The ghost drifted closer, seeming to flicker, its eyes hollow, its mouth wide in a silent call, waving both arms. As it saw Matt, it began to gesticulate frantically. Matt hardened with alarm—those gestures could be the accompaniment to a spellcasting! Quickly, scarcely thinking, he rattled off:
The ghost's eyes widened in horror; it shook its head, and even Matt could see that the silent mouthings were saying, "No! No!" Then an unfelt wind seemed to hit the ghost like a jet plane, tearing its substance to tatters that faded and blew away.
"It's all right, now. He's gone." Matt couldn't help noticing how nice the young woman felt in his arms, the little hands clutched about his neck, the contours of her body molding into his, their movements as she sobbed...He pulled his mind off the subject abruptly. "There, now, the ghost is gone, and no one's going to hurt you. We're nice guys, here, really, if you don't mind how we look..."
"What's a matter with how we look?" Narlh demanded.
"I haven't shaved in three days," Matt improvised, "and I haven't seen a pool large enough to bathe in for a week. You'll have to pardon us, young woman..."
"Oh, nay!" Finally, she pushed herself away from him and began to wipe at her cheeks with a sleeve.
Matt hauled out a handkerchief. "Here, now, you'll soil your gown." He finally took a quick look at her by firelight and decided that might have been the wrong thing to say; her gown hadn't had a good afternoon, what with the forest brambles and a few stumbles in the dirt. "That must have been horrifying, a thing like that happening when you were alone...you were alone, weren't you?"
She burst into tears again. "Oh, aye, so very alone, since Lord Bruitfort took my father's castle! I escaped by the postern, but I've been wandering alone all this day and night! Bless you, kind sirs—but know that I'm pursued!"
At a guess, Matt decided the siege was over—not that its ending boded any improvement for the peasantry. "We saw—but the ghost's gone. Take a look, if you don't believe me."
"Oh, not the specter only—the soldiers! And a sorcerer, I doubt not. They'll not let me flee in peace, I assure you! Nay, good sirs, I must away from you, ere you share in my misfortune."
" 'Tis they shall have misfortune," Fadecourt growled, "if they seek to take you from us! Fear not, fair maid—we shall not let them seize you!"
Narlh opened his mouth to disagree, but Matt said quickly, "Right! We couldn't abandon a maiden in distress, to pursuers who're trying to ravish her!"
The dracogriff shut his jaws with a snap. "Right. No way. Couldn't think of letting a lady go out alone."
Especially not one who looked like that, Matt thought. He finally had a chance to take a good look—and what he saw was riveting. The "creature" had a heart-shaped face amid long chestnut hair held by a hennin. She wore a bliaut of blue and a kirtle of buff wrapped around a figure worth killing for. Matt locked his eyeballs onto her face and held them there by pure willpower—he was an engaged man.
Fadecourt, however, didn't seem to suffer from that problem, though this certainly must have been a moment when he'd wished he'd had two eyes. The one he had was riveted on the young woman, wide open. Matt elbowed him in the shoulder, and the cyclops shook himself out of his hormonal trance to bow gallantly. "Where we can aid, maiden, we shall delight. What is your plight?"
"And, if you wouldn't mind," Matt added, "would you tell us who we're protecting, milady?" Privately, he wondered just how Fadecourt could be so sure the lady wasn't just bait for another trap. But she was explaining her danger, which did sound plausible—and Fadecourt's instincts did seem to have proved accurate.
So far.
"I am hight Yverne, sirs," the maiden said. "I am the only child of the Duke of Toumarre. The Duke of Bruitfort, whose estates adjoin ours on the north—in truth, a vile neighbor!—did war upon my father. Through treachery of our garrison, he did defeat him and capture him, locking him in his deepest dungeon." The reminder of the day's horrors caught up with her, and she bowed her head, trying to stifle the sobs.
Fadecourt stepped up to clasp her shoulders, murmuring, "There, now, lass, 'twas terrifying, aye, but you are safe now...
When her sobs had slackened, Matt asked gently, "That mention of treachery reminds me—can we trust anybody, in this country?"
"The Duke of Toumarre is a good man, by Ibile's lights," Fadecourt said slowly. "He kept troth so long as his seigneur kept troth with him, and maintained order within his demesne, albeit with cruelty and ruthlessness."
Yverne looked up sharply and stepped away from Fadecourt, face tear-streaked but outraged. "He was harsh, mayhap, but did no cruelty for its own sake!"
"Which is not entirely avoidable, in this country?" Matt asked.
"Even so," Fadecourt said. "And it may be that, like many fathers, he wished his daughter to grow into a woman devoid of the vices common to his fellows."
"Which would reveal an inner yearning for virtue." Matt studied Yverne so closely that the maiden blushed and looked away—which could have indicated her being a becoming innocent, or an accomplished dissembler.
A hunch led him to choose innocence. "So what it comes down to is that her father's enemies thought he was weak, because he wasn't depraved enough."
"Aye—and seem to have judged well, by Ibile's lights. Only the wicked are counted strong here."
"Well, let's see if we can't change that notion, shall we?" Matt turned back to Yverne. "I take it this Duke of Bruitfort is trying to catch you for his dungeons, too."
"He seeks to apprehend me," Yverne agreed, "but not for his dungeons. He wishes to take me to wife, whether I will or no."
Fadecourt spat an oath, and Matt felt his blood run cold at the thought of this pure maiden in the hands of a depraved sadist. Even Narlh gave a squawk of outrage. "Go tie him in a knot, Lord Matthew!"
"Well, we can put a hitch in his plans, anyway. How close is this duke, Lady Yverne?"
"I know not—though 'tis but this day since I've escaped from his men." She advanced, hands outstretched in pleading. "Oh, sirs, I beg of you, turn not away from me—for without your kind protection, I am lost!"
"Oh, you're coming with us, there's no question about that," Matt said quickly. "What kind of troops did the duke send looking for you? We confused a couple of knights, but that might not be all that are on your trail."
She spread her hands. "I know not."
"She did not stay to see him command pursuit," Fadecourt rumbled. "Natheless, I would think he has sent at least a dozen knights, and perchance even his sorcerer."
Then the horn sounded behind them.
Matt looked up in alarm and saw a man in a robe standing at the edge of the clearing, gesticulating and, presumably, chanting—but his gestures were lengthened by a three-foot, glowing wand. Matt frowned—this was new. Fear chilled him, but he tried to remember everything he'd heard about magic wands—why they were magical; what they could do.
To either side of the sorcerer stood men in plate armor, seeming inhuman and certainly impersonal behind their iron helms. As Matt watched, they kicked their horses into motion and started down the slope.
"Move!" Matt shouted. "Here come the bloodhounds!" His friends started forward out of sheer astonishment. Then Fadecourt looked back. "Lord Matthew! You, too, must flee!"
"Be right along," Matt assured him. "I just have to counter whatever our friend in the robe is doing back there."