Roman numerals transforming, two Is close together turning into Vs, two Vs merging into an X, and so on.

Now, I'm not exactly skilled at Roman numerals, so it took me awhile to puzzle it out. It certainly turned out to be cumbersome-I had never realized what a blessing the Arabs had given us when they invented the zero, and the decimal system that went with it. Doubleentry bookkeeping would have helped, too-this was just a list of figures, and I began to appreciate the layout of the checkbook I never kept up.

I took my time turning the pages, checking out all three of the years Klout had been in office, and he began to get nervous-I could tell by his fidgeting, while the crowd eroded at the edges. Finally, he snapped, "Will you study it all day?"

"No," I said. "I'm up to date. Each person in the village has paid more than he owed, by anywhere from one penny to ten-and the extra more than covers the town tax."

He stared, then whipped the book around and started doing his sums. His eyes grew wider and wider as he paged backward through the book, growing more and more frantic.

"In fact," I said, "it looks as if you owe the village some money."

"Witchcraft!" he bawled, and hurled the book away from him, "Liar and thief! I know what I wrote there!"

I was sure he did-always less than the person had really paid. I looked up at Frisson. "You saw the figures?"

"Well enough," Frisson agreed nervously.

"Do those figures show anything more than any of the peasants really paid?"

"Not a penny," he assured me, and he sounded much more certain about it.

'Twas the foulest of magics!" Klout was turning hysterical.

"Vile twisting of ink stains and marks! You cannot come from the queen, or you would not seek to make taxes less!

Any peasants who hadn't taken to the tall timber were tiptoeing away now. The soldiers let them go, gripping their weapons tightly and edging around to surround Gruesome, with Gilbert, Frisson, and me around him.

"Smite them!" Klout pointed at us. "The queen shall not shield them, but my magic shall shield you!"

I pulled out my sheaf of Frisson's verses.

The soldiers roared with delight and pounced.

Gilbert knocked aside a sword and sheared through the leather jerkin behind it in one blow. The soldier screamed and fell back, as Gruesome reached over the squire's head and picked up another soldier in each hand. They screamed and struck at him with their halberds, but he only laughed as the steel glanced off his hide. Then he squeezed, and the men screamed even louder. Gruesome threw them away and reached for two more.

Klout shouted something in the Old Tongue, pointing at Gruesome with both forefingers. Gruesome froze. So did Gilbert, in midswing-for a split second.

just long enough for me to yell out, "The sun beat down upon us, And we gasped for cooler air,

But the sunrays melted all the ice That held us frozen there!" The soldiers roared with vindictive rage and swung, but Gilbert came alive again, parrying two cuts with one swing, then chopping back to shear through two halberd handles. Gruesome came alive, snatching up soldiers and hurling them, Their mates yelped and leapt back.

Klout turned purple. He pointed at me and screamed,

"As a lying embezzler, I hearby indict you!

Let all of these numbers rise up and bite you!" They did. They really did.

Like a fool, I was holding the book again, open-and I saw the Roman numerals pry themselves off the page. That was enough; I threw it away with a shout, but the Xs and Vs were arrowing through the air to stab at me, and the Ls and Cs were growing diminutive jaws and biting. Sharp little pains shot through my skin, none more than all over my face, my arms, a mild nuisance by itself-but they were and my hands! I had never been so glad that I wore denim and boots!

I flailed at them, trying to swat them, and shouted, "Frisson!

Take over! Don't worry about me, just knock out the soldiers!" Frisson stared, taken aback, then shook himself and yanked the sheaf of poems out of my pocket.

Fortunately, Gruesome and Gilbert were keeping the troops too busy for them to take advantage of my being out of the action. The troll gathered up two more soldiers in each hand, knocked their heads together, and threw them at the five who were charging him. They went down in a tangle of steel and limbs, and Gruesome waded in, stony talons stabbing.

Klout wasn't idle, though. He was making mystic passes and chanting in the Old Tongue.

Frisson flipped frantically through the sheaf of poems, found the one he wanted, and chanted.

"Letters and numbers are toys for the playing, Able to hurt only when saying The vituperative injuries formed by a man's mind.

Freed now from that bondage, numbers assigned For forays of truth, wound the men of deception!

Stab them and bite them, in justice's reception!" The numbers froze in midair, then turned and arrowed toward Klout and his soldiers.

"Flee!" the lead soldier bellowed, and suddenly the remaining soldiers were scrambling to their feet and running in panic. Gruesome yodeled with joy and ran after them.

They looked back, saw him, yelped, and ran faster. They pulled away-they were much quicker than he was-but he kept it up for a while, having fun, shouting and blubbering and chortling like a whole chorus of haunts.

Klout leapt on a mule and dashed away down the road. But at the village limit, he reined in, turned back, and faced me, weaving complicated symbols in the air while he chanted something inarticulate.

Frisson took the next verse from the stack and called out, "Mule, you have labored right, Therefore of sleep you have great need, So vanish instantly from sight, And rest you from your worthy deed!" The mule disappeared, and Klout slammed down, hard, on his tailbone. His verse broke off into a yell of agony-and the numbers caught up with him. He leapt to his feet with a howl, then ran hobbling away, hand pressed over his tailbone. The numerals shot after him, buzzing like mosquitoes, catching up with him, and away he went, surrounded by a cloud of the figures of his own deception, bleating in pain until his shouts faded away.

All of a sudden, the village was awfully quiet.

Then yells of joy burst out all around us, and the peasants came charging out to hoist Frisson, me, and Gilbert up on their shoulders. They paraded us all around the square, singing our praises in terms that would have made Roland and Arthur blush.

"Did I do well, then?" Frisson called anxiously to me from his seat on the neighboring pair of shoulders.

"What do you think they're praising you for?" I shouted. "You did great! And thanks, Frisson-for saving my hide! What's left of it, anyway! " He took the hint and got busy crafting a verse that would get rid of my integer rash.

The peasants had just about gotten the celebrating out of their systems by the time Gruesome came waddling back, grinning, whereupon they put us down, backed away, and got down to the serious business of trying to find something for the troll to eat.

They fed us, too, as it turned out-with their usual peasant shrewdness, they had managed to salt away a few staples that not even Klout and his soldiers had found. As darkness fell, full and replete, Frisson and I rolled up in our blankets with Gruesome already a snoring hill and Gilbert standing watch.

0 & 0

They fed us again in the morning, and we were hard put to refuse any of it. We managed to set off without being totally foundered, but the only one who had really avoided overstuffing was Angelique, and I could have sworn that, if they'd been able to see her clearly, they would have found a way.

our breakfast was beginning to settle, and we were beginning to pick up speed, when we came to the circle. The road met another at right angles, but instead of the two crossing at your average plussign-shaped intersection, they all ended in a ring-shaped track, for all the world like a traffic circle. I stopped, frowning.

"Awfully advanced traffic engineering, for a one-horsepower culture. How come they don't just let the two roads intersect?"

"Because," said Frisson, "that would make a cross, like to that on which our Savior was hanged."

I seemed to feel the air thicken at the mere mention of words that were forbidden here, but I did my best to ignore it.

"It was a crossroads once." Gilbert pointed. "The newer grass, growing where there once was beaten earth, is some small part browner than the old. Look closely, and you can still see the sacred sign.

The air seemed to thicken even more with foreboding. I looked closely, and sure enough, I could just barely make out where the old intersection had been. "Getting a little fanatical, aren't they"' "I assure you, it would have inhibited the power of the queen and her henchmen," Angelique's voice murmured, though I could scarcely see her.

"Well, we do need to get across it, if we're going to keep going," I said. "Let's go, folks." I stepped out onto the circle, turning to my

left.

just then, a man wearing black velvet with a dull silver chain rode out of the woods and into the traffic circle. There were a dozen armed men behind him, so I could just barely hear him shout,

"Halt!"

He shouldn't have bothered; I'd stopped already and was feeling in my pocket for the sheaf of Frisson's latest poems.

"Fool, turn!" the man in black barked. "Would you break the queen's law by going with the sun,"' I stared at him. " 'With the sun'? What are you talking about?"

"He speaks of the direction in which you were walking, Master Saul," Frisson said in a low voice.

The head honcho barked, "Go widdershins! Against the sun! Thus is it commanded of all who come to a road-circle!" I stared at him for a long moment, then shrugged and turned around. "Okay, so I'll go from west to east-counterclockwise, if you insist. Big deal!"

"Hold!" he shouted again. "I like not your manner of speech."

"Well, you've got a pretty lousy accent yourself." I looked up, frowning.

He narrowed his eyes and moved his horse closer, glaring down at me. I stood my ground, beginning to feel mulish.

"Odd clothes, odd speech, insolent manner." He looked up at my companions. "And accompanied by a troll." Back down at me. "You are he who has been curing witches of their deadly ills, are you not?"

"Only two." I definitely did not like the way this was going, especially since his men were making a lot of noise rattling their sabers as they drew them. "What's the big deal?"

"Know that I am the reeve of this shire!" the man snapped. "Word has come to me that you bilked the queen of tax money yesterday, and raised your hand against a bailiff into the bargain!"

"Self-defense," I snapped, "and what's so bad about curing the sick? "

"Have you a permit for it?" he returned. I stared. "A permit saying I can cure people? What is this, the AMA? "

"The queen has ever banned the curing of a witch on her deathbed!

None who had her license to cure would ever dream of doing so!

Nay, and worse-you have encouraged them to repent, to break their bonds with Satan!"

"Breaking bondage is definitely what I had in mind." His sword whipped out. "You had no right, nor license! You shall cast a spell this instant, revoking those cures you have worked-or you shall die!"

Gruesome rumbled, and the soldiers had to quiet their horses. They started looking nervous.

I waved my group to be still and said to the reeve, "Can I see your license for breathing?"

He stared. "What license?"

"For breathing," I said, impatiently. "if you have to have a license to get well, you must have to have a license to breathe!

Hasn't the queen gotten around to informing you about it? Show me your license!

"There is no such thing!" he snapped.

"Ah-ha, you don't have it!" I waved an admonishing finger at him.

"Everybody who lives in this country lives at the queen's pleasure, right? " "Well ... aye "Any heart that's beating, is beating because the queen lets it beat, right? " "Well ... aye, but "Then anybody who's breathing is only breathing because the queen lets them!

Because the queen gives them license! So where's your license to breathe?"

"I... I have not any - - ."

"No license to breathe? And you trying to lay down the law!

Where do you get off telling me to stop curing people just because I don't have a license' If you really think that makes sense, then you stop breathing-because you don't have a license!"

That shut him up, and I thought he was just staring at me, until his face got red. Then I realized, all of a sudden, that his chest wasn't moving.

"Master!" the soldiers cried, and started forward. Gilbert drew his sword with an entirely unnecessary clatter, and Gruesome growled loudly as he stepped up.