“I’ll bet. How was he?”
‘Too quick to catch, alas.“
‘Too quick for you?“ Matt stared. ”Yes. He shouted a few words I recognized from long ago, and disappeared, along with his soldiers and that scrumptious tidbit of a young woman.“
Matt thought that Pascal would probably agree with him on that last, and that reminded him. “Seen Pascal?”
“Yes. He is on my other side-” Manny glanced away, then back. “-only just now waking.”
“Safe, then-sort of. You say you recognized the soldier’s words?”
“Aye. They were in a language from the East.”
“How far east?”
“From Persia, I believe he called it-the magus who had come to Reme to teach the priests new ways to read the auspices and haruspices.”
“Auspicious indeed.” So the language had been Persian, or maybe older. Chaldean? Sumerian? “What did the leader say?”
“Only, ‘Return whence we came!’ ” The manticore frowned. “Few words indeed, to accomplish so much!”
“Not really, if he had left a spell hanging in the air and only needed a few final words to put it into action. What did he look like?”
“Difficult to say. He was masked, you see-but he had gray hair and beard, was tall and lean, and wore a robe of flaming orange.”
“Just your standard sorcerer, except for the color of the robe.” Matt frowned. “Could have been any senior magus. Any distinguishing features?”
“Only his knowledge of an old and arcane tongue, and the fact that he did attempt to enslave me with a spell of obedience in that tongue.”
Matt looked up, startled “And it didn’t work?”
“Of course not,” the manticore said with disdain. “I already walk under the old geas laid upon me by the ancestor of your mend Pascal, and renewed by that young man himself. They enjoined me by the power of Goodness, which is greater than the evil source of that sorcerer’s power. He would have had to remove Pascal’s spell before he could lay a new compulsion upon me.”
“So you were protected by loyalty.”
“Protected in more ways than one.” The manticore shuddered. “It is highly unpleasant to labor in a sorcerer’s command! Some tasty meals, aye, but they do not compensate for being restrained and constrained when I wish to ramble. Would that I could take revenge!”
“But they’re too powerful for you, huh?”
“Or too quick. I almost caught this graybeard on the tips of my daws, but he disappeared a half second too soon.”
“Too bad about that” Matt suspected he had just personally encountered the sorcerer who had been trying to have him assassinated all along. Apparently he had become fed up with his klutzy hirelings and decided that if he wanted the job done right, he’d have to do it himself. But why kidnap Flaminia? Just in case the sorcerer failed to kill Matt, of course. This way, Matt would have to come after the sorcerer. Or was Flaminia herself important in some way Matt didn’t know about? Or maybe Pascal? It seemed unlikely, but you never knew. “How’s your liberator doing?”
The manticore glanced down on his other side. “He rises.”
Pascal’s head appeared above the manticore’s back. He looked like yesterday’s hashed browns unsuccessfully warmed over, but all he could say was, “Flaminia!”
“Stolen away,” Matt relayed. “We have to go get her back.” It didn’t even occur to him that there might be another option. “Of course, we have to figure out where she is.” He pushed himself to his feet and went over to the spectators. They gave way before him, and some turned to run. “I’m not going to hurt you!” The way Matt felt, he couldn’t have damaged a plate of spaghetti. “I just want to know whose soldiers those were.”
They didn’t even try to deny having been mere when the soldiers jumped Matt and his party; they just looked at one another with wide, frightened, but incredulous eyes. “He is a foreigner, after all,” one of them said. “Aye,” said his friend. “You can tell that by his accent.”
Matt frowned. “What difference does that make?”
“It is why you did not recognize their livery,” the man explained. “Meaning their boss is so big and important that anybody here would know him just by his colors?” Matt didn’t like the way this was going. “Okay-who is he?” But the creeping dread in his belly told him that he already knew-he was just hoping he was wrong. “They are the royal colors,” the citizen said. “Those were King Boncorro’s men.”
Matt just stared at him for a moment. Then he gave a short nod. “Thanks. Any idea why they would want to kidnap our young woman?”
Again, the passersby exchanged glances, and a woman said, “Why would any young man abduct a young woman?”
Matt stood frozen. “King Boncorro is a young man, after all,” one of the men said defiantly. “He is a good king, but he has a healthy young man’s appetites-and he will not touch the daughters of the noblemen, as his grandfather did.”
“That is why the noblemen have come flocking back to Venarra,” another man said stoutly, “with all their money-because he treats them with respect, they and theirs.”
“So he makes it up by snagging any of the peasant girls who catch his eye, huh?”
“His eye, or his soldiers’ eyes,” the woman said darkly. “Still, the king may not find her to be of interest,” the first man said in an effort at consolation. “Be of good cheer, friend-if the king does not fancy her, she will be brought back here unharmed. None dare touch her, unless the king gives his leave.”
“And he never has,” another woman pointed out. “How about if one of the lords takes a fancy to her?”
The woman shrugged eloquently. “A nobleman, desire a girl that the king finds unattractive? He would not dare be so far off she fashion!” She said it with a certain smugness-as well she might, since it was probably one of her own defenses. Matt wondered how the king’s taste ran. “Well, thanks, folks. I’ll take my manticore and go now.”
They looked relieved, and certainly no one moved to stop him. As he came back up to Pascal, Matt said, “Bad news. Those were the king’s men who snatched her.”
Pascal blanched-not that he had much color left to begin with. “But why?”
“Because she’s a reasonably attractive young woman,” Matt sighed, “and apparently, he has his share of vices.”
Pascal began to tremble-whether with fear or anger or both, Matt didn’t want to know. “We must free her! But how?”
“I was just saying I wanted to meet the king, wasn’t I?” Matt sighed. “I won’t say this gives us a good opportunity-but it certainly gives us a good reason.”
Privately, though, he knew this had to be one of the dumbest things he had ever done. If that sorcerer really was the one who lad been trying to bump him off all along, he would sure as Hell know Matt was coming-straight into his jaws. If the sorcerer worked for the king, the chances were this kidnapping, and the attempt to assassinate Matt, had all been ordered by Boncorro himself. Matt knew he would just have to go in with all enchantments up and ready. He thought of trying a disguise spell, but suspected it would be useless, since the sorcerer had already penetrated his cover once. There was one shred of hope: maybe Boncorro had not ordered this abduction. The townspeople seemed to be familiar with peasant girls being kidnapped on spec-on the chance that the king might desire them. Maybe the sorcerer had just been out shopping for his master-and if it had been his own idea to kidnap Flaminia, maybe it had been his own idea to assassinate Matt. Maybe. But Matt wasn’t putting any money on it. “But how are we to find a way into the king’s castle?” Pascal wailed. “One does not simply walk up to him and demand to speak!”