Peter & Max - Bill Willingham [86]
Hugo was still half asleep and couldn’t understand what was happening to him, but even in this state he knew the solution to his anxieties. “Guards! Guards!” he called.
“Scream all you like,” Bo said, “but no one’s going to come save you.” She placed the tip of a very sharp knife under one of his quivering chins. “Now please get on with the ceremony.”
The dagger’s point helped Hugo wake up more quickly — instantly in fact. “Why? What do you want with me?” he cried, tears forming in his eyes. It was stifling hot in the room, but still someone had started a fire in his fireplace. Why light a fire on a hot summer’s night? Nothing made sense in this madman’s nightmare.
“The only way to cancel an oath is to act on a previous one that supersedes it,” Bo said. “Long before I ever took my vows among the masters of the Rowan House, I swore I’d marry Peter some day. It turns out that someday is today.”
“And I made a similar vow,” Peter said. “True, I didn’t specifically swear to marry Bo, but long ago, after I’d made her cry one day, I felt bad and did promise myself that, from now on, if Bo ever agrees to talk to me again, I’d do whatever she told me to do.”
“That sounds like a solemn oath to me,” Bo said, smiling wider than Peter, if that were possible. “In any case, my society doesn’t allow us to marry.”
“Nor does mine,” Peter said. “At least not outside of our Brotherhood.”
“So, unfortunately and reluctantly,” she said, “we both have to resign from our respective professions.”
“It can’t be helped,” Peter said.
“So hurry up and say the words, old man, before I add a bright new smile to your face.”
Bishop Hugo said the words.
THOUGH HIS LIFE WAS SPARED and his ring not stolen, the good Bishop Hugo was nevertheless unable to make his scheduled speeches the next day. He was discovered late in the morning, in his bed, bound by velvet curtain ropes and screaming in pain, by his sleepy guards and servants who couldn’t understand what had come over them in the night. Those same guards and servants, good churchmen all, were shocked to also discover that infernal markings had appeared on the Bishop’s face in the night. There was the bleeding outline of a goat’s head burned into his forehead, and twin upside-down stars, burned one-each into either cheek — clear indications that the Bishop had entered into foul pacts with creatures of the pit.
Hugo loudly protested, to anyone who’d listen, that he’d been the victim of an evil act from two very human intruders. They’d forced him at knifepoint to wed them, after which they twisted normal copper wire, such as can be found in any household, into the semblance of goats and stars, which they heated up in the embers of his own fireplace, and then used to burn these brands into his innocent flesh. Some believed the Bishop’s bizarre story and some didn’t, which is the way of people anywhere, in any time.
Regardless of anyone’s belief, one way or the other, the Bishop couldn’t be allowed to preside over important matters of church and state, from that day onward. Nor could he remain a Bishop. He was stripped of office and cassock, and bound over for trial, as a consorter with unsanctioned fiends and devils. His own servants testified as to how they’d been ensorcelled into a diabolical slumber, while the Bishop crafted his infernal bargains in the night.
The judge found the evidence against Hugo compelling, though slight enough to warrant sparing the man’s life. Hugo ended his days in a distant world, in a forced labor camp, where he was once congratulated by his goblin overseer for fashioning better bricks than most of the other slaves.
THAT SAME FATEFUL NIGHT, wherein Hugo was framed for witchcraft, Peter and Bo Piper were never seen again in Hamelin Town. But Peter’s private strongbox in the Brotherhood’s Hall was discovered the next morning, unlocked, open and empty of all of its jewels and coin. A letter to Carl the Arrow was the only thing found in the box. This