"You're right! But you can take what heat is available and concentrate it in one place. That's really all you do when you boil water, isn't it?"
"Aye, in a manner of speaking." The abbot still frowned. "Is it thus your familiar does its work?"
"Not all that familiar," Matt said judiciously. "But yes, he does - and he sticks with me because I understand how men are basically self-defeating."
"Ah." The abbot nodded, his face clearing. "That the fault is not in Creation, but in man. Yes, I see - and if your spirit declares that, it could not be of the Hell-breed." He took a deep breath, his shoulders lifting. "Well, then - what would you say to hot meat and good wine?"
For the first fifteen minutes, they were rapt in total silence, broken only by the clink of knife on plate - the kind of silence which was the hungry man's highest tribute to good cooking.
After two pounds of beef, some scallions, and a glass of wine that out-burgundied Burgundy, the abbot heaved a satisfied sigh and set down his glass. "Tell me what you have seen as you rode from the East."
"Banditry and lawlessness," Alisande said darkly. "Poor folk striving still to be good, but with sad moral weakness come upon them." She looked up at the abbot. "Which should be little surprise to you - for I see many coats, other than those of your monks, here in your monastery, Lord Abbot."
It was a monastery, Matt had to admit - he'd found that out as they came through the inner gate. Suddenly it had been spread out before him-a collection of low-lying buildings, dormitories, cloisters, common hall, chapel, brewery, bakery, armory-all the buildings of a medieval monastery, with a few martial additions. Even an orchard, and a large truck garden. But the whole thing was enclosed by the great curtain-wall, turreted and battlemented. The House of Moncaire was a strange hybrid between monastery and fortress. It said a lot about its inhabitants.
"Aye, many liveries, Highness," the abbot answered. "The Duke of Tranorr is here, and the Duke of Lachaise. Earl Cormann has come, and Earl Lanell and Earl Morhaisse. Beneath them are Barons Purlaine, Margonne, Sorraie -- the list is long, Highness."
"Tranorr, Mochaisse, Purlaine ... those estates are near to Bordestang." The princess frowned.
The abbot nodded. "When the usurper's armies closed about them, they could choose only death or flight. They fled, that they might fight again for your cause. They came here, where the power of God strengthens the power of arms. Here, too, have come peasants made homeless by banditry, or by wars between barons men who live now only to strike down the emissaries of Evil. We have footmen aplenty, and knights; those whose lords died in the war have come to us, masterless, seeking a suzerain, for they disdained to serve the usurper."
"Then your numbers are adequate?" Alisande inquired.
"They have been, till now." The abbot's face darkened. "Your presence here is a blessing, Highness - yet 'tis also cause for concern. Many of our men have fallen to wounds, and more than a few to vice. Our arrows and bolts are spent faster than our fletchers and smiths can renew our stock. We are weakened, in truth; for we've been here besieged nigh onto a twelvemonth. Till now, the usurper and his sorcerer have had to fight in many places at once; the troops before our walls are, therefore, a moiety of their force. Yet with your Highness here guesting, I doubt not they'll bring all their horses and men to this place and strike us with all their weight here this night."
"Do you say we are doomed?" Alisande demanded.
"Nay, surely not." The abbot smiled bleakly. "Yet I misdoubt our power to maintain our walls."
"I wouldn't worry too much, milord." Matt glanced down at the brilliant spark hovering in his cupped palm. "I think we'll manage."
The abbot's back stiffened as he turned ponderously toward Matt, inclining his head in a stiff, too elaborate bow. "I thank you for your words of good hope, Lord Wizard; but while her Highness has paid tribute to your scholarship, I must ask: How sound is your knowledge of warfare?"
It was a good question, Matt admitted to the Demon-later. "How about it, Max? Can we hold out, you and I between us?"
"'Tis a fine question, Lord Wizard," the spark hummed. "I've not yet gauged the strength of your spells; that, you must judge for yourself, 'gainst what you know of their sorcerers."
"Yeah." Matt grinned. "You were able to counter that portable potion pusher very easily, though."
"Aye, easily, against one alone. Yet do not think me more than I am, Wizard. Had yester-night's stone circle been wider by two paces, I could not have closed the Wall of Octroi about it."
"Oh." Matt pursed his lips. "Limited range, huh?"
"Even so. Be mindful that mine is the power of concentrating or dissipating a force. I can do great works in small spaces - but only as you direct. I will not suggest."
The view from the battlements was less than encouraging. The army of sorcery lay all about the monastery like a human sea. Rivulets trickled into it from the hills-columns of footmen and knights trooping in.
"The abbot was right," Matt mused. "Malingo's gathering the, troops." He was beginning to feel a bit chilly in the base of the stomach.
"I think we shall see the sun rise," Sir Guy said judiciously. "But 'twill be long till the dawn, Lord Wizard."
The twilight faded; night deepened over the valley, and stars pricked out. A vast, screaming howl rose from the besiegers, and arrows filled the sky, hailing down onto the battlements. The Knights of Moncaire crouched under shields with their allies, letting the hail of death roll off their tracks with a long, rolling clangor. Here and there, a man shouted in agony, and brown-robed monks rushed out with shields strapped to their bent backs, braving the hail of arrows to drag the wounded man to cover.
"This is a covering fire," Matt called to Sir Guy. "What's it covering?"
"Yonder." the Black Knight pointed out toward the field. Matt looked down and saw the infantry charging all along the line, with scaling ladders angled like lances.
"Shoot not afar," the abbot commanded his men. "Hold till they're close; then pick your man and see him laid on the turf... Loose!"
Arrows leaped out over the wall to rain down on the infantry. The scaling ladders faltered, then halted, swaying - and swayed on down in slow, graceful arcs to slam into the sod. The infantry turned and fled, leaving windrows of dead and wounded.
"'Tis hard," the abbot said, glowering down at the casualties, "for most of these are constrained to be here. A year agone, I would have fought to save them, not to slay them. Yet now I must kill them in sheaves, or surrender my fortress - and with it, the hope of the land."
Matt pointed. "What's that?"
"Which?" The abbot sighted along Matt's arm. "'Tis the sorcerer who has command of this horde."
"And the two in dark gray there, with him?"
"His apprentices." The abbot stepped back, frowning. "What manner of wizard are you, that you know so little of sorcerers?"
"One who never had time for the formalities," Matt snapped. "What are they brewing?"
The three sorcerers stood hunched over a huge cauldron, the gray-clad men stirring the stew and occasionally tossing something in. Their chief bent low, making mystic passes over the pot and, presumably, chanting.
"Evil spells," the abbot said heavily. "Yet I do not too much fear them; for this is a holy place. We must trust to God and Saint Moncaire to protect us."
A sudden, faint sound caught at the back of Matt's brain. He looked up, frowning. "Milord Abbot! What's that?"
"Which?" the abbot demanded.
"That sound!"
"I hear naught."
"Under the sound of the battle-that buzzing! Hear it? It's getting louder!"
"Nay, I hear no such..." the abbot broke off, eyes widening.
Now they all heard it - a humming buzz, like a sixty-cycle square wave in quadrophonic sound, filling the sky.