Yes, because peace meant leaner pickings. Matt hurried to change the topic. “How much of it did you personally see?”
“Only the breaking apart itself.” The manticore sighed. “I came to life about seven centuries ago. I thought then that it boded well for me and my kind, for state would war upon state-and I was right. Then the sorcerers came-”
“And they muzzled you?”
“Muzzled, aye, and harnessed,” Manny said with disgust. “I had begun to wonder why I bothered living, till you came to amuse me.”
“Nice to know I have a purpose in life.” So the empire had only been dead a couple of centuries before Hardishane came marching out of Gaul to reunite the whole of Europe and squash the sorcerers, or at least drive them back far enough so that they didn’t do much damage. Obviously, therefore, the sorcerers had proliferated during the breakup; Matt thought he saw their hand in the warring between Gaul and Germany and between Gaul and Iberia. He wondered about the full story of the behind-the-scenes power plays between Good and Evil. Well, maybe he’d have time to do the research someday. Of course, he didn’t have his Ph.D. yet, but it would make a great dissertation topic. Well, he’d worry about it in the morning-say a morning a few years away. For now, the talk had canned him; he was even beginning to feel a bit sleepy. He wasn’t the only one-all about him sodden snores drenched the night and lovers lay sleeping in one another’s arms. A few roisterers still teetered by the light of the moon, but from the way they swayed, they’d be down soon enough, too. “It’s looking almost safe,” Matt said. “I don’t suppose I could talk you into standing guard while I catch a little sleep?”
Manny shrugged “ ‘Tis the least I can do, considering the vast number of sheep and cattle you have bought me these last days. Not quite so tasty as-”
“Yes, well, if you’re hungry, I can always find a few more,” Matt said quickly. “Do not bother; I shall behave.” But Manny looked about him hungrily. “Sleep, and have no worries.” He turned his back, but not quite quickly enough; Matt heard him muttering about the atrocious waste. Well, if he couldn’t trust the manticore, he could at least trust Pascal’s grandfather’s spell. Matt turned over, cradled his head on his arm, and didn’t quite have time to be surprised at how quickly he fell asleep.
He woke up. Under the circumstances, that rated as an accomplishment. He woke up and looked around carefully. The manticore was curled up cat style right next to him, the stinger on its scorpion tail sticking out of the ball of fur. Asleep or not, Manny was a guardian to give would-be assassins second thoughts. Matt started to sit up… The stinger whipped around and poised above him. Matt froze as Manny uncoiled enough to reveal wide-open eyes filmed with sleep. “Who stirs?”
Matt had moved barely eighteen inches, and that pretty slowly. “Light sleeper, are you?”
“Deep, but I waken quickly nonetheless. It is only you, then?”
“Just me.” Matt swallowed. “I was, uh, thinking about getting up.”
“Go, then. You can defend yourself when you are awake-if you do not let females of your kind hold your attention.”
“That wasn’t what you think.”
“No, it was-for I think she pursued, and you sought to retreat. I confess I cannot understand your species.”
“It’s called ‘morality.’ ”
“As I said,” the manticore growled, “I understand it not.”
And that, Matt mused as he plodded down toward the little stream, was the manticore in a nutshell. Not that he was all that different from any other member of the feline family-it was just that, having a human face, Matt had sort of expected some other human attributes, such as a conscience. He should have known better-the double set of teeth should have tipped him off. It seemed that the manticore wasn’t the only one lacking an understanding. Everywhere Matt went, he heard isolated sobbing. Some of the girls were curled up weeping quietly next to their snoring mates; others were sitting up alone. Not all of them, no-not even a quarter-but too many. His heart twisted with the urge to comfort, but he knew better than to intrude. He found a copse of trees for his morning ablutions, knelt by the stream to wash his hands and face and shave with his dagger, then turned back toward the camp just as the girl in the home-made noose jumped off the stump.
Chapter 14
Matt took in the rope snaking up from the noose to pass over the limb overhead and down again to where it was tied around a lower branch, but by that time he was already running, yanking his sword out, and he managed to slash through the rope just before the girl hit the top of her arc. She crashed to the ground with a cry of anger and despair, then rolled up to her knees, huddled and sobbing. Matt sheathed the sword and went to her slowly, wondering what to do, what to say. “Do” was obvious enough-comfort her-but what to say while he did it? The girl solved the problem for him. As he knelt down beside her, she moaned, “Go away! Is not my shame enough, but that you must see it, too? Gooooo!”
“I don’t see any shame,” Matt said firmly. “I only see a pretty girl, who could have a wonderful life, giving up when she doesn’t have to.”
“Does not have to!” The girl whipped about, glaring up at him. “What do you know about it? Losing your virginity is cause for a man to boast! For a woman, it is always cause for shame, even if she has gained a lover who will be true to her forever… And if he will not stay true…” Her face puckered, and she turned away as the tears flowed with renewed vigor. Matt held out his arms, but she ignored him, curled into a ball of misery.
“Bess!” cried another girl’s voice, accompanied by a lot of thrashing and rustling of underbrush. “Bess! Where have you gone?” There was anxiety in the voice, even fear.
“Here,” Matt called, then asked, “Is your name Bess?”
His only answer was a wail of grief. The thrashing stopped, and the other girl pushed the branches aside to stare in shock. “What have you done to her!”
“Only cut her down before she could stay up.” Matt climbed to his feet and went toward the new arrival. “She won’t take any comfort from me. See what you can do.”
The older girl stared at him as he went by. “You are too old for her!”
“I know,” Matt said over his shoulder, “but somebody else didn’t.”
And he went on his way, resisting the temptation to look back, but hearing the soothing murmuring and the awful tearing cry as Bess threw herself into her friend’s arms. Matt hoped he would never learn the rest of the story. Had she only wakened to find her seducer gone? Or had he gone off after some other girl while Bess was still awake? Or something worse? No, all in all, Matt hoped he never found out-and if he met the man, he hoped he wouldn’t know it.
As he went back toward Manny, he saw most of the people beginning to stir, sitting up with hands pressed to their heads and moaning, or crying as Bess had been crying. Here and there a couple sat up beaming into one another’s faces, but mere were definitely very few of them.
“I have brought the magistrate! You will stand up and take your oath like a man, or you will go to the Devil!”
Matt turned, staring. Half a dozen hard-faced men were standing around a disheveled teenage couple with pitchforks poised to stab.
“But I do not wish to marry!” the boy cried, and the girl’s head snapped up with a look of dismay that transformed into aching hurt. “You should have thought of that before you took her to bed,” a grizzled man said grimly. “But take her to bed you did, and you will marry her or die!”
“In front of a magistrate?” the boy wailed.
A squire in a robe stepped up. “Aye, in front of me! I shall testify that it was justified! Up and swear, or die with my blessing!”